Transcript of Embiid’s Return, Houston’s Weird Weekend, Joker’s Swoon, and a Knicks Gut Check With Zach Lowe New

Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix. Zach Lowe is here. Uh, Zach Lowe's podcast is coming Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have a new Rewatchables coming tomorrow. We are doing, uh, Ghostbusters. Ooh, a really famous gigantic movie. Uh, don't forget about La Gata, our new, uh, scripted narrative series as well from The Ringer. Um, we're coming— the Lakers Rockets game isn't even over yet, Zach Lowe. The Rockets laid one on the depleted Lakers today. And I'm gonna start here. No NBA team has ever come back from 3-0. It's true.

It's true. And even I think you're right that the game is still going on. I don't even think the 2026 Rockets can blow this one. I think we're safe. I think we're safe going live right now. A 25-point lead with 3 minutes left. I don't think any catastrophe can befall them. At this point. But you remember the last time a team got close to coming back from a 3-0 deficit. You probably remember it very, very well. And it didn't happen. It almost happened. Yeah, it almost happened. Then Jason Tatum sprained his ankle and then that was it.

I went to Game 7 and Tatum sprained his ankle right in front of us.

And oh, that's the meme. That's Sad Bill.

That's that game. I think that was Sad Bill.

Oh, what a—

Yeah, that was the— that started Sad Bill. All right, the Kevin Millar theory. Don't let us get one, don't let us get two, from the 2004 ALCS.

I'm familiar.

Yankees. So the Rockets, they've got one. Now they're coming to LA. I think it's— they spread it out, so I think it's a Wednesday night game. So I assume we'll have Reeves next Wednesday.

Two Wednesdays from now?

No, this Wednesday. Three days. I assume we'll have Reeves. No Luka. I've heard Luka's not even— they're not even close yet. Did the Rockets show you anything in this game today that made you think, A, they're starting to incorporate strategy into the series and maybe some things that might work against an old weird Lakers team? Because I felt like they had a couple things going tonight.

I mean, thing number one was they actually made Luke Kennard play defense and didn't let him just hang out. Wow. I, I know it took 4 games.

Unbelievable.

They didn't let him hang out off the ball all the time. Amen Thompson attacked him and they just like, he was on Tari Eason. Tari Eason even just blew by him at one point, just gave Tari Eason the ball. Jabari Smith hunted him in a switch. And this has kind of been fun without KD. It's been fun to watch guys like Jabari Smith Jr. get to do a little bit more and really stretch their wings. That, that was one. And just their, they have this kind of defensive gear in them when they have their best defenders on the floor, they can get a lot of steals. Even Reed Sheppard who's getting hunted, I mean LeBron is just being so mean to Reed Sheppard just constantly. But he had a couple steals today. They picked LeBron, they had a couple, they, they picked him at half court a couple times. They can create a lot of turnovers. Lakers had 20-something turnovers the last time I checked. And yeah, so that strategically, that would be the main one.

I noticed those two things. I also noticed they were a little more physical and relentless with LeBron. Trying to put some miles on him. Reed Sheppard came into the game.

Wasn't, wasn't going well.

Well, but he, he stayed with it, which I, 'cause I felt, I really felt like his, there was a fork in the road moment potentially for him where it was like, wow, could this series be so damaging that it might actually be hard for him to recover? But I, I thought he gained momentum as this game went along and then You know, last but not least, the leadership of Kevin Durant on the bench.

Would you care to elaborate on that?

Well, you know, he wasn't there for Game 3 because he was getting round-the-clock treatment on his, uh, sprained ankle and, uh, and couldn't come out because it's 20, 24 hours. I don't know, they were talking about he was running on a treadmill underwater. I, I, I'll believe any sort of Durant treatment story. But, uh, I don't know why we, we still don't have an answer why he wasn't out there for Game 3. There was some weird stuff about how he was actually— they did the walk into the arena before Game 3 that was on social, I think, for the Rockets and for the NBA, and then that clip was taken down the next day. Just a lot of weirdness.

Okay, I didn't— I was not aware.

Okay, there was some, uh, some people saying that Teammates saying, well, we hadn't, we don't know what's going on with him. And then apparently it's all fine now. And, and it was always fine and we weren't supposed to doubt it at all that he didn't sit on the bench.

I mean, it struck me as odd that he wasn't out there on the bench. That's, that normally an injured player is, is there of that status. It, it did strike me as odd. And yeah, I mean, who—

Odd's a good word.

There are other words. I still don't know when this injury happened. Like when in Game 2, I guess, what did it happen? But I will say this, like for all the weirdness you want to ascribe to Kevin Durant, and there's been quite a lot, the one constant of this guy's career is he's a gamer. He plays, he loves to play. He played a ton of games this year. He played in the Finals.

5 minutes. He played second in minutes.

He played in the Finals against the Raptors when maybe he shouldn't have, and it cost him a year of his career. Like, I, like the guy plays. And so I don't, I don't know when this injury happened and maybe like, to your point, if they're actually gonna make a run at this, and we're like a long way from there given how bad they looked in the first 3 games, they're gonna need Kevin Durant. They can't win 3 more games without Kevin Durant.

It was weird. You and I know a lot of NBA people and it was hard to get a straight answer for what happened on Friday night. And we still don't totally know.

It was, it was a little strange. Yeah. I expect, I expected him, it, it was funny. I was watching a game. And only sometime in the second or third quarter did it jog, did it like jog in my brain like, oh, it's weird that I haven't seen any shots of Kevin Durant on the bench. Like normally that's a thing that just happens when a star player is out. They just cut to them. What are they wearing? What's their reaction? Fred VanVleet is all over the television.

And that's true.

And, and yeah, just, but they won tonight and they, they're still winning. They're still ahead, Bill. They have not— it's down to 19 with a minute and 14 seconds left.

Oh. Well, on FanDuel right now, and this might change, the Lakers are -850 to win this series.

Safe bet. Again, no one's ever done it.

Seems, seems fair. Um, couple Houston things. Oh, so the Lakers today, after 3, they're down 25 points and they were 2 for 13 from 3. Game 3, they were 12 for 29 from 3. In Game 3, they were also down by 6 points with 30 seconds left and somehow forced overtime, which was like one of the only times in the history of the NBA that's happened. Do you think this series should be 2-2, or do you think 3-1 is the right score for the series?

I think, I think 3-1 is, is pretty representative. The first 2 games, I mean, they were close, they were close-ish, but the Lakers felt like the more prepared and the better team the whole time. And by the way, considering that, yeah, Durant has missed what, 3 of the 4 games? Luka and Reeves have missed all of them. And yeah, it just, this feels like a correct score of the series to me. And I realize like KD's missed 3, Fred VanVleet's out for the season, Steven Adams, like the Rockets are missing lots of guys. It's totally fair, but I just expected better in those, in those first 2 games and particularly the one Durant played.

You know who they're also missing? Io Disunmu.

Yeah.

Well, and I went on a, I did a Google 'cause I had a vague memory of, of the Rockets kicking the tires with him and went down a Tari Eason rabbit hole. Do you remember this?

Uh, no. Inform me.

Joe Cali reported on it, who I think he covers them for the Sun Times, the Bulls.

Yeah, he's a Bulls guy. Bulls reporter.

Yeah, Rockets would refuse to discuss Tari Eason for Io. Now, Io's gonna be a UFA at the end of the year, and Tari Eason's an RFA at the end of the year. So, I could see, like, you could make the case he had more value. It's just an interesting what if, because I would say Io, even before what we've seen in this series, was probably more what the Rockets needed than Tyrese, who's been really up and down and has been incredibly erratic as a shooter and is a little redundant with some of the other guys they have. Interesting trade.

I mean, or non-trade. I mean, I don't know that that's true, but it would not surprise me at all if that were true, that the Rockets shut down that talk because they do value their own guys very highly. They value two-way guys very highly. I mean, I was a two-way guy, but Tar Eason has obviously much more size. The restricted versus the unrestricted thing. I also just wonder if, you know, the Rockets, once the injuries started to mount up and the teams above them look so good, just kind of were like, it's, it's gonna be, I mean, Rafael Stone said something like this and has since walked it back, but just like the idea that we're, this is not the year for us to make like big splashy, and not that that's a big splashy move, but we're not rocking the boat 'cause it's just, it's not gonna happen for us this year.

I understand that logic, but then at the same time, you're giving Durant a 2-year extension for $90 million when he is gonna be 38 next year. That would be the, it'd be the counter.

Well, I mean, that's, it's been the, it's been the weird dissonance of their team. Like it was why I never got the, oh, it's a, this, I mean, the phrase blessing in disguise was thrown around much too cavalierly when Fred VanVleet got hurt. Like, oh, we'll learn about Reed Shepard and Amen Thompson and what they can do. I'm like, that's awesome. You're trying to win the championship this year. That's why you get Kevin Durant, who has next year and then a player option in '27-'28. If they—

I'd like to report he is picking that up.

Well, if they lose this series in 5 games, let's just say Game 5 goes badly and they lose. Is he on the Rockets next year?

I had it in my notes.

You know, I would lean no. I'm just going to come out and say, I would say I would lean no.

So I was a hard no because I think whatever happened Friday, we won't fully find out until, as Brian Curtis calls it, the now they tell us story that happens after the year. That's probably going to happen with the Red Sox tomorrow. Because the Red Sox, who have a robot GM who's put together a terrible roster and has made bad trades, Uh, decided it was everybody else's fault and they fired Alex Cora, who won the 2018 title with us, and 5 of his coaches. Hey, it was his fault.

At least you didn't get swept in a doubleheader by the Colorado Rockies by a combined score of 6 to 1 today.

Why am I complaining about my baseball team to you?

But, um, it's been a, it's been a great season. I'm having a lot of fun.

So, so on Friday, so I was in the mindset of obviously Katie's out now. This is, there's too much smoke here. I don't trust this. Plus the, whatever happened All-Star weekend with the burner, it seems like he'll be moving on, which by the way, will be the 4th time he'd be moving on when you count 2019 Warriors. Not, not the happiest, uh, last season there. Nets, can't say that was the good chip lollipop. Uh, Suns. Can't say that was better.

First Good Ship Lollipop reference I've heard in quite a long time.

Thank you. And now this one. The problem is, where does it go? If you— if I always say this exercise when I have friends in my life who are like, well, they obviously have traded him. I'm like, all right, go on SpotTrack, go on, uh, whatever that fan trade site is, and try to find me the team. Be like, oh, maybe he'll go home to Washington. Okay, for who? They have two giant contracts and a bunch of small ones. Who are they, who are they getting? Like, just go through all the rosters. And I did find a team, Zach.

I, I, first of all, I feel bad for your friends if you're just lecturing them about trade machine mechanics. They're just trying to have fun and you're like, you know, Spoke Track, get on Spoke Track. You know what the second apron is? Like, okay, Spoke Track or Spot Track? I was just, I don't know, I was just trying to have a little fun. Uh, can I take, can I say two, the names of two teams and I'll bet one of them is your team?

Okay, go.

Heat, Knicks.

No, I had neither. Ooh, he can't, he can't go to the Knicks. I'm gonna veto that.

Okay.

Well, here's, no, I just, I just think that's a bad idea for everybody involved.

Well, here's him on the Knicks. All I'm, all I'm saying is this, this is, this playoffs already has been a great reminder that the postseason stress tests your roster like no other environment, like nothing compared to the regular season. If you have a weakness, if you have any chemistry issues, if you have anything, It's naked in the playoffs. They expose you naked. And that's what's happening to the Nuggets in a lot of ways right now, which we talk about later. So like, whatever happens in the playoffs to a bunch of these teams, there's gonna be realizations that they learn and moves that they make because of how the playoffs exposes them a little bit. So those, that's the only thing I'll say about that.

That's fair. I like the Miami idea. As you know, I am all in on LeBron going to Golden State next year. Okay. Ooh, can I, can I have Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson join him? Let's go full Expendables. Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson to Golden State. Butler's expiring to Houston.

Okay.

We'll throw Clint Capella and whatever else makes the small salaries make it work to Dallas. Maybe they get a second round pick.

Okay.

Maybe Houston gets something.

Houston, Houston should get something. Yeah, something.

Houston will get something. They'll get a future pick or swap, whatever. And Golden State ends up with LeBron, Curry, Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Al Horford. Let's fucking go. The Expendables are here. USA Dream Team 2024. Run it back. Even I would be rooting for this team. Who's not? First of all, every game they play Every game they play, sellout. Couldn't be harder to get tickets. Half the fans rooting for the Warriors wherever we go. Steve Kerr comes back now, 2 more years for him, and we're off. We're ready to go.

Is we, we already had the Warriors tried to trade for Kevin Durant a couple of season last season and him being like, nah, that was 2 teams ago.

Now he, now he's, now he's ready to reconsider. He should have gone. Maybe, maybe his mistake was he shouldn't have done it.

For entertainment purposes, it sounds great. I, I like that. Like Wemby and the Thunder just demand everyone's coming together. All the old guys go like, we, we just, we can't beat 'em apart. We don't like these young guys. They're not ready, blah, blah, blah. Let's, let's all come together.

Kevin Durant, he's been unhappy in a lot of places. You know where he was never unhappy? Defending our country with his American stars, with LeBron James and Steph Curry. He fit right in with those guys.

He did.

Let's put him in Golden State. I'm down with it. Let's bring Klay back. Klay's having a rough week. I know you don't follow this stuff, but had a breakup.

Oh, I, I, I got it. Okay.

You're following that.

I, well, first I, I, I have a, a lot of, uh, friends whose consumption of the NBA is entirely through that lens. So I got a lot of Megan Thee Stallion, Megan Thee Stallion.

Yes.

Yeah. Uh, a lot of Klay Thompson texts from those people. And I, I was like, I, I don't have time. There's 8 games this weekend. I don't have time to really dive into it, but She seemed to put him on blast, as the kids say. I don't know what happened. I have no comment.

There was some blasting.

I hope everybody's happy. I hope everyone is happy. And that's it. I hope Rocco the dog, if he's still alive, is happy. I just hope everyone's doing okay.

Well, we talk about San Antonio in the next segment, and they were jaw-dropping in the second half of that Portland game. OKC has been jaw-dropping for two straight years. There's no way to solve putting together a super team to beat either of those teams unless you do The Expendables. I mean, and Curry's like, Curry can, I think, be really good once a week at this point. If we're talking about during the course of a season, he can, he can't do what he did 5 years ago anymore. But I think once a week, and if he's at, and if you play him 60 games and kind of pace him for the playoffs, I think LeBron's the same way. Durant loves playing big minutes. Klay Thompson back home.

I don't know, Damian Lillard.

I think everybody heard about it.

Bay Area Oakland legend Damian Lillard has a pretty tradable salary. You want to get— find a way to get him involved in this?

Didn't even think of him. Do we have room in The Expendables for him? I don't know.

Absolutely.

I actually thought we'd see Dame Lillard this weekend. They got— they kind of whet my appetite with that one.

Yeah, could we have a— can we have a moratorium on the eyes emoji tweets, teams? Just— you just can't tweet like Damian Lillard doing stuff and eyes emoji and then be like, well, no, it's just a tweet. Just some cool video of our guy Dame.

So what would you get rid of first? The eyes emoji or anytime I foul anyone and I'm any player in the league, I want my team to review it.

No, I like, I like that. 'Cause it, it's again, like I like when players are exposed for, I like when anyone is exposed for ridiculous behavior. So I like that. And I will say my favorite motion though is the flopping motion. I like how dramatic and, and broad it is. And I love when entire benches make it. Sometimes you make it with two hands. I, I like that one too.

Quick on Durant. Might have to save this for—

it's early.

We're not there yet. Well, you know, he, he, he was pretty high in my pyramid at one point and he's been going backwards over the last couple years, basically based on how this decade has gone and some of the things that have happened with his team. 'Cause sometimes with the pyramid you're projecting, oh, it's gonna keep going a certain way, and then you kind of go underneath where you thought, and then you have to reevaluate. He has definitely dropped backward. Do you think that's fair?

I mean, and also a couple of like other players like Jokic have soared upwards, so naturally someone has to drop backwards. Steph keeps, you know, putting up Steph numbers every year. And then by the way, you mentioned like the only reason I mentioned Knicks and Heat, not the only reason, is just 'cause you mentioned Oklahoma City and San Antonio and how can we possibly compete with these teams?

So get outta the conference.

Yeah. Step one to do it is get me the hell over to the East and at least I only gotta beat one of them.

Right. The thing with that, it's funny how people talk about KD 'cause his career's been so long, they just kind of forget stuff like how good he was on OKC and those OKC teams were really successful. They made the finals, they had 3 conference finals losses. He was an MVP. He finished 2nd in MVP 3 times. They, you know, they unfortunately blew the last 2 against the 2014 Spurs and they blew the last 3 to the Warriors in 2016. And I thought those teams were good enough to win the title and they didn't get it done. But you go to the Warriors where everybody says that, You know, he was carried by those guys and he was fucking awesome those 3 years. I mean, in the playoffs, 48 games, including with the year he got hurt, it's 30 a game in 48 playoff games, 37-5. He was the best guy on those teams and those teams had Steph Curry.

I mean, I don't, I don't think you need to, to do, even do this. He's, we all, he's a 2-time Finals MVP.

No, I, I just feel like I need to do it because I think people are forgetting now that how good he was on the Warriors.

He won Finals MVP both years.

There was like, in, in the first one, this is why I wanna bring this up.

In the first one where he makes the dagger from the left wing over LeBron, there was a whole conversation of like, has he taken the best player in the world belt from LeBron? And that was like a whole thing that happened.

And I think he was taking it in 2019 when he got hurt. And then in '21 with the foot on the line against Milwaukee, what he did that series was great. The problem is this decade, Swept by Boston in '22. Lost to Denver in 6 in '23, lost the last 2, swept in '24, didn't make the playoffs last year, almost swept this year, but they won tonight. And you know, that's, that's put a little bit of a black cloud over everything. It's a really tough career. I think outta all the careers, like in the top 30, the toughest ones to really evaluate are him and Wilt. Wilt, you can go all over the place with it. You could, you could make a real case. He was one of the 5 best guys ever, and you can use all these stats and all these things that he did. And then Durant is gonna, what is he gonna be, second in points by the time he retires? All these playoff games, all these minutes, the fact that he's gonna play for 20 years. He's a Finals MVP twice. All these really strong cases for him. And yet it really only peaked when he was on this unbelievable Warriors team.

So I see both sides of the argument. I do not think he has helped his cause the last couple years, I will say that.

And also pretty underrated, or depending on how you consume the NBA, properly rated, like very good defender for most of his career.

Yeah.

Well, like just a, just a, like a pretty like made in a lab all-around superstar player could play with anybody, could play with any kind of other co-star. Just like nothing, nothing bad to say about, about his game at all.

Maybe this summer we should just do like an hour and a half KD pod.

Sure.

We might have to just completely deep dive it. 'Cause I, I think There's really not been a career like this. Okay. Celtics Sixers.

Yeah.

Celtics were unbelievable when, when Peyton Pritchard scores 28+ points the last 2 years, they're 15-0.

It felt like he had 65 points tonight. At one point I was just like, has he just made 12 baskets in a row? Is this ever gonna stop?

It was Kobe's 81-point game, but he only had 32 points. They're 24-1 when he scores 25+ points. That's not where I'm gonna start. We finished, we taped a, a big chunk of this pod before, uh, be right before the Celtics Sixers game. 'Cause there was a window, we want to get stuff done so we can get it up faster. Um, I, we came outta the room and the game had started and I saw Embiid on the court and, and as a Celtic fan, I was like, oh my God, this is great. I was excited that he was playing.

Wow.

Um, no reflection on Embiid as a player. I just think to introduce him into the series halfway through when he hasn't played, when he's rusty, combined with how good I thought the Sixers played on Friday night, and I really thought they found something with the smaller lineups and the defensive identity they had. I thought the Celtics like really pulled it outta their ass in that game. They had to make a couple huge shots. Philly easily could've won it. Thought Maxey was really comfortable attacking them. And, and you could just feel it today. I, I thought Embiid, by no fault of his own, completely discombobulated them. And I, he was -25 and it felt that way.

Yeah, I honestly, I'm surprised he came back. I did, I just did, I mean, it's, it's appendicitis or whatever it is. It's a, it's a big deal. And he came back pretty, pretty early from it. I thought he looked pretty good, all things considered. Like, like, you know, earlier this season he would, he wasn't dunking at all and he had an explosive dunk. He had a couple explosive defensive rotations. All of his pet shots seemed to just roll around and go out or rattle in and out, like just so close but not going in. And yeah, you're right that they had, you know, I thought, Matt, it's funny, I watched, um, Game 3 and then I checked the box score the next morning. Maxie was 12 for 31, I think. And it did not, it felt much more efficient than that to me because I just felt like the Celtics toggled between a bunch of different pick and roll coverages over the courses of Game 2 and 3. And he figured out a way to kind of solve all of them and in different ways, getting to the rim, pulling up for 3, passing. And it, it felt like an even better game than 12 for 31 to me.

And that because that Game 3 felt scary for Boston, it felt very winnable for Philly. And, and Pritchard made a huge 3, Tatum made a tough 3. Like it was a tough, tough game. This was never a tough game. And when the Celtics make 3s like this, they're very hard to beat.

Yeah. The problem And this is almost like a basketball IQ test. 'Cause yeah, he had point, he had points, he had good stats, but defensively he really hurts them against Boston. 'Cause they, it's just, you can always pull him into screens and stuff and get threes that you want. He does the offensive rebounding, I think is a problem when he is out there. And I just think they seem way slower and more kind of lumbering versus the team Friday night. I thought the Celtics were really lucky to win Friday night. And if Embiid didn't play today, I genuinely felt like the Celtics might lose tonight unless they had like a Pritchard game or something like that. The thing is, Pritchard hadn't done that yet, and he's usually good for that once or twice a series. But I don't know, I just thought, I thought it screwed them up a little bit. Like, Oubre, I don't think made a field goal. I thought Maxey, it took him, it felt like it took him an hour just to be like, Hey, is it okay if I can run some of the offense too? And they were just constantly trying to work him in.

I also thought Bona, I, I thought the Bona Drummond combo was, was fairly effective. And I thought Paul George has been really good for him all series. I, I think he's gone toe to toe with Brown and Tatum in a lot of ways. And if there's a bright spot for the Sixers in this series, it's that I think they've resuscitated him as like, I don't think he's untradeable.

I mean, he had a huge second half of Game 3 and tonight he was, you know, 16 points on 6 of 13 but made all his threes. He had a couple takes against Jaylen Brown, like he had an iso against Jaylen Brown where he kind of bullied him and shoved him toward the basket later. I was like, ooh, he's been settling for tough fadeaways a lot and the Celtics will live with that even if it's over Derrick White or like on a switch against Payton Pritchard. They're fine with that. They're not gonna double him. But that one was like, whoa, That's— that looked like Paul George right there. Can I— like, here's what I thought.

His defense was good too, for, for the most part, especially in the first half. I think he's been resuscitated as— it's not inconceivable that you could get rid of him though.

That's a great feeling, right? When, when you're Sixers, like, he's playing well, now we can trade him. This is like, this is like, what a quick—

well, but that's—

we can't even enjoy him playing well. It's already— we're just like, oh, he's playing well, great, call somebody.

That's, that's kind of how you have to think though when you have him and Embiid, right? You have $100 million, $110 million of guys that you don't know how reliable they're gonna be.

So would you have sat Embiid? Would you have just said, you know what, you're just out for the series?

I wouldn't have played him tonight. I would've waited for him for Game 5 and I wanted to, I would've, I personally would've waited for Game 4 because I would've been, really, really encouraged by how my team looked in Game 3, especially 'cause like Edgecomb, his threes now in the 3 losses, he's 0 for 16 from 3, right? He couldn't hit a 3 on Friday and they were still in that game. I don't know, I just, I thought going smaller against the Celtics was really working in their favor 'cause the Celtics were in this, they played Vooch like 30-plus minutes in Game 3.

A lot of Vooch.

I didn't really love 15 minutes of Vooch, much less 30 in that game. And I, I thought over and over again they were using and abusing him in the screens and getting threes over him and just figuring out ways to take advantage of him being out there. He's just too slow coming out on the screens. But with Embiid out there, all of a sudden now the Celtics could just play all their centers, get a lot of, you know, they have 18 fouls with those 3 guys. Even when Garza was out there, it's like Garza's gonna shoot over Embiid every time he gets it. Which I think he did once.

He made one 3.

Yeah, I would say, yeah, I know they're not gonna say Embiid don't play, but I, I, I wonder if he gave Nick Nurse true serum, would he have been happy with it?

So like your, your game plan would've been, let's wait till our backs are against the wall. If we lose and it's 3-1, then all bets are off. Wildcard, bring 'em out. But let's give this current team tonight to try to even up this series after their performance. I get, I get that. I just think the, the, the, the, the mileage on the Maxie do-everything offense is, is just gonna expire against a, a really good team and they just needed another, another layer of offense. But integrating that other layer was, was a little, you know, slipshot for parts, a little like, little wonky for parts of today.

So in the Friday game, the Celtics were 44% shooting and 43% from 3. It's pretty good.

Get there, dude. Yeah.

Today they made 24 threes. It's a lot. 45%. And I actually thought, I thought they got great shots the entire game. It was actually one of those games, they scored 128, they easily could add 150. Like they missed a bunch of free throws in the first half. The Jays were terrible in the first half, and then the third quarter just became the Jays. And I thought really complemented each other well. And then, you know, Pritchard, who's in the running for weirdest career of the decade, where he plays 4 solid years where I, I don't even think he averaged 8 points a game, maybe like 8.5.

He wanted to be traded, remember?

Yeah. He's like, I gotta say, they, A lot of the Celtic fans were like, this guy's good. When this guy plays, he's gonna be good if he can ever get a chance. He just, he was always buried behind guards. Last year's Sixth Man of the Year, this year averaging 17 a game and is just perfect for the team they have because they do so much of this one-on-one attacks, one-on-one attack stuff. And he's really great at it. He's, he's really like, you saw the whole tricks and everything today. Plus Reggie Miller's there. They're gonna have to redo his contract this summer, I think. And I, I think, I actually think they're allowed to extend it, but he's, I think, one of the best contracts in the league, if not the best. $7 million a year, right?

He is exten— it looks like according to Spotrac or Spotrac or whoever you said, he is extension eligible this summer. Yeah, he's got 2 more guaranteed years after this at $7.7 and $8.3. Right. I'd have to look back and refamiliarize myself with how much they're allowed to add on the extension. What the percentage is. It's probably one of those ones where it's like it might not even be worth it for him to do it.

Austin Reeves style, better off like to wait. But I also think he wants to stay in Boston. They're gonna have, they're gonna have an interesting offseason no matter what happens. Well, he's, they got money to spend, you know, they have trade exceptions.

He's just a really good player. Like I remember I picked him as 6th Man of the Year last year. There was like a Malik Beasley, Peyton Pritchard kind of debate and I was just like, he's just a better basketball player than Malik Beasley. He's a, he He defends, he passes, he's tough, he's physical, he could score in different kind. He's just a really good player. Offensive rebounding, he'll sneak in and see, oh, wow, Pritchard has 4 offensive rebounds today.

I sadly took Beasley. I think I was trying too hard not to be a homer and swung too far the other way with Beasley. So the other thing, I don't want to talk about Tatum every podcast, even though I secretly do.

Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, you do.

He just, I just can't believe how good he looks on some of these drives. First of all, he played 42 minutes on Friday, which is nuts. If you had told me 2 months ago, hey, in Game 3, Jayson Tatum will play 42 minutes in a regular playoff game, like, well, that sounds insane. We're gonna do that. Definitely did it. He, he was explosive. His 3-point looks great now. Like he's got a nice snap on it. And it's interesting, he's getting better. Jaylen seems like he's having a harder time getting to his spots than he's had all season. And I don't know if it's 'cause Philly has him scouted really well, but this is a guy who was scoring on like pretty easily on people like Lou Dort during the season. In this Philly series, it's just a lot of like, feels like he's like a battering ram trying to just like get to his spots and bang into people and swing his arms like he got I think he had 2 offensive fouls today, but it just, it either they're scouting him great or he is starting to wear down. But I, that was, that worried me a little bit.

I'm, I'm not worried.

Okay.

I'm, I'm just, I mean, it's, they're clearly a better basketball team with the 2 of them. It's gonna go up and down a little bit about who scores the most points, who has the ball the most and all that kind of stuff. There's been games like where Jalen, I, I thought I can't remember which game it was, but there was one game where they started hunting. They've, they're hunting Maxie all the time, but they down the stretch, they made it clear like, Jalen, you're gonna be the guy to hunt Maxie cuz you're just having a better night. I, I'm not, I'm not worried about it, but I, I mean the stat that jumps out today is the 11 assists that Tatum had. I thought his playmaking was awesome and they're just making Boston's offense is both beautiful and simple at the same time and sometimes within the same possession. They're just, those guys just get the matchup. They draw help and they're just making the ba— the simple reads and Tatum was just spraying it out and, you know, just really, I mean, again, 11 dimes, that's a lot.

Dream situation is they clinch Game 5 Tuesday, Knicks-Atlanta goes 7, and they just get to put their feet up and relax and do the whole thing. I, I really wish Baylor Shireman would play a little bit more, would be my one critique. I think he's been lights out when he's coming into these games and really additive, and I wish he would get more minutes. Quick mailbag stuff before we take a break. Adam writes in, the Io Dusumu 43-point game feels eerily similar to Jalen Brunson's coming out party post-Luke injury in the 2022 Utah series. Are there some parallels for, is he starting to bump his free agent salary up. He isn't like an unrestricted free agent this year. Now Minnesota can go over whatever to try to get him, but could you see a Jalen Brunson Knicks, somebody going big on him and giving him like $110 million for 4 years or something?

I could. I mean, it, the, I'm not sure any of the cap room teams fit, but that doesn't necessarily prevent things like that from happening. I mean, I, I could because that's, we're in a world where that's not like max money. It's not, it's not, it's, it's a lot, but he's probably worth like 20 plus. I mean, that, that's probably his value for sure. I think for sure his value is above that. The Brunson thing is like, well, he like, could he be the number one option on an elite NBA offense? I'm not, I'm not sure I'm ready to go there because Brunson has the kind of physicality. But he's a really good player. I was really good. It's again, like, we talk about it later, but just, I don't know what the Bulls were like. What's the rush?

We did dive into that.

We have a good player, we don't want him. Okay.

I was thinking the market's between $20 and $25, but then you put the free agent craziness tax on it and maybe it does get to like $110 for 4 years. Maybe somebody's like, this is Derrick White. This is like Nikkilo Alexander Walker, 2020's version of Derrick White, Nikkilo Alexander Walker, one of these guys that like, let's, let's invest in this dude and we think he could be the third best guy on a really good team. And by the way, if they thought that, I can't really disagree. I think he could be the lead guard on a really good team.

The lead guard?

Yeah, like the best guard you have. Not necessarily your number one scorer, not your number one playmaker, but like—

You need a real apex playmaker then.

Yeah, but I think he could be your best two-way guard. On a good team.

That's, that, I don't disagree. He's really good.

Uh, Rob from Philly wants to know if the Ewing Theory committee was dispatched to Atlanta to figure out whether Trae Young and the Hawks, the eligibility of that. Uh, we did send some people down to Atlanta and they rejected Trae's application. They decided he was not good enough. Oh. Yeah. It's a, it's a rare situation because 4 years ago you might have said so, but, uh, Nobody was like, wow, what are the Hawks going to do now without Trae Young?

And that's like, it was, it was too predictable.

Yeah.

Can I, can I just like the Ewing theory? I, I just, it's, it's, I'm a little angry lately about it because it's now so pervasive that when Francisco Lindor, my daughter's favorite player, got hurt earlier this week, I got multiple texts from people because he's been struggling this season. Is the Ewing spirit Is the Ewing theory in play for Francisco Lindor? No, screw you people. Don't bombard me with that kind of stuff.

Well, Dave, do you want it? Did you win a World Series with Francisco Lindor? Then he's eligible.

We did not.

Yeah, there you go. Somebody named Duran once had a long Durant email that ends with the question, is Kevin Durant the Michael Jordan of good stats, bad team guys? This is my point of bringing up the Durant stuff earlier. Like, I'm telling you, people are losing their mind with this Durant thing. These are the emails I'm getting.

I mean, yeah, I'm the—

the answer is no.

No.

Um, the answer is definitely no.

Most of his teams have been not bad. There's been a lot of bad teams.

Kyle wants to know, Kyle wants to know, is CJ just Dame with worse PR?

Oh my God.

Or is Dame CJ with better PR?

They're both excellent basketball players. Damian Lillard's had a better career. Is his PR good? I don't know. Is his PR very good? I mean, this thing is cool. The watch thing is cool. He's made a bunch of big shots. CJ's awesome.

If CJ can beat the Knicks these two of the next three and parade into the next round and try to go toe to toe with the Celtics, it's not a closed discussion.

I just can't, I mean, you have to sit back for a second. I mean, he is like murdering the Knicks in crunch time. It's like, like he's Michael Jordan. It's like every play, CJ and get out of the way. And you have to sit back and remember, like, he was on the Wizards for like most of the season. He was just over in Washington.

Yeah.

Doing stuff. And now he's like, the, the biggest clutch force in the playoffs so far.

It's almost like an actor that was on, I don't know, one of those fire shows on NBC. New York Fire. Is that a show? Probably Chicago Fire.

Chicago Fire's definitely a show.

He's like a famous movie actor, but now it's like, oh, he is the number 3 guy on Chicago Fire. This is too bad. And now all of a sudden he's in, you know, a Christopher Nolan movie and you're like, oh, this, wow, CJ, he's back. Last question. You and, you and Zach, this is from Ryan from Milwaukee. You and Zach both gush over Jokic all season long. While he might be one of the best offensive players of all time, he's a cohen on defense, forgets to shoot, how to shoot threes in the playoffs, and he only has one ring. Give me Duncan over him and it's not close.

Did, did any, did any of us put him above Tim Duncan? I mean, you and I are like president of the Tim Duncan is—

That's an, that's another one that as the years pass, like People are starting to forget about Tim Duncan too. There was this great clip. He turned 50, by the way. Happy birthday, Tim Duncan.

That's great.

And there's this Twitter account called NBA History, and they ran this clip of Duncan congrats— Duncan and LeBron congratulated Duncan after the '07 Finals. LeBron's like a baby. He's like 22. And there's like, hey, great series. And, and Duncan says to him, yo, I love, I love what a good teammate you are. Keep it up. Keep doing what you're doing. Like, he doesn't praise him about how well he's playing. He's, specifically praises him on being a teammate and his connection with everybody else. And to me, that's Tim Duncan in a nutshell. And that's why I always ride for the guy. Like, he wasn't about the stats. He could have averaged 25 and 12 if he wanted to. He was very happy 20 and 10 and being an awesome teammate.

Like, he sounds like a mentally healthy youth sports parent, basically.

Like, right. I'm so proud of you. Here's this little mini trophy. All right, so we think Celtics win in 5.

Yeah.

What about Lakers?

I'm gonna give the Rockets another game and say it gets a little frisky and Lakers win in 6.

Okay. I, I not only agree, I actually, I think it's 6 or 7. I thought LeBron looked a little, a little gamey. Forget he's, I don't know if you know this, but he's 41 years old. You are, I mean, he looked a little gamey tonight.

We do have to have every, and I, he deserves it. He deserves it. Absolutely deserves it. But we do, it's like, I think it's in the broadcast partner's contract that there needs to be a 2-minute soliloquy about LeBron's fitness and how much attention he pays to his body every game. It just like, it doesn't matter if you do it every game. It's just, all right, it's the 8-minute mark of the second quarter. Grant, Grand Hill, you take— you— the floor is yours.

I want people to start doing that about me. It's like, Bill Simmons, 25 years now, columns and podcasts, you know, he walks every day, saunas, eats really healthy. Like, this guy, it's amazing how he takes care of himself. Tell people out there to do that for me.

Okay, I'll give it a shot.

So you're more depressed about the Mets than I'm depressed about the Red Sox?

It sounds like, uh, it's a devastating turn of events.

Fantasy had like multiple tweets today. He's, he's like, he turns into the Unabomber every once in a while and there's these long missives about the Mets.

He's having a rough, I mean, it's been, it's a disaster. It's an absolute, like this has, the Mets have been, have like the Vince Coleman firework season, the Bobby Bonilla contract. There's like a lot of. Just embarrassing Mets stuff. This has the potential to just be— they have— they— I think I saw a stat, they've scored 2 or fewer runs in half their games this season. They have the highest payroll in Major League Baseball.

Jesus. Baseball's different than basketball. 'Cause in basketball, if you spend money on guys, it usually works out.

Yeah.

It's like, it's like, oh, we've signed Giannis. He's 32. This is probably gonna work out. In baseball, you sign somebody, And their career is over like the next day. And you're like, I, we still owe you $280 million. By the way, you can't hit anymore.

Longest, longest into any podcast we've ever done before Giannis was mentioned and mentioned as a baseball-related aside, no less.

Yeah, true. Giannis, a lot of time to talk about him this summer. All right, we're going to take a break. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about, uh, an incredible Spurs comeback. What's going on with the Nuggets? The Knicks Game 4, all the other basketball storylines is next. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA postseason is here and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during their playoff run. Build the same game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip-off. Don't forget, with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21+ select states or 18+ DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Duluth Trading Company. Whether it's the 19th inning, the 12th quarter, or the 5th and a half shift overtime, not going anywhere. Which is why Duluth builds hardworking gear for folks who work their butts off. Their Surefire arsenal of work shirts are built for function and comfort, giving a big foam middle finger to all that is futile.

And the new No Quit Utility Shirt is equipped with cooling and wicking tech— oh boy— to keep you comfortable, all while being tough enough to take down your most daunting tasks. When it's Marathon Work Session versus you, give no quits. Shop at a Duluth store near you or at duluthtrading.com. All right, we just hopped in a time machine and went backwards to 6 o'clock Eastern time to talk about the other 6 games in round 1. Coming off Spurs Blazers, a terrifying San Antonio Spurs performance. Zach Lowe, this is the one that you're watching the second half, and if you're every other playoff team, the hairs on your arms are going up.

Yeah. As we're recording this, the Blazers have 32 points in the second half of an NBA basketball game, which by Cavs-Raptors standards earlier in the day is actually not so bad.

Lavish.

But, but an absolutely terrifying Wemby defensive performance in the second half. And then you throw in like, oh, De'Aaron Fox. Hey, I remember that guy. All-Star De'Aaron Fox just making step-back threes over everybody. Spurs are figuring out counters to all the weird defensive schemes the Blazers are using. But Wemby, Wemby was just everywhere. And the Blazers, look, like the Blazers are not a good offensive team. They're not a good shooting team. They're a horrendous turnover team. So like it's not as if they did this to the, you know, number 1 or 2 offense in the NBA, but it was legitimately like, oh my God.

They're on the road. That counts for something.

Yeah.

Also Game 3. When Scoot— I was, I was really having a moment on Friday night with Scoot taking it to Dylan Harper. And then we learned a valuable lesson. You don't talk shit to Dylan Harper. And then he put in a facsimile 2000 Game 4 Finals Kobe kind of arrival performance. Kobe's a 10 out of 10 on that scale. Dylan Harper was like a 7, but it was like, hey, here's what the future's gonna look like when I'm putting this all together and I look like this all the time. So that was Game 3. That was scary. No Wemby in that game. Game 4, Wemby and the Spurs just— the only other team that can do this is OKC, right? That could do a 60-30 second half of a playoff game on the road.

And they've been, yeah, I mean, Oklahoma City has a gear of frenzy that almost nobody can reach. The Spurs, it just looks different because they don't quite have the perimeter frenzy and all the crazy wing. They've got some. Great defensive wings and guards, but they have the one guy in the middle who is just everywhere and impacting every play and in 4 places at once. And you just see everybody looking around like, where am I? So I can't shoot this, I gotta shoot the— it's crazy.

So this is a sweep if he doesn't get hurt in Game 2, I think.

I mean, they were winning when he got hurt, but yet they were winning in the first half today. Right, right. They didn't win. So yeah, I think, I mean, I picked Spurs in 5. I gave the Blazers a game one way or another there. A tenacious defensive team that can cause some problems. But yeah, this feels like, it feels like we're heading toward an appropriate Spurs in 5.

I think this, that series was a win for the Blazers. They, you know, we know what the limitations are, but when you think about, it was a good Jrue Holiday series, like it kind of validating a pretty weird trade, at least for the short term. They wanted to bring in a veteran guy. Then he was okay. I think this is, I wouldn't say the greatest matchup for him. Um, and you know, they're feisty. There's some pieces here, and I can't wait until they have a coach that makes $425,000 next year. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens when Gabe Kaplan is the head coach of the, of the Trail Blazers. Uh, yeah, the Fox thing, the big things for the weekend other than Wemby coming back and looking healthy was Harper in Game 3, and then Fox kind of reminding people like, yeah, this is in here. I've been been scaling it back, just being, just kind of here to help out, facilitate, get some shots out. But for the most part, that's lurking in there somewhere. We'll see if it lurks in an OKC series. Can we talk about Dylan Harper really fast for Game 3?

'Cause we haven't done a, neither of us have done a podcast since then.

I would love to. That was a, I texted some people I know with the Spurs after that game and I said, that was, that was a real effing playoff win, Game 3. That was like a big boy playoff win without Wemby.

It was an awesome game. Scoot going at him, and then Harper basically from that moment on just taking his soul out of his body. Still a win for the series for Scoot, but Harper was so good, and you could just see all the pieces where, where we're gonna go. And I'm not, I'm not really positive where we're gonna go with him because when he hits the 3-pointer, he basically has every single offensive weapon you, you need. He can, he can do stutter step, get in the lane Brunson style. He can just get to the rim. He can play with somebody on his body. He can step back and hit threes and, and then he can also kick back out to people with really like precise passes already. Like he's a really, really, really advanced, advanced, advanced guard. One of the best, I think, rookie guards that we've seen come into the league that I can remember the last 10, 15 years. Right. Who else jumps to mind? Like who, at 19 and 20 where you could really see like some special shit.

Not very many people. And yeah, special. Like that was a game without Wemby that they needed other people to step up and he and Castle were both unbelievable. Yeah. First of all, it helps to move up in the lottery 3 years in a row. Yeah. Second of all, it's been one of the pleasures of this series. Like the Blazers have a lot of kind of power perimeter players, including one of the all-time great like power hybrid point guards in Jrue Holiday.

Yeah.

And it's been so fun to watch Castle and Harper be like, oh, we're just kind of babies in this league compared to you, but we're gonna, we're, we have that too. We're gonna take it right at you over and over again. It's been so fun.

Yeah. And Castle, who was the unsung hero on, on game 3 at 33, but Harper, Harper was just such, such a dramatic second half entrance by Harper into that game that it kind of overshadowed everything else. But Castle's been great. Pretty omnipresent. Even that play that led to the double technical with Denny. Started because Denny was really physical with him dribbling up the ball and Castle finally got tired of it, took him to the basket, did the whole thing. Blazers home game, no t-shirts. They were shooting used t-shirts during timeouts into the stands. I don't know if you knew about that. They'd gone to some Goodwill, grabbed some stuff, but—

Pretty worn, armpit stains. Like, what are we talking about?

Yeah, yeah. Just, you know, not holes in them or anything, but definitely had been worn. I, I'd still think win for the Blazers. They've rekindled some trade value for some guys, and I'm interested to see what they do this summer. Okay. Cavs-Raptors. Yeah, that also happened today.

It did.

This was an homage to what, what year? 2006, 2005, 2003.

I mean, I've looked at the score multiple times in the second quarter and had to remind myself that it was the second quarter. So you pick, pick a year from a long, long time ago and NBA far, far away.

'04 Raptors shoot 32% and win. They had 21 offensive rebounds and they had 36 free throw attempts and it seemed like they blew the game. And then the, the Cavs had a very strange stretch. They're up 5, they give up 2 free throws, they miss 5 straight shots in the last 2 minutes, and all of a sudden the Raptors are winning and all of a sudden the game's over and it was a, it was kind of your worst fears for a Mitchell Harden game, right?

I mean, I don't even want to put the blame on Mitchell Harden. Nobody covered themselves in glory in this game, but Jared Allen and Evan Mobley to combine for 11 points on 5 of 16 shooting when you're being guarded, at least at the start of the game, by a combination of RJ Barrett, who they've cross-matched onto a big guy, and Jakub Poertl, who can kind of sometimes stay on the floor, had a couple nice takes in this game. Like, I understand that the Raptors, they bring in Murray Boyles off the bench, and when he's the only quote unquote big man on the floor with Scottie Barnes, they're very switchable. They're very hard to play against. But like, that's not the entire game. Yeah. And remember that the third quarter started and they very Cleveland very clearly came out, was like, hey Evan, face up against Jakob Poertl if he's guarding you and score some baskets. And he got 2 and I was like, all right, great. Then they switched the matchup, they put Poertl onto— or they put Pirtle onto— I don't know, they switched the matchup one way or another. They put Pirtle somewhere else and they put RJ Barrett on Mobley, I think.

Yeah. And then we just never heard from either of those guys again. Jared Allen had a great defensive game, had some blocks, had some rim protection. But like, we can clown Mitchell and Harden for shooting 12 of 38 combined, but the big guys deserve a little, a little bit of criticism too.

Mitchell, 6 for 24. Kobe homage. Harden had 6 turnovers in the first half, and I tweeted this. I was so disappointed Barkley didn't make a joke about the Cavs being in Toronto all weekend, Friday night, Saturday night, and then playing a 1:00 PM game. And Harden just looked like he had woken up a half hour before. I had the same question marks next to Mobley. He, he had 8 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 assists. And you just forget he's out there for stretches. I'm starting to wonder if this is just who he is. We kept like factoring in this bump in the ceiling for him and all the potential of what he could be. And oh wait, maybe he's really a 5. Maybe he shouldn't play next to Allen. Well, what happens if he starts making 3s? That's gonna change him. What we don't see from him is the guys, get outta my ways. I'm just gonna wreak havoc here for an hour. Right? We need this game. We're up 2-1. Nobody can get anything going. Just, I'm kicking it into fifth gear and I'm gonna destroy everybody for about a half hour here. And he just doesn't do it ever.

And this is the game you win if you're a serious NBA contender on the road. Tough game, tough atmosphere, tough but like limited Toronto team. Not a, not a great team. You win this game and go up 3-1 and set yourself up for the 4-1 win, which should be, which, which you know, I picked Cavs in 7, but like it was sitting there for them. Toronto did not come out like a blaze of glory and this is a game you win. And yeah, I mean to your point, Cleveland all of a sudden like they'll go, they'll put Allen and Mobley together at the start of each, each half and then we'll never see them play together again. And we didn't see Mobley for like most of the 4th quarter. I know Jared Allen was playing so well.

Yeah.

And I think they're caught in this existential dilemma of like, all right, well do we want to play them together more? Well that means we have to increase their minutes. We don't love the spacing. It's getting a little funky. I've been Mobley's 3 kind kind of disappears for a week at a time. Then, okay, if we want to go small, who, who do we play when we're small? Do we want to play more guards? Do we want to play more of our forwards like Tyson and Struce and Wade, all of whom were okay today? And then Sam Merrill, who had been a zero for the entire series, came in and damn near swung the entire game and the entire series for Cleveland with his gravity. And he actually held up okay defensively even against Ingram. But it's like they all of a sudden feel like they're torn between identities in some ways. And it's not— this should— I mean, like, credit the Raptors. Their defense was sensational. Murray Boyles is one of the stories of the last month and a half of the NBA season and the playoffs so far. And they made it really hard on the Cavs, and the Cavs did not have a lot of answers.

Yeah, Murray Boyles gets 3 stars for his game today, and the fact that they can play small with him with a rookie and be okay. But it may, like, even big picture, let's say the Cavs get through this series and they play Boston down the road. Boston's just gonna go small with better players than Toronto has, you know, 'cause I think this is a blueprint now. The, they were, you mentioned that they were split between two teams basically. I would almost say they're split between two teams, but then they're also split between a second version of those two teams where Mitchell and Harden stuff at the end of games where it just feels like they're both 30 feet from the basket looking at each other, and then one of them has the ball and the other one just kind of stands there and watches. It's, it's a little weird. There's some Mitchell stuff I want to get into in a second, but, um, I just, they leave me cold that I, I don't think their defense is good enough either. And in this, you know, the, Raptors shoot 32% today, but with the shots that we're getting at the end of games, basically they, they're playing shed out there as, as a fifth guy.

So it's Scottie Barnes just trying to beat people off the dribble. He's doing these spin things, then trying to kick out. They didn't really have anybody who could create a good shot, I didn't feel like, and they still won. I didn't like any of the shots Toronto got.

I mean, their best offense for a good portion of the fourth quarter was Scottie Barnes, just bring the ball up as fast as you can and see what happens. And what happened was like people kind of got out of his way sometimes, or they got in his way. Yeah. He went through them. I thought he was awesome. I think Toronto's defense is just taking away so much of the paint.

Yeah.

And leaving Mitchell and Harden to be like, all right, we're just gonna kind of run pick and roll out here with our guards to see if we can get RJ Barrett switched onto us and then see what happens. And then we'll hoist a step-back 3 cuz the paint is like a no-fly zone. But you know, we're recording this before Sixers Celtics, so we'll see what happens in that game. But I, depending on how that game goes, like that was kind of an underwhelming Game 3 win on the road for the Celtics. I, I guess no playoff win on the road against a guy like Maxi who's busting every scheme you throw at him is, is like ho-hum. But the East is like Detroit's down 2-1, you know, Cleveland 2-2, Boston is where they are, the Knicks are 2-2. Like, is Orlando gonna win the East? Like what's happening in the East?

I know it is like a unprepared for anything moment. So Darko said this about Scottie after the game. I expect more from Scottie. The way he's playing, he's 60% of a player that he's gonna be in 2 to 3 years. Scottie's gonna be one of the best players in the league, and he's already one of the best players in the league. So he saved it at the end. Yeah. But I don't think he's one of the best players in the league. I think he's a really interesting player. And you could see today, like, the last piece that's for him to become like the number one guy on an awesome team that has a chance to win the title, I think he's gonna have to have the ball. And like, what is his, what's his finishing move gonna be? And he might not have one. He might just be almost like what Iguodala was and some other guys we've seen, like guys who are way better off being your second best guy or your third best guy. For them, he has to be the, the best guy. But I don't, I don't, I don't see it offensively.

I don't know how he jumps up. What's in there, in your opinion, for him?

I think it's the bully ball and the playmaking. And look, we could, we could debate like what's the bet, one of the best players in the league. Like I had him, I had him third team All-NBA and then bumped him off when Luka and Kade became eligible. Yeah. So that puts you somewhere around the 20th best player in the NBA. Yeah. Something like that. And it has been interesting in this series to see how willing the Cavs are, you know, they'll start with Mobley on him and then they'll go with, Tyson or Struce or Wade or whatever. And I keep waiting for him to just dominate those matchups and, and the Raptors spacing makes it hard for anybody to do that. And he has stretches where he does, but I, I keep waiting for the moment where he's gonna force Cleveland to put their centers or whatever, the only Mobley or Allen on him and, and put their, put those other guys somewhere else. And that hasn't really happened yet. Yeah. And it's just 'cause of the jump shot, right? I mean, we all know they're gonna try to go under every screen, force him to shoot jumpers, but I mean, I'm not gonna sit here, dude played 42 minutes, had 23, 9, and 6.

I'm, I'm, I'm all right, man. 4 stocks. I'm good with that.

And here's the other thing I would say. They play really fucking hard and they're really competitive. And I, I like that. I like them a little more than maybe I did a week ago. I still can't imagine they would win a round or even 2 rounds. I still think Cleveland should win this series. But if I'm Cleveland, if I'm a coach on the team, or I own the team, or I'm in the front office, I'm a little nervous now that we're playing this team that exposes a lot of warts that we have, right? Oh, you're going small? Well, here's Mobley to punish that. Well, Mobley's not doing that. Oh, you're super competitive and, and going after every 50-50 ball and pounding us? Like, we're gonna fight back with our version of that. Well, maybe we don't have that.

And they haven't—

the Raptors haven't even had the game yet where they just got lucky and hit a bunch of threes, you know? So if I don't know, I don't know if the Raptors have that game, but every team has that game once in a playoff series. There's always a game where somebody goes like 14 for 35 or something.

Could you go be a— Walter hit one, just a shot of, of some kind.

We better see Grady Dick at some point. But yeah, if I'm the— if I'm on the Cavs side, I'm a little nervous because I have some fears. There's some guys on my team that have wilted in big situations. We don't have to name them.

No, really?

Yeah. We have some really bad playoff losses in our recent past.

I gotta do some Googling, I guess.

I would just start to get, I would be getting a tiny bit nervous here. Can we do the Donovan Mitchell playoff history really fast?

I love the Donovan Mitchell playoff history.

Go ahead. Lost to Houston round 2 as a rookie, then lost to them round 1 the second year. Blew a 3-1 lead to 2020 Denver. In the bubble, beat a really young Memphis team, then lost to the Clippers in '21 and '06 after Kawhi left, the famous Terrence Mann game. Just an inexplicable loss. One of the most inexplicable losses of the decade. Lost to Dallas in '06 and '22. No Luka the first, I think, 3 games. That was Brunson's arrival. And they just kind of cratered as it went along and it became clear somebody was going to get traded. Turned out both guys got traded. Mitchell, uh, Mitchell goes to the Cavs. They lose to the Knicks in 5. The next year they beat Orlando in 7 in a series that it seemed like they were going to blow, and then they showed up for Game 7. Uh, got smoked by Boston in 5. The next year, last year, swept Miami and then lost to Indy in 5 in a game where they had more excuses than games won after the series ended. Well, Mobley missed a game. Garland was hurt and Indiana just took their lunch in that series.

They, they com— in that series, just to, just to add onto it, like remember DeAndre Hunter got hurt, I think in game 1 of that series on a Matherin chase-down block. And they were like, I mean like they were mad about that. He didn't get called for a flagrant, I think if I remember correctly, or they wanted to suspend, I can't remember what exactly what it was. And then they're like, oh man, what a big loss for DeAndre Hunter. I'm like, really? 'Cause it seems like you guys can't wait to get rid of DeAndre Hunter. Right now, now that he's hurt, it's like the biggest loss in the history of playoff basketball. Yeah. And like, I didn't like the way they handled adversity in that Indiana series when it hit them.

Well, if they lose this series, I, every guy in the team, the coach, everybody is, I think, on the table. I'm prepared for every single outcome, right? Is there one keeper that you would say, well, they won't trade him? I'm prepared for anything.

I would say, I would say Mitchell, but you know, Mitchell has a little agency in that, in that whole discussion as well with just the one guaranteed year left on his his deal. Would you not go in there yet? They should win the series. They should win the series. They should be— they did it. But credit Toronto, man. I, I thought this would be a tough series for Cleveland and it's gonna be a tough series for Cleveland.

This is officially a who are, who are the tough guys on our team? Let's go. Kind of like who wants this? Who's ready to bang bodies? Who's ready to— I think Struce, I liked how he's been playing. I think Jarrett Allen has it in him. We'll see with Mobley. Harden, you never know. Mitchell, we've seen it and he's his playoff, what is he, 28 a game for his career in the playoffs?

That's what I was gonna say when you went through the team results. I mean, there's been, he's got a couple of dud playoff series individually. There's also been some series, particularly with Cleveland where it's, it's been like Donovan Mitchell, it is any, is anyone else coming with me? Am I just gonna have to do this all by myself? Including that Orlando one, they got it out in 7. Like I, he's, is postseason individual play is pretty unimpeachable. Like everyone's gonna have a dud now and then, even the very greatest players in the world like Jokic is having now. But he, it's, it's been pretty, by and large, very good.

Yeah. The only thing you could ding him is the, well, the results, but also 31% from 3 the last 5 postseasons. And a lot of, a lot of stuff like today where he just couldn't ever really get it going. And I thought with the, the kind of team the Raptors have, is actually like the kind of team you would want to throw at the Cavs. And I think the Celtics have a version of that too. Just long wings to put on those guys and really bother them. And, and, uh, the ability to play small or big depending on what you do. Well, we'll see. I already think this series is a win for the Raptors. Just even, I had Cavs in 6. I bet the Cavs win game 5. My prediction would still be that the Cavs would go and win in Toronto, but it's, I, I just didn't like how the Cavs looked today.

Can I, can I say a couple other things about this game? Yeah. How about Scottie Barnes just going to the foul line and knocking 'em all down late in the game? And 8-second violation gets thrown in there. Like if we're gonna just gonna have a complete offensive disappearance, might as well throw an 8-second violation. I'm not sure I've ever seen that exact kind of 8-second violation where Jamal Shed seemed to know that it was coming and is like, what if I just jump in front of this guy right now? And he jumped in front of Donovan Mitchell and sure enough, 8-second violation.

That's not the first time Mitchell's had one of those either. Okay. I'm going to save, I'll save the Nuggets. Want to do some Magic Pistons?

Sure. Let's go.

This is, I've said this to you before.

I got notes. Look, I got notes on every series ready to go.

I've said this to you before. This is a great one seed case for my 2-2-3 idea yet again. Detroit just on the ropes, reeling after being awesome all season. Orlando couldn't have been more disappointing this season and then ended the season in a, in like a borderline disgraceful way. And now they're in the driver's seat at 2-1. But the, the number one thing I wrote down and I bolded it, I felt this way after game 1. I felt this way halfway through game 2, and then the Pistons played one awesome quarter in game 2. Other than that, these teams look dead even to me. And even the net ratings are 105 and 104 offense defense for Orlando and the opposite for Detroit. All their stats are near the same. It just feels like if they play 20 games, I feel like 18 of them are gonna be close. And I honestly don't know who's gonna win this series. I would not bet on it. I would not make a prediction for it. I do not know what's gonna happen.

I think it's also a reminder that sometimes the conventional wisdom about the playoffs being different than the regular season is actually spot on. It turns out everything that we were worried about, about the Pistons And Detroit fans yelled and screamed about how they had 60 wins and all this. It turns out your lack of shooting is a problem. It turns out the lack of secondary creation around Cade is a problem. And it turns out that Jalen Duren is just getting flat outplayed by Wendell Carter Jr. and looks just frazzled on both ends of the floor, which is fine. He's 22 or 23, whatever he is.

He's not fine. It's not fine. I voted for him. Second Team All-NBA. I, I, I shouldn't have this many voter regrets already and I have like 5.

Well, okay, fine is, I guess fine. By fine I would mean it's not entirely shocking to me that the playoffs have proven much harder for him than the regular season.

But like, yeah, but it's worrisome that Orlando has pretty easily figured out how to nullify him in this series.

Yeah, his face-up game just isn't working. I mean, Wendell Carter hit him with the, with the shade like this guy, this guy the other day.

Couldn't believe that. The whole thing with Dern is he carries himself like he is the biggest, baddest guy in the bar. And Wendell Carter's like, let's go outside and fight right now. I'm right here. Wendell Carter's been a big winner, I think, of the playoffs so far.

The, the inevitable Stu Goga conflagration already happened. And it was interesting to see JB Bickerstaff kind of get fed up with both Stu's antics and he yanked Durant early in either the third or I think the third quarter of that game after a couple of defensive mistakes and just like sat him for a long time. Like they're, they took that game obviously seriously and Orlando took it from them and Paolo and Franz made Couple dagger threes. You don't expect those guys to dagger threes. That was kind of fun.

Did not expect that. Well, the trade deadline, which we were concerned that they didn't do anything major, it feels like it's continuing to haunt them. Kobe White, DeSune Mu, who—

oh my God.

I mean, outta all the teams that could have trumped Minnesota's measly offer of 4 second round picks and our bust lottery pick for DeSune Mu, I'm pretty sure Detroit could have topped that one in about 5 seconds. Right, maybe 4 seconds, 3 seconds. Like, um, Jenkins crashed back to earth.

Yeah, that's another one. He played 7 minutes, uh, in game.

Thompson, his stats are okay, but especially in the last 6 minutes of these games, and I would say the same for his brother, it— he's on the court dribbling around and it almost seems like he doesn't know where the basket is. He'll be just going this way and the basket's over here, or backwards, and just has— wants no part of shooting ever. And Cade's been awesome. I mean, if you said before the series Cade's gonna have a 31-5-8 through, through 3 games, you, you would think, oh, Detroit, then Detroit, are they going for a sweep? What's gonna happen? They just don't— they don't have any other crunch time offense. It's every fear we had about the Pistons all regular season when we were doing the yeah buts.

And, and look, let's just be clear. Like the Magic are good. This is a tough matchup for Detroit. It's not, it's not like they're, I don't think they're like choking or this is a sort of like condemnation of their entire team construction. They're a young team with some obvious offensive warts playing a team that probably had a higher over-under number than they did before the season. And so like it's not entirely shocking that this has proven a tough series for them. Everything you said about Astar Thompson is true and they just, you know, I thought Orlando, Detroit went at Duncan Robinson. With a little bit more precision and intent in that game. And they need Duncan Robinson's offense on the floor to sort of loosen everything up and they just need Dern to play better. Like Dern being a 10-point, 5-rebound, like okay defensive player is they're, they're gonna lose this round if that's, if that is what he ends up averaging.

Yeah, you need the wildcard guy too, you know, like for the Lakers and we're taping this before Game 4, but Kinnard has been something of a wildcard guy for them, right? You need that. Oh, I did like Io last night. Wow. 27 in the second half. We weren't expecting that. I don't know who Detroit's wow, we weren't expecting that guy is. It's probably Duncan Robinson, but they just never got the heat checky thing. I mean, it's a really interesting point you made about regular season versus playoffs because it's funny, you have in the East Orlando, a team that we were all disgusted by at multiple points this year and really frustrated by. And then you have Minnesota, who is the classic, kept roping us in, then making us feel stupid. And they'd be like, I'm out of Minnesota. Then they'd look awesome again. They'd rope you back in. And we just did this zigzag with them for 6 months. And then if you just watched them in the playoffs, you would think, was Jaden McDaniels the runner-up to Wemby for Defensive Player of the Year? Or was it Gobert? Were the, did those guys finish 2-3?

And you see their bench and you just see the, the, The physicality and the intensity that they have, and I promise you, they did not look like that very often during this season, but they do now.

They absolutely do. And I don't know if you wanna talk about that series now, but that's—

No, let's, let's go to a break. We'll, we'll do a break. We'll come back and it's gonna be a hard one for us. Nuggets, Timberwolves.

It's not going great.

We'll talk about that next. All right, Zach, game 4, Nuggets-Wolves, which gave us, uh, a terrible DiVincenzo Achilles injury that I didn't even see cuz I was watching the other game within a minute of the start. A really scary Ant injury that seemed like it was the ACL cuz he was holding the side of his knee. Um, turns out hyperextension, but he's out for the round. Io has 43 in the game and 27 in the second half. And if you only watch this game, you would think he was one of the best 10 players in the league. We had a near brawl involving Jokic. Very entertaining involving the Joker, which is always all bets are off. And Julius Randle came in with a little like Steven Jackson in the Artés Melee kind of energy. I thought he was really going to escalate it. Huge fight in the stands. Lots of video from that.

Oh, I didn't see that. There was a fight in the stands between Nuggets fans and Timberwolves fans.

Big fight in the stands. You can go look that up.

Wow. What a rivalry. It's even spilling into fandom. That's great.

We had—

well, maybe not great. I don't know if it was— I didn't see the fight. I should have said—

who knew that was a rivalry?

Were there children involved? I know. I hope not. I hope everyone's okay.

I hopefully everyone's all right. We had ABC breaking into the game and forcing us to move to ESPN because they had to do an update about the White House dinner, uh, the shooting there. And then, uh, after the game, someone stole Joker's underwear and he was really mad about it. Probably more mad than the loss. I, I don't know where you want to start, but this was probably the drunkest game of the year, replacing whatever the previous drunkest game of the year was.

I want to start with the injuries to Minnesota.

Okay.

Because they're up 3-1 in this series, and if even just Ant were healthy, they would probably win the series. Even though they only have the one home game left and be a dangerous team in the next round. And now Ant availability is in question for an unknown period of time. And DiVincenzo, the dude is just a winner and a gamer, played every game. He wins everywhere he goes. He's just such an awesome role player and has done so well there. That's a, that's a heartbreaker. And you knew it right away. You feared it right away. He knew it right away. It seemed like when he was on the floor, So I want to start there because as appealing as it is to start with, like, is Jokic having the worst playoff series of his career? Is Denver— is their window already closed or closing right now for this, for this core? What does that mean for the offseason? Those are the big questions.

I might have to open a Michelob Ultra for this. I'm getting upset.

I want to sit with the Timberwolves injuries for just a second because DiVincenzo's like just classic central casting, beloved, like glue guy role player. And Ant is Ant, one of the faces of the league, one of the most explosive players in the league, a guy who plays both ends of the floor and has risen up in the playoffs every year that he's been there. And this team is like, has a legit awesome top 7, like their starting 5 plus IO and Naz Reid. And then you go down below that and it's Bones has been playing well and whatever, but Like they are legitimately really good. And if they're harmed going into the second round, assuming they win the series, which I don't think is a done deal by the way, that just, it just sucks. And all these injuries sucks. And when Castle went out in that game earlier today with the hand injury, I'm like, I'm, I just don't want to, I can't watch this anymore. Yeah.

And DiVincenzo's out next year. The timing of these, when you, when you get March, April, May range, you're also out for the next season, I would assume. Unless he's on some crazy Tatum timeline that would put him back, I guess. I don't know. He would have to get lucky. I know he flew to New York today and got the surgery, but the thing with him, other than your top 7 point, he would swing 2 halves a series just by getting hot, it felt like. And I thought he was a great wildcard, like, oh my God, Dante's heating up. He's not afraid of this moment. And so somebody's gonna have to fill that spot.

Yeah, I should have clarified, by top 7 I'm including DiVincenzo, and now he's gone. And so we're gonna see more Mike Conley. I, I was very happy, by the way, that Mike Conley through this all confident had a moment. Yeah, had a moment in a big, big game. And, and Shannon got in. I think they're gonna need, they're just gonna need other guys to just fill time now.

The Ant thing was the least surprising injury of the first round because he did not, and except for Aaron Gordon, 'cause Ant did not look healthy. You could tell something was wrong with his knee, and he was also playing 100%, not favoring it at all. And then afterwards kind of be like, ow, that still hurts. And it was just scary to watch play by play because he was clearly not healthy, but playing like he was healthy.

Well, and, but that's the crazy thing about these two wins for Minnesota is Ant was in foul trouble and, and not great in Game 3. Ant was doing like pretty much nothing. Like he wasn't even that involved in the offense before he got hurt in Game 4 and they still win both games. And I'm glad you brought up Aaron Gordon because, you know, he deserves credit for trying to gut out that game, but it, he just was scary. It was, he was just jogging lightly on his feet and he summoned a couple of big jumps for a rebound and for a challenge at the rim. And both times I would, I was like, oh no, is this like, I, it, it was not. And without him and Watson, they're just too small. They're too small for the Timberwolves. They don't have enough force, they don't have enough oomph. And, and like, that's not an excuse. It just is, it is what it is. And now there's just injuries scattered across this series and one of these teams is gonna win 4 games and go onto the next round and face the Spurs, by the way, be, be a shell of themselves.

But by the way, I mean, you go back to that Spurs Nuggets regular season finale, like the Nuggets shouldn't even be playing the Timberwolves. Like both of those teams had it lined up for them and they, I don't, I don't know what happened. I mean, it's not like the Nuggets played all their best guys.

David Roddy and all those guys happened. They just start, they just play their, worst guys played really well for about half an hour.

That's when you start being like, hey David Roddy, if you ever wanted to take 12 left-handed threes in a half, like have, have at it, man.

Yeah.

Go watch some Mark Madsen film at halftime from game 8. Yeah. Like you gotta lose that game. And the Spurs should have been like, well, we'll help.

I talked about that a couple pods ago, how that not only swung this series, but it swung that Lakers Rockets whole situation in a crazy way where the Lakers just would've gotten I think, dusted by somebody. And instead we have this next chapter in LeBron's legacy and Marcus Smart's rejuvenated. Luke Kennard is back. The Rockets are a complete mess. The Aaron Gordon thing, regardless, he looks like he's done and it completely changes whatever the ceiling was for Denver. I thought they were gonna make the Finals. I don't think they're gonna make the Finals with how he looks. There's some, some other stuff though.

There's a lot. There is a lot to unpack.

Well, the Io thing. How long were we on the trade deadline pod we did talking about how fucking stupid that trade was and trying to get— we weren't the only ones. I'm not, I'm not claiming the territory by ourselves. Joining us were probably everybody else who has a podcast and watches basketball. Everyone who watched the Chicago Bulls fairly regularly to regularly. This guy was a good basketball player and he was on a cheap contract. And these guys should be the hardest people to trade for. And they got him for 4 second rounders. And it was just immediately clear he was the perfect guy to add for them. And I don't know where a bunch of teams were with this. I don't understand how you get this guy for 4 second rounders. With that said, the stuff he's doing offensively, I did not know. I did not know he had this, like he was unstoppable. Unstoppable. Denver was like gearing their defense to try to stop him and couldn't stop him. I did not know he could do this.

I mean, if you look, I don't know when the first timestamp is of me saying the Timberwolves should trade for Io Du Sumudu, but it's like in the fall. It was that obvious.

Right.

And September. And I, and I do feel like, imagine being a Bulls fan where almost everything that happens in the NBA playoffs ends up being a joke at your expense. Like, oh, this guy was just on the Bulls. Like you had him. On your team, you don't have a lot going for you. You had him and you're like, yeah, you know what? Yeah, we're gonna have to pay him. And I was like, eh, Minnesota just gets him. And yeah, I mean, he's, he's just a very good player and he fits them well and he shot 45% on threes this year. But I did not, I mean, it was the IO Show from, from start to finish in the second half.

Also another guy, and this is a recurring theme in all these series, like just an incredibly competitive guy. Who really seems to respect and treasure being on the big stage. You know, like you, you've seen a bunch of these guys talk about this. Barnes is another one. Like, I've really, I've really grown to admire Barnes. Barnes is like, I'll fucking die to win this series. I'll do anything it takes. I'm so happy to be here in the playoffs. And Io's another one. I think Io is this guy who probably watched the playoffs in April, May, and June every year and was like, fuck, I really want to be in the playoffs. Bulls.

Why am I on the Bulls? They're my hometown team.

I know, but, um, so anyway, I'm happy for him and he really fits in with the kind of mentality and energy of this team. And Jaden McDaniels, I watched something on the social media today of all the people he's like kind of battled with and gone at. He has no respect for anybody. Like, this would have been the guy who went at Kobe and Jordan if he was You know, in those eras he'd have been like, fuck these guys. I'm not afraid of these guys. And this is the best he's ever played. So to, to do all this when you have a compromised Ant who then goes outta the game in game 4 and still feel like they're probably gonna beat Denver, it's pretty crazy.

Just a, a total gutsy performance by the Wolves. Gobert has been sensational the entire series.

Sensational.

I will say there, there are a few other things that need to be remarked on in this game.

That Gobert, that Gobert took a 3.

Well, okay, I was gonna go, we, we need to deep dive the end of the game, but at some point, but Gobert takes that 3. I mean, they're on, they're up 13 with 6 minutes left. That is such an insulting shot. That's like a shot you, you would take if you're up 30. Yeah. With 2 and a half minutes left. They're up. That's like a very like winnable game for Denver in most circumstances. And Gobert taking that, there was like 17 on the shot clock. He took it. That was so disrespectful. And I mean this in a good, in a good and fun way. That was just like, we have you, we know we have you. I'm just gonna give myself a 15% chance to have the, the target center just combust if I make this shot. That was so disrespectful. I loved it.

You know, it wasn't even a heat check 3. It was like a somebody driving home and they just decide to drive the car with their feet on the steering wheel and stick their head through the sunroof. Was one of those moves. It's like, watch this, guys. Like, that's how confident he was they were winning the game.

It was like a, in, to put it in your language, it was like a 7-way parlay. It was like Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems betting on like KG winning the jump ball and 5, 5 other things happening at once. And he was like, fuck it, I'm doing it. We're only up 13. Imagine if they lost. Imagine if they lost. We would look back at that and be like, why did you, what happened?

You know what the funniest thing about that shot was? I thought it was going in.

It looked good.

It had this kind of energy for the Timberwolves where it's like, ah, that's probably fucking going in the way this is going for Minnesota. But yeah, that the— what McDaniels has done in this series and how, how many miles he's put on Murray combined with what Gobert has done to Joker. You know, I was on a lot of texts today. I have a lot of people in my life, they know who they are, who get really mad when I compare Joker to Bird and Magic and that I voted for him for MVP again, all that. So there's a lot of people I heard from today. I don't have to name them. And, uh, you want to do this now, or did you have more from this game?

No, let's do it now. You're— you feel it. I feel like you're on the therapist couch and you're ready to go, so let's go. It's—

we're 4 games in the series. I'm not ready to say that this is one of the big disasters of all time. I will say, if they get knocked out of this series and he's looked the way he's looked, Um, it does feel like the best player alive room, the door is going to open and somebody's going to be able to walk into that room now and be declared the new person.

I mean, I have voted Shea. I voted Shea. I didn't vote, but I didn't have a vote. I had Shea MVP and Shea's been number 1 in Ringer 100 the last 2 or 3 times. Like, isn't that already happened?

Deep in the recesses of your soul. You thought Joker was the best player in the league.

That— no, I mean, like, Shay took the belt, I think, this season after the injury. By the— the injury is like a line of demarcation. The injury on December 30th when Jokic got hurt, he has not been the same guy since. And I think Shay has been the best player since then, period. No, no caveats. No, like, well, if I had to win a game, blah, blah, blah. I think he's just been the best guy. By the way, we're probably not gonna talk about it 'cause it's a boring series, What he did to Phoenix in game 3 yesterday was like, had it in my notes, 15, 15 for 18 and shit talking straight up majestic. And like they couldn't do anything with him. And defensively he's a game changing. He makes some game changing plays here and there. It just, but okay, I'm sorry I interrupted the Jokic cope.

Well, this is a 6-year run. 6 started in '20, they come back and they beat Utah, right? They come back from in the bubble. That was kind of the arrival playoffs. So 7 years, really 6. They lose 2 'cause of the Murray injury. He wins 3 MVPs. They win 1 title. That's gonna start too. Oh, they won 1 title, but look who they played. People are gonna do that. He's 31 years old. I wouldn't say he's gonna have a LeBron type of physical arc of staying in shape until his late 30s and, and being incredible. God only knows what he is gonna look like at age 35, 36. The bigger thing for me is the team around him. I, I really worry like this is like really it for him as a contender if they can't get outta the first round this year. Gordon's year 13 next year. God only knows what he's gonna be like physically. Whatever we saw from Cam Johnson this year, Can't say I was impressed. I went from thinking that was a steal of a trade to wondering, like, would Michael Porter Jr. have actually maybe helped them in this series?

People— I said it from jump.

I know you did.

I know people disrespected Michael Porter Jr. in the analysis of that trade.

And then, and then Tim Hardaway, like the biggest part of this game, Denver was like, felt like they were going to come back multiple times in that fourth quarter. Hardaway's in the corner, takes a 3, it hits the side of the backboard. Like I think it would've cut the game to like 4 or 6. Next play, Cam Johnson, or that the next time they have it, Cam Johnson's wide open on the side. Same thing, missed a 3. Like Murray was the only guy that hit a 3 in the second half for them yesterday. He hit 2, everybody else is 0 for 11. So the supporting cast has been bad. Here's what I don't understand, Zach. For the season, they were first in, in, uh, offense, 121.3 for by possession. 100 possessions. Their offense is 105.3 in the playoffs. They're last in 3-point shooting in the playoffs. They're 16th shooting 28.5. They're 40% field goal, 15th. They're not really turning the ball over. They're second best in turnovers and they're first at getting to the line. They're 33 free throw attempts a game. And the offense just looks awful. Like, there was one stat I saw on Reddit.

Denver on open shots is 8 for 36 in the playoffs, and on wide open shots, they're 20 for 57. I don't understand what happened to their offense, and I, I can't think it's just Gordon, and I can't think Gobert and McDaniels, as good as they've been, are, are this good. Like, they've completely shut down an offense that was humming the entire season. I don't really get it.

Well, I mean, a lot of the open shots are Christian Brown and Spencer Jones.

And Jokic threes, which they're giving them, which don't go in anymore for some reason.

And Aaron Gordon on one leg jump shots. So they're open, but they're like, not, it's not like Steph Curry's out there shooting catch and shoot.

True.

Threes. I'm glad you brought this up though, because when the Nuggets fail, everybody wants to clown on Jokic's defense, which is hit or miss. Obviously they're lose their, their defense has actually been fine in this series. Yeah. For the most part they're losing because they have absolutely no answers for Minnesota's defense. And it's, shocking to see Denver out of answers because they were the number one offense in the NBA this season. There were nights where it looked so easy for them and the Wolves have just taken them completely out of their game and they've taken Jokic— Gobert with a great team of defenders around him has taken Jokic totally out of the, out of his rhythm, totally out of his usual game. And the way I was looking at the tracking data over the weekend, now this is before Game 4 and I, 'cause I was curious having watched Game 3, his post-ups are down. Like, he just doesn't want to post up against Gobert. They, they, like, every minute that he's out there with Naz Reid or Julius Randle on him, they should be going to him in the post. And yet they weren't.

In the third quarter, the Gobert was out of the game for a while, and I kept waiting for Jokic to take over, and he was just getting the ball 30 feet from the hoop, and they were running split cuts and all this stuff that looks nice, but it's like, dude, you have Julius Randle and Naz Reid on you. You should, you should be like, this is your time. And then he's also not rolling to the rim nearly as often. And I don't know if it's— I don't know what it is, but I think he knows that they're trying to take that away and he's just not doing it. And when he is not doing it, he's not compromising their defense at all. And I don't know if there's— there was one play in Game 3 that he finally rolled hard to the rim and he got the ball in the spot where we've seen him make a floater 5,000 times. And he went up for it and Gobert was in the neighborhood rotating around. And in midair, Jokic dumped it down to Christian Brown, who was kind of like right under the rim but couldn't go up because Gobert was there.

And the possession died out after that. And that play, and combined with him, if you look at the tracking data, him rolling to the rim a lot, or rolling into the paint, rolling at all, like just, he's just popping and staying put. Doing that less often has me wondering, like, they're just in his head. Gobert's in his head. He's outta rhythm. He's not playing the way he usually does. And all those paint shots are gone, vaporized. And the Timberwolves have completely taken him out of his game.

I agree with everything you just said. Now I would add this, and this goes to the taking him out of his game. They figured out a way to speed him up to just like almost like a podcast where Jokic is like, I like when, I like when my podcasts are at 1.2. I'm a 1.2 guy. That's what I am. I like to play at that speed. And the Timberwolves have sped him up to 1.5. And where I've really noticed it is on defensive rebounds when he's like trying to— he had a couple of the crazy turnovers that he hasn't had since like the 2010s in the second half of that game where it's like he's afraid McDaniels is gonna come from behind or Io or somebody and they're gonna swipe the ball from him. So he's getting these balls and he's like, like a bat outta hell going up the thing or trying to do these quick passes. And he's not, he doesn't have that same calm pace that he always had. Like they've, they've, they've just discombobulated him. And the thing I was telling to the people that were making fun of me today in my life, like people have had bad series, right?

And sure, every single great player we've ever had has had a lousy series. Yeah. Tragic Johnson. Kobe had the '04 against the Pistons, was a classic. Bird had a couple stinkers, like the '88 Pistons series is bad. Every Jordan against Orlando in '95, everybody has them. I'm just surprised it happened right now for Jokic with what we had seen this year. 'Cause I really felt like he, in a lot of ways, I, you know, I know he got injured, he came back, we were worried about him, but I really felt like he had his mojo back. And I thought this team knew what it was. Now you look at 'em, it's like Valanciunas doesn't play anymore. They don't really have a, a backup point guard. It's just a bad matchup for them. And sometimes that happens in basketball. So they're favored on FanDuel for game 5. They're favored by 10.5 in game 5.

Oh, with the injuries.

Sure. Yeah.

With the injuries. I think that's still too, I think the way they're playing, I thought it would be like minus 6. I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen with Aaron Gordon. Just eye test, like, and the fact that he didn't even come back in the game in the second half after he went out, like, I, I would just plan on him, I'm mentally planning on him not playing. And that, that seems like too many points. But you brought up a very important point though, whereas as much as you wanna make this about Jokic, and that's, he deserves all the criticism, like Gobert has eaten his lunch and taken him outta the game. Jokic and Murray scored 54 points in game 4. The rest of the team scored 32— I'm sorry, 42. And Cam Johnson has been nothing. Christian Brown has been nothing. That's two of your starters giving you, giving you zero. Watson's obviously not playing. And I think there's a real discussion to be had. I don't know if now is the time to do it because we haven't got to the end of the game, which I found delightful.

Are you doing this?

No, there's just a real discussion to be had about Oklahoma and San Antonio are who they are. And did Denver just flat out miss its chance at a second ring? Is the window closed for them? Because Murray and Jokic are getting older. Gordon, it just, I think you just have to assume that he's just not gonna be healthy for 6 straight weeks in the playoffs ever again. I mean, the, the evidence suggests that they're, and the rest of their team is just not performing up to the level it needs to perform. And it just, you do like, things happen fast in the NBA. You mentioned '21 Murray hurt, '22 Murray hurt, '23 they win the title, '24 they'll always regret blowing that lead in Game 7 at home against Minnesota because I think they'd have been favorites over Dallas in the next round and favorites over Boston in the Finals perhaps. Although that, you know, that would've been a good matchup. Yeah, they obviously, that would've been, that would've been the Boston probably would've been favored. But that was a, there are 3 rings sitting there, 2 of them robbed, not their chance was eliminated by injuries.

One, I think they would've had a real good shot at it and they didn't get outta Game 7. And now it's like, Is this it? Like, are we, are we done? And if, if we, if we do think we're done, what the hell are we supposed to do?

You know what's hilarious? I was a step ahead of you for where you were going, and I thought you were going where I'm starting to go.

Jokic trades. Yo, Jokic, should Detroit trade everything for Jokic? No. Should Charlotte trade everything for Jokic? You wanna do it?

No. I thought that's where you were gonna go though. That's why I jerked up. 'Cause I do think like this, if you're them, like we had the window. And now we're kind of stuck with this team. That's the real issue with them.

Shengun, 5 first round picks, 6. I mean, you do really do it. You're not ready yet.

I don't think Jokic, I think he's a little like Curry where he is like, I like Denver and I'm happy and I'm just happy to compete every year. But the San Antonio OKC point has been lurking all year and this is why I really thought this was last stand for Denver. Like this is it. You might be able to catch OKC in a back-to-back. With Jalen Wiggins, they've had some injuries, you know, you can play them pretty well. And San Antonio's a year away from being ready. This is like your window.

And you know, I don't know about, I don't know about San Antonio being a year away from ready.

Well, after this weekend, but I'm just saying like youth-wise, they played them well in the regular season.

The Nuggets played the Spurs well in the regular season.

My point is next year San Antonio's gonna be better than this year. So, yes. Teams that are up 3-1. In a series, there's been 298 NBA examples.

Okay.

How many do you think have come back?

17.

13.

Okay.

I knew it was 13. 285 and 13.

Um, how many were coached by Doc Rivers?

At least a couple. Minnesota's defensive rating with Rudy is 98.5 in this series. That's like out of, uh, the 1940s. Um, Christian Brown, his extension kicks in next year for $125 million for 5 years.

It does, it does.

That, uh, is gonna— I think it made the worst contracts with me, Waz, and House. I think Waz drafted that one. It's now, uh, there's been some— him and Pirtle, I think, are going to be high first-round picks in that, uh, draft next year. But the Brown thing's tough because If you can't guard IO or anybody else, you can't shut down anyone on, on Minnesota, any of their perimeter guys, and you're not making threes and you're not finishing around the rim and you can't hit free throws. I'm really not sure what you're bringing to the table. 'Cause that's kind of the 4 reasons you're playing.

I think that contract was a bet on him improving his 3-point shot, which he's done intermittently, and then it always seems to disappear. For 2 weeks, 3 weeks here and there. And yeah, I mean, that was a very clear choice of, you know, there's obviously a lot of variables, variables involved in these choices, including what salaries the players want and all that. But that was a very clear, like, we're choosing you over Payton Watson, or if we have to choose one and whatever variables line up, we're choosing you. And Payton Watson flat out outplayed him when he was healthy this year, and now he becomes a free agent and they are already like apron troubled, and I don't know what they're gonna do.

This really makes me sad. I do respect, like, if Jokic is gonna go down, my favorite non-Celtic to watch other than maybe Curry, if he's gonna go down this way, I, I want it to go down this way, like Terminator 2 style with the falling into the pit, putting his hand up down 3-1, just like one last 37, 15, and 17, and just doing everything. Murray is playing well in this series. I think he is. They just, I just need, unfortunately against Minnesota, you're gonna need more than that. Wow. So you're already, you've already poured dirt on your—

No, no, no, no, no. Listen, I said that they, they could still win the series.

No, you're an SGA guy.

Oh, will you stop?

You love foul baiting. You're a foul baiter now.

Okay. All right.

Well, yeah, that's who you are. It's fine.

Look, if I could bait fouls, I would bait fouls. I can't though. I'm also, I'm just a flat, I'm just an injury risk at this point for any, any running sporting event.

I'm gonna get you an OKC hat.

Is that a thing?

No, I'm trying to make it a thing. No, OKC, they're clearly, it's Shai's time now. And if they win back to back, I think whoever emerges from that OKC San Antonio series will be the best player in the league. Back, that's who we will feel has the belt, and that's just how it's going to go.

Can we do 3 minutes on the end of the game? Yeah. McDaniels, Jokic.

Yeah.

First of all, I hope nobody gets suspended. I hate when this stuff happens, when they do the film about did someone leave the bench. As you pointed out over text, I think the players thought the game had ended.

And so I thought the game had ended.

Everyone thought the game had ended. But there's one person that's not getting any credit here that I would like to give a little credit to. Mike Conley threw that pass ahead to Jayden McDaniels when he absolutely did not have to. He could've just dribbled out the clock or dribbled up to half court. And I think Mike Conley has a little bit of a shit disturber in him and was like, let's see what happens if I throw this pass up to Jayden McDaniels. And you could see Jokic watching, like as soon as that pass went, Jokic turned his back to the hoop that he was shooting at and just watched Jayden McDaniels. It was like waiting, like, are you gonna do it, motherfucker? You're actually gonna do it. And then he did it. But I wanna give Mike Conley a lot of credit for starting the whole thing. Maybe inadvertently, maybe slightly vertently, I don't know. But that's a great pass by Mike Conley. Yet another assist in an illustrious career.

It's a great Mike Conley. Come back.

Point guard Mike Conley.

Joker running at you full speed, angry.

It's not what I want to see.

He's first team All-NBA with, I'm trying to think other ones. Isaiah Stewart.

Oh, Isaiah Stewart is, Isaiah Stewart is in a league of his own.

Jalen Duren. It's probably a top 3. 2 of them are on Detroit.

I did enjoy McDaniels. McDaniels, when he was asked about it, was like, I didn't know what was happening. I just know someone big as hell was coming at me. I'm like, yep, that's, that's right.

McDaniels, his energy has, I think, really spoken for this Timberwolves team who's clearly knew they were playing with Edwards not at 100% and they're still carrying themselves.

The, the other take I just want to have on this, if you will allow me.

Yeah.

Is Denver Nuggets, Nikola Jokic, David Adelman, all of you, stop whining. The guy scored a layup against you in garbage time. You're that upset about it? Like, how about just don't go to garbage time? How about try to play better during the run of the game? The unwritten rules, like, it's not like he did a windmill dunk 360. Just put the ball in the hoop.

I think it was that it was him of all the people that did it.

Well, then just take the L because the guy talked shit about your entire roster, backed it up, and made a layup in garbage time. You're good. Then you like get all mad about it. It's come on, the game's going on. He made a layup. Big deal. He doesn't get to see scores. So he's not like a, you know, he wants an extra 2 points.

You'll be surprised to know I completely agree. And I thought Adamand seemed like a loser in the press conference. And by the way, him talking about wondering where, when the, when the, all the Nuggets fans, everybody who watches this team is like, where the, where's the fight? Why are you guys rolling over like this? What are we watching? Where, where is like the pride that we've watched the last 6 years? And Adamand's like, what do you mean? I thought we were competitive.

I had it in my notes in the game in the last, like from like minute 4 to minute 2 of the 4th quarter, the, like not, not the very end, but they're a little stretch there before the very end. They seem to start playing harder than they had played, particularly on offense. Like they started executing with a lot more zip and a lot more force. Yeah. And to the point that I put it in my notes is like, where, where it's too late. It's too late now. Wow.

Do you think Adelman's coaching this team next year if they get bounced in 5 or 6? 'Cause I do not.

Who the hell knows with these coaching changes? I mean, Tiago Splitter can't get a job. These guys are all getting fired. Who the hell knows with these coaching decisions anymore?

Billy Donovan's like, hey guys, do you have a top 6 or 7 player in the league? 'Cause I would love to have that opportunity to coach somebody really good.

You know who did it right? Monty Williams took all the money. Got fired and was like, you know what, I'm gonna do just nothing. How about I just coach high school, coach my sons?

Yeah.

You can keep paying me 8 figures a year for as many years as the contract goes on. That's what Billy, that Billy Donovan. I don't know. I mean, I think he only has one more year left, but I don't think people are knocking on Monty's door.

There's been a couple people that have just like, will Adrian Griffin ever coach again? There's a couple of these guys that just come and go and we'll never see them again, I guess. Yes.

That was a bad ending. Adrian Griffin. Anyway, that's Nuggets Wolves.

I, I think there's, my only thing to add from your last, from that brawl was, I just really wanna encourage people to go back and look at Randle going to another level. I don't, I actually really thought he was gonna take a swing at somebody and get ejected. So we'll see if they have suspensions.

I watched it again today many times. He seemed under control, under control to me and just incredibly strong. My takeaway from that was Julius Randle is just so fucking strong that if he gets into these scrums, the whole scrum is moving.

Absolutely.

Whatever Julius Randle into, whatever direction he's pushing, that's where it's going.

All right, Knicks-Hawks really quickly. It was absolute panic time after game 3 for the Knicks fans. I know you know a lot of them. I know a lot of them too. I was just shocked by the angst. Knicks come out, guess what? When the Knicks have the lead for most of the game, pretty fun ride. They took the lead early, kept— they were up by 10, 11, 12, 15, 8, 12, uh, and never gave it up. The only things that I noticed other than that they weren't playing from behind was they won more 50-50 balls. They played through Towns a little bit more. It was, you know, it wasn't like he took 40 shots and they gave us a whiff of Alvarado.

Yep.

But the big, the big thing was that Atlanta just sucked. I thought they were just awful. It was a Butterfingers game. I watched with your old Grantland teammate Rembert Brown.

Oh, poor Rem.

Every time he's come over, I think he's come over for an Atlanta loss regardless of the sport. And we were just saying, this is a Butterfingers game. Every 50-50 You could just tell they're gonna lose it. Guys in traffic, they're just gonna lose it. Rebounds bouncing off hands, going to the Knicks, and they just really sucked. 10 for 41 from 3 for Atlanta. And I thought the Knicks were leaving Daniels and Jalen Johnson and Okonwu, basically, if you want to shoot that, you're open for a reason. Good luck.

Well, they should. I mean, that should be, you know, the Hawks want to get into the paint and knife around in there and get to the rim, and they should go under on screens when they can for all those guys. And it's on the Hawks to make it hard. Through disguise and creativity and all that for them to do that. But I think the Knicks' 2 wins in this series have been 2 of their very best defensive games of the whole season. And Towns has been pretty sound defensively throughout the whole series and including in those 2 games. And I understand the angst if you're a Knicks fan because this is just on paper, they should be up 3-1. This should just be a, a, a run-of-the-mill favorite over underdog has a chance to close it out in 5. First round series, and in the middle of their two pretty emphatic wins are two one-point losses, both of which they could have, should have had multiple chances to win and didn't. Partly thanks to CJ McCollum being unbelievable, partly thanks to some puzzling coaching decisions, partly thanks to the Hawks being good. But this doesn't— this feel like it should be 3-1 Knicks and just we're barely thinking about the series because it goes the way these series tend to go.

And now can I say 2.5 to 1.5?

That's fine. They better win Game 5. 'Cause you think it was angsty going into Game 4. If they're down 3-2 going to Atlanta, look out.

Bench karma was great for the series. Atlanta is 32% from 3. Daniels is, I'm sorry, Jalen Johnson's 28%. Daniels is 14%. Kuminga is 18%. Kuminga, I wanna single out for being singularly horrific in Game 4. That was, wow. It just really just, it was like throwing a grenade on the court. He just couldn't have been worse. We've also seen the flip side of that when he comes in and he's awesome. That's just who he is. He's trick or treat. It was a trick in that game. But I just wrote down in bold, I do think the Hawks blew their window for this series. I think they could have, if they had come out and thrown a couple punches and made some threes and gotten the crowd into it and gotten the Knicks a little nervous. I would've been really interested to see what happened in the second half. But they did not do any of that.

Here's the only, I mean, I, I don't, the Knicks are an endlessly fascinating puzzle to me. They look great for one game, great for two games, crappy for one game. You never know what is gonna happen with them. The one thing I would say about the Hawks and their chances is I still didn't love the way the Knicks half-court offense looked in that game, despite the fact that the same simple play of Jalen Brunson setting a back screen for OG and Anunoby in the corner worked like 17 times, as if the Hawks were just like, I guess we just can't adjust to this. We're just gonna let OG dunk 8 more times. And then I looked up the numbers because it seemed to me like the Knicks were just, just every transition chance they had, to your point about 50-50 balls. And if you go to cleaning the glass, their half-court points per possession in that game was like average-ish. And transition, it like breaks my laptop when I bring up their transition points per possession. That's like, that's That's the Josh Hart stuff, right? I mean, that's the stuff that he brings. And I mean, the other thing is it's not like the Mikal Bridges question was really answered.

He played 19 minutes in that game even though Mike Brown started him. And didn't you think it was weird when Mike Brown was like, I'm not going to tell you who's starting, but whatever decision is made is my decision. I'm like, did anyone think, like, did anyone think it was not going to be your decision? Like, I didn't. What question are you answering right now?

Rick Brunson was in play. Maybe that was, uh, speaking to Rick. Um, Bridges has reached the, it's a bonus if he does anything in these games part of, uh, his contribution to this season, it feels like. But the flip side is OG has been so good.

Oh my God.

So awesome that the seesaw, the OG Bridges seesaw is now like this. But OG's been so good, they're almost okay with it because they're getting the, what they're getting from Hart. I was, I never understood why they gave up on Alvarado. I know that he wasn't hitting threes for weeks on end and had become unplayable, but I just think in a playoff series he's annoying and he's the kind of guy who can come in in the second quarter and somebody like CJ McCollum's like, goddamn it, I hate going against this guy. This is not going to be a fun 5 minutes. And I think I really value those guys in a series.

Well, first of all, he had a great just an all-time great Grand Theft Alvarado in the game.

He did.

Second of all, you just have to add him to your list of when you act, when you go through it, guards the Houston Rockets could have and didn't trade for that might have helped right now list.

I mean, that's, that list is 100 deep.

It's pretty deep. Collin Sexton is like, I mean, watching these games, like, I mean, I could have really Colin Sexton is like, I was right here. Like, I won't, I'll, I won't throw the ball away if we're up by 6.

Well, I think what's funny and maybe not funny about the Rockets is keeping VanVleet because he was so important as a locker room guy and he wanted to be there and you didn't want to put him in a trade. And which I get, that's, that's great. But who has a worse locker room and chemistry than the Rockets? Maybe they could have afforded to trade VanVleet for somebody who could dribble the ball. And protect a 6-point lead with 30 seconds left. Bridges for the series is 7.3 points a game. OG's averaging a 21 and 9, and he's shooting 52% from 3.

And feels like he's hit 9 huge 3s with the shot clock expiring and the Knicks have having nothing going on.

Yeah.

Just, just bailing them out.

So we talked before game 4 and you were talking about, we were talking about emergency pods, all kinds of stuff. If the Knicks were down 3-1 in a game 5, you it was conceivable that the Knicks were gonna be down 3-1 heading into a Game 5 to the, to our earlier points.

Yeah.

It was in the air. You could feel it. I think Game 5 is gonna be an awesome game if we're talking about what's gonna be the most compelling Game 5s. And we're taping this before these last two games that happened today.

But these are game, these are Game 4s.

So, right. Minnesota, Minnesota, Denver Game 5 is obviously a must-watch with a lot of like big picture Yokich legacy stuff at stake. And I think Knicks-Hawks would be the other kind of must-watch for me. Orlando, Orlando, Detroit, they don't even have a, we have a game 4 coming up 'cause that series has been a little staggered. But Knicks-Hawks, like I still feel like the Hawks could just shoot better and hang around with them and then just try to get it to the last 3 minutes. And I felt the same way with you about the Knicks half-court offense.

I mean, it's gonna be a fascinating game. I'm hoping to be there.

And, um, you gotta go to that one. I would, I would demand you go.

My credential application has been filed. Um, and we'll see. Uh, these games get crowded and all that, but, um, do you want me to talk to Bobby Bacala and who are the other Sopranos that go? I don't know about the other Sopranos, but I, I mean, the Knicks have more celebrity fans than the Lakers somehow.

Now I'm gonna call Modine, see if there's extra tickets.

I think he hasn't been there. I haven't seen him there.

When we give her a ring.

Yeah, get Susie on the horn.

You got to go to that one.

But no, I mean, like, the East is again, who wants this conference other than— well, I mean, we're taping this before Boston-Philly.

If Boston blows the crap out of Philly, we'll do that in the first segment because Boston will give us— right now it's 11 to 10, so we got to go pretty soon. I got to do a really quick Parent Corner with you before we go.

Shoot.

So Amazon Prime, they do the thing where if it's like 3 devices are using it, they shut one down or 4. I forget what the number is. So my, my daughter's using my Amazon Prime, which is fine because she's my daughter. I'm sure yours will be in college someday using your Amazon or one of your other streamers. And I was using 2 different ones because there's 2 games going on and it logged me out of one of the things. And it was because my dad was logged into my Amazon, so I had to call my dad. My dad's like, well, I can't get Amazon unless I'm on your Amazon. And I'm like, but Dad, you, you have Amazon Prime. I do? Yeah, you guys have Amazon Prime. That's when you get packages or you send stuff. Like, you pay for Amazon Prime, I'm positive. And he's like, but that— so my Amazon Prime would get me the games? I'm like, yeah, you have Amazon Prime, which would allow you to use Amazon Prime to then watch the game on your Amazon Prime. So we walked through this and my, my wife and I were on speaker just like ridiculing him.

Oh, that's not nice.

No, we, it's, we love to make fun of my dad, but I realized they should be doing PSAs. I really think they should. Amazon Prime should have a whole ad campaign like The game is on Amazon Prime, and guess what? You have it. You actually paid for it. The more you know, you already have Amazon Prime. Go to it, here the button, then look, the game is going to be on there. You don't have to steal it from your kids. So I just— the streamers things, it's been really rocky this first year not knowing what games are on. I did— I went to 3 before I landed on ESPN for the first game today. It's like a little game show.

My 83-year-old father has figured it out. You, he could, they, they come over for, they, they come over for dinner every once, at least once a week. And they were, I think they came Thursday and he was like, hey, are the, are all the games on Prime tonight? And I was like, yeah. He's like, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a try. See, see, see how I see how, how it goes. I'm like, okay, you don't, you don't have to call my, my younger sister is the one who usually Does the—

gets a little dicey.

No, she does the tech aid to the parents. Oh, um, like I can't get on the Zoom kind of stuff. Uh, but he figured it out and was watching the games.

I think it's been a real problem in bars because I mentioned this on a podcast about bars and hotels recently and got a few emails from people who were talking about being at a crowded bar with people telling the bartender to put on Amazon and just them just Basically like doing the Borat, like, ah.

Everyone will get there.

We'll all get there at some point. It's just, this is how it was going to go. But yeah, so to the parents out there, the older parents, you probably have Amazon Prime.

Stick with it.

Yeah, stick with it. It's going to happen. Okay, Sacklow, you podcast Tuesday morning?

Yes. Okay.

Um, and then you're going to the MSG with Bobby Bacala and AJ Soprano on Tuesday night.

That's, that's the plan.

That sounds great.

All right.

Good to see you. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm coming back on Tuesday with, uh, another podcast plus rewatchables Ghostbusters Monday. Buckle up, get ready for that one. Uh, thanks everybody. Thanks to Netflix too. Must be 21+ and present in select states. For Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope Is Here, visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.