Transcript of Part 1: Detroit’s Comeback, Philly’s Resurrection, and Celtics Questions With Zach Lowe New

The Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix. Zach Lowe is here. Zach Lowe doing double duty this weekend. He did a little brief podcast after Game 7. Not Game 7. Game 7. Game 7. Yeah. Celtics Sixers.

Yeah. The Celtics season is over. You know that, right? That was Game 7.

It's, it felt like Game 9. Okay. Wait, before we start, wanted to mention new rewatchables coming tomorrow. It is Netflix is a joke month, so we're doing some comedies. We did There's Something About Mary. It's going to be running tomorrow. And let's see, what do they have on the service this month? Slapshot, Fletch, 48 Hours, Mrs. Doubtfire, Meet the Parents, Long Came Polly. We've done episodes on all of those already. They're on Netflix. Ghostbusters, Kindergarten Cop, we just did Tropic Thunder, Tootsie, Splash, and Borat.

Wow. That is all available. Heavy hitters.

Wonder what's going to happen. Anyway, Orlando-Detroit just happened.

It did.

Not a lot of comedy in this series unless you like tragic comedy. Tragic comedy.

Yeah, that's a, that's a phrase.

Detroit wins going away. Uh, we have two teams that came back from 3-1 in a round one. Um, I'm just gonna throw a bunch of stuff for you. Things that happened just in the last 5 days.

Okay.

Joker got bounced by McDaniels. Go Bear. Shannon and Zombie Mike Conley. That was the thing that happened. Atlanta fell behind 72 to 22 in a do or die home game. Orlando blew a 24-point lead in a Game 6 clincher for them with a 19-point second half. LeBron at age 41 was the best guy in a playoff series. Embiid won a Game 7. Paul George outplayed Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown in a playoff series. I think they debatable, but I'm gonna throw it in there. Cade and Maxie have now jumped a level up into some getting near the final level of levels. The Brown-Tatum era, for all we know, could be over. We'll talk about that later.

Wow.

And then two teams came back from 3-1. Just some of the things that have happened. Orlando-Detroit Friday night is the weirdest thing that happened all playoffs though. Just bizarre. 19 points in the, in the second half in a must-win game.

So I watched that game and obviously you're digesting as it happens that the Magic have not made a basket in quite a long time. Another miss, another miss, another miss. For some reason I didn't realize until after the game had ended that they had only scored 19 points in an entire half of basketball. Like I just didn't put to do the math in real time. And I looked at the box score and I just stared at it like, like the Mona Lisa had appeared in my house. I just sat there. In silence for like 30 seconds looking at 11-8 next to each other and being like, is that even possible? And look, if not for a late run of full-court press and Detroit comedy turnovers at the end of this game, we would've been looking at like 105 points combined over 6 quarters of basketball for an NBA playoff team. And it ended up being, I think, 113 instead. But still, I mean, like 113 points in 6 quarters is kind of a problem. I know Franz Wagner is out, that's a big deal, but not great.

I screenshotted the second half box score of Orlando and I think I'm just gonna keep it in my Apple Cloud for the rest of my life. 4 for 37, 108 was the field goal percentage. They were 2 for 18 from 3. They had 17 rebounds and Detroit had 34. Said half as many, uh, 7 turnovers. Paulo and Bain combined were 2 for 20. Suggs was 0 for 6. And, uh, and Bain was -39.5 in just one half. -39. It's really, really special. The fact that they didn't cover, or even cover like a double-digit spread. They lost by 14. They were up 24 early in the third quarter. It was— and at home, it was an amazing collapse.

They were laughing at the Pistons. Like, I mean, literally, like Duncan Robinson, remember, I think he threw an inbounds pass out of bounds all the way to the other sideline. And Desmond Bain grinned in his face, like cackled in his face. Wendell Carter Jr. was laughing. They were mocking the Pistons up 24 in that game. And then they missed, I don't remember, it was like 2 dozen shots in a row. They just could not make any baskets for a team that's been a horrendous offensive team now. For a long time. Absolute— it's funny, like, how would you regard this, right? Like, it was a disaster season, disaster season. Everyone's heard all the time, it doesn't gel, it doesn't gel. Then it gels and they blitz the Hornets in the play-in tournament. The team that, like, all of the NBA world outside of Orlando was rooting for the Hornets to get into the playoffs. They go up 3-1 against the number one seed and it's like, all right, this is the team. 50.5 over-under. They got their mojo back. Maybe the Bosley-Bankero thing is fine. Wow. And then they lose the next 3 games in increasingly dispirited fashion.

And do you look at this like, well, we lost to the number one seed in 7 games without our best or second best, I guess after this Palo game, I would say second best player in front of Wagner. Yeah. That's not so bad. Or is it so bad? It seems very bad right now in the moment.

Well, think about a week ago. So I remember Talking to my dad after the Celtics were up 3-1 and just being like, see, I told you we, we wanted to play Philly over Orlando. That was the consensus, right? That was 7 days ago. So many things flipped in 8 days. Like the Knicks, all their fans were in complete panic when they were down 2-1. They have this must-win game, Game 4 in Atlanta. And it feels like if this game goes wrong, we could just see the Knicks completely blow everything up. Now they're the favorites to win the East, like pretty convincingly. And then Orlando and Philly basically switched places. I had, before we get into Game 7, I had some big picture stuff and you brought up Franz. Does Orlando win this series if he doesn't get hurt? Because I, I feel like they win Game 6. I do feel like they had figured out at least something with him defending Cade that made it reasonable to shut down Detroit offensively, at least a little bit. Once Franz was out, Cade went basically apeshit.

Up 3-1, you would say they probably do, I think. But I, I, I, I don't really care, honestly. Like, he gets injured and the entire team other than Bankaro and Bain, Bain was a, Bain was good for the bulk of the series and okay today. Got, got some points late when it was outta hand.

He was okay.

He was okay.

I'm gonna give him okay. I'm not gonna give him 4 first round picks good.

Well, I mean, that's the bigger picture is that yeah, Franz goes out and he's defending Cade pretty well. He's a well-rounded offensive player. The fit with Bankaro has never been great, but the talent is the talent. And then they just cease to function as a, an offensive basketball team. And they're paying Jalen Suggs $32 million next year. He has 4 more years left on his contract. He can't make a shot. Anthony—

not only can he not make a shot, his shots are going left. Right, long, short. You almost don't know which direction they're going. It's like a compass.

Anthony Black is extension eligible, and I don't even know where to begin with negotiating that contract. I know where I'd begin with if I were his agent. They are paying Bain, Bankero, and Wagner like $135 million combined next year.

They're in the tax, right?

Next year, no matter what happens, they're way—

there might be double tax.

Jett Howard, they declined his fourth year option for next season. He was a fairly important first round pick. Jace Richardson, now he's the 25th pick, couldn't get on the floor. Tristan Da Silva, like kind of role got scrunched a little bit toward the end of the series. Like there's, it's, and then if Suggs is just, if Suggs is going to be the $32 million glue guy, elite level glue guy, like the Derrick White, we'll talk about Derrick White series, the Derrick White of the Magic. Once every 3 weeks for 2 games, then that contract is, is a borderline disaster. And his shooting in this series was like, it, it, it's just not acceptable for a guy in that role. I'm sorry.

He didn't used to be nearly as bad of, I don't know what happened to him in this series. Like I, I almost, the shots were so bad it made you wonder, was he hurt?

Yeah.

So you talk, they just started, Palo kicks in next year, the 5 for 240, whatever that is. And then Franz year 2. He's got 4 for $184 left. Baines at $39, $42, $45.

Brutal.

And then you mentioned the Suggs. They also have Carter at $18 and $19, and they have Betaze And in 2029 they can swap with Memphis, but it's Memphis's call. And that's all they have for picks because of the Bain trade. I, do you think, I still want to dive into this Game an All-NBA player and maybe not even an All-Star.

I mean, it's not a coincidence, I don't think, that both those teams are in the East, right? And the East sort of has this, this openness to it that convinces these teams who have not really done anything. I mean, Orlando has not really done anything in the— they haven't won a playoff series with this group of guys. Like, and, and, but it convinces them that like, we can jump all the way from that to— if you're trading 4 first-round picks for an in-his-prime late-20s veteran, you're saying like, we think we can make the Finals. Right now. I thought that trade was fine for them because I liked it for them, to be honest with you, because I just didn't know what other direction, what other player were they going to get that fit everything that they needed. We all knew that they had overpaid, Yeah, I want to say I liked the Bain trade when it happened. I did too, because I thought— I hate putting it this way, but I honestly thought he was better. Like, even what you saw with Franz out, I thought, I thought there were moments— remember there was that stretch he had in Memphis where he was like running their offense and scoring 25, 27 a game?

I actually wanted to see what that would look like on this team with those two guys. And then they had—

it was a classic like not enough plates at the table for everybody's situation sometimes. And you could see him kind of step back. He'd step up, he'd step back. I thought this would be like, okay, Franz is out, it's Desmond Bane time. And it's just, well, maybe he's not that guy. I don't know. What do you see?

It's not only not enough plates, it's like everyone is trying to get the same food or food is being tossed. It's like the main guys just don't fit very well together. And Paolo is a classic, like he has the game and style of a number one offensive player because he doesn't have the game and style of a number two offensive player because of his shooting liabilities. But he's just not good enough at the number one off— despite a brilliant game today when no one else was with him, he's just not at that level as a number one guy yet. Maybe he'll get there someday. And so you just don't, the, the whole team's offense just feels amorphous, unformed, lack of identity, lack of cohesion, lack of understanding on a lot of possessions of like what they want to do. And all of that just coalesced into that second half of Game 6 where they just did all the wrong things, attacked all the wrong matchups, missed all the wrong shots, and just had no plan B on any possession. After one action. And that's just, it's just a weird mix of guys and you want to keep saying, well, if they're healthy, if they're healthy, if they're healthy, it's just even when they've been healthy, it just hasn't worked well enough on offense.

Game 6 second half was a good example of, it's nice to have an old school guard on your team that can be like, come on guys, calm down. And the guy could, it could be Zombie Mike Conley, it could be anybody. But I think they're probably expecting Black who I think had some moments this year, and even in this playoff series had a couple moments, but I think for where they needed him to be, he just couldn't get there. But he's, he's weird team.

He's the same issue as Paolo, just many tiers down the league hierarchy in that he is like an on-ball creator kind of player, but just not good enough to do that a lot at a high level and doesn't have the jump shot yet. I mean, he shot it much better this year, but he's never gonna shoot it at volume, or he hasn't yet. To be an off-ball, like, it just, there's just a lot of pieces that don't fit together to add up to more than the sum of their parts, which we knew. Like, this is the, they, this has not been a good offensive team ever in, in this era.

Sometimes you gotta rise to the challenge. Like me today, I'm incredibly hungover. Wow. I can't even tell you what happened yesterday, but there were a lot of drinks and it was bad. And, and I'm fighting through it today and Maybe the audience barely knows except for the 9 times I stammered and when I couldn't remember it was a Game 7 yesterday, Philly and Boston.

I just, I chalk that one up to you're having a tough emotional time. That's, that's, I just, I, I, I give you, I give you some grace on that one.

Well, it was my daughter's 21st birthday yesterday and we decided to go to a bar in Manhattan Beach and watch the Celtic game and drinks ensued and, and then the game was tense And we're gonna talk about that later.

Her first, Zoe's first drink ever?

Yeah.

On his 21st birthday.

Well, midnight, midnight Friday night was the first official legal in a bar, here's my ID drink.

Yeah.

Which is always fun. Always nice to be there for those. Big picture for Detroit, 'cause they were great today. They finally got an awesome Tobias Harris game in a, in a must-win situation.

Love it.

I was thinking about Doc Rivers 'cause I think his two favorite players he's probably coached in the last 15 years were Maxey and Harris, and both of those guys were awesome. Maxey, we'll talk about later. Yeah.

Hey, look, I, I don't want to get too far ahead and I, I don't know that this outcome is particularly likely, but we are one round away from an entire city of Philadelphia versus Tobias Harris conference finals matchup.

I'm just— oh my God, it is possible.

Yeah.

Well, he was great. He had 17 the second quarter. They had a 40-point second quarter. And, uh, and it was basically Tobias and Cade. Dern was at least rebounding. I don't know what's happened to him offensively. Again, I voted for him Second Team All-NBA, and he's just completely lost his confidence with like the little quick jump hooks. And, uh, I, I don't know. And it's beyond like, oh, Orlando's doing something. I, he just seems spooked to me. And that would be the biggest red flag I would have. We don't know who they're playing yet in the next round, but The fact that he's just a complete mess from 4 to 8 feet around the rim, I don't really fully understand what happened to him.

Yeah. I mean, part of it is what Orlando has been doing since game 1, which is we're going to go under every Cade pick and switch and at the same time and take away your rolls to the rim. And every roll to the rim felt like, like just, oh my God, that's what the whole regular season looked like and we haven't seen it. And then like one would happen per game. You'd be like, oh my God, it's like an alien landed in my backyard. Jalen Dern got a free roll. To the rim. But you're right that I think that got into his head and it just feels like every time he gets the ball with a smidgen of an opening in the paint, he's just almost throwing it up there, like rushing it up there. Yeah.

It's like these quick shots.

There's no touch on it. But I will give him credit, like he pounded the offensive glass today, which if they're gonna switch against him, he has to do. And his rim protection was pretty goddamn solid the entire series to the point that the outcry among some Pistons fans for more Isaiah Stewart, less Jalen Duren, even start Isaiah Stewart kind of petered out. And so does Isaiah Stewart's minutes. And we got more Paul Reed and we got— look, we all like Isaiah Stewart's a fun NBA character. We all enjoy him.

7 minutes today.

I mean, these fouls where he's just throwing people to the ground and running them over is just— you're hurting your team. I understand it's like your, it's your identity, it's the role you play on the team, but there's a way to do that without— and Mo Wagner is a good actor, probably exaggerated, but like you just can't play like that. And I think even JB Bickerstaff is like, dude, come on.

Well, and then you have Cade, who in Game 5 has 45 and just single-handedly drags them through that game. Game 6, in the second half, 24 points, 9 rebounds, 4 steals, 9 of 10 from the free throw line, and then 32 and 9 today. So this goes from, hey, do you think he'll be 100% for this, for this, uh, Orlando series, to Hey, this is why he probably would've been number 4 or number 5 for MVP. He would've been an absolute first team All-NBA guy. And I just thought he was incredible. I mean, that's a good— everything, him and Maxey, everything you would want from your best guy in a playoff series.

He was great. He hit threes and teams are gonna dare him to shoot threes and he knows that. And he hit enough of 'em in this series. Defensively, he guards Paolo now and then, like he'll guard up, he'll guard down, he plays hard, he makes plays at the rim. He plays really occasionally like any star player who he'll get a little bit unfocused away from the ball and try to rest a little bit, but he plays really hard on both ends of the floor. And the other guy, the sort of pendulum of referendums on this type of player is so interesting because it's hard to be a non-shooting perimeter player in the playoffs. We all know that. We all know what happens to them.

We need a name for those guys.

I feel like a, the Thompson twins. I, I, I, I feel like Asar Thompson fought through that And was undeniably a major asset for the Pistons coming back and winning this series. Just unbelievable defensively, flying everywhere.

Yeah.

And they started using him more in the offense as a screener, as a cutter, as a DHO guy. And I think that's what you have to do when teams ignore them and you're, and he's this spectacular of an athlete. It looked after 2 or 3 games like, oh, another non-shooter is gonna be like kind of exposed in the playoffs. And Asar Thompson fought through that and like he was plus 12 today. I think he was +13 or +14 coming into the series. Like, he was a big part of their comeback.

You know, I looked up before, so where were they on th— so they were 16 for 33 today on threes, Detroit.

Woo.

Heading into this, I looked at the Basketball Reference where they have the series stats and they have everybody ranked in different categories on the, on their playoff page. Detroit was 16th in 3-point percentage heading into today, 29.7. So they finally had a game where they hit some threes. And what's interesting is Duncan Robinson felt like he missed like 6 wide open ones. So it really could have been like a 22 for 33. So, good game for them. Not sure if it was an aberration 3-point shooting game because I don't, other than Duncan Robinson, I, and even like Cade's been a little spotty. I don't know how many people I trust in big moments. We will see. It's still an amazing, amazing, amazing comeback for them. And then for Orlando, I, is it fair to say Mosley has completed the, uh, definitely getting fired and probably has saved his job, definitely getting fired triple axel. We don't see this very often.

I was thinking about that in Game 6 and Game 7, and if you were Orlando's front office and you had been leaning toward firing him before the play-in tournament and everything like that, I think you'd have to lean that way again because the offense is just so rudderless and without any cohesion at all. And it just, at some point, something has to change. And I, I, I am interested. I think their pivot is one of the more interesting stories of the offseason and it has to go beyond a coaching change if that happens. And I just don't know. I don't know what it is. I don't know what, what their move is to, to shake this roster up in a way that makes it more functional.

Well, you know what doesn't make sense is trading Giannis for Paolo.

Who does it not make sense for?

Orlando. 'Cause it doesn't get them any closer to being anywhere.

Yeah. You look at—

I'd rather just keep Paolo and see how this plays out.

You, you look at their roster around Paolo/Giannis and I, it's undeniable that you would kind of feel there's just not enough shooting and you know, I, who knows what—

And I'd also have to probably put more stuff in that. So that was a really fun fake trade during the season, but I think that one has now expired.

And I got— not much other stuff to, to put in it, right? Like it, no, my picks went out in the Bain trade. My young guys aren't playing much. Like I don't, other than Anthony Black, and I, I don't know what else I got.

No, your move this year is we like this team, we're gonna change coaches, we're gonna see how this goes. Palo is no longer a poison pill guy. We wanna see what this looks like for the first half of the year and then we'll figure it out. But I, I think, and by the way, is Billy Donovan. No inside info, but this is the kind of team I would want to coach if I was Billy Donovan and I wanted to keep coaching in the NBA. Right. A lot of young assets. It's almost like a grad, like an older college team.

Well, he's certainly been linked.

There's an identity.

The rumor mill has certainly linked him to this job potentially. Obviously there's the Florida connection. Don't you think Billy Donovan, when he thinks of what time, what type of team he'd like to coach if he stayed in the NBA, is it just like anything but the Bulls? It's just like, I just, it's just any, just anything's gonna feel great. Just any other job's gonna feel fantastic.

Or he probably looks at all the guys he had on, on the roster the last couple years and wonders, maybe we should have made a run. Kobe White and Io, all these dudes.

Oh God, that's not, that's not, dude, let's not even do it.

We're gonna take a break. I have a very important big picture question for you about the league, and then we're gonna rehash, sadly, Celtics Sixers.

Ooh.

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And we know they're two different sports. I think the thing that has changed for me is wondering like, if I was in charge of a team, how much value would I even put in the regular season anymore? And would my only goal be to have everybody healthy in April? And would I not care about seeds at all? Right? Because even when you talk about Denver, Minnesota, it's like, shit, they won. If they had lost, they could have played Lakers, Houston, and that was where seeds matter. I think you could look at this season and be like, you know what, none of the seeds really mattered at all. Except who's going to have Game 7, Thunder, Spurs, because that's going to be the only series that really ultimately matters, right? Other than that, put anyone in any seed and we probably would have had competitive series. With any of the other 14 teams for the most part. And I'm just wondering, like, the Celtics, if they had to do this over again, how much of the stuff would they have done differently knowing what they know now?

Well, what's, what stuff? Like, just lighten the load on Derrick White so he's not whatever happened, worn out or whatever the hell happened to him in this series.

I'm talking Derrick White, 10 less games, 300 less minutes. Jalen, 8 less games, 400 less minutes. Tatum, 30-minute max the entire time. And that's, I mean, I've been saying this on the pod for weeks now. I, the, the putting the minutes on Tatum like they did, I feel like that, that caused the injury. I'm always gonna feel that way. It made no sense to me as they were doing it. Him playing 43 minutes in one game and 40 in another in the playoffs, I just thought was insane.

Don't you think part of that, there had to have been some sports science behind that of like, if we're gonna actually ramp him up for big playoff minutes, we gotta ramp him up like in the regular season, we have to sort of give him heavier minutes loads than you would expect.

I mean, like, did you see his quotes today though? About the quotes today were basically like, yeah, my right leg's not as strong as my left leg yet. You figured this was gonna happen. Like he had, there was one quote in there that made me wonder like, damn. This is what he said. It was just unfortunate timing, but I guess a little bit to be expected, right? I was away for 10 and a half months and then I came back and I'm playing every other day. I was playing 36 to 40 minutes, so it's not unusual that something would come up. Um, it was inevitable at some point I was gonna have to deal with something. It kind of came at the worst possible time. Was it inevitable? Shouldn't they have just played this 20, 30 minutes? Like, look at how the Spurs have treated Wembanyama basically his whole career, but especially this year. Like, they've been adamant about not trying to put too many miles on him. And conversely, like, I look at Denver. And I know Joker had to make the All-NBA run, which probably in retrospect was a bad idea. But they're just putting all, all these miles on Jokic and Murray, who immediately, you know, looked like they ran outta gas in the first round.

So would you rethink how you, how you treat the playoffs versus the regular season, just holistically from what we're watching right now?

First of all, this entire conversation is music to Adam Silver's ears. How can we make the regular season matter even less and seem less relevant for like an unbending slope slog of 6 months of games. Like, are we— yeah, we, please, let's have more teams think this way. There need to be fewer games. We know there need to be fewer games. Everybody knows and agrees there need to be fewer games.

But we know that, we know that's not happening.

Nobody, no, no one is actually willing to make whatever sacrifices necessary to do that. So then we're stuck in this situation where, yeah, the playoffs are a completely different game than the regular season. Different types of players have different kinds of playoff experiences than in the regular season. Like the 16-game versus 82 kind of players that Draymond Green famously said. A few years ago. And the gap is getting bigger. Kirk, Kirk Goldsberry wrote about this for The Ringer last week, that the, the gap in style between the regular season and the playoffs is just getting wider and wider to the point that they are the same sport but very different versions of it.

Right.

And I mean, sure, ideally you would, if you could just know I'm gonna be a top 6 seed, so at least I'm not in the play-in tournament, 'cause you can't risk that. No matter what, you can't risk.

I don't know if Philly risked it. Philly, Philly got what, 30, 30 games out of Embiid? How many did he actually play?

He played some amount of Embiid games.

38 games. They, Paul George took a 25-month suspension vacation for whatever he did and came back, looked better than ever and looked like 2021 Paul George. The only people they put real minutes on the whole season were Maxey and Edgecomb. Maxey played a lot of minutes. He ended up only playing 70 games. but he played 38 minutes a game. He led the league. Vijay was a rookie, played 35, but that's young legs. But none of it mattered because for 5 games in the playoffs, they had their team.

It's, it's really just shocking how quickly Philly just materialized. Like, oh, this is the dream Philadelphia 76ers team that we never thought we would see. And like, oh my God, here it is. Like, Joel Embiid is firing behind the back passes to Kelly Oubre who's dunking and everyone's going crazy. And Tyrese Maxey's roasting everyone.

Yeah, but even in, even in real time, people still weren't believing it when it was happening. The Celtics were, I think, -2,200 after Game 4. Even after they lost Game 5, they were -1,100, which House and I were both like, whoa, that seems crazy. And then in Game 7 without Tatum, they were 6.5-point favorites, the Celtics. I thought that was going to be a 50-50 game. I, I I didn't think anybody should be favored. I was shocked by that. But nobody believed in Philly until they did it.

I mean, we all have Philly fans in our lives. We have some at, at The Ringer and Spotify. I have just random— I've had random Philly fans that I have not heard from in months reach out in the last 48 hours. They're just as shocked as everybody else. The ones that are reaching out to me are like, I can't— I'm just walking around with a big grin on my face. I can't even believe what's just happened. I mean, shock is a word that multiple of them use. They just— they even— they are like, This, this happened, like this team just suddenly clicked into place like this. I can't believe it.

It was incredible to watch as it was happening. Game 2, I just thought the Celtics played like crap and, and Philly made some threes. I wasn't alarmed, but Game 5, I was alarmed and talked about it on the pod after. Game 6 was equally alarming. You look at the last second half of Game 5, Game 6, Game 7, Philly basically dominated those 3 games. I mean, they were up I think 15-plus in all the games. The Celtics never really had a lead ever. Always felt like they were playing come-from-behind basketball. And there's a few things I'm shocked by. One, one was just how kind of competent Embiid looked like he, he wasn't doing— we've seen him come back from not playing and he falls down a lot and you always think like the next one, Like he was, I thought, pretty good. That was about as, as good as you're gonna get from him defensively, like protecting the glass, some of his passing. I thought, I just thought he played well. I was really surprised by that. Right.

He was outstanding on both, on both offensively, especially defensively. It can come and go for him a little bit, but he was moving around a lot, very well in games 5 and 6. Game 7 was good enough. And offensively, he was absolutely brilliant in that game.

And Paul George, you know, who I guess was sick in game 7, but Paul George, Just was the equal of, of Brown and Tatum on a lot of these minutes and quarters. You know, Game 7, maybe not as much, but that one was shocking. Kelly Oubre's defense, which I was like, ah, he's, he's not bad. He gives an honest effort. Like, he was invaluable. And, and then, you know, just riding Maxey. The one thing you could have predicted, and we did our most intriguing players draft, and I think I took Maxey as my leap guy. 'Cause I was like, this is, fits the profile of if somebody was gonna make the massive leap, it's, he kind of checks a lot of those boxes. He was awesome. And, and he would, he, if you think about like the next series, them versus the Knicks, if they win, it'll be because he's the best player in the series, which sounds like stupid and cliché, but that's usually the best player usually wins the series. And they would need him to just go nuts in the series. I think, I think the Knicks can throw some stuff at Embiid.

I don't know if Paul George can do that again. Edgecomb, one game you had that stat. What was he, 0 for 16 in the losses from threes?

That wasn't me, but yeah, it was, it was something like that. It swings hard with Vijay's 3-point shot.

Yes, he's trick or treat from 3, which is fine.

But I'll tell you what's never trick or treat with him. Absolutely fearless and is just unafraid of any of these big moments. Wants the ball and in, in transition for a guard who's not huge, he has just, Meteorically risen into like, he's one of the 5 most terrifying players in transition in the entire league. You just, it doesn't even matter if somebody's back, if that guy's bigger than him, if he's got a head of steam, he's gonna finish over you and there's just nothing you can do about it.

Yeah. It reminds me of some of the, some of the all-time great transition guards we've had that you knew in the first year, like Rose and Westbrook were both like this. Westbrook just taking over like Jesus, like shot out like a cannon. I thought Nick Nurse was awesome in this series, and conversely, I thought Mazzulla was bad. And we can talk about that now or later.

I was going to say, I've been, I've been waiting to hear you weigh in on whatever.

I thought Mazzulla was incredible in the regular season. It was honestly, I voted for him for Coach of the Year. I thought he was incredible.

I would have too.

And I don't know what they were thinking with this playoffs. I have so many questions. And look, did Philly win the series or did Boston blow it? I think the answer is both. They went back to their 2024 style without the same players is my biggest issue. They slowed it down. They didn't play with pace. They gave up on their bench. And I was saying it on the podcast at the time. I didn't really understand it. It was interesting. Jaylen, after the game yesterday, was like, I actually liked how we played. I thought we looked like us. Like, that's That's who we were all season. That's kind of how I felt.

So this team, they gave up on the bench until they started half of it in the most important game of the season.

I know. Well, it, that almost seemed like symbolic for Joe, like just to say, I screwed up, I did this wrong. But the problem is, so you have two different problems. One is you do the Simons for Vucevic trade to get under the luxury tax, which I get, and I, I understand all the benefits for that. But my dad, who is the most bitter I've ever heard him after a playoff series loss, I was gonna have him on the podcast today and he's so mad about the series that I decided not to have him cuz he was just furious at everybody. And after the game he was like, I was gonna go up to Chisholm and congratulate him for getting under the luxury tax. Like just furious because not only do you not have Simons, who I think would've had at least a couple real moments in this series and would've mattered.

He got injured, but who knows what would've happened?

Well, did he get injured? I don't know. He had like a lottery injury, but But then you bring Vucevic in, so you have that swing. And I just felt— this is my honest feeling— I think Mazzulla treated this series like, let's figure out what we have for when we play the Knicks and the Pistons and whoever comes out of the West. We're gonna— I'm gonna use this as my litmus test series. I'm gonna see what I have with Vucevic. I'm gonna shorten my rotations. I'm gonna try to do the 2024 thing again. And they just got away from what what succeeded for them. The bench was the superpower of this team. It was guys like Hugo and Walsh coming in and being maniacs for 5, 6 minutes, and he just punted on it. And then in a Game 7, he's like, hey, Shireman, can you go back to being awesome like you were the last 2 months of the season? It's like, you've been yanking me around. Of course he, he went, hit 0 points in Game 7. This guy was a real asset down the stretch. So I just, I really think Missoula screwed the series up, and I'm always gonna think that.

I was gonna say, if he was in the lab experimenting in preparation for the next rounds, what, what was the Game 7 experiment? Was that like me melting things on the Bunsen burner in 9th grade chemistry class? Just like throwing a pen cap on the, oh look, it's melting. What, what experiment was taking place?

That was, that was an admission of I screwed up. I need to ride with my bench guys in the crowd. I listen, Garza starting is totally explainable to me 'cause they're trying not to get Keita in foul trouble.

Right.

And they're trying to move K more of K's minutes against Drummond. Like, I get it. Hopefully Garza can hit. He was great on those threes at the top of the arc, missed a couple, and we never saw him again. And Shireman should have started for Tatum. And even though he was getting yanked around all series, that's who I thought was going to start. The Ron Harper thing did catch my attention. That one was like, huh? Because he just hadn't played. That is either too fantastic against it. I wasn't against it, but I was like, oh, okay. And I think they put him in an unfair spot, which is another thing you have to think about. I probably would have just started Walsh and been okay. But this goes to the bigger thing of like, you're playing Tatum and Brown these big minutes in the first 6 games and you're not giving those minutes to the bench guys. So then when you actually need the bench guys, they, you're basically throwing them in cold. I just don't get it.

Walsh playing only 5 minutes is pretty surprising. And I know he's, you know, he's not gonna be guarded on the perimeter, although he shot okay this year, but defensively he was far and away their best option on Maxi from the start of the season until now. And I just like, if you're gonna play, if you're gonna juggle it up and play all these random dudes, like it seems weird to me that, you know, falling through the cracks is the one guy who's actually guarding Maxi pretty well, and Jalen Brown, who'd done a great job against him during the season, really, really effective. And Jalen Brown took the assignment in, in Game 7 and was like, fine. But there was just nothing that they, I mean, in the end, maybe it wouldn't have mattered. He's, Maxi was just too brilliant and too multifaceted an offensive player for whatever they threw at him. But I just, the whole game was just starting with Tatum being not on the injury report to questionable to out to the starting 5 to them falling behind early, coming back late, the, and just the whole game was just very weird.

I knew on Thursday that we weren't gonna see Tatum. I was convinced. I said it on the pod. You could tell he was hurt and they weren't gonna mess with it. And it was the other leg. And this is what always happens when these people have these traumatic injuries to one leg, you know, favoring the other leg. And it's always a concern 'cause you're putting more stress on it and they played him too many minutes. I mean, the big thing for me is I don't think they were beating San Antonio or OKC. So it's not like, oh, we blew the title. It's more like, I just know if, if we did this, if you just reset buttoned this and went back 2 weeks and you basically have to win those first 2 games, you had a feeling Embiid was gonna come back midway through the series. But the way they played Game 2 with all the threes, just letting Maxey and Edgecomb do whatever they wanted. And then Game 5 was, you know, even worse. But I just, I know they would've tried to mix that up, used a bigger bench. Like even what Minnesota did against Murray, let's put some miles on Murray.

Let's make him dribble the ball up 94 feet. You know, I know Maxey is the minutes leader in the league, but at least like they, they just made it so easy for him. I felt like he was going downhill like a running back for 2 straight weeks. Right.

I, I, by the way, I don't know how much we're gonna talk about it 'cause it starts tomorrow, but Anthony Edwards was just upgraded to questionable for Game 1 of that series. Ooh, you mentioned Minnesota. And cleared the Timberwolves, said he's cleared for all basketball activities, on-court activities, and upgraded to questionable. I, the DiVincenzo injury is heartbreaking. It always sucks. And it's, he's a big part of their team. I can't wait for that series. If Ant is like a full go and is, you know, those, the last couple of games he played against Denver, he did not look like himself. He was not assertive, he was not explosive. But if he's closer to himself, I mean, he's already had a 50-point game against them this year. The idea of him trying to dunk on Wemby by itself is just beyond intoxicating. You got the French center battle. Like, there's a lot to love about this matchup that we haven't really gotten to sink our teeth into because it was just, we just didn't know who was going to be left of the Minnesota Timberwolves. And by the way, kudos for the Minnesota Timberwolves. You've talked about already for finding a way to win that series against the Nuggets without so many guys.

That was an awesome, awesome effort by them.

Yeah. And that's the thing. They figured it out. They zagged a little bit. They tried to do some different things. Like the Terrence Shannon thing was incredible in the, like, just not only just playing him, but unleashing him and just saying, go attack Jamal Murray. His legs are dead. And conversely with the Celts, Mazzulla was so good during the season and I just didn't see the ingenuity in the same way. It really felt like he was trying to replicate '24. and I can't say this strongly enough, this was not the same. This was always supposed to be a transition year into next year, get under the tax. And instead of Porzingis and Jrue Holiday and, and Horford, you have guys that just aren't as good and aren't as experienced on the team and you weren't gonna be able to replicate it. So the, I think the superpower for this team was the bench and the unpredictability and the wildcard nature of just these guys that would have these weird heat checks. It was, happening all year and it's just, they went away from it.

I, I said it last night on my reaction pod with Pina. It just felt like the Sixers and the Celtics like swapped arcs in, in astonishingly fast fashion. And that the Sixers became the team that they were always able to be on paper but never would be in reality. And then they became it and the Celtics became the team that I was low on before the season and looked so foolish for being low on because they had shed so much talent, because there was so much uncertainty about their big man rotation and all those concerns just were completely invalid until they were immediately valid at the most pressing possible time. I wish you're— how many years has your dad been a season ticket holder?

54.

If you're a 54—

absolutely furious. You, if you've been a season ticket holder for 54 years, you can absolutely go up to Bill Chisholm and sarcastically congratulate him on ducking the, all the aprons. You can give him a, you can gift him an apron. You should have bought him an apron with like, They thought Tatum was gonna replace the Simons minutes, but they really miscouted Vucevic, it seems like, because they, he just was done. You could see it the moment he showed up in the team, didn't And that was their big move.

You know, they, they could have, I guess that if you're gonna criticize 'em, I think they maybe could have flipped Vucevic for something else. But you know, I think they thought he was, I think they thought he was gonna help, like I really do. And then it was just a misfire. And the Tatum, you mentioned the Tatum comments today about, you know, it was inevitable something would happen. I remember saying like, I'm a little hesitant to crown Boston as the favorites because I just, I, I, I remember making this gesture of ups and downs. There's gonna be ups and downs.

With Tatum recovering from this injury, and there just weren't any. And I just sort of let myself believe, and I think everybody else did, that there would— there, I, I guess there's— this is just a medical marvel. There are not gonna be any downs. He's playing a the stuff on his, the wrapped around his calf. And you know, I think he, it was unclear whether he was cleared to play or not. I thought his, his words were interesting about him and his trainer decided not to play. So clearly You know, the summer. So that's, well, why were you playing 42 minutes a game then?

The whole thing is a little bit, a little bit strange, but Philly went and took the series from him.

And Philly went and took it.

And this is, I mean, the conversation I really want to have with you is like, so what now? Like, you're not move, like, like, I don't know. I, I just would say, what, what now for the Celtics?

Well, first they have to go to the doctor. And see if they can find a cure for we got great looks disease. 'Cause that's been 3 of the last 4 playoffs of losing a game and then talking about how great the looks were after. And by the way, the looks were great because they were coming back at the end. They got 4 straight awesome shots and they missed all of them. And that's why they lost.

So this was always my, and, and I would go back and forth playfully with Mike Budenholzer about it. It was my thing with every Budenholzer team that would be eliminated from the playoffs. It was like, well, we just, the shooting luck went against us. And it was why I would always make fun of the Celtics. Like, well, congratulations, you can hang the banner for like expected effective field goal percentage champions of 2026.

Like it's— this is Daryl Morey with the Rockets too. Same thing.

You have 4, this, it's great that you had an unbelievable expected effective field goal percentage. It's awesome. That's a wonderful process. And yeah, you just missed. Well, all you gotta do is just miss 3 times in 7 games and then have another game where the team outplays you substantially or whatever. And then, then your season is over. You don't, this, this, it's not a 100-game series. It's like a very finite amount of time. And if this thing isn't working, the right answer isn't always just keep doing the thing until it works. You gotta have some other thing. I mean, this has been my thing with Boston forever. It doesn't, it's, they won a title. The fact is they won a title. They have a great core. I'm not sure what, if anything, they can really do in the offseason.

Pritchard let them down in this series too, other than his one game 4.

It's a great game 4.

And to me, great game 4. And other than that, I don't, I forget. Hold on, I'm gonna queue up his stats. He just, he just wasn't good enough in the series. And the shot that killed me, Jaylen missed a couple, Hauser had one around the rim, but the one that killed me was 2 minutes left. Keita makes a great play at the rim, comes back down. Keita's running the floor and Bede's jogging back. Keita's outrunning him. Brown, it would've been a tough pass to him. There's some Celtic fans today that were like, oh, Jaylen missed. Miss Kaditz. The ball ended up in the right spot. It was Pritchard in the corner, wide open to take a lead, and he missed it. And I would take that shot 100 times out of 100. And if they, if he makes that shot, I, I honestly think they win. I think the crowd, my dad said the crowd was as loud as any crowd they've had for a playoff game during the, during the comeback. Like, he was like, the energy was electric. It was, we could not get over the hump, and all we needed was that one shot, and it just never went in.

But I would've taken my chances with that shot. You know, I would've bet my life he was gonna make that shot.

That's why sports are so cool. And I know it's not a great day for Boston fans, but I've seen that game so many times in my head and in my life. And what happens is that shot goes in, the crowd goes bananas, and a team on the other end with a history of postseason letdowns and hiccups just sort of melts down a little bit and the game peters out and the Celtics win. In your soul, in my soul, like when that shot goes up, that's what I'm envisioning. And it went completely the other way. Not only did the shot miss, but Philly and Maxey in particular, that 3-point play.

Yeah.

But he, he, he like rose up under that kind of pressure in a hostile environment and put the game to bed. And that, it was just like a very against script kind of ending.

Even in the bar, it was a, oh, it was like one of the, so I can't even imagine what it was like to be there. Well, PJ and Maxie from 3 were 45 for 95.

Wow.

I don't know if that's replicable against the Knicks and the Knicks. I mean, that there's a whole bunch of reasons the Knicks are a better matchup than the Celtics were. Embiid in those 4 games was, uh, in the Game 7, he was 28-9-7. He missed 150 regular season games in the last 3 years and magically turned back into Joel Embiid at the worst possible time for the Celtics. I was thinking about it. I saw the Sixers play 2 games during the season that I thought made them intriguing as a, a dark horse. One was against the Celtics, and then Embiid got hurt right after that, I think. Then there was another one. I wanna say it was against maybe the Knicks on a Saturday, or maybe the game somewhere around that range when they played the Knicks and were really going toe to toe with them. And I was just like, man, there really is a ceiling with this team.

But, but we all do that, right?

Like we, this is, I know, but think about it. They played 6 good games all year probably, and they're in round 2 now.

There's a reason that we just never thought we would see the apex version of this team for any prolonged period of time. And by the way, we still have to see it for a prolonged period of time because now it gets every other day. You know, for the rest of the way. And obviously this is a pretty soft travel schedule for them. Philly, New York is an easy trip and all that. But the stat I will keep just hammering about, and always Maxi, always Maxi, and in this series Embiid is those two combined for all the heavy lifting they do on offense, 3.3 combined turnovers per game, 2 per game for Embiid, who's had a history of like bad turnover games in the playoffs and 1.3 for Maxi. And Maxi never turns the ball over. It's one of his secret superpowers. He just never turns it over. And like, that's a, That's an astonishingly low number for those two guys combined.

Where, where is Maxie for you now in the best players in the league list? I'm just going to read you the best players.

Well, I had him on, I had him on All-NBA, third team All-NBA.

I think, well, I'm going to read you right now. Okay. You wouldn't put him against, you wouldn't put him over Joker, SJ, or Wemby. So let's cross them off.

Feels premature.

No, I mean right now.

Yeah, I know. No, yeah, no, it would feel premature to put him over those guys.

You wouldn't put him over Luka?

No.

Would you put him over Ant healthy?

No.

All right, so there's 6. Would you put him over Cade? Now that's kind of an argument.

Yeah, you get into this morass of like Brunson, Mitchell, Cade, um, you know, Curry is still in there, uh, and, and, and it's just a bunch of guards that are just depending on your taste, depending on—

he might have a case.

Yeah.

Yeah. So he might have a case to be the number one guy in that. So that's the 7th spot unless you wanna put Giannis over all of those guys.

I think Giannis still belongs over all those guys. And, and I, I definitely remember Ringer 100 doing it every month. There were, there was a, a, he was around like 10, 11, 12 a lot for me during the season. I don't know where I had him on my latest one, but I definitely remember one in particular when I moved him up like very early in the season from like 19 to 11 and it felt like, yeah, he's, That's about where he is right now.

So this goes back to one of my favorite dumb topics, the all-time aberration 2020 COVID draft, just Zooms and maybe some illegal workouts with guys wearing masks on where Edwards goes first and then Wiseman goes second off of 3 college games, Lamelo third. It goes Patrick Williams, Isaac Okoro, 4, 5. Killian Hayes is 7. Denny is 9.

It's a great pick.

At number 9, Halliburton is 12.

Denny must be doing great for the Wizards these days. It was a great pick by the Wizards at number 9.

Yeah, they got credit for that. Your guy Poku is 17.

Wait, wait a second. My guy Poku?

Your guy Poku.

How did that happen?

And then listen to this, the 20s. Okay, Tyrese Maxey, 21. Yeah, Quickly, 25. Pritchard, 26. Jayden McDaniels, 28. And Bain, 30. Well, we're gonna have to do a redraft of this draft this summer for fun.

It sounds great.

I mean, fucking bonkers. Like, how does this happen?

Well, you're just leaving out so many guys who are in the 20s. Leandro Bolmaro, I literally don't even remember him. He played—

seems like he played 49 games, whoever he was.

He played for. I just have no memory of him doing anything in the NBA. Not one thing. And all Raptors fans know this draft well because they picked Malachi Flynn one spot ahead of Desmond Bane.

Oof. Well, that pick traded by the Boston Celtics. And then the second round is just pretty much a train wreck. It's Sam Merrill at 60. And, and I didn't know, I forgot Sam Merrill was Mr.

Irrelevant. That's right. Isaiah Joe's in there.

Vic Kretzschy. But yeah, just the 20s of that draft, getting Tyrese Maxey. So this, to, you know, my guy Darryl, I think not only saved his job with this series, but I think you gotta look back at like Maxey, the edge cone pick, the Paul George, even though Embiid and Paul George were 1 and 2 in the worst contracts draft, now that's looking better. I think Darryl sticks around now.

Oh, I, that's one of the ripple effects I meant to mention last night is I think Nurse and Morey both are, have, have signed. Oh yeah. But the crazy thing about Maxey and Edgecomb is the Sixers were like very, very close to getting neither of those guys. Right. It took a Mike Muscala avalanche of threes on the last day of the season to flip that Maxey pick into Philadelphia's possession. Forgot about that. And then at the lottery last year, it looked like they were not gonna, they, they were gonna give their pick to Oklahoma City and then they moved up, shoop, up to number 3 and got Edgecomb. So like, this is what this, this is what it turns on sometimes. It's like it's a multiple sliding doors within sliding doors.

Well, as we discuss those sliding doors, is, is Jalen on the Celtics next year?

Why did it take you so long to get here? This is the most exciting moment of the podcast.

This is, We're going to wrap up here and then go watch this other game and come back for part two.

So tell me the ration— tell me, tell me the rationale. Do you want— if, if, if, are you trading him to just reset the finances, restock the assets, and go to Jayson Tatum and Derrick White and be like, I know we just won 57 games or whatever, that was supposed to be the gap year. This is going to signal to you that this might actually be the gap year, or Are you trying for some sort of 3-for-1 that fits better? 1-for-1 that fits better? And like 4—

you get younger in the trade with a cheaper guy in the spot.

Are you, are you going for it next year or are you taking a step back next year?

Oh, I think you're going for it next year.

So then I don't know what I'm on the record as.

I want Jaylen Brown to play his entire career with the Celtics. I get in arguments about him. I hate the stupid plus-minus thing that goes around with him when people like, look at the moment he comes out, they're way better. If it didn't happen yesterday. I just like Jaylen Brown. I think he plays hard and, and he's durable, and I think he's aged about as well as you could expect from a 10-year forward in the league. This would be the time to trade him right now because $57, $61, and $65 the next 3 years money-wise. Tatum's $58, $62, and $67. And if you're gonna make a case to trade him, it's like, can you just afford 2 guys making that much money?

So I've, I have not said, and you've won a title with them.

I have not sat and played around with the Jaylen Brown trade machine. I, I suspect that you have and you might have some ideas. I don't know though. I mean, I, I haven't either and I haven't really wanted to do it. gives their stuff to Milwaukee would be how that trade goes. Like a team like Atlanta where he's from, a team that, that controls this Milwaukee situation with their pick this year. So it's something like that. They could get super creative because they have this $27.7 million trade exception where you could take somebody back on a team that has cap space, like a Dyson Daniels, where you just take that back with Atlanta's pick. Put Daniels into the trade exception, trade Jaylen, and now you have a max player trade except they'd have like the biggest trade exception of all time and see what you could do with that. Or you look at a team like New Orleans and could you just go Trey Murphy, Herb Jones and a contract, Trey Murphy, Jordan Poole and a pick, like something like that where you're carrying the Poole contract for a year, it's an expiring, but you've reset around a cheaper Jaylen Brown.

Basically that would be the mindset.

I hope they keep them together. I'm just gonna say that again and I'm gonna keep saying it, but I would understand if these are the kind of discussions they're having in dark, depressing rooms right now. Yeah.

I, I, again, having not gone through it, those In terms of like the, but I, it's, it's interesting. Yeah, there's a lot and I'm sure this will be a podcast topic at some point, but maybe Utah's another one. Like Utah. They just did a lot of Why?

Wow. Is it, this is just, are you, is, are you coping? Is this coping?

Yeah, this is coping. It's, it's been a dark 24 hours. Then I applaud your, you know, we've seen weirder things in the NBA than Jaylen Brown deciding I'd like my own team now.

You know, I just, something just popped, a team that just popped in my head and we're about to go watch their game is like, if it's just a disaster Cleveland loss in this game, you know, this is a team that just hasn't been able to fill a wing spot with a player like that, but he just, it's just hard. His contract is so big and I don't know. Yeah. What they'll be thinking, but we'll see. We, we get, maybe Cleveland will win by 30 and then would they be favored in the next round over Detroit? I have no idea, but that would be, that series is gonna be wild either way, whoever it is.

I vote for keeping them together because we've already seen them win a title.

It did happen.

And I think that they can improve around the edges with this team, especially with the trade exception. I think Hauser probably, like if we're going realistic, I think Hauser gets traded because you can, he's 10, 11, and 12. You can, I think a lot of teams could use somebody like him and you could just move Shireman and Hugo into those minutes, right? And then that 27.7, I think you can get somebody good with that. And I think they'd want to bring Simons back. Simons is a free agent. They have their mid-level to use. I could see him coming back. I thought they were a guard short this whole season anyway. So I think getting a guard and figuring out another big man to put with Keita would be the two things I would look at. But who knows? I— this is the NBA. We're prepared for anything at all times. And if Giannis is actually on the table and says at some point, like, I'd love to go to Boston and play with Jason Tatum, like, they're going to try to have conversations about that. And they just lost in round one. I feel the same way about Denver.

Like they, like Sham said today on ESPN, everyone's on the table for Denver except Jokic. They're accepting calls and like that's how they should feel. They lost in round 1 with one of the best players of this century and they should be thinking that way.

Yeah, that was kind of a no shit moment, but yeah, yeah, obviously.

But no, but that's significant that they said every player's on the table.

Yeah. Because what's on the table?

Jamal Murray's on the table and Aaron Gordon's on the table.

What's unsaid is Jamal Murray. I mean, Aaron Gordon, the Aaron Gordon thing is just We've unfortunately reached a point in which I, I, if I'm building the Nuggets, I have to— now, if I were building the Nuggets, I would see all the medical records. I would know everything. But from the outside looking in, I just can't assume he'll stay healthy for an entire playoffs ever, ever again. The leg stuff just crops up over and over again. I don't really know what to do with that because they're just not close to the same team without him.

It goes back to what I asked you 20 minutes ago. Maybe your goal is just to get him healthy in April, May, June, and you're treating him like a car in the garage that you just take out for a spin once a week.

But can you even do that? Like you, you, I don't know. You can find the sports science people on lots of teams. I know a lot of 'em who will tell you like that actually it, there, there are sports science guys who, who will say the players aren't playing enough because it does them a disservice to try, to try to ramp them up to like, okay, now you've, we've been treating you with kid gloves all season. The playoffs are here. You're gonna play 42. Super hard minutes every single game for the rest of the way.

Right.

Even if you did that with Aaron Gordon, like, I don't know that he would be able to stay healthy for a month straight, even if you treated the regular season like a big, a big nothing. But anyway, we're far afield and we have a Game 7 to another Game 7 coming up. Yeah.

So this is the end of part 1. We're gonna come back after Toronto-Cleveland, a game that I think already has had 2 shots and maybe a gin and tonic before it even started. I am prepared. For anything in this game.

You open this podcast by saying all the crazy stuff that has happened over the last 5 days and we forgot the RJ Barrett shot that hit the ceiling on the same goddamn rim as the Kawhi shot from 7 years ago. Like that was up there for a long, long time and just whoop, it was Halliburton shot, but in Toronto and in game 6.

Don't forget the play that led up to RJ Barrett, Evan Mobley for some reason being thrown the ball even though he was the worst free throw shooter out there and Seemed like got body checked from behind. I didn't, we never saw the best possible replay of that, but all of a sudden the ball's outta bounds and it's Toronto's ball and RJ Barrett. I didn't think it was going in, did you? I didn't.

When it went, when it bounced straight up at this point, I'm just saying when he was releasing it, did you think it was going in? No. But when it bounced on the rim, I'm now conditioned to be like, I, it, it could be perfect. It could be going right up and right down. So I was actually not surprised when it went in. But yeah, when Scotty Barnes sort of stumbles in there and kicks it out, you're like, it's not really what they were looking for down 1. And hey, boom, it goes in and here we are, Game 7.

All right, we're gonna watch Game 7, uh, and then we're gonna come back for a part 2 that will be a little shorter than this podcast. Thanks for letting me talk out the Celtics. Apologies to my dad for freezing out, man.

We just scratched the surface. I think there's more.

Well, there's— fortunately we have many more podcasts coming. Uh, thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. And, uh, we will be back On Netflix, ironically, uh, right after Game 7. See you in a little bit. 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 888-797-7777 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.