Transcript of Has The Stanley Cup Been BETTER Than The NBA Finals? | Hour 1 New

This is the Dan Levitard Show with the Stugatz Podcast.

This episode of the Dan Levitard Show is presented by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours.

Holy shit, the Stanley Cup Final. This is the United States of Tortorella? So good. How did it become that? How did it become the United States of Tortorella? How, how do the Vegas Golden Knights go up 4 goals, cough up a 4-goal lead in the third period, which has never happened before? A team has never before coughed up a 4-goal lead in a third period and then lost the game. They didn't lose the game. Vegas didn't lose the game. What happened to momentum? How does Vegas win that game if momentum means anything? Put it on the poll at LeBittard Show. How the hell does Vegas win that game if momentum means anything? Because that is a gut punch if you're Carolina. You had to feel like you were ordained to win that game once you come back from 4 goals down.

Puck was kicked in off the back of the skate of the Carolina goalie. That's how Vegas won. Like, they shouldn't have won the game.

There have been, I think, multiple 2-goal comebacks throughout this series. Every game, I think, is featured.

Game 1, Carolina was up 2-0, Vegas came back and won. Game 2, Vegas is up 2-0 in the third, Carolina came back and won. And, and this one here, 4-goal lead, but Vegas still—

most dangerous lead in sports, I guess. If it's a 4-goal lead, that's an extra dangerous— yeah, it's been an unbelievable series. You have iconic moments. What Brayden McNabb is doing— not like anyone ever doubted that he was gonna play right away— took a puck directly to the face. Directly to the face. Hospitalized immediately. Heroic performance in Game 3.

You know how bad that hurts, Dan? You take a puck right to the nose?

Well, this is, as far as I can tell, the only thing that Tortorella has done is made sure that all the Vegas players take pucks to the nose and also freezes out the media. Roy, correct me if I have this wrong, I really thought that the only way that Vegas would win this series is if the games were low scoring.

Yeah, me too. I knew it was going to be close and I was right as far as the Road Dogg is concerned because they covered in all 3 games. But I thought it was going to be low scoring, good goaltending, good defense. I was wrong on that.

Dan, they scored the 4 goals to tie it in the 3rd period in like— well, the 3 goals, first 3 goals were in a span of 39 seconds. 39 seconds, they scored 3 goals to make it a 1-goal game.

We almost forgot the fact that Mitch Marner had a hat trick.

He's gonna win Conn Smythe if Vegas wins.

Yes, absolutely. He leads everybody in points and goals.

Such a disaster for Toronto.

Oh, I need one of those to cash on the DraftKings Sports app, let me tell you. Mitch Marner doing an incredible thing right now, just like Mike Brown and Karl-Anthony Towns are changing the narrative around their careers. Mitch Marner was the scapegoat for a loser franchise in the postseason, the Toronto Maple Leafs, everybody's ire was directed to Mitch Marner, who's one of the best two-way players in the game. He has been un-frickin'-real.

Dan, he's from Toronto and they ran him out of town, and his first year gone, he's probably gonna— he might win the Stanley Cup. It's 2-1. Might win the Stanley Cup, and if they do, he's probably gonna win Conn Smythe.

And it was an acquisition that, as it looks right now with Vegas up 2-1 in the series, did swing NHL history because it wasn't widely reported, But Mitch Marner had a decision to make this offseason and Carolina was in that hunt and he decided to pick Vegas.

Mitches are having a moment right now. Mitchell Robinson, Mitch Johnson.

Put it on the poll at @LeBittardShow. I don't think he goes by Mitch Robinson. Are Mitches having a moment right now?

And it was a fairly easy decision for Mitch Marner to leave Toronto. They doxxed his home address after they lost to Florida. They doxxed his home address. Obviously he's not going to stay there.

I do understand why you did that Mitch thing, but I don't think Mitch Johnson is having any kind of moment right now unless it's a bad moment. He's coaching his way to the NBA. Finals. I'm trying! I'm trying my best! I am in! What do you want me to do?

Yeah, this isn't going a long way to debunk that whole main character syndrome that the Toronto Maple Leafs fans have, but I get it. I did not want to enjoy this Stanley Cup Final. I don't like either of these teams, but this is just un-frickin'-real.

When you say that Karl-Anthony Towns and Mike Brown have a chance to rewrite history everything that has been said about them. Is there any reason you're not throwing Mikael Bridges in there? Is there a particular—

it's not like that. Like, Mikael Bridges hasn't been a total joke the way that Karl-Anthony Towns—

Towns' number one pick.

Karl-Anthony Towns is made fun of for a lot of different reasons, and now he's going to be like an all-time New York legend if he keeps doing it this way. Mikael Bridges, I don't think people think of him like that. Mitch Marner certainly is in that tier. For that sport, Mitch Marner is forever a punchline. But yeah, you got the quintessential hockey things going right now. You got a hot goalie coming in there. It seems as though Fred Andersen's gonna be out for Carolina. You cannot throw him out there after that performance and that spark over there. You have the Brayden McNabb thing, and Brayden McNabb looks like Chris Farley in Dirty Work after his nose got bit off. I don't know if you've seen his nose, but he looks rank as fuck.

Frankenstein gone war! Uh, but by the way, Mike, you say people don't think about, uh, Mikael Bridges. You should go outside the Garden, see those t-shirts that say "F them picks." Yeah, that's a really big— they chant that all day.

"F those picks." I mean, I would say— I was saying like the basketball world in New York, like, like Landry Shamet can be mayor.

Shamet, that's a—

you say it's Shamet?

Yeah, Shamet.

I can hear the weekend of partying with Charles Barkley on a mean tongue.

Oh, really?

That's the phrasing, please.

I can hear it. I can hear your tongue. You are heavy-mouthed. Your words are not coming out crisp. What did you do with Barkley in San Antonio when there is nothing to do in San Antonio?

Irrevocable.

There. There it is. Yeah, he's struggling. Like, it's—

Yeah, I never go to that word. Yeah, I don't trust myself. Linoleum is also a tricky one, especially on a Monday.

You don't go to that word.

Well, not after you've been partying with Charles Barkley for a week and I'm commenting on your partying and you can't get the words out because your tongue weighs 400 pounds.

We should come up with a list of words to avoid on a Monday.

Irrevocable wasn't hard. The hard part was saying destruction, which is the second word.

Words are just the problem today for me. He's not quite slurring, but he's having trouble getting any of the words out without stumbles, speed blocks, and obstacles.

What do you do when you're out with Barkley? Like, do Do you talk basketball? What do you talk about?

We talk basketball sometimes. A lot of times it's just Charles making fun of people.

Yeah.

But how do you contribute to the conversation?

Yeah, like by making jokes and then talking basketball.

Ordering more drinks.

And that too, yeah. We walked into a bar one time, he saw us, and he immediately yells to the bartender, "Get the Schlitz malt liquor ready and the Pabst Blue Ribbon! Here come these guys!" Dan!

I wanna be a guy who goes into a bar who could just yell across the room to the bartender what I wanna drink. I'll never be that guy. That guy seems fun! Just yell things to the bartender and he comes right over. Instead, I'm the guy who goes to the bar and I'm sitting there like an asshole waiting like 10 minutes for her to make eye contact only to ignore me.

Do you do a little lean? Do you have your card in your hand? You got the cash in hand, little lean?

Yeah, of course!

With Barkley, you do the thing where you pull the wallet out like you're gonna pay, but you're, you know, we're letting Barkley pay this, right?

He throws elbows. If you try to pay around him, he will throw an elbow. He almost took my head off. Like, just literally just whoosh, and I had to duck out of the way. He said, "What the hell are you doing over there?" I was like, "Uh, I just wanted to get—" He buys all the drinks.

You just said the word asshole, and it reminded me of an unfortunate thing I saw this morning driving in. The Metrorail has advertising on the side of it, and somebody decided, I don't know who this is a slogan for, but the saying was, Access to the whole something, access to the whole something, and then when the doors open and close because of how it's written and where the S's are, it just says asshole when the doors open. Like, because of whatever their marketing is, a really bad job by whoever it is that decided to put those S's and that whole in the same sentence so that when the doors open, all of a sudden you just have the word asshole on the side of your Metrorail.

Why won't he just take my drink order? I'm— he has to see me, right?

Not the way he would see Barkley. You understand that Barkley walks into a room and he's usually the most famous and important person in there. So in my experience, and I imagine this was Amin's experience over the entirety of the week, whenever Charles walks into a place, it's his party, his tab, and everyone knows he's there. He's been used to it being like that for about 45 years.

He also got really introspective. This was his first NBA Finals covering the entire Finals. Uh, you know, halftime and postgame and stuff. So him and Ernie Johnson were like uncommonly, like, very moved by this opportunity. And it kind of took me aback. I said, you guys are titans of the industry. But for them, this is a big deal. It's their first Finals ever.

ESPN is going through another round of layoffs this summer, and I wanted to ask you guys about, uh, the broadcast and how great Mike Breen has been on the broadcast, because I don't know who's going to get laid off. And not Mike Breen. Really? I thought you might. The reason I'm thinking about it, though, is because his team is Richard Jefferson and Tim Legler. And I really like Tim Legler in almost any form I catch him anywhere. Richard Jefferson less so. But that broadcast team makes me think— and it's not like we didn't learn this at ESPN— they don't actually know how to put people together in order to make the right combinations. They hit it with Van Gundy and Mark Jackson and Breen, but that's a difficult thing to do to get the right combinations of 3 people. But Breen has done an extraordinary job. It is unbelievably rare for somebody to be in the position Breen is, where he's the Knicks announcer and he's not being accused of bias by anybody. And that's always in play whenever a broadcaster's there, even if the broadcaster's not biased. Joe Buck will tell you he's perpetually being hit with he's biased even though he's not.

No one's doing that to Breen.

Well, I think part of it is also if you listen to Breen do local broadcasts, he doesn't sound like a homer when he's doing the Knicks broadcast. So when he gets to a national level, that's why I think his style is very down the middle and very, uh, unbiased as is. So he doesn't get those allegations because he doesn't even get those allegations when he's doing Knick games as a Knick broadcaster.

What you're saying is, is correct, but that's not how the average sports fan who watches these games thinks. Like, you hear what you want to hear. So it's surprising to me that you still have these casual, or, you know, regular NBA fans who aren't saying, "Oh, you see, he wants the Knicks to win." You hear that?

Even though we know it's bullshit. But the funny thing, Zazz, is I don't know how many people know that he's the Knicks local broadcaster. You think so? He does so many national games for ESPN and ABC. I don't think someone would imagine that someone who's on national TV that much has time to also call local games.

Summer always hits different once the big games start stacking up. Now you've got finals games on every other night, baseball's rolling all week, racing on the weekends, and suddenly everybody's looking for an excuse to get together. The other night, a buddy texted me, "We've got the game on, come through." I figured I'd stop by for maybe an hour. That was optimistic. Next thing you know, everybody's locked into the game and we're all part of the coaching staff. Somebody's yelling at the ref, somebody else is suddenly an expert on pitch strategy. And nobody's even pretending they're leaving early anymore. It's one of those nights where you take a sip of Miller Lite, look around, and realize, yeah, this is exactly what summer is supposed to be. That's why Miller Lite is always part of these nights for me. It's clean, refreshing, easy to drink when it's hot outside, and perfect for long nights hanging with friends, watching games. An all-American summer starts with an all-American beer. Miller Lite. Go to MillerLite.com/Dan. To find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly.

Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

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Dann lebe tot. It's not my favorite region. Context needs to be applied. It's going for a joke.

I thought the context was applied.

We'd like to rip that out of context.

Going for a thing. And you're going to have a family.

You're going to pretend here that you don't love Matthew Tkachuk more than you love anybody you've ever loved.

I don't love Matthew Tkachuk more than my daughter. Stugatz! Now, it's pretty damn close. This is the Dan Levatar Show with Stugatz.

Speaking of broadcasters, I should mention Stacy King, famous Bulls broadcaster, famous Bull, died fairly shockingly at the age of 59 here. And I don't know whether Bonetti did this or not on the Peacock NBC NBC broadcast, but he was supposed to— the Bulls had asked in an homage to what it is Bonetti had done for us, for Bonetti to, during the Sunday night game, because Bonetti used to work with the Bulls, uh, to drop in Stacey King catchphrases into the Peacock and NBC broadcast. I have to check with Bonetti to see if he actually went ahead and did that, but he was going to do that. Stacey King, beloved in Chicago, beloved personality as a player, more beloved as a broadcaster. Uh, Roy, we Do we have one more Bonetti sound? Uh, Bonetti did one more free catchphrase out of nowhere that we have not played a day later after our charity event for Boog Shambe. Can you play the sound of Jason Bonetti sneaking in another Greg Cody catchphrase, uh, over the weekend?

Tigers offense has started to cook here in Tampa.

They're going to leave going, what, break a window on the way out of here?

Yeah, Dan, you know, I, I Stacy King was a friend of mine. He was just a wonderful man, a very great positive energy about him. You could hear it in his broadcast, his excitement to call the games. He was awesome. He stayed after games many times to meet and greet Bulls fans, whether at home or on the road, and just chop it up. And him and Adam Amin, one of my favorite local broadcast teams. It's tough. You know, last week Rick Adelman passed away, and I've got a little speech that I always do whenever we lose someone in basketball. We talk about how basketball is a very young sport, right? It's 80 years old, and the NBA is about 80 years old. And so that means many of the great people who built this game, whether it was coaching, whether it was on the floor, whether it's broadcasting, telling the stories, they're still among us. And so that, that's cool, but that But the flip side of that is we're gonna lose a lot of these people over the years, and we're gonna see them leave us, basically. And so I was in Denver during the Finals, Nuggets, and they gave the Chuck Daley Lifetime Achievement Award to Rick Adelman.

I said, okay, let me show up. You know, again, I never worked with Rick Adelman, but we worked against him a lot, you know, and our playbook was a bunch of Rick Adelman Sacramento plays. And when he walked in, I started crying because he looked so old, and I said, wait a second, this— when did that happen? Not, not old like gray hair or old wrinkles, old like, oh, he's kind of almost frail, a frail old man. And it just, it sucks to see all of this happen, uh, but it hits doubly hard when it's someone like Stacy who's not an old man.

Stacy's You know, in his 50s, not just not an old man, but also an electrical current as a vibrant personality. Yes, like this man had an outsized sort of cartoonish love of life that you could hear in the broadcast and basically any time he was interviewed. And, you know, obviously he's very close to my age. And so whenever it is that something like that happens, it punches you in the face, and doubly so when it's a vibrant, energetic personality. I've always thought of Rick Adleman as not quite that, right? Rick Adelman in some form has been an old man almost the entire time I knew him. Even when he was a rookie coach, he felt like he was a bit of an old man.

Stacey King, I think of as a young man. Yeah, absolutely. And just to have to get that news yesterday, I was doing radio and then it was like literally 5 minutes after we got radio, I got that news and it hit me hard. It hit me hard several times yesterday. Where I just, I just think about every time I'm at a Bulls game, he'd always be there and chop it up with me and talk and stuff. And, and I'm not going to get to do that with my friend anymore.

Let's lighten it up a little bit by getting back to my beloved Knicks. Uh, Dan, the epicenter of the sports world.

No, no. All right. Timeout. Yeah. Timeout. Good call. It's been a lot. All right. Just breathe easy. All right. We'll get back to the Knicks plenty of time. Let's give the audience some variety. Let's speak to the people, the large swath of our audience that probably hates the New York Knicks and everything that's going on here. All right, by doing what?

By talking about what? Wrestling. Oh yes. Yeah. What about the people who hate wrestling?

Well, then I think they're gonna like these videos too.

Hey, wrestling, get a life. Yeah, come on.

I know, it's incredible theater. But theater, let— yeah, theater. That's what happened in La Noche de los Grandes. Uh, let's talk about Stone Cold Steve Austin, one of the all-time GOATs. Now we like his reaction videos. He's got one of those incredible recognizable voices. Dan, would you like to see a video of Stone Cold Steve Austin trying to wrangle his cat Poncho on his ranch? Of course.

You've come to Brookeskull Ranch. It's bedtime out here. Round up the cats.

There he is. Poncho, come here, Poncho. Poncho, bedtime. Come here, buddy. Poncho, come here, Poncho. That's not how— Poncho! Poncho! Poncho! That's not how cat works. That's a real fundamental misunderstanding of cat.

You had to get in on the MF-er right there with your cat expertise. Cat guy. Big cat guy.

One more time for Stone Cold Steve Austin trying to wrangle the cat. Poncho! For the audio audience, that is a cat that was sitting staring at him from a distance. And when he shouts Poncho, it's because the cat is just leaving. You little motherfucker.

I could watch that man do anything. Stone Cold Steve Austin is just one of those guys. I want him in just mundane run-of-the-mill situations, and I find it deeply entertaining. And that's not really wrestling, right? That's just a guy.

Yeah. Bad joke! No, that's wrestling.

All right, well, let me show you wrestling. Dan, do you know what happens after you get attacked in the ring by a foreign object? You get pretty mad, and then you go to the backstage and you talk about it. I want to tell you about Juice Robinson from All Elite Wrestling. Dan, he got attacked by Fit Finlay's son. With a shillelagh.

You know about that shillelagh?

The former president of the University of Miami, Donna Shillelagh? I don't know what a shillelagh is. I legitimately don't know what that is.

Most people don't. And because of wrestling, I have discovered that a shillelagh is like a wooden club with a rounded edge.

Irish— it's a big Irish weapon.

Yeah, like an Irish guy uses it in a fight.

Yeah, well, Juice Robinson was really upset about this shillelagh being used, and he decided to vow vengeance upon his assailant in a very detailed way.

David Finlay, I swear, if you ever come after me again with your daddy's little wooden sex toy, I'm gonna take it and I'm gonna whittle it down so thin that it's gonna fit right up your urethra. That's right. Then I'm gonna take Clark's Strike Anywhere match and I'm gonna light the tip and watch it burn all the way up your urinary tract. So that way, every time you take a piss from here on out, it's gonna feel like you got herpagonoccephalitis. And guess what, you son of a bitch? There's no cure to herpagonoccephalitis.

That is funny for a number of reasons, but for the audio audience, his face keeps getting closer to the camera until you see only his left eye.

I really enjoy any speech like that that includes That's right, to confirm what he just said, and, and a guess what.

Put it on the poll at Le Batard Show, do you know what a shillelagh is? Because before you just showed it to me and before you just told me, I had no earthly understanding of what a shillelagh is. I did not know it was a weapon. Zazz, was this an area of expertise for you? Did you know what a shillelagh was?

I watch wrestling.

I know what a shillelagh is. Okay, but a shillelagh is not a common wrestling tool, is it?

For an Irish fighter? You ever heard of Sheamus?

I have. I thought when I first time I saw Sheamus, I was like, that guy has to be one of the guys who loses all the time. But I was told, nope, he is not. He is a muscular redheaded guy who is the king of the gingers. I did not know that. I thought just based on the looks of him that he had to be somebody who was losing all the time. A Czech.

Yeah, I can say with confidence I've never heard a backstage promo quite like that.

There was a Marvel character named Black Tom Cassidy and he had a shillelagh.

I remember this. Thank you. Thank you.

I mean, I like the Donner shillelagh joke.

I would say it was a solid joke. Let's play the promo one more time because there's so many details in there that I would just like to catch on because he talks about David Finlay and his tag team partner Clark. So he threatens both the assailants here.

David Finley, I swear, if you ever come after me again with your daddy's little wooden sex toy, I'm gonna take it and I'm gonna whittle it down so thin that it's gonna fit right up your urethra. That's right. Then I'm gonna take Clark's Strike Anywhere Match and I'm gonna light the tip and watch it burn all the way up your urinary tract. So that way, every time you take a piss from here on out, it's gonna feel like you got herpagonocephalitis. And guess what, you son of a bitch? There's no cure to herpagonoccephalitis.

I will tell the audio audience again, when the promo begins, you can see the entirety of his face. By the end of it, you can only see his left eye, and he does the holy trinity, a real trifecta of using the phrases whittle it down, urethra, and urinary tract before he even gets to Hapawadafadafadagada.

Herphagonencephalitis?

How do you spell that? Whatever that is. I don't even know what that is, but there's no cure, just so that you know. Be clear on that.

We all learned that together.

There is no cure for that.

He actually called it a urinary track, like, like as if you run on it.

Urinary track.

You son of a bitch.

They are presently searching in the back room for the Stone Cold Steve Austin getting into a cold tub, which I believe is our most legendary Stone Cold Steve Austin sound. We don't have anything better than that in the Stone Cold Steve Austin files. So whenever it is you guys find it, just interrupt whatever I'm saying, even if we're talking about Stacey King or Rick Adelman or something that's somber, just interrupt whatever it is that you guys find it and simply play the Stone Cold Steve Austin getting into a cold tub so that we can enjoy that together again. I want to get to something from baseball. There were a couple of things from baseball I wanted to talk about. First of all, the Marlins took 2 out of 3 from my beloved Rays, and in one of them you had the dramatics at the end of the game, uh, where you have Tyler Zuber trying to get his first save for the Marlins, and he's got to do it by going through Junior Caminero with the bases loaded, up one run, and a 3-2 count. Okay, so you have a situation where you're facing one of the best hitters in baseball, maybe the best bat speed anywhere in baseball, and he knows you have to throw a strike, and he struck him out.

But one of the things that happened during the at-bat that I'm never going to get used to and bothers me— the announcers say when Junior Caminero could have challenged a pitch and turned. Goddamn, motherfucker! Oh, 15 seconds.

Watch this anti-inflammatory, uh, supposed to get you endorphins going or some shit. I am freezing my ass off. I don't do real well with the cold weather, and this is my first cold plunge. And for them people that go out there and do them polarized plunge things, crazy. Starting to get a little numb to it. I'm gonna make 3 minutes, but it's a cold son of a bitch.

Everyone says that I talk to who does cold tubs say that it is life-changing in terms of how it helps your health to start a day that way by just making all of, uh, Uh, the blood cells rush to the places that need it in your body because it thinks it's freezing. Talking to Tony a lot.

Herphagonoccephalitis. Dan Lebatard.

What is the worst part of the life— Stugatz. The worst part of the life of what? This is the Dan Lebatard Show with Stugatz. Caminero, as I was saying, it's 3-2 count and the bases are loaded and the Rays are down by a run. And the announcer says, after Caminero would have challenged a ball that was called a strike that would have put the count even more in his favor, the announcer said something. And I want to get your thoughts on this because I still think this is going to make an appearance during the NBA Finals. And I think it's going to be a talking point, as it was a little bit during Oklahoma— during the OKC-San Antonio San Antonio series, the idea that in basketball you can use your challenges correctly to correct a couple of times what the refs have gotten wrong to keep Victor Wemba-Yama out of foul trouble and not have any challenges left for the end of the game. The announcer said during the Caminero at-bat, that's what you get for using your challenges too early. And I just hate that. I hate the fact that the umpire and the whole game can be swung on the fact that we're still not getting either the technology or the system right, and you have to, you know, use your challenges correctly or you lose your challenges, because otherwise people would be doing 70 challenges in a game.

Yeah, baseball and basketball are different in that respect. Like, I agree with that in basketball, where there's really nothing— unless a guy's about to get in serious foul trouble, you should not be using your challenges in the first half of a game. But in baseball, the thing that happens in the first, second, third, fourth inning can totally win you the game. You have to use challenges early if the situation calls for it. And yeah, it sucks if then you can't use them again later.

Uh, when Amin knocks down, Mike, your idea of putting Wembenyama on Brunson more, uh, I didn't think that fatigue— although fatigue would also be one of the factors— would be what I would be worried about. I'd be worried about foul trouble for Wembenyama. Just a couple, even though he's got a foot on him, the, the quickness and the way that Brunson can use his body to get fouls, that's what I would worry about. I don't want, if I am the Spurs, any circumstance circumstance where Wembenyama is in foul trouble. You haven't seen much of that during the playoffs.

I haven't seen Brunson trying to get his body into Wembenyama either. He tends to keep his distance, and that's another way to stay out of foul trouble is because he can literally be 5 feet away and still get a hand in his face.

Well, what do you think? I mean, what do you think there? When I immediately think foul trouble, do you think that's not a concern at all? Who are the players? Karl-Anthony Towns, if you have him—

I'd be more worried about KAT getting Wemby in foul trouble than, than Brunson. And I know it seems counterintuitive to have the quick guy on the guy that is fatigued. But Wemby is showing us he's fatigued quite literally from the jump. I think this is an accumulation of the entire season. This isn't something that New York is doing. He was very clearly fatigued against OKC too. So if we're just gonna have a diminished, fatigued Wemby, I think matchup-wise, I like what I saw there. And I know Brunson's certainly capable of inefficient performances, but that is a very difficult matchup up for Jalen Brunson. Wemby can make up a lot of ground not even moving.

I heard somebody talking, and I cannot remember who it was, because they are now having to reconfigure, uh, some conversations to put Brunson at the top of the sport on best player in the league, because when you win, that's what happens for you. You start getting some credit for things like he's the best fourth-quarter player in the league, and that matters. But I can't remember who was talking about it, but one of the reasons that they were not putting Brunson in an all-elite class for his size, given that that size never advances this far as the best player in the postseason. They were deducting points because they said Brunson's not that quick. We're grading on a curve, obviously. He is quick, but for people his size, he does have a bit of Paul Pierce type of game where you're like, I don't totally understand how he's able to do that in that dump truck body because he's not actually— when I look at Castle and Harper, I'm seeing youth and speed and quickness. When I look at Maxey, I see certain quickness. That's not what I see on Brunson.

It. Yeah, this is, this is a body control guy. It's a footwork guy. He has incredible footwork. Yeah, like he'll create spacing, but it's not necessarily with speed, which is why I, I'd like to see more of Wemby on Brunson, just because the other, like, the other matchups are just killing San Antonio, and this one seems to be the one that gets the most results. We saw it in crunch time, right, where Brunson thrives. We saw Wemby, tired as all hell, affect the shot, gather the rebound, and then he made an all-time gasp.

I think part of the defense that they did in Game 2 that they did a much better job of is they pressured Brunson full court. They picked him up full court and then they did a lot of half-court traps. As soon as he crosses the mid— the timeline, they're trapping him right there. I think that wears Brunson out a lot. It expends a lot of energy and they managed to turn it over. The Knicks don't have really a lot of ball-handling guards outside of Brunson and maybe Alvarado. The other guys McBride and Hart and Bridges, they're just not that good at playing against pressure, particularly against defenses like those Spurs guards. But once they get into the half court, Mike, yeah, I think basically they want Wemby to be playing out in space. If you're, if you're the, the Knicks, you want to draw him out. And that's the other part of it. Brunson would have to draw him out. And if he's out there, that means the offensive rebounding opportunities are there, and that means the cutting is also there. There as well. So those are the reasons beyond fatigue why I don't think I would want Wemby full-time or even most of the game guarding Brunson.

The other baseball story that I wanted to get to, uh, says, uh, the outfield behavior of fans. Uh, I saw a game, uh, last week. Jazz Chisholm hit a 409-foot home run and somebody caught it. It was smoked, obviously. Somebody caught it in the stands their bare hand. Would you even go for that? Would you? You would? So if you were in right field and somebody was hitting a 409-foot screamer your way, you would try to catch that with your bare hand? I would try.

I would try to get with two hands. I wouldn't try just the one hand because the two hands, you kind of try and cup it almost, you know, so it doesn't hurt as much.

I'd try. So we had something happen in the stands this weekend because I would not try to catch that. Put it on the poll at @LevittardShow. Would you try and catch a 409-foot line line drive with your bare hand in right field, yes or no? Uh, but Chris, I don't know, you're somebody who I pretty consistently accuse of questionable parenting, and this feels like a situation that you would put your daughter in because you wanted that souvenir. And I think it's extraordinarily bad parenting judgment. But let's play the video and set up the video for people. Chris, tell them what it is that they're about to see.

It's a still shot here. It's at a Reds game. There's a home run ball that's kind of caught at the, like, behind the wall, but basically it's reachable. So a parent, a dad here, you can see him taking his what looks like 11-year-old son, 10-year-old son, and hanging him upside down, dangling him down the wall to try to grab this ball. And as you can see here, there's a security guard that is not like this. The security guard, like, hey, get your son up there. And I would do this with my daughter. I'm assuming this is not from the upper deck. If this becomes an upper deck home run, this is a different ball game.

But is that netting? Is there netting there? Is that clean? Is that just something that they're— you're going to drop your son on your head said if you, uh, don't have a good enough grip on him, just don't drop.

I think if you drop him here, he falls about 10 feet to the warning track. Don't drop him. To me, this is just safe. This is just a play on for me. Barely good enough here. If this is a little higher up, your kid's a little bit more at risk. What, Roy? He's 10. Okay, well, he's gonna sprain his wrist, worst case scenario. If his head can fall on his head, yeah, but he'd break the fall. How do you think that goes down?

Like, does the father just grab the girls? All We're— here's what's happening. And then he just like, he starts dangling him. Is there, is there a pep talk beforehand that if a ball comes near here, this is what we're gonna do?

Like at the start of the game you say to him, hey, if a ball goes right there, this is our game plan. Okay, you got to pre-plan.

Jeremy, can you look up for me whether the story I'm about to tell is true? Because I don't know if it's mythologizing. I know Vanilla Ice has, uh, denied it, but when I see that, when I see a video or a picture of somebody being held from a high place by their ankles, I think of Death Row Records. I think of Suge Knight. I think of Suge Knight getting Vanilla Ice to sign something he wanted him to sign by having a person dangle Vanilla Ice from a balcony by his ankles. I don't know what's true there. I mean, you've heard this story. Yes, I have.

Absolutely.

Uh, that is, uh, bad business, but it's also effective business. Good business.

No, he signed the paper.

I mean, it's criminal business, but it's, uh, it is effective business. I wouldn't say it's— he didn't drop him— business. He did. Well, but the threat was implied.

There's no criminality.

Did he get the name on the He did.

Yes. All right. Good business. Okay. But there are certain moralities that usually come with doing good business that you guys are neglecting there.

Vanilla Ice says on his own YouTube page that while there was an intense shakedown, he was never physically dangled over the balcony. Also, going back to the Caminero strikeout, it was actually the Cedric Mullins strikeout the next night where he struck out looking in a 10-pitch at-bat. I've been searching since you mentioned that Caminero pitch because it was an 0-2 count. Out with Tyler Zuber, and I was like, I feel like a crazy person.

Gonna revisit this motherfucker. Thanks for clearing that up. It just didn't sit right.

Yeah, I know, I know you were looking for it.

Yeah, but the reason why people believe that story is because in the Behind the Music, Vanilla Ice was the one that started this whole thing.

Uh, when you say shakedown, rarely do you get a visual image that's literally a shakedown quite like this one, where he was being shaken and the threat was implied that he would be going That's a 20 CB thing, right?

When they turn you upside down, the bully, so you can get all the money, all the change out of your pockets. Hey, give me your milk money, kid.

I mean, have you looked up or found in any way why it is that you keep saying it's not his first, uh, it's their first rodeo, it's the Spurs' first rodeo? Why is the rodeo such an amazing thing? Is it because a human being is just on a bull, or is there other stuff happening that makes the rodeo an awe-inspiring discovery?

I have to imagine that of all the sporting events that you would do for the first time, the one that might blow your mind a little bit is riding a bull as it's bucking, and you're like, what the hell is going on here? So yeah, it's your first rodeo. Like, I don't know, they got the cow out or something.

Okay, so the first rodeo analogy though is for the person riding the bull. It's not for attending as a spectator the rodeo, because that's how I've always taken it. I've never assumed that a person doing their first rodeo is sitting on the bull for the first time. I thought they were just getting cotton candy at concessions, and there were others riding around.

You had a guy with popcorn like, oh wow, this is pretty fun. My first rodeo.

Whoa. I was told that Chris Cody was shamed by the internet for the way that he eats popcorn. Now that you mention popcorn, what happened here, Chris? I'm not familiar with how you eat popcorn. Do you eat popcorn the wrong way?

Well, I just combined a couple treats here, a couple movie theater treats. I went to the movie with my family over the weekend, saw the new Nate Bargatze movie. Don't waste your time.

But— Is that how you pronounce his last name?

No. Mark Gatzey. Mark Gatzey.

Okay. Well, yeah, no, it's just, there were some funny moments, but you know. What movie is this? It's called The Breadwinner. It's like a family movie. It's, you know, it's not great. Anyway, so I'm at the movie theater. White guys love, love these movie theaters with the little tables. Oh yeah. Oh, the little recliner seat, the table.

White guys, white, white, white, white, white.

So what I did, I got some nachos as one does, and they have Dorito nachos at my movie theater.

Oh no, movie theater nachos are terrible.

Well, these are Doritos with just a side of cheese sauce. So what I decided—

Dorito nachos, just Doritos?

What I decided to do was you take a nacho, you dip it, you take a Dorito, you dip it in the cheese, and then you go and you dip it into your popcorn. Oh no. And you notice here, no mess is created because every piece of popcorn that gets touched by the cheese lifts with the popcorn. Corn. So it was just a delightful, a delightful treat. A little salty, a little savory, just delightful. And the internet did not like it. They were shaming me.

Put it on the poll, please, @LebatardShow. Aren't Dorito nachos just Doritos? And also put on the poll, are movie theater nachos always the worst? Irrevocable. The