Transcript of Spurs Got ROBBED?! Hartenstein Pulls Castle to the Floor & Refs Miss EVERYTHING | Alley Oop 185 New

The sun is shining. We're doing our thing. Wembley's getting bodied by Hartenstein and they're not calling shit.

My sister is kicking ass in this world right now, bruh. I suggest you follow my sister online at Trista_Crick for every situation. I'm talking about soccer balls. I'm talking about basketballs. I'm talking about bald head brothers. She gonna keep you up to date with the news, man. I'm so proud of you, sis. You've been kicking ass, bro.

I'm proud of you, Juju. You're my guy. You're my brother. You're my partner in crime for life.

You don't have to say you're proud of somebody just because they say they're proud of you. I'm still getting it together, but that's how good of a friend she is.

No, no, we're all getting it together, Juju. You know who's got to get it together is Steph Castle, bro. Stop turning the goddamn ball over.

I mean, that's kind of— yes, that's understood for sure. Stop turning the ball over. But he's filling in as a point guard because Dee Fox is down. And with Dylan Harper going down as well, now it's like, yes, 2 games, 20 turnovers, but we need you because Jordan McLaughlin is getting minutes in God's green 2026 in the playoffs. So they struggling at that guard position. But I think he doing the best you can. What say ye?

Yeah, I mean, Steph Castle should not be the one facilitating anyway, right? Like, you're putting somebody whose natural position is a 2. He's a slasher. He's explosive. He's dynamic. He's a two-way player. His jump shot, I feel like, hasn't been, like, so great in these first 2 games because he's been having to play on the ball and generating his own shot off the dribble, which he's not necessarily the best at. So, like, You're right. But you're talking about 20 turnovers in 2 games. That's the most in history for the first 2 games of Western Conference Finals. You're talking about like 10 turnovers on average.

Yeah.

And you're talking about 20-something points off of turnovers for the Thunder and the Lightning. Lightning and the Thunder. So like, that was just one out of many reasons that the Thunder ended up getting Game 2. But they need De'Aaron Fox back ASAP, Rocky. And on top of that, now we got Dylan Harper leaving the game and not coming back. So we really need Dee Fox because I thought to myself, they don't need Fox. Like, when they first got Harper and Castle together, I was like, okay, well, uh, Fox makes so much money and, you know, he is sort of a combo guard and like, yeah, and combination and not necessarily one of those guys who's a leader and not one of those guys that wants the final shot. But truly, you're seeing right now that D-Fox is super important to what they're doing because those two guys in Harper and, and Castle aren't true point guards, right? Don't have that experience in clutch moments with pressure on ball, pressure and errant unnecessary turnovers as well, just based on internal pressure. So like, I actually think it was a good case study that De'Aaron Fox kind of needs to be on this roster until those two grow up.

What do you think?

Yeah, I think it's a good case study for the, uh, the front office of the San Antonio Spurs, you feel me? Because yes, you constructed this thing pretty awesomely. Oops, I forgot we need a backup point guard, like a real deal true backup point guard that's not named Jordan McLaughlin. Salute, bruh. Salute to Jordan. But at the same time, when you put him on Shea barbecue chicken. Uh, what kind of chicken is it? Barbecue? Korean barbecue? Uh, KFC Mesquite barbecue? Mesquite?

Yeah, I love them.

Mesquite chips. Uh-huh. Like, it's all the— pick a barbecue. Deep fried barbecue. Exactly. One of those—

one of those turkeys that they deep fry in the buckets.

Exactly. I think Austin, Texas, they do good barbecue over there. He put him in that. Like, pick a barbecue. That's what Jordan McLaughlin is on defense when it comes to Shea. So I feel like Dylan Harper was just enough to keep you like, okay, we can— you guys take turns turning this monster truck over. If you and Steph— and without, uh, without Dylan, it's gonna get very, very scary. I think he can come back, but that hamstring ain't nothing to play with.

Like, well, and like, listen, they lost J Dub also for the Thunder. I don't think he comes back. And honestly, I, I was thinking to myself as he left the game, like, they played better without him, right? AJ Mitchell doesn't make a lot of money. He's very dynamic. He's very shifty. He can get downhill. He can get his own shot off the pull-up, off the dribble. He's got defense in spades. Yeah, he's not as, as thick or as strong necessarily as Jaylen Williams, but like, you don't really need that from him. And to, to like, as I'm thinking about, and I'm always thinking about roster construction along the way, how things are going to tweak down the road, right? And I think maybe, maybe Jalen Williams gets turned into Giannis. Maybe you flip him or flip him plus Isaiah Hartenstein into Giannis, and now you got, uh, Chet and Giannis. Maybe you got AJ Mitchell, uh, in the backcourt now with Shay, and things are all kinds of like tweaked. And then I'm looking at San Antonio, and maybe you flip somebody— Keldon Johnson, Devin Vassell combo— for Jrue Holiday. And maybe you got Jrue Holiday as a backup guard and he gets San Antonio another ring.

And now he becomes that, that steady force who doesn't turn the ball over, who's very calm, collected, but also has straps on defense because San Antonio needs to be able to defend all across the board.

Yeah, I got 4 syllables for you too. That's gonna— it's gonna go somewhere. Is maybe Minnesota, maybe San Antonio, maybe stay put. Kyrie Irving, bro, put him in Minnesota, chip worthy. Put him in San Antonio, chip worthy. I think my boy is gonna go somewhere soon. But how do you like this? Put Jaylen Williams in a package, put Hartenstein in that same package. Who got picks number 1 through 5? Anybody with picks number 1 through 5 want Jalen Williams or Hartenstein? Because if we can somehow sniff the bandster, if we can somehow get, uh, Mara from, uh, Michigan, if we could somehow get an Aikuf, bruh, these Thunder are positioned to play the evilest, dirtiest game in the history of free agency.

1,000%, 1,000, 1,000% agree. And the question is, is like, who do they want to get out of that, out of that top 5? There's a lot that's gonna happen in the offseason, and we're just seeing those strings get pulled right now where you're seeing, okay, like, the team is evaluating and seeing exactly what we're seeing.

Yeah, yeah.

Jalen Williams kind of messed up the recipe when he came back. He's taking a bunch of errant shots in game 1, and it's like, oh, we were, we were kind of cooking with gas with AJ. AJ really declined when Jalen came back. AJ makes no money. You make $50 million. We could kind of get rid of you and still be under the tax. And I think Sam Presti is going to take a look at all that. We love you, we support you, we appreciate you, Jalen. You got us and helped us get a ring. We got to continue to build for the future and not have one really expensive ingredient who's constantly sitting in the cooler, uh, because his hamstring's broken.

You know who I would pay right now, low-key? I know this is unethical. I know this is not how the life works. Especially with knees and backs, how they go. Alex Caruso, brother, I don't know how much you're getting paid, but they should get more. Throw something on that because, my boy, what you think of my boy's performance so far?

I said this, uh, I think maybe it was either here or on It Is What It Is, maybe it was NBC, but like, Alex Caruso is one of those guys that for 90 games a year. Yeah, he's completely unneeded, completely not thought of. Nope, not ineffective in any way, but they pretty much put him on ice. They put him in his cryogenic chamber, make sure he's getting his red light therapy, make sure that he's eating his vegetables, into the weight room, stretching, rolling out. Because when game 91 comes Alex Caruso comes out of that coffin like a vampire and everybody's getting bled out. He is always turning you over, blocking shots. Doesn't matter who he's on, doesn't matter if you're 7 feet tall or 6 feet 1. He's quick enough, he's strong enough, he's explosive enough, he's good at his role, he can shoot the 3, he can get into transition, he makes the right play, he can go up and under, he can even dunk. Like, I think Alex Caruso really was that final piece.

For sure. And as a brother in the headband community, we always stand with our brother Alex because headbands are necessary for some of us. We have long, elongated slopes of foreheads and we got to cover those puppies up. And he's one of the best of us. So salute to Alex Caruso. You got—

you feel like your forehead's too big?

Ah, man, we— that's a— that's a long book. I don't want to go in that book. I got so many insecurities, I could talk to y'all all day. I might need a But I'm gonna stick with the Thunder for a second. Hardenstein, one of them pieces that could be moving. He ain't going nowhere right now, and he is moving. I'm talking about wimby all across the paint.

Why didn't the refs call any of that, bruh?

I'm talking about my boy had 13 fouls last night in the first quarter. In the first quarter, they barely called any foul, bruh.

And I'm like, bruh, This guy was like, listen, if I'm gonna foul out, I'm gonna foul out. That's fine. I'll do it. I'm gonna use all 6 fouls. I used them all in the first quarter. And it was like when a kid is finally like getting a little bit of freedom and he's like, well, they said not to go to the park past the train tracks. I'll just see what happens. And nothing happens. It's like, well, maybe I'll go down to the store. Maybe I'll go to the mall. Uh, maybe I'll go to the next state over. That's basically what Hardenstein was doing. He's like, they're not calling shit, so I'm gonna continue to hack and hack and hack some more.

Exactly. You bet, Dylan. We may as well let these roll, bro, because I'm gonna get into it right now. We got about 5 videos right there that are just crazy.

That's another foul.

Exactly. What is this, man? Like, referees, I understand that this is the playoffs and we gonna— we're gonna do a little bit more aggressive.

Foul again.

This is ridiculous.

Foul again. Foul again, man. Foul some more. That's 6 fouls right there. Foul another one.

And it's the first quarter, you dig? And then later on in the game, uh, Stephon Castle, he was going to the hole or trying to go for a loose ball.

Get him in his face.

That for sure. But he grabbed his dreads. Oh yeah, that's, that's something. It's just close to my heart, near and dear to my heart. You grabbing See, I see what I'm saying. Like, okay, see, you see what I'm saying? This is a whole different ball game, bruh. You sitting right there with the— got with the damn whistle in your mouth. Look at him. Look at the referee.

Oh no.

Oh, the hell is you looking at, bruh? This is fighting like if this is in the streets. Salute to Hardenstein. I know that's a big brother, but we jumping you, big bro. You ain't be finna be snatching dreads, bro. What are you doing?

I'm gonna tell you this right now. If Hardenstein wasn't mixed, he would have been mixed up.

Exactly, and he German. We got some more. Isaiah Joe, brother. The, bruh, the, uh, the Spurs was in rhythm, working it, about to hit a tray ball. They took this tray ball off the board because a phantom flop from Isaiah Joe. Get the hell up out of here, ref.

He didn't even touch him, bruh.

They stopped the play and said, oh, offensive foul on Harrison Barnes. I don't understand this. And guess what else? It ain't over. The referee on Stephon Castle called a backcourt on Stephon Castle. He was dribbling the ball. After further review, he wasn't damn backcourt either, bruh. What is happening with these refs? Do they need— what, what can we say or do to these refs to get them to get a little better, bro?

Publish their addresses.

Hello, something, bruh. Go back to regular, regular season type of fouls. This was called a backcourt. I mean, it's pretty close now, but look how close the referee is. Come on, man.

He was literally— his eye was on the line. Sir, that did not touch. That did not touch. That did not touch, bruh.

Come on, man. Like, you can't be doing all of that. And on top of that, If the Thunder players fall down and the referee is one of the first people to help them up, I got an issue, man. It just, it just don't look great for the league. I'm thinking we go back to how we called it during the regular season. I would rather that because it seems as though you're showing a tad touch of favoritism on that side of the ball. You did. Because what can you say to that, to those Wimby files, how Hardenstein was getting away with pulling hair? Let me add to the, to the listening audience, None of those was called fouls. You did like, none of them Hardenstein fouls was called at all.

And then, okay, so say, say Hardenstein gets into foul trouble, that changes the entire complexion of the game. How, how players defend Wemby because they don't want to get called for those. Like, you have no one outside of Chet that can play center now. Jalen Williams is injured, so he can't play 5. So now you got like J. Will who has to give you minutes. And, and now you've got real problems. So I mean, it has a trickle-down effect, a crickle-down effect.

Mm-hmm. Slippery slope effect. But all that fouling couldn't stop my boy from getting his ass yammed on last night. Hey, you talking about what? Stephon Castle dunked on Hardenstein so hard. I think this might be the dunk of the— not the year. I don't know another dunk that was better than this in the playoffs. Like before type shit. Like, he punched it so hard on his ass. Yeah, and look, Hardenstein finally fouling his ass right there too, grabbing the jersey, bro. No foul call. Dumb on that dumbass. Wow, what a game, man. What a series, man.

But it's gotta go 7. It's gotta—

I hope it— I hope it goes 7. I hope the Spurs can stay healthy some kind of way. It's looking bad right now, especially how Wemby be going down, falling, getting up, grabbing his wrist, grabbing his arm, grabbing his fingers. I'm always holding my breath.

Not good, Juju. I think if I was Mitch Johnson and the crew, I would say, all right, let's, let's get Dylan and De'Aaron as healthy as we can be for Game 4, because what we can't have is you coming back for Game 3 then you leave the game again, and then you can't play game 4, and now we're cooked. Now we're— now we're down. We're going back to OKC for game 5 and we're down 3-1. That's what we can't have.

Cannot happen. Going across the— across to the east side, the Cavs had one of the most deflating losses in playoff history, bro. Ever since my Celtics last year, the Celtics have given up 2 back-to-back 20-point leads in the second half. I present to you a 24-point lead with 7 minutes left. Gone. Knicks win. What do you feel about this series?

I mean, if I was, if I was, uh, the owner of the Cavs, David Griffin, yeah, I would be ripping up whatever contract we had already agreed with James Harden. Whatever, whatever, like, insanity that James Harden leverages to get these contracts done before he actually produces in important moments is insane to me. I would be ripping that up. I will be having a conversation with Kenny Atkinson and saying, what you just did, you're right on the hot seat. You really are fucking on the list because you had 4 timeouts. You have 2 of them that are expiring in no matter what minute. No matter what, those are gone. Why don't you try? If a 10-year-old knows that a timeout stops momentum, calms the crowd down, maybe we play a little trivia game on the Jumbotron. May— shit, call 2 of them in a row. How about that? Has anybody called timeout timeout? Have we seen a double timeout? We need to cool it. Okay. James, you're in pick and roll all the time. They know and are attacking you. So don't just allow— don't just like slide over to guard Jalen Brunson. No, make the person that was originally called guarding Jalen or whoever—

Dean Wade.

Dean Wade. Fam, no switch. Stay on your man. As soon as the pick comes, we trap. Someone needs to rotate to the screener. We need to rotate. We cannot allow James Harden to be put into this vulnerable situation, okay?

Exactly.

Because we know he can't defend. We know he's old.

That's the part. That's the part.

And it's Harden. We know what Harden does. So I blame Harden, of course, but I also blame Kenny. I also blame Dean. And I definitely, definitely blame Donovan Mitchell, because this is the kind of shit we are on your ass about, Mr. Jones. Me and Mr. Mr. Jones, he won't go into the paint. Why do you not attack the downhill when the lights get bright? Your eyes get blinded, you start making bad crazy decisions. It was disgusting, Juju, disgusting.

Very disgusting. And like you say, Kenny Atkinson, my boy, I don't give a damn. Now, you can't have it both ways. You can't keep James in the game and then not scheme for James to look the best he can. Because I, I suggest, hey brother, uh, you said a 10-year-old will understand how, what timeouts work. A 10-year-old will also understand, hmm, number 1 is getting cooked by number 11 over and over. Hey, number 1, come sit over here right quick and talk to you. Hey, number, uh, Max Kruse, whatever number you are, go handle that right quick while I holler at one of our superstars for at least a second. We ain't call a timeout. We didn't make a substitution. Dennis Schroeder didn't see the court. Max Kruse didn't see the court. Max, give you energy. Dennis gonna give you energy. At least enough energy for you to say, hey, James, you see what I just did to you? You can sit over here for the rest of the game with me if you want to, or you can go back in and give me some of that. Because this is stupid right now. And if you're not willing to do that as a head coach in our year of the Lord, uh, 2026, bruh, get out.

You're not a coach. What's the use of a damn coach if you're not gonna use your coaching skills, bruh? You ass right now. Come sit down. You can't— I can't say that? His, his, uh, ego too, too, uh, fragile for that? If that's the case, you don't need to play basketball no more. You're 37 years old and you're getting KO. I said KO. C-O-O-K-E-D. Like, come on, man, we don't got time.

And K.O.'d.

Exactly.

Max Struess did a phenomenal job on Cade Cunningham. Come on, man, was locking his ass up. Dean Wade does a phenomenal job. Yeah, you're up 22, you don't need to score anymore. No, you need to stop them from scoring. I don't score— Sarah, care if you score another Goddamn point. You could do a 24-second violation for all I care for the rest of the game. Just play keep away and then guard your ass off because they're not coming back. Don't play with your food, Kenny.

James shot a 3 airball, bro. I'm like, bro, what is happening in the end of this game? I mean, I know we— I'm not gonna say that because we love our partners, but this is This is Terry Rozier levels of stuff going on, man, because I don't understand what I'm seeing. Like, I'm watching the game, like, what is happening?

Yes.

Like, on top of that, bro, when Jalen Brunson hit one of them momentum three-pointers, he walked right over to Kenny Atkinson calling a timeout and screamed right in my boy face, Kenny, either get a technical foul, call the time— don't call the timeout now. And now you're getting screamed at. And I look at him, want to fight, kind of. Nah, Kenny, don't want to fight me. Fight James Harden. Don't run up on me, Kenny, because I promise to God, the only person in Madison Square Garden that you should never even think about touching is number 11. What you think about Kenny in this moment right here, bro?

I mean, he got sunned. I've not seen that level of disrespect directly on the court before that way, you know what I'm saying, bro? Like, Jalen, Jalen really is the best Knick in the last 30 years, for sure, maybe longer. Jalen really is one of the best stories in basketball history. You're talking about Villanova, you're talking about titles, you're talking about undersold, undervalued, underdrafted, undersized, not thought valued or not thought of highly enough to be valued, let walk from the Dallas Mavericks, played as a co-star with Luka, really was the get-back guy for Luka, kept the team energy and chemistry high. Nobody cared. Took a deal that was way less, probably, even with the Knicks, than he was really valued as, right?

And then Pablo Torre found out.

Yep, took a pay cut. One of the most clutch players in the league. Let— had the whole crew come on. Yo, it's not just me, uh, I'm gonna need my guy Josh Hart, trade with Portland. I'm gonna need, uh, my guy Dante DiVincenzo, come over here from wherever the hell you were at. I'm gonna need Mikael Bridges. You come over. Like, I don't care how many picks it takes. I'm gonna take less money. Just pay him. The Villanova boys all together doing the damn thing, about to go to the finals. Holy shit. Like, Brunson is one of them ones.

Yeah, he is, man. You got to put respect on it. Like the saying goes, everybody is always better than Jalen Brunson until it's time to be better than Jalen Brunson.

That's right.

You feel me? All that Donovan Mitchell shit. Yeah, it looked cool. It sound good. Okay, it sound good. But, um, I'm seeing what I'm seeing.

So has there been anybody that you've seen since Jalen went to the Knicks that have outplayed Jalen over the course of a series?

Nah, not that he was in. They might have done it against the Celtics or somebody else, but I ain't seen it not against them. Because even in the series that he may have lost or got— didn't have the best series, didn't nobody have a better series than my boy. He gonna have at least equal or better than your superstar. Never like this, because on top of that, his stature is so small. And the Hawks thought they found the recipe, put him in, put him on. So yeah, I, I don't think nobody done got the best of my boy.

You're right. That's why I think he's like literally, you know, OKC versus the Knicks. Yeah, will be phenomenal to watch because people think there's like this massive difference between how Shai scores and how Jalen scores. They're very similar. Yeah, Jalen just doesn't guard the way that Shai guards, but offensively, very, very similar players. Only Jalen Brunson is like 5, 6 inches shorter.

Yeah, man, bruh, what a playoffs! What a playoffs we having right now, bruh. Like, I think this— every game in these series right here, I think it's gonna be magnifique. Even the Cavs, bro, because I don't think they're just, just ass. I just think that they need to get it together, man.

But you need to get it together.

Mm-hmm. That's gonna do it though for another episode of the Alley Oop, man. Any last words on the way out of here, sis?

We gotta bench James Harden. Bench him right now. Get his crusty-ass beard off my TV screen and put him on the 8th slot on the bench.

You feel me? Salute to Keon, man. Give my boy Keon some minutes.

Where is Keon?

Come on, bro. Thank you as always to Miss Rebecca as well as our brother the Distinguished Dylan. And without the listeners, everybody locked in right now, who the hell are we, man? Catch us again this Tuesday on the DLS Hoops channel, man, on YouTube, as well as We're going live, baby. We went live last night and we're going live again. Let me— stay tuned, we're gonna let you know these dates. So we need you to lock in for sure.

Lock in, lock in. www.allyoopshow.com.