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On Hulu, check out Good American Family and Paradise. Call it in now. Disney Plus and Hulu together for just $2.99 a month. All of these and more streaming soon. New and returning subscribers, $18 plus only. After four months, Plant Auto renews at $10.99 a month until canceled. Offer ends $3.30, $25, terms apply. Welcome to the mismatch I'm Chris Vernon, and join me as he does every week from the rigor.com. It's Dave Jacoby. Jacoby! You know what, Bruno? I'm very excited about this show for a couple reasons, but the number one reason is spoiler alert. Some I love this week is the Memphis Grizzlies, and we'll be getting to them later, but there's a lot to discuss, and it's much more important before that. Oh, I've seen them enough. I saw them. Look, there's been four straight home games this week. There's been two Phoenix and then Utah. Tonight, I'm going to see Cleveland, and then on Saturday night, I'm going to see Miami. It's a lot of games in a short amount of time that I'm going to see, but we'll get to them in a little bit. Let's start with last night. We've got the Bucks beating the Lakers. The Lakers are going to have to go through this span without LeBron James and try to get Wednesday. It moved all the way up in the Western Conference standings, and so now I think you look at it and you go, "Man, how many of these are they going to be able to get?" What can their record be by the time they're able to get LeBron James back in the fold as well as some other guys back into the fold because it sounds like Luca may not even play this weekend, and so it puts a little more on us on him, obviously, in the absence of LeBron James, but we're not able to beat the Bucks last night. Did it change your opinion at all about either of those teams? Some of these games can be significant. We're going to get to one in a moment. Some of these games we can just render insignificant because they don't have their full lot of guys or maybe the timing of the game, whatever. Did you take anything away from Bucks Lakers? I did. We'll start with the Lakers because they're the Lakers, and sorry, Charles Barkley, that's what we talk about first in sports media, but what I took away from that was perhaps I'm going to go glass half full here for a second. Perhaps this LeBron injury is a bit of a blessing in disguise for a couple reasons. Number one, I saw like a conspiracy theory post online that you might have seen about how he always gets like injured around this time of year to rest up for the playoffs. I think that he is legitimately injured, but I did enjoy that post, but I'll say that this is an opportunity for Luca to sort of be the heliocentric is me and a bunch of like helpers around me on the court at all times. So he doesn't have to defer to LeBron James, one of the goats, he doesn't have to sort of like try to fit in or fit out, as LeBron said, but when he first took the floor as a Laker. I think that him sort of getting some reps as a more traditional Luca role sort of surrounded by shooters and hopefully Jackson Hayes is a role guy will be helpful for them. But last night, one of my biggest takeaways is they don't have enough size to mess with the Bucks. Like the Bucks are big. And the Bucks just sort of like little brother them in a similar way that we saw the Bucks due to the thunder earlier this year in the Emirates playing cup. What do you air Emirates? Whatever calling NBA Cup. All right. What do you take away? I love you. That's goofy. You're in hell. What is they need the maximum amount of games, minutes and reps with Luca and LeBron on the same floor. They need to ease be able to ease Luca back into becoming Luca. And this whole, it's good for him to be heliocentric. He's that's not what they're going to be. Right? You're not getting reps being the old maths. You're getting reps being a guy that's not going to be playing like that once LeBron James comes back into the lineup. So I always get the glass half full thing. I don't buy it on this. The last thing you want when you acquire somebody at the trade deadline is to have less reps, the rest of the way as you are heading into the playoffs. And truth be told, they're not going to have that many minutes together before they've got to play in the most high leverage basketball of the year. And so you want to be, you want to face a lot of different defenses. You want to face a lot of different situations. You want to face a lot of game ending situations as a unit. And those are all stripped away from you in the absence of LeBron. You know, hopefully it can help get Luca going, but I mean, Luca's already talking about, you know, having to take a little rest here because it's a lot on him. So I don't know, I don't know if Luca, I don't think people watch him right now and go, this is the Luca that is a carry the team every single night. Like he's not in that kind of, right? And it stands to reason as he's missed the majority of the season that you could just plug him back in and it's like, all right, go ahead, carry the team, be the guy. Make everybody better. Right? Like, I don't think that anybody is watching him going. This is the Dallas Luca that we saw down the stretch last year and obviously he had a little more help, right? He's still going alongside Lively and Tyree and the rest when they were making their awesome run in Dallas last year and they were the best team after the trade deadline. I just think that much like they got all those reps with Dallas and ended up having the best record post trade deadline after they made their moves that one of the things that comes along with making a big move at the trade deadline is wanting to get like, you've got a finite amount of time after that in order to get it all together before you're about to play a lot of these teams that have had a lot of reps, a lot of minutes. You know, you look up and down the Western Conference, there's a, there's not thrown together teams. In fact, the thrown together teams are generally failing, right? They basically gotten, you know, Oklahoma City's been in a lot of different situations together and been, you know, pretty uninjured as a major group for the last couple of years, Denver same way, Memphis same way. I mean, you can go down the list and there's a bunch of those teams that have gotten that and that will be what the Lakers don't have as they're having to head into the most high leverage situations. I think it's fair, listen, I'm not going to say LeBron James getting hurt is a good thing for the Los Angeles Lakers. LeBron James not playing. It's never a good thing. I said it was silver lining on a dark cloud, but we don't have to mince words about that, but I will say that there are people in Oklahoma City that will say they have been injured. Chad Holmgren has been out last year and he's been out for a lot this year and the same thing. I don't know why you put Memphis in the uninjured category. It seems like every time they lose, all you do is tell me about the four guys they were missing every single time they lose the game. I didn't say uninjured, I said they've gotten groups with tons of minutes and tons of reps together. That's what I said. And that is true. What are you talking about? I love this week. I'll change them from the team I love this week. Hold on. Jerry Jackson Jr. Desmond Bana, John Moran have been in playing games. They have been in playoff series. They have been in four different playoff series together. They're like, what are you talking about? They've gotten tons of... They've been together as a group for years. We're talking about being together a group for weeks in the sense of LeBron and Luca. That's totally fair. I'm just so tired of hearing you. Every time that the Grizzlies lose, he was telling me who was missing all the time. You know, I hear that all the time. What? Let's not let's talk about Christmas. Wait, I've been able to talk about it a long time. It's been bothering you. Christmas is coming later. It's Christmas coming later. And last night, one thing I did was former Nick Jericho Sims. Obviously, not a big headline, deadline move that the Bucks made, but he was impactful and he just asked their size. There's going to be minutes when Lopez and John's around the bench. I think he can help a lot. It also put a highlight that the Lakers can't believe I'm saying is the Lakers need Jackson Hayes. They need Jackson Hayes. They've got, you know, it's like him and four Loco are sort of like their only bigs right now. And that was my biggest takeaway from that one. But I think the Bucks, the Bucks are like a sneaky sort of slept on tough out for anybody that faces them in the first round of the playoffs in the East. I think it is fair to say. And I think this is because, you know, we saw the way they performed in the Emirates Cup and we know that they have got these two veteran guys that have been through a lot. I think you will agree with me. It is totally possible that the Bucks are a better version of themselves in the playoffs than they are for the regular season. There's some of these teams that are going to be amazing regular season teams that are going to be not that same version when they get into the playoffs. And the most interesting thing that we could possibly have play out is that scenario. You know, out of that team, because they're not going to give it everything they've got every single night, right? They are veteran teams are in many cases, much less concerned about the seed they get. And so, and not trying to win every game. The younger teams are always trying to win every single game and get high seeds. The older teams, like they pace themselves more so during the regular season. And what's going to be fascinating is, you know, you might have a 65 plus win team in Cleveland playing against Milwaukee in the second round of the playoffs with the way it could play out. And we could realize like, hey, the Bucks were better than what they showed during the regular season. I think, I think you and I are probably both on the same page in that that we wouldn't be surprised if the Bucks look better in the playoffs and those kinds of scenarios than they have over the course of an 82 game regular season, simply because of kind of, I mean, they are totally veteran lady. They don't play anybody. Absolutely. And there's also something that I look at when it comes to the difference between regular season basketball and playoff basketball. And that's sort of like, how much does your team rely on transition baskets to be successful? And that's one of the reasons that I like the Bucks and the Timberwolves and the Celtics as they make that transition into that slower dribble it up, more deliberate offense and defense. And that's one of the reasons that I'm a little concerned about your Grizzlies that we'll talk about later, the Pistons and even the Nuggets and Thunder, because they're all sort of relying on a lot of transition action, which we know really turns into like a minimum opportunity in playoff basketball. And you know, I think that that's also a good, no, you're right. Seems like younger teams want to fly up and down the court, get buckets. They don't want to play a lot of dead ball basketball. And you get a lot of dead ball basketball when it comes to the playoffs. And they're uncomfortable in the mud, as they say, right? Like you drag them down into the mud and now we're now we're in a gutter war. We're in a dead ball basketball fast. You run a play. And that's just not typically the kind of basketball that any of the young teams want to play. Yes. And I think that it's some of the playoff teams, the sort of the content teams that are up in the top of transition points per game, the Grizzlies are actually number one, they can 33.3 points a game. Like that's one, you know, they'll say the score 120. That's like, you know, that's a large percentage of their baskets that they're getting in transition. As you mentioned, young team that wants to run, but then, you know, the Pistons are in there. I don't think they're going to make a real championship run. But the Nuggets in the Thunder are at number five and number six, but I also feel like the Nuggets in the Thunder are so well coached and so good that they can also play in other ways and be effective. And I also think that's a good transition to the biggest game of the week that we haven't discussed since the last pod, which was the quote unquote finals preview between the Thunder and the Celtics. Obviously, you know, we know how that one played out, but what do you think about this game? What were some of your biggest takeaways? 63 threes. Is outrageous? It's a lot. I mean, it's one of those where it's like it makes you think, you know, you had a miserable Jalen Brown game with like if I'm if I'm on the Celtics side, I would sit there and say, look, we took a crazy amount of threes, like record amount of threes. And the team takes a ton of threes and you go, like, this is basically what happened last year. The math is going to work our way, right? Like, okay, in a one game deal, we're not going to be like, we may have one of these nights, right? It's not like they got run out of the building either. Like, we might have one of these nights where one of our star players is putrid and we don't hit this high mark of threes, but they're playing the they're playing the long game in terms of a series and they're going, we think four out of seven times, we're going to make enough of those. Yeah. And when we make enough of those, the math is in our way is in our favor, right? And we don't have to do it. We don't have to do it, you know, four times straight. We don't have to do it one time. We got to do it four out of seven times. And over and over the course of time, it will turn our way because if we were to hit four more threes, I'm talking from their perspective, then we win that game. And so the nights that it looks amazing, obviously it looks amazing. And then some nights you can't find it, but mega impressive by the Thunder, for sure. I mean, like they just, they keep raising the bar every time you think that they may run into something that's a little too big a test for them. It feels like they passed the test. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a little bit of a zag here. Kind of an encouraging loss for the Celtics and just let me walk down this road. Sixty three threes, right? As you mentioned, broke a record. They didn't hit that many of them. Terrible game from Brown, Prichard wasn't hitting. You know, white wasn't hitting, holiday wasn't hitting. And they got Lou Dort over here looking like Reggie Miller, Casey Wallace looking like an all star. Like the Thunder played up here. The Celtics did not play that well, but if you look at the game, the Celtics are in the game with like four minutes left. They're standing toe to toe with the team who has their role players firing at all sit under cylinders, hitting shots, playing well. The Celtics do not. They're just basically, Tatum had a great game. I thought he played really, really well. As you mentioned, Brown played terribly. They weren't hitting their threes. They're shooting a ton of them. And they're in the game at the end against the number one team in the Western Conference. Like I would say, if I'm the Celtics, I'm like, look, we didn't play well. They did play well. And we're right in the game with them. If we do see them in a seven game series, I'm very confident in, in my team if I'm the Celtics fan. It would have been super fun if we could have gotten the same kind of Denver situation that we had just had with the Thunder where we got to see those teams play again, like right around the corner, just to see kind of what those adjustments would be, what game two would look like between those two. But like, I mean, in the end, I mean, that's two outstanding teams that we, I think we would be shocked if either of those is not playing in the Western or Eastern Conference finals. And at that point, you're talking about high level teams playing against each other. And like I said, with the Celtics, like they're going to play the math in this. That is a bit. I mean, come on. Even with the math, that is an extreme number. Right. 63 is great. Come on. It's what they do though. Like, you know, I got it. It's their strategy. They do, but they don't do 63. Like it is. I mean, the edict is, I think if you're a Boston Celtics player and you have a semi open three, you, you get the coaching staff is upset with you if you don't take it. So you're encouraged to take it, whether they're good shots or bad shots or whatever. And they just let them fly. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don't. But I don't, I don't, I just, I don't like it when, when the people dumb the Celtics down to, well, did they hit the threes? They don't hit the threes. That's what happens if you win or loss. I don't think it's that simple. They did not hit their threes and they were in that game at the end of the game. This episode is brought to you by Hookah. I've got to talk to you guys about the Bondi 9, the new daily trainer from Hookah. The Bondi 9 delivers peak plushness for everyday miles overhauled from top to bottom. They've increased the stack height and added a new premium foam midsole to do over that soft, resilient ride that's become synonymous with the Bondi. And look, I walk a lot. I walk all around LA. You need good shoes for that. These are perfect. Everybody bond. I visit hookah.com H O K A dot com to learn more about the Bondi nine. Speaking of threes, Steph Curry hit his 4000th last night, which when you see it come across the timeline, you think it's like, there's no way that's a real number, right? Like four thousand three pointers. And sure enough, the number is real. I don't know if you saw when they posted the graphic of the other, uh, other ones, like there was 874. So yeah, I thought the stand van did the math really fast. I was impressed. Second place is James Harden with 3,127. Yeah. So 8,800 and seven, I guess he hit one after the graphic went up 873, then he is followed by Ray Allen with 29 73, uh, Damian Lillard with a tick under 2,800 and then Clay Thompson, who has got 2667s, but 4,000 three pointers for Steph Curry in his NBA career as of last night. And the crazy thing is to go like, what is that number at the end? Seriously. What is the number at the end? Oh, and also one thing I was thinking, I was like, I was watching this. This is incredible. But sort of like unlike LeBron's point total, I feel like this is going down in the next 15 years, for sure. Because anyone that has kids or has watched kids play basketball, it's like that number is coming down. Everyone's shooting threes. Give it 8 year old, eight year old a basketball and he's going to shoot a three and the ball is going to bounce like right around the restricted line. I'm telling you, this number is going down in the next 10 years. I think that we disagree. I think this is like Cy Young's win record. No chance. I don't remember. Remember a couple of weeks ago when he hit 11 threes and we were like, he's hit 11 threes 40 something times. The next best is Damian Lillard like seven. It's like, bro, nobody does this, nobody does this. You'll see you have kids. I have kids. You've watched kids play basketball. They're just three threes and they suck at it. It's so, yes, they do go watch a, go watch a middle school game, a high school game, a college game, there ain't Steph Curry's out around there. There's a bunch of kids that think they are Steph Curry, but they're not good at it. Go look throughout the, go watch the NBA. Hell, I turn on games every night. I'm like, why is this team taking so many threes? Guys can't make them. Well, you know, when I was impressed with last night, forget Steph Curry, Draymond Green. Draymond Green started the game hitting two threes. It was like six to nothing. I was, yeah, a great game dog. He's actually, he's actually made a good percentage of threes this year has Draymond Green, um, shockingly, I mean, and sometimes guys get older and obviously he's never going to take some kind of high amount. But look, 34% is. And they're naked. Get away with it. He gets open threes because the defense gives them to him and he knocks them down. And one thing that I thought is, I remember it was like the second episode we did together and you were like, are you a commingga guy? And I'm not a commingga guy, but I was just like a little shy to say it early. But I have to say, having missed commingga for so long, watching him last night, I was like, this, you know what he does, he will have an impact on this team. Like he will certainly be a net positive when he returns and gets healthy. He had 18 points. He was seven for 10 from the floor. He was playing defense. And when you start to look at this team, they're obviously missing sort of like a big. I'm sorry, Mr. Post and Mr. Looney, like, you know, you're not exactly dominant forces down low, except for that, that one stretch of three games that Looney had in the playoffs a couple of years ago, but with commingga butler, Draymond, you've got three good defenders right there that can switch that can guard small guard bigs that you can really use as a sort of Swiss army knife defender and you put three of those guys on the floor at the same time, a lot can happen good for you. One of those things that we've talked about a lot is some it's not just the individual player. It's how the individual player affects the group and we talked about how Jimmy Butler would have a profound effect possibly on Steph Curry, which he has. I also think butler's greatest impact could very easily be on commingga, right? That is exactly the kind of guy that John I think commingga needs to look at and emulate more so than the Andrew Wiggins. I don't think he was looking at Andrew Wiggins and Moses Moody and Jordan Poole and even clay Thompson, right? That is the kind of wing that John I think can look at and observe how he plays and also learn from on a daily basis and also get that as they say, put the battery in his back. I think that butler can have a big effect on a guy like commingga who's been up and down in terms of his attitude and his role within the context of the warriors and everything else and I think that butler is the kind of guy that could really help his career along and speak some sense into him and show him not only show him visually how to be a great team basketball player because that's the only trick, right? He's got the requisite athleticism and the talent. There are stars and role players. I think that John I think commingga thinks he's going to be a star in the NBA, but I have also thought his destiny is to be a great role player. I may be wrong about that. Maybe they're starting within, but I think if there was start them within, they would have, if they thought they were starting within, they wouldn't have done all that haggling over the contract and if they thought they were starting, if the lead thought they were starting within, he wouldn't be a warrior right now. So I think that's fair. But can't you see a world in which that he really contributes in a first round playoff series win and ingrages himself with not just the fans but the franchise and the teammates and next thing you know, he stays a warrior for another three years. I can see that happening. Absolutely. I can see that happening. Probably. Hey, I can also see it not being at his price. Yes. I'm about to say I can also see him playing so well that drives the price up that he ends up leaving due to his success. Right. And then he goes and he averages, you know, he does the, he does, look, this is the, this is the Jeremy Grant thing to me almost, right? Like there's always these guys and it's like, okay, you can go and you can go an average 25 minutes a game in Detroit or whatever. Like go play for the wizards and average a bunch of boys and whatever, or you can figure out where you are within the context of an awesome team. Yeah. I don't think that comminga is Jimmy Butler, but there's a lot of good comparisons. There's a lot of things that Jimmy Butler does well that comminga can fold into his game. Neither of them are great jump shooters. Neither of them shoot really threes. Both of them like to drive to the basket and slash and what you can learn if you're commingas is, hey, hey, Jimmy, I'd like to go to the line eight times a game. You know, what are the little tricks that you get to do that? And you know, and, and I'd also like to be a vocal leader and a sort of like a, a captain of the defense. How can I do that? And I think that, that comminga could do a lot to learn from Jimmy. The warriors of one nine of their last 10. And if you want to be able to make up games, if you're winning nine times out, is the one loss to the Sixers win the game scored like 75 points? I think that's it. Right. Like the Saturday game, national TV, it was grinds, right? It was grinds. Grimes. That's right. Not okay. Yeah. Yeah. Grimes. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. So they have been, they have been bowing people down. They've won nine of 10 and no matter what your, no matter what your situation is ahead of you, if you're winning nine of 10, we talked about how it gets later in the season. And even if the team starts reeling off a bunch of wins in order to, you know, be able to overtake if your game's back, you know, you, you're needing to go eight and two, you know, while that other team is going five and five just over a stretch and, and, and, and the higher you get in the standings, the harder that becomes because the teams in front of you are generally not playing 500 basketball, right? The teams in front of you have proven themselves over the course of the season to be able to play at a winning rate. And so that being said, they keep on moving up and they are now three games back from both Houston and LA. So, and so I'm glad you introduced this new segment, which is standings watch, right? This is when we take a look at the standings and see what's going on. I think we're not actually transitioning it to it now. And I'll say that it is interesting and it's tantalizing to project the Warriors success going forward and saying, can they get from the six to the five seat or even the four seat? You mentioned there are three games back, but however, there are four games back in the last column. And if I'm looking at the standings and we're talking about standings watch, I'm looking at the Timberwolves overtaking the Warriors as much more likely, even though they've won so many games lately, there are only a half a game up on Minnesota. So like it is probably I'm not going to say it's going to happen, but it's more likely that the Warriors find themselves in the play in than it is that they find themselves in the four or five matchup in my opinion. Really? I'm just saying just from the math, like the Warriors are a half game behind them. And they're technically. But they don't lose three games behind the Rockets. But they don't lose. Do you think they're going to keep this 90% clip up? Like do you really think they're going to win at this clip? They've got the red hot New York knicker boxers coming to town. Look, all right. I'm about to. Hey, I'll tell you this. We're back. Look, I'll give you my answer. Look at their schedule. No, no, no. The next three are New York Denver Milwaukee. There we go. This will decide it. No, that will decide it. Yeah. There we go. I mean, they're not winning all three of those. They're all at home. They're not winning all three of those, you know, I'm telling you this, if they win all three of those, then we need to start talking about them maybe having home court advantage, which is the greatest proposition. That's easy. I think that's more it's much more likely than the playing. But regardless, as we talk about New York, Denver and Milwaukee, right? And one thing that we always say about the Warriors and the Lakers is the same thing. What about size? What about dominant big men? What about what about bigs that can score and they're going to see three teams that have them. And we'll see just how much Quentin Post and Kavon Looney can do about the Joker and can do about Lopez and a Tents of Kumpo and whatever. No, no, this is going these next three games, unbelievable. This is perfect. Yeah. Are you real or not? Are you are you real? That's right. That's it. We'll know by Tuesday, right? No, not Tuesday. We'll have an ID on Tuesday. By the next show, we'll have an idea of the Warriors and are they a completely different team with Jimmy Butler or had they just been hot and played some mediocre team since they acquired Jimmy Buck? That's right. Because that is a. I mean, if you were lining it up to Kobe and you were saying, who do you want them to play to prove to me that this is a real thing and that they need to be looked at as a Western conference finalist, possibly you would put them up against New York, Denver and Milwaukee. I mean, that's as good a three as you could possibly line them up against to try to figure out are you and and also all three of those expose exactly what you were talking about, which is yes, like a, okay, we think you're really good. We think you're fantastic. We love the way you've been playing, but what happens when you have to go up against towns and and and Robinson and what happens when you have to go up against Yogech in the honest? Yeah. I think that is important because I do think the Warriors have everything that they need except for a big on both sides of the floor. And I also think that, you know, you poo poo my idea of them ending up in the plane, but the Timmerwolves have the magic, the jazz, the paces, the pelicans, the pelicans and the paces and the sons and the pistons, like the rest of the month, you know, I could see it happen. I could see on Tuesday show that the Warriors are in the seventh spot. I'm not predicting they're going to end up in the seventh spot, but if we're going to sort of project the rest of the season, I think it is more likely they're in the seventh and then they're in the four just from the matter that the loss column alone. Yeah. You know, as it stands right now, obviously Oklahoma City has run away with it. You have Memphis and Denver that are tied with the two, three spot Memphis has the tiebreaker, right? They do. Okay. As of, um, as of right now, well, they have the calves tonight, obviously, they say no Mitchell. Who? Why? It's disrespectful. They, they, you know, they said we don't need Mitchell to win tonight. That's what they said. Winning streak be damned. We don't need Mitchell to win tonight. You know what? Enjoy, you know, they enjoy some part of you, Mr. Mitchell. They have not, they have not lost since I think February 4th. It's ridiculous. It's May 14th, bro. I mean, sorry. Marshall. That's impressive. How you doing? March 14th. March 14th. They have a loss. They have a loss. It's like the beginning of February in a game to the Celtics are unbelievable. Anyways, uh, no, so you got Oklahoma City, Memphis, Denver, then you've got LA who obviously is still going to have to try to get by without LeBron, maybe without Luca. Um, who knows Houston got Fred Van Vleep back in the fold. So maybe they'll be able to write the ship a little bit did earlier this week. Obviously, it's things that they've lost on man Thompson and we talked on our Monday show, uh, Tuesday show about how, you know, the, the injuries are going to affect all of this. You have Minnesota, uh, at seven, as you mentioned, and then the Clippers are the one that have really like fallen down the standings and we just like don't even notice, but they keep kind of creeping down a little bit lower, a little bit lower. So they're now at eight and then you have Sacramento and Dallas at nine and 10 who would be in that play in situation because, uh, there are teams behind them that absolutely refuse to take advantage of Dallas's misfortune, which we will get to. Um, on the Eastern Conference side, Cleveland, Boston, obviously, and it seems like, uh, those teams have a great distance between each other and a great distance between the next two. It seems like one, two, three. Yeah. Cleveland is pretty much locked, but four, five, six is where it gets really interesting because you have current order is bucks, pacers, pistons. Yeah. But what's interesting about that is the nicks are going to face one of those teams and two of those teams will face each other and how that plays out. Okay. Rank that in terms of as a next guy, obviously you would least want to face Milwaukee in the first class. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So you would say if you were choosing opponents, even though Detroit has gone and beaten them in the garden twice, right? If you were choosing opponents, you would want it to be Detroit getting six and have, you know, Milwaukee and Indiana knock each other out, right? Because you would want to play Indiana either. Yeah. I would, I, it would go. There's a part of me just like selfishly wants to play Indiana just to sort of like, harmically right the wrongs of last year, but if, if I were running the nicks organization, if I were Tom Thibodeau, I would prefer to play the Detroit Pistons and anyone who listens to every episode of the mismatch knows that Ed Nazin, we've said playoff experience, wins in the playoffs and everything slows down and blah, blah, blah, you've heard it from us before. And I think that this is a very successful Detroit season and you're going to get this core, some playoff experience, but I do not think they get out of the first round and I do not think they get out of the first round against the nicks. It'll be a six game series and it'll be good, but that's the, I would rather play the nicks and then the Pacers and then the Bucks. And then what a piece of crap that Eastern Conference play in is going to be. It's just ridiculous. I mean, horrendous. I'm going to talk later about tanking, but I just want to say now, like, it does feel like it should just be the eight and the nine seeds played for the eight seed like what is the 10 seed in the 10 seed currently in the Eastern Conference of the Bulls. They don't want it. The 10 seed currently in the Western Conference are the Mavs. They don't want it. So why are we non-consensually making these teams play playoff basket ball? Like they have been to do it. I got it. But I mean, year, year to year that is going to change, right? And so there are other years where we're glad that there have been more teams that are attempting to be competitive. And generally the rules they have made to disincentivize tanking have been good, right? Adding in the play in, flattening out the odds, finding teams that aren't playing players from nefarious reasons, like generally that has been good. But this year, it's obviously a disaster as we head down the stretch. Yeah, for sure. All right. It's going to be perfect because as we get into our love and load of the week, I'm starting out with the team that I love. And this is the absolute shocker of all shockers, the Toronto Raptors. You're embarrassing yourself. You're embarrassing yourself. What? No, no, no, no. I'm not embarrassing myself because this is I felt like Wednesday night was the vert. It was truly like Major League, the movie. And I know that some of our audience would be too young, but I would encourage you to go watch it. Excellent film. They won't let you lose. You put these guys out there and they refuse to lose. It was a tank off between the Raptors and the Sixers. And look, the reason I'm putting them on the love and yes, this is somewhat sarcastic, but I make my life and my living watching and covering NBA basketball. And also I am well aware of what is going on in collegiate basketball. So when there are basketball players that I just, I've never even heard of this human being, I am always taken aback. I'm like, who is that? Like I, a lot of these guys, I at least remember from college to wit, they start at point guard to mall shed. I loved shed at the university of Houston. He's had some moments earlier this season too, but there's a couple of other guys that play in this game that like, you know, aren't real NBA basketball at shit is a guy. I loved him. All right. And then the backup portal obviously has been in the NBA for a long time. The other three starters in the game against the Philadelphia 76 or so. Hold up before move on. Y'all could portal started the game. Yes, but he played like 17 or 18 minutes. That's right. That's right. The other three, Jared Rodin, Colin Castleton, former two-way Memphis Grizzly this year and Memphis hustle member Colin Castleton. I mean, I think Colin Castleton is like an actor in like the gilded age. I've never heard of this man before in my life. And then Jameson battle with AJ Lawson coming off the bench with 20 shot attempts or Lando Robinson and who he played for legend, Garrett Temple, who is now almost 39 years old. Hey, James Temple has been the league since I was four. He is also shooting 24% for the season. I think Garrett Temple, he's there playing with Sam Bowie. All right. So, and then earlier this week, they've got to win against the wizards and AJ Lawson, the aforementioned had 28 points in that game. All right. So you had 28 points in that one. AJ Lawson over the last two games has had 60 points on 41 football attempts. Jesus, you can never take that away from him. You can never take that from him. He had 60 points in two NBA games back to back that that you can't take that from him. I mean, there's nothing funnier to be than the front office probably be like, what the hell? Colin Castleton, we played Colin Castleton 40 minutes and we still can't lose the fact that they won both of these games and the wizards and the Sixers just refused, refused to let them lose despite the fact that they were running out guys that I've literally never heard of is truly unbelievable. Bravo to you guys on the Raptors that are given your opportunity and refuse to take part in this nefarious activity. It's a perfect example of the term players don't tank. It's true. If anyone who's listening to this that's ever played pick up basketball in the park wants to win players don't tank. You can take a puddle out of the game and you can say Scotty Barnes is injured. You can do you would pull those levers as a coach to lose games for the betterment of the franchise. The thing you can't do is tell AJ Lawson to miss shots because he won't do it. You can't tell Jamal shed not to hustle. He won't do it. Whoever Orlando Robinson is you can tell him to get scored unintentionally because he won't do it. You're going to put five professional basketball players in the game and these Raptors are winning games because they're five professional basketball players are not trying to lose. They're trying to win and they do deserve some recognition for that. I think that's fair. I'm just going to you know what fine reluctantly the team that I love are the Memphis Chrises and they deserve to be celebrated a little bit because we all know what happened when they lost those three at the buzzer the Knicks the Spurs and the Hawks all at home just a disaster for the fans just the franchise and me and you were having side conversations off Mike about what the hell is going on with Jamba Rant like is he ever going to be jogging is he hurt is it the shoulder is it mental is it like what is going on there and they've won four in a row granted. It was the Mavs the pelicans the sons and the jazz all right all that all down to the wire too and none of them are blown out. But for me what it was is Jamba Rant with the reason I love this team is because if they're going to do anything make any noise even just push a series to seven in the first round they need Jamba Rant to be back being Jamba Rant. Jamba Rant himself said that Jared Jackson Jr. was the key player on the team the best player in the team early in the year and I feel like in any other year that Jamba Rant was playing basketball he would not have deferred like that to a teammate. But in this four game run he had 31 and eight assists against the Mavs 32 and six assists against the pelicans 29 and 12 assists against the sons and 28 and seven assists against the jazz and here's the thing you shoot 50 percent from the floor and all those numbers are just numbers you watch the games at the end of these closed games that give the ball to number 12 and he figures it the fuck out and that is what you want your super star to do. I don't care about how many points you score I don't care how many assists you get or whether you get a steal or whether you lock down you're getting double teamed or whatever Jamba Rant is back being to that guy in a clutch situation you give him the ball and he'll figure it out you just have faith in that and there's probably like seven teams in the NBA that have that guy and they Memphis didn't have that guy until recently and I will say that that son's team and you always make excuses about how many guys the Grizzlies are missing but to beat the sons without Edie, Jared Jackson Jr, Aldama and Clark and Canard and Vince Williams Jr. was pretty impressive because the sons had their people I don't think they had beal but this game tonight against the Cavs I really want them to win it's home right? They listed Jared Jackson Jr. as questionable so the inference is he will be back in the lineup for the game. Wow. All right I'm predicting win I'm predicting win for the Grizzlies tonight whether Mitch Holders are not grizzes are winning tonight, let me open up my that's a little I'm a fan dual right now. I'm gonna put 20 American dollars on that right now I'm going to do this don't do this this 20 million dollars I'll send you a Venmo request that they lose this team has not lost since February 4th they there's 10 teams that have beaten them all year don't do this. First of all we've all seen these Cavs games they're not like rolling through the competition they're going to overtime against the he are awesome you did you watch I'm Tuesday night Tuesday night let you do this I'm not letting you do this every Friday I come on here and I say oh the player I load this dear Fox and then I have to watch him hit a game winner or I I talk about whoever the next opponent that I'm going to see in person I'm not doing this the Cavs are one of the greatest teams in NBA history statistically any just being competitive would be a win alright well so you would you would consider you would consider that the people that sort of make the lines at um at fan dual sort of know what they're doing right you consider you consider them as like people that are good at sort of projecting how basketball games will play out right I'd hope I'd hope so they're very good at it is anyone who's ever better than over under they're very good at it and they have Memphis plus two oh money line is plus one 16 it's basically a pickle that means to me that says to me that Mitchell's probably not playing that's what it says I am I am stunned alright so I'm predicting this is when rizzlies win tonight baby big win over the cap here you're the word you're doing this on purpose and just so you could be bad about it no next one team I loathe the aforementioned a team I saw in person earlier this week and I was just like this is this is ridiculous the Phoenix Suns they absolutely refuse to take advantage of the Mavs misfortune it's really they lost to the grislies and and the grislies were like their entire frontline was out Jay Huff started okay a basketball in for the yes no for the grislies against the Suns okay and they lost that game and then they turned around and they lost by the loss of the Rockets this week so another losing week and they had gotten peel back for the Rockets game they are now 30 and 36 on the season so they would have to go 11 and 5 to go 500 this year that is not happening so they're gonna end up with a losing record for this NBA season probably a pretty decent one they are still two and a half back from Dallas who is two and eight in their last ten games Jesus and they are in 11th place and by the way they're only two up on the Spurs and two and a half up on Portland now the Spurs are probably out of it as Fox is out but like what importantly just decided you know what this old winning some games and you know getting these young guys some reps that a play in game might be you know not the worst thing in the world like I swear to God if they don't make the play it this is gonna be the most hilarious thing ever like how how are you not gonna how are you not even getting to 10 listen the Maverick season disaster disaster they traded Lugadonchitch AD got hurt in like 40 minutes and then and then Kyrie got hurt that's a disaster the sixth or season disaster and Bead never himself Paul George not himself and and you know McCain their rookie sensation got hurt the sons don't have these kind of excuses like it's Katie miss like I don't know 14 games once upon a time and like in around Thanksgiving but the worst thing have the worst thing that happened the worst thing that happened is that Devin Booker wouldn't shut up in the huddle yeah well that's probably the problem what happened to the sons well in 10 years from now we'll be like what happened to the sons in 2024 25 Devin Booker was too loud in the huddle to tank the whole season like the sons don't have excuses I cannot explain why they are this bad it's not just like oh nurkage wasn't good it's not I don't know why they're this bad I mean every time there was some level of misfortune that took place with the Mavericks we came on be like unbelievably door opens for Phoenix like they refuse to walk through the door they refuse it's like they refuse to walk through the door the problem is is Kevin Durant has one and a half feet out of it I think that might have something to do with their lack of success maybe so might have something to like Kevin Durant is on Zillow every single plane ride just looking for places in Houston Oklahoma City and he's got the slider on like 10 million dollars and above the team I love this week and I've I've secretly loathed this team for a long time and I cannot understand this and I'm gonna ask you a question about this team what happened to the Miami Heat like Jimmy became like oh they traded Jimmy Butler for Andrew Wiggins and others now you could say well Jimmy Butler is a better player than Andrew Wiggins and I would agree with that but Jimmy Butler wasn't playing for the heat and they were winning games Jimmy Butler wasn't trying for the heat and they were winning games since the deadline they've played 16 games and they won four of them they've blown 17 double digit leads this season Bruno they've blown 17 double digit leads this season the last time they won was March 3rd against who the wizards that's the only win in March the wizards the only win in March and and by the way also includes losses to the bulls and the hornet yes they do this to the horse they lost to the calves the Timberwolves I'm like all right whatever you're gonna lose those he they lost the bulls and the hornets and then the Clippers like you still have Tyler hero you still have bam that is the nucleus that you're supposed to build around once rumors of Jimmy Butler not being long for the franchise it's like oh we've got bam and we've got hero we're gonna build around them they're available Wiggins is back and available he's playing Terry Rose here is doing whatever you see him doing on the internet Killel where's where supposed to be good like I'm just sort of shocked that between Killel where and bam out of bio you can't limit Zubatch you know it's like you can't yeah not be dominated by Zubatch but like if you just pull up like even one of their random games like that that loss that I mentioned to the hornets took okay they do have bam out of bio and Tyler hero there are other three starters are Andrew Wiggins day beyond Mitchell and Killel where I like all three of those players oh stop I like all three of those players that cannot be your other come on like and again those can only be your other three starters if the other two guys are crazy high level like superstar caliber players the Raptors just won with Orlando Robinson and shed and AJ Lawson in battle and temple like but they played they played against the team occasionally Lucy Wiggins there's other the horn is trying to win I'm sorry but the look I would rather have their lineup that night I'd rather have Lonzo Mark Williams and Miles bridges I would it's better I just don't understand how it then the three I mentioned how this thing hold on yeah I like I like Wiggins and bam and Tyler hero over Mark Williams and Lonzo no no no I and I miles bridges I I mentioned the other two they Davey on Mitchell and Killel where in the starting lineup I like both those players okay well they lose every night Jacoby you love you said you love them it seems like you love them because I love them because they should be winning games they should be winning games and they're just no it's like what if what happened to heat sound like you can't decide whether you love them what happened to heat culture what happened to Eric Spolster being like a top three coach in the NBA like what happened to this like we have a cut and paste culture that doesn't matter who's wearing the uniforms we're going to manufacture wins and they've proven that to be true in previous years but this year is just not working they don't have good enough players and Andrew Wiggins is the least heat culture player I've ever seen in my life I mean that's that's an overstatement but sure come on okay fine no DeAndre 8 is actually the least heat culture DeAndre 8 plays in AirPods what about Deon Waiter's oh wait he wasn't the heat yeah alright let's get to player that I loved oh you're gonna love this it's Mackel Bridges you know what I've never been so happy I haven't been so having to be up at one in the morning since I was like 29 said the quiet part out loud and then delivered a game winner oh tell us about the tips thing yeah the quiet part out loud was him talking about top dividend and says that he had a conversation with Tim's about the extreme amount of minutes that they play Tim says nobody ever talked to me so let's talk about this let's break this down so Mackel Bridges who is like Cal Ripken of the NBA hasn't missed a game since I was like 30 years old goes to coach tibido right and this is not like this can't just be like oh we were talking about the last episode of white lotus and it happened to bring it up this is like go to your office knock on the door I have an agenda this is gonna be a difficult conversation this is gonna be a conflict this is my boss who I'm gonna criticize this is gonna be hard he probably talked to his wife or girlfriend before he went over there like here's he probably you probably rehearsed to this conversation goes to tips says hey man maybe we should play less minutes remember last year would happen in the playoffs to your team what he also says he also says look I think we've got good players on the bench if they've got it going you can leave them in there ease it up on us a little bit right we need some guys we want these guys that are on the bench to be able to feel like they can perform and we're gonna need them landry sham it that yes who we talking about that that the hot porty who's on the bench I watch this team every night who's on the bench for them that we need to get really get more minutes besides dues fun names somebody got I'm waiting he named landry shamb no you see do on the nights at landry sham it what I just he have it going okay what did I miss this when was the night when was the night that Landry Shamben had it going and then you know opportunity to stay in the game someone find that gave for me and send me the box for on X because I don't remember that night I don't remember the night where I was like man Landry sham is three for three from three in the last six minutes I can't believe that a sub to mouth I'm not that not happened it's never happened not happened but let's celebrate my cow though because I'm sorry that it's done here but I do want to say that must be an extremely difficult conversation to have and imagine in the in the scenario that he presents that he has that very difficult conversation with literally his boss and then someone asked his boss if the conversation happened and his boss says that never happened I don't know what you're talking about I don't know who to believe here he said we never had a conversation about it the facts are the facts when you look at our team and the way it works Jalen plays 35 minutes and I think he's 20th or 21st in average minutes in the league towns who's a primary scorer plays less than Jalen he's like 25th in league average he then continued that since wings like bridges and harder matched up against the other team's wings often the other team's best players of primary scorers in the modern NBA that they'll be called upon to play in the mid to high thirties each night he added you wouldn't want to play reserves against the likes of Durant, Tatum and Brown so he says my guys play this extreme amount of minutes because you know look the other teams are playing their best players a lot of minutes so what do you want me to do be to disadvantage against those and that all works except he does it against like the wizards like I give it a 20 point lead in the fourth quarter against the wizard who are not trying to win there's four minutes left and you got starters in that's the part I don't understand yes it's he refuses to break his substitution patterns regardless of like the down and distance like if you're ahead by 20 points against the team that's not motivated to win the game we can you know what campaign and sham it and hot party can can land this plane will be okay it's just it's just always been a hot button issue but to have a guy and and because bridges has the ultimate credibility in this he is the other credibility because this guy has been like the NBA Iron Man yeah and so he has the ultimate credibility and then like you know so he touches on this hot button issue gets everybody talking about it but then obviously it's the game winner right after all this is sizzling I I stayed up to watch that game and I just want to briefly say that I was very happy to see scoot Henderson perform the way that he did you know all the hype that he had coming to the draft and sort of you know it didn't have an amazing rookie year but like he he looked like a star he said give me the ball with the game on the line he had a big and one he had a big impact at the end Debbie Denny Abbia had a huge play in that one and I was looking at that game towards the end and I'm thinking I lost the Lakers lost the Clippers good win against the Kings without Brunson but if they lose this one and they lose to the Warriors that's a one in four road trip and that's not good and I think without Brunson to win that game to say at minimum this will be a two and three road trip was a huge huge win and a huge shot from bridges huge shot from bridges player that you love I'll make this short we've discussed it briefly and for me it's not just that I loved him in one game this week I loved Chet Holmgren this week because he was bad against Denver in that loss he was over five and three three for eleven from the field and just looked like someone who's coming back from injury that didn't sort of had their sea legs underneath them but that game in Boston granted no KP I get it all right but Chet Holmgren was aggressive 23 points 15 rebounds and just three level scoring hit his threes there's this one play they on a roll he set a pick for SGA and then rolled and SGA didn't give him like that quick pocket pass he kind of got all the way to the basket SGA threw him the worst pass a bullet pass which is like you know in the NFL they talk about catch radius like at the very end of his catch radius he has to reach his hand back just to catch the pass was like an amazing play and then finished it and I was just like man this guy is just hungry and aggressive and wanted to win and sort of like had had edge to him and it felt like he was extra motivated to prove national TV I'm back on this platform I'm going to play well and I think that granted J Dub was out of the game but I'm looking at Chet in his development and what he can be projecting forward I think he will be the second most important player on this team the second most offensive output player on this team and I think that that his potential is so high that I found myself just absolutely loving Chet this week from bouncing back against that game against them this episode is brought to you by athletic brewing company non-alcoholic brews the other day was golfing with some of the guys they're like hey you want anything like I'm an adult I got stuff to do tonight I'm not doing one of these like semi-retired deals with 18 holes and see how it goes luckily athletic brewing company had reached out to me they sent me a bunch of stuff including the irish red or the run wild IPA and my personal favorite upside dawn a nice little golden goes well with a few holes a golf this march don't miss the sports action with athletic head to athletic brewing dot com slash ringer to find it near you or shop online that's athletic brewing dot com slash r i n g e r to find award winning athletic NA brews near you athletic brewing company fit for all times near beer this episode is brought to you by cars.com whether you're buying your first set of wheels upgrading to fit your growing family or looking for something to have a little fun with on the weekends visit cars.com and explore the possibilities up to 50,000 cars are at a daily so wherever life takes you there's a car for it on cars.com find your next possibility on cars.com where to next player that I loathed this is easy easy Paul George I was gonna put him down to Paul George done for the season and of course you know like we just went through podcast p you're not gonna do the podcast because he was gonna focus on saving the sixth or season but then that went to hell. Championship to Philadelphia he's gonna focus on that yeah so that went to hell they can't they don't want to lose their picks so then now they're just gonna tank the whole thing out and that's fine just tank the whole thing out but don't insult us all with the he's now consulting doctors because he's growing and knee he may he may need to get surgeries right he may need to get surgeries and so it's like bro just just stop right this this feels like an effect of you know on Wednesday night I went to Memphis versus Utah and I don't expect you to have you might have seen the headline did you see like it was literally that afternoon that the jazz got fired uh find a hundred grand yeah that's uh yeah Laurie Martin because Laurie oh he's been he's been dealing with such injury for so long they find him a hundred grand he was in the starting lineup that night like I just feel like Paul George is always like so extra and now now it's like bro just sit out you're hurt that's fine but this whole now I'm consulting with doctors and I might need to get surgery wait and bro just sit out tank the rest of the season go back and do the podcast and you can analyze the playoffs like enough is enough I feel like it's just been it's been entirely too many Paul George headlines for what is possibly the most disappointing season of a franchise that we have seen in the last ten years why is he always he's on my feet always always I get more Paul George on my timeline than fucking LeBron James it's like it's unbelievable and it's also like oh you're consulting doctors it was the same thing they did with them beat we're gonna find a doctor that says you need surgery and then we're going to shut you down for the season so you go go to doctor number one says you don't need surgery all right we're going to doctor number two says you don't need surgery all right we're going to doctor number three oh doctor number three said there's some minor procedure that I might need that's the one we're going with shut down the season right give me the minor surgery we can pretend like this is essential and to get me bro just say just say our top our pick is top six protected everybody knows the deal even when shams reported it it was quote including a possible procedure so then the headlines become Paul George consulting with doctors like stop everybody know like just stop stop the ruse here you're not getting surgery on anything in fact there's probably nothing wrong with you well one of the things that really bothered me about the Paul George saga this week on the timeline was oh he's gonna you know he's consulting doctors he might need surgery he's basically not basing them announcing not playing for the rest of the week and then we get the rumors Paul George is on the trade block what are you getting in return for Paul George this off season explain that to me what team is like oh we're Paul George away once we get Paul George in the building we're going to explode hey to Kobe four years two hundred and twelve million that was the extension we have not given the clippers enough credit for dodging this bullet oh that's a good point definitely mean yeah that's a good point because i assumed and the clippers had an offer on the table this is one less year so i don't know if they dodged this bullet as much as the bullet dodged them yeah didn't hit him didn't hit him didn't hit him because i did didn't hit him that that's right but again like the idea that he's a he's on the trade block is hilarious to me i don't know what what who's who wants to take on that contract i could sell myself on a beat but i cannot sell myself on Paul George this off season player that you loathe player that i loathe this is simple all right the players that i loathe this week are Marcus Smart Steph Curry and Mason Plumbly and i'll tell you why because each one of those individuals decided in the last week that they're going to start problems with Isaiah beef stew and Stephen Adams Marcus Smart i sure you saw this with him and beef stew going back and forth they had this like i'm not the one off i don't know when i'm not the one hey i tell you that so i i when this my this my opinion i look i'm a steward guy too you saw steward has reacted much more viciously towards other guys as soon as Marcus went at him it was not i felt like a a bit of viciousness came off of it no he was no i'm not the one off is what it is i'm not going to mess with but i felt like beef stew looked at Marcus Smart and was like like this guy's actually serious i think i think beef stew can bully pretty much 95 percent of the lead and i think he saw one that he wasn't going to be able to a guy that like there are very few guys that would actually fight him marcus is one of those guys i don't care what anybody did marcus mark a punch of fan at Oklahoma state no he just ran he pushed and ran into him ran into it okay i take that back i'm a journalist i take it seriously well marcus mark did this step curry was talking trash in front of the the pistons bench and and beef stew got involved a little bit step curry and him went back and forth and we all saw what happened with mason plumley and steven adam's um we've expressed our undying deep love for steven adam's before so if you're if you're getting into it with steven adam's then i loathe you it's just that simple don't mess with beef stew don't mess with steven adam's just don't those are the players i loathe this week okay uh tea uh thing that i love this week oh the mo cheeks reunion all right so for those that didn't see and you could go watch a video very famous moment this is pre-internet pre this is when everybody was watching sports center highlights back in the day but every every time that somebody brings up like very famous national anthems there's obviously on the bad side there's the carl louis one on the good side there's the whitney houston one on or of the marvin gay on and on and on right but one of the ones that always comes up every time a national anthem discussion comes up is in game three of the portland trailblazers and the dallas mavericks in o3 on national tv in front of a pat crowd a girl named natalie zito who is now natalie gilbert but natalie zito was 13 years old and she is singing at game three of the western conference playoffs as she forgets the words at that point the head coach of the portland trailblazers mo cheeks walks out and he helps her and he helps her finish the song and it was this incredibly heartwarming moment it's one of the great like moments that has happened before a game and it was on it wasn't just some regular season game this was a huge playoff game that this was taking place in and so there was one of these uh redemption moments that took place 22 years later natalie zito is now natalie gilbert and this week went and sang the national anthem and mo cheeks was an assistant for the opposing team and so there was a reunion and by the way she absolutely killed it of course she was great she was absolutely great and so just this moment this incredibly sweet moment in nba history that took place 22 years ago now you see this lady who is an adult out there and mo cheeks still around and mo cheeks is there and it's 22 years later it was just i loved it i absolutely loved it super sweet moment it's perfect it's one of those things where you just the people are you know like basketball players are humans first you know what i mean and this poor girl was struggling through the anthem and mo cheeks was just such a great moment and and it wasn't a coincidence that he happened to be in the building that day i just thought it was really well orchestrated it's really well done um this thing that happened this week that i loved first you know it's a good story when the first thing you do is make sure that it's not ball sack sports or nba sento that you have to like double check to make sure it's real the second question i had is is this even legal right i was like is this real and the second thing i said was is this even legal we all watched look quick quick time out because you brought up at nba said though tell me you saw that grant i that was what they got me on one of those like pause for a second where it's like this is so damn funny but like there's no way right where they put up kevin dorant has just surpassed sga and career free throws and i was like they had the list in the sga i was laughing so hard bro because then you didn't think kevin dorant's been in the league for like 25 years and it said he just serviced sga i'm going to read free throw attempts or something i was like this is a very quick mba side quest i don't know why people are so mad at sga for like being a quote unquote free throw merchant because i got dirty secret for everybody my favorite team jailin bronson is an absolute free throw merchant jimmy butler is an absolute free throw merchant but we celebrate jailin bronson and jimmy butler i don't like any of them we celebrate them i don't like any of it and this goes back to this goes back to harden and try young my here i'll give you there's a difference between free throw merchanting like i when i feel like your goal on your move was to get fouled yes rather than your goal was to go score that's when it gets under my skin i watch a lot of jailin bronson burnout i watch a lot of jailin bronson he is trying to get fouled oh i got it i got it no it drives me crazy yeah i hate it i hate it even when my guys do it it's like it just bro go score play basketball like when the point of the play is to get fouled that's when i get annoyed yes and and you know i just don't know why sga gets criticized when there's so many other players in the league do the exact same thing but whatever um after they beat the seltics converse who is sga's sneaker represent whatever he represents converse he's got his converse sneaker is new they batman signaled sga's logo on td garden on the prudential tower which is like the empire state building of boston and like these are landmarks i was i shocked that it was real number one and i can't imagine it's legal to non-concentually blast a logo on the side of a building without permission people pay millions in dollars for billboards and to put one right on the td garden after a loss it was so disrespectful and so petty and so rude that i have to celebrate it i i mean if this doesn't catch on forget lighting the beam light the beam right at the opposing arena that you just won a game at i'm shocked this happened it can't be legal and and if this is legal we should have batman bat signal billboards all over the place they should take this on the road every time the thunder win a game they should shoot his logo at the opposing arena they really should that's the first time i ever seen his logo either well they just came out with it it's a brand new logo but i was just okay i was absolutely shocked that this that this happened that it legal that it was executed i loved every second of it i loved it yeah i i thought it was ai or something first to or like a me you know i mean somebody had created it photoshop i they must have cleared it ahead of time with the buildings right like you can't just do that can you i i don't know what what is their law against i don't know shooting a light shooting a light somewhere at it please yeah yeah i'm talking about i also want to say this just one quick aside a little take i've always had if you are a professional athlete and you're with a company that wants to design you a logo don't have them incorporate your initials into it i hate it every time it's just like oh let's take their initials and make them look cool like no i don't want that do what kobie did do what Jordan did have a logo an icon that is not just your initials all right move on thing that i loathed this week i love Shaquille O'Neal of course i do and i think he's hilarious but bro this whole like pistons thing that's mega depressing especially when the whole topic this year has been about you know like you have you have on one end you have where people you know have talked about the ratings and everything like that and then you have the other end where people say people are too overtly negative about the NBA or then you have the they only talk about you know the star teams or whatever and then Shaq going on with my buddy Adam left go and insisting that they're like four games under 500 then going on TNT and saying that he loved what tawnty is doing there like bro like come on like really really and then i mean i look shot to the pistons for putting up the meme where and then calling the pistons boring and not and i don't watch the pistons i don't care about the pistons and the pistons and tweeting out you overlooked us in 042 and had them all holding up the title i liked that everything so that was good but i mean like what is the deal here like we have been talking about as a basketball fan i don't know how you can't love love the the Kade Cunningham Ascension and and and the story that is jb bickerstaff taking over what was a totally more of a franchise and the million beasley assants yeah and the whole thing and they are fun to watch and they do have good chemistry and we have highlighted them throughout the entire year and then like when the when the common trope is like we don't care about these kind of teams and then you have like a fun one and we even said it kind of reminiscent of the whole light the beam wave that took place in Sacramento it's like i have been a little defensive on the like oh come on we just laugh at what they say anyway and they don't actively hurt you know the the product they don't actively hurt the product by being down on the current generation or not caring about the smaller market teams or the teams that aren't the regular great teams but i do think it hurts right i do think it hurts when one of the biggest voices in the whole you know NBA eco sphere on media like if you were listing off media members like those guys on TNT are the biggest to say like he's telling you that like what is actually one of the best stories and i know people can just write it off and say like oh yeah that's just shack or check that and pay attention or whatever but i mean i don't understand going out of your way to talk about what is truly one of the great stories in the NBA and then telling everybody like because it's not boring it's for sure not boring they are not boring no right and they've got good personalities and even mention and and then to just freely admit that like you really don't even know anything about this or what's happening here because at one point he said i like what 20s doing there i mean that's crazy like are you are you really are you really still just always going to be mad at them for beating you in the oh we finally we've we've both been doing this a long time we've both made mistakes like that right it just happens sometimes like you just have a brain fart you say something dumb that part doesn't bother me what bothers me about this and i love Shaquille O'Neal is an honor talent and i think when he first started on that show he was awful honestly he was really bad like that first season but now i can't imagine that show without him and he showed a lot of growth and improvement in his um media presentation i commend him for that but the problem i have with this is you can't sit at the same desk with the guy who complains about espn just talking about the Lakers and saying we need to shed more light on teams like the Cavs and the Thunder they've been playing really well and then you have another team has been playing really well they had lower expectations like the Pistons and you sit and then you have Shaq saying i don't watch them chonsie's doing a great job there where it's like well which way do you want to have it is it we only talk about five teams or is it we cover the whole league and we're sort of like we keep an eye on everything and we'll shine a light on some of the smaller stories like which one is it because it can't be both and it sounds like he wants a little bit both right and it is one of those things that i do feel it does not happen in the other sports well i i i freely admit that it does not happen in the other sport where you know the national broadcast are telling you not to care about something that's interesting i i just want them to be themselves it doesn't really bother me if they speak negatively i just want them to just just share their innate feelings that come to them and if they're negative they're negative that's fine and i know the deep down their hearts they all look basketball so it doesn't bother me but i will say one thing about Shaq that i learned this week there's a woman named Jess hilarious see i think i don't think that that your former co-host would bring this sort of content to the table and maybe that's for the better but Jess hilarious she's on the breakfast club yes she did an interview and she said that she was at Shaq's house yesterday and that Shaq was living like Neo for women living in his house it's amazing she said they were big booty white women big booty white woman let's just move on before i get in trouble okay i love your KOC player that i loathed no this is i'm just gonna this is this is thing that you know this is easy and we've discussed it to me it's very simple the flattening of the lottery ads has in lottery odds has improved the tanking situation in the mba it still has not fixed it and this time of the year i find it very frustrating because i imagine most of the people listen to this podcast also have league pass and they click the stupid button and they see all the games that are on and now at least a third of the games i just don't even have to watch because there are teams that are trying to lose it's just frustrating to me to have six or seven teams actively trying to lose games at this point in the season with like 15 games left well and this was going to be the great test honestly because this is the first great draft we've had in a while yes right like i mean truly where people think my franchise could be altered by this draft last year nobody was sitting there going and so it's not as bad in a year like that because you're not sitting there looking at Zachary Ricochet and Alex Soren Reed Shepard and going my franchise is being altered i need to lose the maximum amount of games in this point you people are looking at Cooper flag they are looking at Dylan Harper they're looking at Ace Bailey they are looking at these guys and they are going i want to have the maximum i don't care if it's flattened i want the maximum amount of ping pong balls in that deal and because even though it's flattened okay i've got the maximum amount of ping pong balls there i'm still at worst getting four if i got the absolute worst record i'm at worst getting four if i've got the second record right like you're only bopping me down to four five six if i've got one of these that that's my worst case scenario and i think there are great players that are still available there so now with a truly great draft now this is the real test again so you were for sure gonna end up having more teams that are trying to get the maximum amount of chances at it if you didn't make the playoffs if you didn't make a playoffs it's a flat chance to win the lottery it's as simple as that i just don't see another way of doing it because i'm looking at the games like the Bulls nets game i'm watching Tuesday night i had a recley game i played pretty well double figures i don't score that much but i played pretty well good job by me turn out yeah i did i think i was like six for nine from the field it was great it was great um but after the castle to Colin castle to number exactly exactly and after the game um i wasn't drinking we usually go for beers but um you know not drinking got a kid coming so i'm trying to you know be on top of things never knowing you get the call and i was watching the nets cabs game and the nets are up by like 14 in the first half in the second quarter so i pull out my fan dual app and i'm like well we all know how this is gonna play out i'm gonna bet the cabs to win and sure enough they won and then last thing you got the Bulls nets you had the Raptor Sixers game earlier this week it just it bothers me that that in all of the matchups in any given day they're at least two or three they're foregone conclusions and there's going to be teams that do things like what the Raptors did this well and the problem is it's like a the problem is it's like a quarter of the season two like we still got we still got 16 to 20 games left and it's also like the Spurs trade for dairon fox yeah right and it's like we're making a run let's get victor wem and yama in the play and maybe in the playoffs and i love it i'm like that's a good match for wem and yama i think this is a good deal for the Spurs this is great let's see what happens and then the second that he gets a blood clot it's like oh now dairon fox is out now we're just trying to lose you got poor clay Thompson over in Dallas who's just like he thought he was gonna play with Luca and Kyrie and now he's sitting there with Spencer didn't witty and Dwight Powell and like they're not incentivized to lose games i'm just like this part of the season frustrates me as someone who loves the NBA knowing that there's going to be a percentage of the games on the slate every night that are foregone conclusions that i know who's going to win and i know who's going to lose and it's just like it's just frustrating to me and i think that they did a good job by flattening the odds i want the odds to be fully flat someone tell me why the odds should not be fully flat for everybody in the lottery explain it to me why should not be that way i'm not gonna i'm not look i am i'm the most anti-tankin guy in the world and and then it's for a myriad of reasons but one of which is the level of competition you're talking about i also just think it i mean i've been around i've covered a bunch of tanking teams so i have a strong feelings on this i think it ruins guys careers in men yes yes i do i think they never they never become yes and try to sell my 10 year old son and go into like a tanking teams game well it's good that they lost son because now they might have a 16% chance of getting gooper flag instead of a 14% chance of getting gooper flag he's gonna be like who the hell is gooper flag and why did you drag me out to watch this team lose by 20 right it's just frustrating i'm very frustrated by it and i don't see a good reason why the odds shouldn't just be flat because this isn't working this is not working and the idea that like deer fox doesn't need this if deer fox was on the kings and they were pressing for a plane in a playoff position he'd be playing if paul george that was if the sixers were in a position to be like truly pressing to make a run like they made last year he'd be playing so now it's just like the second that there's a chance that you're not until it's binary either contending for a championship or you're contending for the number one pick and the middle ground isn't explored enough and i just while i'm finishing this if i want to say i want to commend chauncey billops not for the work he's done in detroit which he did some great work there but for the work that he's done in portland with the blazers they're trying to win games they're they're doing everything they can to win games and they're probably not going to make the plane probably not but they're they're doing right by the league right by their fans and right by their players and i just i'm just frustrated by the tanking and i think it should be a flat odds if you don't make the playoffs i don't understand why it's not the case thank you to our executive producer jesse low-pass and jacobie i'll catch up with you next week you
Verno and Jacoby go through the Bucks' blowout win against the injury-riddled Lakers and talk about why size is still important when facing certain teams (0:53). They then discuss some of the positive takeaways from the Thunder’s win against the Celtics on Wednesday night before congratulating Steph Curry for hitting 4k 3-point shots(12:30). The guys debate whether anyone could catch up to Steph's 3-point record and how much the Warriors could climb in the West (16:52). As we inch closer to the playoffs, the guys take a closer look at the standings in both conferences (26:10). Next, they dive into their loves and loathes from the week that was (35:30).
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Hosts: Chris Vernon and David Jacoby
Producers: Jessie Lopez and Tucker Tashjian
Social: Keith Fujimoto
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