Boston Gets Clocked, Round 1 Predictions, and a Mega-Mailbag With Chris Ryan and Joe House

We are also brought you by the ringer podcast network where I put up new rewatchables. On Monday we did Ghostbusters.

First time ever we did that one.

It was me and Chris Ryan and then Nathan, that one you can watch at Netflix. All the movies that we're doing for basically the next 10 weeks are going to be available on Netflix, including in May, a bunch of comedies. And we actually got that in a list and something. I'm not sure which ones we're doing out of these, but I know what we're doing next Monday

because it's going to be there's something about Mary. So that's available on Netflix and May. They're going to have Animal House, Borat, 48 hours, Tropic Thunder, Splash, Tootsie, just a slew of them. So when May hits, go check it out and we are going to do them all through May.

And then June moves into from Hellmuth, which is the month I had the most excited about and rewatchable sister. I'll explain more when we get to June. But there's something about Mary Monday. Yeah.

“Legata, which is our narrative series that we're doing, episode 5 drop today, it is I think”

a 7 episode series, but please catch up on that if you haven't been listening to that. Don't forget about Todd McShay, that a bunch of great NFL draft stuff. He has his two-worldly mock draft newsletter that went out I think today, and then Sean Fantasy, who was on this podcast on Thursday, he's doing his projections newsletter. As we try to ease into newsletters a little bit more.

I like newsletters. I wish by fingers to work, that would have a newsletter coming up on this podcast. Me and Joe House and Chris Ryan, we recorded right after the three Tuesday night playoff games, and then we go on a time machine, House and I did a mailbag. I had so many mailback questions, I had to rip through them.

So House and I did that, actually, before the Tuesday game.

So it's going to be me, CR House, basically live right after the games, and then we go

backwards in time of few hours, and we're doing a mailbag, which you'll have. So that's the podcast we're in to break, and then ProJap. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandle.

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Tournament plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Game Prom, COVID-19, 100-game, or call 888-79-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat, Connecticut. All right, little past 9.15 Pacific Time, were presented by New Era for this first segment. CRS here, Chris Ryan, Freshoff, a dramatic sixers win. Joe House also here, Freshoff, a non-dramatic spurs blazers game.

The spurs wrapped it up. We made the fatal mistake of waiting for the entire game ten before we started this segment. I'm sorry, guys.

You just never know with Denny and the frisky blazers, what they were capable of.

Let's talk six or Celtics first. CRS, do you expect a win tonight? What were you expecting? No, I expected this to be my customary cook position, where Boston defeats Philadelphia and something, and I have to come on and listen to you talk about Jordan Walsh, but you got

a big heart. Don't let anybody ever tell you otherwise, Bill. Here we are.

“Going back to Philly for game six, and what did Joe Ln be tonight?”

That was really great. That actually was like a really great sports moment for me. What was the story for you house as a non-biased non-sixers in that Celtics fan? Another guaranteed loser on an all-truck, chalk parlay. [laughter]

[laughter] Sit down. Oh, let's sit down. Look at these favorites. Okay.

Boston closed out, spurs closed out. Next Atlanta, I'm not sure. Let's see. Let's just go ahead and parlay all the favorites and give some money away to the sports book.

And honestly, throwing the Celtics as a big favorite at home, I was texting you guys on the gambling thread, just a mistake. The Celtics in the last five playoffs, including the 22 in the made the finals, 25 and 11 on the road, and 24 and 17 at home, just over and over again, I don't know how many times they've lost as big favorites, but it's already happened twice this series.

This went beyond a, like, regardless of if they finished filling off or if they just have an

the blow in the last three games, which Chris is six or six or six didn't 1981, it gets

Celtic. This is ridiculous. If we flip that and you guys come back, no big picture, I have some developing some real concerns with the Celtics team. Okay.

“And I think you saw some of that tonight, like this Derek White thing is a real problem.”

He's averaging 8.2 points a game in the playoffs. He's shooting 29.8% and he's made five of 21.3s. And it felt like CR, the sixers were just leaving him open tonight. Yeah. I mean, I think that this was a little bit more about what the sixers did right than what

the Celtics did wrong, but Derek White has definitely not blown my mind in this series. He's obviously like a crew of credit in the NBA that like it doesn't really matter if he has like an off series or something like that, but it wasn't even like I was when I was watching. I wasn't like, well, it's not like he's on VJ Island or something like that.

Like, I couldn't really figure out if he was being shut down with somebody in particular. He just seems like he's just just missing something from his game right now. And the sixers like, you know, the sixers hit their three tonight. That was the big thing that it's been being. Yeah.

But this confidence swoon happened for White in 2022 has in the fight in the face of the whole playoffs. You remember that, Joe? Of course. 2022.

I was there. Well, this is a weird one because it was on the fringe of happening in the whole year. It was probably the reason he didn't make the all star team because his shooting stuff wasn't good enough. And it felt like it was getting worse.

And now it's a problem. My dad was at the game and he was saying that the fans were really mad that didn't bring him printed in sooner, the brought him in four minutes left early after the game and the substance 12 shots and rode down the stretch in the fourth quarter. And they put big minutes on Brown and Tatum, which I thought was also, we're 40, 40 plus

minutes for each. And I guess the part I don't understand watching this when we talk about the sixers in a second. They had this whole benchmark thing and all of these different lineups they could do and they were going small and big and all of these different looks and it just feels like

they're going chalk against the sixers in a way that I don't understand where his nurse I feel like has changed stuff as the series went along. Now he's like, and beads back were playing six guys tonight. Yeah, drummers like seven minutes, Barlow play five. They really went six.

“They went big minutes for everybody and they felt like they had real advantages, right?”

Yeah. And this was one of those games where I think that if you're a sixer span if you watch them, you can see sometimes when in bead comes back into the mix, he seems to discombobulate the guards a little bit, like they're not playing at the pace that they want to play at. That doesn't give much.

That doesn't give much. But yeah, so, but seeing him out there tonight, he was the best player on the floor. The whole night. And when he went out with the knee scare, that was, I was like, oh, that's the end of the series that if this is it for him and that's really tough.

But like pretty, pretty amazing, him coming back in.

Now, like, he's got Kada and Garza and, you know, he's not like exactly facing a large one, but like he's doing a really nice job against those guys. And I thought it defensively, he was awesome tonight. The kind of turning point was that that layup he swallowed on Tatum, where he just kind of like, yeah, changed his mind mid mid air, Maxi stole it, PG gets it on the way and pops

it out to Edgcomon for three and that kind of like every time this Celtics threatened to leave the earth sap, this fear of the sixers pulled them back in. Yeah. Most of the guys haven't beat. Yeah, my dad was saying he thought that we're going to go up 15, 16, 17, the first half.

Never got there. Just hung around and beads stopped checking three's house, that was the other thing.

“That was the only thing when you started playing around the basket, they'll hold off”

as change it felt like. Yeah. The only way for the Celtics to stop and bead was to encourage him to shoot more threes. And half time he went in, having missed six of them and said, you know what, maybe I should

step inside the three point line, distribute some. The sixers shot seven of 12 from the three point line in the quarter and and bead made

seven of his first nine shots in in the third quarter.

And that's one, the entire game, they were down 13 in the third quarter, the sixers were and the Celtics were mainly scoring inside in the first half, all of their points. This was, this is a reminder of who this Celtics team is. It is a team very much in transition. This wasn't, this wasn't a team bill for a championship run, a deep run.

It is by happenstance, good fortune, good planning that this team was as competitive as they were. This season, Tatum's return is is really a goddamn miracle, but this is not a team, a Celtic team built for a championship run. They're going to live and die on three point variants and tonight they die.

They had three guys on the entire roster with double digit shot attempts and they have three guys who scored in double digits. That's not a recipe for success. And they don't have anybody to guard and beat or to really take advantage of his immobility

It doesn't fall. They're both, but that was weird about it.

First of all, I'm fine with him being getting to, when you start doubling him and giving

“up three, that's when I think stuff can multiply and sixers guys can get hot.”

So I just like let him be, score if he's going to have 40 is going to have 40, but don't let the other guys get going. And then on offense, I just go either go at him, attack him, or go small or pull him out, make him have to guard somebody and they didn't really do either. He was kind of just floating around in the middle.

It seemed like they were really afraid to challenge him and then a couple times when they did, it was like those half-assed challenges that he swallowed up. Listen, there's a weird jail in Brown thing happening in the series too that the stats don't totally back up. I'm just going, I test from what I watched her in the season.

I thought the sixers have done this whole series that they made it really hard for him to go buy people.

It's also been a bit of a vintage, Paul George defense.

He's been really good. He was really good again in 8, played 43 minutes. We thought this guy, how's that I talked about him later in the mail bag? We thought this was a guy in his way out of the league and I think he's been a real asset in the series.

Jaylons had Jaylons, I think he made the most two-point baskets of anyone in the league this season, was really good in getting to the paint and getting these good shots and was doing it all year against Lou Dort, all these A-list offenders and Philly has really, I think, throttled him a little bit even when he score in their really tough shots. Tatum's been up and down, which you can expect, but I think he's probably been the most

consistent player. Then the fact that they're going to know offense from weight, if they get a game like preacher today, where it's 12 points, all right, well now where am I getting the rest of my offense?

Well, it's not coming from the bench with the defense going nuts back and forth.

So I feel differently about this series than then Hawks Knicks, where it's just like there's just been a complete reverse and like the talent kind of show. I think the Knicks figured out the series and it's 3-2, but the Hawks 1-2, 1-point games. I don't, I don't necessarily think the Celtics are going to lose the series and they're minus 2-200 to win it, but I also think Philly has a lot of confidence against him and

“I thought the only thing that's going to be Philly, the only thing that makes me think”

it's not going seven is just that Philly tightens up playing in Philly, I don't know what the record is in the playoffs over the four years, like you just said, but like they feel like they play a little more free on the road and this was like a very Celtic certainly do. And this is just a great anti-Kam Koon game, like these were a bunch of guys who were

just like we don't want our series or season to end tonight. I think you could see also for as much back room stuff as six or six fans engage with of like, oh, should we, you know, is this hit for him? B, should we trade him? Should he ask out?

Whatever. Like that team was really playing for him as much as with him and I think that I think that was like a really nice, meaningful capstone on what would have been like a very troubled season for him. Yeah, I think that's fair.

He looked really good today. To sell to have some moves, I think a little more accurate. Yeah, yeah, I think they really have to figure out the bench like Sharmin once again

“didn't play a lot and I think he's important, but it just feels like they need more energy”

and some more fight. The problem tonight, the six are said the two best guys in the game. So when I think like you're up three, two in a series, but you just played a game five that you didn't just lose, but there were two guys in the game who stood out and you had neither of them.

That's a problem. And then the three-point variants with the sixers, you know, if they're missing three, it's going to come down to whether, you know, NBA just can put the whole team on his back, which of dubious of, because I thought he looked exhausted. Oh, yeah.

I'm a fourth quarter. It's been a little bit of the thing with nurses that she ground Maxi down a lot during the season. The guys a lot, he played him a lot in Toronto and then tonight, I just felt like the team was gas.

So I luckily Boston didn't have that much in the tank either, but turning around and playing on Thursday does not inspire me with like much Cinderella confidence, you know, like, I'm not excited about seeing Joel on what 48 hours rest. Right. After a big minute's house, I thought that move tonight.

I thought for Sharmin as well, it was going to do this was go back to kind of the regular season, kind of line up rotation at the south side, go big on the bench, try to get some confidence for Sharmin for Walsh, maybe even Hugo, a little Garza, and try to do, this was a team that in game 82, they benched everybody in Beat Orlando with their G-Lig team, because they had these guys that actually played really well together.

I thought they would do that instead, they put big minutes on Brown and Tatum, and I must wonder if Missiles, like we're going to close them out, we'll get rest, we'll put big minutes, and now they're playing 48 minutes later and Tatum's played big minutes in this series. So, I think the series has already been like turned out not awesome for the Celtics,

I agree with all of that, except the thing is, you know, again, that's who the Celtics team is, like, tonight should have been the night that they did the kind of hockey line up kind of rotation, right? All those guys play good at home, they all feed off of that home crowd, that, that, that bench mob, and that might have changed the energy, but Missiles playing, you know, kind

of a long hand here, right, but the long hand is to get, well, but you want Tatum and Brown on the same page if you're going to make a deep, you feel like he's almost like pressure testing the partnership in a game where he's like, I bet we're going to win this series if we just win one more out of the next three. Yes, that is exactly what I think.

“That's the strategic call that I think he made instead of doing the thing that, what”

would have changed the energy in the first half, which was going in that bench mob direction,

that's been successful for the Celtics all season long. I think they, they need JT and JB to play together. I mean, JB was shot 39% from the field today and could not, it felt worth anything in terms of that penetration. It's the point that the bill made where he was getting those two's all season long, it's

playoff time, and the one thing the Sixers have is good perimeter defense of Paul George's healthy. Yeah. And he is. And so there you go.

And I just come hit to his threes then, like, I mean, I mean, I mean, whatever the reverse of Zach was stabbed from the other night where it was like VJH comes over 16 and sixers playoff losses this year or so. Yeah, right. It's like if he's hitting three out of six, like we're looking pretty good, I know

I got to say, I mean, for as much as Bill, like I, you know, admire what the Celtics have accomplished without Tatum and then bringing them back into the fold. Like if you have in bead max, you Paul George playing well in edge come rising and Grimes having a hot night, I'll put them up against the Celtics.

You're going to hang with them. I'm sure. Yeah. We can hang. Yeah.

Grimes was really good today. I really like, I thought he should have been playing more in the series, play 24 minutes tonight. He was busy. He didn't stick to Kelly.

I know. It's a two or one place, right? This is one of those when he's open, I feel like it's going in. It's like fuck. This is happening.

So yeah, they have some momentum. We haven't had we had like an incredible maxie game yet.

“I guess no, I mean, he had two sort of I think his finger hurts.”

I think he still has like a kind of busted hand and I think he's tired, but I think there was more zipping his game tonight. And I felt like the, even if it wasn't exactly like Denver level, it was the dribbling hand off stuff that him and B were doing at the top of the key and whipping the ball around like it just felt like they were like, we're not going home tonight.

Like this is not the end of the season.

And if they can bring that Thursday, you never know my dad was excited.

This is rekindled my excitement. You know, my dad was pretty disgusted afterwards, although the broans, I don't have to be surpassed in that big overtime call. So that kind of lifted is, that was on my smaller TV. Yeah, but he, he was pretty, he was just like, you could feel it.

The game never had the right flow, even when we had the lead and it just something felt off about it. House, I'm going to go glass have full on it though. I do think this Celtics team, I'm, I'm okay with them having some adversity and seeing if they can ride through it or not with, with the Tatum just being thrown back into this,

like this. Did you remember having together them trying to, like, let's see it now. Let's go to Philly for a game six, Philly's got confidence and beat is probably the best center they're going to play in a playoff round until the, unless they can somehow get to the finals and play whoever comes out of the West and, and let's, like, they found

out tonight, Vusabitch, against some of these big scoring centers, he's just not, it's not happening. He's not stopping anybody and he's a real liability.

“So what does that mean are they, you know, smaller, et cetera, et cetera, Ernest?”

The Hawks, Nicks, so I got to say, like, who would you, let's say the Celtics get through this six or series and the next finish off at Lanna? Who do you think would win a Nicks Celtics series? Because I, I must, even though game sevens in Boston, I almost feel like the Nicks would have to be a slight favorite in that series house.

How would you have the odds? They won't be favored because the Celtics have home court advantage. Well, I'm part of the advantage that has not mattered to them as much as it should have for five years. Like, I don't know.

Well, what's the first reason why you say that though?

The Nicks were built to beat the Celtics. I think they have a lot of confidence playing the Celtics and I think they have a little more cohesion. Like you saw tonight, when they can turn on their defense in Bronson, you know, can have a game like he had tonight.

They're really good. Like they have the Celtics are a little live by the three died by the three or some

The Nicks feel like a little more consistent to me for a series.

“But the Celtics, I think, I really want to see them battle through the universe here.”

What do you think, Havs? I had the Nicks in the finals. So yeah, I mean, you know, my prediction for this NBA finals was the Nicks and the Nuggets. Good luck. That's not going to happen.

Well, but the the Nicks part of it, you know, this, this little Odyssey, this mini experiment with Atlanta, when we were sitting back looking at the playoff matchups before that the games got started, we, we kind of circled this Nicks hawks as like, hmm, if if you're looking for one where it might be surprisingly competitive, yeah, that this might fit the bill because this, this Atlanta team is, by kind of multifaceted, they can definitely

defend. That one thing they can't defend is Carl Anthony Towns and Carl Anthony Towns.

The most important thing the Nicks did was make sure that he got touches in the first quarter.

Yeah. He ended up with, he didn't score 20 points, but he was a very, very important part of the offense in the, in the first quarter. He got off. Yeah.

And, and that really set them up, they basically got out to the lead that they never really relinquished over the battle to the game for that first quarter on. Even bringing an alvarado for these little cameras, it feels like it's super charged them, which is what I've seen about the Seltz before. Like the Seltz used to get that from the bench, even the little alvarado run.

And it was masterful tonight. The CJ piece was really interesting CR. Yeah. So I was mostly watching Seltz and by the time I flipped over, this was pretty much over. So he only had six points.

What happened here? Yeah. He just was a non-factor.

“I think what happened is he's 34 years old and old guys in the playoffs just, you know,”

they're going to have nights where they just don't have it. Like you said, drew holiday tonight in the San Antonio game was another one. They can look great in a game two, all the sudden in a game five, it's a two for 15. But they, uh, I guess the benefit house was that with CJ, now they're not going to have

to pay him 35 million dollars a year and the free agency, if they didn't fix it.

And he kind of peeders out near the end, maybe they got to run a better deal. I landed. I landed. I landed. They made some interesting additions.

They put Daniels on cat. They put a conglue on OG and they put Alexander Walker on Bronson. And watching in the beginning, I was like, Oh, I like this. I like Daniels on towns. This is good.

And then the next figured it out in about 10 minutes. And that was that. But I think, see, I think we can retire the CJ McCollum on the Regimen or Villain MSG storyline. To be fair to him, I think he was like, I think he didn't even have some sort of doubt. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm 34. Yeah. I do wonder whether or not the front row of Stiller, Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan and Shalime was.

Don't forget, Jenner. And whether or not was like kind of like a hat tip to Adam Silver, like this is, we can't lose it for these guys, like kind of situation. First great to see Shalime back out there, you haven't fun again, it feels like the Oscars

were a million years ago.

When was he not? That is live in his life and that is not where his dick's concern is on his face. But it's playoffs, really feels like the Nicks fans have passed the Laker fans from a star power standpoint. That was a pretty impressive fivesome that they had tried it out.

I was like, wow, this is, this is good. I don't know what the Lakers equivalent, that the Lakers are really struggling as Jack is getting older. I think they really struggled. Yeah.

Like that's true. Who's the mayor of the Lakers? Really tough. Like you hope Denzel, but Denzel is like also a Nicks fan, he's like a sports big mess, does he still pick it on the screen?

Yeah, you have Diancannon, like they can't, they're in a night fight with, like, a little flick. Yeah. They really need to double down on their fan base. Yeah.

“So I guess going forward with the Nicks, the only thing is bridges just seems like he's”

a section eight at this point offensively, and that's just how it's going to go. But what the Nicks had in game four, with the bean down to one, this is a real, people staring at each other, the fans freaking out, all right, what do we got, and so we're going to come together and they did, it's not far away from where the Celtics are, these next couple days now, where they really look, they, they legitimately lost the night.

That was not, we didn't hit our threes, that's why we're doing it. It was like, they got their butt speed tonight in the second half. So what is that going to mean and what adjustments are they spurs, blazers, thanks anyway, Portland. Thanks for, thanks for all your efforts and your concerns. Thanks, Denny.

Thanks, Denny. You, you, you tried. You got mad at people a couple times. You lost half of the tooth. Yeah.

Thanks Drew Holiday enjoyed your performance. Thanks, Good Henderson for that quick little cameo that boosted my stock before doing Harper took it to him. I'm not even cleaning, can he make a three point shot or did I have I just not seen it?

Yeah, he'll make, he'll make you think about them.

Yeah. He'll shoot it. Yeah. He'll take it.

“He's no drum and drum, it's just automatic from the corner now in Jesus.”

Um, yes, so house is this a sweep without the Wemby concussion? Yes. Yes, it is. But, you know, I'm, I want to give some flowers to this Portland team. They were in it.

You know, they fought. That was, they, they showed the, the value of, you know, pushing all the way to the end, because there was kind of an inflection point moment for their season where they could have found themselves in the lottery again without too much effort. But I mean, I love this revelation of Denny and I'm interested in their offseason.

They have cap space. They kind of need a point guard because I don't know, it's good to be the point guard. I do. Well, they're supposed to be the point guard. Well, Denny, they weren't, he going to do, right?

He will be something to them. He will be a very important meaningful piece to them. But they have some money to have an interesting piece.

They have 15 million bucks.

“You have to ask maybe Tom Dunn and thanks, he gets to keep that.”

I was going to say, you're like, I'm going to give them their flowers. I think Dunn might be like, I'm not paying for those flowers. These guys don't even flowers, they're basketball players. I got to see me out from a guy named Parker who had more ideas for Tom Dunn than to save money.

And one of them, he had stuff like on the bench, only have seats for the coaches for the like the two best coaches and everybody else gift to paying customers because she could make more court side stuff. Use unpaid people to clean up the court. Half time shows.

Just don't have a half time show at all. Honestly, there's a couple of these things that I'd be pretty into. Yeah, I'm like, I really zed the other way. I just think that like Dunn is obviously going to drive, like if this keeps going, it'll be an embarrassment, believe.

But like if he was like, you know what, you guys, we don't, we don't need somebody unicycling around doing halftime, like, just go go bathroom, get a beer, come back. We're just going to place it music. He could have the scores table, could just set two people on it, try to sneak some court sides in there.

What else could he do house?

“I mean, the halftime is easy, that's a kid's playing basketball, and you know, you”

can depending on how cynical you want to be about it, you can set odds, like, you know, you can bet on kids. That's a thing. Same game, partly within the game. Yes, that's right.

He thinks he thinks you can say Parker thinks she could save money and the exercise warm up bike, and maybe just use real bikes because they're cheaper. So the guys would have to actually pedal around. Well, you could do that.

You could just basically say to a guy, you'd be like, you're either in the game

for your out riding a bike is not like, we've gotten rid of the bikes. We say five hundred and ninety dollars. So yeah, this will be someplace or summer. They're going to be cheaping out on a coach. They do have some cat, some maneuverability with some trade stuff.

They didn't have shade and sharp relief for this series, because he had a stress fracture thing. And he barely played. He wasn't the same. And I do wonder, like, with his scoring, could they have made this a six game series.

We can go excited to, I do hope he doesn't destroy it. I'm excited. Interesting team. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to by Fandel. We are right in the middle of the NBA playoffs.

I'm making picks left and right. Did an unexpected one on Monday night, because I really liked the slate. So we did okay see money line, SGA 25 plus points, K 25 plus points to bias Harris 15 plus. And it hit.

It was two to one. Couldn't try that every time I like any sort of parlayer in any situation, probably just going to tweet it out. And if there's additional Fandel value, like there is tonight, where all customers get a profit boost, oh yeah, you love those profit boost.

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the playoffs is. I like, turn it. And it's usually maybe a game four, might even be a game five, game seven, everyone's nervous. There's a different level of energy, but game four, a game five for one of the two teams.

There's this realization with like five minutes left in the fourth quarter. What's like, oh, our fate is, is suddenly in real flux right now. Who's stepping up, what are we going to do? What's calm down?

And you can kind of see it with different teams. It's definitely like, for instance, it's going to happen in this Denver Minnesota series. It's going to be a moment in one of the later games when all of a sudden either Minnesota is taking it from Denver, and at some point somebody in Denver is going to have to hit a shot, and you're going to look around and go, who's going to do it?

Or Minnesota's case may be Denver is, is, is, is punching them back, and now Edward's

has to step up, or different chenzo, and you just never know, and you never know how

somebody's going to respond to pressure.

“But that's why we love the playoffs every spring.”

It's as great as opening up a Mickle of Ultra, a nice cold one, Chris refreshing the ultimate prize, plus as the official beer partner of the NBA, they're giving fans a chance to win court side tickets, custom merch, and more. You could be at one of those games when the pressure rises, Mickle of Ultra, superiors worth playing for, and are now at Mickleof Ultra dot com slash court side, Mickle about

your court side 25 to 26, no purchase necessary, open a US residence 20 and plus begins on October 1st, 2025, ends on June 38, 2026, multiple entrepreneurs see official rules at Mickleof Ultra dot com slash court side for free entry entry deadlines and prizes and details. We're going to play a game of which underdog would you rather be?

Lakers, rockets, the rockets are plus 750 for the series, Celtic sixers, sixers are plus 1100 for the series, which seems way too high, and then next Hawks plus 560 for the Hawks. I guess idea is there's no Durant, right? I don't know.

Is there Durant?

“Well, even if there isn't, is it better went out of them, right?”

Is there some crazy way? Better without them, like, do you want them on the bench, or do you just laugh it up with reshappered in Jabari last night, so I mean, it seemed like or the other night, so it seemed

like everything was cool, Joe, you go first.

So are you reading the prices as they exist right now on the Fandalsports Bookfield Simmons? They are where I saw them a half an hour ago, maybe they changed a little bit. And what is the rocket's price? The rocket's price.

I'm going to give it to you right now. The rocket's price is plus 730. Okay. So that's because no team in the history of the NBA has come back from a freezer of deficit.

Filly is still 111, and Atlanta's plus 570, and weirdly, I probably feel the worst about Atlanta. I feel like they had their, they're like the Turk and the godfather. I missed my chance, I'm not going to go now. They have, they have so much, so yeah, I missed my chance.

Who would you have house?

“I think probably the sixers, just because there's a world where back he has one awesome”

game, and then beat has another awesome game, and then all of a sudden the Celtics are going home, and it's like, what just happened? We got Edgecom. I mean, at the price, that's right. Yeah.

We got one great Edgecom game, he's capable of two, so if Edgecom and Maxi to get their go off, and they did do this a couple of times in the season, I mean, we even have we, there's, there still could be like a vintage Paul George game in there. I guess that's the one that was a vintage Paul George game. Look like honestly though, he's right, it's like saying like a vintage no card or performance.

It's scoring in the high 20s, early 30s and locking down one of Boston's wings. That's it. I mean, I agree, it's, it's the sixers, it is, it is like, let's win game six and then game sevens are weird. Great theory about how the rockets, I mean, the, the, uh, lakers didn't want to win

game four, because they wanted to extend the series, so that the next series would start later to buy a look a more time. I don't believe this. I just say caulkin spursy bills attention, but the lakers would lose game four and game five to push the next series to like Tuesday, oh, they would lose both.

Yeah, they, they basically throw multiple games.

I don't believe this, but conspiracy bill, it did come across as desk. I did hold it up to the light didn't pass the, uh, do you think every time, uh, Luca watches Lou Dort trip a guy, he's like, ah, you know what? This is getting a little tight one more second here. It's going to be fun watching SGA against, I don't even know who I'm the lakers.

If that ends up being the series. Who's Mars? Yeah, that that's not going to last too long. Okay, next question, which team would you rather be Denver minus 142 or Minnesota plus 120 right now heading in the game six, if your life dependent on it,

which team would you rather be, which team would you rather back?

He came back in the game.

I think he's okay. Okay. Um, man, that's really rolling downhill. I guess Minnesota when I rather be Denver or what I rather be who, Minnesota, Denver's minus 138 Minnesota's plus.

Oh, I thought it was a different series. Yeah, I, I would rather be Denver. House. Why is that a question? I don't understand.

It's a question, which team would rather back? Minnesota just has to win one game. Yeah, but they don't have Anthony Edwards. They don't have their best player.

“They're not going to, I mean, well, can I give you that?”

What are you doing is you're, you're saying the version of the Joker that we've

seen thus far, even with, you know, an empty calorie triple double to stay

off of my face. That was not an empty double. Triple double. Why do you say that? He was great.

That game. He was fine. Here's my fear. The game five, Spencer Jones, Cam Johnson were really good at home. In a game five, what is that going to look like in a game six in Minnesota when you're

on the road and, and your team actually needs you? I just think it's easier for guys like that to play at home. That's one of the things that frustrated with the Celtics tonight. Like home games are the time to bring out your bench guys and hope you strike oil with one of them.

I don't really trust that many of these Denver guys, of course. It's not going to play, you know, and I don't think Minnesota needed that game. I just think that's the way the league works. It's like we're up three one, it would be nice to be able to deal this. They don't have Anthony Edwards, but they need their game.

They're game games for them. I'm not saying they have a game, I just think there's a level of desperation that one team has versus the other, you could feel a little bit of a funny Boston, but especially in Denver, Minnesota, where Minnesota's like, hey, we don't really need this game. Like game six is the one they need.

“But that's, wouldn't you call that a must win basically though?”

That game six I mean, I wouldn't because I don't, I don't, I think it's conceivable to go in somebody's building and win games sevens. We just see it over and over again now. Like house, it's not like what we grew up in the 80s, where it was like game seven and home, you won.

And if you could win a game seven and somebody's building, it was like a fucking miracle. I feel like anybody can win anywhere now. If Anthony Edwards was playing for Minnesota, they'd win this series. This is a Minnesota team that went to the goddamn Western Conference finals two consecutive years.

They have no problem beating Denver and they demonstrated, you know, the idea for this series was that this is a new Denver, Denver real off 13 straight wins coming into the playoffs. I don't know the last time they lost three consecutive games. They just lost three consecutive games to this Minnesota team because this Minnesota team has, they know how to beat Denver.

They are built to beat Denver. They know how to beat Denver. They have no issue beating Denver, but they don't have anything Edwards. So I think that Denver's going to win three straight games and they're going to beat Minnesota in the series.

Well, it sounds like you should bet the Denver money line for this series. Done. I'll tell you this. They last. I think the line for a game five is at a whack.

Tampa, Minnesota is plus five and a half at home in game six. I think it's a 50 50 game and I don't really trust Denver without Gordon with him caught either playing hurt or not playing it all. They don't have five guys that I trust in a game like this.

“And I think that's what worries me with them.”

So if you have with Minnesota, even if it's just I am like Daniel's read Randall and Go Bear and you get lucky with one of the bench guys, I think you could beat Denver in a game like that. So I'm leaning Minnesota. I mean, I would take the points, but I also I sometimes a little off with Denver.

I don't, I don't like it. I think Gordon's too important to them. So you would really have to see Joker just go bakers if he has that game in him. Like don't you, I mean, unless he's got some secret injury or horsey love. He's like, he's got that game in him.

Of course it. I don't know. The fact that he's just not hitting threes anymore, where is me? The NBA did the little bit of the playbook in game four.

McDonald's had two fouls in the first three minutes of the game, which was just a classic.

And I don't, you're not getting that in this game and I bet McDonald's is all over the place. All right. So we disagree on that one. This one's probably little easier, which team would you rather be Cleveland or Toronto?

Cleveland's minus four sixty. Toronto's plus three eighty. I would be very worried if I was Cleveland though because I think Toronto's found something with the muck it up small ball thing. And Cleveland has James Hardin.

Those three music concerns. Zach, what we call this one correctly. This is going to go seven and the home team is going to win this series.

It doesn't need to go seven.

Cleveland has advantages in a lot of different ways.

“Except is Evan Mobley a bitch, I mean, I think it's time to go ahead and put it on the”

top. If I would use that word, what word would you like to use, because maybe it's step up time. Step the fuck up time, this team was built to be a 55 win team this series, this season coming in.

They were supposed to be comparable to the team from from last year. They hit the reset button and brought in some really important valuable assets at the trade deadline because it wasn't working. The formula didn't work. And I just would like to see the guys that were we're adorning with the, they're here

to leap is coming. Here it comes. This is what this team's supposed to be on paper. And I'm still waiting. We're playing playoff basketball games now. That's where their advantage is supposed to reside is that dude with his insight outside, you know, capacity. I don't know. I'll just sit tight and wait for it to happen, I guess. I said this to Zac on Sunday. He doesn't seem to have these games where it's like, wow,

Kevin Mobile is running a mock. He's just destroying Toronto tonight. Like, he's kind of there. He does some nice things, but I don't know if there's that last level from this might just be who we is here.

Yeah, I, I've not spent a ton of time with this series. This is always the one that's

your time being not locked in the Raptors caps on to be at like 130 PM. You know, like, I've never sure. The mobile thing though is strange because you would hope that something like the hard and trade is the exact thing that it would be like, look, like, I mean, hard and was very, very, very good for him beat. Like, it's just like playing with a big man and being able to like facilitate that kind of stuff. And it just doesn't seem to have

made an appreciable difference. I do kind of feel like Cleveland's playing with their food a little bit here and will win the series. But it is an unnecessary amount of labor for these

“guys, I think I picked Cleveland and six. The two series ones I liked were Cleveland and”

six and the next and six. Cleveland and six is now minus 105. So it's even Cleveland and seven is plus 170. And if you wanted to get nuts and think Toronto upsets Cleveland and game seven and we have another James Harden moment, that is seven to one. I do think they found something with Murray Boyle's that on going smaller. Like, they've, you know, they

basically turned it into an athletic rock fight. And they made a really difficult cult for the

calves and I, I'll be interested to see what the, what the adjustments are. I'd probably lean Cleveland in six still. But if it goes to a seven, I would just be really nervous. The history of Cleveland sports, the history of James Harden, the Donovan Mitchell. Okay. And then Orlando, the Troy to Orlando is minus 240 and Detroit is plus 198. But we did find out that France is yet the latest one. Oh, now it's minus 290 minus 250 Orlando plus 25 Detroit.

We did find out, even though Orlando's up 31, that France has a calf thing and it's going to miss game five. That's, like, probably for the rest of the series. It's a calf thing where you're missing a game, which tells me that's at least a week and it's not 100% in the way that I thought that team really found something with the five starters and cane and a little black but really like six and a half guys. So this, this changes that a little bit. I, I don't know

how. So where do you stand in this series house? It's the most impossible one to figure because of the skits of Frederick magic. They were skits of Frederick coming down the stretch. They lost seven straight games. Then they they finished the season on a seven and three over their last day. That's to our G. Lee team. When they needed a win, they played all the learners. G. Lee team and then they lost to Philadelphia right in the play and and really didn't even

show up. Yeah, they thought they did not want to be in the playoffs against us. Yeah, that was a 1, 2, 3 cancun vibe they were given off for sure. Paolo, but France reminded us when like he was

“really important to them. He really can't score. Yeah, really can't create, but he's France”

questionable Wagner. Tell me, take the cue out of the, you know, next to his name and go play. Just play. You can't play. You can't be on the floor. Chris. There's hard to imagine because Detroit's so new to this. This is all happening so soon for them and playing as a one seed that I don't think they have like the institutional knowledge necessarily to call themselves out of this. So even without Wagner, it doesn't feel like this is Detroit ripping off three in a row.

They don't, there's no guy on that team where I'm like, well, he's going to put it together.

It's exactly what you've been talking about where it's just like they stood pat at the

“trade deadline. Maybe in three years they'll be able to be like, see, that's why we did that.”

But this year they're going to regret it. And it's going to be a little bit of like a bruise going into next season where you're like your number one seed. You were the number one seed almost like wire to wire. I think they were pretty high up there at least for for most of the season. And to get beat by the eight seed of a bunch of guys who most people were like, Jamal Mosley's going to get fired in between play and game. Still like a fire.

Yeah. And that's crazy. So I mean, I think that that's pretty unnerving for Detroit. Well, you get a think on you because you have this great regular season. And then you flame out and round one. And then you go to the next season. And no matter what

the result is for the first three months, people are like, well, this was what happened last

year. Like we've seen this happen with the calves. We saw it happen with the Phoenix Suns. There's these teams that can have these great regular seasons. And it just evaporates overnight when you when you have like a flame out. I mean, I'm I'm willing to be a tiny bit more generous with Detroit. They did like, Jade and I be might have played an important role in this series. It's it's possible. You can't dismiss it out of hands. You can play in 10 minutes for TMZ headlines.

Well, for no, I mean, you know, he's kind of a viable starter. And it's the case that like, you know, we complained that they didn't do more at the trade deadline. But they thought they were going to have Malik Beesley last summer. They thought Malik Beesley was going to play basketball for them. The best one of the best three point shooters in the league last year. Yeah, but they've known for a long time. No, no, no, no, no, no. They put a gun to their head and told them the San Carousel

of hurt when their other fray agents. I mean, they they don't think they covered themselves in glory.

“I think Orlando won 60 games. No, that's pretty good. Yeah. You can feel it now. Right. I really”

like the Orlando minus 240. And I just think that we'll win one of the next three games because I don't I, their defense, the rock fight nature of this. I just don't see Detroit winning fans. Yeah. And during seems like he's on another planet. So yeah, like they they thought he was like if he was balling and like it was just like they just are losing close games or something. But he seems I mean, he just got these release. Yeah. Right. We cover that later. Last thing, the lottery proposal

Shoms wrote this 321 lottery proposal that they leaked out. Batteries now 16 teams. This would be the idea. Teams 4 through 10 in the lottery order. Get three lottery balls. But if you fall into the bottom three, you won't get two. And then everybody else nine and 10 plan seeds and each conference also get to in the losers of these seven eight playing games get one. And then they had some other stuff about no team would be able to win the top pick and get seconded beers, which I like.

No team would be able to win three consecutive top five picks. I like that as well. And then you would not be able to protect picks in the 12 to 15 slots going forward. Oh, interesting. So I thought this was too confusing. I thought only ones I really liked out of this were the ban on winning top pick and the ban on winning three consecutive top five picks. The other stuff, like I still feel like there's going to just be different ways to tank. Like

would golden state of rather been a plan team or would rather be in the 4 through 10 spot with more lottery balls than anybody else. And then the other 16. I would rather throw away the playing game at that point, which to me sounds like even more severe. So going into the playoffs, I was chatting a little bit with Zach about whether or not like the teams in this in this plan tournament

“or if that's what you want to call it. We're like a validation of the concept of the plan or”

a repudiation of it. And like would you rather be in the the AJ Peterson, you know, a cuff sweep stakes or would you rather, you know, go get your teeth kicked in by Oklahoma City or or thought Detroit. And now it's like, you know, not only is Orlando now made this a series with Detroit and that's

super fun. You know, it'll probably be a little bit hard in the second round. But like I don't know,

man, like I kind of think that improving the enticing teams that are like mediocre or low mediocre to duck the playoffs or be worse than they actually are because they might get into the into the lottery, I even even if it's weighted that way, I still love it. And again, I know this is kind of a superficial critique. But if you can't explain it to me in an elevator ride, it seems like it's not going to really be popular. And that's also one of the problems with this is it's like it's not like

playoffs. You kind of tune out after the first four picks. What about you, what about you house?

“Yeah, I mean, this is the inherent challenge that super unique to the NBA and as long as”

the incentive structure rewards teams that fair worse over the course of the season with a higher draft pick than you are stone cold fucked. You have created an incentive structure for teams to go try and get that because the impact is outside, the impact of getting a player, that can change your franchise, you know, in a split second. I mean, you know, Wendy isn't a good example because he's a once in whatever kind of a player and Detroit had the highest

number that year and didn't get him. Yeah, that's right. I mean, and Washington has been up there in the mix for a handful of years. But, you know, Cooper flag to Dallas completely resuscitated against the franchise. A dead situation. It's a miracle that they got that

lottery. Really? I'll never get it over. I'll never get it over. It's a miracle. It's going to be

“a miracle. It's going to be miraculous. It's going to be a miracle. I don't know why we can't”

just have the top 10 worst teams each get 8%. And anybody in from the one to 10, 8% and then we split the other 20% with how many teams you want to go. And then put out and those other things about the top five pick consecutive years and all that stuff. I'm fine with that. The thing I really don't like about this bottom through record being penalized thing. What happens if you just have the year from how in a bunch of guys get injured? Like Indiana. Indiana, I actually

watched those games and felt like they were trying to win most of the time for the most part. They weren't doing a lot of the capillary about it. They just had a lot of injured part of the season.

Yeah, the second part of the season. I mean, that's, but there were teams earlier in the season

and earlier that just didn't have a choice for what was happening. Yeah. But then there were teams like with no disrespect, Utah who, I felt like we're, Utah definitely could have been better than you. Why were they no disrespect? Yeah, because they get very touchy about that. I don't know, but Utah should have done that. Like if the system is going to tell you to do this because you don't want to get a play and have Morgan and JJ J and be awesome next year. You know, like they

could be really exciting. I still wonder if there's some way to, um, to split, like split the seasons in half for the lottery balls and if like in the second part of the season, like Argentinian soccer. Well, if your record is just way out of whack with what it was in the first half of the season, then maybe that, maybe that should be, but if this gets into your elevator things here, I do think we're going to have to be able to explain this in a sentence. It's like anything

else. It's like good TV shows. You should be able to explain the sentence. The movie pitch should be a sentence. A pitch I have for a company should be a sentence and the lottery should be one sentence. And it's like, hey, top 10, the worst 10 teams, 8% chance each, you can't win the top pick two years in a row and you can't get a top five pick three years in a row. And those are our new roles

“and that's what we're doing. I think people would accept that more than what we have now.”

This three to the only dangerous, just like the teams that are 13, 14th worst, try to try to dip in. Look at this. This is a proposal. This is a fucking 400 words. I mean, that can't be your proposal. So hopefully this will not be what they end up doing. House just wants to win one more lottery before they pack it in. This is the one. What are your big ones? There's a big culture change happening in Washington. I was reading a change. Yeah.

They're doing one-on-one with like the whole staff at the players. Like I was reading about it. It was kind of cool. I was like, Ted, well, how's that about to do a male bag? We have a great, great Washington wizard question in the male bag that we're about to do. CR, what's life been like after CR month, just just searching for answers after that. Yeah. We're just for meaning. Yeah. No, it's been for nine. Hi, what are you talking about? Yeah. No, I'm Ghostbusters, baby. Yeah, Ghostbusters

was great. Um, Bill, did you see the PSG by our music game today at all? I did the chip is like a game. Saturday I was doing. I highly recommend you check it out on the final score of it. Five, four PSG. It's one of the best soccer football matches I've ever seen. Oh, really. This guy in Michael Olysey who plays for Bayern Munich is played out of his mind today. I was hoping he would go to Liverpool

Yeah, about 20 guys. I watched that. I watched a bunch of angles without one. Can that happen more? Because they go to something that pads to send me that one. I want to see that one. Oh, it was great. He

“caught this guy. Yeah, it was good stuff. Yeah, every little head over here. Is that what's going on?”

I mean, like, it's, I think it's, it's heating up, obviously. But no, the PSG Bayern game was like

the, like, revived my, uh, my soul is amazing. Do you have a champion's league pick for,

for Hassanay? I just think PSG's going to win. You think they're going to win the whole thing? You got Hass's attention. Okay. He just was the odds had. I don't know. But I think the tough thing for personal is if they beat Atlético, the Spanish team, they're plus one. He'd five us. Okay. Good. I'm in. They're running. Arsenal's run in his tight because they're, they're going, no, no, it's with Man City for the, for the title. So, it's a little harder for them

than it would be for PSG. CR is just as, as soon as the sixers get eliminated, it would ever round. He moves right into World Cup mode in England. Just thinking about everything, where would we go? Is that, is that the, who's your, your World Cup pick? I, uh, my World Cup pick. He hasn't done other, all the research. It really depends because a bunch of guys have gotten hurt recently. So, I have to kind of rethink it a couple of French guys got hurt. He's doing his preparing for

Sean's doing a movie draft of the best-filled picker hall movies themselves. They're running out of movie draft ideas. So they're doing that. It's hoping to get happiness with a second round pick. Hey, I don't want to keep house up very late. But I have to ask him one question. -Groggyhouse loves this. What are you talking about? -Yeah, I'm sorry. For the last, like, 10, 12 days, maybe a little bit longer. He's been kind of trolling me about

how unquestionable it is that RAM is better than the replacements. -Oh my god. -God.

“-I, I didn't know where you stood on this, but I know you must think it's a closer fight than”

though. -No, that, that wasn't what I said. -Uh-huh. -As usual, classic CR, you twist to my words, Ryan. I said at the time, CR that RAM was a much bigger band than the replacements. And I think we did put them next to each other. -That is true. -And now is the years of past. -Pickers, different. People are like, no, actually the replacements were better.

And that's been a thing that has happened. -There's been two different arguments. And you following me down the hallway and being like, the bum's lost is not convincing me. Because you said they're bigger. I say, I know they're bigger. And you were like, and they were better. And it's like, I just don't agree. -They had a more successful career. -Okay, again, two different, like, you know, who had a more successful career than minor threat.

“-Okay. -Now it's awesome. -I think, you know, made more money was more well-known,”

you know, more critical, not more critical acclaim, but, uh,

when we were in college, REM was the crown prince of Alternative College Radio. They were the band. -I was a DJ. -Yeah. -It's WCHC, the College of the Holy Cross, the hip stuff. 99.1 FM. From the day I arrived, you know, the first time they let me on in that radio station within the first couple weeks of school. They gave me me and Jeff Mesa, the 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday night slot, a freshman. Go suck a fat one.

Here's the radio slot Friday night to the Holy Cross. -It's a little bit spicy. -It's a little bit spicy. -And I'm here to tell you, I didn't play REM in four years. From 19, the fall of 1987 to the spring of 1991, I didn't play a single REM song. Not once, in my entire college, because they were too mainstream and you were having a bad game. -And how much time does that place say it against the R? -How much time did you bang?

-How much? -Amazing. -Of course. Of course, goes without saying.

-There you go. -That's the only metric to calculate those mission of Burma, you know, replacements. You lemon heads back and they're like, "Awesome, awesome, amazing stuff we could do." Volcano sons, bang it, baby. -So what's your answer, House? -What? -Who do you probably have most more as more as established a length of your career? But the replacements are irrefutably incredibly impactful for the moment that they

ever read that. And what they did, okay? I read. -I read. -They page. We're all on the same page. -So it's Fugazzi. Fugazzi surpasses the replacements to be respect, I mean, respectively. -You know, it's got to be a fun conversation. -It's got to be a fun conversation. -Early 2000's music is fucking back.

Ben Simmons went to Cachella. Number one reason was because the strokes were playing.

All that music is back from the AAS, all that stuff is back. LCD.

“-I saw the Fugazzi, aren't you? -I saw the Fugazzi, aren't you?”

Back in the day. They were a little bit farty for me. Like, I saw them with guided by voices. That's the problem, CR. -And guided by voices kicked their ass, right? -Yeah, it wasn't closed. -Yeah. -So that's the problem.

First time I saw the strokes, would they play with guided by voices?

-Can we schedule, like, a late 80s or early 90s, please? -I'll turn it at a rock. -It's the first time I was friends ever been mentioned on your podcast. -Yeah, that was pretty impressive. -That's fine. -There's none for sad chance. All right, House is gonna stay 'cause we're doing a mailbox. CR is gonna go and celebrate with a couple of V.J. -Agecomb, Bruce. -It's gonna be a V.J. at some delicious. -Yeah, some V.J. lights.

Guys, thanks so much to you, sir. All right, we are in full swing for the NBA playoffs. Great teams, great players, great action. Every single night, the stakes are the absolute highest. And when I watch, I love to bet on Fandel, especially when I'm on the East Coast, back for Salt the Game, said I could just jump right in. Fandel, a brand-out trust, easy to build by bet. I know I will get my winnings instantly. So, Wednesday night,

a couple really fun ones, because we have, we have Orlando Detroit, Toronto, Cleveland, and Houston

“Lakers. And honestly, I don't think you can go wrong with the underdog money lines and any of those.”

I'm gonna send out an official pick if I really love one of the matchups or a parlay situation, but I think all of those series are 50/50 series, especially like Orlando might just be better than Detroit. Toronto has really figured out a small ball line up to Bug Cleveland, and Houston Lakers, who knows that. I mean, that series should be 2/2. It's 3/1. Anyway, I will figure it out. Check out my picks and the Fandel sportsbook app and on my social feed. Don't forget to boost your

potential winnings before you place it. Fandel, play your game. All right, you just saw a house with CR. Now we've gone in a time machine backwards about 10 hours house. And we're gonna do some mailback questions. I had so many good mailback questions. People sent an amendment to BS podcast [email protected]. You came on and did the mailback with me. I think last month. And you said after I just had a great time. To true story, I love the mailback. It's one of, I mean, I'm not sure that I'm allowed to

talk about your re-apex, but the re-introduction of the mailback into your steady stream of content is is welcome in America loves it. Yeah, when I started my calm on this Boston Sports

“guy in '97, I think the mailback was like the third one I ever did. It was encouraging people to send”

him out. So I'm glad they're still happening. I have a bunch of good ones for us. First one is from

chat age who made a request. Oh, would prefer if you could answer this one with house for obvious reasons. Uh-oh. Yeah, who really think this is good. There are two or three possibilities. None of what you're good. He said, I was so excited for RB's steak nuggets when they came out last year. And then it seemed like they dropped off the face of the earth. It was over before it started. I think this should be an NBA award. Who is this year's RB's steak nuggets and be a player of

the air named for the player that showed such early promise? And then for one reason or another, completely fell off the map. Wow, tremendous question. Really good. I have a good answer for this. That I can go first unless you want to jump in. I need you to go first. But I will say in RB's defense part of the allure of the nuggets was their scarcity. It was a limited time run, a limited edition. Now, I'm not suggesting that whatever player you have in mind and one that I'll think of in the next 35

seconds also should be scarce or should be a limited run. But there's nothing keeping RBs from bringing back the steak nuggets in the same way. This player that we're going to talk about could ascend yet. So the scarcity, I think what we're landing on here is it had to be somebody we felt like was going to be in our life more consistently. And then it was abruptly over. But we know next season, the player is going to come back much like the RB's steak nuggets.

That the candidates to me are basically anyone unsure that we could go with, uh, we could go with concuniple that we thought we're going to get a great playoff front from him. All of a sudden was over.

He didn't win rookie the year. And it's just abrupt. But I think the answer is Jalen Durran

who I voted for second. I voted for him second team on BA. I really thought he'd daily content out of this now. Well, he hurt your feelings. You're really in your feelings about this. I really believe I had him second team on BA. I want to, I want to write into the NBA and see if I can change my vote even though I already said it in. He's been so bad in these playoffs for him for somebody

that I wonder if it's, but he's still playing. So I don't know if that qualifies.

So I was trying to think of teams that came out hot and then fell off at the beginning of the season. We thought, Oh, we'll look at this team and then they fell off. But I can't really come up with anybody that fits that very well. It does Janice qualifying like the version of the box that we all lost money on because we thought that the bucks were going to be really something this this season. And we got tiny tastes of him and like, oh, Collins, like what we look at this,

you know, what what he's done in terms of the like they've got the role players. It looks like this box team could be something it was very fleeting. It tasted good for a minute and now it's gone.

“Yeah, that's pretty good. I think that's probably the answer. There was like this when Janice”

came back and the bucks had hung around and it. But the thing is like the RB steak nuggets came out

of nowhere. Janice, we've had for years and years. So I do feel like it has to be like a fast riser guy. Oh, a player. Yeah, that we didn't know. Well, you know, it could be lamella too. Like we didn't realize this alone. I think really good. Yeah, I think it's a pretty good answer. I like that one. Yeah, it would have brought the end it and then we were mad at him and he just did a bunch of dumb things and we don't know where he went. All right, we'll go with lamella. Alex from Virginia said,

I know you and Zach are old white guys. Good start. And maybe you need Van Lathan to inform you of important information that the beautiful Angel Reese used to date Jaylanderan. Now, she is the proud girl of Wendell Carter and has taunted during on Instagram during the series. So Carter may have taken Angel Reese outplayed during in a series and potentially even sent him home as a 1-8 underdog, Wendell needs respect. So I didn't know about this until yesterday. So maybe that is because

I'm an old white guy because she didn't Instagram of cane on the magic. Who raising cane came out of nowhere and dunked right on Dern's head and she did an Instagram post about it and has been, I guess, I'm not, I'm not really on social like that. So I sometimes I missed stuff and I definitely missed this storyline. I wish we could have incorporated into our bet. I feel like we might have even taken Orlando money line and if we had known this was a factor.

But anyway. Well, as you know about this as another old white guy game by game. I'm familiar with the who she's dating now. I'm familiar with this current relationship. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know the entirety of the history. I will say since game two with Orlando, I've thought that Orlando has been super live and I'm sure we're covering it in the in the portion with CR. Yeah, I won't elaborate right now. Okay. Zach wants to know for other times you mentioned people

saying Denver beat no one on the way to their championship in 23. I mentioned I didn't say I felt this way, but this is a thing that people are saying now. The Denver's only one one tied all

“they didn't beat anyone that year. Zach wants us to remember that all the experts pick”

both the lakers and the sons to win the West say here and the son's team was allegedly stacked.

And the whole reason I started this in your podcast in the first place is you were the only

voice outside Denver that genuinely believed the nuggets could win. I just feel like I need to defend our only championship as we potentially fall apart this year. It is one of those stupid narratives because Denver was not on the radar like that and people did think it was going to be lakers. I don't remember what the sons nuggets line was that series, but I think people felt like that was going to be even. Right? I love this. I love it. That is to say that the storyline about a team

with an undeserved NBA championship outcome. The only one within modern era that you could possibly take issue with poke holes in is the summer camp, the summer camp championship that the lakers won. That's exactly right. I mean, did you think else? Come on. Did you see what Davis said about that? He felt like that. It didn't even really totally win. And it was so weird there. And that's just completely different. That was like every other Davis. That makes sense. Yeah. You shocker.

No, I thought Denver, you know, when they put Miami, Miami was like a giant cohort at that point.

“They'd taken out a lot of good teams. And you could make the case. The only thing you could really”

ding Denver on is that their fault was Draugaj got hurt. And Draugaj was in the same in the finals. And I think that would have been a really live finals for Miami if Draugaj is healthy. I don't know if that's a great one. We have examples of teams that the suffering injury in that way, you know, either as the finals get started during the course of the finals that the NBA history is replete with those examples. Denver earned that title. It was legit. You can pave it. However,

you saw the path because of the kind of this and that like every champion of the last 50 years has those kinds of. And by the way, if we're going to do that with teams and pick

with half the titles. Then we should swing the other way. And we should talk about the 2011

“Maverick's title reverentially, where they went through every good team in the West.”

Think they were underdogs. They beat Portland in a series. They were down on. They swept the lakers. They beat okay scene. And when the okay scene was really scary. And then, right, upset this Miami team that every thought, every thought was going to win eight straight titles. Then we should talk about Dirk reverentially. We should talk about the 2011 Maverick's all the time. You can't have it both ways. That's fine. All right, darn equal. We, we, but they're all hard.

I mean, I'm not, why are you trying to play off games? Yeah, we're on the side edge. We want to get into the business of, yeah, we're on the same side. Yeah, because you look at okay see this year, they get Phoenix and round one. They're going to get lakers, rockets, you know, that that winner and round two. And then, you know, potentially San Antonio, Denver. It's what ever happened. Right. And maybe who knows if one of those teams is even going to be fully healthy. And that's

here is so, I don't know, you could do this all the time. This one I did not know about. And I checked today and it was not a big deal. It was, it was brought to my attention by Dave workman,

“who said, did you hear Jay Moore's latest pod with flooded debates?”

Now, there is a really funny part of this where Vlad A explains why they took Marvin Bagley over Luca because they already had this leader in the Aaron Fox who was happy to be in a small market and he thought Luca was a big market guy. It might not be a fan. It was like insane. It was like he had six years to workshop it. Anyway, Dave says, obviously he's married to Genie bus. When they were talking about Luca, he said, quote, I knew about the Luca trade for like six

weeks because of Genie had to keep my mouth shut. And I was like, don't trade AD. That's crazy. And then he has thoughts. Okay. So this goes back to a great conspiracy building that I've even tried to badge or rich Paul who does a podcast for the ringer about. I feel like way more people

than everyone claims, knew about this Luca trade. I'm just always going to believe that you've been

saying it from the very beginning. I'm always going to say it. I'm always going to cube and pretend he didn't know the Dumont's pretended they didn't know to the last minute. Jason Kidd, who I wouldn't say has like an awesome truth history. He claimed he didn't know. JJ Reddick said he knew at the last second. It was basically every single person so far. I believe JJ the most. And I think Genie even said, yeah, we didn't know until the last second. Well, now your boyfriend just went out of

or now your husband went on a podcast and said he knew for six weeks. So I mean, the proof is in the pudding you two spelled it out immediately. 80 way of the trade kicker. And that's it. That's

“all you need to know. 80 way of the trade kicker almost overnight for reasons that remain unclear”

because he was under the trade because he wasn't 100% happy in LA. And I just I what would you say over under people that know I'm going if I give you over now over under nine and a half would you over I thought you I thought you were going to set it at 15 and a half because think about everybody in that on the two ownership groups right those ownership groups are you know have minority owners whatever yeah nine and a half is an over for me. Okay. This is one of the reasons I wanted to

have you on a fantastic email from Furgas Collins. All right, Furgas. I'm from Ireland. I mostly follow our sports, but I'm also a Celtics fan. Why does following Rory Maccorroy and following the Celtics feel like the exact same emotional roller coaster? They both give you the most hope for success to a fan while also giving me the greatest chance of a dramatic collapse. The Celtics last two twenty point leads against the next last year. Maccorroy ties the round with Scott in the 18th

and Ryder Cup. The heat upset the Celtics and the playoffs. Rory throws a foreshot final round lead in the masters in 2011 going up six unsaturday and Augusta countless articles about how no go for his ever-sunder major. Then he's talking about the Celtics favor to win the East

scrappy team but always blows lead. He goes on and on and he said how did I end up with both of these

people in my life, basically. It's great analogy because Rory is the most talented. I mean, other than Scottie, he's the most talented golfer. Yeah. And it's the last twenty years. He's really, you know, he's been in that upper upper upper echelon. And he, the greatest enemy to Rory is himself and in a lot of ways, I felt the same way about the Celtics the last few years, even the other night in Portland and in Philly when they're up in game four by 25. And I'm like, I'm my still up my

seatbelt on. I'm fully prepared for them to just take 10 terrible threes in a row and all of a sudden

the same feeling as Rory. So I actually think everybody's really good. It's great. Never feel safe

with Rory. Any lead whatsoever. I mean, going to bed Friday night with that six-stroke lead, you know, the conversations in my threads were like, you know, how, how is this going to get tightened up? We all know that it's, you know, that the six strokes are going to evaporate by hook

“of micro. The only thing I wonder about, and it is a tremendous job by Furious.”

Rory has an element of unmet's potential because there was a 10-year gap between the majors that he won. Was there a point? You know, the Celtics won in 24. So they finally got the the J's, the championship. But it felt like that was on time. It didn't feel like the J should have won a championship earlier than that to me. They shouldn't have won a 22. They just weren't ready to win it. Yeah, I agree. They were better. They had a better curry. Just that was curry in the words infrastructure,

and that the South's not being ready yet. But I think if you walk, go back and watch those games. It's like, oh my god, how did they not pull this off? It was just curry was the know how you couldn't compete with it. That's right. Oh, I agree. 20 in the bubbles interesting because I don't think they were really ready that year and they had the Campbell Walker piece of it. But they really went toe to toe with all those teams that year. And that was easily one that could have made the finals. And then 18

that game seven against Cleveland, we, you know, one of the bronze greatest games every plays all 48

“minutes. And it's basically just a little brown against the Celtics. What did they miss 103's?”

So they were made the finals. So if you say this whole run from when they got out horror for

it all the way to now. And it's basically they've only made the finals twice. I would say that's

the slide under a chief for the potential. Okay. Yeah. Because I mean, you would point to Ferrari, the US open that he coughed up against Bryson when Bryson snatched it, you know, on the 18th hole with worry missing a short put. Or Rory lost the open championship, Cam Smith a couple years ago. Shout a super low score and Rory couldn't get any birdies to roll in. So it was right there on a Sunday on the back nine of those championships that couldn't get to get to the cross line.

Okay. And last year too, like they blow two 20 point leads to the next. And then Tatum gets her and they, you know, squander that series, Indiana ends up making it and taking okay C to seven and okay C's young and not totally ready yet and who knows what the Celtics would have been. But I, I think that's I think that's a good analogy. I think we're going to look back at how they had Tatum and Brown

basically coming in at the same time a year apart, um, which is impossible now in this day and age to

keep two guys like that who are that expensive together. But they also had cap space and a great

“GM and like, man, they only made two finals. That's why I think there's some pressure on them this year.”

That took great points. You know what I mean? It's like, wow, I like this. I think three more finals in that. We had these two guys all the time. Uh, speaking of Tatum, Xavier in New York says Dante Dave and Chenzow, they said he already went full Tatum surgery. Are we at the point where that should just be what it's called? Like how Tommy John became TJ Tarrett fixed it immediately, no debate. Tatum bounce back. Have we now created to JT surgery

because so much of it depends on how fast players get it after they tear their Achilles. You have to repair it immediately of a better chance come back. Will this be called the Tatum surgery? I can't I can't stand for it. And it's not because I have any particular feelings for the player that I think it's appropriately assigned to. But we did we live through with Aaron Rogers. Aaron Rogers was threatening coming back and playing football games, you know, the season right after

but he got different Aaron Rogers got the different surgery though. He got the quicky surgery. Tatum got the one where immediately. Yeah, but he got the one that allowed him to come back faster. Tatum got the one where they did the full heel, but they did it within 10 hours of the injury and they feel like that and let it to come back 100%. I do feel like he might have the doctor who did it might have created some new version of this. All right. I don't know.

I'm well, I don't like having Tatum's name involved with the surgery is my least favorite part of this. I feel like Kobe was his company. He got hurt again. Yeah, he came back, but then hurt something else. I threw this at Zach. I wanted to get your take from Rob from Penn Escola. Could you consider renaming the you ain't there after trium? Got a few of these about the Hawks or that trianaeligible. My take was pretty steadfast. He wasn't good enough to be

eligible for the you ain't there. I don't feel like anybody thought the Hawks were screwed when

the you ain't theory includes a kind of immediacy. Like the player is supposed to be part of your

plan and the player is lost and you're not like that's where it's getting hurt right now. Minnesota makes the finance without it. That's right. That would be the you ain't there. Exactly. Tray young had already been marginalized like the direction of the team with the trades that they made, the acquisitions, the off-season acquisitions, the direction of the team. They were looking to I feel like they knew what they had with Tray. You know, the answer to this because they

“didn't extend them. Like if they he was the most important player to them and they would have”

extended him. So I don't ever criticize anyone for trying, you know, let's just be creative here. Everybody's innovating with with the theory, but I feel like we have to visit for it. Don't forget what the bones of it are, which was a superstar that the media felt was the single biggest reason the team would win the title, gets hurt, everybody writes out, gets hurt or traded or whatever, everybody writes off the team and then they do better without them. That is fundamentally

with the you ain't theory is Edward's been an example. Another one would be like if Jalen Brunson sprained an ankle or something and all of the sudden the next started running stuff through towns and were much better without Brunson basically and we're like whoa it's a different next team but are they better and that would be an example of the you ain't theory. Like oh my god we're so screwed we don't have Brunson and he's better and it would be the next that would be

pretty. Or if the Celtics last year if Tatum had got hurt and it came back from 31 and made the finals and then sure. Yeah that's that it has to be that level player. We'll hand some of them from Chicago Rights. I didn't know this. I said a lot of people talk about Ripkins consecutive games played

a street that you loved dearly or Wilts 100. I will always think the most unbelievable

sports that is LeBron averaging 27 7 and 7 over 1600 plus games but never playing a single game that had the stat line 27 7 and 7. I feel like it's more likely his points record gets broken than whatever the hell that record is. It's the perfect metaphor for a guy who's historical consistency never stops changing and evolving. I had no way to look this up because I'm not smart enough but if this is true. If he never actually had a 27 7 7 while averaging 27 7 and 7 every year

that's fucking crazy. That's the single that's crazier than BAM's 83 point games. So please can somebody tell us what's it for off that? Yeah sure. There's got so many to look that up. That was

“127 7 and 7 for all the games that he played when you think about it. You have to make eight”

straight finals. So you're not just talking about regular season games. You're talking about playoff series after playoff series after and then they weren't like you know full full four rows or four ones like that's a lot of games to not get a 27 7 7 7. It can't be true. John Palmer S. You'll love this one. We'll pulling a Paul George become a thing. Every ageing star dealing with injuries should be taken tons of

alleged HCH and other alleged band substitutes get stronger and recover faster. The penalty of caught is a 20 plus game midseason vacation which you probably would have missed anyway with via load management. Leave you more time to recover and train. They come back healthy and better just in time to spin up for the playoffs. They're giving up money of course. But what were the

“other negative consequences for Paul George? Again, this is from John Palmer. So here's the thing.”

Paul George has looked really good in this six or Celtic series. Like he I talked to this and was at Constantinente. It's like I felt he's resuscitated his trade value. So he cost himself

what 10 million with the suspension. But he's resuscitated himself as an asset whereas March with

big wise. He was the second pick in our worst contract strap. I don't think he would be the second pick anymore. So I love the concept of pulling a Paul George in general and trying to guess who would do this next year. It's like, oh, Zach Levine. He's pulling a Paul George. Now it's going to be somebody good who need to the rest. Somebody like Dremel. Like somebody. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody who needs their 30s. We're in that stretch right before the playoffs. That would be to me. If you're looking for

an opportunity for there to be genuine celery cap circumvention, that would be one where the team and the player and its representatives are all like, you know, you felt like you felt like just taking a because like in terms of of NBA public consumership, I feel like it's it's I you don't get as mad at the player for oh, he got popped for his epistess as opposed to he's sitting out deliberately because he's resting up for the playoffs. True. I feel like it gives you a pass a little bit to fail the

okay, it didn't realize. And that was it. Like Barry Bond was like, fuck, why did I know that in 2004?

“Only if only he knew. Yeah. I was thinking of some of the best pulling a blanks ever. And I think”

my favorite one is Vince Vaughan and Swingers saying, I want to grab two cocktail which is to pull me afraid out or whatever he said, like when he did the pull in a afraid out was my favorite pull in a, but pulling a podgear is pretty good. And now it's time for our new segment called era comp.

It is brought to you by new era, the official cap of the NBA today's players. I know they're incredible.

It's also important to recognize the legends who shaped the game for watching today. As you know, I love to do this in my podcast constantly. Bring up the past, bring up the history, everything. The new era NBA Hardwood classics collection celebrates a lot of those iconic moments and players who made that era unforgettable. So let's put the era side by side, the 80s and now they want to me to pick up top player now and compare them

to a player in the 80s. And this is a little unconventional, but

“I think there's a lot of YoKage and late 80s Magic Johnson who, Magic Johnson was a”

legendary point cry. He really wasn't. He couldn't guard the other point car in the other team.

He controlled the game. He could post up. He did a lot of stuff with his back to the basket.

He controlled the pace of the game, unbelievable passer. He could score 37 points in a game. He could score 20. He could have 20 assists in the game. He could have eight. He could rebound. He could get triple doubles and was just all over every single game offensively. And I think Joker, even though he's a center, when I watch them, they really remind me of each other. Joker is like the the kind of spawn of Bird and Magic, but really closer to the

late 80s Magic side. I think is the comp. And when I watch Joker, it's hard not to think a late 80s Magic as Karim is bald and old and everything had to run through Magic. Anyway, you can relive vintage logos and timeless icons with the new era NBA Hardwood classics collection. Headware available on a wide range of fitted and adjustable styles. I'm personally an adjustable

“guy because I have a giant head as well as Hardwood classics apparel. Here's what you have to do.”

You have to visit new era cap dot com slash ringer that is new era cap dot com slash ringer. And you could shop now and you can use one time code ringer for 20% off your first order. Go do it. Debob in New York. He says, I think the streaming resolution, I'm sorry, the streaming revolution

of the last seven years was secretly pushed by big advertisement before streaming. I never watched

the commercial my life when the game went to break. I flip channels if I was watching a DVR I fast forward it. Now I'm taking every second of commercials in because it takes too long to get out of the Amazon or peacock app. Thoughts is on the money here. First of all, if you leave peacock, you can't get back for another seven minutes. It's like it's auto luck. I had no, I thought it was me. I thought that, you know, I'm a pretty caveman TV person. Yeah. So I thought it was because I'm

using the internet to pull up my streaming, my streamers are all. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I'm doing it. And I thought, oh, I must be the only moron who can't switch from there to, you know, what ESPN to see what's going on in the in the hockey game because it will take me, you know, another four and a half minutes just to get over to ESPN. So good. This makes me feel better. These sports on streamers. I think there's been some real ramifications that we weren't really

fully able to assess until these playoff started because like when Netflix had the Christmas games, it's like, cool. I'll just pop over and check out the Christmas game or I'll watch the Christmas game. But now in late April, when there's hockey and basketball and baseball on, you really want the ability to maneuver around and unless, like, thank God for me. I have multiple TVs and I can keep stuff on. But if you got for you, but if you're a college kid, you have one TV or if you're at a bar,

like somebody who's telling me you're at a bar, you can go from that portion of where that TV over to this portion where the other TV is somebody who was telling me to bar in New York, they could only have the Amazon on one, one of like the ATVs because they lock you out after after three devices. So the other seven TVs were tied to ESPN and baseball and there was like the one Amazon TV and I was like, that makes sense. Like, I can't even watch Amazon with

my dad and my daughter hopping on my Amazon at the same time. We really, this is, we need to sports bar sports art to really figure all of this out because I just feel like Amazon should relax the device thing for the playoffs and peacock same thing where it should just be like, during the playoffs, 25 people can use my peacock or my Amazon. And then bar or maybe bars get

better way to do this. I, I just want the, the back function. How do I get the back function restored?

I can't have two TVs every day that our Tuesday, Monday's game. The first one ended on peacock

and I wanted to go backwards out of it. Yeah. And it, I just went into and it bissed on the TV. I was like, I was like, I was like, please, I was like, what happened back on? Yeah, I just skated side with this email was no longer timely, but I really liked it. And I feel like we got to figure out how to use it anyway. I am a proud female listener. And I've been writing hard for the pod for decades. Now to business, the playoffs start at April 17th, and I need to know which matchups

are you fully locked in for and which ones are you not absolutely not drinking any fucking

“Milo on? Do all eight matchups have some Pino in them or do any qualifiers of Milo matchup?”

Maybe you can spend quality time with your family and miss one. And this is written by Nicole quotes B. J. Diamond in Larchbot New York. I'm just reading the email. Sureman, sureman this. What was our, what, I like the idea of the Milo matchup though. I think it was okay. See Phoenix was our Milo matchup. Yeah. I'm only interested in that just to get a

gauge on whether I'm going to lie bet the spread, the second spread or the fourth quarter is

okay. So you're going to cover how am I going to lie bet this? That's it. We don't get, do I want to lie bet it? I did a fandel thing yesterday that actually hit where I had K 25 plus Tobias 15 plus okay. I went and shade 25 plus. So I was reading for shade of score and she had five points

“at the end of the first quarter and it was really fun because it was like,”

all right, I'm probably safe here. It's SGA and then shade just ripped off like 14 points in like three minutes and it was like this is great. I'm having so much fun. Yeah, Phoenix was very, very, very plucky. They were, they were in that. But it was a really fun way to watch the Milo matchup. But between okay, seeing Phoenix. So next year, I'm just going to bet the over on shade points. But I like the Milo matchup because we don't have MBA TV anymore. So we needed

somebody to replace MBA TV and it really only applies to round one, right? Because we're not going to every matchup in round two is going to be at the light and absolute full full on bang or big, big rest. We're going to big red land. Yeah. Well, Lakers, okay, see if Lucas not back will be

“interesting to watch. But I, isn't Reeves likely to be back? I understand. They're not beating. Okay.”

They would need injuries in the okay, see, say. Brayton from New Brunswick, Canada,

check the average Roger Gdell hug time for the first round of 2026 and 2015 and said,

my instincts, which I said on Thursday that I thought the hugs were getting longer, is correct. In 26, the average hugs were four seconds and 10 years older. They were two seconds. And he wonders if this double's each decade going forward in 2036, eight second hugs. Now, he sent this before the guy who stayed in the green room the whole time didn't get picked, the nose tackle and then got picked and came out at a 19 second hug with Gdell. So that might have

even bumped the hug number. But you know, that was emotional. The move is somebody should come out instead of going for the hug. Just a firm handshake, firm handshake, like almost refused the hug. I just would like to give you a business like handshake. How would Gdell react? Would he pull the guy in Trump style and like just mollum, what would he do? Yeah, I feel like, I mean, because Gdell isn't tiny. He's not, you know, he's done. He's not morphed by these guys. I feel like,

yeah, Gdell, he wouldn't tolerate it. As soon as he gets your hand, he's trying. He's Trump hugging you. Yeah. Yeah. Lister. Why do we, why, why, why are the hugs longer, though? What's the explanation for that? I don't know. Oh, I thought that's where we were headed on this whole time. You know, the hugs are twice as long as they were 10, 10 years ago. So why? Because people Rogers were comfortable. He's like, I own all this shit. I am the man in charge. The man who you want to hug

me? Who have you hugged for more than two seconds in the last 10 years? That was a friend of yours. I'm not at liberty to discuss this up. I mean, a friend of mine? Yeah, a friend, a male friend. Like, I had some very, but you saw the Holy Cross guys and you're, you want happy.

four second hug with any of them? You go like this hug and then you go to the arm around each other.

Yeah, those lasted. Well, you didn't go four second. Four body hug with any of them, right? No,

“no, no, no, no, not, not, not, not, you know, not junk to junk. I think the guys are like,”

it's like the quick quick hug and then the backhand shake your tight and then and then I like the arms around the shoulders. Yeah, yeah, up the chop it up on the arms around the shoulder like extends the hug, but it's not like a full nobody guys is gentle in the general, which that was what that was my favorite. Did you do that? Good, I didn't do that for four seconds, but you don't see full straight on like huds. This is what my favorite NBA draft moment ever, Darious Miles and David Stern went full waste

to waste General's General's hug for some reason. I mean, it's one of the funniest photos about time.

Let's get the clip. Let's run the clip. Listener, Bill Dahl said, I am a wizard season ticket holder. I'm sorry, Bill. My hot take is that LeBron is coming to DC this summer. And no, he's not. Here's the evidence. He was incredibly complimentary of the wizard, John Coren, Steve Nash's podcast. I like that he called it Steve Nash's podcast. This is LeBron and Steve Nash's podcast. Number two, he was seen hanging out with Jaden Daniel's post-lakers game.

Number three, he's a good fit with tray in Anthony Davis, his old buddy. It's LeBron's team, nobody's else. Number four, shifting the Michael LeBron narrative by actually winning in DC, somewhere Michael couldn't even make the playoffs. Oh, that's good. That's a good combo. Great job. Now that this is spoken of the ethos, it won't happen, but maybe those of us up in the 400s will actually get some decent basketball

here in the nation's capital. God can dream. I like the MJ angle. MJ finish here. I did too, and I made the conference finals with Anthony Davis and Tre Young. It is kind of fun. I mean, that team with him on it, they would be better than any team that

“MJ played with during MJ's area. Can we talk it out for a second?”

So you'd have to play on Anthony Davis, LeBron James, Alex Sarr. And who's your shooting guard who the shooting, he can't be cool about it, right? He can't be he's on George. He's on George. Yeah, we like him. Yeah, he's he's good. We do with we like him with good reason. And a little tray off the bench. Yeah. I don't know. That could be talked myself into 45 wins. It's a low 40s. Yeah, to 45.

It's a winner. They could win around in the playoffs. It could be like, look, this little Brown versus MJ thing. I brought to the table. I played way longer. I threw an aloeot to my son in a playoff game. And now I have one around one series in Washington. I've done three things. My good Jordan couldn't do. Aussies that were maybe secretly suspended by David Stern, because of gambling. So there's four.

Great. Great point. Speaking of conspiracies. This is from Peter L. Assume that conspiracy theory that the NBA draft lottery is rigged is real.

And you've just been appointed the commissioner with these powers. How are you ranging the first

four picks in the upcoming draft lottery? Wow. Wow. Great. We had this conversation. What was it a month ago? Yeah. Who do we say was going to be the funniest to win? Well, it's the coolest, school in state. Oh, golden state. Yeah. I'm going to throw up the funniest. That's an actual

“genuine like that's a conspiracy because that's what he's doing. So we're all right. So I get the”

commissioner job. And obviously, immediately hire you as my marketing. I'd let you know. It's all the second round picks. And out and out the second round Joe House. So the lottery teams we have, I'll just give you the top 12. Well, I'll give you all them. Wash. This is in order of 1 to 14 for odds. Yeah. So wash an Indian and brick on all 14%. Utah Sacramento, 11.5. Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Chicago, Milwaukee, Golden State, OKC, they're out. Not fixing anything for them.

They're too good. No. Ready. They don't need that. Miami and Charlotte. So for rigging this, Golden State has to be in the top four because it's our last chance to stay of stuff. So it's more a question of who is the best guy for in the play with. And I actually think it's Caleb Wilson. Wow. OK. So I'm happy just putting them at four. So they end up with Caleb Wilson. Even though I'd become increasingly concerned. He could go not for a hand, but for the for the Booser family.

I think he's going to leapfrog Booser. I think his tape is too crazy. Like I really think you have to. If we were in the room, I feel like we would spend enough time scouting these tapes

fucking freak. I watched so much Booser and he was so tough. I thought he was NBA ready every time I

“watched him play. I understand the limitations. I think there's a ceiling, right? He would have for Golden”

State. That's totally fair. That makes tons of that. All right. So what's the Golden State for? And we'll give them Wilson. So now we have three teams before. Can we Charlotte has 2.4% odds? But can we have them jump to three and take Booser? Oh, and oh, wow. Right. That's pretty good. Lamello, Con, Bridges, Booser, and who am I leaving now? Oh, at Brain and Miller. And that's a fun team. Hey, that's who I was thinking of.

Atlanta too. I was thinking because of Peter sin, adding Peter sin to what they have now as like sit the CJ McCollum under study, eventually moving in. It's not going to matter if it doesn't have personality because that team has a lot of personalities. So that's the New Orleans pick. That's the New Orleans pick. Atlanta moves up. So I'm thinking them at two. And then number one like, why not? Why not Joe House? Why not Washington? Why can't you have the bands up? Why not? I would

“definitely fix it for me. That goes without saying. But I think the bands said that's it's the most”

fun teams for him would be washed in or Utah for him to go in right away. And then in this scenario, the Quippers get the fifth pick. And that would be really fun too. And Indiana would not get any of the top four picks. Right. Because five to nine, the Clippers keep it. Is that what it's basically five or six? They keep it. It can't go lower than six. Now I do feel I do love Indiana. And I feel bad if they didn't get the pick. But I don't know. They put the protection on it then. They shouldn't have put that protection.

Yeah. Also, why did you give up all of that for Zubats? It was a lot of stuff. I think it's going to be awesome on that. I know. But that's a top four pick in this draft. Yeah. I don't know. Now that we're

here, and then they can actually lose the pick. This draft is fucking incredible. It's going to be

really good. Um, the other one I was looking for is getting a cuff for something. Well, the other thing you could do, you put Indiana in that Darren Peterson spot at two. And then you put Atlanta fifth and Atlanta gets our guy at a cuff at five. Who I think is combination of a cuff and Atlanta, his name ends with the first letters in A. There's like some A double A stuff. Okay. His game at Atlanta. Yeah. Yeah. It could be really special. Yeah. Like I feel like he'd be a hero

in Atlanta pretty quickly. And they can run. I mean, they get that. So is that our answer for the fixing? Do it again. I'm so I agree. I know I agree with the band. I want to watch him. Peter sent to Indiana, too. Who's there to Charlotte three? Um, and then Golden State gets gets Wilson and four. Atlanta at five. Atlanta at five takes A cuff and then there's one more team I wanted to take care of. Oh, we better go bet this number six Dallas has to get top six because they need to get

either A cuff or or wog there from Illinois. I want I want Dallas to fuck off. I'd like to invite the Dallas matrix. Oh, their fans are like so traumatized. Come on. I understand this isn't they they they are ready. All right. So that'll be our top five. Yeah. Okay. All right. Good question. Glad we talked that one out. Corey writes in I'm 25 years old from the Bay Area in a lifelong words fan trying to come to grips with the fact that step crew will be retiring sooner than later

my basketball life will be changed forever unless the expendable happens. I imagine this is similar to how you felt when Larry Bird was near an end of his career. What advice do you have for coping with the loss of one of the grades? House was in my place a couple times in the mid 90s when I would break out old bird Celtics tapes because the Celtics were so depressing. It was all I had to go back and watch old playoff games and honestly Corey, welcome to your future. If it gets

super depressing with the warriors, all you have are the old tapes and reliving curry games. And I had a two and a half foot bang at the time. That was really helpful to get super baked and watch old Celtic games and pretend they're happening live. I've talked about that. But that would

“be my advice. That's that's what the post career because you're never it's just never going to happen again.”

If this is once in a generation you get somebody like that you're never and you look at it so fondly.

I can't believe I was so lucky to enjoy that. And in the same way that Corey's being prepared, I mean Steph is missing big chunks of regular seasons now. And Bird was so broken at the end.

in the internet, too. Tatum, Halbert, and Lillard, and Diffin Chenzel, all at the number zero.

“And I'll tour their Achilles. Okay. Do you have to be zero from did not?”

Do you have to be crazy at this point to have number zero? Is this like a jinx number? Would you change your number if you were a zero at this point? You know what? I was making the joke about Gilbert Rina's as Asian zero, but he did have a debilitating leg injury. Yeah, what's up with zero? And the wizard did give him a giant extension anyway. Are there any more zeros right now?

I mean, the answer is definitely enough. Oh no, Tyre's Maxis is zero.

Okay, but it's off season number change. We need it. He needs to get there. Christian Brown Coolabali and your team. I'm just out on zero. Don't get rid of the zero. We've seen too much damage at this point. Kelly from Iowa. I know you'd like this one. Kelly from Iowa wants to know. Can we please have Baby Doll get Waymo to sponsor Tiger Woods? Come on, Baby, who loses here?

“I love the idea of Baby Doll taking on Tiger Woods as a client. I try to keep it low and”

making just calling different people in his life and making it seem like you're the only person he's told. Meanwhile, he would tell 150 people in five hours. Everybody would know and there would be pictures

of Tiger in a waymo. I do like why couldn't waymo offer Tiger like $50 million to be the first

waymo sponsor? It's actually a great idea. That is kind of brilliant. I mean, you know, we have to get to the point where we can have a little bit of a chuckle, maybe? I mean, it's obviously just reached it right now. Like, I don't know. A little waymo sponsor friend. Chase from Can't Know, Ohio. I didn't know about this. Said that calves had a social media playoff theme in 2026 that they called be the fucking difference for their fans. Okay. But they

blotted out all the letters and fucking and just kept the C. So the T-shirts read be the C-diff. And then apparently C-diff is the shorthand for Clostria diet is difficile, which is a bacterial infections severe watery diarrhea of double pain. What are the most known treatments is mixing your pool with a poop if somebody you share bacteria with? Oh, no. Uh, is it to a dried up poop pellet they put in your stomach? I'm not even joking. It was to know where does this stay in in your

pyramid of poop jokes? How could the calves win the title of the postseason theme of be the C-diff and would anything fun ever happen? You know, it'd actually be fun here is if they got bounced in round one after be the C-diff became a thing. Yeah, this is apparently this is a thing that happened. This is amazing. Poor Cleveland deserves, but the fans deserve better. Now, they did have a bronfer all the time that they had. Yeah, they didn't even do the bronfer. Yeah,

shit, but, you know, yeah. So if you if you Google this,

“the C-diff, I can't believe they did that. How do they not Google that?”

Mitch from Carl's bad wants to know, you and Zach touch upon Kevin Durant's complicated legacy a bit. On Sunday, two often his Olympic performances aren't discussed and they should be. He was often the best part of the floor. Maybe thank for a lot of things including leadership skills lack of the same team jumping, but I do think his Olympic performance is should be mentioned. You agree too. Totally agree with this and the theme goes for mellow, like part of what, you know, when those

guys play with their peers and their peers find them and their peers, you know, revered the performance at that level and let them, you know, sort of take over the way that they have that, that to me just says so much about, you know, who that player is in their era. Yeah. And so KD's ability to do it across what is it five golds? Is that what he ended up with? That that that is something that needs to be mentioned. It's a top line on the resume for me.

You know, the top four lines on the resume. Maybe his legacy is he couldn't plan the bachelor party. And he might have been a wild card at the bachelor party. But there's a bunch of different scenarios where he would have been really fun at the bachelor party. The MVP of the bachelor party and the MVP of the bachelor party didn't plan it, didn't pick the location yet to kind of fight for him to get there. But then he was tremendous for two straight days. Yeah, elevated everybody,

elevated the whole thing. But if you put him in charge, it might not have gone great. Sure. That's fair. We've all got friends like that.

We'll never go to a bachelor party again. We don't know. Who says so? I don't

we'd have to have somebody our age to work at marriage. Yeah. What's the second marriage to

Chris wants to know, is he made Ducca getting himself fired the most underrated key to Boston's continued success? I can only imagine how quickly he would have mentally broken and buried Cato Walsh and Sharman and how the Celtics offense would look with Chris Crusher and Xavier Tom and standing around while Tatum and Brown played. I saw ball. The rockets are a bad sequel to 22 Celtics in the finals. Now, I don't think that's totally fair because they did make the

finals. They did have some good wins. The offense was really rough and we blamed Tatum and Brown a lot.

And that we're watching the rockets basically do the exact same thing. Game four is that

and I talked about on Sunday was the first time they actually were like, hey, we should maybe

“attack Luke Canard and spread out and it was pretty bad. What was your e-mail take?”

Well, I honestly don't the longer this has gone on. I'm subscribing to the theory that there is there is some dysfunction in the in the decision making. Guys are not all on the same page inside the building. It is Houston because the readshepard bit is inexplicable. Our guy, Raheem Palmer, has been loudly all season long saying you've got to get shepherd his minutes. It doesn't matter whether, you know, how you feel about his contribution. He needs to be ready

for right now because Houston for whatever reason thought they could play this season without a point card. I do want to go back by the way. You guys, you and Zach on Sunday show, entirely appropriately giving CJ McComb his flowers. You me and Zach sat in your studio and I said, hey, Houston, go get CJ mother effing McCollum. You guys, I'm going to be it before the season. Pover October of 2025 and look at this guy, the playoffs, but be that as it may,

e-mail to me. Like, even as early as November, you're watching end of game sequences and it didn't make sense who was getting the ball. It didn't make sense the way the rotations were playing. I feel like there's something going on inside that building. We're personnel and e-mail are not on the same page. Yeah, I would look at it when you're talking about point cards that you know

“you're going to need in the playoffs. It's almost like scuba diving where you need to get”

you x amount of hours to become an official scuba diver that can go 100 feet under the sea or whatever it is. Yeah, I don't scuba diving as you can tell, but you can't do this until you've had

this number of hours of instruction and now you're finally allowed to go below this level.

Your body's got an acclimate to the pressure. To me, it's like, I know it's probably going to be frustrating at that fun to play this guy at 25 to 30 minutes a game, but you're going to have to do it because in April, this is going to be your one chance to do anything because Fred Van Bleed's not coming back. Yeah. The crazy thing though is that they didn't trade for a dissonant move or or a quote. Anyway, I just don't understand the thinking that. I'll think of the trade.

In the piston suit, what we said this at the time and the pistons were like Kevin hurt or we're good. It's like, you're not, not necessarily good. That's what you're looking off. Yeah. Last question, this is from Chris Krauss, who for some reason was thinking of car centric movies that I could parody with conconniple. Feel free to add your own. He said, "But here are the ones he came up with." Driving Miss Daisy instead of solving racism,

Bill teaches con the value of 1980s pop culture and why being honest, phone less and lying, something to be bored is good. Speed instead of having to keep the car to set my own

“hour, Bill and con have to keep podcasting. What will run out first, their gas or list of topics?”

And then his last one, collateral. Bill already has the silver hair look. So he's obviously the Tom Cruise assassin, but in this scenario, it's con realizing Bill is driving the houses of his least favorite internet trolls, close shot of con looking terrified as Bill beats a keyboard where to death with a copy of the book of basketball. If any of these are made, I only recruit producer credit. House? Yep. These are my listers. This guy wants me to remade collateral

with conconniple where I beat people to death with a book of basketball. That trolled me on the internet. Pretty, pretty phenomenal. I don't know where these questions come from, but I love all of them. Great job, Krause. How before we go ahead, do you feel about any styles? You happy? Oh, I'm over the moon. I just couldn't believe that he felt to seven for this. I mean, this is why I'm out here, Reppen, the squad. I think what Washington did on defense.

And styles is a perfect fit for our new defensive coordinator, the guy from Minnesota. He's so versatile. He's so fast. He's so athletic. It's going to be a great fit.

He's already, you know, but the team has already embraced him. Amazing job. Two things

dear to your heart, where he was the only one that noticed a hundred dollars at the end of the playbook, allegedly in May of the bad. Great story. Whether it's true or not, it's a great story.

than that. The football player, high school mixed up on free feet. I think when Drake may

“had one, you went nuts. And you didn't even pick Drake, man. But that, I mean, you know, that”

that gives your, your brain like, oh, he could do all of these things. Look at this. It's great. I really, if I was in the war room, I would really factor that in the high school basketball mixed tape. Like, look how generous he is with the ball. And as teammates, like this, maybe he'll be this way as a teammate accounts accounts. Yeah, whoops. Like, you is not a small thing. All right.

House. Thanks for doing the mailbag with me. I appreciate it. Always a pleasure. Thank you for

“your money. See you on fairway rolling. And on the ringer gambling show as well. If you want to”

check out Morehouse. Happy playoffs. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to House and CR. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahau as well. Don't forget Ghostbusters. That is the new rewatchables. And it's up. And you can listen to it. And you have six days to watch. There's something

“about Mary because that's going to be the next one. I will see you on this feed on Thursday night.”

God only knows what's going to happen with the basketball these next couple nights. But we will

have a big action pack podcast on Thursday. Probably tape and at least the first part of it

right after the game. So I will see you on Thursday. Go, so. Must be 21 plus some president and select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star Casino or 18 plus some president DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Optimum cry bonus issue does not drop a profit boost tokens restrictions apply including any token expression max wage or amount. C terms that sportsbook. That's Fender.com. Game problem call one engine gambler or 1-800 my reset call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat

and Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org and Maryland. Hope is here visit gamblinghoplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support mess chisits or call 877-8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call 877-770-787-867.