Coming up, Finals, Game 1, Live from Boston. Next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where we put up a new rewatchables for you on Monday night. We did Slapshot. You can listen to it on any platform, but try Spotify because it's a great platform. Or you can watch it on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel. Our next rewatchables, we're veering towards '70s Sports Movie Month here, and we're doing the classics, and we are doing one of my favorite '70s movies, Breaking Away, will be the next one. You have a few days to watch it. It has aged perfectly. It's an unbelievable movie. If you haven't seen it, I promise you'll like it, Breaking Away. That's coming Monday night. So stay tuned for that. Coming up on this podcast, my dad and I went to game one in Boston, Massachusetts, the NBA Finals, the Dallas Mavericks versus the Boston Celtics. I poured Coke into him. I gave him popcorn. He's old, doesn't matter. Got him to stay up. We are doing our postgame report next. First, our friends from Pro All right, we're taping this after game one of the NBA Finals, 2024.

It's 11:15 East Coast time. I'm in Boston, Massachusetts, with my I had a six-year-old father. I told him we were doing a pod after the game, and he was like, After the game? Are you in bed now? You see, you'd be home just watching the highlights and stuff.

I would be watching the after game show.

What is your first takeaway from Celtics 107, Dallas 89, other than it was the typical roller coaster ride that the Celtics team has been on where we ran the game of emotions and then somehow went by 18?

My impression sitting there was our defense was really good, and that was led I think by holiday. I thought he was all over the place. Jalen Brown, I thought, played very good defense as well. I thought we did a good job on Dontrek, even though he scored his points, but he really had to work for them. I thought Kyrie had the typical game he's had recently in Boston in the playoffs. I thought he didn't play well. I mean, we did a good job on him.

6 for 19, 0 for 5 from three. Yeah. Well, the two guys that jumped out to me, Drew holiday and Porzingas.

Yeah, Drew Halladay and Porzingis. They won the game. I will say, though, I thought Tate him had a poor game, but he played 42 minutes. I mean, he was there.

And rebounded and did stuff.

He had maybe 10 rebounds, something like that. I thought Jalen Brown played a very hard game. His shot just wasn't falling at times. But he also must have played more than 40 minutes. They put their time in. It's great that we don't have to play until Sunday. Mizzola was able to keep them out there. I didn't want to see either one of them come out for defensive purposes.

Well, let's go with Drew first because this is one of those you had to be there. I'm sure it came across on TV, too, but he was the of the game for the Celtics. There's this moment, they're up 28 with two minutes left in the second quarter, and the crowd is delirious. I would say that was a 10 out of 10 crowd in the first half, right?

Until two minutes left in the half. Yeah.

Brown got nailed on a pick, got knocked down. Dallas ended up, and it just changed the energy of the game. Then Dallas had a couple shots. We had some bad positions at the tail end. All of a sudden, it was 21 instead of 28 going in the half, and the crowd was like, Uh-oh. Second half starts. Dallas is awesome coming out of the gate, and Luka is doing Luka stuff. And Joe called time out early with eight minutes left in the third. All of a sudden, it was 14. Then it got to eight. And that was the first playoff game I've been to in the Drew era. Drew was the alpha on the court, and he was the alpha in the timeouts. And I thought Tatum looked a little like, Oh, God, what's going on? Brown was, ever since he got hit by that pick, he seemed a little just a tiny bit Wait, he's a quiet guy, but I thought Drew was all over the place. Then he was just like, Whoever I'm guarding is not scoring. He took over Luka, and that was it for Luka.

He had Irving for a while, and then he took over Luka. He made Luka a passer because Luka just couldn't get by him.

Luka a passer who had no assists. Luka had one assist. That was one of the things. Dallas only had nine assists in that game.

I can't even remember a regular season game, let alone a playoff game where the team had... A playoff team had nine assists, less than double-digit assists.

Yeah, and we were watching it. It's unheard of. I don't think we really noticed until deep in the second half where we were like, This is a lot of one-on-one stuff and a lot of people passing because Is it the last minute? They couldn't get the shot they wanted.

Well, you said something to me, too. The Aliup isn't working for them.

Yeah. Porzingas, especially, took the Aliup away.

Porzingas, what a difference maker in that first half. And not only that, he got the crowd. The crowd was standing in that first half.

The crowd was into it anyway.

Yeah, into it anyway. The thing about Porzingas, every time he goes up for a rebound, you get scared that he's going to come down the wrong way.

Yeah, because he had that stretch in the first half when he was just out of his mind. Blocking shots. 48, 27, and he has 15 points. There's halfway through the second quarter, he's 6 for 8, and he was just all over the place. That was a little before that, he hit the three. He had the three, he had the block, Hauser hit a three, and that was like the crowd got supercharged by that.

I think he had his three blocks in the first half. Second half, he looked not quite as sharp. They took him out.

They changed how they were defending him, too. They did, yeah. It seemed like they were being a little more careful. It's true in the first half was mostly, we're doing this live. I don't take notes when we're actually watching the game. I try to take notes during time out, but it felt like Drew was on Kyrie a lot. Then at some point in the third quarter, it became Drew and Luca. It was interesting watching Luca because normally he just brings the ball up. But Drew was like, I'm going 94 feet with you. You're going to have to bring it up on me. Luca was like, Who wants to take this up? A few times.

When you and I talked on the phone yesterday, you pointed out that we'll play them differently than Minnesota did. We'll hound them bringing the ball up. And that's exactly what holiday did. White does that also. It had an impact of Dallas getting into their offense with fewer seconds left in the 24-second clock.

Well, a couple of things happened in that first. I mean, the KP, it was so funny when we were talking about it, I got there super early. I was talking to a bunch of people about it. I was pretty confident heading into this series, but trying not to be too confident on the podcast because who knows, KP could go down five seconds from now. But it was almost like people forgot how good was because he hadn't played in a while. From everything I heard talking to people today before the game, he was going to play game five Indiana. I think he actually could have played game four Indiana if it was two-one.

They said he almost did.

Yeah. Ten days ago, he could have played. So you knew he was going to come out. And then the other thing was like, well, it's going to take him a while to get used to. It took him one second.

He missed his first shot, I think, and then he went crazy.

But you've watched him all year. You've been texting me and you've been going to a lot of these games. That was a typical KP game.

It was a typical KP game. And the playoff game we didn't have last year because we didn't have that guy in the middle. And it wasn't just offense. How many shots in that first half did he change the direction of when Dallas was near the basket? At least a half dozen.

Yeah, he came in, it was 12:11. We were two frame from three. All of a sudden, it was 37-20, and he had blocked a couple shots, and he had changed a couple shots, and just completely took their lobs away, which was a huge part of how they won the last three rounds.

I thought his defense was a huge factor in the way that Kyrie Irving played. Because Kyrie does the lobs, Kyrie goes in for the crazy layups. Porzingas was all over the place near the basket. Then, of course, he changes things when Dallas is on defense because they can't have a center just standing under the basket. They have to come out.

Well, it seemed like one of the decisions they made, I don't know how intentional it was, but they were trying to put smaller guys on him so they could still protect the rim. He was super-insulted by it.

They had Luca on him quite a few times.

Yeah, and they had... I mean, all their 6'7. Hardy was on him once.

Jones was on him.

Jones was on him. But one time in the time out, he stared down their bench. I don't know if they caught him on TV, but it was after the fifth time he had a 15-footer and he just looked over their bench like, Really? This is your game plan in this one?

But it's what we talked about. If they put their center on him beyond the foul line, well, we noticed it right away. There was a huge rebound difference in the first half. They caught up a little bit.

Well, yeah, they only got 10 offensive rebounds. One thing that I thought was notable was, so I wrote down 58, 33, 250 up in the second quarter, but I wrote down no centers for Dallas, which I think had happened a couple of minutes earlier. They went small. But in the last couple of series, and part of it was because they didn't have Cleba, but They always had centers, and that was such a big... The lobs on offense and then the rim protection was a big reason why they won. The Celtics took that away. When they made their comeback in the third quarter, it was small ball for at least a little bit, I think.

Having to so many games during the season, we have a consistent problem at the end of the half. The last two, two and a half minutes, I don't know what happens.

The energy died, the crowd died. Then the beginning of the third quarter, too, because people aren't back in their seats yet.

They're not back in their seats. I don't know what coaching could have done differently the last two and a half minutes, but you said it to me, we looked tired.

It was a pretty emotional game. Even the crowd was really into it from the moment Porzingas came out of the tunnel. You were in the bathroom. It was one of your five Pee breaks. Yeah. But Porzingas came out and the crowd was acting like Willis Reid was coming out of the tunnel. Then the Bill Walton thing before the game, which was great. Very, very long time. Moment of silence for him. They play a video for him. That was emotional.

Plus, all the Celtics had Walton's shirts on. That was neat.

Yeah, which was... I want one of those. The crowd's nuts for that. Then We went go on that run in the first quarter, and the crowd for about a half hour was standing, going nuts.

We ended the first quarter 37 to 20. We're up 17 points.

Got it to 48, 27. Got it to 58, 33. Porzingas had that one play. He was honestly looked like a video game character that my son would have created. He did. He had that one play when he just on defense was flying lying down the other way, trying to block somebody from behind and just jumped. I was like, Oh, my God.

Well, you and I were both saying, I'm not sure if I want him jumping in the air.

It was funny watching it next... We haven't gone to a playoff game together. Every time he went up in the air, you made a noise. One of your dogs was trying to cross the street or something. You were like, Oh, no.

It is terrifying. It is terrifying. You got a good look at how thin his legs are. Yeah. I just hope he survives Celtics in 6.

He looked great. I was watching him really careful in the warmups. They're really, really diligent about when he's not playing. At one point, he was on, I think, the bike. He was in the tunnel At halftime, he was stepping on that little calf thing. But I thought he moved. I think it's the fifth or sixth time I've seen them in person. I thought he was moving great.

I also thought, at least one thing, I thought Missoula did well tonight. Whenever Dallas took their big guys out, either of the two guys, he took Porzingas out.

Then the other thing was he had Drew lined up with Kyrie. When Kyrie came out, he immediately took Drew out. Kyrie came back and he immediately put Drew back in and was just trying to... Drew is... I just can't believe Milwaukee traded that guy. I've always loved him. Anyone who's listening to this podcast, I was always riding for Drew. Anytime I did trade value, I always had him 10 spots higher than he probably should have been. But I value what that guy does so much. When you see it in person and people look at his stats and be like, Oh, did he... He was like 10.7, rebound, 5 assists. But he was the dominant guy in the game.

If you didn't watch the game and you pick up the newspaper tomorrow or you look online at the stats, you'll say, Oh, Drew had a mediocre game. You have to be there or you have to be watching carefully on TV.

Yeah, I was texting Doc about it, and Doc Rivers and Doc said, His value is not what is seen. It's the unseen that makes him special. I really felt that at the game, watching all the little stuff that he does, even coming out of timeouts, how Dallas has taken the ball into their basket after a time out or foul or whatever. He just walks all the way up and he's staring Luca down the whole time. He was just like, I'm here. He was almost like watching a boxer. I just loved watching him.

I do think, putting aside, what did Luca have? 30 points? Yeah. He didn't have a winning or productive 30 points. Right.

It was a lot of one-on-one stuff all the way around.

Obviously, if they had nine assists. Yeah.

With that said, it reminded me, I think it was game two of the '08 Lakers Celtic Series. When we had a better team with the Lakers, and it was pretty clear. Sorry, I'm saying we for everybody listening, but with my dad, we just say we. But Kobe had this stretch. I think it was game two. He He hadn't played well, but then he took over the game for six minutes in the fourth quarter, and he tilted the crowd where the crowd was like, Oh, God, what's this guy doing? And Luka had one three in the third quarter where you could that, Oh, God, feeling was in there. And they cut it to eight.

They cut it to eight with the ball.

And felt like they were getting nervous.

I was pretty nervous.

Yeah, they felt like they were going to tie the game. We got to talk about that. Let's take a quick break. The NBA Finals, they're here. Fanduel is giving you the chance to win alongside the champs. Right now, new customers get $200 in bonus bets with a winning $5 bet, $200 to use on same game parlays, live bets, so much more. I am in Boston, Massachusetts. I went to the FanDuel app. The bets just jump out of you, especially like same game parlays. You start looking on them, the future odds. They have future parlay stuff. You can combine stuff. I did a bet with the Panthers and the Celtics. I combined for both series, but there's no better place to bet all the finals action in America's number one sportsbook. Download the app, take a shot at an extra 200 bucks. Go to fanduel. Com/bs to get started. Fanduel is the official sports spending partner of the NBA. Msp 21 plus, 18 plus in DC. President selects states, gain a problem call 1-800, gambler, or visit rg-help. Com. First online real money wager, only $5. First deposit required. Bonus issued as down with drawable bonus bets, which expire seven days after seat restrictions apply.

See terms at sportsbook. Fandil. Com. So this Celtics team, which we text a lot about, we talk on the phone a lot, and you're at pretty much all of these as any of the big games, but you went to a lot of the games this year.

I did this year, yeah.

This team, which always seems to be up by 20 at some point of every game they play.

Until.

Then something happens, and all of a sudden, you feel like they're down 30, and meanwhile, they're up 15. It just feels like the sky is falling, and then they'll hit a shot. But what's interesting when you're in the building for it, the crowd senses when it's going to happen, when the game is tilting, and all of a sudden, you feel these nerves. It's just the nerves of a fan base that's watched a lot of these games with these guys.

When it got down to eight, it was a really quiet crowd.

Time out, and it was like... Just everybody looking at each other going, What the fuck just happened? We're 28. They went on a 29-9 run, the maps.

Really? That's what it was? Yeah.

You've been there a lot for that where they've looked awesome.

Well, for me, a couple of consistent things happen when we have When we give up that run, we seem to stop moving the ball. Right. Everything gets slower. We go isolation, and we're taking three point after three point after three point shot. And they weren't going in during that stretch. Tatum had rebounds. He had some assists. As you said, he had six turnovers. I thought he had a bizarre game.

How many times did he drive to the basket? And it seems like he could have done the Dr. J's swoop layup. Five times. And then he was kicking it back out or trying to thread a little pass to Horfer.

And three of the times it led to turnover, he threw it out of bounds.

It's six turnovers.

Why he can't finish is really puzzling.

Or why he didn't He didn't realize he could finish. It was almost more of the question. It felt like over and over again, he had lay up. What was interesting about what the Mavs did, and especially when they were coming back, the reps were letting everything go. It was a really physical game.

Can I just cut in there? Yeah. We won the game.

Are you going to complain about the refs?

I thought they were terrible. I thought they were awful.

Yeah, Tatum got mauled a couple of times.

A couple of times, Brown got killed.

Yeah, I just wanted to mention they had 16 fouls and we had 15. But I know you felt like they had four times as many fouls as us.

I felt that we didn't get a fair shake from the refs.

Luca definitely got a couple of calls, and it's funny. I thought the crowd was going to be by the end of the game. We hate Luca the most. No, they weren't. In the second half, it was like, Kyrie wasn't playing well, and the crowd was really, really savoring it.

We had that one guy about two rows behind us. Two rows behind us.

Because we're in row three, so we're pretty close.

He was vicious on Kyrie Irving. He was not over-the-line vicious, but he was just riding. He wasn't swearing.

No. He said, Kyrie, you suck.

You can't make a shot. Kyrie. You suck. You have 11 points. Three for 19. Kyrie. Did you see Kyrie looking at him? Yeah. Kyrie did a smile.

You know what's funny? I actually liked how Kyrie played in that game, except for his shots weren't going in. But that was the best defensively I've ever seen him play in person.

I didn't even notice him on defense.

No, but he was doing like he was trying to get steals. He was just really active.

Yeah, he was trying to get steals.

But sometimes he backfired on it.

He had seven or eight fouls that weren't called.

But he was taking advantage of it. It reminded me like those Chris Paul quipper games I used to go to where he would just, from the first minute, he's just mauling everybody and saying, You're either calling or you're not calling it. But that was by far the most aggressive I've seen him. I just thought his shot wasn't going in. They missed. Luca missed some shots around the basket. Kyrie missed a couple of wide open threes that he usually makes.

Kp made a huge difference around the basket. Yeah, it's true.

Because they were seven for 27 from three with nine assists. If you just told me those two things, I would be like, Dallas lost.

Dallas has, in the play-off, has been a good three-point shooting team.

A couple of things that made me feel the history of these things is the home team looks awesome in game one. We beat Golden State in '22. You and I always worry about game two. Yeah, and then game two, there's adjustments. But what was interesting to me about Dallas in this game, first of all, they played Hardaway, who really was buried the whole play-off.

He was hurt. Oh, no, he was hurt.

He was hurt, but then he came back.

He played the last game. That was it.

But they played... I guess Exum came in late, but he played 10 guys. I felt like he was trying to see who made sense, which was weird because it felt like they had such a good identity coming out of the last round.

Well, Exum played in Garbage Time, didn't he?

But he usually played for them. Yeah, I know. Hardaway played over him. Then Jaden Hardy was another one that... He only played 11 minutes.

He's a trick or treat guy.

But they needed him in this game because they were down. But the P. J. Washington, who was 0 for 3. I'm sure the OKC fans are watching this.

Washington was 0 for 3?

0 for 3 from 3. He was 5 for 11. But he missed all his threes. And normally, he's a corner three guy, but the Celts were moving it, so he was open on the top of the key.

We covered the corner well. Yeah.

So his threes were at the top. But if I'm Dallas- What was Luca's threes? Luke was 4 for 12.

Okay.

Ten rebounds. Where does he rank for you, scariest guys you've seen in person? I watched all the Weston playoff games.

I didn't think this was one of his good games compared to having watched him in the other three series, despite how many points he scored. He wasn't scary tonight because we really guarded him well.

Well, that's why I didn't understand how people were discussing the series where, listen, if they're not going to shoot this badly in a game, too, they'll probably have a good chance to win. But we just match up pretty well with this team. We have big dudes to throw at Luka, and we have really good guards to throw at Kyrie, with Porzingis, real rim protection. And then the other thing, like Jalen had two big blocks in the second half. Right? Halley and White always end up getting blocks around the rim. Horford always gets a block. Tatum will get... They protect the rim really well, and I felt like people were forgetting that piece. Yeah.

I mean, Derek White is one of the best guards protecting the room. It's going to be interesting the adjustments that are made because I'm sure Dallas didn't expect that Porzingis game. Right.

Well, how could they?

We didn't expect it. We didn't. It was obvious the game plan was to take Tatum out of the game. All right, so what do you do in game two? I'm hoping and expecting a big Tatum game because I think they're going to make adjustments to not let Porzingas hurt them so badly.

He was really unselfish in the first quarter, which I didn't mind. He was trying to set people up. First quarter, yeah. We've seen him do that before in these games this year. Then in the second quarter, all of a sudden, he'll have 15. I thought that was going to happen this game, and it just didn't.

Well, it could have because you said it earlier. He got to the rim five or six times.

I felt like it was 10.

And then passed out. He didn't used to do that. I'm not sure what's going on there.

I know he's trying to- Or maybe they felt like that was an inefficiency they were trying to...

Or they had opened threes, but that's fine. If you're making the threes, we weren't making them so much in the second half.

Did you feel like, for the people listening who haven't seen a ton of the Celtics, did you feel like that was a typical regular season Celtics, like what you saw? Yeah. Because to me, that looked like that's what we watched all year, right?

Yeah, I do, with maybe the slight exception that taking the big lead like we did in the first quarter.

But how many times have we blown big leads like that? And we're all of a sudden it'll be 12, and then they'll get it back up.

I just didn't expect it in the playoff game, that's all.

Yeah, true. Or a finals game.

Yeah, finals game.

I guess the one, if you're looking at dark points for the Celtics, Pritchard was 0 for 7, and every minute he was in the game was terrifying because Luca was like a cheetah in the wild noticing the stray buck. He was just like, Where is that guy? Same for Kyrie.

I defend Pritchard, though. I thought he shot well most of the season. He had good looks, and they just didn't go in.

But on defense- Houser made a couple, though.

Hauser made a couple. On defense, I'm not sure Pritchard could guard anybody in that team.

Well, definitely not their two best guys. Hauser had one or two good Luca possessions where he actually stayed in front of them. I thought, in general, I really liked how they guarded Luca. It almost seemed like they kept trying to force Luca and Kyrie to the middle where they had the rim protection. Even if those guys were getting by them. They were okay with it. Everything was about steering them into the paint, which I thought was smart.

Well, I mean, Dallas did not have its lob game. We took that away. And Dallas did not have its open three-point shots in the corner. We took that away. Washington has been very efficient in the corner. He certainly wasn't tonight. I love the adjustments from game one to game two, but we're going to make adjustments, too. I like I especially like the fact that Orphan gets that extra night of rest, and so does Porzingas.

Yeah, I'm looking at... They have the make-misses. You could do the ESP and play-by-play. I mean, it looks like they only had three corner threes. There were one for three corner threes. And if you look at the cluster, here, look. All the threes are top of the key, basically.

And they killed Minnesota with their corner threes. Right.

So we took those away. Is it time? I have an announcement. Kyle, turn the TikTok camera on, even though we're doing this weird Zoom thing. Is it time to promote Joe Missoula from second row Joe to first row Joe?

It's too early.

No.

It's too early.

What do you mean? He's 77 and 20.

Somehow the lead got down to eight. We look terrible.

He called some good timeouts. I'm going to defend. I'm going to first row Joe. He's back.

Come on. On Sunday, on Sunday night, if we do a podcast after a second win.

You're not on Sunday's podcast.

Oh, I'm not on Sunday's?

No, it's Rosillo Night.

Oh, I'm sorry. Then I guess I- Well, you have to tell me in the seats. I'm not ready to give Joe that movement up to the first row.

I thought he did a good job today. We defended Luca and Kyrie great. I thought the way he used Drew was really smart. It was. I thought the way he, not starting Porzingas, turned out to be a good one because he came in and changed the energy.

Except we were worried. We got to our seats, they post the starting lineup.

Yeah, and Horford starting.

And Porzingas also is not on the floor.

Yeah, the whole team comes out.

The whole team is there, and nobody knows what's going on. Where's Porzingas?

Yeah, that was rough. I forgot. I blocked that out of my mind. That was a rough five minutes.

I would give Joe a B plus tonight.

A B plus?

We were up 28. If he hadn't fallen asleep at the end of the half.

Yeah. Well, it's a weird one because you never want to call time out with a minute left, but we clearly... Something bad was happening, and we could all see it. We could all see it. They got the eight points down, the seven points down at the end. I am officially retiring second row, Joe. I think he's done a good job. The team is 77 and 20.

Well, you're in a professional position where you have to smooth with these people now. No, I don't care about smoozing. I can give my honest opinion for the thing, for anybody listening.

He's way better than he was last year. The other thing, which I've noticed at other games, but especially that Charles Lee, who... I know the Celtics absolutely love him. Charlotte's hired him at the end of the year. They're really going to miss him. Yeah, and he's right with them. It reminds me of Belichick when he had Josh McDaniels, and they were always together next to each other.

But having been to so many games this season, the assistant coaches have made a huge difference for Mizzola, and he has grown. I'm being a little facetious.

I like that he was getting on the refs, too, today because Jason got killed a couple of times, and he was really mad. Yeah, he was screaming at them, which I don't feel like he was doing last year.

It looked like Cussell had to play mediator with the referees.

Yeah, I liked it. It was fiery. Joe Mazz. I'm not calling him Second Row Joe anymore. He's earned my respect.

Well, you never called him that anyway.

No, I did. I called him because you were calling him Second Row Joe. I think you should... Well, maybe after game two or game three.

Yeah, maybe after the series. How's that? Tough crowd.

Watching that game Especially when we're up 28, and I got flashbacks to 39 years ago, the Memorial Day Massacre, which we went to on a Sunday.

I thought the same thing.

I took the train from Connecticut. We went to the game. We beat the Lakers by 180 points.

We already counted that we had won the championship.

I took the train back, and I was already trying to figure out what I was going to get for the '85 Championship poster for my room.

Were you going to go to the Ducal Parade and everything?

Yeah. Could I get back? Should I leave school to try to come back? Then game two, Kareem absolutely violated us.

We are always fearful of game two. Obviously, in two of the three playoff rounds, the Celts have lost Game 2. We do have an extra day of rest, which we didn't have in the last series between one and two.

Well, one thing that was really noticeable in this game, and I had said this all week, they have five of the seven best guys in this series, and Horford has a case for eight for being the six best guy out of the top eight.

Well, it's an interesting point because on all the TV shows, especially the NBA show and ESPN, all they talk about their premise is that Dallas has the two best players in the series. They forget the whole team concept.

Well, also, there's no statistical evidence for it. I was talking about it on the other pod this week. Jalen's averaging more points a game than Kyrie in the playoffs, not only this year, but for the last four years. Even tonight, Jalen wasn't incredible. It was efficient. But he had 22, and Kyrie had 12. And this happened in the Oklahoma City series to him, too. I think he had a quick... Kyrie will have these games where he just has 11 points. They made him work. They never really got him comfortable. He wasn't getting in the free throw line. They weren't falling. He's just an amazing basketball player to watch. But he has so many different moves. There was one time he had in front of the South Carolina bench, Horford came out and shut him down on a corner three, and Kyrie led up for a second. Horford led up, and then he just went around him like a cat and just went baseline on him.

He did. But if I recall, there was a period where Missoula had the two bigs out. He had Porzingas and Horford out at the same time.

Yeah, you got excited for that one.

Well, because I think that was an example where Kyrie got past Horford, and there's Porzingas waiting. It makes a huge difference.

It's weird that... I still don't know what Minnesota was doing last round against them. I don't know why they didn't have Jaden McDaniels on Kyrie the entire time. I don't know why they didn't play Nas Reid more and try to have him on Luca. I don't know why Gobert was so ineffective in that series because Porzingis made such a difference with his- Well, Gober has no outside shot. No, I'm just saying defensively. Yeah, defensively. He's as good of a rim protector as Porzingis, but Porzingis looked like seven-foot-three Bill Russell. That was another thing that made us feel good about this game. They do the hero It was among us in the second quarter. Oh, yeah. And Char came out, the beloved Bruin, who was 6'9 defenseman. He was incredible, but he was wearing the Porzingis jersey.

And he kept pulling it out and showing people. And he looked like he could suit and play for the Celtics. I mean, he's in great shape, runs marathons.

It was interesting talking to... I got there three and a half hours early, and I was trying to talk to a bunch of people, but especially the Celtics heard everything during this break. They knew.

I'm glad to hear that.

I think Tateum... Because what happens is, when you forget this, it's not necessarily... It's not like a Kevin Durant situation where the guy's online looking in. I think KD would admit he's online, probably a little too much. I don't know if the Celtics are online, but their family members and their friends are. So they hear everything. So when there's stuff like, Kyrie and Luke are the two best guys in the series, people are telling Jalen and Tateum that, or they're saying, Tateum, you're not a top five player. I thought Jalen seemed like he translated it a little more personally tonight. Tateum, I could see having a big game, too.

In game, too. I read today something along that line in the paper that Tateum tries to stay away from reading about all that, but his mother doesn't. No, his mother's. His mother was all over it.

His mother sees everything.

Very upset.

She's mad. I actually met her tonight, and somebody said, he's one of the national guys who's She was defending. I was like, Yeah, I'll take credit for that. But she was a nice lady. We'll take one more break, and then I want to talk about your 10th Finals. Now it's time for a special part of today's episode. It's It's called Outside the Box. It's brought to you by Sonic. Sometimes we have to leave the mundane behind. We have to explore the unknown. Try those crazy ideas like the new Groovy fries from Sonic with the crispy outside of a tot. Got to love a tot. The dipability of a fry. Each Groovy groove is designed to hold more sauce. We wouldn't have these hot and crispy goodies or their new Groovy sauce without a little experimentation. Right now, you can get any size groovy fry for $1. And Sonic isn't the only one breaking the mold. You might have seen. Think about the innovations we saw during the NBA playoff so far. We saw Oklahoma City trying to spread Dallas out with SGA. We saw the Jokaj and Murray just trying to do the two-man game.

We saw Minnesota solve Denver and try to see how to beat them with size and with some timely threes. Then really, the most innovative team of all them is Dallas, the way they've been using Luka, the way they've been using their bigs to try to get mismatches at the top of the key. That's the thing about basketball. As the three-point shooting gets better, the innovation the spacing, the switching, how you defend people, you got to push those boundaries. A little like what Sonic's doing. Outside the box, brought to you by Sonic. Remember, when you want innovation in the kitchen, you go to Sonic. They're always looking for delicious, fun, new ways to make food even more enjoyable like their latest creation, the Groovy fries. Hot, crispy, perfectly salted, made to hold all the sauce you want, which is perfect because Sonic also has, again, a new Groovy sauce. It's creamy with a little kick, a thrilling, tasty addition, Teddy Meal. Get any size Groovy fry for $1, and don't forget to ask for Groovy sauce. Live free, eat Sonic. Tax not included, limited time offer. All right, so you've had season tickets, 51 years. This is your 10th finals.

The first year, I've said this before, we got the tickets 73, 74.

Title.

Title. We made the finals. This is 50 years later. I did take you. I did carry you into one of those games.

All right, I believe you.

That was four. Four and a half.

I don't have a lot of memories of that one. I remember the next season, the '76 season, but I don't remember '74. Yeah, so we won a title the first year with one Then- Two years later. So your finals record is five and four. Yeah. Which I thought it was better. For some reason, I felt like you were six and three or so. But yeah, five and four is the record right now.

Really?

Yeah. Lost in '22, '10, '87, '85. Three to the Lakers, fucking assholes.

Wow, that hook shot. I still have nightmares about Magic's hook shot. How about- Then '10.

I made the mistake of flying you to LA for six and seven.

Well, suddenly, our test makes a big shot at the end of the game. I mean, really?

Rasheed Wallace huffing and puffing. 35 minutes of Rasheed Wallace. Tough one. But I haven't won a title in 16 years. This has been the best team in the league since the season started.

We have a lot on the line.

That's how I felt walking Running around the city all day to day and talking to people. It just feels like... You could feel the pressure when they started chipping away in that third quarter.

You could feel it. It might have been one of the best player of crowds I can remember starting the game. But when they cut it to eight, everybody was nervous. You could feel the tension in the crowd. I'll have to watch it. I taped it. I can't quite remember how we went from eight all the way up to 20 so quickly, but we did.

I took notes during that. It was 7,264, 4,27 left, then the 80, 64, Tatum, three, That's when they put Drew and Luca, five lively fouls. That's when I wrote in my notes, Drew was the alpha. Because when it was 7, 264 and the crowd was zombies, and that was we were watching the huddle, and Mizzou and those guys were on the court, the coaches. I said to you, look at that. You were like, Horford was really into it, and Tatum was animated. Tatum was very animated. They were all like, What are we doing? Then Drew was just like, I'm guarding Luka now, and that was it.

Yeah, it must have been- And Luka had 27.

He finished with 30. He only had three points after that.

It was fascinating to watch that huddle because just like you said, the coaches weren't near the five players, and it looked like the five players made decisions on what was going to happen next, including, holiday was going to go out of Luca. Tatum was going to come out more aggressively. I said to you, because I don't think it's happened all season, neither Tatum nor Brown came out in the third quarter. That never, ever happens. He always staggers them. First row Joe.

Do a little tweak for you.

I'll give him that. It's a pretty good one. I'll give him that.

Yeah, because in the regular season, he would have done the stubborn, this is where I put my guys in and we don't deviate from what we do. Yes. And he did not do that.

Maybe the assistant coaches told him to do it.

Well, the thing we were talking about because Luca and Kyrie, they shot their wide with those guys, too, the whole third quarter, especially Luca.

But they come out. They come in and out.

Luca played the whole third quarter, I think. I think he did. I want to say he did.

Irving came out, if I recall.

But I think when you have the game two, it's not until Sunday, you can get a little more frisky with your big minute guys. We're playing Saturday night. It's a little different.

A little different. We took their big guys out of the game. Gaffard, I remember him having one shot.

It seemed like they cared more about Lively, Dallas. Lively got the fifth crowd. When he had five fouls, they put him back. There was a lot of time left. They were like, We're shooting our wild with this one now.

But I thought Porzingas had his number, at least in game one.

What they all say about Lively, who I really think he's a gem. That turned out to be a great pick. What a great pick, yeah. He was not afraid. He was super physical. I thought he was setting really hard, borderline. I think he Flagrant pics.

He made about 12 fouls.

Yeah, he was really physical. But you normally, these 20-year-old centers would come into a finals game like that with the way the crowd was. I was even watching him during the National Anthem, and he was hopping down and nodding. He did not seem scared at all.

I think he got a lot of confidence from the Minnesota series.

Yeah, he's good. Even if he's just this for the next five years, that's an asset.

The one thing, neither he nor Gaffer, neither one can shoot away from the rim. Right. I mean, that is hard in this era, the way centers are shooting three-point shots.

And with the defense, the Celtics have.

Yeah.

Watch Bosh and Luka, and we've seen so many great players over the last 51 years. I mean, first year's season tickets beat Kareem in the finals. He's had his apex. We had 76. That was McAdoo's last great year, going through Dr. J with those Philly teams, Kareem and Magic. Andrew Toney, who absolutely killed us. Going with Dominic at his actual peak. We saw as he was turning to Jordan, Ezea.

Donchik might have 50 points Sunday night, but he did not control tonight's game.

But could absolutely have 50 points. Yeah. But who does he remind you of? Because to me, especially, watch this. I think the third Mavs game I've seen for playoffs in person. There's a lot of Bird with him.

A lot of Bird with him, except Bird didn't control the ball like he does.

No. Well, he never wanted to. He always wanted the ball to move around.

That's why they had nine assists, because they did an awful lot of isolation, which was not to their benefit. Luke is scary because he's a lot bigger than you think. I don't think on TV, you can appreciate how big he is.

You know, he looks like he's a tight-end, not even a blocking tight-end, not even a Travis Kulsey type tight-end.

The way he dribbles low to the ground, all of a sudden, he's two feet from the basket.

Yeah. He had a couple of really good defensive plays where he stripped. They're trying to hunt him and post him up, and he foiled Porzingas. We foiled Jalen.

We stripped him a couple of times, too. We did.

Where does he rank for you? Who's number one for you? Who's your number one scariest opponent in 51 years?

It has to be related to a specific series, Andrew Toney.

Wow. People are a list of this going, Who? Yeah.

He won that series for Philadelphia that year.

Other than that- Because it was twos, too. Yeah, it wasn't twos, it was twos. It was just 18-footers and 14-footers in layups.

Yeah.

I might agree with you, actually. I think he might have been... Because even Kobe, Kobe did fine against us, but I never felt like we couldn't stop him.

Well, Game 7, 2010, that was not Kobe winning the game for them.

I guess 2012, LeBron, when he annihited us. That's LeBron's got to be in there. Lebron. Andrew, Tony, LeBron.

I guess for a career of watching playoff games against us, it has to be LeBron. I mean, you and I, what year was it?

2012, game 6.

We're up 3-2.

Well, also 2018, game 7, when he basically beat us by himself.

By himself, yeah.

Although we missed 43s.

Yeah. That wasn't great. Both of those series. Yeah, he was awesome. The one time we got his number was 2008 when he had the Manu and Manu against pierce.

I think my number one of over all the years was Kareem. Kareem, I just never felt like ever we could stop him. As a little kid, never felt that way. Then I remember in '85, it just felt like he just owned Parish.

Well, it's just what you said, the Memorial de Massaker that we killed LA. Who came back and killed us in Game 2?

Game 2 is Kareem. Yeah, he brought his dad. It was a famous story. He brought his dad on the bus, and they saw his dad on the bus, they were like, Uh-oh.Oh, I didn't hear that story.The Lakers. Yeah. They were like, his dad, they just sat in the front next to each other and like magic, and those guys were like, Uh-oh.

He killed us. He killed us, yeah.

Although Walton was That was one of the fun things about that '86 season and why we were so sad we didn't play them in the finals because Walton really went at him. They had that whole UCLA background. He beat him in '77.

It would have been great. Walton played, if I recall, 80 of 82 regular season games that year.

Do you remember when I did the Walton Tribute, I talked about that Portland game we went to when I was eight when they beat us. It felt like they beat us by 100 points. It was the best team either one of us had ever seen.

My memory of that game, and I think we made a joke about it, we were the Washington Generals, and they were all in globe proudness. That's how it felt that game.

It was so It was so dispirating. It was the first year we were really sucking, and it felt like that was the nail in the coffin. It was Habit check last year. It was like, not only are we not going to win the title, we're not going to make the playoffs.

But I think we also, as basketball fans, Left that game saying, Boy, that team really plays.

Yeah, that's a special team.

That's a special team. A special team that plays teamwork game that you never see anymore. That was a great game.

Was he the best college player you saw or was it Mary Maravich?

Probably Maravich, Alcinder, and Walton. It's tough to... I mean, Maravich didn't win the titles. Those two guys won.

Yeah, but you said Maravich was like a point TV on the weekends.

Well, I mean, it was an era when there was no cable, and there was one college game on Saturday afternoon, and every Saturday afternoon, it was Maravich. Because it was must-see television.

It sounded fun. It sounded like the men's equivalent of whatever happened with Caitlin Clark there in the tournament, or it was just you had to see what was happening. The Walton thing, I remember when we traded Maxwell for him, and We were so disillusioned with Maxwell because he really killed us in '85. Because he was hurt. He didn't have a torn ACL, but he was just not in shape the whole year, and he really hurt them in the playoffs. He just never really... Some guys just have trouble coming from injuries, and he just couldn't do it. Flipping him in the wall, and we were like, whoa. Because he'd had a good season with the Clippers. I was living in Connecticut. I was going to high school in Connecticut that year, but you were going to all those games, and you were just... I was trying to watch as many as I could. It wasn't the same. We didn't have League Pass in 1986.

A friend of mine was asking me about Walton when he played that year. What do I remember? It's funny. I certainly remember him playing. But the thing I remember most who were his four sons.

His crazy kids right next to us.

Who sat right next to us, and they were out of control. You're right. The ushers could not control. One of them became coach of the South of the Lakers.

Yeah, Luke Walton.

But those four kids were totally out of control.

I remember I had Luke Walton on the podcast and told him they sat on the other side of the runway with us, and we would just laugh because they were like the Von Erichs. They're doing flying elbows on each other.

Jump into other aisles.

I remember Luke was at UCLA, and I was like, Dad, remember those Luke Walton's kids? One of them is like an all-American in college.

That's hard to believe.

Yeah. But that was a really special year. I was glad they honored him. It's weird to think of somebody as... They called him one of the greatest Celtics.

I thought that was neat.

I think that's fair. He was one of the greatest Celtics careers, but he's certainly one of the best 10 guys who ever played for the Celtics.

I think his experience here was the coup de gravure of his career. It meant so much to him.

I told you this that when he would call the Celtics asking for them coming into town, Can I get tickets or whatever? And whoever answered, he's like, Bill Walton, class of 1986. That's how he would identify himself on the phone. But it was cool. I felt like they were going to win for that with all the Walton stuff. It was like, All right, this is good karma.

Well, I'll throw you out something. This week, I reread the the epilog of your book.

Oh, my basketball again. About Bill Walton.

It was very meaningful. Very sad to see that he passed.

Yeah. Well, I was thinking about... I got to read Breaks of the Game again now, but he's such a big part of that book. I don't know how many times I read that book, but the what-if potential of him was one of the things that I grew up with. Out of all the great players ever, it's him, Len Bias. There's only a couple where you're like, man.

He got his two championships.

Yeah. Samson's a little like that, too. I really felt like Samson was not on the Walton all-time level, but you think of Derek Rose is like that, these guys. Grant Hill is a good one. Grant Hill was incredible.

There's a lot of guys like that.

But out of all the what-if guys, he was the most talented, I think. All right. What's your prediction for Game 2?

My prediction for game 2 is that Tatum has a really big game.

Like a pounding it in the basket, controlling? Yeah.

He looks at the tape of game 1 and says, I could have had seven layups. What was he doing? I hope that's what he does. That's what I would do if I was looking at the tape.

Scale of 1-10, how horrified are you going to be to see Scott Foster? Who's your least favorite? Oh, Mark Davis is your least favorite. Mark Davis is my least favorite. So we'll probably see him.

Although, again, I think it's okay to criticize referees when you won the game. I just thought, We got I thought Dallas could have been called for twice as many fouls as they did.

We won by 18. I know. See, people listening, this is where I get it from. What do you say? Making excuses for the other team. Yeah, now it's probably a Mark Davis Sunday game, too.

I think it's probably Scott Foster. They always seem to throw him when the other- You don't think he gets four and seven?

There's 12 refs.

Okay. So somebody's going to get two games.

I think a few people get two games.

You see, they may be worried that there isn't a game seven. And Scott Foster is one of their more veteran refs. I don't know.

Well, game two, Sunday, three days away.

Didn't they throw them out in the Minnesota game, too?

They did try to activate the Foster extension, and it didn't really- It didn't work. You were the most afraid of... I swear I'm not jinksing anything here. You were the most afraid of Denver in the West. I was. Jokuj terrifies you because you went to that Denver game.

I thought Denver, we're just talking about that Portland '77. I thought Denver played a little bit like that, the way they move the ball around. I'm still shocked that they lost to that Minnesota team.

I still don't understand it because then you watch Minnesota just lay an egg in the next round. Not just like that, they didn't play well, but some of their strategy stuff was bad. I don't know how they beat Denver.

Coaching was bad. How did they do it? No teamwork, a lot of isolation with Edwards. I don't know how they did it.

How did he play as well as he was playing for so of that series? Because then he crashed the Earth.

He had Deer in the Headlight in the Dallas series.

How do you beat Denver when you have the knucklehead factor of some of the guys on that team, too? Towns was so bad in round three.

Right. No, all season long, you and I said, God, I hope it's not Denver. Well, it ended up not being Denver. I never thought it'd be Dallas. I thought it'd be Oklahoma City.

Celtics win. It's now past midnight. I got to get you home.

What's your prediction for game two?

I'm terrified of Luca. I think they have at least solved Kyrie's not going to go off. They're too disciplined with how they're defending them. They have too many good guys, and they have room protection. But the Luka, he's just impossible. I thought he wore down as the game went along, and maybe it was part of it, like some of the stuff they were trying to force him to play defense in certain ways.

I said that to you. I thought Dallas looked tired in the fourth quarter.

Maybe Dallas will try to figure out some stuff with that. I'm trying to think. It's always about there was a game, too. It's about the adjustments. I'm trying to think what their adjustments would be other than they're going to have to figure out a different Porzingas plan.

I don't think they had a plan.

They're going to have to figure out how to have better ball movement because you're just never winning a game with nine assists.

If I'm Jason Kidd, who was one the best point cards ever, and I'm talking to my team after that game or in preparation for Sunday, I'm saying, We had nine assists guys. What the hell? That's not team basketball.

I wonder if they'll try to move Luka a little further down, too, to try to get him... Kind of like what we were saying, we never understand why the Celtics don't do more with Tatum is post them up on the foul line. He's so good on the foul line because he can spin and go to the basket or do little fallbacks. When he's 25 Three for the basket, I just don't like it as much. But I think with Luka, it's a mix of that. Just trying to get him the ball in different spots. Then they got to figure out the corner threes. How did we take those away? How did you get them back? How late are you going to be up tonight? I feel like you're going to rewatch the game. It could be a three o'clock night for you.

I'll watch it tomorrow morning. I'm on bedtime.

All right, 10th final is for my dad. We got to win. This is fun.

We're going Sunday I guess Rizel is taking my place. I guess Sunday night.

Rizel is taking your place. I think we're activating you for game five.

Okay, sounds good.

Monday, game five. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing. We're going to be back Sunday on the podcast. Don't forget, you can watch all the clips from this on youtube. Com/@bilsimmons. And don't forget about the rewatchables on the movies YouTube feed as well. Have a great weekend. Go, Salts. Must be 21 plus, 18 plus DC, and present in select states. Fandil offering online sports wager in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gamble problem? Call 1-800, Gamble, or visit fandle. Com/rg. In Colorado, DC, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont. Call 1-800, Next Step or text, Next Step to 533-42 in Arizona, 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg. Org/chat-in-connecticate, 809 with it in Indiana, 800-522-4700, or visit ksgamblinghelp. Com in Kansas. 877-77-0 Stop in Louisiana. Md-gamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. 800-gambling. Net in West Virginia. 800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope for 24/7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-877-8 Hope-N-Y or text Hope-N-Y in New.