Coming up, a special two-part NBA Finals preview with a lot more next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where I have a new rewatchable is coming for you on Monday night. We did Slapshot. It's only one of the best sports movies of all time. It's only the best hockey movie of all time. It is coming on Monday night. We might even put it a tiny bit earlier than usual, and you'll be able to watch it eventually as well on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel. Hope you're checking out my YouTube channel as well. Just search for Bill Simmons. You will find it. Coming up, we are going to do a special two-part podcast, me and Rosillo here for part one. Then we have something a little different for you for part two that's going to go up later that night. We're talking Bay Finals right now. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we are taping this on a non-sunny Sunday afternoon here in Los Angeles. Ryan, we're Siloas here. We're going to talk NBA Finals, at least in part one. Celtics minus 225 favorites to win the title Mavericks plus 188 on Fando.

Rosillo, are people sleeping on what a massive upside would be if Dallas actually won the Championship here? Because I feel like in the last couple of days, because Luke and Kyrie looked so good in the last round. But now a lot of people are like, I'll tell you, you're the best player in the series. It just feels like Dallas is a massive underdog, but isn't a massive underdog. What do you see watching it from 40,000 feet away?

Okay, so you're frustrated about the series, correct?

I wouldn't say frustrated because I don't know if there's 100% of a right answer. I do have some thoughts that I'm going to get into, but I wanted to see what's your gut take on how Dallas is being treated we head into this.

Well, you started by saying it'd be a massive upset. I guess I don't feel that way because of Luca. So maybe I'm guilty of all the things that you're being critical of right now because I'm going to pick Boston in seven, and It's just not a hedge. It's respect for Luca, knowing that he will figure out a way to dissect. You know he's penciled in for 30 every one of these games. If you hold him to 24, it's a miracle. But he can undo pretty much anything you throw at him. In a series where there's only five guys out there, I think he has all this momentum that is preventing not only me but others from thinking it would be this huge upset because it feels disrespectful of who Luke has been.

I completely agree. And yet, I'm going to give you some historical stuff. This is such a fascinating series to me because the gut check, eye test, watching basketball, and also seeing really what's happened with the Mavericks the last three and a half months, and not knowing what's going to happen with Porzingas. The series feels way closer. Even the Celtics being minus 225 feels a little high when you think about how well Dallas is playing and the Porzingas X-Factor. But I'm going to give you some stuff. First, the Mavericks would be the third biggest finals underdog upset to win since the merger. Being plus 188 right now, the biggest one ever, do you know who it is? It's the series made Haralba Haralba.

Dallas?

Miami? 04 Pistons, 5-1 underdogs in 2004 against the Lakers, and they win. That's by far the biggest underdog that's pulled off. The second biggest one was the 2019 Raptors, who were plus 230. That series was pretty goofy because KD comes back and immediately gets hurt. Clay gets hurt. By the end of it, it's like the warriors running on fumes. But I don't remember the raptors being underdogs like that, but apparently they were. So the Mavs would be number three if they wanted plus 185. This is since 1976. And then it goes 2016 Cavs plus 180, 21 bucks plus 165. '08 Celtics were underdogs plus 160 against Kobe and the Lakers. And then the 12 Heet and the 11 Mavs were both plus 155. So this would be the third, just by gambling odds, the third biggest upset since the merger. That was surprising to me. Would you have guessed that?

No, I wouldn't have. I mean, the Toronto number would have been different if Katie was totally healthy, but there was all the speculation about what it was going to be, considering they were looking for a three-peat at that point. I thought the Dallas odds would have been lower the first time against the heat. I think that's interesting, too. The heat second run through it. Well, that was OKC?

Yeah, guess what? Okc was favorite in that 2012 heat series. Yeah. I wouldn't remember. The '06 heat were plus 130 underdogs, and the 1995 Rockets were plus 130, and then the 1977 Blazers were plus 140. Anyway, the point is, it's really rare for a team that is this drastic of an underdog to win the final. So there's that. Next thing. Dallas would be the second worst finals winner by record. So since the first Bird Magic season. The worst one since 1980 is the '95 Rockets. They were '47 and '35. Dallas was '50 and '32. Miami in '06 was '52 and '30. And then there's three teams in the late '70s. The Sonics were '52 and '30 and '79. The '78 Bullets were '44 and '38, and the Blazers were '49 and '33. So just from a regular season, Hey, this is really unusual. This would be the second most unusual. Only one team has lost more games in the last 44 years and won the finals than this Dallas team. Do you remember that?

That one's irrelevant. Just before we go any further on that. The regular season stuff for me on them is relevant. They were 26 and 23 after they had lost, I think, 6 to 8. And that was the week of the trade deadline. So the first time they got those guys in the lineup together was everywhere in 10.

Kyrie missed some time, too. Kyrie missed 20 games.

There's a very easy explanation, especially, too, when you think about 50 wins in the West this year, that's like 55 in a normal year.

I'm just laying out history and stats. I have no opinion. But it is interesting, though, the Rockets, they made the Drexler Trade halfway through the season. Their team changed. This '24 Dallas team, they make the Gaffard and the Washington Trade. Their team changes. And then the '06 Miami, It had the coaching change, Van Gundi for Pat Reilly at some point during the season. Then once you get in the '70s, the '70s were pretty weird. Those would be the three most drastic ones. So there's that. Then the other one that I thought was interesting, Dallas would be the fifth franchise since the merger to miss the playoffs and then win the finals the next year. What's weird is that's only happened four times, and two of them were recent. The 22 Warriors and the 20 Lakers with the bubble. And then the '08 Celtics, they missed because the year before they tanked. And then the '77 Blazers missed, so that's it. So just removing everything from it, there's three giant history red flags with the Mavericks thing. And yet I still feel like mentally I'm where you are. You almost throw it out. It's this different Mavs theme that seems like it came together the last six weeks.

So ignore all the history stuff and concentrate on the six weeks, I think is the right answer.

I don't think there's any other answer because it's a different team. And considering the teams that they've gone through here, where granted, once Kawhi went down, the Clippers are entirely different. But you take on an OKC team where over the six games, the points were even. And a bounce here or bounce there. Although I feel like Luca, you have to give it a little bit more credit than just make or mislead stuff because we just see how great the looks are for him, how helpless you feel when he wants to make sure he's going to get a good look for himself Or if you completely sell out to stop him in some clutch moment in the game, he's going to make the right read and depends on whether or not the guy is going to hit the shot. You just are going to get a good possession. He and Jokić are on the list of two where I go in a tight spot, give me a good look. I know those two guys are going to be the best two looks in the world. The fact that defensively, there's some real connectivity with this team that I watched the second game from from Boston and Dallas this morning.

I watched it again. There's some stuff that You could say, Oh, boy, that might be scary for Dallas. But then I think about the defensive effort that I saw against Minnesota, and I go, This isn't even close. It's not even close to being the same team. I did the same thing. Yeah, they'd only been together less than three weeks.

There's two other things from a history standpoint. The Celtics. I did that list for you last week about the 20 losses or less finals teams. There's only one team that had 20 losses or less heading in the finals that actually lost the finals, and that was the 2016 Warriors. Everybody else won. 96 Bulls, 97 Bulls, 17 Warriors, 86 Celts, 87 Lakers. Keep going, going, going. So this Celtics team would have to be the second one ever. And there is 12, 15 examples. Those teams are 14 and one in the finals. So there's that. And the other thing, which I think is getting lost just because of who they played, but the Celtics have been dominant for eight months. They were 76 and 20. In the regular season, they were first in offense, second in defense, plus 11.7 net rating. In the playoffs, they were second in offense, third in defense, plus 10.8. They've been pretty consistent. I don't know. I feel like from an odd standpoint, the odds should be higher. And yet I understand why the odds are what they are, because of the luke of fear factor and because this is the league we've grown up with, where it's like, you take the one guy who's not afraid of a situation is the best guy in the court, and that should overcome all this other stuff.

And yet all the historical evidence says, yeah, most of the time that's not actually true. Most of the time that team loses, and here are all the examples. I think this is one of the harder series to figure out that we've had, because the other thing we did mention, homecourt advantage just does not seem to matter anymore. I don't think it matters where these games are being played. I don't know if it really helps Boston, other than maybe to have a game seven in Boston. But for the most part, I don't really feel like it's going to matter. The times are so late on the East Coast. That part's weird. Boston has been great on the road all season. I think they can go in Dallas and win. I just don't think it matters. I think this is a really goofy series.

So two things in all the different ways that I've looked at the series. If you go over the last however many years, you say, okay, LeBron, when he wanted the bubble, he's still in the conversation for best part in the league. Is that fair four years ago?

Yeah, no question. Okay.

All right, so 21. Yannis. '22, Steph, little reminder season. 23, Jokic maintains his hold on the belt where you could have argued it or he had it for a little while. And then the 'dot, dot, dot, dot part of it here with Luca, where we just know if you're a Boston fan, Tatum is none of those guys. So he's none of those guys. And I think this is a three-year Boston hangover, where you could even add years if you wanted to. And this is something I've talked about in the past, where if ever I do a radio interview somewhere, and they'll say, What's up with Boston? What's up with Boston? They had a schedule in 17, 18. And when they lost to Miami in '20, I didn't really think it was that big of a deal. '22, they showed something against Milwaukee that would be countered to the fact that people still think they're soft. I'll admit there's moments where it's not so much soft. It's just the late execution, which we're going to spend a lot of time talking about with the series because it'll probably creep up and scare you. If it happens in game one where Boston just stagnant offensively lose at home, and Luke is closing Well, you're going to go, Oh, here we go again.

But I think it's a three-year hangover of not trusting the offense against Golden State, and it looking very apparent that there was a gap, and then the Miami debacle of last year. So if this Celtic season where they just added Drew and Przingis, and this group hadn't really gotten through the second round, and they're in this tier with all these other NBA teams and their rosters going, What's wrong with this guy? It's different in that if it lived on its own, I think the Celtics would be more public favorites, at least the way they'd be talked about. But it feels like the basketball community is just so sick of them and probably too disappointed by them that all that's baked in to the lead up of this where, again, the Boston run just wasn't that impressive. And Luka took out three teams with 50 wins.

And yet the Boston, they didn't have Porzingas this whole time, which just got kicked to the curb with the run. I know they're a bunch of stars missing on another team, but I do feel like it was a bigger deal to not have Porzingas than people gave it credit for. It was 23 a game. It was the guy who just made them completely on stop offensively. It had a ripple effect on their bench. There's guys that are playing more. There are some games where they just got zero from the bench because the whole hierarchy got knocked around. If he plays and he's healthy, which I still haven't been able to get a straight answer on, they're going to have five of the best seven guys in the series. I guess one of the things that I'm really surprised by is, and I get it because Luka is super fun to watch, and Kyrie has been the best version of Kyrie we've seen, I don't know, since the 2017 finals and has shown a lot of different things over three rounds. I thought an OKC When they were guarding him a specific way and he wasn't trying to force anything, he was just playing defense, getting people involved.

Then this last round where he was really good. It feels like people are glass half full on those guys in a lot of ways. Then on the Boston guys, glass half empty. Luka is better than Tatum, there's no question. But Tatum is not that far away from Luka from a statistical standpoint. It's not like the distance it was with Minnesota, where if Ant is not going to play that well, it was like a chasm. Ant not playing well, it was like 22 to 24 points a game. Tatum and Brown in the playoffs have been like 51, 52 points a game, which is right around the same of where Luka and Kyrie are. But I just think from my test, it seems like those guys are so much more fun to watch play offense. It doesn't make sense to us that the stats are pretty similar, and they are.

But it's built. I think it's because it builds in that Luke and Kyrie were at 59 points per game combined against Minnesota, the best defense in the NBA. If you were just to look at this, if Dallas hadn't played Minnesota along their path to the NBA Finals, you go, Boston's got all these different guys. It can switch it to a ton of stuff. They've got some guys. They can start with Jalen Brown on him. He was big enough. If Tatum has to get him for some spots, as long as Drew doesn't get pinned deep in the post, he can at least hold up a little bit. There's options. I think he's going to walk Eric White down when he gets him. And then you're like, okay, but the other team had Ant, they had Jaden, they had Alexander Walker, and then they'd be filtered into these other big guys back there, and it didn't matter. It went to another level, and that's the Boston side that scares you.

On the Minnesota piece, because I think that's part of what we need to do to unpack this Dallas-Boston matchup, the big question for me is what happened in Minnesota, which I think we have to tackle, but let's take a break and then we'll hit it. With FanDuel, it's never too late to get into the action this NBA Playoffs. Right now, new customers get 150 bucks in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That is $150 to use on Game Game parlays, Lab Bats, Championship Futures, exclusive markets, so much more. There's no better place to bet on all the playoff action than America's number one sports, but go to fando. Com/bs to get started. Fanduel, official sports spending partner of the NBA, You must be 21 plus, 18 plus in DC and present in select states, excluding North Carolina. Gambling problem call, 1-800. Gambler, visit rg-help. Com. First online real money wager, only $10 deposit required. But Bonus bets are now withdrawal and expire. Seven days after receipt, restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook. Fanduel. Com. So the Minnesota piece of this, we haven't talked about that series since it ended. And I can't decide what happened because you could tell me there was some rock, paper, scissors stuff going on with Denver, Minnesota, and Dallas.

Minnesota built to be Denver. Dallas, for whatever reason, matched up perfectly against Minnesota. And maybe if Denver played Dallas, maybe that would have been a great matchup for them. I don't know. But watching it, and I was just like, Man, I couldn't tell whether it was strategy mistakes that they were doing or what it was. Because in the previous round, OKC put Jalen Williams a lot on Kyrie, and then they followed that up with Wallace. And they really, I don't want to say they took Kyrie out of the series, but they really gave him issues. He averaged 16 points a game in that series. And then Minnesota, it seems like they couldn't decide what the right Kyrie strategy was, and all of them turned out to be the wrong strategy. So defensively, it was like they just never figured it out. And then Luca just gained confidence as the series went along. It just torched them. Then on the other side, they couldn't figure out who to attack and exploit on the Dallas side. And every time they tried to attack Luca, it got weird. It's like, When he's gone, Gobert, we'll post up Gobert.

And it's like, All right, if you're going to start doing that, you're probably in trouble. But it was like they could just never solve it. So did Minnesota run out of gas or did Dallas go up a level or both?

I don't think it's running out of gas. I mean, this team's too young to sit there and say they ran out of gas, even though Ant was like, UFC, fifth round exhausted at the end of game one. Yeah, I guess he was. I think he might have just been so hyped. He might have just been so hyped, and he was bringing the ball up to help Conley. He's guarding Kyrie, he's chasing around, and then he's tasked with being the number one option the entire time on offense. When people are going to say, Oh, what do you mean didn't run out of gas? Look at him. Look how tired the guys were. I think that was a specific game thing for Anne. He might have just been so hyped up that he burned himself out a little bit. So the thing I keep coming back to when I try to figure out who I was going to pick is that it's two versus one. All right? And two versus one meaning, Minnesota had one guy they cared about on offense. And if you go back through all those cat games before he finally got hot in game four, and he sucked again in game five, those are a lot of good looks.

The worst shot decisions cat made was when he decided to drive on Lively. I don't know that he got Lively one time, by the way. Maybe he got some free throws in game five. But it only worked once Lively was out of the game in game four. When I look at Oklahoma City, Shay has that incredible game four where he goes 10 of 14 for mid-range shots for the most makes of the mid-range in five years since Chris Paul in a playoff game. You're like, That's how you had to win that game? You had to do that. Then you're watching Jalen Williams have these long stretches where, as a young guy, first taste of it, didn't really look comfortable offensively. Then if you look at the Clippers part of it, you get the Coin Toss stars, the Coin Toss brothers in Harden and PG. Is that what you just come up with that?

Yeah.

You have no idea. You have no idea. There's two options. One's good, one's bad.

But you know within the first six minutes of the game, it's like, Oh, came up tails.

With Harden, I can usually tell. I'll be like, Oh, we're doing a lot of entry passes. When I land on Boston in seven games, I do believe this will be the first time where it goes, Wait, we have to defend. We have to worry about more than one guy.

Right. They only really had in one quipper game when it was Paul, George, and Harden were going together. Because I think that only happened once in that series. Certainly, OKC never happened. It was the floater game.

Harden hits all of those floaters at the end of that one game where Dallas stayed back the entire time and was just letting... But you're also expecting, is Harden going to make every single one of these floaters? And he does because he's obviously really talented. But from all the angles that I look at this, the one that makes me feel best about the Boston side of it is this is the first time in a couple of series where that number two guy is going to feel like a better bet to show up than what you had with OKC and certainly, Minnesota.

Well, what if they get a healthy Porzingis as the other piece, too? Because then they'll have a third guy who is better. I still think there's a scenario where he comes in and he's just really good, and they've been putting him on ice and keeping the entry 37 days off. I don't know. Back to Minnesota for one second. Towns was 8 for 33 from three in the series.

That was higher than I thought.

All of those shots felt like they were open. I don't really feel like any of them were contested. He finished with 8 threes and 12 fouls.

I went through them all, Bill. I went through every one of his shot attempts through the first three games, and I went in expecting way more decisions that I didn't like. It was one of those deals where when you're only really focused on that, I got done. I have really easy things. I'll go like good decision, bad decision, and then questionable, maybe not on him, shot clock or whatever. There was an overwhelming number of them that were actually really good looks. I agree. The best shooting, the self-annoyed best shooting big in the NBA didn't make them.

You just got. Then you go to the previous series when their whole strategy was like, Let's at least try to take out as much of Kyrie as we can. We'll let all these other guys beat us, which I think is the right strategy when you play Dallas. Then PJ goes 23 for 49 from three. Jones goes 10 for 27. So combined, they were 33 for 76. Then Josh Green was 10 for 27. So all their guys just started I guess if you're going to make the case against Dallas, their role guys, I think, outkicked their coverage a little bit from a shooting standpoint. We know at the finals, we know that there's levels to this stuff as you go and you get to that final round and the intensity and the scrutiny and everything starts three hours for the game. Even when you're doing shoot-arounds, there's a bunch of people on the court already. Games start late. There's no flow to anything. It's tough to rely on those guys. It just is. Whereas at least the Celtics, their guys went through it in 2022, with the exception of Drew, who went through it in 2021 on the Bucks.

Really, everybody they have out of their key six guys has been through all the beats of a four-round playoff series except for Porzingas. That's it. I think that's an advantage for them. The flip side is, if you're Luka, who did you go against in the first three that is the type of person who can at least make you work for all the points you need to get?

Dork.

Okay.

He makes you work.

Jalen and Tatum are at least going to make them work. I think that's one of the things that interests me about this series, from just a basketball strategy standpoint, how much are they going to try to put on those two guys? Because those are the type of guys... I talked about this last week of Ben Simmons was probably the most successful guy against Luka over the last six years, even though it was a younger version of Luka. But it's 6'9, athletic, strong. That's who you want. At least make them work so he can't put people on his hip pocket and do all the stuff he does. One of my questions I have is, who is Jalen going to guard in this series? Because I think you can make a case he should guard Kyrie. Because that's what OKC did, where they put Jalen Williams on him a lot, and they put size and athleticism and length on him and just tried to make him pass the ball around. We've seen Jalen take all other challenges. It feels like a very Jalen-y decision, be like, you're going to guard Kyrie in game one. Yeah, fuck, yeah.

I've got all these different guys. People don't realize what a good two way. I could see him getting fired up for it and them just trying to take out Kyrie and then just throwing a bunch of people at Luca. It'll be Tatum, it'll be Drew, little Al Horford, whatever. They'll just rotate dudes, but really try to take out Kyrie would be my guess.

Jalen aside to Kyrie, and Kyrie goes for 45 in game one, and Jalen says in the post game, he's He's just proud of him.

I hope those guys are going to do that this run.

When I looked at the matchups, I'll give them to you from March first game, Dallas started lively, Pj, Josh Green started, and then it was Kyrie and Luca. You know me, I seem to always love Josh Green minutes, even when they're a little chaotic. Jalen starts on Luca, but it doesn't really matter. You can be assigned to him immediately Immediately within that game. A lot of the stuff that's the same stuff that we saw against Minnesota, those double drag screens, Luca works it left to right. He's looking for two different things off it, then throws to the corners. But I thought the most interesting part was that Prisingus is on P. J. Washington, and Tatum was on Lively. So I don't know if Lively now, who has really answered the bell about... The crazy thing about Lively, if he's only this, it's awesome.

Right. It's like a 15-year career.

Yeah. I think there's probably a little bit more trust depending on how Luca is going to be looking for switches, because as soon as there was a double big lineup with Horford and Prisingis, he was looking for Horford's guy to come up and set the screen. But Prisingis, with all of his rim protection numbers, where he was the fifth best, depending on how many attempts at the rim in the NBA this season, really lofty numbers, up there with Embiid, up there with Kessler, up there with, who else? Rudy, I think was fourth in that number. When you look at where Przingis is statistically and how much you think that should help Boston having some rim protection there, I don't know if Missoula will do the same thing where it's like, Keep him on PJ, but allowed to roam. But if you get OKC PJ, then you're in major trouble, where then against Minnesota, it didn't even matter that he was shot 25% from three. When I watched the game again this morning, Drew has to make sure he doesn't get stuck deep Luka setting up off the ball because that's a problem. I think White just isn't stout enough for him.

It probably feels like Jalen and Tatum, but then it'll really be dictated on what switch Luka wants to run because I think he He'll probably be more trusting and lively at this stage than he was when they played in March.

Well, they're going to trap him a bunch, too. That was one of the many weird Minnesota pieces I didn't get from that last series. You think so? They don't double a lot. I thought it was an easy series for Dallas. They just did whatever they wanted to do, whereas I thought OKC was a little more inventive with the way they defended. It just came down to the side guys on Dallas just made a shitload of shots, and they got some rebounds. But I felt like OKC was way more in the ballpark for how to play with that team. The Kipper series was weird because Luka was hurt because I was looking at some of those games trying to remember what I thought. Luka shot, I don't know, 24% from three. He just was limping around for most of the time. But I think the OKC was a better... Basically, Boston has to do what OKC, a lot of what they did in that last series, but rebound and protect the rim a little bit better.

But you're right about Luka. I just want to add this, though, to think that through the grind, Luca has looked better and better physically as the playoffs have gone on because there were the Clippers moments. We're like, Okay, wait, what's going on here? He shot 24% from three in that series. Even in the clinching game, he was 1 of 10. He It was game one against OKC, one for eight. Then against them in game two, I was actually worried about him, as we've already covered that part of it. Didn't take a lot of free throws in that game at all, but still finishes with 29, 10, and 7, which is basically the least you'd expect from him. But he still had moments where physically it didn't look right. I don't know if it was him working the officials maybe a little bit more because of Dora's physicality. But then you go into the Minnesota part of it, you're saying, Oh, they could have done this, they could have done that. I just think that's the brilliance of him. He was 44% from 43, 43% from three in that game in that series because you think he got Jaden.

This is the stout versus length thing with Luka that I think is very easy to identify. As great as Jaden is on the ball, and he's one of the best in the game, he got on the backside of Luca every single high screen. Then Luca is like, Okay, you're behind me going for a ride. I'm not worried about you. I've got a retreating big. For the most part, Minnesota wants to drop there. I think sometimes they change it up a little bit, but consistently, it was him knowing. He's got lively on some role. Then his vision to the corners is unmatched because he's as massive as he is, and he can just stop and then make the decision. You're battling four different decisions. I think it looks easy, not because was screwed up because of how special he is.

I think they screwed up not putting McDaniels on Kyrie and just being like, McDaniels, take out Kyrie as much as you can.

So would you focus on- We'll live with the Lucas up.

I think if they had to do it over again, it's unquestionably what they would have done is that.

Because I I think you bring up a good point in thinking about this. Do you think it might be like, Hey, if Luca wants to switch and get in one-on-one, it's fine, but Boston needs to make sure Kyrie is bottled up as much as possible off the ball? That's what you think?

I think they're going to trap Luca so that he doesn't get going Because in the first quarter, the Minnesota game was a great example. You could see what was unfolding as it was unfolding, and everyone could see it except Minnesota, who was like, Oh, man, I hope it doesn't make another shot. Then he make another shot. I was like, Oh, damn, he made another one. It's like, You guys can control this a little bit. Let somebody else make a shot. I think Boston is going to do everything they can to not let those local runs happen. They have the perfect team to guard Kyrie. They really do. They even have a better version of what OKC had to at least... You're not going to shut them down, but they have guards to throw them, they have sides to throw them, they have rim protection if Porzingis is going to play. I just think it's a good matchup. It's funny, though, because I heard some great stuff over the last couple of days. There were some rollicking takes out there.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like you mean great in the sense that most of us define great. Give it sit, Bill. What do you got? Get it off your chest.

Takes were flying. Jalen's really good. I just want to start there. I think there is a chasm between the people who talked about the Celtics versus the people who actually watched them. Jalen in the playoffs for three rounds now, he's 25 points a game. He's shooting 54% and he's shooting 37% from three, and he's plus 6.8 when he plays. Kyrie is averaging 23 a game and shooting 49%. I think if you ask the normal person who's a better offensive player, they'll be like, Kyrie Kyrie 100 times out of 100. He's way better than Jalen. It's like, is he? Jalen, for the last four years of the playoffs, is averaging more points than he is, and he's a better shooter than Kyrie is, at least from field goal percentage. It's at least like, argumentable that he could put up similar production as Kyrie. But I think we've hit this point based off that last series where people are like, Luka and Kyrie, man, it's Unstoppable. There's no two like this in the league. And Tatum and Brown have been pretty good for a long period of time. They just went 76 and 20 the entire season, to me, it counts for something.

Are they one of the three most disrespected '76 and '20 teams of all time?

Do you agree with me that this is the best version of Jalen we've ever had, and it's not close? It's not close. This is the best version of him we've ever had.

My Jalen stuff is well-documented. I'm probably not as high on him as I need to be, which doesn't mean to say that I don't understand how special he is. I cannot believe some of the shot decisions, and I can't believe how often these brutal turnarounds where I'm like, That's what you're coming up with, and then it goes in, and then it just goes in.

The Indiana series over and over again. Now, granted, they didn't have Hallibur. Well, they still have Porzingas. But over and over again, they were in these close games, and he made huge shots. He made a three in the corner to save game one. Game three and game four, he made huge plays in both of those games. He made a big shot over Turner in game three. He had big plays on both ends in game four, and it's like, well, it was against the Pacers. At some point, you got to give the guy some credit. I thought he should have made all NBA. I made the case. He didn't make it. But I think we've been pretty critical of him over the last few years. I think he has absolutely worked his ass off to get stronger, to be a better two-way player. I think he's competitive as fucking shit. The fact that he won that conference finals MVP, I thought was great. I don't know whether he deserved it or Drew, but I thought it was awesome for him.

Wait, you're Drew or Tatum?

I actually would have gone I think I would have gone Drew second, Tatum third. You can't vote for holiday. Oh, come on. I thought Drew was incredible in that series. Oh, my God. I just thought he was great. I thought they were very close. If any of them had won, I would have been fine with it. But I don't know.

Drew did not receive a vote. It was five, four voting for Tateam. I get it.

I thought Drew was awesome. I just think the stuff Jalen has done and the chip that he has on his shoulder, which is weird. It's one of the only times ever Somebody's got a massive contract and it actually turned out to be a good thing for their career. Usually, it's the other way, right? It's like, I got this massive contract. Oh, my God, I got fat. Oh, I'm not working this hard. Oh, now the fans have turned on me. This is opposite. This guy got this contract. He's been trying to justify it ever since. It's been pretty cool.

He's been so good. He's been so good, and I think his defense has gotten better. I think he's the primary guy defensively, but it could have more to do with Tatum having to run more of their offense, where it's like the ant lesson we saw there, where there's so many superstars be like, Wait, who's SGA guarding? Or who's this guy guarding? Or how come? And you go, Well, the downside is... But in the play-ups, you don't want to hear that of stuff. Jalen has taken that stuff on. I also thought that Jalen had the easier defensive matchup instead of Tatum, and that Tateum's gravity was impacting stuff a little bit more. That's why I would have voted for him for Eastern Conference Finals MVP. But Jalen had the three in game one. He had the pass to white to close it out. He had the block. He just had some of these moments that I think the voters probably fell in love with there a little bit more. I have talked about him nonstop, and I probably should look at him as as somebody who's delivered in so many of these playoff moments. The problem for him was it turned into this guy who couldn't dribble with the offhand, and the Miami series got so ugly.

That lives in a way in the internet. It's like a tattoo. It just stuck to you.

But this goes back to what we talked about earlier. It's the perception of things versus what the reality of it was. If I told you, Jalen from 2020 to '24, 75 playoff games versus Kyrie, Basically, from 2019 to 2024, 39 playoff games, who do you think averaged more points? I think 99 people out of 100 would say Kyrie, and it's Jalen. Jalen averaged 23 points during that stretch. Kyrie averaged 22. Jalen shot 49%, Kyrie shot 45. There's this weird... And I think both of us are pretty aligned on this. It's been pretty awesome to watch Kyrie turn himself into a meaningful basketball player again. I think over everything else, we're going to root for good basketball and more good basketball players is always going to win the day. But now people have just tossed away the last seven years and a lot of the roller coaster ride stuff with him and all the missed games and some pretty bad playoff performances. The way he's played in the 2024 playoffs is the best he's played in seven years?

Well, we're aligned on this one, and I fear that- We're just stating facts. Nobody wants to hear from you or I because they think it's only about the Boston thing. I would remind everybody, I think the 2019 is one of my least favorite teams that I've ever watched. Yeah, it wasn't just Kyrie. And I couldn't wait for it to be over. So I do think it speaks to how we treat winning, and that winning fixes everything about your perception. And it's if the rules... I don't know when this changed. Maybe it's always been there, but it's more pronounced now. But if you're coming at people that were critical of Kyrie with this, Hey, where's the apology? It's like, Fuck off. Miss me with all... What am What is he supposed to do? I'm psyched he's playing basketball again to the level that he's playing. The stuff that he is capable of doing is as unique as we've ever seen for somebody that small. But then it's like, no, now you have to do all this other stuff. I don't have to do any of that shit. I don't have to do any of it because I'm not going to.

He's missed 205 games in the last seven years and was missed or hurt, missed a postseason or was hurt in a postseason in four of those. One of the revision's history things with him is that... I mean, it was really Dallas or Bust from him last year because I went back and read some of the stories. Did I remember this wrong? Because I remember both of us were stunned that they gave him the contract they gave because we didn't know who they were competing against. So I went back. There was a possible Lakers thing, but he would take the mid-level. And then it was like, he's going to do an interview with Phoenix.

But that was bullshit, too.

But it was after Bradley Beal.

Right. But they leaked that whole story because Shams had it, where it was right before the deadline for him to opt out of the Nets contract, that it was like, You better trade me because I'm going to opt out, and then I go for the mid-level. And you're like, Okay, cool. And the Nets call his bluff. And then guess what? He doesn't want to give up $30 million to play for the mid-level with the Lakers. So he was on this tear of all this stuff. It was all there, and it all deserved criticism. It just did the same way his playing right now deserves praise. But we're very odd in the way that we'll cover things at our events where it's the present good is supposed to somehow erase all of this stuff that was real and was just, I don't know, it was pain in the ass.

Stades of Roger Hrowski in late June went on SportsCenter and he said, The market for Kyrie Irving, legitimate places that he would leave Dallas for that makes sense that are available to him, it's extremely limited, perhaps almost nil. The full expectation is he returns in Dallas. I don't think the money will be as much of an issue as how many fully guaranteed years are there for Kyrie Irving. That's where we were in June, and we were there because of the six years before it. Then he turned his career around. It was a gamble that they had to take because there was really no other way for them to get a major free agent. I posted on Twitter, I posted my notes from this podcast you and I did at the end of March in 2023. Remember they lost that terrible Charlotte game? They were 11th in the West. There was eight games left in the season. We were like, Oh, my God, they might miss the playoff with Luka. I had all my notes from that, and the notes were like, Is Luca in one of the worst situations of any under-30 star? I had him and LaMelo and, ironically, Edwards.

Star best players that just missed the playoffs. It was like, there's a Barkley here, there's a Dwyane Wade here. I had that whole list, too. We did the whole podcast thinking there was no way this was going to turn around for Dallas. Then in one of the great basketball instructions that we've seen starting with them losing that pick, and I'm getting that pick back, doing the liability trade, dumping the Bertrand's contract, and they did all these things. And it's really impressive. But it was also really bleak in June. For some reason, that's been kicked out the window.

But it also helps, too, when we're talking about the second best player in the world at 25 years old.

Yeah, and I want to talk about him in one second. Let's take a break. Going back to Dallas and some of the stuff they did. I went back because I was like, this Gaffard Washington thing feels unusual to me. I'm just going to go through all the seasons and try to figure out how unusual is this for a team to remake itself at the trade deadline and then it actually works. I went back to '08 The Lakers did that Pal Gasol deal, which changed their season. They make the finals. They lose, but they make the finals. Change their season.

Yeah, it changed. It changed three years.

Well, but I mean, specifically, they made the finals that year. They didn't win. The Celtics made a very small P. J. Brown That really helped them. He made a couple of big shots against the Cavs. A little tiny deal, not on the P. J. Washington sense. But then it really wasn't until 2015 when the Cavs did that, they got Shumpert and Mosgoff and J. R. Smith. They traded some picks. They didn't win that year. In '16, they got Channing Fry, but he still played for them. '17, they got Corver. '18, they got Clarkson, Nantes, and hood. They didn't win that year. This was the biggest trade deadline move that I saw that actually resulted in a finals. Same year was Marc Gasol in 2019 for Toronto, where they traded for him. They gave up real stuff for him. He was super impactful for them. They ended up winning the finals. 2020, Jay Crowder, Miami. 2022, Celtics, Derek White. That helped them, I think, make the finals. And then Gaffard, Washington. It's really unusual to trade around the fringes like this and You get guys who you can get 40% of your team at crunch time, basically, at the Trade Dead Line.

They paid a lot. I mean, they definitely gave up a shitload for it, especially when you include the Grant Williams. They'd give up a pick just to sign Grant Williams. You're talking three first-round picks. Get those guys. But it does make me wonder, our team is going to get friskier on the Trade Deadline going forward. Could this be one of those things where people go, Hey, look at what Dallas did. They got those guys Maybe this is the new inefficiency once a rest of the decade. Because we have more parody at the top than I think we ever had. I don't think we have parody, but I think we have contender parody. Or if you have one of the best 8-10 guys in the league, you can at least, whether you're Phoenix, whether you're OKC, whether you're Philly, whatever, you feel like you're around, sniffing around the title. I don't know. Miami made a play for Rozier. I guess you could say that was the East Coast version of a trade like that. But do you feel like we'll see more of those trades?

This is one of the worst trade deadlines we've ever done. Yeah, it was tough. There was that part where, remember, it was, oh, my God, McDonaldvich. Mcdonaldvich, look how smart the Knicks are. And they got births. Right. I think we were at least good enough to give credit to Dallas when it happened, because for whatever reason, I've always really liked Gaffer, and then PJ's motivation to come back home and how inspired he's been throughout all this. Then on top of that, the PJ defensive assignments.

There's a lot of times we're going-Pj turning into Robert Horry? I don't remember us talking about that.

No, not that part of it. I don't think anybody projected that.

Big shot PJ?

Yeah, right. I think this is one of those things where you look at it and go, well, does that mean next February When we're doing all the look ahead stuff the week of the Trade Deadline, will front offices actually go, Hey, last year we would have been on the fence, but look what Dallas did. So let's be more motivated to do it? I don't know. I think with the second apron.

I think it's possible. There's more talent just in general. So there's more of these guys when you think where the league was. We did this in a previous pod, where the league was 20 years ago, where the league was 10 years ago. Just from a top 75, top 100 guys in the league standpoint, there's more guys to get. And then I think from a superstar standpoint, we have more really good guys than we did. The All-MBA guys, even the guys in that 9-20 range, they're just really just deeper. So you might feel like, Hey, look at the league. We've had a different champion every year since 2018. You're never that far away. Maybe it becomes more like football. Where teams are like, If we're one of the eight teams, maybe we have a chance.

I don't know that I'd go that far. Maybe, maybe. But it still seems that it ends up being some guy holding up a trophy where we're like, Okay, well, that makes sense. I mean, if it's Donchit, you're going to go, Okay, second. But everyone will make him the best player in the world and forget about Jokić if he's holding the trophy up. And then if Tatum is holding it up, people are going to go, Is Tatum actually closer to one than he is five? Because that'll be what's on the shows the next day. So that's still always the guiding rule of this lead. But the reason I was even hinting at the second apron, because I love thinking about the stuff that's going to happen with the second apron, We haven't really fully experienced the cuts that are going to have to happen, where I look at bad teams with cap space. Here's a perfect example. Look at the Orlando Magic. You try to figure out, okay, what are they going to do with their cap space? So in the past, they just four-year a guy, probably even pay them a little bit more come to the magic, and then worry about paying all their young guys down the road.

Well, now I don't know that you can really do that. If you want to keep Franz, Paolo, and Sugs, which you would want to keep, and then you're paying them big money, you may go, Well, wait, we actually can't do the four-year thing in free agency with somebody who's this secondary, maybe not even a secondary player, right?

I think OKC is in the same boat, right?

Yeah, OKC. I think that's why they wanted to do the Hayward deal a little bit there, where they were clearing up some of the money and then adding the CAB space. But they also probably felt like maybe Gordon offers them up some shooting and play making. That didn't really happen.

Did you see what Sam said?

About Gordon? Yeah. Basically, he missed.

He's basically like, I missed it. Yeah, I missed it. You rarely see a GM be like, Yeah, missed it. It didn't work. My bad.

I don't know if he was prioritizing what he thought he could be in a different environment outside of Charlotte, or if he was prioritizing a little bit more flexibility. Anyway, the whole point and the whole reason I'm making this is I tie it into, will we see teams a little bit more active? I wonder if there will be a surplus of some of these players that are margin players that become available prior to the trade deadline as owners start staring down the real restrictions that he could be facing by being a first or a second apreon team. As you look at some of these salaries, I was looking at some of the salary stuff this morning and how many teams are already projected over the second apreon for '24 and '25. Will we have more players available because you don't feel like you can stockpile contracts the way you did in the past? And it's It's just a question. It's a theory. But the math would make sense that maybe you're going to see more Gaffords available. So it could be just a supply part of it more so than it is the motivation to match what Dallas just did.

Counter. That might only be one season. And then the media deal kicks in and all the numbers go way up. And then it'll be like, yeah, not as afraid as the second April. I still don't understand the Gafford piece. Look, I don't think there's any way to know P. J. Was going to turn into Robert Horry. And it was kudos to Dallas for figuring identifying him, but there was still no real evidence for it. Gaffard was playing really well for these shitty Washington teams for years. And the house always would talk about, Yeah, if anyone gets Gaffard, that guy's good. That guy will be like, I just don't know how the league missed that when they have these giant organizations with a bunch of scouts. Can we go to Tatum for a second? Didn't we already do that? No, just quickly.

Sorry. Tatum part 2.

The 42 club that I have, well, because it ties in Luca. That 42 club that I love to do, points, rebounds, and assists, anytime it's over 42 for a playoff, it's usually assigned, something's happening. Luca is no surprise at 47. So this goes Luca, Yoka, Giannis, Kawhi, Duncan, Iverson, Kobe, LeBron. It's all the people you would think is on this list. There's no cheapies.

By the way, I love stuff like this. I love numbers like this that just go, Oh, there's not one weird name there?

It's all the best players. I think when I came up with it, I think I got to 42 because I wanted to figure out a way to cut Karl Malone out of it. For some reason, 42 worked perfectly, and then that allowed me to get everybody in and not have them in. Your guy Barkley is there at 93, 44.5. But Tatum is on the list this year. Tatum is at 43.3. I do think... Because Tatum, it's a weird thing, man. When it's not great, you really feel it. I think people have been watching him for so long that they do the glass half empty thing for him. We talked about this in previous pods. There's a little Tim Duncanitis with him, too, where it's just like, Luca has got the swagger and he's talking shit and he goes on these heaters and it's like, this is fucking cool, man. There's nobody like Luca. Nobody's ever going to be like, Oh, man, Tatum. There's nobody like Tatum. But he's just been really high level, good and efficient for a few years here now. He's been one of the six best players in the league for three straight years.

He's the best two-way forward in the league. I don't count Giannis as a forward. As you know, I count him as a... I think he's a big man. I do wonder if everyone's talking about this is going to be Luca's moment, this is going to be Luca's moment. There's a flip side of this where it's like, maybe this could be Jason Tateum's moment, too. There's a lot of pedigree building up toward this specific series, some of the matchups he has. The rebounding is going to be huge for him. The playmaking, he's going to have to go head to head with Luka in a couple of games. This could be the moment for him, too, one way or the other. I know it's more fun to talk about Luka, but Tateum putting up 29, 10, and 8 in a finals and beating Dallas and winning the title. I don't feel like we'd have any more Tateum conversations after that.

The numbers will have to be there, but that's going to happen. We already hinted at it, joked about it with the whole Luca thing, with the belt transfer of the segment we did a week ago. But if Tatum has numbers even close to what he's just had throughout the East and they pull this off, there's going to be a big media Tatum parade because there's no other way to do the job.

If he's 27, 10, and 6, and they win the title, and he's the best guy in the team, then it'll be a reconsideration. Then people start talking about him versus Kobe, playoff points before age 27. They're like, Man, Tatum might end up with a pretty amazing career here. He's going to play 200 playoff games. There's a whole bunch of checkpoints that would happen with that. The Luka thing is more fun to talk about because you're talking about this guy has a chance now to be one of the 15 best players in the history of the league.

But the visual thing that you mentioned is true because Tatum is like Duncan in the visual sense, Probably not even as extreme as Duncan is. Kobe, for as great as he is and the resume, and it's all incredible, he's probably one of the best examples of being so visually pleasing that even in those big moments, he put on.

You added out a lot of the bad stuff.

He presented himself as someone that in the game, nothing was more important, and he was the one that wanted it more than everybody else.

So he was good at that. His big shots were awesome.

Right. It was that much fun. Luca is certainly different visually than Kobe because we're just talking about a massive gap in athleticism. But Luca, the way he carries himself and he takes on this villain now as as the road guy, and part of it's because once I think he steps in those lines, he cannot help himself but being the biggest asshole. I think I mean that as a compliment. There's a reason why he's always getting into it with somebody, and I'd certainly rather that than somebody that's passive. But between the two, I don't have any debate where I'm like, Oh, is Tateum actually better? He's just not. There's no way.

That's not what we're talking about. I think it's way more fun to talk about Luca. I wrote down, I was I'm going to talk about this during the Minnesota series. We haven't had an old-school shit talker swagger guy like this in a long time. A guy who actually seems like he likes being on the road, sucking the soul out of the crowd But also the best player, too, is what you're talking about. And you can back it up. But I'm saying we're going back to the Bird Magic era. We're going back to Jordan. This is the shit that we grew up with. We're these guys who were like, I don't care if anyone likes me. I'm going to make shots and just start screaming at some guy sitting courtside. He was like, What's happening? I'm with my daughter. Why are you yelling at me? Just going nuts. I wrote down, he's a road quieter. There are these certain guys that are like, I always think the great players are always on the road is always the best way to analyze them because they really thrive on, fucking shut all these people up. It's just silence.

I'm just staring around. I'm talking shit, and I'm just basically He's pulling everybody's pants down. As much as I love Jokuj, Jokuj is who he is. I don't think he's in there like, I'm going to fucking shut up everybody. He just plays, then he goes, and he leaves, and he goes back to his country and rides horses. Luka was like this. This is one of the reasons I loved him so much heading the draft. He was doing this as a 17-year-old, and they were shown in those games on NBA TV, and it was unbelievable. He was going in these opposing arenas where they were like, How of semi-dangerous places, and he's talking shit to 30-year-olds. I was like, Who is this guy? And he's carried it ever since.

I love thinking about Luka, the younger guy. Because we've seen his dad who just is a legend, apparently, just a legend. There's a Slovenian hockey player here that is a neighbor, and I ran into some of his family members, Kopitar, and I ran into some of his members. They were like, We were at the beach, and I was talking to his family, and all they wanted to talk about was Luca the entire time. Luca this and Luca that. His dad, it was just... He's this mythical feat. You think about some of these smaller countries where I think in the States, we can just be like, Oh, it's another one of those guys in that part over there. Do you realize how small some of these places are? Okay. And now they have a guy who's potentially going to do this. It would make sense if Luca does this based on his background, his upbringing, and him checking boxes and being ahead of schedule. At age 17. We fall in love with new and new is fun because we think it's going to be something we've never seen it before. That's why the women Yama stuff is so exciting.

But at the same time, Luca keeps going like, Oh, wait, you didn't think I could do this yet? You didn't think I could do this yet? And that's the thing that scares the shit out of here on the Celtic side of it because you're just going, this guy is supposed to win a championship because of all these things. But when you talk about his demeanor, I would love to know what he was like on the ride to game five because watching him, did he know where he's just going to those guys being like, Hey, first quarter, I'm going to take their fucking souls. First quarter. Because some of the shots he was taking, it was apparent to me that he had decided, I'm going to see what I can do here tonight. Granted, he's probably feeling a certain way. He feels like he's a little bit more locked in. He starts hitting all these deep threes. I know it was 18, 18 because Rudy was awesome on offense. But it was just one of those moments where it was like, Man, he showed up in an elimination game. It was like, I'm not waiting around.

I'm going to win it in the first 12.

It reminded me of LeBron in that 2012 game 6 game in Boston, which was the most important game, probably his career. When he came out in the first quarter and was just making 20 footers with that crazy look on his face and was like, Oh, no, this is bad. But the great guys, they go into a game, they're like, I'm fucking taking this in the first quarter. It was awesome. He would have a chance here. It's interesting for the youngest finals MVPs, he'd be in the top 12 youngest. He's 25. It's a pretty good list. There's some guys like Magic's on it twice, Kareem, Tim Duncan, Dwyane Wade, Bill Walton. There's some weird ones, too, like Dumar as a Maxwell and DJ, but Yannis was 26. Duncan was 26 the second time he went. It's more conceivable than I thought as I was doing the research. I was like, Man, Lucas seems young. It's like, No, it's actually this is right around the time, especially if he's somebody who has a chance to be a top 15 or 20 guy ever, which I think we're on pace now.

It's still young, though. It's 25 in February.

It's a little young, but it's not crazy. I think two years ago in the '22 playoffs, when he went against the Warriors in the conference finals, if they had made it that year, that would have been, whoa, he's 22, we're doing this now. A little like LeBron in '07. We're like, whoa, we're doing this now? This feels maybe a year early, but it's around when it should have happened, I think.

He's so good, yes, because LeBron felt early, not to say that we didn't realize how good LeBron, but that's still when you look at the rest of it, especially when you look at Dallas. Granted, we've already talked about it, you got to put this dividing line between who they were and who they became, and it's only gotten better. But the issue I had was just navigating the landmines of the West, and I still couldn't get there with them. As I watched the Minnesota series, I went, Hey, this might be the simple stuff of if you're really going to try to build a playoff team, they can go deep. You need two on-ball creators. You can't just have one. And that was the difference between Minnesota and Dallas.

Do you think Denver would have beaten them?

I would have said that, but I'm not going to do it to Dallas anymore. I've already been too disrespectful by not picking them. And by the way, I don't know that I've ever picked against a team four straight rounds. Miami doesn't count last year. I picked against them four times. So I I doubt there will have ever been a time where I picked against a team in four straight playoff rounds, and they actually won the NBA title. Last year, Miami, Denver was easy to pick because I still thought the Celtic series was one of the flukiest things we've ever seen.

I had them over the Clippers in round one, and then I thought, okay, so he was going to beat him. To be fair, more because of how injured Luca was. To be fair, more because of how injured Luca was.

Once Leonard was out, I went, okay, well, now I'm not taking the Clippers. I guess there's a technicality there. But when I thought Kawhi was going to play and be healthy the whole time. But yeah, I don't know that I can ever think of a team that all… When the series started, went, okay, I'm going to pick against them, then they want a title. That'll be a new one for me. I'll feel pretty proud about that.

One other thing Dan Shonasi wrote about…

Curse the Bambino?

No, the Celtics have a chance to end a drought. I think it was tongue in cheek, but I couldn't tell. Boston title drought. We haven't won a title. Let's talk about it. We haven't won a title since February 2019. It's been five years and four months. So he was having fun with it, but it is... The Boston teams won 12 titles from February 2002 to February 2019. No titles in five and a half years. Apparently, it's a trip.

I think he was kidding. Well, it depends on what your standard is.

I think he was kidding. I'm going to give you my favorite thing that I heard over the last couple of days. I was driving back from work because we of Rewatchables on Friday, and I was flipping around on the serious, and that show, Speak, was on Fox. One of the topics was, if Dallas wins the title, is Kyrie the best sidekick of all time? One of the guys made the case, yes, but he prefaced it, and it was something... I was driving on the highway, so I couldn't write this down, but he said something like, Look, I know Scottie Pippen has six titles, but if Dallas wins this, Kyrie would have two. And then he went, and I'm like, Whoa. So we're tossing out 1986 Kev McHale, who is the best defensive center in the league, and had shot 60% in the playoffs in 26 and 10. We're tossing out He won Kobe. We're just going to toss away sidekicks now. And Kyrie, just because he looked good in a couple of rounds, is now we're talking about him and the historical great sidekicks ever. It was Friday. It was really great.

Yeah, People have lost their mind, I think, in the Kyrie conversation. I just think they have. He's really fun to watch.

He might go nuts. He might go nuts in the finals.

He's super fun to watch. He scored 16 a game against Oklahoma City.

Yeah, he was fun to watch. I get it. Jalen is just... Nobody's going to be like, Watch this Jalen Brown mixtape for six minutes, but Jalen scored more points than him in the playoffs. We're going to end part one. We're going to bring in Brian Curtis for part two. Thanks to Rasella, thanks to Steve Cerruti and Kyle Crate in as well. And part two is going to come up a little bit later on Sunday. But this was part one. Thanks for listening. 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 fandil. 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, 877-770. Stop in Louisiana. Mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. 800-gambler. Net in West Virginia. 800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1877-8 Hope-Ny or text Hope-Ny in New.