Coming up, a heart attack game in Boston. Plus, we talked some movies next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where we put up a new rewatchables. On Monday night we did back to the future part two. You can watch that on our Ringer movies YouTube channel as well. We put the whole thing up there. And next week, by the way, on Monday we're doing fast times of Ridgemount High. So if you have a few days to watch that one. But we're, I'm doing all bangers, I'm telling you, rest of 2024, banger after banger after banger. That's what's happening. The Celtics game was a banger tonight. Kevin O'Connor is going to come on in 1 second to talk about the Celtics pulling victory from the jaws of defeat at home. Game one, we taped right after, so I'm going to sound pretty frazzled as you hear it. And then my old friend Wesley Morris came on to talk about the scene in New York City. Post Nick's plus we did a lot of movie stuff. Challengers, what was that? Break it down. Worst sports movie endings ever. I had a list. And then we talked summer movies.

What we're looking forward to. So this is a basketball movies podcast. It's all next. First, our friends who are in Los Angeles right now or may or may not be going tomorrow night. Pearl, Jim all right, taping this. 08:05 Pacific time Tuesday night, Kevin O'Connor from the ringer is here. We are not doing this live on YouTube because I did not think this was going to be a good basketball game. Koc I thought this would be the game the Celtics won by 20 points and then game two would be a game like we got tonight. Instead, we get an awesome game tonight. Is that the Jalen Brown game or is that the oh my God, I can't believe the Pacers choke that away game. Which is it for you?

It's the oh my God, the Pacers choke that away game. I mean, I think for Indiana this is the game that you had to win because I do think Boston's going to have that 20 point victory probably in game two. I kind of felt the same as you that that would come in game one after restaurant pacers just coming out from a hard fought Knicks series. And instead we get the game that we did tonight. And I think 157 to go. Indiana is up five points. And then you see Tyrese Halliburton. He blocks Derek White from behind in that moment. And then he took a hero shot double step back, harden style three pointer momentum taking him out of bounds. Horford on a switch against him, a really, I thought, you know, careless hero shot. Felt like he wanted the moment instead of making the right play. And that was with 15 seconds left on the shot clock after blocking white. Then he had the turnover after that, dribbling the ball off his knee. And that just kind of, I thought, summarized the blown lead for Indiana down the stretch. The sloppy decisions that carried over into overtime.

They should have won this game. The Pacers should have won tonight.

So the Halberd and play, 58 seconds left after he blocks it, they're up three misses, and still there was two other times they should have won. I mean, first of all, you got to be able to inbound the ball. Up three.

Oh, my God.

Almost the exact same spot of the Henderson steals the ball in the old guardian, except in this case it was Siakam tips it out of bounds and Rick Carlisle has no challenges left.

But times have changed, huh?

I went to some dark places in that fourth quarter. KFC.

Yeah.

I'm sure there was a weird Tatum sequence and lot of stuff to talk about with him today, but there was a weird Tatum sequence where he just was 40ft away from the basket for a chunk of the fourth quarter. He had a wide open three in the final minute that was going to give them the lead that I thought was going in. He missed it and then it was. And you're just sitting there going, then.

The rebound of the jumper as well.

Yeah, and he misses the. He gets the rebound, he misses a little follow a and you're watching it going, oh, here we go. Tomorrow is going to be, Tatum's not as good as these other great young players, and we're going to have to do this whole thing. Meanwhile, Tatum was really good in overtime and he finally hit a three that I got to admit I didn't 100% think was going in. And the, in the, that basically put the Celtics up by four and kind of is the game was that the.

Three went for whatever reason, the Pacers just left him completely wide open because Andrew Nemhard didn't just switch like, I just also the n one kind of layup that he hit when he was on Nemhardt was on him.

Yeah.

Why did the Pacers have Andrew Nemhardt on Jason Tatum with the size strength disparity? I know niece Smith has falled out of the game at that point, but to me, you got to put Siakam on Tatum in that situation.

Down the Nehemhard Horford. Yeah.

I just don't understand it.

Tatum finishes with 30, 612 rebounds, four assists, twelve for 26, ten for twelve from the free throw line. And really good defense, I thought. Yeah, and there was some weird strategic stuff with Joe Maz, which I know we'll go into later, but it felt like Tatum should have just been defending Siakam at every possible opportunity, and that didn't always seem the case. We spent this long without talking about the Jalen Brown three. My apologies, listeners. Sorry.

We're.

We're a little rattled after. After a crazy game, but. So they. They. Inbounds, goes out of bounds. Boston ball. Brown on the right corner. Double pump. No see. Occam foul. And by the way, if you're Indiana, it's a miracle that Jalen Brown has the ball with under 5 seconds left, because the odds of him making three straight free throws, if you've watched the Celtics for the last seven years, he made two in the fourth quarter. But what, like, what would you, what were the odds of him making three free throws to tie the game with the garden crowd completely tense, having a heart attack? I'm going to say, like, 10%. But Siakam, for whatever reason, they don't foul, and he makes a crazy shot. And the thing is, in the fourth quarter, at least, Jalen was the one who kind of seemed. If you. If you didn't know anything about the Celtics, you would have thought he was the best player. Right. But that's the great thing about the Jays, is they can kind of pass back and forth. Tonight, it was Jalen, but. Biggest shot at Jalen's career. I'm trying to think of a bigger one.

I'd say so. I'd say so.

Yeah. I don't remember him having a lot of, like, buzzer beaters or.

Yeah. I mean, especially when you consider the, the stakes for this team. 60 plus win. Team favorites in the east, like, they should be in the finals. They've had a fairly easy path so far. They should be there. So I think for, for Jalen Brown. Yeah, that was the biggest shot of his career that I can remember off the top of my head.

Lifted up Tatum a little bit, and then Tatum.

And then Tatum, you know, he finished late. Because you're right. Like, if. If. If that didn't happen, the conversation would be. Would right now be about, well, Tatum struggled throughout the fourth quarter. He really only hit one shot in the fourth.

Why aren't they using him better? Yeah. Like, like, what can they do differently? And then there would have been another conversation about, are we sure Tyrese Halbert is the best player in the series? You can almost imagine the first take sequence as they have the subjects on the bottom. It would have been like, does Jason Tatum need to do more? Next segment. Is Tiger Salbert the best part of the series? And we just. We'd hit all the beats. I thought. Tatum once again had an incredible all around game, but the three point shooting, this has been the story now for two years. He's not always lights out from three. It's been the one flaw in his game. And when he missed that three at the top of the key, I was like, oh, my God. I mean, we've also watched way too much of this team. And I think for the fans from the outside, probably listening to people who follow this Boston team talking about them, we have to sound like the most entitled Fucking assholes in the planet, right? But we've been watching these guys for seven straight years, and the more you watch anything, the more you see the flaws and the more you see the thing.

The glass half empty stuff. They did a lot of good stuff in the OT. I mean, how many points did they end up? They had 16 points in the OT, right?

16 to eleven.

Got a lot of good. And there was. They hadn't scored in the first. First minute, so, basically, on the last four minutes. But, um, considering they don't have poor zyngas and Al Horford was a guy who was playing, what, 15, 1619 minutes a game for the first five months of the season, and now they're leaning on him to the point that he played 40 tonight.

40 minutes.

You know, it's not the whole Celtics team, so if anything goes off, it feels like it's realistic for anybody to come in and beat them.

Right.

Did you feel like. I didn't feel like this was going to be a sweep. I mean, I thought it was going to go at least six. There was a bet on Fanduel. The series will go six or more was plus 120. And I was like, this series? I'd be shocked if it didn't go six. Did you feel like this was going to be a blowout? What did you. What was your, like, semi prediction for it?

I had pacers losing in five games. So Celtics winning this one in five. That's what I said to Verno on the mismatch on Monday night. And, I mean, I started to wonder if that would end up going six or even seven in the middle of tonight's game, but Indiana had to have this one. So I'm not going to move from Indiana, losing in five.

Well, this happens sometimes with game ones. It's the, we didn't win and now we basically have to win five of the seven games. Right. This is the Suns versus the spurs in 2008, where that, that crazy Duncan hits the three, goes into double overtime, and the Suns, it gets snatched away from them. And then it's just like, not only was that a horrible loss, but now we basically have to win four of the next six when we just won a game. So now it's. It's basically a five two series. Uh, bright side for Indiana, though, the pace was really good for them. I thought they, they especially, they were hunting Horford in the fourth quarter and just like, whoever, just trying to go at him with whoever and everybody seemed really comfortable. And I think that Nick series toughened them up. Cause there were some moments, especially in the second half, when it felt like, all right, time for you to lose your composure. Young team that hasn't been in the eastern finals and they just kept making plays. I thought, see, occam, there's in the fourth quarter, like, the experience that he has, plus Halbert and just being unafraid to the point of a fault, but those two guys seem to lift the team up and then it just kind of went sideways the last two minutes, unfortunately for them.

Yeah, I mean, like the Siakam Halliburton two man game, they've been super productive together in the postseason together. Like, if, if Siakam screening for Halliburton, they score 1.18 points per pick and roll together according to Synergy, putting up big numbers. They obviously exploited Boston tonight. Siakam hitting that little, you know, shot around the free throw line, attacking mismatches, using his size, like the Siakam versatility that. That's why I felt, you know, teams like the Kings, some of these teams out there should have been going at him. Granted, he kind of steered his way to the pacers. That's where he wanted to go.

Oh, you talk about acquiring him in February. Yeah, yeah.

I just think Siakam was kind of one of those swing players because of how he works next to some of these perimeter creators, like Nemhard, like Halliburton. He's just so versatile. Cause he can handle himself and he can screen for you. He can spot up. He had a play, I think, like, end of the third quarter where he'll kind of strip Jalen Brown. And Brown didn't get back on defense and Siakam just sprinted past and he just does all the little things Siakam does. And I thought that was on display tonight. But ultimately, it's like you said, it worked until it didn't, when Indiana turnovers were an issue for them in those runs in the first quarter when Boston went up twelve. Oh, it was an issue at the. At the middle of the third quarter when Boston built the 13 point lead before they, you know, blew that after taking Tatum on the game. And then it became an issue late fourth quarter and into overtime. So there was really three stretches where the Pacers just got incredibly sloppy. And it was those stretches that I thought completely lost them the game. And Halliburton, ultimately, though, I mean, he had a good overall game.

I don't want to knock him too much, but, like, I thought he really choked it away last two minutes of regulation, and then he wasn't that good at the handling. Yeah, yeah.

Just look at the box score knowing nothing. And I told you the Pacers had 21 turnovers, and then the Pacers were at a 30 to ten free throw attempt disadvantage. You would have been like, oh, my God, they lost by 38. Yes, they did it.

You would have thought it'd be the 20 point blowout in favor of Boston, like you thought it would be tonight.

Well, part of the problem was they shot the fucking lights out in the first half. What did it. What were they in the first half? I had this written down somewhere over 60%. And. And they were just on a heater. Halberd made two end of the quarter shots. The second one was just absurd, but I was on a Celtics text, right, and one of my friends was like, we should be up seven. We're up one. Like, this is they. They just got six free points there. And then they took the lead near the end, and it felt like they were one. Halbert and dagger, three away from the game being over. The crowd was super tense. I can't wait to. I hope maybe my dad got carried out. I don't know. That was a heart attack. Special.

You hear from him?

Gotta check in, make sure he texted me. Jesus, this. The crowd has a weird relationship with this team, because when things go a little sideways, there's. You feel the tension, not only when you're sitting there, but even you could feel it on the tv. And there's been different kinds of celtic teams over the years. There's. It kind of depends on who your best player is, where you can be super confident or you're kind of like walking on eggshells, because, you know, you don't have as much talent this team, when things start going sideways, there's, there's just a feeling of like, oh, no, oh God. Oh. It's going to be one of these games where people can recognize the signs, even when there's like seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. Do I sound like an insane person or do you understand what I'm saying?

No, because you've seen this story time and time again. Whether whatever the iteration of the team was over the years, whether it was the it Celtics with super young, you know, supporting cast or the Kyrie Celtics, it hasn't made a difference. The Gordon Hayward Celtics made any difference over the years. It's been a lot of the same thing.

Yeah, well, it's. I think part of it is not having that one guy when everything gets super stagnant, that you're just like, I know that guy can get a bucket. Tatum's the closest to it. But, you know, if we were for doing playoff like, who do you trust when you're down three with a minute left? You know, it was interesting. Joe Maz went with the white Tatum pick and roll a few times when they really needed a basket, which was to play. A lot of people have been crying for basically the whole season. There's more Joe Maz stuff. We got to take a break. But I have some, I have some notes for Joe Maz in 1 second with Fando never too late to get in on the action in the NBA playoffs because right now new customers get a $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet that is $150 teams on same game parlays, live bets, championship futures, exclusive markets and so much more. Plus on Wednesdays, that's when I throw out my profit boost token 30% boost. If you win any NBA bet that you have, all you have to do is go to boost on the FanDuel main page and go nuts.

I will tweet out my boost on Wednesday. My suggestion for what to do there's no better place to bet on all the playoff action than America's number one sports book. That's Fanduel. Just go to fanduel.com b's to get started. FanDuel is an official sports betting partner of the NBA. You must be 21 plus, 18 plus in DC president select states and excluding North Carolina. Game problem. Call 1800 gambler or visit rg dash help.com dot first online real money wager only $10 deposit required. Bonus bets are non withdrawal and expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook dot fando.com dot. All right, Joe Maz. So Indiana is delighted that the Celtics are not using Tatum as a small ball five. I'm guessing, like, they're leaving game one going, man, they didn't do it yet. Thank God. No percent in this series. And basically just Horford and Cornette as one of those two, is the center at all times. The Celtics bench, especially in the second half when they had houser out there, uh, looked really flimsy. And it's easy to forget, like, yeah, this porzingis when he was out there. Those are 32 minutes a game that they have to kind of sprinkle elsewhere.

So Al Horford gets some cornet, gets more. Um, I said this Sunday night, so I don't feel like this is me revising history after game one. I don't understand why they didn't use the Cleveland game to experiment with some small ball lineups and just some stuff, knowing that whether it was Indiana or New York, once Mitchell Robinson went out, there was going to be a small ball lineup. It was either going to be topping at the five or precious. Precious at the five. So they didn't use the Cleveland service for that at all. They played out 39 minutes a game, basically, down the stretch there. And you get to this Indiana series, guess what? They kind of need to figure out a small ball lineup. Now we're headed to game two. Is Joe Maz just this stubborn? What is he doing?

So you want to see Tatum on Turner at some point or where is.

So Brissett is just unplayable. Like, that one's it. There's no. There's no three guards with. With the Jays. We can't see that lineup for four minutes. I don't get it. KFC. Cause I think Indiana felt like there were specific moments that Boston lineups were out there where they're like, here's our chance to make a run right here. Oh, tatums out of the game. Oh, they're going to play the cornet houser together. And I don't know how they fix that without kind of dipping into the deeper part of the bench, even if it's Tillman. I don't know if Tillman would have made a bunch of a difference defensively, but the brissette thing, I just don't get. I don't understand why he doesn't play.

Yeah. Which. Which is why, like you said, you would have liked to have seen that, you know, in the prior two rounds.

To see some experience legs.

Yeah. And I mean, the way in which Horford's been attacked over and over and over throughout these playoffs. And then in game one against the Pacers, the Celtics have the. The worst, you know, pick and roll efficiency on defense in the entire league so far in the playoffs, obviously much different story in the regular season, but in the postseason, there's 16th and pick and roll efficiency on defense. So I think for Missoula moving forward in the series, I do think it's valuable to have Tatum play the five for short stretch if Indiana finds other ways to exploit that with Turner. I think personally, if you have Turner posting up instead of picking, popping at over 40% from three in the playoffs right now, he's been knocked down for two years straight now. I think it's advantageous for Boston if you're kind of force feeding post ups to miles Turner rather than the pick and pop. So I think it's worth trying. And Horford also could become more effective if he's not asked to play 40 minutes in a game. He's almost 40 years old at this point. If you're playing Horford for 25 minutes instead of, you know, 35 every night, he could be better in those minutes instead of being stretched so thin over the course of time.

But ultimately, doesn't it come down to, more than anything else, just the return of Christaps Porzingis? He's the x factor for this team. He's the guy that they need to have any chance in the finals against Minnesota or Dallas. They need Christophs Porzingis because of the offense that he provides with, the ability to beat switches, the spacing that he provides as a shooter, the screen and rolling. He's such a versatile offensive threat. And then defensively, all this talk about Horford getting attacked. Well, Porzingis is a very good rim protector, whether he's involved in the action directly or he's the guy helping off ball and causing havoc around the rim. So I think for, like, he is the key to everything here. He was ever since he was acquired last summer, and that's still true now. I don't think they need him to get through the Pacers. I think they can win this series keeping him on ice, but they do need him against the timber Wolves or the Mavericks in the finals.

If that Jalen Brown shot didn't go in, would you say they need him against the Pacers? I think I might have felt differently about it, yeah.

I don't know. I'm not. I still. I still would have picked Boston in the series.

I gotta say, the team seemed pretty close like that. Jalen got interviewed after the game. And he's like, is it? He had an interesting quote about Tatum where he finally got the overtime. He said, yeah, tatum finally got it going.

Yeah.

I don't think he meant it as a dig. It was just. I think he was, like, saying what we all saw. But then he basically was like, I'm not happy with how we played. I didn't think we played that well. But I test watching the game. But the pacers, from a talent standpoint, seemed pretty comfortable against them. I didn't feel like there was a talent to spare at all. I didn't understand the line for the series at all. It was the Celtics were nine to one favorites on Fanduel. Even the series going six games was plus money. You look at the line tonight was double digits. And I just didn't really totally understand it because the way you said, there's the KP Celtics, and then there's the no KP Celtics. And the no KP Celtics have a lot more variance game to game. I talked about Horford before, about how he was a 15 to 20 minutes game guy. I mean, technically he's not. Cause if you look at his game log, he's in, like, the 26 range. But that was because they would rest him and play him basically twice a week. Right. And when he played, and a lot of times it was when Porzingis wasn't playing.

But ultimately, like, when they're a playoff team, when KP's back, corporate's probably paying 20 minutes a game max. The fact that they're putting the miles on him, that they're putting on him and his shot looks, he was three for twelve from three tonight. Five for 15. Never good when your big guy is five for 15 field goals. But I wonder, as part of Indiana's game plan, not just tonight, but for the whole series being like, yeah, fucking let Al Horford beat us. Knock yourself out, Al. Because that's what it seemed like tonight.

Yeah, I mean, I do think so. I mean, Horford on both ends of the floor seems to be the guy that they're choosing to. To not worry about as much on offense and then choosing to attack him relentlessly when he's on defense. It's a pretty good strategy for Indiana, obviously. I mean, like, it's. He's the guy who's been attacked throughout the postseason, throughout.

For Boston's defense, they have the right kind of team to, for sure, a bunch of different guards that can drive to the rim.

Yeah. Halliburton, Nemhard, McConnell. It doesn't really make a difference. All three of those guys have different styles, too, to attack it in different types of ways. And even Siakam, for that matter, with his versatility as well involved in those actions, whether it's as the handler or as the screener. So, I mean, I think ultimately, I mean, your point about it brings it back to your point about using Tatum at the five sometimes. I think it's a tool worth experimenting with for Boston because even if you, like, you talked about, they should have used it against Cleveland to prep for this series, potentially, or if it were against the Knicks. But they also could use it as prep for potentially against. Let's say it's Dallas next round, right? Dallas should get Maxi Kliba back. They do like to go small at times. Boston might want to have that tool at some point, depending on how a certain game is going. I don't think it's something that they should be going to often, but it's a tool you want to have for in the moment that you feel like you need it or if you want.

To dictate where to put it.

So I think for the Celtics, it's. It's worth going to at some point in the series. And plus, like you said, Horford playing every other night at this point, giving him a little bit of a breather in these moments, too.

Well, he's going to get worse as the playoffs go along. It's just if they're going to. Cause now we're. Every other night. They put 40 on him tonight. They got to play again on Thursday. Indiana's younger, they're fresher, they're faster. Turner. Turner's playing about as confidently as I can remember from him. I remember it felt like last year for four months, it felt like anybody could go grab him. He was in that Clint Capella, Gafford in that range of just centers you could go get if you wanted to take somebody on your cap. But, uh, I don't know. I just. I'm still kind of in a dark place, even after a great wind. I just don't know if I trust the coach. I'm just going to be honest, I don't. I don't know if I trust his ability to read a series or a game ahead of time. And it feels like by game four, they'll be making some of these adjustments. That's the part that really just. Carlisle just had this team so figured out hitting the game one, he knew, like, the three things. I'm going to put Siakam at the foul end.

When they put their bench out. I'm going to attack this. I'm going to unleash topping when he goes in. I'm going to keep put. Trying to hunt Horford, especially in the fourth quarter. He was saving that a little bit, you know? Cause it wasn't like they're hunting Horford the whole game. They're picking their spots. And then fourth quarter, they really started going after him.

That's what they needed to prepare, you know?

Yeah, right. This is the game they should. This is the throwaway game where you just had this crazy seven game series and this emotional win on a Sunday.

But one of the things I didn't. I didn't like at the end of the Celtics were up 92 79 middle of the third quarter. Like two minutes left in the third quarter, something like that, after their big 18 to four run to take a lead. And Tatum was awesome in that stretch. You know, picking on, using his size like he was excellent. Like Missoula, even during that stretch. At one point, you zone for a single possession and just completely mucked up the Pacers offense on that play. But then he pulled Tatum with, you know, 220 or something like that left in the third quarter. And I. I felt like in that moment, maybe you try to stomp on their throat and extend that lead even more and keep through playing through Tatum and slightly move away from your preferred rotations in that stretch. And then Indiana ends up being down only one at the end of the third quarter. Little stuff like that's annoying with Missoula.

46 minutes tonight for Tatum, the back court on the Celtics drew holiday played 48 minutes, was ten for 16, and put up a 28. Seven and eight. And I thought, it's rare you see at the pro level with a really good point guard, somebody getting harassed into a turnover at mid court. I think it happened twice in this game.

Incredible by him.

And then that was a really good, really good Jalen Brown game, too. Ten for 20. I mean, he had his typical three terrible turnovers that he just can't have a normal turnover. It has to be like, one of the five worst turnovers you've ever seen in your life. That's every turnover for him. But I thought he was really good. And if you haven't watched the Celtics a lot this year, people listening the. There's what he did tonight he was doing all year, like, sensing, like, oh, Tatum doesn't have it for this quarter. Oh, we're in a little bit of a funk. I think I could take this over. And sometimes, you know, he. He tries to out kick his own coverage. But a lot of times he makes big plays, gets big rebounds, so he's around the basket. I thought the Celtics seemed a little more physical down the stretch around the rim. I didn't. I don't really have an explanation for why the, the free throws were like 24 to three at one point. Pacers had three free throw attempts in the fourth quarter. Just watching it, not caring, you know, whatever. Like, did you feel like it was slanted or why weren't the Pacers getting calls?

Well, tonight in the game, just to throw the stats out there behind it, the Celtics attempted 28% of their shots at the rim. The Pacers attempted 27% of their shots at the rim. So it's not as if Indiana wasn't getting some, an equal amount of shots at the rim as Boston. I did feel like the officiating was slanted in Boston's way, but Indiana, also in the half court, doesn't get to the rim as much as Boston does. You know, Boston still isn't a lot either, but a lot of those at room chances for the Pacers were in transition after getting stops on defense and. Yeah, so I think that's part of it. We'll play it into it. I have to rewatch all the plays, all the finishes at the rim and all the drawn fouls, but I think it was slightly favored in Boston's way, but not like anything super significant that I'd be, you know, furious right now if I were a Pacers fan.

Rick Carlisle said after the game, this loss is totally on me. With 10 seconds left, we should have called time out and advanced the ball.

Wow.

I guess he has to say that he wasn't going to be like, this loss is on Tyrese Halliburton. Yeah. I don't know why he lost the ball.

Why'd you dribble the ball if you're kneeling?

I will say, though, I know that wasn't an awesome Albert and crunch time, but the fearlessness he has and the joy that he plays with is really fun to watch. And I'm glad that there's a moment during that Knicks series in game five where it was like, man, the game.

Had what, eight shots, nine shots or something like that?

Yeah, it's just like you're doing the poor man's Carl Malone routine. But I thought he rallied back. He was awesome against the depleted Knicks team, game seven, and then he had some good money. I mean, the thing about if you're going to beat a team that's better than you, we think Boston's better. You got to be unafraid, and you got to be afraid of game like this. This team was unafraid. I didn't. Neesmith was another one. I thought Nismith was excellent and really was unafraid to have either brown or tatum and just was, like, trying, you know, you knew he was going to foul out if the game went in overtime.

Former teammates for him as well.

Oh, a little revenge game. Yeah, I mean, Zach Lowe, he texted me today, actually. We're about. We were just bragging about our new Smith island. Like those. Those little shacks we bought on new Smith island four years ago. Now it's like, you know, the island's like, way up.

Way up.

Yeah, we. Listen, there's been some losing. Romeo Langford Island. I finally had to just kind of throw that in the garbage. But. But Nismith, did you like Nismith when he was on the Celtics?

I liked him more in the draft than when he was actually on the Celtics. He was just okay with Boston, but.

He didn't come along. Just threw him in the corner and told him not to do anything.

Basically, Indiana, you know, he's still a three and D guy. It's just, he's figured it out. He's figured out the shot. He's got a role on defense. And you're right, he plays with no fear. And I think that's kind of true for this entire Indiana team. The one thing I will say about Halliburton, I know he had a good game overall, 25 points, eight of 18.

Yeah.

Sometimes I just feel like he hunts threes too much. Like, he is such a good mid range shooter. Yeah, he's a knockdown mid range shooter. There's just certain times in that overtime and the end three pointers. I've mentioned a couple of times at the end of regulation where I'm like, you don't need to rush it all the time. You don't need to always hunt that three pointer. You don't need to be James Harden. Learn from his mistakes in the past, and sometimes look for the easy mid range shot. Like Nemhardt had that, like, baseline jumper.

Right?

Like, in mid range, like Siakam to pull up. Like, Halliburton's over 50% guy for mid range. He just doesn't take it that often. And I wish there's times where you take 14 out of your 18 shots from beyond the arc. I'd like to see him use the mid range more often. I think he'd be able to get more shots per game as well, if he looked for the mid range instead of just being all threes, all layups all the time and then playmaking, he's tremendous. But I think the matting, the mid range is the next element for him to really become a, you know, top ten level player and not just one of the 2025 best guys was very.

Similar to the Tatum conversation right when that we were having like a year or two years ago about was she, why won't he shoot foul line jumpers? Why won't he dip into his bag a little bit more? Why is he so happy doing these step back threes? Drake May was at the game tonight. KC.

Yeah, looks sharp. Great to see him.

David Ortiz. Big Poppy was at the game. I do feel like when Big Poppy's at the game, I feel like good things are going to happen. I mean, that guy literally changed the course of Red Sox history and maybe even my life to some small degree. And you just feel like, oh, Ortiz is here. Like he single handedly won the 2013 World Series. I feel good about this.

He just puts a big smile on my face anytime I see him.

It's crazy. It'll never go away either. He could be 80. I'm like, oh, Ortiz is here. So you thought, Celtics in five. What do you think now?

Celtics in five. I'll stick to it. You're still sticking to Celtics in six.

This was. I thought the Pacers were going to win game two and game four and it was going to be two two after four games and then the Celtics were just going to blow them out and would be one of those series. But we had to get super tense about it in game four. Oh, my God. Or the Celtics going to blow this for them to lose this, for the Celtics to even have this go to seven now after. After stealing this. Right. And then game two is two nights from now. I do have that. The thing that worries me is the miles on Horford and the fact that there's really no alternative because the cornet, you know, he's up and down to begin with.

Tillman, that's what they got him for. He's that versatile, switchable guy.

They just don't like the Joe, you know, this is like a Celtics coach. I'm going way back. But the 88 Celtics. Were you born in 88 yet?

I was born in 90.

Casey Jones just let Reggie Lewis just ride on the bench for the entire playoffs. And there was no Internet for me to complain about this. I had no outfit, I had no outlets really at all, except for my dad and for a couple people at like, dunkin donuts and he just wouldn't play them. And I really think. I really think if he had played them, I think they could have potentially beaten the Pistons. I don't know if we'll feel this way about the Celtics this round, but it is frustrating to be like, dude, you had the whole season, you won 64 games. You won the conference by twelve games. Like, why didn't you see a little bit more of what you have with some of these guys so you're prepared for every situation? Once we get to the playoffs, the small ball team was sitting there for them to play against in one of these four rounds. And you make a good point about Dallas. Cause you know what Dallas is going to do. They'll get rid of those big guys. They'll play Cuba. They'll. They'll do whatever. And they'll. They'll go all the way small.

Like, they'll go like just six, seven down guys. Actually, I'm glad I brought up Dallas. Who do you have in that series?

Minnesota. Minnesota and seven. How about you?

I have Minnesota as well.

In seven.

Six or seven. Somewhere in there it feels like at least a six gamer. Cause the problem with Minnesota is they're going to have two games where they don't play defense the way they normally do.

The problem for them, something like that could happen, too.

The problem for them, if it goes seven, I'd kind of like Dallas more in that game. Cause I just feel like Luca, you know, I just. Luca and Kyrie, I would be scared to go against those guys that I don't care where that game's played. So I would like to see if you're rooting for Minnesota or betting on Minnesota. I'd like to see them clear that out before them. Plus, having the back to back seven gamers is brutal, you know? But Edwards piece will be interesting because he should probably. He'll have Derek Jones on him. They'll take him out, they'll put x him on him, you know, though he'll always have somebody annoying guarding him and they'll guard him the same way with the two people in front of him, with the one guy behind. And did he get enough reps to figure out a deal with that? What are we getting from towns in this series? I like Minnesota, but I don't know that the way Dallas was able to pull those OKC games out that were all really super winnable for OKC, and each time they kind of navigated them, I was really impressed.

Yeah, I mean, Dallas's defense has been unbelievable throughout the entire pro season. Like second half of the year. They really figured it out for a team that for a while it felt like they had no defense. They were just all offense. But they've been tremendous on that end of the floor. So like, you have defense, elite defense versus a potentially an all time defense on the Minnesota side of things. And then if you're favoring offensive talent, yeah, you're favoring Dallas because of Luca and Kyrie and their whole configuration that they have over the Timberwolves, which can sometimes run a bit stagnant on offense. But I just think ultimately Minnesota's defense, I didn't pick them to beat the Suns after the Suns dominated them during the entire regular season, but the Wolves found answers. And then in the second round, obviously they take down Denver playing defense the way, the way in which they did. I think they just have enough weapons and enough guys on defense where they're going to find the right formula to slow down Luca enough. And whether it's McDaniels or Edwards or occasionally Alexander Walker, like, they just have so many different guys they can double if necessary.

And that's one thing. Like OKC, they might want to show too at Luca, but they're a bit, they're not quite as good at recovering to that PJ Washington corner three as Minnesota is. Minnesota can show too, and they're so long and so quick and so smart and so connected that I think they're able to shut off both of those things a lot better than Oklahoma City is at doing like sending two at Gluca or Kyrie. And, and ultimately that's why I'd favor Minnesota in the series. I just, I think their defense is that special. They, they have 0404 pistons potential to go all the way here. But then you have Anthony Edwards on top of that who's, you know, in.

The random town stuff too.

Yes. Towns changing reputation right before our eyes.

Yeah. You know, Roselle and I taped right after that game and I hadn't watched it a second time and went back and watched second half, which was incredible.

It was amazing. I was screaming. It's so fun.

It was such a great game in such a fascinating, like historical NBA game that it almost makes me think they have to make the finals now. Like the game was too cool and too interesting and too important. Like, for them to just lose in round three seems like crazy. They're so like that game was, you know, a fucking sports movie. And then Jokic playing 47 minutes just, I really noticed it the second time watching it where he just seemed, you know, they were daring him to shoot threes. Cause they knew his legs were shot. He had nowhere else to go. And then watching ant on some of those screens dance around Jokic and keep and stay on Murray. I've never seen anybody do that. Have you? Have you ever seen anybody solved the yokage screen? Because he's such a fucking freak athlete. He was just bouncing backwards forwards.

He's incredible.

And then I also thought Murray kind of shot his wide in the first half, so he had no legs either. But, you know, your guy, Peyton Watson, I don't know why they gave up on him. Cause they were one guy short, and they. They didn't have Bruce Bone from last year. I mean, not Bruce Brown. They didn't have Jeff Green from last year. And the feeling was brown and. And Peyton Watson were going to be the two guys getting those minutes. And then they just kind of punted on Watson. I didn't really understand it.

I mean, Watson's lack of a reliable jumper, I think, is why Malone decided we can't. We can't rely on him.

He's just clawing, though. I'm okay with young guys at home because they, like, think about that Grant Williams game seven against Milwaukee, right? That came out of nowhere. But sometimes the crowd, especially when you're up, I would have thrown him out there, but, uh, you know, they were just the guys short. But I'm sure we talked about it on Sunday, and it was definitely the prevailing theme from the press conferences of just like, it's so fucking hard to go back to back when everyone's coming after you for that long, and then you're playing every game you're playing in a playoff like that. It's the biggest game in the history of everybody's life on the other team, right? And you just won the title a year before. There's no way to 100% match that. You can 98% match it. But for everybody who was on that Minnesota team, that was the biggest fourth quarter they ever had. Like, Nas Reid's just flying in on these offensive rebounds as KCP is just dead kind of watching it. And last year, I feel like Denver would have gotten a couple of those rebounds. So that's the back to back thing.

This is kind of what we had once upon a time. Like, when the Lakers went back to back in 87, 88. It was like, man, that's so hard to do. I can't believe they did that, you know? And maybe we're back to that. It's six straight now where we haven't had it.

Yeah. I mean, ultimately, though, Denver was right in it and they were so close to doing it. They're up 20 in the second half of the game.

Right.

And what you're hitting about the young guys is what I wrote about today on the ringer with kind of the friction between, like, Calvin Booth, their GM before the season, saying to me, saying at media day, you know, saying to anybody he could talk to about how his goal wasn't about going back to back. He wanted to build a dynasty. So he invested in three rookies this year. He didn't do much in terms of signing veterans. And then you have Michael Mox back. Yeah. Reggie Jackson and Justin Holiday, who's, you know, just a guy. And then you have Michael Malone, their head coach, who is all about winning. Now, he likes playing veterans. He's always been that way, who multiple times over the course of the season was like, it's tough to win when you have so many young guys, when you have such an inexperienced bench. And he didn't go to those guys over the course of the season like their rookie. Hunter Tyson played fewer minutes than their two way guys. Strother fell out of the rotation. Jalen Pickett, their backup point guard, who Calvin Booth raved about to me is this like big jumbo guard who can be a backup for Jokic because his back to the basket game, he could play with Murray.

He could be better than Reggie Jackson. He didn't play at all with Murray, not a single minute all season. He played only 35 minutes with Jokic. So I think on one hand, you can understand Malone wanting to lean on veterans when you're trying to get a high seed and you're trying to go back to back and you're trusting veterans over in experienced rookies. On the other hand, you can look at Calvin Booth and say, why would you not invest in rookies? The new CBA requires you to have young players. You need to invest in guys on rookie scale contracts because you're going to lose veterans at some point or another when you have such a high payroll. You could also say, like, Calvin Booth should have gotten better veterans than Justin Holiday and Reggie Jackson, and he should.

Have been a buyout guy.

Yeah, or someone better than Deandre Jordan. Maybe you do trade hunter Tyson in three second round picks for freaking Andre Drummond. He's Andre Drummond, but at least he could give Jokic two or three minutes to breathe on the bench and game.

Maybe you start courting kyle Lowry, you know, in November.

Yep, maybe upgrade.

Who was the other? There was one other buyout guy. Oh, Delan Wright.

Yeah.

Was he a buyout guy?

Interesting. Was he traded? Either way, he was available.

Was Monty Morris traded or was he a buyout guy?

Traded, I believe.

Yeah, he was.

And Minnesota picked him up. Yeah.

There were less than usual this year.

Yes.

Was raved. Yeah.

And, I mean, there's limited options, so I don't, I can't, I'm not. I wouldn't blame booth or Malone solely. I think the blame is shared. And also, guys just got outplayed. Minnesota was, you know, a perfectly constructed team to beat Minnesota by calling.

I don't blame them that much. I blame them a little bit for punting on Peyton Watson, but for the most part, a lot of their mistakes, a little like the OKC thing, they kind of made their bed in mid February with deciding, you know, all right, this is our team. Reggie Jackson, who I think had some really good moments for them during the regular season, but he played five minutes in game seven. You know, they lost confidence in him, too. And playing Jokic 47 minutes was, to me, a sign. You don't, you don't really believe in anybody, you know, I mean, you got.

DeAndre Jordan as his backup.

That was nuts. Like, you think about all the stuff he has to do, and on top of it, they're just throwing towns at them. And then it's like, towns is out of the game. Here's Nas, Reid, and they're just pounding them and, uh, and just trying to wear them out and tire them. But that was some game in. I mean, I really felt like that was the finals when I was watching it. It doesn't mean they're going to. Minnesota's going to win the title. But watching, I was like, there's no way the finals is a higher level of basketball than this. It's just not happening.

I mean, we're in for an absolute treat if somehow it is, because that was, that was one of my favorite series that I've ever seen. It was unbelievable.

It was great. We'll see if Dallas can bring it out of them. Dallas is going to go from, we have so much more size than this other team that in every fourth quarter we can just get half of the offensive rebounds of the shots we miss to, oh, my God, we're playing Gobert, Towns and Nazarene.

We're small.

Yeah. Whether Edwards, cards, Luca is going to be really fun.

Who do you put on Luca to start the series? McDaniels. Right. You start with McDaniels.

I mean, I personally would try. I would want to see what towns looked like on him. And then Luca would get one really stupid foul on him. And I'm like, okay, no more. I don't want to see that again.

Yeah, I was thinking about that earlier today. I was like, hmm, how about towns on Luca for a little bit? And I was like, I don't think it could last very long.

You try McDaniels and you hope Lucas, Lucas, you know, his, his knees, not 100%. Conley versus Kyrie is, you know, that's a tough one for Conley. If Kyrie is motivated. I mean, I thought Kyrie, I liked how he played. I thought he didn't hurt the team in any way, but he did. He would disappear in some of those OKC games for like 40 minutes. He'd be like, where's Kyrie? And then all of a sudden he would pop up again and start doing stuff. I think they're going to need more of him in that. Cause that's a good matchup for them. You saw with Murray, right? That good point guards against Denver, against, against Minnesota is kind of the way to attack them.

Yeah. I mean, I think maybe you'll see at some point Mike Conley, like in, in the corner defending Derek Jones junior, something like that. You know, somebody like PJ Washington. Washington can make you pay with a post up. Derek Jones junior isn't going to do that. So maybe it ends up being Conley on Jones. And then you have Edwards or McDaniels on both Kyrie and Luca. Because I think with McDaniels, one of the things we saw in the opening round series against the Suns, McDaniels would sometimes defend Booker, sometimes defend Durant, and then Edwards would often take the other guy. Whether. And I think thats what well see similarly against Kyrie and Luca, granted, Kyrie is different than Devin Booker. Kyrie is so quick with the ball in his hands. Booker is a different type of style player. But I think that's what you'll see at some points. Minnesota go with.

I'm taking Minnesota and I think I'm taking them in six. I don't feel great about it. I would not bet on it. I think it's going to be a really hard series for them. But I can't shake the fact that I felt like OKC had that Dallas series. They really could have won it. And I think they're going to look back at like four or five rebounds that they just didn't get. Partly because, you know, Chet playing big big minutes first year in the league, they put way too much of a burden on him. But, man, I was talking to somebody yesterday about this brisil, and I only talked about it for a little bit at the end. On Sunday, they played perfect defense on Luca on that last play, and it ends up in the corner, and he kind of just throws it to PJ Washington because almost like, to bail himself out. And Jay plays perfect defense, and it's somehow a foul. Anyway, that happened to the Celtics. I was thinking about that the next day. I was like, if that happened to the Celtics, I would be in a fucking coma. Like, that's how we lose.

We're up one and we lose on that play. That was just brutal. And then if it gets to game seven, anything could happen. But I felt like they were dead even with them. And it just came down to a couple of rebounds and a little bit of luck. And then Jones and PJ Washington just alternating these awesome games, which I don't know if that's sustainable either. So we'll see. But Luca might be healthier after a couple of days, too.

He did look like he got his legs back a bit after, you know, a real slow start to the postseason for him and that PJ Washington follow. Like, the great irony for the Thunderside is, like, you start the series not even defending him, and then you lose it by defending him too much, by following him on a three pointer. It's like. It's just. Yeah, that'd be hard to get over if you're Shae. He even said after the game, like, I can't. I can't. That I won't watch it back.

Right. Cause I don't know what he. I can't think of a single thing he did wrong on the play, and that was a great job by Washington, just not losing the ball. I am very excited for this series. I'm going to go to at least one game. I don't know which game yet. I really like going to. I like going to the Dallas games. Cause they have great crowds. You've been.

I'm trying to go to three and maybe four.

It's a top five or six crowd. It's a great atmosphere. Their fans are really, I think, basketball savvy, and it's just fun. It's a fun atmosphere. But I also have never seen a game in Minnesota. So I remember when we. When we were doing Grantland, it was like two years after David Khan, when he had taken over, and they were just such a mess, I think. And we were talking about gimmicks during the lockout. And one of the gimmicks was, I was like, we should get Minnesota season tickets. Cause this was rock bottom for Minnesota and charge it to ESPN and we'll just have these tickets. And we could send somebody to Minnesota to cover the team and sit in the seats every game. Like we really, like went down the road with this. And then I think ESPN wouldn't pay for the tickets. But that's how bad it was for Minnesota. We were like, this is the worst NBA city right now. Let's go send somebody there to just see how sad it is. And now, twelve years later, they have. Where's, where's in on the trade value for you? Wemby's. Is Wemby one now?

He's got to be, right?

Wemby was one before the draft, wasn't he? Was he not? I mean, I could trade value.

I had Jokic.

You could put Jokic ahead of him. Where do you have Wemby now in your last update?

I have to look at this because you got Wemby. You also have Jokic and Luca.

I'm looking it up now. You, last update. Sga February 7. You last updated.

And Edwards, where was Edwards on the February 7?

February 7, you had one, Jokic, two, Giannis, three, Luka, four, Giannis, four, Wemby, five, Shea, six, Tatum, seven. Edwards is what you had back in February 7. So Edwards has moved ahead of Tatum.

Well, the tough part with the Edwards trade value is the off court marketability slash.

Yes.

Like, if they win the title, he becomes the most famous player in the league. There's no way they would trade him for anybody. They wouldn't trade him for Wemby if they win the title.

That's like the fun part about the trade value rank that you've always done because it factors in all of those other variables. So, yeah, I mean, maybe, man, that's.

A really strong top seven now.

Yeah, that really is. Edwards has to be top three, top four.

He's got to be neck and neck with Luca. And he's like two years younger, right. Jokic turns 29 next year.

Yeah. Edwards is 22 and then Luca is 25.

So three years, Lucas, 25.

Yep. Yep.

Well, maybe they're playing for the number three trade value spot. This could be how he did. Wemby's number one. I know.

Wendy's won. Wendy has to be one.

I mean, Wembley, 17 points in three minutes. That Deborah game, I'm like, all right, we have a new number one.

Well, in Victor. Victor Wembanyama is the guy that like, is still on my mind throughout this postseason because like, yes, you, I mean, I know, like, you've argued like, okay, c should have made a trade. I've talked about how maybe Denver should have done more. Victor is that guy looming like he could be the best player in the NBA by the end of next season. He could be the MVP in year three or year four. It's all going to depend on what else the spurs do. But if you have a player that great, you're going to win 41 plus games. You're going to be over 500. So it's about what else they do. But he's coming. He's coming fast. And windows can shut soon. We saw what he did against giving.

This speech to Sam Presti.

I mean, prest press OKC felt before the season this was an evaluation year.

This was a year that was figuring out who you change. Change. Yeah, but I was the highest on OKC of anyone. But once you have a chance to be a number one seed and once you know that you have one of the best five players in the league and you're in the mix now, you have a certain responsibility to have a better team than the team they had with the amount of picks that they have.

But who, like Isaiah Stewart, Gafford.

They fucking gave Dallas the pick to get Gafford. They just get Gafford.

Maybe. I don't think Gafford is solving their issues. And Gafford was also just okay.

Gafford couldn't have gotten a, he couldn't have gotten three rebounds for them like they were bringing in the other Jalen Williams as their backup. Big.

That was, he'd be slightly better than the other Jalen Williams. But to me, like, I'd still rather retain all of those picks. Some of those picks aren't that good, by the way. Some of those picks are like, I.

Mean, Washington got the 29th pick in the worst draft in eleven years for gaffer. Yeah, plus some, some expiry.

Normally I'm an all the way, like go all the way in guy. And for OKC, if the right deal was there for them, I would have went all the way in this year because I thought they had a real chance. I picked them against Dallas. I picked them to go to the conference finals. But I don't.

Pascal Siakam yeah, but I mean, I.

Just don't think there's a, wouldn't want.

To pay him after the season.

I mean, what the real, the real disappointment for OKC, they weren't winning at all with Jalen Williams the wing J Dub falling off a cliff as a scorer, he needs to improve.

Going now he does what it takes.

They wouldn't have went one with Josh Giddy becoming a completely non factor or with Chad Holmgren not hitting threes. So not only did he not rebound, but he wasn't hitting threes either. So I think like there are three young guys aside from SGA. Their core pieces all proved how far they actually have to go and I.

Don'T think he's going to be proving it. Another team.

Yeah, definitely. For sure. We'll see how to replace him. They have to find someone better than him.

KFC this is the last thing I'll say to you and thank you for joining us and feel free to respond to this. If San Antonio doesn't make a concerted effort to have a better team about around Wembleyama next season, I'm going to be relentless with making fun of them about it. This is ridiculous. They're going to have Wemby is going to be one of the ten best players in the league next year. You cannot be like, oh, it's a marathon, not a sprint. We're looking at 2029. Like you never fucking know. Put some good players around him. I want them at four and eight and I know nothing about this draft and I'm not going to talk out of my ass about it. I want them to get people who can throw him an entry pass, bring up the ball, space the floor for him and maybe make him a little bit better. That's all I would care about with those two picks or trade them for somebody who can do that. But they need to use the summer to put a passable team around him because last year's team is not passable.

I think you are spot on. San Antonio should be going pedal to the metal here, accelerating around serious guy.

Yeah.

And also there's an advantage to, it's like rookie quarterbacks or rookie scale quarterbacks in the NFL building a winning team around a guy with a cheaper contract.

And that's one big 10 million a year.

Like he's never going to be making that again for the rest of his career after this is up. You need to take advantage of these years when he's. You say he's going to be a top ten guy next year. I think he was a top ten guy in the second half of the season.

By the end of last year.

I think he'll be a top five guy on opening night next year. I think he'll be possibly the best player in the league by the second half of next season with the rate that he improves. So you need to support that guy with how great he already is.

You think he could be the best player in the league by the end of next year?

Yeah.

Really?

I do. Yeah.

Wow. I'm not quite there yet.

Well, didn't he have moments this year where he was the best player? Moments.

It's a little easier to do it, though, when, you know, we haven't really seen him on a good team. With the bullseye on his back every night. He kind of picked his spots. I do think he has. Could he be a first team all NBA next year? I would not rule it out, no. Although I guess we're pretty deep at center. But it is funny like that, you know, every day there's a story about Lakers coach, who are they going to get? It's going to be JJ is going to be James Borrego. And it's like the Lakers are fucking done. Put a fork in them. It's over. They're in the same conferences. Minnesota, Dallas, OKC, and webinar, like, bye bye. You guys are done. Clippers, same thing. So long. We'll see you later. Any, any. If you're not one of those four teams in the west, it's a wrap. Does it. They. They might as well hire Linda Rambis as the head coach. They're going to do nothing. Seriously. Hire a fucking actor. Hire Jon Hamm. They should hire JJ.

How about Jack Nicholson? He doesn't even leave his house anymore.

Jack.

Nick Nicholson, son, it's not going to fucking matter. They'll be lucky to be like a seven seed. It's ridiculous. Oh, we'll see. Well, then this is Ad's team now. It's like, cool ad, welcome to the play in again, because that's where you're headed.

I mean, they might not even make the play in.

Jesus, those Pelicans teams, to be fair. Same thing about the warriors, right? It's a wrap. Your time came and went, and now this young, it's going to be the Celtics, and it's going to be potentially Orlando if they can make one move and, and get some shit together, like two years from now. But really, Celtics, Minnesota, OKC, Dallas, Denver, and then Wembanyama. And that's going to be the league next year. So if you, if you. If you're foolishly thinking you could break into that, good luck. The Knicks, if they could parlay all those picks without giving up Randall into one more good player, would have a chance, as well, to at least sniff around, right? The way Brunson's playing.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, the Knicks.

Yeah, that would be the one of them.

Yeah, the Knicks are one of them. And I still think if the Sixers get Paul George, you know, that. That they're very interesting, as well. I don't know if you had them on your list as well.

I I don't.

No. Not even with Paul George?

No.

No. Wow.

With year 15, Paul George, who's had multiple major injuries, and Joelle Embiid, who gets hurt every year. I do not. They're not on my list.

Okay.

Plus, they don't have a full team. They have two guys.

What if I tell you, Embiid, it gets in bubble wrap until April.

No, it's gonna get. It's gonna get worse. From an injury standpoint, from b. Now he turns 30 next year.

So you. So you go the other way. If you're Philly and consider blowing it up and trading and bead for, you know, eight first round picks and rebuilding bead, I would.

Paul George was awesome last year, but he's another one who's like, we see this all the time with these guys. When they hit year 13, year 14, year 15, it's too hard for them to be able to do it night after night. You know, they can do it once a week.

Well, the Sixers think there's a real chance they end up with Paul George, like, they, from my understanding, is, like, talking with people around the league. They think there's a real chance he ends up leaving. No. No guarantees, but there's a chance of it, and, like, that's the best they can do. Unless it's LeBron James. There's no. There's no better option for them than Paul George this offseason. So, like, he. He might not put them on the level of those other teams on your board for the east, but he definitely brings them closer. Right. Like, he still does. The idea of Paul George.

We don't know who else is on their team.

And be Maxie, and that's it for salaries right now.

And that's it. I kind of want to see. Can I see the eight man rotation before we get it? Well, Cassie, the important thing is that Drake May is here to save the Patriots. The Celtics survived today, and even though it just sounded like a torture podcast, I'm very relieved they won the game. As a fan of the team, good to see you. We can hear you on the mismatch media on the ringer.com dot koc. Thank you.

Thank you, Bill.

All right, my old Grantland colleague Wesley Morris is here. You can read him in the New York Times. We're going to talk about the movie challengers in 1 second and about sports movies and about summer movies. But, Wesley, I had to start with the Knicks, New York City. Everything that just happened the last four weeks, you're kind of secretly a big sports fan, even though you cover movies and culture. But what was the last few weeks like for you?

It was really exciting, you know, to just be walking around New York City on game days when they were, there were seven games, right. So there were four opportunities to see people making their way to Madison Square Garden, and you knew that's where they were going when you see them all kitted out. And it was so, it was like fathers and sons every, like many different races and ethnicities and age groups. And, you know, it just, it, I didn't go to any of the games this year, but I don't know, it just, it was an exciting feeling. It was quite, you know, the, the blowouts were so confusing because you were just like, what is, what is momentum? You know, that's a conversation that you can have. You've had it. But this team is great. They're young, they're exciting. You know, Randall's been injured since what, January? Yeah. You know, they didn't have, everybody wasn't there. Everybody didn't play. But, you know, Brunson, Devincenzo, Hartenstein. I mean, it was exciting to see these guys come together and not care about the past. You know, I'm a big history person. I think history is important everywhere except for sports.

When you are playing a sport, you don't want to think about history. History should be the last thing on your mind. Um, and I just think that they're, that team has no burden.

Right.

Well, maybe now they will. We'll see what happens next year.

Right now they have expectations.

Right. But there's now a certain. It's no, it's not going to be surprising to see them, like, almost get to the, to the Eastern Conference final. People are gonna expect them to be in the final.

Right. You know what you just laid out. Cause this is the number one thing I miss about living in Boston when there's a big series or a big game, and just the different, and I remember writing about this once upon a time, but the energy that you could just feel it, like, three. You can feel it on the afternoon, just everybody's dressed and everybody. It's almost like everybody's going to war on the same day. And it's a specific energy to walking cities. Cause I don't think LA has it. Because LA, everyone's in their cars. But, like, in Boston, you feel it, in New York City, you feel it. I don't even think, like, in Washington, DC, you would feel it. Cause Washington's not like a big.

It's a little walking city.

You know what I mean? Chicago is a little more spread out.

The Capitals is like the best you're gonna do down there.

Yeah. Dallas, love you, captain. A lot of people in their cars, but like, when you have a city where people are just walking around every day, and then there's the big game and it's like this, everyone's suddenly wearing costumes almost for the game. It's like everywhere you look, it's like.

Knicks, but now it's the Rangers, right? The Knicks didn't make it.

Just flips.

But MSG is still in use, baby.

Yeah, that could have been having both of those at the same time. Dallas basically has that now with the hockey team and the basketball team. Boston almost had it with the, with the. The Bruins got knocked out. But it is when they're both going at the same time, it's amazing. Cause it's like every day for a month and a half.

It's really exciting. The Rangers, I think. I mean, some of those guys kind of scare me a little bit, but I mean, generally the vibe is exciting. Like, I've been really tempted to go to a ranger. I'm going to find the time depending.

On, like, where's the arranger game, for God's sakes. Jesus.

But it's exciting. It's like a really. New York is just really fun to just even walk by bars and see people losing their minds.

Right? Just random bars. People are screaming.

I mean, I've got the spot I like to go to. And on my way there, you see people in other bars also watching these Knicks games, and it's just like, love it here so much.

So Brunson's the guy now?

I mean, I think. Well, is.

Who is the stop the restaurant New York athlete? Is it Brunson?

No, it's Steven Shinzo.

It's over, Brunson.

I mean, not over. Well, it depends on where you go, Bill. I don't know. Aaron Rogers.

No, your guy Aaron.

No, I don't think. I think that we just want to look the other way now. It was exciting a year ago. Aaron Judge. Oh, you mean of all. All the teams?

Yeah, Aaron Judge. I mean, who's to stop the restaurant guy. Split second, everyone.

I mean, at this point, it's Brunson, right? Like, if anybody from the Knicks goes out to eat, they're eating not only for free. Well, I mean, I guess that's the possible.

Yeah. Possible applause in the restaurant, right?

Oh, yeah. Everybody gets an Ov. They get an ovation. I mean, I. Yeah.

Cool. I'm so happy that happened for the next.

It's exciting. And I think, I mean, I was funny you mentioned Aaron Rodgers. I mean, I wonder, does he even go out in New York anymore? I have not. You know, as you know, I've. I've seen him around. I had been seeing him around, and then the injury happened and I haven't really seen him since.

You made the key point out and about. There's history in sports, which we love, but there's also no history because whatever's happening next comes to history. So all Rogers has to do is go like five and o on the jets. Nobody's going to give a shit about anything.

I don't know, Bill. He's still going to keep talking.

Kyrie figured it out.

I'm. I mean. Yeah, because. Well, I don't know. Well, what, what did Kyrie figure out?

Well, I think he's probably happy on the new team. He's a little bit older. Maybe he has a better understanding of, of cause and effect, where it's like, if there's a commotion off the court about something involving me, maybe that's bad for my team. And he just seems like he's, you know, at this point of his career, pretty awesome teammate. He's been pretty reliable. He hasn't caused any issues off the court.

Like, do you think, though, that is somebody, like, do you think this is a place he reached on his own and how, like, mad New York was when he left?

Yeah, maybe. Or it's like a career relieved, I.

Guess, is maybe another way to put it.

You know, you hit a, it's like a career fork in the road thing combined with, he's playing with somebody who's better than him, which I think helps, but then also he's playing with a coach who, you know, is a pretty no nonsense, was one of the great point guards ever. What's weird, though, is he was in kind of a similar situation in Brooklyn, and it went the complete other way, right?

Yep.

Nash was the Jason kid and Durant was the Luca. And for some reason, that didn't work out. But I think we see with sports a lot, sometimes guys just figure it out later in their career.

I also think that, like, I mean, this is the thing that you know very well, but, like, casting.

Right.

It's a really huge. No matter how good you are on. On the team, like, you know, that was bad casting for the nets.

Right.

It was. Well, you have a player run culture. So now he moves into a Dallas team where the culture is already established. It's already built around Luca. It's built around Jason Kidd and their GM, Cubans there. They have big, forceful personalities, and you kind of have to fit into it.

I think wanting to win a championship is way more important. At some point when you get a certain age, if you are in. If it's in sight, you're just gonna. I think you might just want to focus on that and not all that extracurricular stuff. I don't know.

And they paid them. They took care of them. They gave him a three year deal.

Yeah. I mean, I love this Mavericks team. I'm curious. I don't like. I hate that they're up against the Timberwolf. I don't want. I mean, I'm so.

Well, you must love Edwards. I mean, it can never be. Edwards checks a lot of your boxes. Like, such an original personality.

Star. Star. And. And the thing that's exciting about Edwards. Edwards is, like, he loves playing basketball. He loves playing basketball even when he can't play basketball. He loves playing basketball.

Right, right. He loves playing sports.

He just.

I think he's in the running for most authentic, genuine new athlete we've had.

I mean, I think.

I think everything he's doing would translate to whatever sport he played. If he played baseball, I think people would respond to that. You know, baseball so bad.

I mean. I mean, well, that's all golf. Every sport needs an Anthony Edwards. Right? Somebody who has just, like, a joie de vivre, but also is really good.

At the game and unafraid and authentic and joyful about playing it. That's why it's been a. For him for years.

Alcaraz, one of these people, right?

Like, so.

Oh, yeah. I mean, have you ever seen Alcaraz lose when Alcaraz is losing? I'll never forget this. At the US Open last year, when Medvedev cleaned his clock, he was out there on the court watching Medvedev play. What I would say was the match of Medvedev's life against Alcaraz. And Alcaraz was playing really well. He was missing a lot of that thing Alcaraz does, which is like, I really want to entertain you, and the points don't matter that much because I'm 21 and I'll be back. But Medvedev was like, I'm not having it, and just played an amazing match. But if you watched, I was close enough, I could see his. Or, I mean, you could watch his face at home, too. But, like, between points, during breaks on the changeovers, he just looked so shocked by how well was playing, and it was like, this is great tennis, and I'm on court losing to it, and my great tennis isn't as good as this guy's. And it just completely threw him off. But he just was delighted, even in his loss. He didn't. It was just. I don't know, it was very. It was very moving and, like, exciting.

Anthony Edwards has that. He has, like, even if I'm, like, when he was not playing well, you know, for the first half of game seven, how many points did he score?

It's like one for seven. Yeah, in game seven.

I mean, you know, just to watch him figure it out, you would have never known he was losing. But then when it came together, he just turned it into the credible hulk, and that was exciting. I don't know. I love him.

I really love what a great teammate he is. I love that he really wants to lift the other guys up on the team and as just this alpha leader. And you can even see, like, sometimes I. When somebody makes a shot, they call timeout and they go to the bench, and you could just see how the other guys, like, drift to him and react to him, and it's just different.

And that's the part. Yeah, it's not like, I mean, there's a gravitational force there that is so much bigger than the sport itself. And I wonder what age does for that. And, like, how does. I mean, I don't mean to be crazy about this, but, like, what are the sports companies and the energy drink companies and, like, what are the endorsements? What are the messages of the commercials that he starts to make? Is he just gonna be another State farm guy, or are they going to, like, build a whole new campaign around a, like, I would say once in a generation energy? I don't know what kind of, you know, hall of fame life he's going to have as a player, but, like, I haven't seen anybody come into the league who's got the energy he has. Like, Luca has that a little bit. I love watching Luca, you know, make crazy shots and seem like he should be playing a different sport but is playing basketball and is really good at it. But Anthony Edwards is like, a different thing. And I thought, yeah.

You know, because I remember when Kobe came in, Kobe was super interesting. Like, there was a thoughtfulness to him and.

Oh, wise. Yeah.

And it was like, what's going on with this guy? He was living in Italy, you know, and he was very comfortable in the spotlight, and there was just some unusual stuff about him where some of the other guys that came into the league, even when, like, when Jordan came in the league, you can go back and watch his letterman interview that he does his first year. Like, he's. It's, like, unpolished Jordan. Like, he's not the guy that he would become in the late eighties. He seems young and, like, he's not that comfortable. Edwards is. Edwards is. Even when he did hustle with Sandler, he's super comfortable in that movie. It's like, how are you so good at acting? You're, like, 20, so he's just a friend.

It's so exciting.

It's gonna be fun to watch you go. It's gonna be fun to watch him represent Team USA at the end of July. I'm sure he's going to be the.

Oh, my God. We get to watch him at the Olympics. I totally forgot.

Yeah, we're in a good spot. All right, we're going to take a break, come back, and talk about challengers and sports movies. That's next. All right, we're going to talk about challengers, and we'll talk about sports movies and in particular, bad endings of sports movies. But let's talk about challengers first. It's a movie that is pretty polarizing. I know some people that are like, I fucking love this movie. I love the music. And then I know other people.

Do they sound like that? Cause I didn't meet. I haven't met that person.

There's the person who's kind of more on my side, like, what the hell just happened? What was that? Wesley? It's not a sports movie. No, it's not really an effective love story. Stop.

You don't use that word. How dare you. Love story. Sex.

With, like, what is this movie? What is this?

Is. This is. I mean, not to. This is the problem. Honestly, I don't want to. I don't like, you know, no labels. I don't want to put anybody in a box. I don't want to, like, reduce anybody's anything. I don't want to cut anybody's wings. But it has to be something, right? And this movie, the plot, basically, is three tennis players at the beginning of their careers as juniors and the like. And moving ahead. What is it, ten years, 13 years.

Ago is the Jimmy Conner's Chris Evert situation from the early seventies with another guy thrown in for.

Was John Lloyd mixed in there?

Was. He was after. Well, like, if John Lloyd and Jimmy Connors had been boarding school roommates and had a weird sexual attention, and then both of them were in love with Chris Everett. That's. Challengers. That's a pretty good movie.

I. And so, you know, the. She winds up with the. With one of the players, and then.

Our other guy, she ends up with art.

Yeah, you're going to have to. I have not seen this movie in a while now, so you're going to have to help me with some of the. Some of the finer points.

I'm really not. Because there's really not a plot, but go ahead.

Um, but I. You know, I like the director. The director is Luca Guadagnino. Um, he is an Italian, and this is his third movie in English, I think. Um, and I think the thing that most struck me about it was how risk averse it is. The structure is essentially a tennis match at a. On a. On a. On the challenger circuit, essentially on the. I think the weekend before the US Open. So the winner of this tournament, if it's. If it's the Josh O'Connor character, who was a hot tennis player, fell on hard times and is trying to play his way back into form.

Well, we know he fell on hard times because he lives in his car. He said rock bottom.

It's even worse than that, Bill. He has to eat a dunkin. Dunkinnut sandwich. A bagel sandwich.

He lives in his car. He has hard times.

Yeah. And for an italian director who loves food, like, all his movies have a food moment in it or in them. To watch a character eat an american bagel sandwich from Dunkin Donuts is a real, like, life collapse. That's how, you know, the bottom has been hit. And so the structure of the movie is basically this tennis match between these two former best friends who were also juniors players together, doubles players together as singles players. They had really good careers.

Josh O'Connor, also boarding school roommates. Roommates who taught each other how to jerk off. What? That's in there, too?

I mean, that's fair.

Well, they have a whole history. They kind of grew up together, and they. And have this weird kind of chasing Amy subtext to it.

Yes. Everything you're saying is correct. And so all of that tension is sublimated, symbolized, allegorized, made metaphor in this tennis match that begins the structure of it. Cause you go back and forth in time. So you're at the tennis match, and then you're back when they were much younger.

You know how we know we're in present time? Cause she. Zendaya has shorter hair and a lot of Cartier bracelets. It just looks. And a more serious look on her face. Less joyful. Cause she's now an adult with a kid and more bracelets.

And I don't know if this is so. Zendaya, by the way, is also a very, um, up and coming. She's like the hottest player on the tour, tennis wise. And it's funny. Cause when you watch her play, I don't know if you noticed this, Bill, but she never. She never. She never moves from the baseline. She controls all the points.

This is my wife's biggest note. It's like they never had her come to the net once. They couldn't have cgi'd it.

Well, that's why the move.

She looks like she's playing against a ball machine.

She never has a tennis career, this character, because she's never had to run in her entire life. So the one time she runs for the ball, what happens?

She blows out her knee in nine point. It's like a Sean Livingston knee injury. That, FYI, has never happened in the history of professional tennis. Nobody's ever injured their knee this badly on a tennis court, ever.

Oh, it's really. Some crazy things have happened to. So they're jumping back and forth, but not this.

They're jumping back and forth. They want to set the relationship with the two guys, how she intersects with it. They have this aborted threesome where she's clearly fucking with them. Fast forward to later. She's picked one of them. It's a guy who's had, like, the big career, but he's starting to lose his eye of the tiger. The other one is sleeping in his car, needs to get the eye of the tiger back. And everything culminates with her on the sidelines because she can't play anymore. Because even in the 2020s or late 2010s, whatever this is set, you just can't fix a knee injury like the one she had.

Just can't fix it now.

I mean, I don't. Yes.

Okay.

Okay. I can't imagine. Unless it was one of those things where it's like you almost had to have your leg amputated because the blood, like, even then, like, Sean Livingston came back and played basketball, and that was 15 years ago. So, anyway, so now she's just a coach watching these guys, pitting them together in the final match, one guy signifies to the other guy that the husband. Oh, by the way, I had sex with her pretty recently. Screws them up, and then they have this crazy last point that we'll talk to. I just don't know who this movie was for, and I don't know why Luca made it, other than like, he seemed like he was fascinated by the world of tennis, by three relationships intersecting, and that was kind of all he had. And then he was like, let's just go for it. We'll start making the movie. But some people really liked it. I don't think some people care. I think some people just like the vibe of it and the music and everybody looks good, and maybe that's okay. Me, I was bored.

Yeah. I was hoping you would sort of take me through your watching of this thing, because I feel like where it starts out and where it winds up, I mean, I guess, you know, in some ways where you're gonna go, where it's gonna go. It's got a great opening shot, right? You don't know exactly what is happening, but it's basically the Mike feist character. The Mike fast character. I'm saying his name, right?

We'll call him Mike.

Lunging over the Josh O'Connor character, and you're just on the tennis court and you're like, what is going to happen here? And you know, you'll come back to it. But the movie is interesting enough to make you forget about that. But, like, did you know, like, what was your interest in this movie? Was it the sports part? Did you think you were going to get a straight the sports part quote, straight tennis movie?

So when I'm watching this as the world's preeminent sports movie expert, which I think, I do think I have that crown, I'll take the who's going to dispute the Pepsi taste test against anyone? So instantly I'm like, how are they going to handle the tennis? How's this going to look? I think in the world of CGI, it's kind of inexcusable not to have the tennis seem awesome, because it doesn't. You don't even. The guys could just be hitting the ball anywhere, but as long as the form looks good, you're fine. So the guys were fine. You know, they're okay. They. They had a little too much personality for tennis players. I think you and I both watched tennis, and I wouldn't say it's the most vibrant gregarious group of men's tennis players of the last 20 years.

They can be. I mean, come on. Like, Novak Djokovic is a. Is a. Is a great. I mean, not that these guys in the movie are those guys. Right? Like, here's what it was missing rung down from.

I know, but they always have a sense of that they're being watched.

Yes.

They're always, like, kind of self checking themselves, and there's a calculation of what they're presenting out at all times, whether it's male or female. And these guys kind of didn't have that, which I thought was weird.

I actually like what Josh O'Connor did with this part. He's the. He's the guy. He plays the guy who's down in his luck.

Right, right.

And I really liked how he's playing somebody who has completely lost focus. And what would it be like to kind of have to figure out what is important to you as an athlete? You know, he's.

That's a different movie, though. I mean, then make the movie about him. That's another thing is who is this movie about? It's about all three people at the same time, and they never really decide. I think it's about Zendaya, but I don't really feel like it is about Zendaya.

I hope it's not because that character is not interesting. The interesting character here is him. It's the Josh O'Connor character.

And isn't that a problem, that this is a Zendaya movie and she's the least interested character of the three?

Yes, but this is also the problem with the movie's sexual priorities, too. Right?

Where. Let's just do this. Let's just go with this. Just go. Just. Let's fucking.

I mean, because let's remove the seal.

And just go for it.

Come. That's what we're talking about. I mean, this is not a tennis movie. Like, this is a movie where tennis is a stand in for sex, and the movie is afraid of the sex to be had among all three of these people. And so it keeps giving you the metaphor.

Or even the two of them, when she has sex with them at the end of the. I'm sorry, we're gonna spoil all figure. Everybody who's ever gonna see this movie have already seen it.

Every week I get a note from somebody being like, you spoiled this movie.

She has sex with them near the end of the movie, and we don't even see it. It's the least sex, sexy movie. It's just weird to me. Part of the problem with the movie. And I really like her as an actress. It's almost like they needed somebody who didn't have all the a plus list celebrity baggage that she has for this part. It needed to be somebody who I think took more chances with it. Like, this is a much dirtier movie than the movie they made. You know what I mean?

So there's two roads I'd like to go down with you.

Yeah.

One is what happens when this movie gets made in 1988. That's one. But hold that for 1 second.

Or even, how about 1990? 219, 93. The glory years of body of evidence with Madonna and Sharon Stone. Like that. During that whole era, if it had.

Decided to be an erotic thriller, that's a whole other thing. But I'm thinking just like Bull Durham.

Which is a beast witch. Okay.

Like, you know, like where you get. It's a hard r. But the sex, the eroticism, the sort of lunacy of the relationships among the characters is really interesting and surprising. You go back and watch Bulldorim now, you still can't believe that this movie is about that. And Susan Sarandon is basically functioning with Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner the way she is. I mean, this movie.

But that's a movie that's not afraid of sex.

No, it's about sex. Right. It's about what happens when athletes have sex or don't have sex. The superstitions around what it means to fall in love with a person that you also are really attracted to. And what do it mean to stop, like, to sort of practice your life philosophy in the face of wanting something that is sort of antithetical to what you believe as an athlete or is important to the practice of your sport. This movie doesn't have a philosophy. Right. It doesn't. We're talking about challengers. Challengers doesn't have a philosophy. It doesn't have a sort of like an operating principle, in part because the people who made it don't seem to care about the sport. But if they don't care about the sport, then what do they care about?

Well, and they don't seem to totally care about the sex either.

Exactly.

So it's like a cool movie that seems like it's way edgier than it actually is, which I think is my biggest problem with it.

So it's a vibe. Right.

Which is which the music plays into that. Right?

Yeah. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross did this.

It's got this pulsating. It feels like it's moving and it feels like the pace is a little.

Bit breakneck, but it's also kind of ridiculous. Okay, so let's just take one, wait. Before we do the saunasy. And I want to back up for a second to point number two because I always do this with you. I'm like point number one and point number two, never get to point number two. Point number 219 88 is one thing. And I'd still like to go back and think about what it would mean for Michelle Pfeiffer to be in this, to be in a movie like this. But also like Zendaya, she has to do something like this because we still don't know what kind of star she is, right?

Yeah. Who is she, in her thirties, right?

Dune doesn't tell me anything.

Right.

Dune is not about what a movie star she is. That movie that she made with John David Washington, the other Sam, the other Sam Levinson project, that isn't euphoria.

Is.

It Malcolm and Marie? That is a case in point, but that is not a commercial that was released during the epidemic. We don't know how people really, I don't know who saw that movie. I know the people who did see it didn't think it worked because it doesn't. But she needs a lot more debts. So we know what kind of star she is and whether she actually is a star. Right now, we agree that movie stardom doesn't work the way it used to. The things that quantify stardom are not necessarily the number of movies you make and how much money those movies make and how many oscars you do or don't win when you are as popular as you are. But it's the old metric still means something because they're still making movies and we can still see how much a lot of those movies made.

But wait a second. She is a star. It's a question of what does career, how do you preserve the stardom with the choices you make over the next five to seven years, which, you know, like Natalie Portman when she did Black Swan, that was like a really important kind of moment for her, moment like the age she was in her career, the type of dramatic choice. And it just, it feels like a before after for her in a lot of ways.

But Natalie Portman's an interesting case because did she ever have a hit movie that wasn't a franchise, right.

Where she was closer?

Yeah, but Bill, I mean, that is a, that is a prestigious movie to have been in, right. She got an Oscar nomination, but did she do like a tossed off romantic comedy that like, made $50 million in a month. She, that wasn't a, that wasn't part of her repertoire. Right. And so, and I think that was a point at which the, the movies were changing and she was trapped in Star wars land for a while, and.

Then she sort of, you're talking about the old structure of how somebody built together a long term career as a huge actress. Right. They would do a rom.com, then they would do, like, kind of an indie film with a, with a good up and coming director. Then they would do a big drama, and then, and they would just kind of bounce around. I don't. Does stardom work like that in the 2020s anymore because they're already, like one of the biggest stars in the world.

Yes, but you're saying that, you know, okay, I'm, parenthetically, this is sort of aligning with one of my frustrations with this Trump trial, which is that we, the entire, we've been, like, talking about this trial, we've been just calling Stormy, Stormy Daniel's job is what, when they talk about her, what's her job?

Porn star.

Porn star. Like, what porn star? We've made that a job. She's an adult film. She's just an actress, period. Right. We are calling her a porn star because that's the salacious thing to say. But, I mean, I'm taking everybody's word for it. This stormy Daniels is a porn star as far as I'm concerned. She is a writer, director, actor. I don't know about what kind of star she is. I've, she, I didn't know who she was until this trial.

But that's one of the rules with porn, is that if you've made more than, like two movies, you become a porn star.

But I think that the, we don't.

Do that in basketball. Like, not everyone's a basketball star.

No, absolutely not. But, you know, some people are basketball players. Right, exactly. I mean, I think that the thing that's interesting about Zendaya is every attribute that you just sort of put in her portfolio, right. The tv show, doing an independent movie, doing a big movie, doing these sort of mid level movies like challengers. This is a, she is operating in some ways on an old model. And if you really want to sort of be absolutist about it, I mean, let's say that they never make another.

Episode of Euphoria, which they're not going to.

She really is like a person who, she's travolta in that way.

Right.

She was on a popular tv show that made her very famous.

Good analogy.

She does a Star wars movie. She does a Spider man movie. She does this Malcolm and Marie thing. She is in Dune. She wins the Emmy, by the way. She takes Jennifer Aniston's Emmy during the pandemic. And it's the most delightful experience I've had with a thing that I didn't think I was gonna care about because, I mean, anybody who watched that show knew that nobody was giving a better performance on tv than Zendaya on Euphoria, right? And now here she is at this very interesting inflection point in her career. Like, what is she going to keep doing? And what is she going to be, like, steered into and away from as a star? And I think, do you think she's.

The biggest female star we have?

I don't know what that means. This is part of what we're talking about. Like.

Well, how, rephrase the question. How many actresses can open a movie that will at least commands people attention that if there's good buzz about the movie, people go to the movie theater to see it because they're the star of it?

Is Taylor Swift an actor?

No, she's not.

Okay. If we can take her and possibly Beyonce off the table, then, I mean, yes, there's nobody. I mean, there, there are other people, right? Like Jennifer Lawrence.

I don't think she has. Jennifer Lawrence made movies that people didn't go to see.

But if Jennifer Lawrence made a movie a year.

Right?

Like, I mean, and technically, I guess you could say she has been making a movie a year for the last two or three years. But I think that the business, I don't know. I feel like no hard feelings was a thing that I don't know how much money it made. I know it wasn't a huge hit, but it was also a movie that was about sex, that people that was both afraid of the sex that it was about and didn't go far enough, in my opinion. I liked it, but it was afraid of itself. But she would have gone as far as the movie, would probably have asked her to go. But I think the movies are kind of afraid to ask people to take these risks. Right.

But this goes to a passion point of mine because of all the rewatchables movies we watch when we go backwards.

Right.

In general, sex seems to be disappearing from movies, and I'm not in the same way, and I'm not sure why. And some people have talked about this, but just in general, I'm spending my.

Summer writing a story about this, this is my summer in the eighties.

You watch seventies, eighties, nineties especially. Like, we have all just spoil. We're doing fast times for the next rewatchables. And just the way that that movie comes out in 1982 wouldn't make that. And the way. Well, you wouldn't make that now. But the way that movie treats sex is really interesting, and I just don't think it would be treated the same way in 2024. But in general, it seems that there was some article, I think, I want to say, I read it a week ago about how there's way less sex in movies, but the sex that's in movies is way more over the top.

Yes.

And I don't know.

But do you? But it's over the top in the sense that, I mean, it's ridiculous and it's also not sexy. Right.

Did you think the threesome scene was, what was that? First of all, it stops. But was I supposed to? I just don't know. I thought that was such a kind of weird scene, and it felt like they were going for it for a split second, and then they put, they paused. The brakes.

Well, this, to me, goes to the heart of the problem with this particular movie, which is that there's not a lot visually going on with it. And this is a director who has a really good eye. You know, I don't know what the hell he's doing in New Rochelle, New York. With all respect, this is not about New Rochelle. It's just about this italian guy not knowing how to, like, live up to it. Instead, he lives down to it. And the movie's sort of condescending about where it even is. It doesn't want to be there. Yeah, it's presented as a joke.

Wait, we got off track as usual when we do pods like this.

Oh, no, we're talking about sex.

We're talking about, like I said, I don't know if career wise she was ready to be in a movie like this, which is why they scaled it back.

I think it's. But I think it's perfect. I mean, there's a like, like if.

Alexandra Daddario's in this, is this movie different?

Yeah, that's a great question, Bill. Yes, it is different because I think that the movie would be more will.

Like if mid nineties Halle Berry was. Than this. Is the movie different?

That's she what? Mid nineties, like boomers, late eighties Robin.

Gibbons was in this or early nineties Robin Gibbons.

That actually might be more apt in a weird way because in my mind, Halle Berry, even in Boomerang, which is.

That's the Zendaya part, right?

Yes, but it's got more of a, like, Halle Berry has more of a something in that movie than Zendaya has had in any movie she's been in. Nobody's given her a part as good as euphoria in the movies. Just nobody. She has not been challenged by a movie.

Do you think that's a problem, though, in its own way, when you have this iconic generational part? Cause I'm with you. I think her in that show is one of the great performances of the last 15 years.

Yes.

And I don't know how you really replicate that in a two hour movie.

You don't.

And also, Rue is such an indelible character that she would make faces in challengers, and I still have my rue baggage. I'm like, oh. And then I don't know what I'm watching. It's almost like that character is too huge and too important. Tough one to break out of.

I mean, so what do we learn about Zendaya from watching Euphoria? She's got a great face, right? She's got a face that, if you, if she had no dialog, can tell a story.

This is an important category, the no dialog face.

Yeah, but the thing about this show.

Is watch her, and you're like, what's she thinking?

Yep. Oh, and her face will tell you. Her face will tell you, even behind all that hair. But the other thing about the show is that it breaks the fourth wall. And so she is a comedian, right? She knows how to be funny, how to communicate inner thoughts that reach an audience and makes it laugh. But the other thing is the show is narrated. She's got a voiceover she can do every once in a while, and she's really good at that. And there's just no movie that she's done that has let her come even close to what this show asks her to do and allows her to do to the, to the question of, like, what a movie star is. Even Julia Roberts in her worst movies. Like her, like, like, did AI do this? Because it's just anybody could have. Anybody could have written, like sleeping with the enemy, but you put her in it. And this is like, if they want to just, like, keep remaking things, just somebody, like a real genius, a real managerial genius would just be like, you know what? My client will just, from here on out, be remaking Drew Barrymore movies.

We'll just be remaking.

Not going to do it. Notting Hill again. And put it in Italy or wherever.

Yeah. My. My client, Zendaya, is just going to be doing Julia Roberts remakes for the next ten years, and it just would at least materialize. Give a. Give an actor who just wants to, like, be in a movie, something to do. I thought.

See, I like. I like dune, as I thought. That was a really cool choice.

The second one.

Yeah.

Or just being in the series at all.

Just being in the series. I think it's a good, you know, it's a mysterious. It's a different look. But, you know, like, we did the Jerry Maguire we watched a couple weeks ago, and I always make this point about. One of the things I love about Jerry Maguire is he's just Cruz being cruise for 2 hours.

Yes. Yes. I mean, it's a great.

This was not a Zendaya being Zendaya movie for 2 hours. So I'd like to see her.

Bill, we don't know what that is. What does it mean to be Zendaya for 2 hours? We don't know yet. We really do, you know?

No. Let's take a break. I have some more tennis stuff for you. All right. So the tennis in this movie. We mentioned this earlier. You know, it's. It's okay. The guys are. It's passable. Uh, Zendaya, even though she doesn't move to the net ever, she's got some weird forehand thing.

She doesn't move.

She's got some weird forehand thing where it's like. Like the torque on her forehand. Instead of having her blow at her knee, she should just, like, her elbow just should have come out of her arm.

It's really.

But the ending of this movie.

Third set, tiebreak.

So I made my list of the worst sports movie endings of all time, and I don't know if this counts as a sports movie, but I'm going to assume it does because it's sold as a sports movie, marketed as a sport. As like a sexy sports movie.

Yes.

It has a climactic scene at the end. I'll just go through this for you. The worst sports movie ending of all time is the fan with Robert de Niro and Wesley Snipes, which ends in a pouring rainstorm. I remember with Robert, stalker character kills the umpire, puts the mask on, and calls some of the game. And Wesley Snipes is the Barry Bonds guy, and he's at the plate, and he starts arguing with the ump. And it's pouring rain. They're not calling the game. It's like a monsoon. It's like a borderland tsunami so nobody can see it's the umpire because it's raining so hard. And then we end up in a knife fight at home plate. It is the worst. I can't believe they did it. Fever pitch, which is a reprehensible movie, but it ends. It ends and it's like he's got tickets and whatever. But for some reason, the Red Sox win the World Series as they're filming this. And at the end of the movie, they use real life footage of the two characters just running on the field as the Red Sox are celebrating. And it's like, what? How did they get on the field?

What's happening? It's a domination.

Bill, can I pause you for 1 second?

Yeah.

When Drew Barrymore comes on to the.

Field at Fenway park, when she jumps like 20ft and survives.

Yeah.

And then they don't arrest her on the spot. They just kind of let her work out her rom.com drama on the field.

I found that moment. So I was so overwhelmed and I lived. I was living in Boston. This was. This movie was a front page story.

Are you gonna say you like that moment? Oh, my God. Come on.

I really do.

I know it's ridiculous, but I'm not even dignifying that. Just stop. Next one. Ice castles. Robbie Benson. Late seventies figure skaters.

What's the ending there?

Figure skater who at the. She hits her head, loses her eyesight, but she's such a good figure skater, she decides to do her routine anyway. And she just sees it all blurry. Lynn Holly Johnson. So she does a routine at the end. People throw roses on the ice.

Oh, yeah.

And she trips over them. She starts tripping over the roses because she's blind and Robbie has to come out and help her skate away. And everybody realizes, oh, she's been blind the whole time. It's awful. The scout with Brendan Fraser.

Oh, boy, I forgot about that.

Yeah. He gets called up. He throws a perfect game, 81 strikes, no balls. That's an actual ending of a movie, Eddie, with Whoopi Goldberg. A movie that I still support and like, but it ends on a Larry Johnson charge that Gwen Schittzes takes. The movie ends on a charge call the color of money with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, which we've done on the rewatchables. This is just me. It's my list.

This is just you. I know.

I fucking hate that we don't know who won the game. Fuck. That's Rocky Balboa. The 6th one. Antonio Tarver. It's an exhibition match. He breaks his hand in, like, the second round. They fight for nine more rounds. Tarver's corner doesn't stop the fight. It's an exhibition. He's a champ of the world. No, no, keep fighting. Maybe you make your hand worse. Major League two, which just rips off major League one. And then last but not least, challengers, which ends with two guys moving closer and closer together, hitting a ball pickleball style, and moving closer and closer, finally ending with an overhand slam where they're 2ft away. I don't know how many of you out there play tennis. It is so hard to play tennis with somebody when you're inside, closer to the net like that, just to rally. Even if you know what the other person's doing, just to rally back and forth. They're making it seem like they're, like, fucking smashing at each other. It is the dumbest, stupidest. This might be the new number one from. This might be dumber than De Niro and the fan.

Well, it really might. You haven't even. You've just said what is taking place in the world of the tennis match. But then what happens? You get a Sopranos ending, right?

So we get. It cuts to Zendaya, and finally she has gotten these guys to compete with each other. So she's turned on. She's like Richard Williams now. It's like, finally I've got my daughters to compete. Yeah. She's turned on by it. And she goes, come on. And the movie ends.

Yeah.

So the point was what her role in life, her goal in life was to just get these guys to have a competitive fire with one another again. How about basically. I mean, five year old kid, by.

The way, over there, maybe spend time raising that baby. You saw it.

Great job.

That mom is just coming in and out of their hotel like, I've got it, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it. And it's just like, you know, thank you so much. I really appreciate this. And then, you know, the mom goes into the other room.

We joke on the rewatchables all the time. I am here and I'm available for a sports movie consultant agency. Just bring me in just one day. Just cut me a check, I'll come in and you'd be like, so, Bill, here's what we're thinking about our last scene. The guys are going to move closer and closer together and keep hitting the ball as hard as each other. And then it's going to end with an overhand smash where the guy goes over the net and I'd be like, no, no, no. Let's see. Back to the drawing board, guys.

I just want to say one thing. This is a movie made by the same guy who did a remake of Dario Argento's Suspiria, one of the great horror movies ever made. Just freaky deaky, cinematic as hell. You know, Luca Guadagino. Guadagino is. He's. He's not interested in the things that you're interested in.

Definitely not.

Right. He does not care about the tennis, who won the match. These things are not important to him. And.

No, it's the vibe, the style, the sound. That's what he cares about.

Yeah, but I think that if I. I don't want to impute intent, but I also feel like as a person who was trying to make an investment in this movie, I didn't. I don't even know if, I didn't care who won the tie break. I didn't care if the Josh O'Connor character goes to the US Open.

Did you care if she ended up with either of them?

Bill? I didn't care about anything, any of it. I didn't care about any characters.

We're not going to talk. We got more stuff to cover. I really liked the bigger splash. And call me by your name. I mean, obviously, those two, he figured out, here's my intent for this movie. I'm gonna create a whole world. I'm gonna take you into this world in these characters. And I don't feel like he did it with this, but other people liked it, so kudos to them. Okay. Summer movies. I just wanted. I didn't even tell you we were.

Doing this fourth movie in English, by the way. This is fourth movie in English.

I just.

You said a bigger splash. I just remembered that that happened.

Summer movies. We started out with the fall guy. Just go quick. Did you like the fall guy?

I did. I mean, I know it's not great, but it's like, we're talking about, like, what a movie star is, you know, as a movie star. Ryan Gosling.

Emily, does he have the mantle now? Is here most reliable, a plus list under 50 star.

If they hadn't spent $200 million to make this movie, um, I mean, the cloud over it, I think, is kind of tarnishing, like, the, you know, whatever momentum he seemed to be having as a movie star. But, like, he. I was thinking about this on the way out of the theater. One of my favorite Ryan Gosling movies was that the fall guy, not the fall guy. No, no, no, no. The thing with Russell Crowe that also has a similar title to the fall guy. It'll come to me.

Mister nice guy.

The nice guys. Something like that. Yeah, the nice guys. I love that movie.

Yeah.

It is a, quote, throwback, unquote, because it's set, I think, in the seventies. Those two guys have such an easy rapport with each other. This movie is not trying to take anybody the oscars. It's not trying to change the world. It just wants to be a movie that entertains people, and people didn't really want to see it. But that, to me, was Ryan Gosling just. And Russell Crowe, when we like, at the very. This very last thing he did that we kind of maybe were interested in Russell Crowe.

I really didn't see the exorcism movie. I like Gosling. He's number one for me right now, just from a sense of. I think he has the highest approver rating, by the way. So Zendaya. Zendaya probably has, if not the highest, way up there for approval rating. We're just that most people like her. And the thing I always compare it to is like, if you're at a party and somebody's like, I fucking hate so and so. And if you were sitting next to somebody like, you know, I fucking hate Ryan Gosling, you'd be like, what? Why don't you like Ryan Gosling? You know what I mean?

Approval ratings. This is like polling and elections, right? Like, I don't really care what the polls say, just like, who won, right? Like, what is. What are the charts saying? What is the. What are the numbers? What. I mean, I too believe that. That Zendaya has star like qualities. I just need more movies.

Right? We agree.

Yes. Ryan Gosling, bar none.

I think that movie's a win for him. Because if people didn't see in the theater, at least part of that has to do with college ending NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs. Like, just a bunch of. It's getting nice out again. I just. May 3 is a dicey date and I think people are gonna rent pay per view the shit out of it.

Yeah. War, protest.

I mean, there's some real life shit.

Going on out of the movies.

Yes. If with Ryan Reynolds, give a one sentence take.

I mean, why?

Why? That's great. Good.

I mean, he's Ryan Reynolds. I just. It's so interesting to me. A person who could have is. I mean, this is like, Ryan Gosling is. Has already committed his market corrections. Although Glenn Powell being in the mix is a kind of interesting proposition.

Powell is lurking now. Yeah, he carried the rom.com. sidney Sweeney.

He wants it, right?

Yeah.

This is a guy who is willing to do the work, and I find him very exciting.

Well, you know, the other thing with him is the top gun maverick. Getting delayed for two years was almost like he was like an athlete who had a torn ACL or something, because I think all this would have happened two years earlier for him and him and Miles Teller felt like it pause buttoned it a little bit because it took so long for that movie to come out. Then it came out, and both of those guys went to another level. But everyone likes Ben Powell. Nobody's like, I don't like that guy.

I didn't want to, but goddamn. I mean, and he means it, right? Like, this is a guy who will play maybe anything and play the hell out of it and not to win anything, right. Because it's his job.

Well, that's another summer doing his job. Hitman, which comes out on Friday.

Okay. I have not. Have you seen it yet?

I've not seen it. Link later. Very excited for it. And then Furiosa, a Mad Max saga. So I'm going through this list because I actually think once you start out in May, this is like, hey, pretty good summer movie list. I like, you know, some different kind of looks. We got big stars. We're doing well here. And then kind of goes sideways. We move into inside out, too. We move into bad boys. Ride or die. Which alternate title would been bad boys? Why?

I think. Well, can I just say one thing about Will Smith real quick?

Yeah, I'm on the edge of my seat.

I wonder if part of where he spends the rest of his career or, like, a significant part of it. I don't know what atonement looks like from him, but I wonder if just playing characters that we already loved him.

Just doing. Greatest hit karaoke.

Yeah. Just hiding in his. I'm going to read you.

I'm going to read you a sentence from the synopsis of this movie on Boston.com dot.

Hi, boston.com. i miss you guys.

When Mike and Marcus attempt to investigate corruption in the department, they are set up as fall guys and must prove their innocence while on their. Right.

Oh, no. It's a metaphor.

They're on the run. Well, it's tempting to expose corruption.

Oh, no.

So they don't even have, like, a splinter of a new idea. This movie's been made 20 times. Good luck to that serpent.

Okay.

There's a movie called the Bike Riders coming out on June 21. Let's talk about Jody comer, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, and our guy, Mike Feist. Mike faced.

He. That was. That's how Jeff Nichols made this movie. The guy who made take shelter. I mean, this is going to at least be for real at the very least, right? Like, it might not work. It might be ridiculous. From the trailer, it looks like Tom Hardy. I don't know. But I need Gerard Butler. Gerard Butler. Oh, my God. Austin Butler.

Yeah.

Is a guy who. I need more proof. I need more proof. And it just. This is exciting to me because I want to like this guy. And if this is a movie, no matter what, like, if ten people. If, like, well, okay, more than ten people. If this movie is even a little bit of a hit, I think this is another one of these. It's like an elevator. Like, he makes another one of these. Jeff Nichols might be too good a director for what I'm talking about here. Like, just like, Luca Guadagino is Guadagnino. Sorry. He's almost too good a director for challengers. I don't love his movies that much, but, I mean, that movie needed, like, a Ron Shelton or a James L. Brooks, right? Like, very solid James O. Brooks. Imaginative directors who like people. Right? I don't think. I don't think Luca cares about people necessarily. He cares about situations involving people and the discomfort and the, like, attractions and that sort of thing. But the american version of this are, like, dirty, rotten scoundrels. This movie, challengers, could have been something like that, where you've got a situation of two men and a woman trying to, like, manipulate each other into doing what one of them ultimately wins in.

Terms of the ironing at the end.

Right.

I mean, I don't know. Anyway, I just think.

I don't know about the bike riders. Feels like critically acclaimed doesn't do well in the theater, and then a lot of people see it when it's on demand.

I think people want to. I think people really want to like Austin Butler. I really. I do. And I don't know if this is the movie, but I don't think he can do anyone but you. I don't think he can do that. I think this is what he does. He. The Elvis thing was not a joke. I don't think, like. I think there's, like, a brooding.

I liked him in Once upon a time in America, in Hollywood, too.

What did he do in that movie?

He played one of the Manson guys. Oh, right. He's good in that. He's, like, fucking creepy in that movie.

Now you said it, and now I can see it. No, I really like him.

So I'm looking forward to this the next week. The most Wesley movie on the list is out kinds of kindness from the poor things director. It's got Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafone, his giant penis. Margaret Qualley just keeps going and going. Taylor Swift's old boyfriend.

And is he?

I'll give you the synopsis.

Okay.

Kinds of kindness. This is again on Boston.com, follows three connected stories that might be a red flag. A man without a choice who tries to take control of his own life. A policeman who's alarmed that his wife was missing at sea has returned and seems a different person. And a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability who's destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader. Seems like we're taking swings.

Yeah, poor things.

Guy takes some swings.

I mean, that's all he does. Have you seen his earlier greek movies?

I mean, I have not. Not on my list.

They're some of the most uncomfortable, unpleasant, psychologically bizarre, but extremely watchable. Like, it's all about, like, gamesmanship in these sort of metaphors for power and control and domination. So those plot synopses, you know, you gotta multiply that by, like, 100 when.

It comes to the steroids.

On it, to the filmmaking. Yeah.

June 28. We get a quiet place day one. I'm not sure why we keep making these.

I don't either, but Lupita Nyong'o is the star of it. And the trailer. I mean, talk about doing their job. That woman is. That woman is doing her job in that trailer. Anyway, it looks like.

No, no, I didn't see the second one, so I don't know if that disqualifies me from seeing the third one.

Bill.

I don't know if they're connected.

I don't think movies work like that.

Well, here's what gets really sad. July gets sad.

Does it?

Yeah.

Okay.

July 3. Netflix Beverly Hills cop. Axel F. Oh, boy. Now, bright side, Rosewood and Taggart are back.

Yeah. Wait, did they. Were they not in.

They were not in three, I think. I think, actually, Judge Reinhold was in three, but Taggart was not.

Jon Ashley. I really love him.

I don't have high hopes for this, but I. John Ashton.

Ashton. Sorry.

John Ashton. Yeah, I don't have high hopes for this. I'm glad John Ashton's alive. But if Rosewood and Taggart are in it and primarily involved, that says in the plot they help Axel solve the mystery, it means I'm going to watch it. So I'm already like, banking my disappointment for July 3 range because I know I'm going to get sucked in and I know I'm going to be disappointed. Like, what are the odds this movie's good? Like one out of 20.

They're low. They're low. But I mean, I don't know. You know how I think the stakes in every movie, in every sort of Hollywood movie these days? They're too high, right? Like, failure is too catastrophic and success bodes ill for what comes in its wake, right? I mean, no matter what you say about Barbie, the only lesson they learned was IP, right? And that's. What kind of lesson is that? Because we, we've been living that lesson to the extent that it's a lesson at all. The plague of ip we've been living in, that that was just an occasion for them to, like, be so ip'd out. Cause you know how it is. They don't really do things like give a Greta Gerwig a property like that until everybody else has had their turn and lo and behold, a miracle happened. So I don't know. I mean, I feel like the idea of a fourth Beverly Hills cop movie reeks of. Of desperation. But what if it's just like, could that movie just be like, merely satisfying and you'd be okay? I don't know how higher the stakes.

Do we like, he has a new partner, Joseph Gordon Levitt.

Okay.

I think it's going to be bad. I don't have high hopes, but hey, Murphy, one of my all time favorites I have to support. I'll watch it. I'll watch it with despicable, despicable of me. Four is coming out.

Great trailer. Great tr. Have you seen the trailer? I'm looking at my engineer.

I'm out of the whole kids movie genre now because my kids grew up. I don't have to watch them anymore. It's great. There's a horror movie called Long Legs on July 12 from neon that everybody's all fired up about that has hottest.

Studio in the movies.

Girl from it follows Nick Cage. So I'm excited for that. And then twisters, Glenn Powell, the Twister remake.

Who's this woman? Who's the woman in this?

Daisy Edgar Jones from where the crawdads sing. I'll probably watch it.

Oh, I'm in. I'm watching it. There's no, no doubt. There's no doubt.

Deadpool and Wolverine is July 26. I have no comment.

It's an interesting idea, though, I do like, because.

No, no, wait, but wait.

Hold on.

No.

At the end of the day, it's two movie stars, right?

No.

And I don't have an argument to make. I'm just curious about whether what, at this point, Hugh Jackman is bringing to this part, again, more desperation. It's obvious, right?

But sure.

I just feel like, well, I really wish that people like Hugh Jackman who don't. I mean, I don't know what his finances are. Like, I should not say it this way, but, like, what is in another Wolverine movie for a guy like that, right? Like, the same with Eddie Murphy in this Beverly Hill Scott movie. Like, I think this is the point where people should be taking, like, Hugh Jackman should be trying to get the music man done, you know? Like, I don't. I mean, he can do what he wants. I'm not in charge of his career. But, like, I just would love to see Hugh Jackman, like, do what he does on stage in the movies more, because at this point, we have seen you masculinize yourself to the point where, like, it seems like you're going to die on the set of the movie. Like, we really do worry that Logan, you know, that you could have died making Logan. Like, what would it mean to, like, just, like, bring some levity to your. To your movie star self?

I can't believe we spent this much time talking about Deadpool versus Wolverine. Come on.

I don't know.

I just want. Movies suck because we keep making movies like this.

I know. I love Hugh Jackman, and I just want to see him in things that are not. This.

I'm excited for the instigators of Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, filmed in Boston in 2023.

Whose movie is that?

Doesn't say on this stupid thing I'm reading, but it looks. It's a heist goes sideways movie. So there's two versions. There's a heist goes wrong. Heist goes sideways.

What could that possibly mean?

Yeah, I don't know. It goes sideways, and then we have a movie. So this one, I'm just gonna read this to you. Oh. Doug Liman is the director.

Ah, okay. I mean, I don't love him, but, I mean, that's somebody, and it's not. It's not a person who's too good for the material. You know, it's not like Jeff Nichols is making whatever that movie is gonna be.

I'm gonna read you the entire blurb for trap on boston.com.

Oh, what is this? Movie about. Well, Shyamalan. Right?

M. Night Shyamalan movie.

Yep.

Josh Hartnett plays a father who takes his daughter to a concert for her favorite singer, lady Raven. But it turns out the concert is an elaborate sting to catch a serial killer called the butcher, who is, gasp. Josh Hartnett.

Wait, wait. We already know. Is that.

I think they want us to know because they. That still lives. Room for the twist. Yeah. Okay, we have borderlands, which is a video game remake. We have blake lively in a Boston set.

Oh, no.

Looks like a rom.com type of thing.

She didn't learn.

We're back in. This feels like a comeback movie for her.

With another Boston accent.

No. I don't know. See, that would if she was the girl from the town 15 years later. Obviously, Rosilla would have to be the lead.

There is a movie I would watch.

Now, that is first aid.

Let's talk about heist going sideways, right?

August 16, we have the union. You know something?

We're already in August.

Yeah. Mid August. We have the actors who've just made too many movies, and it becomes mad libs, and it's like, hey, these two haven't been together. Well, I present to you Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

Doing what?

Mark Wahlberg plays Mike, a down to earth construction worker who's throwing.

Mike played.

He's thrown into the world of super spies and secret agents.

Oh, no.

When his high school girlfriend, Roxanne, played by Halle Berry, recruits him for a secret us intelligence mission. So that's that. We have alien Romulus, and we have a movie called Blink twice with Channing Tatum, which is. Looks like it's attempted to be like, a knives out, wait type movie.

I'm out. What about the thing with him in Scarlett Johansson, the fly me to the moon? There's an astronaut movie.

I don't know if that's the summer. Isn't that fall?

Oh, is it fall? Okay, well, I saw it when I went to the movies the other day, and I was like, this is a summer movie. Because it. Because it basically is.

There's a couple others, but those are things. So which one are you the most excited about? It sounds like you're the most excited for the bike riders.

I. Well, I'm just sad because you didn't say, first of all, there. No. Are there nothing, like is one lesson? I mean, obviously. I mean, I'm going to contradict myself a thousand times when I say this, but, like, nothing with a woman. Like, I'm like a. There's nothing you didn't say anything.

Well, this is my limited research. Just.

I know, but I just, I mean, even, even just what you said is kind of a bummer to me because it all kind of so samey. Like even the biker movie, which, you're right. Of those movies I kind of really am into seeing.

I will mention this movie, but there's a movie called Janet Planet that might.

Oh, well, that might.

That might fit your movie. But yeah, I didn't consider like a big summer movie. But that said in, it's a Massachusetts acupuncturist.

Yeah.

13 year old daughter. Yeah.

Yeah.

People are fired up for that one. I should have mentioned that one. Yeah.

Right. Isn't that right?

You're right. Flying to the moon for some reason wasn't on Boston.com. so that's mid July. You're right. That is a Channing Tatum as a harried NASA director and Scarlett Johansson as a marketing whiz.

I don't know if this is based on a true story. It seems like Argo for space and there are no hostages, but it seems like they're going to fake, it's like they're going to fake the moon landing, essentially, which I think could be based on a true story. It just sounds like a thing that probably happened there.

Shaffers in a horror movie called cuckoo probably could have mentioned that there's another.

Person like, you know, give me some at bats because I don't know.

Right. And then when we get to the, we get to the fall. Now we're talking Joker, too.

And is that the Gaga one?

What do you mean?

That's the Lady Gaga. Gaga. Lady Gaga is the.

Is Lady Gaga seemingly playing Harley Quinn?

Yes, yes. Yes.

We have gladiator two. We have a lord of the Rings movie. We have nosferatu.

It's like a wax museum. I was just walking down 42nd street on the way here today, on the way into the office, actually. And there's a rock statue outside of it. Madame Tussauds.

Hmm.

It is the most incredible likeness. I mean, from a half a block. I had never noticed it before. It is so.

You mean of a rock?

Of the rock. He's in a suit. The proportions seem very correct. He is making the rockest face. Like, that's a. It's a face you miss him making.

Does it look like he's trying to decide on, on a terrible script to make?

It's the face he can't even make when he goes back into the ring to pretend to wrestle now? Like, it's like there's no joy in this man anymore. And I just like you give us going down this list of movies just reminded me that like, we are in the Madame Tussauds of summer movie going like, it's just things that look exactly like things we already twisters. I mean, I really like Glenn Powell and I watch him. I think I'm going to watch him. I'm going to want to watch him do anything but twisters. I don't know.

All right, Wesley, I look forward to reading whatever you come up with next. The New York Times. It was great to see you, as always. Hopefully I'll see you for rewatchables in person at some point. Good to see you. Thank you.

Bye, Bill.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kevin O'Connor, thanks to Wesley Morris. Thanks to Steve Ceruti and Kyle Creighton for producing. Don't forget about all of the videos that we put up from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel and new rewatchables, which back to the future part two. You can listen on any platform. You can watch it on YouTube.com ringermovies. I will see you on Thursday on this feed. We'll be going right after game two. Pace yourself. I hope I survive. See you then. When we start that I don't have.

A few years with him.

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