Speaker 1: You're tuned into Heat Check, But just a quick.
Speaker 2: On this episode of the Heat Check. Oh boy, we
Speaker 2: have never in an NBA season had twenty six teams
Speaker 2: that could make the playoffs with ten games or less
Speaker 2: to go. Well, we've eliminated a few teams, but it's
Speaker 2: still mass chaos. We're here to fill you in on
Speaker 2: where it stands right this second. We also get into
Speaker 2: CJ McCollum saving the Warrior season our dubs, you don't say.
Speaker 2: We also go into a ton of info around the league,
Speaker 2: including more referee drama, the latest Tim bontent, straw Pole,
Speaker 2: which is the MVP race, newest votes are out, and
Speaker 2: Lebron James doing more for his community. Damn, there's so
Speaker 2: much to go over right now. Nick, It's exciting times
Speaker 2: Opening Day in baseball. Not that bat matters for this podcast,
Speaker 2: but there's lots to be excited about. Drop that generic
Speaker 2: as beat. That should be all right, So we gotta
Speaker 2: start the episode with where things stand in the West.
Speaker 2: It is chaos. It is time for the cleaning lady
Speaker 2: to come over and take out our trash. There's two
Speaker 2: weeks left. There's twenty six teams that can make the
Speaker 2: play in of the playoffs, which is just surreal, and
Speaker 2: all these arbitrary rules could possibly stop these teams from
Speaker 2: tanking and they have the biggest event, of course, that
Speaker 2: has changed recently. The biggest update is the Sacramento Kings.
Speaker 2: Sacramento Kings, for the first time in a gajillion years,
Speaker 2: put a herding on the Blazers G League line up
Speaker 2: to the tune of a forty point win for the
Speaker 2: first time in sixteen years. The Kings clinch on that
Speaker 2: beam as the three seed were me up on that
Speaker 2: bean baby. As everyone knows, we've been talking about the Kings,
Speaker 2: been excited about the Kings all year. A lot of
Speaker 2: people thought that they would falter, but they did not collapse.
Speaker 2: They actually got better as the season went on, and
Speaker 2: now they're not just only going to the playoffs or
Speaker 2: the play in they'll host at least the first round.
Speaker 2: It speaks to one how good Mike Brown has been.
Speaker 2: He's obviously Coach of the Year hands down, but really
Speaker 2: just how the ownership has changed, and how that ownership
Speaker 2: has changed the entire dynamic of this franchise. Veck Rando v.
Speaker 2: Randy Vay. It's hard to say learned a lot, obviously,
Speaker 2: as an owner, he had Luke Walton, got Luke Walton
Speaker 2: the fuck out, made sure to get a competent head
Speaker 2: coach to come in for him, put the organization in
Speaker 2: the hands of a bunch of people who knew what
Speaker 2: they were doing, like Monti McNair, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: couple of good trades, couple of good draft picks, and boom,
Speaker 2: you are a good team, just like that playoff time.
Speaker 2: So Tom Ziller, the thing that I think is really
Speaker 2: interesting is because people talk about, oh is a sixteen
Speaker 2: year playoff drought, but it's sort of and Tom Ziller
Speaker 2: check him out if you don't know him. Tom Ziller
Speaker 2: wrote an article about just how that under sells understates
Speaker 2: how bad the Kings have had it in the last
Speaker 2: sixteen years, because it's not that they just missed the
Speaker 2: playoffs for sixteen straight years. Seven of those sixteen years
Speaker 2: they were under siege the maloof organization, the maloofs as
Speaker 2: a family, as an ownership group of the Kings, try
Speaker 2: to actively move the Kings out of Sacramento for like
Speaker 2: almost a decade, seven straight years. You had mayors getting involved,
Speaker 2: you had the city's rioting fan base, putting up flyers.
Speaker 2: Seven years. This dude tried to move the team, tried
Speaker 2: to move it to Anaheim. They wouldn't sell to an
Speaker 2: owner that would say on purpose, we're gonna keep it
Speaker 2: in Sacramento. Move wouldn't sell to that person. So to
Speaker 2: call it just a playoff drought is sort of spinning
Speaker 2: in the face of how bad it was. Then you
Speaker 2: enter the VEC. He has this plan to rebuild the team,
Speaker 2: even though we all know it didn't work. At first,
Speaker 2: hired Luke Walton, get some mullion. He looked like he
Speaker 2: was gonna be a good coach. Obviously was under Steve
Speaker 2: Kerr Tutelich. The VEK obviously likes some Steve Kerr Mike
Speaker 2: Brown coming from the Steve Kerr tree as well. But
Speaker 2: when we look back, things started to turn around when
Speaker 2: a Vek built Gold One in twenty sixteen. Here's what
Speaker 2: he said about what gold one means. Listen, We're not
Speaker 2: just gonna build an arena. I want to build the
Speaker 2: best that's ever been built. He told this to Carmichael
Speaker 2: Dave recently in an interview. He explained he got the
Speaker 2: idea of the purple beam from airplanes. What if we
Speaker 2: add purple light. It's on the roof. When I'm flying,
Speaker 2: then I can tell that the Kings are in the house.
Speaker 2: What a baller. He just wanted like a bat signal
Speaker 2: to know whether the Kings were in the building or not.
Speaker 2: He said, I had this idea that people used to
Speaker 2: gather around a fire in the Middle Ages. They used
Speaker 2: to gather around cathedrals. The arena is the twenty first
Speaker 2: century cathedral. So the purple beam is an outgrowth of
Speaker 2: making the Golden One the center of Sacramento. That's incredible,
Speaker 2: What an amazing analogy. Dearon Fox also the Golden One Center.
Speaker 2: We've talked about this before. I just want to stamp
Speaker 2: it again. Top three arena in the NBA. If I
Speaker 2: could create an arena that wasn't Madison Square Garden, because
Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden is just different. Let's be honest. Madison
Speaker 2: Square Gardens also pretty old. But if I could create
Speaker 2: an arena from scratch, Golden One would be the blueprint.
Speaker 2: Purple beam in all the glass, atrium, the bar up top,
Speaker 2: it's standing room only, down to the court, the fact
Speaker 2: that you can see the court when you enter the building,
Speaker 2: like stadium vibe, like Roman Colisseum Vibe lit. Anyway, deeron
Speaker 2: Fox explains what it was like to snap this playoff drought.
Speaker 1: It feels great, man, Like I said, I think just
Speaker 1: coming into it knowing that that was kind of a
Speaker 1: burden that she wanted to just get off your chest.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely grateful to be a part of that. Well,
Speaker 1: like I said, ever since Mike's gotten here and just
Speaker 1: the talent that we brought in, the guys that we
Speaker 1: brought in, everybody has bigger aspirations than that. But it
Speaker 1: definitely feels great. It definitely feels great to be a
Speaker 1: part of that.
Speaker 2: So Sacramento's in top three seeds are in Nuggets one,
Speaker 2: Griz two, Kings three. Right. Rest of the West completely unclear,
Speaker 2: complete chaos. Let's look at what's going on currently and
Speaker 2: what's going on with the remaining schedules. First and foremost
Speaker 2: of the Phoenix Suns. They have a half a game
Speaker 2: lead right now for the final home playoff spot. Kevin
Speaker 2: Durant is back. Kevin Durant for as an aside, had
Speaker 2: sixteen and twenty nine minutes last night, big win over
Speaker 2: the Minnesota Timberwolves. But it is a brutal schedule for
Speaker 2: the Phoenix Suns down the stretch. They have six games
Speaker 2: left against the Nuggets, two games against the Nuggets, game
Speaker 2: against the Thunder, game against the Clippers, a game against
Speaker 2: the Lakers and the Spurs. So just one gimme game
Speaker 2: against the San Antonio Spurs. Brutal number five Clippers currently
Speaker 2: in the five spot, half a game behind the Suns,
Speaker 2: nipping on their heels, playing really really good basketball right now.
Speaker 2: Tylu just moved Nick Batoum to the five spot. He
Speaker 2: just brought one of the Morris brothers from the starting lineup,
Speaker 2: bringing his ass onto the bench. They're seven and three
Speaker 2: in their last ten. They just had an amazing win
Speaker 2: against the Memphis Grizzlies without Paul George and without Kawhi
Speaker 2: Leonard Russ for whatever reason, has taken on a new role,
Speaker 2: not the the bench one. It's a new new rule,
Speaker 2: it's a rebounding role. Five left with the griz Pels, Lakers, Blazers,
Speaker 2: and Suns rough except for the Blazers number six spot Warriors.
Speaker 2: There are one game behind the Clippers for the fifth seed,
Speaker 2: one and a half games behind the Suns. Unlikely to
Speaker 2: catch the Suns, they could steal the five seed. There's
Speaker 2: five games left to go for the Warriors, the Nuggets, Kings,
Speaker 2: Okse Thunder, and then you've got two Cupgate games Spurs
Speaker 2: and Blazers, hm Wolves currently at nowhere in the seventh spot.
Speaker 2: Remember we thought they might even miss the play in
Speaker 2: One game behind Golden State for the sixth seed and
Speaker 2: to avoid the play in five left easiest schedule of
Speaker 2: the bunch Lakers, Blazers, Nets, Spurs, and Pelicans. Lakers one
Speaker 2: and a half games behind Golden State with six left
Speaker 2: to play, So their teet are tottering on missing the
Speaker 2: playoffs and being a play in t two times against
Speaker 2: the Jazz, Wolves, once Rockets, once Clippers, once Suns once.
Speaker 2: Rough feels like the Lakers are a playing team, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: It really does, At least if they're the eight seed
Speaker 2: or the seventh seed. They only have to win one
Speaker 2: game in order to get in The nine seed. Pelicans
Speaker 2: a half a game behind the Lakers, one behind the Wolves,
Speaker 2: which is why that Pelicans lost last night to the
Speaker 2: Warriors are so stunning. They need every win they can
Speaker 2: get every team in the West. He's every win they
Speaker 2: can get. They've got six games left. They face the Clippers,
Speaker 2: the Warriors, but also four bad teams Spurs, Hornets, Rockets,
Speaker 2: and Blazers. Actually, I think they've got the easiest schedule
Speaker 2: of the bunch. They can win four of those six
Speaker 2: games pretty easily, and they're gonna want probably some revenge
Speaker 2: against the Warriors. And then the ten spot the Thunder
Speaker 2: half a game behind the Pels. They've got five games remaining, Pacers, Sons, Warriors, Jazz,
Speaker 2: Grizz Probably two easy games out of those. I could
Speaker 2: see them beating the Warriors. I could see them beating
Speaker 2: actually all of these teams, but not every single one.
Speaker 2: And then if you want to talk about the outside
Speaker 2: looking in, the Mavericks, whoa game out of eleventh or
Speaker 2: a game out of tenth, excuse me. And in the eleventh
Speaker 2: spot they face the Heat, Hawks, Kings, Bulls, and Spurs,
Speaker 2: so it's close for them too. And finally in the
Speaker 2: twelfth spot is Jazz. They're at one and a half
Speaker 2: games out of the tenth spot. They face the Lakers twice,
Speaker 2: the Celtics, Ones, the Nets Ones okay see Ones, and
Speaker 2: Denver Ones. It feels like the Jazz are done. I
Speaker 2: think we can kind of put them in a suitcase,
Speaker 2: pack them up and send them home. It is absolute chaos.
Speaker 2: I'm really really looking forward to see how this all
Speaker 2: shakes out. The first round is gonna be a doozy.
Speaker 2: There's gonna be fireworks every day. You have to google
Speaker 2: NBA standings. I've never done that in my life. Every
Speaker 2: day something changes. The Thunder sitting there in the ten spot,
Speaker 2: I think they were six two days ago. One win
Speaker 2: with a couple of losses for your cohorts boosts you
Speaker 2: up the standings, and vice versa as well. Will the
Speaker 2: Warriors move up to five? Will the Lakers get a
Speaker 2: home game in the play in? Will the MAVs miss
Speaker 2: the playoffs? All these are such crazy questions and we
Speaker 2: probably won't know the answers until the very last day
Speaker 2: of the season. And NBA fans, that is exactly what
Speaker 2: Adam Silver wants, and it's pretty damn awesome. There's a
Speaker 2: there's a reason I don't speak ill of the Warriors.
Speaker 2: There is. I don't know if you think that I'm
Speaker 2: some sort of lifelong Warriors fan and all I do
Speaker 2: is big them up and talk about how good Steph
Speaker 2: Curry is and how Draymond Green's a Hall of Famer
Speaker 2: or don't worry about what Andrew Wiggins has got going
Speaker 2: on in his personal life. Stay out of it. Steve Kurz,
Speaker 2: one of the best coaches of our generation. Like, I
Speaker 2: don't say that because I want them to succeed. You
Speaker 2: don't think I haven't noticed that they haven't been playing
Speaker 2: well all season. You don't think I'm watching these games.
Speaker 2: You don't think I haven't seen that they have one
Speaker 2: of the worst records on the road in basketball. Like,
Speaker 2: you don't think I think that's a problem. You don't
Speaker 2: think that. You don't think I don't see it. You
Speaker 2: think I just want them to know. The reason that
Speaker 2: I praise them is because I want them to stay asleep.
Speaker 2: Complacency is the enemy of excellence, and I don't want
Speaker 2: the Warriors to be excellent. That's facts. And I know
Speaker 2: that me talking badly about them is only gonna give
Speaker 2: them motivation. Did somebody not tell CJ McCollum that because
Speaker 2: CJ McCollum acts like he's never been on the receiving
Speaker 2: end of Warriors vitriol. Before Little rewind Machine, CJ. McCollum
Speaker 2: and the Portland Trailblazers were up fifteen points every single
Speaker 2: game in the Western Conference Finals against the Warriors, and
Speaker 2: they lost every single one of them. They were swept.
Speaker 2: CJ McCollum should know fucking better. They have been peacefully
Speaker 2: slumbering all year. They are razor thin to being mathematically
Speaker 2: eliminated from the playoffs, and they against the Pelicans were
Speaker 2: twenty in a crucial game and they didn't seem to mind.
Speaker 2: So why the fuck did CIJ McCollum decide he wanted
Speaker 2: to start chirping at Draymond Green and Steph Curry and
Speaker 2: Dante DiVincenzo when he was up twenty. The best revenge
Speaker 2: on the Warriors is to say absolutely nothing pound them,
Speaker 2: tell the world how good they are and how they're
Speaker 2: going to be. Okay, pack up your shit and call
Speaker 2: your wife and be like, yo, we're about to eliminate
Speaker 2: the Warriors. Okay. So this is what happened Wednesday night.
Speaker 2: Like I said, they're up twenty, Pelicans are hidding threes,
Speaker 2: Golden State sleepwalking seasons on the brink. Sij's chirpin, and
Speaker 2: now Marcus Thompson breaks it down like this. McCollum might
Speaker 2: have saved the Warriors season because Draymond became a madman
Speaker 2: and woke the Warriors up on a run you've never
Speaker 2: scene since I don't know last year when they did
Speaker 2: it a million times. The Warriors were on the brink,
Speaker 2: so it felt a few admitted it so much after
Speaker 2: the game. Two nights after brutal mistakes down the stretch
Speaker 2: cost them a critical game against Minnesota, they were down
Speaker 2: twenty to New Orleans. What are you doing, CJ? So
Speaker 2: he's chirping. Drey decides enough is enough. He starts hammering
Speaker 2: the Pelicans left and right, body checks Brendan Ingram like
Speaker 2: he's playing hockey, gets a flagrant one heart foul away
Speaker 2: from being tossed. So why did he get so mad
Speaker 2: at the point, I'm gonna put myself out there and
Speaker 2: then I hope that the guys will back me up,
Speaker 2: he said. And if they don't back me up, are
Speaker 2: season's over? Anyway? That was the most important game for
Speaker 2: the Warriors season, and CJ. McCollum decided to give them
Speaker 2: extra motivation like he was some muse I've been amused
Speaker 2: before for the Warriors, remember nine to one. It doesn't
Speaker 2: feel good when they used your content or you're chirping
Speaker 2: to motivate them to excel. In your face. Desperate times,
Speaker 2: call for desperate measures. Draymond and at halftime lit a
Speaker 2: fire under the Warriors. Most notably, Steph comes out in
Speaker 2: the third quarter like vintage Steph Curry. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: a twenty point lead turned into a four point lead
Speaker 2: in like a minute. That's what they do. You piss
Speaker 2: them off. You turn around and the lead is gone.
Speaker 2: Not only is the lead gone, now you're down and
Speaker 2: they're still talking shit. They were talking shit down twenty
Speaker 2: and now they're talking shit up five and now you're quiet.
Speaker 2: Steph hit three threes in seventy five seconds. Think about that.
Speaker 2: Three threes in seventy five seconds at the end of
Speaker 2: the third quarter. A twenty eight footer, a thirty two footer,
Speaker 2: and a twenty seven footer. Those are really long threes.
Speaker 2: There's really long ones, and all of a sudden, just
Speaker 2: like that, your elite is gone. Stop talking shit to
Speaker 2: the Warriors, and that was that. When Steph does that,
Speaker 2: they're not beatable. And the funny thing is like not
Speaker 2: brandon Ingram coming at Draymond or CJ chirping Steph. That
Speaker 2: was the tipping point. It was actually CJ barreling through
Speaker 2: New player on the team, Dante DiVincenzo. Fine player, fine player,
Speaker 2: but not him like he was a straight blocking dummy.
Speaker 2: That sealed the deal. Dante very mild mannered kid, doesn't
Speaker 2: want any smoke, just wants to play basketball. He looks
Speaker 2: at a column. He's like, yo, why are you taking
Speaker 2: this out on me? I wasn't even trying to be
Speaker 2: the tough guy. I'm just trying to hoop. I'm just
Speaker 2: trying to win games. He runs over to Draymond's like, Yo,
Speaker 2: let's get these guys. I was ready to just be
Speaker 2: a part of this. Now I'm leading the charge as well.
Speaker 2: And you know what, everyone rallied around Dante DiVincenzo because
Speaker 2: you're not about to body our guy. You're not about
Speaker 2: to bully our role player. Insane. Now the sleeping Giant
Speaker 2: has been awoke with I'm sorry, CJ. It's all your fault.
Speaker 2: When they win the title, it will be because of you.
Speaker 2: They will probably give you an honorary ring because you
Speaker 2: helped save the Warrior season. You're more important right now
Speaker 2: than our man twelfth on the bench, Anthony Lamb. You
Speaker 2: are Bill Freakin Simmons. The story yesterday was that the
Speaker 2: Warriors are going to ditch Draymond and he's gonna go
Speaker 2: to the Dallas Mavericks. By the way, that's a lie,
Speaker 2: just a straight lie. But also we need to really
Speaker 2: step back and say if Draymond or Jordan Poole are
Speaker 2: leaving this team. By the way, Jordan Poole had an
Speaker 2: excellent game last night, it's Jordan Poole. Raymond Green is
Speaker 2: the second most important player on this Warrior's team. If
Speaker 2: you're a car, Warriors are a car. Traymont Green is
Speaker 2: the engine of the car. Steph Curry is the transmission
Speaker 2: of the car. What is Klay Thompson the tires? What
Speaker 2: is Jordan Poole the sunroof? Jordan Poole is the sunroof.
Speaker 2: Awesome to have. Definitely a luxury that you want. Do
Speaker 2: you need a fucking sunroof? Absolutely not? Am I paying
Speaker 2: fifteen thousand dollars more for this car because of a sunroof? No.
Speaker 2: If the sunroof doesn't get along with the engine, sorry sunroof.
Speaker 2: You gotta go. Championship back on, folks, thanks to CJ. McCollum.
Speaker 2: Can't you just leave good enough alone? Our dubs are
Speaker 2: gonna be just fine, just like I said, championship caliber team.
Speaker 2: I'm the only one that's been riding with them so
Speaker 2: out in Boston. We talked last week, I think about
Speaker 2: Jaylen Brown. He did an interview with Logan Murdoch. Logan
Speaker 2: Murdoch works for The Ringer in It JB. Obviously we
Speaker 2: talked about this. Talked to a lot of shit about
Speaker 2: his teammates, about just the world in general, about the
Speaker 2: organization as a whole. He wasn't really shit talking his teammates,
Speaker 2: but he was definitely talking about the organization. He was
Speaker 2: a little salacious. There were pointed barbs launched at some
Speaker 2: of the coaching decisions that have been made, some of
Speaker 2: the organizational decisions that have been made, whether Jason Tatum
Speaker 2: was hanging out with Kevin Urant too much when his
Speaker 2: name was circulating in trade rumors and now, which is
Speaker 2: very surprising to me because Jaylen Brown is the type
Speaker 2: of player and person that I thought would stand ten
Speaker 2: toes down on his comments and say yeah, I said it.
Speaker 2: He is now walking it all back. Very disappointing. He
Speaker 2: was asked in his postgame presser about some of the
Speaker 2: comments coming out of the article, and if you recall
Speaker 2: and included lots of quotes from other people, including teammates
Speaker 2: like Tatum, friends like Kyrie very detailed, very well sourced
Speaker 2: article and apparently not well enough sourced for Jaylen Brown.
Speaker 2: Jalen Brown had this to say, Uh, in terms of speculation, etc.
Speaker 2: I can't speculate on anything above what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes when people write articles, they get taken
Speaker 2: out of context, especially when writers of their own agendas
Speaker 2: or whatever. For me, personally, I'm thinking about clarifying some
Speaker 2: of the things that have been recently said. But other
Speaker 2: than that, I'm just focused on my team. I'm focused
Speaker 2: on playing basketball and winning games. Oh boy, what exactly
Speaker 2: are you looking to clarified? Nothing right now, he says.
Speaker 2: Right now, the only thing I want to clarify is
Speaker 2: that the Celtics need to play better and win more games.
Speaker 2: If I want to say something in the future about
Speaker 2: the kind of things that have been floating around, I will.
Speaker 2: But in terms of right now, I like when people
Speaker 2: hear things from the horse's mouth and you can see
Speaker 2: my reaction, my face and everything, how I feel about
Speaker 2: how I'm saying. Sometimes those things can get lost in translation,
Speaker 2: you know, So if I feel the need to do so,
Speaker 2: I will I keep in constant communication with my teammates
Speaker 2: and my organization, and we've got to have everybody on
Speaker 2: board if we want to do what we say we
Speaker 2: want to do, so right now I'm focused on that.
Speaker 2: It's almost like Jalen Brown doesn't know how the media works. Hey,
Speaker 2: we're gonna get your thoughts from your mouth in spoken
Speaker 2: word form. Those are gonna come out in written word form.
Speaker 2: And when you say things, even if they sound nice,
Speaker 2: when you put them in print, they definitely sound worse. Always, always, always, always.
Speaker 2: This is a guy who maybe should do some more
Speaker 2: interviews so he knows how articles are going to come out. Yes,
Speaker 2: they get spun in the direction that a writer wants
Speaker 2: to write. You think they're just gonna put your quotes
Speaker 2: up and be like, hey, here's what Jylen Brown has
Speaker 2: to say. Boom, that's it. Nothing, no opinions, no contexts,
Speaker 2: no set up, no conclusion, no substantiating information, nothing. You
Speaker 2: don't think he's gonna point out that Kanye West did
Speaker 2: all this crazy shit and that you were aligning with
Speaker 2: him and you didn't want to fire him. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: did that. So it also sounds like a guy who's
Speaker 2: like getting a lot of advice from people being like, hey,
Speaker 2: if you want that Supermax deal, if you get all
Speaker 2: NBA and they don't offer you that Supermax deal, you
Speaker 2: better pack your bags and think about going to Atlanta
Speaker 2: or wherever is the other teams that you think about going,
Speaker 2: because if they don't think you're all in, they're not
Speaker 2: all in. He also did not feel the need to
Speaker 2: say that anything reported was false, so that's interesting. Including
Speaker 2: his disappointment with the way that he was dangled as
Speaker 2: trade bait, he didn't say anything about that. All of this, though,
Speaker 2: just puts more pressure on the Celtics in the offseason
Speaker 2: and in the postseason. If they get flamed out early
Speaker 2: and he doesn't get all NBA and he doesn't get
Speaker 2: that Supermax deal, the patients from Jalen Brown might just
Speaker 2: wear out and shit might just hit the fan. One
Speaker 2: of the main themes of the second half of this
Speaker 2: season is charting just how very, very angry players are
Speaker 2: against the referees. That's the theme of the year I
Speaker 2: Think twenty twenty three, twenty two, twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 2: Year of I Hate Refs, the Year of refs Done
Speaker 2: fucked up. The year of do we need to take
Speaker 2: this to robo ref The year of let's call out
Speaker 2: refs by name? The year of do we need to
Speaker 2: be finding refs and looking into their bank accounts to
Speaker 2: see if they're betting on games. It reached the tipping point,
Speaker 2: of course, when Fred Vanfleet called out Ben Taylor by name,
Speaker 2: saying that he was terrible. It then went to a
Speaker 2: new place when Mark Dagnio called out refs. Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 2: called out refs, Marcus Smart called out refs. The league
Speaker 2: obviously ref problem. The latest now to weigh in, and
Speaker 2: I'm starting to come around on him, is Rudy Gobzilla
Speaker 2: Gobar the best nickname. After a very sketchy night of
Speaker 2: refereeing where the Wolves lost to the Suns, if you
Speaker 2: saw it, it looked very one sided. He unloaded after
Speaker 2: the game. He said, it's not fair. It's really not fair.
Speaker 2: Every night. I've been in this league for ten years
Speaker 2: and I always try to give the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2: But it's hard for me to think they're not trying
Speaker 2: to help the Suns win tonight. It's hard for me
Speaker 2: to think they didn't try to help the Warriors win
Speaker 2: the other night or Sacramento the other night. It's just
Speaker 2: so obvious a basketball player that's been in the league
Speaker 2: for this long. It's disrespectful. It's almost like Rudy Gobert
Speaker 2: believes that the NBA does not want a small market
Speaker 2: team like the Minnesota Timberwolves in the playoffs and they
Speaker 2: would prefer teams like Sacramento. Nice feel good story Phoenix
Speaker 2: Suns with Kevin Durant, LA Lakers with Anthony Davis, Warriors
Speaker 2: with Steph Curry to be in over them. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think that's probably true. This also came on top of
Speaker 2: a rant earlier this month where he told the Athletic Yeah,
Speaker 2: I get hit in the face every night and no
Speaker 2: one ever gets a flagrant called on them. It's crazy. No,
Speaker 2: it's not crazy, because Rudy Gobert got called for five fouls,
Speaker 2: four of them on the offensive side, which helped the
Speaker 2: Suns overcome a ten point plus deficit and then win
Speaker 2: a game in a as we said, a very very
Speaker 2: tight Western Conference. And he laid it all out at
Speaker 2: the end of the press conference. He said, we understand
Speaker 2: we're not the biggest of markets, and we're a team
Speaker 2: that I think you want to see Kevin Durant in
Speaker 2: the playoffs, Steph Curry in the playoffs. You want to
Speaker 2: see Lebron James in the playoffs. The Timberwolves are just
Speaker 2: not there yet. How many players are going to have
Speaker 2: to say something before the league does something. The answer
Speaker 2: might not be what we want it to be, because
Speaker 2: Gobert and Fred Van Fleet are right. The league maybe
Speaker 2: does want big market teams in the playoffs that are
Speaker 2: not named the Toronto Raptors in the Minnesota Timberwolves at
Speaker 2: the expense of them. Stranger things have happened, but I
Speaker 2: think that's probably right. All right, let's move on. Probably
Speaker 2: the biggest storyline other than refs that's not happening on
Speaker 2: the court this year has to do with the MVP race.
Speaker 2: There are six games left and no one seems to
Speaker 2: know what they want to do with the MVP. We
Speaker 2: are probably headed towards the closest MVP vote in the
Speaker 2: history of the award, and it's not close. It's not close.
Speaker 2: I think twenty two right now, twenty two votes is
Speaker 2: the slimmest margin between MVP winner and MVP runner up.
Speaker 2: So the latest straw pole came out today and that's
Speaker 2: Tim Bontemps from ESPN, and just when we all kind
Speaker 2: of thought Embiid was going to overwhelmingly take it, we
Speaker 2: got a wrinkle because emb sat out a couple of
Speaker 2: big games and the Sixers lost some big ones. James
Speaker 2: harden as we'll talk about it a little later, has
Speaker 2: been injured, and for all intents and purposes, we now
Speaker 2: have a dead heat on our hands. So the straw
Speaker 2: pole is ESPN's informal polling of votes on the MVP race,
Speaker 2: and right now, if you can believe it, there are
Speaker 2: just two points separate and beat in Jokic seven ninety
Speaker 2: and seven eighty eight. That's insane. That is crazy to
Speaker 2: think that we can get this far in the season
Speaker 2: and that people still don't know who they think that
Speaker 2: they want to vote for. And this actually they talked
Speaker 2: about this with Tim Bonteps. They said, hey, maybe you
Speaker 2: should just ask me after the season is over, because
Speaker 2: a lot can change in six games. Jokic actually leads
Speaker 2: in first place votes forty two to forty. But the joker,
Speaker 2: the wild card in this race is Yannis. Yannie is
Speaker 2: the fly in the as oointment. Jannie is the third
Speaker 2: party candidate, the Ralph Nader. If you will fucking with
Speaker 2: the two thousand presidential election all over again. He's got
Speaker 2: eighteen first place votes. Does anyone actually think Janie is
Speaker 2: gonna win this award? No? Stop voting for y honest,
Speaker 2: then you know it's a two man award. Okay, don't
Speaker 2: vote for Jason Tatum, don't vote for Yannis. That is
Speaker 2: enough to swing it in either direction for sure. If
Speaker 2: those eighteen votes had to be decided and sent to
Speaker 2: either Embiid or Yokic, maybe it would be a little
Speaker 2: bit more clear. Embiid finished second on forty five ballots
Speaker 2: as opposed to thirty nine ballots for Jokic, which is
Speaker 2: why he has such a narrow lead. And personally, I
Speaker 2: don't have any idea how it's going to shake out.
Speaker 2: I don't think Vegas knows. Vegas keeps changing the lines
Speaker 2: every single day, depending on which player has the more
Speaker 2: dominant performance night to night. But I do know one thing.
Speaker 2: Yannis will play spoiler. Are we headed for a recount?
Speaker 2: Are we headed for We're only voting for these two?
Speaker 2: Is the Supreme Court going to have to step in?
Speaker 2: So many questions? The one thing that we know for
Speaker 2: sure is that this thing can still be won. By
Speaker 2: Jokic or embiid. Maybe we'relph dater, maybe even be honest,
Speaker 2: they said. Maybe either way, closest, most entertaining, most controversial,
Speaker 2: most heated MVP race in league history. That's all the
Speaker 2: time that we have for this episode of the Heat Check.
Speaker 2: Check back Friday for an all new episode. Do not
Speaker 2: forget to peep the feed for past interviews and episodes.
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Speaker 2: sure you're checking your feed. Please follow us we are
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Speaker 2: you soon.