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Speaker 1: HOOPSINAI here at the volume heavy Monday, everybody, I'll bob
Speaker 1: you guys had a great weekend. We have finally made
Speaker 1: it to the first week of the NBA season. But
Speaker 1: before we get into the NBA season, I want to
Speaker 1: take a little detour. Last night, my wife and I
Speaker 1: watched Game five of the WNBA Finals, and that was
Speaker 1: an incredibly entertaining basketball game. I have a bunch of
Speaker 1: thoughts on that particular game about some of the specific
Speaker 1: performances we saw, some of the officiating, discussion after the game,
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting stuff to get into on that front.
Speaker 1: After that, we're going to just take some time to
Speaker 1: go through some of my predictions for this NBA season.
Speaker 1: Some of it's going to be kind of a rehashing
Speaker 1: of some of the stuff we've gone over in other videos.
Speaker 1: Some of it's going to be just some other predictions
Speaker 1: that I haven't had a chance to talk about on
Speaker 1: the show yet. Or we're just gonna do like a
Speaker 1: quick little synopsis of how I see this particular NBA
Speaker 1: season going, and then the plan for the rest of
Speaker 1: this week. We have two live shows at night this week.
Speaker 1: We're going live Tomorrow night after the final buzzer of
Speaker 1: Lakers Timberwolves to discuss both of the opening night games,
Speaker 1: and then on Thursday night, we'll be going live after
Speaker 1: the final buzzer of Nuggets Thunder to break down that
Speaker 1: night's slate. We're also going to do a mail bag
Speaker 1: in that show as well. We're going to do a
Speaker 1: nice long show to prep for the weekend. You guys
Speaker 1: are the job. Before we get started. Subscribe to the
Speaker 1: Hoops Night YouTube channels you don't miss any more of
Speaker 1: our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT.
Speaker 1: So you guys, don't mas show announcement, I forget about
Speaker 1: a podcast feed or if you get your podcast under
Speaker 1: Hoops Tonight, don't forget it's helpful if you leave a
Speaker 1: rating and a review on that front. The last but
Speaker 1: not least, keep dropping mail back questions and those YouTube
Speaker 1: comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the remainder
Speaker 1: of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
Speaker 1: really fascinating Game five between the Minnesota Links and the
Speaker 1: New York Liberty. That entire series was like that. Every
Speaker 1: game came down to the final handful of possessions for
Speaker 1: the most part. And you know, there's something about truly
Speaker 1: high leverage basketball games. Even in like playoff games where
Speaker 1: there's a series, you see these oscillations and effort and intensity, right,
Speaker 1: Like home team might come out and win game one,
Speaker 1: but then Game two, maybe the road team just comes
Speaker 1: out like super desperate because they know if they go
Speaker 1: down to two to the series, it's gonna be very
Speaker 1: difficult for them to regain control of And sometimes that
Speaker 1: home team comes out with just a little bit less
Speaker 1: urgency and it becomes something that manifests in the game. Right.
Speaker 1: But when you get to true winner take all games,
Speaker 1: like whoever wins moves on, whether that's game seven or
Speaker 1: in this case of game five, or it's a single
Speaker 1: elimination format like we see in the NCAA tournament. Whenever
Speaker 1: you get true winner take all basketball, it just makes
Speaker 1: such an incredible television product. It's super physical, there's fouls
Speaker 1: on basically every possession. We're gonna talk a lot about
Speaker 1: officiating here at the tail end of the show. The
Speaker 1: effort everyone's giving is completely desperate, especially in rotation. No
Speaker 1: one's ever really open. That's always the fascinating thing that
Speaker 1: stands out to me in games like that. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you got two on the ball here, or oh this
Speaker 1: person beat this person off the dribble. But like, these
Speaker 1: are two teams that are so deep into the season,
Speaker 1: that have worked so hard for so long, and you bet,
Speaker 1: you bet your ass they're not going to quit on
Speaker 1: any single possession at any point in time. And so
Speaker 1: it's like somebody steps over and helps, and then they
Speaker 1: rotate and they all kind of winch you'll wipe around
Speaker 1: and suddenly it's like, God, no one's open. And that's
Speaker 1: just like what it's like playing in those chaotic, super
Speaker 1: stressful situations, and like even when people are open, they
Speaker 1: don't they tend to not go in just because everyone's
Speaker 1: so rushed and hectic in every other phase of the
Speaker 1: game that no one's comfortable shooting the basketball. The two
Speaker 1: teams went five for forty two from three in this game.
Speaker 1: They shot twelve percent. It just it's really difficult to
Speaker 1: play in those types of settings, which is it makes
Speaker 1: it for a really strange kind of product because it's
Speaker 1: really ugly basketball. It's ugly basketball. There's usually a lot
Speaker 1: of turnovers, there's usually a lot of sloppiness, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of physicality, there's a lot of missed shots. But
Speaker 1: there's like a beauty to this ugly basketball in the intensity,
Speaker 1: in the urgency, in the stakes. It's what makes the
Speaker 1: NCAA Tournament so entertaining. The NCAA Tournament. Every NCAA Tournament
Speaker 1: game is ugly as hell because the defensive talent and
Speaker 1: coaching is so far ahead of where the offensive skill
Speaker 1: development is for those players. You know, you get to
Speaker 1: the NBA. I mean you don't even see this in
Speaker 1: the WNBA as much, but like in the NBA, when
Speaker 1: you're dealing with some of these like ridiculous athletes that
Speaker 1: we have. There are guys that like, oh, you play
Speaker 1: perfect defense, but just hit like a left right crossover
Speaker 1: into like a fade away seventeen footer on the baseline
Speaker 1: and there's literally nothing you can do when it goes in.
Speaker 1: There's there's a point in the NBA where the athleticism
Speaker 1: and shot making ticks up, and it can still have
Speaker 1: some pretty basketball in there, but you watch an NCAA
Speaker 1: tournament game and it's like those kids, they're completely in
Speaker 1: over their skis to handle the level of athleticism and
Speaker 1: the coaching attention to detail that those teams have on
Speaker 1: their defensive schemes. And so it's always fascinating because like
Speaker 1: I'm like completely glued to the screen, super entertaining game,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it's like some of the
Speaker 1: ugliest basketball that you'll see. Right. The most fascinating subplot
Speaker 1: of this particular game was just how substantially more comfortable
Speaker 1: Kayla McBride and the Fisa Collier looked compared to Sabrina
Speaker 1: and Escu and Brianna Stewart. Like there was a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about shooting percentages and how people shot from
Speaker 1: the field. But like the truth of the matter is
Speaker 1: is even though Brianna Stewart and Sabrini and Escu weren't
Speaker 1: making shots, they weren't really getting separation. For Sabrina, Kayla
Speaker 1: McBride and Courtney Williams had her in clamps on her
Speaker 1: drives to the rim. It wasn't like she was getting
Speaker 1: an angle and just missing a layup, like she was
Speaker 1: failing to turn the corner. And as they had angles
Speaker 1: on her kind of flattening out her drives, she was
Speaker 1: just throwing shit up. She got a couple of decent
Speaker 1: looks from three, but they were all really deep threes
Speaker 1: and they were so few and far between she was
Speaker 1: never able to get a rhythm. And again, I gotta
Speaker 1: talk about this concept all the time on the show.
Speaker 1: Even among wide open shots, no two shots are the same.
Speaker 1: Is it a wide open shot where everything has been
Speaker 1: easy throughout the game and you're feeling great about yourself
Speaker 1: and there's not a ton of pressure and the game
Speaker 1: hasn't been super physical so you're not as tired or
Speaker 1: is it super physical? So your legs are beat, you're
Speaker 1: having a rough night because you're not getting open at all,
Speaker 1: So you don't really have a ton of confidence in
Speaker 1: your game. Every shot is monumentally important, so there's a
Speaker 1: stress and like stakes element to every shot. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, that wide open three is just not the
Speaker 1: same as the wide open three you take in a
Speaker 1: regular season game when you're feeling great, right. I do
Speaker 1: think Sabrina had a very underrated game, though we will
Speaker 1: get to that later on in the show. But Cayle
Speaker 1: McBride and Courtney Williams did an amazing job on Sabrina.
Speaker 1: She was not getting good looks. She went one for
Speaker 1: nineteen because she wasn't able to get separation from her defenders.
Speaker 1: And Fisa Collier did an amazing job on Brianna Stewart,
Speaker 1: specifically in the mid to short range. Like she got
Speaker 1: some decent looks from the three point line, but that's
Speaker 1: a game plan thing. Brianna shot below thirty percent from
Speaker 1: three on the season. She shot just twenty six percent
Speaker 1: from three in the playoffs, so they were kind of
Speaker 1: helping off of her and conceding those jump shots. But
Speaker 1: she went over three on threes and then in the
Speaker 1: mid range all of like the like like face up
Speaker 1: like step backs to like short range fadeaways that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. The FISA was doing an amazing job just
Speaker 1: like corraling drives and then closing the gap so that
Speaker 1: when Brianna would try to go to those step backs,
Speaker 1: she just wasn't getting separation. Again, like those two didn't
Speaker 1: shoot well, but it was one thousand percent a credit
Speaker 1: to Minnesota's defense. They just straight up put the clamps
Speaker 1: on them right then. On the other end, like Nafisa
Speaker 1: was consistently getting dribble penetration using a great amount of
Speaker 1: hesitation moves in little body angle tricks to kind of
Speaker 1: like get angles on defenders that she could drive to
Speaker 1: the basket. The entire Links team did an amazing job
Speaker 1: of this, but no Fisa, particularly early in the game
Speaker 1: inside seals and slip cuts to the basket, like finding
Speaker 1: angles on overplays. This was something especially in the first
Speaker 1: half where I was like, what is what is New
Speaker 1: York doing? Where like they were overplaying everything on the
Speaker 1: perimeter and giving up a lot of back cuts and
Speaker 1: slips on ball screens where like openings were coming on
Speaker 1: the role or in cutting situations right and like that
Speaker 1: that to me is like smart basketball too, Like if
Speaker 1: you can in a game that's really messy. If you
Speaker 1: can get four or five easy layups just based on
Speaker 1: like tricks of the trade in terms of position eating
Speaker 1: and back cutting defenders that are denying the ball and
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, that's a great way to supplement
Speaker 1: your offense in a game where every shot is going
Speaker 1: to be really difficult. Right, But then at the end
Speaker 1: of the game a couple times in a row, Defisa
Speaker 1: was able to get dribble penetration and get all the
Speaker 1: way to the rim and make layups that little driving
Speaker 1: reverse layup that she had at the end that should
Speaker 1: have won the game before the bad call at the end.
Speaker 1: And then Kaylen McBride was doing the same thing, combination
Speaker 1: of just weaponizing the fear for shooting ability as well
Speaker 1: as her ability to change pace with the live dribble
Speaker 1: to get into the paint. It was crazy how much
Speaker 1: better those two looked on offense compared to Unesca and Stewart.
Speaker 1: As matter of fact, they made eighteen field goals between
Speaker 1: the two of them, and Yeneska and Stewart only made five.
Speaker 1: That's like a WHI Like if you would have said
Speaker 1: before the game, Kayla McBride and Defista calli you're gonna
Speaker 1: make eighteen shots, Sabrina Ynescu and Breonna Stewart are gonna
Speaker 1: make five? What do you think is gonna happen in
Speaker 1: that game? Right? So, like, shout out to those two.
Speaker 1: They played and they played an incredible game. I talked
Speaker 1: about the cuts and rolls on a team level. Minnesota
Speaker 1: had sixteen points on cuts and rolls compared to just
Speaker 1: six for New York. So that was a big part
Speaker 1: of how they were having success in offense, especially on
Speaker 1: the first half. So how did they have How did
Speaker 1: New York winning this game? How did they win a
Speaker 1: game where their stars made thirteen more field goals or
Speaker 1: excuse me, where their stars made thirteen fewer field goals
Speaker 1: than Minnesota stars. They dominated the margins. Minnesota had five
Speaker 1: more turnovers and allowed eight more points on those turnovers
Speaker 1: than New York did. That was a big swing in
Speaker 1: this game. New York won the second chance points battle
Speaker 1: by five points. That's a thirteen point swing just on
Speaker 1: the margins. Right there, free throws. New York got to
Speaker 1: the foul line seventeen additional times than Minnesota did. And
Speaker 1: by the way, before you start screaming about how it
Speaker 1: was rigged. A lot of this has to do with
Speaker 1: play style. This is something I've been a concept I've
Speaker 1: been talking out about a lot on this show, especially
Speaker 1: at the NBA level. The foul count in this game
Speaker 1: was twenty one to seventeen. Wasn't that different. The reason
Speaker 1: why the free throws looked the way they did is
Speaker 1: the Liberty were attempting more shots right at the rim
Speaker 1: and getting fouled on shots right at the rim. The
Speaker 1: play type data pretty obvious. New York posted up nineteen times,
Speaker 1: Minnesota posted up five times. New York drew four separate
Speaker 1: shooting fouls on post ups, they had more offensive rebounds
Speaker 1: Minnesota or New York drew two additional shooting fouls on
Speaker 1: offensive rebounds than Minnesota did. Those are additional trips to
Speaker 1: the foul line that they're generating by virtue of their
Speaker 1: play style. Do I think New York got a favorable
Speaker 1: whistle and that the call at the end of the
Speaker 1: game got botched. Yeah, But also the play style of
Speaker 1: these two teams is kind of conducive to a free
Speaker 1: throw disparity. As a matter of fact, in the regular season,
Speaker 1: Minnesota was dead last and foul shot attempts per game,
Speaker 1: New York was third. So like, if a team is
Speaker 1: really good to get into the foul line and another
Speaker 1: team's not, there's going to be a disparity. That's just
Speaker 1: kind of how it goes. And that disparity manifested throughout
Speaker 1: the entire playoff run by the way, So like again
Speaker 1: I like part of it too, And we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: a lot about officiating later. But like when you go
Speaker 1: on the road in a basketball game, part as a team,
Speaker 1: you're in the locker room going like, guys, we're not
Speaker 1: gonna get calls tonight, especially if you know, going in,
Speaker 1: like you're playing against a team that does a lot
Speaker 1: of grifting and a lot of flopping and a lot
Speaker 1: of trying to get to the foul line, right, you know,
Speaker 1: going in, that's part of the battle that you're trying
Speaker 1: to deal with. We will talk more about officiating later,
Speaker 1: but again, it wasn't just the free throws. New York
Speaker 1: was just better on the margins. They forced more turnovers
Speaker 1: and they scored on them. They won the second chance
Speaker 1: points battle. I thought they executed better Like Sabrinni and
Speaker 1: Escu for a one for nineteen game, she did a
Speaker 1: massively better job running the point than Courtney Williams did.
Speaker 1: Courney Williams was a disaster down the stretch of this game,
Speaker 1: just as a decision maker. Minnesota wasn't even matched up
Speaker 1: on the jump ball to start overtime and gave up
Speaker 1: a wide open three on the right wing without New
Speaker 1: York even having to do anything. Is that the officials
Speaker 1: fault in a one possession game in overtime Kayla McBride
Speaker 1: threw a terrible high post entry pass that turned into
Speaker 1: a pick six in a lay up. The other way
Speaker 1: was that the official's fault. Yes, Minnesota's stars played better
Speaker 1: and that allowed them to be in this game and
Speaker 1: have a really good chance to win. Probably should have won,
Speaker 1: but the Liberty were a smarter team that did a
Speaker 1: better job of executing and avoiding mistakes throughout the game.
Speaker 1: It's always the little things that end up determining who
Speaker 1: wins and loses in these big time basketball games, which
Speaker 1: brings me to the lay foul call. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about this foul call. And again, we all know what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here. It's a play where Breanna Sewer
Speaker 1: catches at the kind of left elbow and she drives
Speaker 1: into the lane, throws up that kind of bullshit shot
Speaker 1: gets fouled, makes the two foul shots since the game
Speaker 1: to overtime, Right, Do I agree with the call? No,
Speaker 1: she traveled on the catch immediately should have been a
Speaker 1: travel boom and a possession turnover going the other way,
Speaker 1: and then even the foul itself. I didn't think that
Speaker 1: the there was some contact, but I didn't think it
Speaker 1: was enough contact to justify two free throws. Would I
Speaker 1: have overturned it on the review? Yes. If I was
Speaker 1: the official and I went over to the video and
Speaker 1: I was watching this and I'm in the WNBA finals,
Speaker 1: like literally the fucking finals, the trophies on the line,
Speaker 1: and I'm watching that video and I'm watching Breonna Stewart
Speaker 1: travel and then throw that shot up against pretty damn
Speaker 1: good defense. In help, I'm saying, like, she doesn't deserve
Speaker 1: two free throws. Here, we're reversing this call. But that's
Speaker 1: just my take. At the same time, I thought the
Speaker 1: decision to uphold the call was at least defensible. Why
Speaker 1: because you technically can't review the travel that's unreviewable. It's
Speaker 1: a flaw on the rule, right, And the foul call
Speaker 1: was made on the floor live, so you need indisputable
Speaker 1: evidence to overturn the call. You're in New York, Brianna
Speaker 1: Stewart is two time finals, MVP is heading to the
Speaker 1: foul line to make two shots to tie the game.
Speaker 1: If you're going to overturn that call, these officials have
Speaker 1: to be damn sure. Again, I would have overturned it,
Speaker 1: but I don't give I care more about the game.
Speaker 1: These officials, they're very, very keyed in on their rules
Speaker 1: right for good reason. It's a flaw in the system.
Speaker 1: But like I understood why they could didn't overturn the call.
Speaker 1: You can't overturn the travel because the travel's not up
Speaker 1: for review, and you can't overturn that foul because it
Speaker 1: looked kind of like as she was straight up, her
Speaker 1: arm came down just a little bit, and that made
Speaker 1: it disputable, and as soon as it's disputable, you can't
Speaker 1: overturn it. So, in short, it was a bad call live,
Speaker 1: and it was really difficult to overturn that same dynamic
Speaker 1: bad call from the official that we go look the monitor,
Speaker 1: and when we look at it, there's just not enough
Speaker 1: evidence by rule to overturn it. That same dynamic happens
Speaker 1: all the time in basketball games. Have we been covering
Speaker 1: the NBA here for a few years, how many times
Speaker 1: have we seen that? Dozens and dozens and dozens of times,
Speaker 1: which brings me to my main takeaway from that whole incident.
Speaker 1: Bad officiating is a part of basketball. Every basketball player
Speaker 1: has been around the game for any amount of time
Speaker 1: knows that if you allow a game to remain, two
Speaker 1: potential variables come into play. One, a bad call might
Speaker 1: go against you, and two, somebody might make some lucky,
Speaker 1: bullshit shot. Every basketball player knows that, shit, it's close.
Speaker 1: Anything can happen. Now, bad call, lucky shot, we could
Speaker 1: lose this game. Everyone knows that. Every basketball player knows that.
Speaker 1: This is why teams are obsessed with building leads and
Speaker 1: maintaining leads, because that is what takes bad luck out
Speaker 1: of the equation as a variable. So this is where
Speaker 1: I think what Cheryl Reeve, head coach of the Links,
Speaker 1: did after the game. I think it's super lame because
Speaker 1: you're right, you get screwed by a bad call at
Speaker 1: the end of the game. You were also soundly out
Speaker 1: playing New York, especially with your stars throughout the game,
Speaker 1: but you made so many mistakes that you failed to
Speaker 1: build the margin to withstand the bad luck at the
Speaker 1: end of the game, instead of focusing on the controllables,
Speaker 1: taking better care of the basketball, holding up better on
Speaker 1: the offensive glass. Some of these huge execution mistakes late,
Speaker 1: like leaving that shooter wide open on the on the
Speaker 1: right wing right after the jump off. All these these
Speaker 1: little control those are controllable mistakes. That's the shit you
Speaker 1: should be mad about. That's the ship that should be
Speaker 1: chewing you up on the inside as you're trying to
Speaker 1: deal with this loss. You go into that game knowing
Speaker 1: I have no control over the officials. You also go
Speaker 1: into the we're gonna talk about this with Stewart and
Speaker 1: Unescu here in a minute. You kind of don't really
Speaker 1: have any control over whether or not shots go in.
Speaker 1: You work your ass off behind the scenes, you shoot
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands and thousands of them, but once you
Speaker 1: get in the game, as soon as you release, it
Speaker 1: either goes in or it doesn't. What you can control
Speaker 1: is your execution. What you can controls your details. And ironically,
Speaker 1: even though Minnesota's stars played way better, New York was
Speaker 1: way sharper on the details and they ended up winning
Speaker 1: the game. For the record, like I was rooting for
Speaker 1: Minnesota in this game, I was pissed off about the
Speaker 1: call too, and the stuff with replay where we have
Speaker 1: replay for the sole purpose of getting the call right,
Speaker 1: and yet we're staring at the video where we watch
Speaker 1: Brianna Stewart travel and we're not allowed to call it.
Speaker 1: That's a problem. And I bitch and want about officiating
Speaker 1: in the big picture all the time. Most officials don't
Speaker 1: understand their role in basketball games. There are a million
Speaker 1: things that they need to get better at. You guys know,
Speaker 1: I complain about that all the time. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to the team and the locker room, I will
Speaker 1: always criticize players and coaches who focus on officiating. It
Speaker 1: is completely out of your control. Again, like going on
Speaker 1: the road in a hostile environment and getting bad calls.
Speaker 1: Has been a part of basketball since James Nasmith hung
Speaker 1: up a peach basket. It is a part of the game.
Speaker 1: It is a variable you know when you go in
Speaker 1: and that is why you fight so hard to avoid
Speaker 1: those types of close games. I do feel terrible for
Speaker 1: Nafisa Collier. She played about as well as you possibly
Speaker 1: can play in a game of that magnitude. She played
Speaker 1: like a champion and she didn't leave a champion, and
Speaker 1: that's gut wrenching, especially how with how dominant she was
Speaker 1: all season. But it is what it is, part of
Speaker 1: the game. A couple of shout outs to Brianna Seward
Speaker 1: and Sabrini and yen Escu. I thought both of them
Speaker 1: showed remarkable mental toughness last night. Now, yes, in the
Speaker 1: narrative business, there is fallout from how poorly they play
Speaker 1: like Are is Sabrina Enescu gonna move up anybody's player
Speaker 1: rankings after that series? Probably not. Did Breonna Stewart demonstrate
Speaker 1: that she was better than the FISA Collier No and
Speaker 1: the Visa Callier out players. She looked like the better
Speaker 1: player in the series, But that's for us. That's for
Speaker 1: the media to figure out in the moment. On your team,
Speaker 1: if you're in, if you're playing with the New York
Speaker 1: Liberty Jersey on that shit doesn't matter. If your shot
Speaker 1: isn't falling and you're failing to get a separation from
Speaker 1: your defender, the worst thing you can do is hang
Speaker 1: your head and get discouraged. That's literally where the philosophy
Speaker 1: of next play mentality comes from nothing that happened previously matters.
Speaker 1: As long as I can find a way to make
Speaker 1: a couple of plays to help my team and get
Speaker 1: the hell out of there with the win, then the
Speaker 1: media can argue and say that I suck all they want.
Speaker 1: But if I just make a couple more plays and
Speaker 1: we win this game, I can go to sleep at night.
Speaker 1: That's the way most of these athletes are approaching this.
Speaker 1: For Stu, it was all game long. She couldn't make anything,
Speaker 1: but she just kept playing her ass off all night.
Speaker 1: She had fifteen rebounds. She was unbelievable defensively, she had
Speaker 1: three blocks. She has this like crazy seven to one wingspan.
Speaker 1: She was impacting the game at so many different levels
Speaker 1: throughout even though she wasn't making shots. Again, she didn't
Speaker 1: play great. No one's gonna leave that game and go
Speaker 1: a man. Brianda Stewart was great. I'm sure she's still
Speaker 1: pissed off when the dust settles on the celebration at all,
Speaker 1: she's gonna think back and be like, man, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: I'd need to be better, right, But she made enough
Speaker 1: plays and she got the win. Is the free throws
Speaker 1: late she missed clutch free throws earlier in the series.
Speaker 1: She missed clutch free throws earlier in the game, less
Speaker 1: than a minute prior. She had two free throws that
Speaker 1: could have tied the game, but then she made the
Speaker 1: big ones at the end. Sabrina in particular really impressed
Speaker 1: me with her resilience because like in the first half,
Speaker 1: she was having an absolute disaster of a game, like
Speaker 1: so bad it was looking like it was gonna be
Speaker 1: on the short list of some of the worst playoff
Speaker 1: performances ever for a star basketball player. Like that's how
Speaker 1: bad it was. Yeah, it was so interesting. Again. I
Speaker 1: was watching with my wife and we were talking about it.
Speaker 1: Like her like facial expressions and body language, you could
Speaker 1: not tell she was having a historically bad game. Somehow,
Speaker 1: her body language never cracked even for a second. She
Speaker 1: just kept her head in the game and tried to
Speaker 1: make a play. Again in the moment, no one's gonna
Speaker 1: save you. You have to save yourself. You have to
Speaker 1: find a way to make plays. I thought she was
Speaker 1: awesome in the second half everywhere except for making shots. Obviously,
Speaker 1: she had a disaster shooting game, there's no way around there.
Speaker 1: But in the second half she had five assists with
Speaker 1: zero turnovers. She hit sobbily and pick and roll for
Speaker 1: layups twice. She hit her in transition, another time in
Speaker 1: a really nice over the top feet generating again, generating
Speaker 1: baskets in a game where baskets were really hard to
Speaker 1: come by. She hit brown A Stewart on a back cut.
Speaker 1: There's a play. She missed a three on the left
Speaker 1: wing again, disaster right. Couldn't hit a shot save her life,
Speaker 1: misses the three, crashes the offensive glass, gets it, pulls
Speaker 1: it out, runs action, hits Brianna Stewart on a back
Speaker 1: cut for a lamp, generating an extra possession and then
Speaker 1: generating a basket out of it. That's that is just
Speaker 1: making a play. You're just making a play to try
Speaker 1: to help your team. She was the one who hit
Speaker 1: Phoebitch on the right wing in overtime for the three.
Speaker 1: She was the one who quickly identified that she was
Speaker 1: open and made the pass. And she made several huge
Speaker 1: defensive plays. She blocked kayleb McBride on like an iso
Speaker 1: little step back three at the top of the key,
Speaker 1: several big lowman rotations. Do you guys remember the play
Speaker 1: where Nafisa was on the right wing and she was
Speaker 1: driving again sobboly and she got into the lane she
Speaker 1: like it was either a pump fake or Sobbily tripped.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what happened, but she ended up getting
Speaker 1: a straight line drive had been layup. Sabrina came flying over,
Speaker 1: jumped vertical like this in the lane and just got
Speaker 1: n Fesaa pump fake. And when Nafista pump faked, Sabili
Speaker 1: was able to recover and blocked her it like eras
Speaker 1: the layup. Sabrina erased the layup with the defensive rotation.
Speaker 1: That's a play. That's making a play again like she
Speaker 1: had a disaster shooting game. There's no way around it.
Speaker 1: No one's sitting here going Sabrina is one of the
Speaker 1: best players in the WNBA. Like, no one's gonna call
Speaker 1: her top five after that series. No one's gonna sit
Speaker 1: there and talk about how amazing she is. And she
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve that necessarily. She had a really bad game.
Speaker 1: She had a bad series for the most part, aside
Speaker 1: from a couple of moments, but I was impressed by
Speaker 1: her mental toughness in the sense that she was having
Speaker 1: with the world watching an absolute disaster of a game,
Speaker 1: and she just kept her eyes on the fucking prize
Speaker 1: and she just made a couple of big plays down
Speaker 1: the stretch. And yeah, you know what, a lot of
Speaker 1: people are gonna talk shit about her in the media
Speaker 1: and in the casual basketball fan base, but she's a
Speaker 1: champion and that's all it really matters, because she made,
Speaker 1: you know, seven or eight big plays in that second half.
Speaker 1: And if she makes six or seven instead of seven
Speaker 1: or eight because she cracks emotionally at some point during
Speaker 1: that stretch, they lose. And that's why when you're having
Speaker 1: those kinds of games again, like young basketball players out there,
Speaker 1: you're having a bad game. Something's going wrong for you,
Speaker 1: whether it's on defense or on offense, the coach is
Speaker 1: upset with you, whatever it is, things are going south.
Speaker 1: Keep your head on straight, keep your eyes on the prize,
Speaker 1: and just try to make a play. A big contested
Speaker 1: defensive rebound, getting back in transition, defense and taking away
Speaker 1: a layup, running your lane and transitioning, getting a layup,
Speaker 1: a really hard screen that gets someone open, a corner
Speaker 1: crash that gets an offensive rebound. Any little thing can
Speaker 1: be that little bit of juice that either gets you
Speaker 1: go or gets your team going, or it could be
Speaker 1: the difference in a game that gets decided by the
Speaker 1: smallest of margins. I thought it was kind of one
Speaker 1: of those games that like young basketball, like young basketball
Speaker 1: players could learn a lot from what happens to bringing
Speaker 1: Yinescu last night. I thought it was an interesting little
Speaker 1: basketball lesson. Congrats to Liberty. I feel bad for the Links,
Speaker 1: but that series was always going to end a heartbreak
Speaker 1: for somebody, right And I mean as far as the
Speaker 1: bad calls going is there's a lot of like kind
Speaker 1: of if he calls that kind of took place in
Speaker 1: that series. Again, it's part of the game. It is
Speaker 1: what it is. Basketball officiating is in a bad place
Speaker 1: for the most part, and it's always going to be
Speaker 1: something that players have to be prepared for. As far
Speaker 1: as covering the WNBA goes again, like I'd love to
Speaker 1: try to do it more, the unfortunate reality is is
Speaker 1: that I kill myself covering the NBA. I mean, you
Speaker 1: guys see in the playoffs. In the playoffs, we do
Speaker 1: what more than ten new episodes a week, and like
Speaker 1: part of the deal there is then we come right
Speaker 1: out of that and it's draft and its free agency,
Speaker 1: and it's I have to go to Vegas for Summer League,
Speaker 1: and I've got all this shit going on, and then
Speaker 1: it's like I gotta take a break at some point,
Speaker 1: and so like I try to take August and September
Speaker 1: is times when I try to tone it back and
Speaker 1: spend more time with my loved ones and try to
Speaker 1: take a little bit of a break from basketball. But
Speaker 1: I will say this, I think it's an awesome television product.
Speaker 1: I think the players are incredibly talented. I think the
Speaker 1: quality of the basketball is really good. I think the
Speaker 1: parody is really good. I think it's entertaining, and we
Speaker 1: will be trying to cover it a little bit more
Speaker 1: with each of the coming years. And just again, it's
Speaker 1: always a delicate balance with trying to navigate the time
Speaker 1: off type of situation, and it's more complicated than just me.
Speaker 1: There's other people that work on this show as well.
Speaker 1: But we will try to cover it more and more,
Speaker 1: if for no other reason that I'm a huge basketball
Speaker 1: fan and I enjoy watching I really enjoyed watching the
Speaker 1: WNBA this year. All right, let's quick go over some
Speaker 1: predictions on this upcoming NBA season. First of all, disclaimer
Speaker 1: up front. I will be wrong a lot. I'll be
Speaker 1: wrong about a lot of this stuff. If NBA basketball
Speaker 1: was easy to predict, we'd all be rich betting on it, right,
Speaker 1: But it's not. It's really hard to predict because I,
Speaker 1: as Mark Titus said when he came on the show
Speaker 1: last year, basketball is more art than science, and I
Speaker 1: believe that sincerely. Like there's a concoction of ingredients, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it mixes together and makes it makes something beautiful,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it mixes together and it makes something less
Speaker 1: than beautiful, or it just doesn't amount to what you
Speaker 1: hope it would, right like that, That's part of the game.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna just do our best to try to
Speaker 1: make some predictions because that's part of the fun of this.
Speaker 1: And I'll just kind of get into each conference to
Speaker 1: let you guys know what I'm thinking. So Eastern Conference
Speaker 1: regular season, I think the Celtics will run away with
Speaker 1: the one seed again. Again, they're too much of a
Speaker 1: well oiled machine. They're too deep and specific position groups
Speaker 1: not to just win a ton of regular season games.
Speaker 1: My guess is the Knicks get the two seed. Similarly
Speaker 1: deep and talented, not at the same level as Boston
Speaker 1: but I think I as I've said before in some
Speaker 1: of our preseason reactions, I think the Knicks are just
Speaker 1: a lesser version of Boston. They should still win a
Speaker 1: lot of regular season games on the strength of a
Speaker 1: similar type of engine, even if it's not as good
Speaker 1: as Boston. Don't be surprised if teams like Cleveland, Orlando
Speaker 1: and Indiana finish above Philly or Milwaukee. They're younger, and
Speaker 1: they're faster, and they just are at a different phase
Speaker 1: in their team development where they care more about regular
Speaker 1: season games. Philly will have to play without EMBII in
Speaker 1: all likelihood for at least thirty of their games. Milwaukee
Speaker 1: couldn't even get to fifty wins out East with Damon
Speaker 1: Giannis both playing seventy three games. Now. I think they'll
Speaker 1: be better than they were last year, but I don't
Speaker 1: view them as some sort of regular season juggernaut that's
Speaker 1: going to win a ton of games. They're old, and
Speaker 1: they're slow, and Chris Middleton is going to be out
Speaker 1: to start the regular season. So my guess is, don't
Speaker 1: be surprised if at least one of those tea teams,
Speaker 1: Philly or Milwaukee, drops into that four to six range.
Speaker 1: In the standings. I do think both of them are
Speaker 1: substantially better playoff teams than Orlando, Indiana or Cleveland, but
Speaker 1: in terms of the regular season standings, keep an eye
Speaker 1: on that. In the playoffs, I've tried to think through
Speaker 1: ways Boston could lose. Boston is built similarly to New York,
Speaker 1: but I just think they're better. So I'm having a
Speaker 1: hard time seeing a path there, like there's a chance.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying the Knicks can't beat them, but it
Speaker 1: just feels like a long shot to me. Philly and Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: I don't think they're good enough at containing the basketball
Speaker 1: in space to defend Boston well enough to beat them
Speaker 1: four times in two weeks. So I think Boston probably
Speaker 1: gets pushed by one of those teams, probably to six,
Speaker 1: probably by if I had to guess a team like
Speaker 1: New York. But I'd be really surprised if Boston didn't
Speaker 1: win the East. Again. I think that's probably the of
Speaker 1: all between the two conferences. It's certainly the easier pick
Speaker 1: out West okoame the city loses heart and sign to
Speaker 1: start the year, but I still think they run away
Speaker 1: with the conference in the regular season. That just have
Speaker 1: the best combination of good fitting talent and youthful exuberance
Speaker 1: that will play hard by a good margin. Out West
Speaker 1: Minnesota feels like the obvious two seas to me, they're young,
Speaker 1: they're talented, they're athletic, and they're great at defense, and
Speaker 1: they have a superstar plays in every single game. So
Speaker 1: I think there'll be a few games back from Oklahoma City,
Speaker 1: but I think Minnesota will get the two. The next
Speaker 1: tier is a total bloodbath. Like I think the next
Speaker 1: best four teams are Denver, Dallas, Phoenix, and the Lakers.
Speaker 1: But and I'd include excuse me, I'd include Memphis in
Speaker 1: that tier if John Moran is healthy. But then there's
Speaker 1: like these younger teams that aren't necessarily as good, but
Speaker 1: they have a lot of young talent and they could
Speaker 1: win a lot of regular season games, like the Pelicans,
Speaker 1: the Warriors, the Houston Rockets. Those are all teams that
Speaker 1: could be in similar win tiers as Denver, Dallas, Phoenix,
Speaker 1: and the Lakers, even despite the fact that they don't
Speaker 1: have as much talent. Now here's where it gets weird.
Speaker 1: Only four of those teams will stay out of the
Speaker 1: play in, So let's work backwards. Who do I think
Speaker 1: is going to miss the play in entirely. I think
Speaker 1: Houston misses the play in. I don't think they have
Speaker 1: enough shooting, that's the main thing. Houston has a ton
Speaker 1: of talent. They've got a deep rotation of really good players,
Speaker 1: but they've got a lot of guys that you can
Speaker 1: sag off into the lane and help. I think that's
Speaker 1: going to hurt them in close games. I expect them
Speaker 1: to be right around where they were last year, right
Speaker 1: around five hundred, maybe a little bit below, and I
Speaker 1: think that I think that keeps them out of the plane.
Speaker 1: I think San Antonio misses the plane. I don't think
Speaker 1: they have the talent over the course of the season
Speaker 1: to hang tight. But they obviously have a chance with
Speaker 1: Victor weman Yama if he just goes full wrecking ball.
Speaker 1: The third team of the thirteen teams in the Western
Speaker 1: Conference that are trying to win, the third team that
Speaker 1: I think will miss the plane is probably going to
Speaker 1: be the Clippers. I had high hopes for the Clippers
Speaker 1: if Kawhi was healthy and ready to go to start
Speaker 1: the season, but he's just not and who knows, he
Speaker 1: might not play it all this year, at least not
Speaker 1: for a very long time, and that just puts a
Speaker 1: lot on Norman Powell as their secondary shot creator. So
Speaker 1: I think they'll end up slipping. I like that roster
Speaker 1: with a healthy Kawhi to be a good regular season team,
Speaker 1: but without a healthy Kawhi, I don't know if they
Speaker 1: can do it. So if I had to pick, and
Speaker 1: again there this is just my attempt at a prediction.
Speaker 1: This is a total bloodbath. After the time, I think, Okay,
Speaker 1: C Minnesota is a pretty clear one too, But the
Speaker 1: next seven or the next eight, who the hell knows
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen. If I had to guess, I'd go
Speaker 1: Denver in Dallas above the plane for sure, and then
Speaker 1: the next the two spots. I think the three teams
Speaker 1: that will be competing for that are the Memphis Grizzlies
Speaker 1: and then the Lakers and the Suns. All three of
Speaker 1: them are health All their success depends on health. If
Speaker 1: Kadie misses significant time, the Suns are screwed. If AD
Speaker 1: missed a significant time, the Suns are screwed. If if
Speaker 1: John Moran, if AD miss a significant time, the Lakers
Speaker 1: are screwed. Excuse me. And then if John Morant misses
Speaker 1: extensive time. The Grizzlies are screwed, So who knows what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen in health there, But all three of those
Speaker 1: teams I think are gonna be battling for that four
Speaker 1: and five or for that five and six spot. One
Speaker 1: of those teams is going to slip into the plan.
Speaker 1: Whichever one of those teams has the worst injury luck
Speaker 1: will drop to seven. Then I would have the Pelicans,
Speaker 1: the Kings, and the Warriors as the three teams that
Speaker 1: end up getting into the play in with Houston, San
Speaker 1: Antonio and the Clippers end up missing. Standings don't matter
Speaker 1: that much out West. Last year, the Clippers were the
Speaker 1: four seed. The Clippers were the four seed, and they
Speaker 1: were two games ahead of the Pelicans, who are playing team.
Speaker 1: Pelicans had forty nine wins playing team. Clippers had fifty
Speaker 1: one wins home court advantage in the first round. So
Speaker 1: like a lot of this, like oh, they're a playing team.
Speaker 1: That means a fundamentally different thing in the West than
Speaker 1: it does in the East. If you're playing team in
Speaker 1: the East, you're probably a bad basketball team. If you're
Speaker 1: a playing team in the West, I'm certain you're a
Speaker 1: good basketball team because they're gonna be three good basketball
Speaker 1: teams that missed the play in entirely out West. And
Speaker 1: of those three teams, I'm sure a couple of them
Speaker 1: will be bad, but there's gonna be a good team.
Speaker 1: My guess is Houston. There's gonna be a good basketball
Speaker 1: team that would easily make the playoffs in the Eastern
Speaker 1: Conference that's going to miss the play in entirely West.
Speaker 1: There were five games total separating the four seed from
Speaker 1: the ten seed in the Western Conference. Again, home court
Speaker 1: advantage in the first round, have to win two single
Speaker 1: elimination playing games on the road. Five wins separated those
Speaker 1: two teams. There's no shame in finishing in the playing
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference. As far as the playoffs go
Speaker 1: for the West, it's all about matchups. Makes it extremely
Speaker 1: hard to predict. It's quite literally up for grabs. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, I could see seven different teams winning the conference.
Speaker 1: I could see Oka see winning the conference. I could
Speaker 1: see Denver winning the conference. I could see Minnesota winning
Speaker 1: the conference. I could see Dallas winning the conference. I
Speaker 1: could see Phoenix winning the conference. I could see the
Speaker 1: Lakers winning the conference. And I could see Memphis winning
Speaker 1: the conference. Those are the seven teams that I view
Speaker 1: as legitimate threats to win the conference. I think Denver
Speaker 1: presents the biggest singular matchup issue in the conference, which
Speaker 1: is Nicole Jokich. So I'm going to pick Denver, but
Speaker 1: I don't feel particularly great about it, certainly not as
Speaker 1: the I feel about Boston. Like I would be surprised
Speaker 1: if Boston won or did not win the Eastern Conference.
Speaker 1: Any one of those seven teams could win the West,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't be surprised. As for the finals, though,
Speaker 1: if Okac or Denver get through, I think they have
Speaker 1: a legit shot to beat Boston, I would pick Boston,
Speaker 1: but I think Okac and Denver present enough issues to
Speaker 1: Boston to at least make it a long, competitive series
Speaker 1: that could go either way. Even though I'd picked Boston.
Speaker 1: Minnesota has an interesting shot. They're so good in perimeter
Speaker 1: defense that they should, in theory, be able to slow
Speaker 1: down Boston's drive and kick attack, right, But I just
Speaker 1: don't think they're gonna be able to score enough to
Speaker 1: hang with Boston. So that's an effer if you won
Speaker 1: for me. If the Lakers' Suns Grizzlies are MAVs, sneak
Speaker 1: through the West. I think they get smashed by Boston,
Speaker 1: just like Dallas did last year, unless one of those
Speaker 1: teams hits on a big trade or has a young
Speaker 1: player pop. Right, So, like, if the Lakers trade d
Speaker 1: Low in two first round draft picks and they get
Speaker 1: a great haul back, they could be more interesting. If
Speaker 1: Ryan Done for the Phoenix Suns turns into this like
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent three point shooter is one of the
Speaker 1: best defensive players in the league and a great defensive rebounder,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the Suns become way more interesting
Speaker 1: and dangerous. Right. What if Derek Lively for the MAVs
Speaker 1: just becomes like a fringe all Star level player, that's
Speaker 1: a huge swing factor for Dallas. What if Klay Thompson
Speaker 1: kind of has like a defensive resurgence with Dallas this year.
Speaker 1: What if John Moran just becomes one of the top
Speaker 1: five or six players in the league over the course
Speaker 1: of this season. That sort of thing could swing things
Speaker 1: for those teams. But as currently constructed and as I've
Speaker 1: currently seen them, I think all four of those teams
Speaker 1: will get smashed by Boston if they got through. So
Speaker 1: for right now, pick Denver against Boston. I'll pick Boston
Speaker 1: to beat them in the finals in six or seven games.
Speaker 1: Not exactly a brave prediction, but they have the best team.
Speaker 1: I do think they'll face more adversity this year. I
Speaker 1: think they'll I think we'll have more fun at the
Speaker 1: end of the year just by virtue of some more
Speaker 1: extended playoffs series in the our conference finals in NBA
Speaker 1: Finals sucked two years in a row. I think we're
Speaker 1: gonna finally get a good end of the season this year. MVP.
Speaker 1: I think it's extremely likely that Shay Gilos Alexander gets it.
Speaker 1: I think Luke would be my second choice, but I
Speaker 1: really worry about the MAVs winning enough regular season games
Speaker 1: in order to get the MVP. Like if Shae finishes
Speaker 1: seven or eight games above Dallas and the standings like
Speaker 1: Shaye's getting MVP. I just think sha like everything is
Speaker 1: just shaping up perfectly for Shae to get the MVP
Speaker 1: this year. Young player I expect to pop this year.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with Kaide Cunningham. He has a more
Speaker 1: traditional supporting cast, looks really sharp. In preseason. He actually
Speaker 1: generated the most points out of pick and roll out
Speaker 1: of any player in the league. In preseason, he generated
Speaker 1: eighty points on sixty five possessions including passes. It's one
Speaker 1: point two to three points per possession. That's amazing. He
Speaker 1: has excellent chemistry with Jalen Durr and he's got this
Speaker 1: like lob feed that he throws, and Jalen's so good
Speaker 1: at high pointing the ball coming down and then just
Speaker 1: like power dribble and just going up and dunking it
Speaker 1: with two hands. Got really good patience in the mid range.
Speaker 1: Shot over forty percent on pull of shots in preseason,
Speaker 1: Luca esque manipulation of help side defenders as he kind
Speaker 1: of patiently works in that mid range. Look for Kid
Speaker 1: Cunningham to have a huge year this year. One of
Speaker 1: these older teams with high expectations is going to completely
Speaker 1: fall apart. The Bucks, the Sixers, the Lakers, and the
Speaker 1: Suns are the four teams I have my eye on there.
Speaker 1: I don't know who it's going to be, probably gonna
Speaker 1: involve an injury to a star, but one of those
Speaker 1: teams is going to fall apart, maybe even more than one.
Speaker 1: But it just seems like almost a certainty that one
Speaker 1: of those four teams is going to have a very
Speaker 1: disappointing season, probably based on injury luck. A couple of
Speaker 1: mediocre teams is our last bit for today. A couple
Speaker 1: of mediocre teams that I expect to be surprisingly good.
Speaker 1: These are the four teams that I put picked out.
Speaker 1: All these teams, I think people expect to struggle, but
Speaker 1: I think will be pretty solid. One Golden State. They
Speaker 1: didn't make a trade this offseason, and so we already
Speaker 1: knew without a doubt from last year that they just
Speaker 1: don't have the firepower to hang with the top teams
Speaker 1: in the league. But they added some high level role
Speaker 1: players that specific fit their style really well on both ends.
Speaker 1: They looked super sharp in preseason. They look like a
Speaker 1: team to me that's going to really hold up well
Speaker 1: against the lower end teams on their schedule, which should
Speaker 1: keep them afloat in the standings. And watch out if
Speaker 1: Steph has a little bit of a bounce back year
Speaker 1: and gets back to like near where he was when
Speaker 1: he was a top five player in this league. That
Speaker 1: could be something that swings a bunch of clutch games
Speaker 1: for Golden State and then suddenly they could be in
Speaker 1: a much more favorable position. They're a candidate for mid
Speaker 1: season trade as well. That could move some things. But
Speaker 1: I think Steve Kerr is the second best coach in
Speaker 1: the NBA. I think Steph Curry and Draymond Green are
Speaker 1: incredible leaders. I think they look super locked in. Don't
Speaker 1: be surprised if Golden State is super scrappy this year.
Speaker 1: The Clippers were a team I was super high on
Speaker 1: before the not high as like a playoff threat, but
Speaker 1: high as a regular season team before the Kawhi injury.
Speaker 1: They lose Paul George, everyone's off the set, but they
Speaker 1: just have all these good perimeter defenders and James Harden
Speaker 1: is a really good regular season offensive engine. Zubach is
Speaker 1: the perfect pick and roll partner for him. Again, just
Speaker 1: like you, full exuberance and speed on the perimeter combined
Speaker 1: with good half court shot creation. I just believe in
Speaker 1: that formula for winning regular season games. So even without Kawhi,
Speaker 1: even though I think now without Kawhi they'll probably slip
Speaker 1: out of the play in I think even without Kawhi,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be paying the ass and they're gonna win.
Speaker 1: They're gonna win some games this year where like they
Speaker 1: look like the easy win on the schedule, and then
Speaker 1: it's like, holy shit, the Clippers beat him again or
Speaker 1: whatever it is, Like, I think they're gonna be a
Speaker 1: decent team this year. The Hawks, they lose to Jonte Murray,
Speaker 1: but Trey Young is probably a little bit underrated at
Speaker 1: this point as a guy to run a team. And
Speaker 1: then Jalen Johnson has looked insanely good in preseason. He
Speaker 1: shot seventy five percent on jump shots, obviously a small sample,
Speaker 1: but shot the seams off the basketball seventy nine percent
Speaker 1: at the rim. They got some young talent. They're gonna
Speaker 1: be exciting. I haven't had a chance really to watch
Speaker 1: Zachary Risochet really closely, but we will watch him over
Speaker 1: the course of the season. The Charlotte Hornets are the
Speaker 1: last team I put down lots of young talent with
Speaker 1: LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges, and Brandon Miller. Charles Lee has
Speaker 1: him playing a really fun brand of basketball. They're generating
Speaker 1: a ton of three point shots they got. I think
Speaker 1: they're just gonna be a really fun league past team
Speaker 1: this year. Don't be surprised if they end up sneaking
Speaker 1: into that eight nine range in the Eastern Conference standings
Speaker 1: as well. All right, guys, that's all I have for today.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to get into the season with you
Speaker 1: guys starting tomorrow night. Remember no show during the day tomorrow,
Speaker 1: but we will be live after the final buzzer Timberwolves
Speaker 1: Lakers on YouTube. I will see you guys then the volume.
Speaker 1: What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening
Speaker 1: to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really
Speaker 1: helpful for us if you guys would take a second
Speaker 1: and leave a rating and a review. As always, I
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take
Speaker 1: a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.