Speaker 1: You're you're listening to the Hottest, the Hottest podcast out here.
Speaker 2: I said what I said, it's the Heat Check, Heat
Speaker 2: Check Check on this episode of the Heat Check. Two
Speaker 2: weeks left in the NBA season, Baby.
Speaker 1: We've got a surprise firing just nine games left in
Speaker 1: the regular seasons. Taylor Jenkins gets the acts in Memphis immediately.
Speaker 2: The gun fingers returned in his absence.
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown is hurt and it might impact everything. Ad
Speaker 1: has returned to Dallas. Don't know how Dallas feels about that.
Speaker 1: It's a nice story, but it won't impact anything at all.
Speaker 1: And Bad Boys Too has hit Detroit.
Speaker 2: That Pistons team is coming out swinging all the way
Speaker 2: to the playoffs. So much to talk about. Drop that
Speaker 2: motherfucker beat that should be Rihanna. Oh boy.
Speaker 1: So we gotta talk about something that's pretty rare, pretty
Speaker 1: under the radar, Definitely something that most national media didn't
Speaker 1: see coming. A lot of people in Memphis did see coming.
Speaker 1: Memphis Grizzlies have fired longtime coach Taylor Jenkins with nine
Speaker 1: games left in the regular season.
Speaker 2: A lot of people were shocked.
Speaker 1: Not the least of which because it occurred so late.
Speaker 1: What a crazy time to be deciding to swap out coaches,
Speaker 1: especially this team will be in the playoffs. If you
Speaker 1: read the tea leaves, though, you knew that something at
Speaker 1: some point was going to happen like this because in
Speaker 1: the offseason nearly all of Taylor Jenkins had assistant coaches
Speaker 1: excuse me, were fired over the summer, and Taylor Jenkins
Speaker 1: wasn't the one to fire them. This was in order
Speaker 1: from above from Zach Clemen. Any coach who loses their
Speaker 1: entire coaching staff at the behest of not them probably
Speaker 1: doesn't have a very long lace from the front office,
Speaker 1: and that turned out to be the case for Taylor Jenkins.
Speaker 1: The new coaching staff installed a new offense. Taylor Jenkins
Speaker 1: was essentially a lame duck, and for some reason, nine
Speaker 1: games left in the season, they decided to give.
Speaker 2: Him the acts right then.
Speaker 1: It's not surprising that he got fired, but it is
Speaker 1: surprising that he got fired when he did. I would
Speaker 1: have been much more understanding if this happened at the.
Speaker 2: All Star break. So there's like a lot of strange days.
Speaker 1: Going on beneath the surface in Memphis that I think
Speaker 1: need to be explained.
Speaker 2: Take Noel la Roche. Noel L.
Speaker 1: Roche was hired over the summer to replace one of
Speaker 1: jenkins fired assistants, specifically to change and revamp the Memphis offense,
Speaker 1: moving away from the pick and rolls that John Morant,
Speaker 1: their star player loves so much, to a motion offense,
Speaker 1: and it's largely worked. The motion offense that Laroche implemented
Speaker 1: had the Grizzlies with the sixth most potent offense in
Speaker 1: the entire NBA, so that was working, and then he
Speaker 1: was fired at the same time Jenkins was fired. So
Speaker 1: Zach Kleman didn't like Taylor jenkins offense, hired somebody to
Speaker 1: fix the offense, and then fired both those guys with
Speaker 1: nine games left with the Grizzlies in fourth place, So
Speaker 1: what is happening?
Speaker 2: What's going on in Memphis?
Speaker 1: Just from a schedule standpoint, the Grizzlies are a disappointment
Speaker 1: by all intents and purposes. They have not beaten a
Speaker 1: five hundred team since defeating the Bucks on February second,
Speaker 1: which is insane. That's almost two months. That's over two months.
Speaker 1: That is a damning stat. The team has been plagued
Speaker 1: again with injuries. John Moran has missed thirty games. Gigi
Speaker 1: Jackson and Vince Williams have been out a bunch of games,
Speaker 1: Brandon Clark is not done for the season, and Jenkins
Speaker 1: has done a pretty good job juggling lineups in order
Speaker 1: to make this team competitive. At the time of this
Speaker 1: they fall into eighth place, just a game out of fifth.
Speaker 1: So that's how tight things are in the Western Conference.
Speaker 1: Not exactly the time to be.
Speaker 2: Letting your coach go.
Speaker 1: Assistant coach tuamas ia Zolo, whom the Grizzlies hired before
Speaker 1: the season, he was the one making major bread. I
Speaker 1: think he got paid in the millions of dollars per
Speaker 1: year as an assistant coach, so we knew what time
Speaker 1: it was. Most likely, if somebody gets clipped, he's the
Speaker 1: one to take that guy's place. There will be no
Speaker 1: white horse and no White Knight riding in to save
Speaker 1: this team the final stretches of the season. Ia Solo
Speaker 1: is a finish offensive savant. He brought in to help
Speaker 1: reconfigure Memphis offense as well. Now he's been given the reins.
Speaker 1: I think the job is his. I think the job
Speaker 1: has been his. All of this begs the question, though,
Speaker 1: how does Jean Moran feel about this. All the reports
Speaker 1: are that he had zero impact in Jenkins's firing. Indeed,
Speaker 1: he was completely in the dark, was riding ten toes
Speaker 1: down with Taylor Jenkins since that was the coach he
Speaker 1: had since the beginning of his career in the NBA,
Speaker 1: and that remained the case to the day that Taylor
Speaker 1: Jenkins was fired. And now jaw enters a mega extension
Speaker 1: where there's a ton of questions about whether he wants
Speaker 1: to be there or whether even Memphis wants him to
Speaker 1: be there in the long run.
Speaker 2: Memphis went on record earlier this season.
Speaker 1: Remember where they said, hey, keep dreaming, we're not trading
Speaker 1: this man. But that's a lot of money to pay
Speaker 1: a guy who's not playing even close to the eighty
Speaker 1: two games in the season. Issues that seem to have
Speaker 1: been put to bed, like, for example, the whole Jahn
Speaker 1: Morant and gunsting have re emerged in the firing when
Speaker 1: John Morant simulated gun figures at Steph Curry and Buddy
Speaker 1: Held in the Golden State bench. And not only were
Speaker 1: John Buddy Healed warned by the league to stop with
Speaker 1: this nonsense, yet again John Morant the very next game
Speaker 1: did it again. Desmond ban came after Santi Aldaman the
Speaker 1: Hundle last week, pushing him down and telling him.
Speaker 2: To play fucking harder.
Speaker 1: So let's just say the roster has had some turmoil.
Speaker 1: A reporter for The Athletic wrote this about Jaw. Someday
Speaker 1: Joh looks like he's ready to play, and some days
Speaker 1: he looks like he doesn't want to be there because
Speaker 1: he hates the offense. So if this new guy wants
Speaker 1: an offense that the star player hates, how is that
Speaker 1: gonna go? Despite GM Zach Kleman saying that the rumors
Speaker 1: that the Grizzlies might shop Jaws Jow is a fantasy,
Speaker 1: the Grizzlies fired the only coach the Jamur ever had.
Speaker 2: They fired his favorite.
Speaker 1: Assistant coach last summer, a guy who spent two years
Speaker 1: working with him during a rehab, and the controversy following
Speaker 1: the rehab.
Speaker 2: It does not sound like the franchise.
Speaker 1: Is doing everything that they can in their power to
Speaker 1: keep their superstar happy. Kind of wild keeping your star
Speaker 1: in the dark while you fire a coach probably also
Speaker 1: not great fascinating storyline. As for Taylor Jenkins, I think
Speaker 1: he's gonna be a hot commodity. I think a bunch
Speaker 1: of teams are gonna want him. He's the kind of
Speaker 1: coach of the team like Portland might want, a team
Speaker 1: like Sacramento might want. So much of this now depends
Speaker 1: in Memphis on how they do the playoffs. Most people
Speaker 1: thought the Memphis were gonna lose, probably in the first round.
Speaker 1: They were dead ducks, sitting ducks. And that's if they
Speaker 1: make the playoffs at all. The truth of the matter is,
Speaker 1: even if they do make the playoffs, are they gonna
Speaker 1: be favored against anyone? I don't think so. If they
Speaker 1: make the play in probably gonna be a rock fight.
Speaker 1: An early exit in the playoffs is just gonna cause
Speaker 1: more speculation about what the outcome for Taylor Jenkins and
Speaker 1: Memphis will be. And a whole lot of that is
Speaker 1: thinking about whether you can win a title with John Morant.
Speaker 1: All Right, moving on, seems weird to speak in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form negatively about the Boston Celtics, But there's
Speaker 1: just a tiny hiccup in the back to back title
Speaker 1: possibility that threatens to blossom into a full blown issue,
Speaker 1: and that is that Jalen Brown is hurt. Jalen Brown
Speaker 1: has what is called a right knee posterior impingement, an
Speaker 1: injury that has caused him a bunch of discomfort on
Speaker 1: the court, has time limited his playing time in a
Speaker 1: bunch of games, and even though he's still putting up
Speaker 1: numbers he had twenty four four nine and this lost
Speaker 1: the Miami Heat the other night, he basically acknowledged that
Speaker 1: he's just gonna be playing through pain. Yeah, he said
Speaker 1: he's committed to playing and playing aggressively even though he's
Speaker 1: not gonna be feeling good.
Speaker 2: There are a couple of ways to look at this.
Speaker 1: First of all, Jalen Brown says he's working with the
Speaker 1: medical staff to undergo treatments to get his knee ready.
Speaker 2: For the playoffs, which is still at this point a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks wait.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, when they play the seventh seed,
Speaker 1: they're probably not gonna be playing anyone they really care
Speaker 1: that much about. Seems like enough time to get right.
Speaker 1: But here's what he had to say at the presser.
Speaker 1: He said, I've got some stuff lined up with the
Speaker 1: medical staff in order to feel better come playoffs. But
Speaker 1: for now, you know, it's just mentally working through not
Speaker 1: feeling great but finding ways to be effective on the
Speaker 1: other hand, if Jalen Brown continues to be gimpy, his
Speaker 1: ongoing knee issue probably means he's not gonna be nearly
Speaker 1: as effective in the postseason and his amount of minutes,
Speaker 1: his amount of usage is going to be limited, meaning
Speaker 1: that the two headed Snake might just end up being
Speaker 1: Tatum and some other player that needs to step up
Speaker 1: on any given night, and the Celtics then have to
Speaker 1: rely more on their depth, like our man Peyton Pritchard,
Speaker 1: like our man Christas Porzingis, and who, by the way,
Speaker 1: is also facing some lingering health concerns heading into the
Speaker 1: playoffs as well. Listen, I'm not one to make anything
Speaker 1: out of a couple of games. The Heat had one
Speaker 1: of the better games of the year. They broke back
Speaker 1: Boston's nine game winning streak. But this team is just
Speaker 1: not nearly as good without a completely healthy JB. And
Speaker 1: if he's not there one hundred percent, that means that
Speaker 1: the Celtics are beatable. And there are a lot of
Speaker 1: teams out there looking at take the crown from the
Speaker 1: Celtics aka the Cleveland Cavaliers, and they're coming, baby, they
Speaker 1: are coming.
Speaker 2: Okay, moving on, woo. Anthony Davis is back.
Speaker 1: So the Dallas Mavericks probably one of the weirder, most
Speaker 1: goofiest teams in the NBA this season. They are clinging
Speaker 1: onto the ninth spot in the West, and I don't
Speaker 1: know necessarily if they even want that, But the man
Speaker 1: at the center of the most controversial trade in modern
Speaker 1: NBA history is back. The guy that our man, Nico Harrison,
Speaker 1: is taking his entire future on, finally came back from
Speaker 1: injury after playing just one half of basketball for the
Speaker 1: team that just traded for him. And holy shit, did
Speaker 1: he ever make a re entrance. Remember in his MAVs debut,
Speaker 1: Ad had a game for the Ages. He had twenty six,
Speaker 1: sixteen and seven in basically the first half of a game.
Speaker 1: The MAVs beat a tough Rockets team won sixteen one
Speaker 1: oh five. The problem was that he heard his missed.
Speaker 1: The next eighteen games, MAVs were falling fast in the standings.
Speaker 2: Of course, Kyrie Irving also towards ACL.
Speaker 1: Then on March twenty fourth, he made his return, and
Speaker 1: ever since he's been back in the LA lineup. The
Speaker 1: MAVs are now four and one. His last game thirty four,
Speaker 1: fifteen and two with five blocks and a game winning
Speaker 1: bucket in the final seconds against Atlanta, a team that's
Speaker 1: trying to get into the plan as well. The wild
Speaker 1: part is that our man took an elbow to the face,
Speaker 1: he left the game, got four stitches, and still managed
Speaker 1: to come back and hit the game winner.
Speaker 2: Ad is a star.
Speaker 1: He is an All Star, one of the best players
Speaker 1: in the NBA by all accounts, a good dude. He's
Speaker 1: also been historically very fragile, so it kind of sucks
Speaker 1: that he's been seen by some people as the bad
Speaker 1: guy in the Luca trade, even though according to Jenie Buss,
Speaker 1: he was unhappy, he did want to leave LA and
Speaker 1: probably was looking for a way out, but he's just
Speaker 1: never going to get over with MAVs fans the way
Speaker 1: that Luca did. Luca was endeared, he was loved, and
Speaker 1: that's not just because Anthony Davis can't win he won
Speaker 1: a chip in LA, but because Luca is a young
Speaker 1: generational player, transcendent player who didn't look like a generational
Speaker 1: player at the time where they got used to guys
Speaker 1: like Dirk Novitzky, and Luca kind of fell walking into
Speaker 1: his footsteps. The other only other player in the league
Speaker 1: right now that's like that is probably Nicole Jokic. So
Speaker 1: what does his return mean for the MAVs. They're currently
Speaker 1: thirty eight and thirty nine. They sit ninth in the West.
Speaker 1: The recent return of Ad couple with the anticipated comebacks
Speaker 1: of players like Derek Lively Daniel Gafford makes them a
Speaker 1: huge question mark, but Vegas is not buying it. The
Speaker 1: MAVs playoff odds right now are plus six hundred, which
Speaker 1: is less than a fifteen percent chance to make the postseason,
Speaker 1: and that turns to zero without Anthony Davis.
Speaker 2: I'm happy Anthony Davis is back on the court.
Speaker 1: It's probably the only thing that MAVs fans can even
Speaker 1: cheer for. But listen, this is one of the more
Speaker 1: stacked drafts in recent memory.
Speaker 2: So maybe just maybe.
Speaker 1: Missing the playoffs all together is a good thing for Dallas.
Speaker 2: Okay, moving on, you guys.
Speaker 1: Remember the Malice in the Palace, boy I do. I
Speaker 1: was a freshman year, a freshman in college. We watched
Speaker 1: it into my sports marketing class. It was fucking wild,
Speaker 1: no franchise and it has a longer history of brutality
Speaker 1: and force and fighting in the NBA than the Detroit Pistons.
Speaker 2: They were the reason. There was a reason that they
Speaker 2: were called the bad boys. They were swinging on.
Speaker 1: Everybody call these guys the JB. Bickerstaff Pistons bad boys too,
Speaker 1: because if it's not Isaiah Stewart clawbering Thomas Bryant, it's
Speaker 1: Ron Holland coming for Jordan Clarkson. Every night the Pistons
Speaker 1: are in some sort of squabble and they are down
Speaker 1: with it. The latest is a full blown bench clearing
Speaker 1: brawl between Ron Holland.
Speaker 2: And Dante DiVincenzo.
Speaker 1: Holland fouled nas Reed, Dante DiVincenzo is Saya. Stewart of
Speaker 1: course started a jaw and then everything went to hell
Speaker 1: and a hand biscuit basket, Both benches emptied, the entire
Speaker 1: scrum fell in the stands under the basket of one
Speaker 1: of the uglier moments of the season, and in the
Speaker 1: end seven people got ejected. Seven Pistons head coach JB. Bickerstaff,
Speaker 1: assistant coach Pablo Prigioni, Wow and players Ron Holland, Stuart Sasser,
Speaker 1: along with Timberwolves De Vincenzo and nas Reed. Following the review,
Speaker 1: the NBA suspended Stu for two games due to his
Speaker 1: prior history of unsportsman like contact. Remember he got into
Speaker 1: it with Lebron James, while Ron Holland Marcus Sasser, nas
Speaker 1: Reed Dante DiVincenzo each received one game suspensions. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna say this, I like the Pistons. I like this feistiness.
Speaker 1: This is so much better than winning fourteen games and
Speaker 1: doing an goddamn thing. They don't back down to anyone.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see them in the playoffs. Isaiah
Speaker 1: Stewart loves to fight. We knew that from back in
Speaker 1: the day. He couldn't wait to fight Lebron James and
Speaker 1: throw elbows. Come on, he fights for the love of
Speaker 1: the game. In fact, he reportedly asked Dante DiVincenzo if
Speaker 1: he wanted to meet him outside after the game. Yo,
Speaker 1: you're trying to meet me outside? And I know Dante's
Speaker 1: like says he's a scrapper, but he's not a scrapper.
Speaker 2: No chance.
Speaker 1: And I don't think there's many people who want to
Speaker 1: wait for beef Stu after the game. Beef Stu will
Speaker 1: come for you. The Pistons team is dangerous. Are they
Speaker 1: good enough to win it all?
Speaker 2: Of course not?
Speaker 1: Are they good enough to make the Eastern Conference Finals
Speaker 1: out of the five spot. Probably not, but they are
Speaker 1: good enough to make life hell for whoever they play
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. What a great story and what a
Speaker 1: great team for Detroit and the city to get behind
Speaker 1: because they represent their city as well as any team
Speaker 1: in recent memory. Fun, gritty, and hard as a coffin nail,
Speaker 1: just like the city of Detroit. Quick note, I feel
Speaker 1: like a broken record, but we're finally moving over to
Speaker 1: a new platform and we'll be back to a regular
Speaker 1: schedule next week.
Speaker 2: Love Detroit.
Speaker 1: Playoffs are coming, new platform is coming, and that's all
Speaker 1: the time that we have for this episode of heat Check.
Speaker 1: Come back next week for an all new episode and
Speaker 1: check out many episodes which drop unexpectedly, like Zach Lowe
Speaker 1: joining the Rinninger, and do not forget to follow the
Speaker 1: heat Check all season long. That means download, subscribe, tell
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