Speaker 1: On this episode of the Heat Check. It's a midweek episode.
Speaker 1: We got a couple of little stories to get to,
Speaker 1: but not really a ton of big news other than
Speaker 1: the fact that Kawhi Leonard just left the game with
Speaker 1: thoracic spasms, could not sit, had to go to the
Speaker 1: hospital or get another second opinion, third opinion, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: We also cover out when the Denver Nuggets decide it's time.
Speaker 1: It's fucking time. Nobody can hang nobody can. I think
Speaker 1: this is the same story every week when they decide
Speaker 1: it's time to turn it up. We have another sample though,
Speaker 1: of this. This one comes when they were down thirty
Speaker 1: five to a Toronto Raptors team. We also get into
Speaker 1: a ton of news from around the league, including an
Speaker 1: update on alprin Shangoon squad. Okay, Anthony, let's get a
Speaker 1: move on it.
Speaker 2: Let's drop this motherfucking leadership, all right.
Speaker 1: So I was we gotta talk about these Nuggets, Okay.
Speaker 1: I was watching this game, unfortunately, Nuggets playing the Toronto Raptors.
Speaker 1: I was watching it on my other show, but I'm
Speaker 1: jim to Night Live that airs Monday through Friday, seven
Speaker 1: to eleven. Anyway, so I'm watching the Raptors take a
Speaker 1: twenty point lead on Denver at sixteen and a half
Speaker 1: point underdogs, and all of a sudden, I look up
Speaker 1: and it's like thirteen. It's a third quarter, and for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, Jokic is just being extra aggressive, and I said,
Speaker 1: I think the Nuggets are gonna win this game. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna like it. And guess what, Guess what, Guess what.
Speaker 1: Denver won that game. They turned the heat up and
Speaker 1: blew the doors out of Toronto in the fourth and
Speaker 1: they cruised to a six point win, a twenty eight
Speaker 1: point turnaround like it was nothing, Like it was nothing.
Speaker 1: Yokich went off my gud thirty seven, fifteen, and twelve
Speaker 1: for another triple double. But more importantly, all of his
Speaker 1: teammates didn't matter they were having a bad night. He
Speaker 1: just decided, I kind of want to win this one,
Speaker 1: like I kind of want the one seat. So all
Speaker 1: of that to say, when the Denver Nuggets decide they
Speaker 1: want to play basketball and do it seriously, not anybody
Speaker 1: in the league stands a chance. No lead is safe,
Speaker 1: no team can feel confident that Freddy Krueger's not coming.
Speaker 1: It's surreal. When they decide I'm putting my teeth into
Speaker 1: this meal. Nine ozer run is so normal you don't
Speaker 1: even blink, you don't even notice it. Just like I
Speaker 1: think they've I think they've scored like seven straight times
Speaker 1: and the other team hasn't, like eh, unlike those Golden
Speaker 1: State teams that just bombed you to death from three
Speaker 1: Okic comes in like a snake and they squeeze you
Speaker 1: to death like an anaconda with like the most gross
Speaker 1: hook shots from three feet from the basket you've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Like you're like, yeah, that should go in. It's literally
Speaker 1: a yard stick away slow asphyxiation. Now, I am sorry,
Speaker 1: night night sleep masks. They're putting quarters on your eyeballs.
Speaker 1: Other teams, even good ones, they just get shut down completely.
Speaker 1: This team feeds off Jokic, and when he gets serious,
Speaker 1: they get serious, and you find a way. Did you
Speaker 1: shut the other team down? No matter what they've got
Speaker 1: going on, they hardly broke a sweat winning the championship
Speaker 1: last year. We knew they weren't gonna have a problem
Speaker 1: with Miami. We thought they might. We've made a lot
Speaker 1: of noise about it, but like in our hearts, when
Speaker 1: we went to bed, we didn't think Miami was gonna
Speaker 1: do shit against the Nuggers, Like this team is fucking
Speaker 1: cooked and it's all on you Jog's shoulders. It happens
Speaker 1: to be on both sides of the court. We were
Speaker 1: clowning me. Included Nikola Jokic's defense. But Nikola Jokic is
Speaker 1: averaging like two steals game right now, Okay, that is normal.
Speaker 1: He'll get you a block and two steals on a
Speaker 1: night tonight. Basis he on the ball in pick and
Speaker 1: roll is insane. This is what Michael Malone had to
Speaker 1: say about Nicole Jkic and his defense. People criticize Nicola
Speaker 1: because he doesn't average three blocks a game, but if
Speaker 1: you really are a basketball purist and you watch the game,
Speaker 1: you see he's got some of the best hands in
Speaker 1: the game in the NBA, bar none. He's never gonna
Speaker 1: out athleticize anyone, that's for fucking sure, but he is
Speaker 1: going to outsmart you. And that gets us to the
Speaker 1: real point of this, which is who are the top
Speaker 1: three players in the league that are the most mentally
Speaker 1: high IQ basketball players. There. I would contend there might
Speaker 1: not even be three, there might only be two. One
Speaker 1: is Lebron James. The other is Nikola Jokic. Always makes
Speaker 1: the right decision, sees where the game is going, like
Speaker 1: he've already seen it before. Some of the best vision
Speaker 1: you've ever seen in Nikola Jokic, And when he decides
Speaker 1: that it's winning time, he can do it all by
Speaker 1: himself if necessary, Just ask Toronto. All right, let's move
Speaker 1: on a lot of quick hitters from around the league
Speaker 1: to get to first of all, things are going well
Speaker 1: in Orlando. How do we know this? Well? The Magic
Speaker 1: have moved from the high lottery to fifth in the
Speaker 1: East with the chance to take the four spot. They've
Speaker 1: gone from twenty one wins in twenty twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: to thirty seven and counting this year. What's the reasons?
Speaker 1: One Paolo ben Caro Bronz Bogner sugs, But the more
Speaker 1: important one is jamal Mo Mosley, a coach who has
Speaker 1: overseen the growth of a very young team and now
Speaker 1: he's getting a reward. He's now agreed to a four
Speaker 1: year extension that will keep him in Orlando until at
Speaker 1: least twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight. To me, this
Speaker 1: is well deserved. Remember jamal Moseley wanted to be the
Speaker 1: head coach of the Dallas Mavericks and they said, no, sir,
Speaker 1: we're going with Jason Kidd. Wow, that's rough. Imagine Dallas
Speaker 1: being coached by this Jamal Moseley. Other teams in similar spots,
Speaker 1: Charlotte and Detroit come to mind. They're terrible. They're living
Speaker 1: squarely in the bottom of a dirty dumpster in a
Speaker 1: hell hole in some random third world country, but not Orlando.
Speaker 1: Their only real problem is that they don't have a
Speaker 1: ton of veteran leadership. They may have too much talent,
Speaker 1: so they're guys like I don't know Jet Howard, who's
Speaker 1: six foot nine. I don't even seen him on the
Speaker 1: floor at all.
Speaker 2: So kut to.
Speaker 1: Jamal Moseley, Kudos to the Orlando Magic, Kudos to Palo Bancaro.
Speaker 1: Tough job to take for Jamal, and he's done a
Speaker 1: phenomenal job turning things around so fucking fast in a
Speaker 1: market that almost no one ever has thought about. Before
Speaker 1: moving on, we opened up the last show with some
Speaker 1: bad news about alper and Shanggoun, who we have been
Speaker 1: loving on the heat checks since he was the Euarro
Speaker 1: League MVP at eighteen, but he collided with Dolmas. He
Speaker 1: felt awkwardly, had to be rolled off in the wheelchair,
Speaker 1: head covered in a towel, tears in his eyes. That's
Speaker 1: never a good sign. It's never a good sign. But
Speaker 1: the news actually could be worse. Woch tweeted this out.
Speaker 1: Houston Rocket center Alpern Shangun has escaped major injury on
Speaker 1: his lower right leg, suffering a severely sprained ankle and
Speaker 1: a bone bruise on his knee. He's been one of
Speaker 1: the breakout stars in the league this year, averaging twenty
Speaker 1: one to nine to five great three ankle sprain, which
Speaker 1: is really bad. Not catastrophic, but pretty damn bad. That is.
Speaker 1: That's like almost needing surgery, but not needing surgery. It
Speaker 1: is a complete tear of the ligament. That means he's
Speaker 1: getting shut down for the year. Probably gonna be back
Speaker 1: in like six months, definitely by the time the season starts.
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that he's gonna be ready for the season.
Speaker 1: It sucks that he got hurt. Pretty much means that
Speaker 1: the Rockets playing chances are dead. But holy moly, glad
Speaker 1: it wasn't an Achilles or an acl or an mcl
Speaker 1: Moving over, moving on, I went over in a recent episode.
Speaker 1: Why I think Victor Weberinyama is having the second best
Speaker 1: rookie season of all time behind the Man from Another Dimension? Well, Chamberlain,
Speaker 1: here's another reason to love the Spurs Slenderman. On Monday night,
Speaker 1: Golden State rookie Trace Jackson Davis Road drove into the
Speaker 1: lane laid down a highlight worthy hammer of a dunk
Speaker 1: on Victor Webbanyama. The Warriors bench, of course, went insane,
Speaker 1: crowd went insane, social media lost its fucking mind. So yeah,
Speaker 1: like Victor first game of probably his NBA career that
Speaker 1: he got posterized, and then a fascinating thing happened after
Speaker 1: the game. A French reporter asked, of course, I'll ask Victor, hey,
Speaker 1: does it hurt to get dunked on like that? Mentally?
Speaker 1: And Victor said, getting dunked on is nothing. It's part
Speaker 1: of the game. I dunk on a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people dunk on me too. But
Speaker 1: I think I block more off and then I get
Speaker 1: dunked on. So that's the positive. I think I block
Speaker 1: more off and then I get dunked on. Come see
Speaker 1: me in the lane, Come see me near the rim.
Speaker 1: Fam I got you. I'm sending your shit all the
Speaker 1: way out into Row thirty four. I swear this guy.
Speaker 1: I love some Victor weibin Yama. We've been pumping his
Speaker 1: tires for two straight years now. It's like the world
Speaker 1: combined to create a perfect basketball machine. He's like AI.
Speaker 1: He's got a little supercomputer chip inside of him, and
Speaker 1: he's just uploading all the raw data and putting it
Speaker 1: into full execution mode. As soon as he steps on
Speaker 1: the court the next time, he'll make us. This is
Speaker 1: what a Greg Popovich says. We've seen this basketball automation
Speaker 1: automaton once before in San Antonio. Greg Popovich remembers this.
Speaker 1: He said this after the game, Victor will make a
Speaker 1: step back three, and he won't act like it's the
Speaker 1: first step back three that's ever been made. He's just
Speaker 1: got more or less the Tim Duncan sort of attitude
Speaker 1: on things. That's just who he is. Tim Duncan may
Speaker 1: not have shown any emotion in his Hall of Fame career,
Speaker 1: but play some talk to some people who played against him.
Speaker 1: They hated playing against him Duncan. They will tell you
Speaker 1: his shit talk game was stone cold. He was a killer,
Speaker 1: will slice your throat. Watch you bleed over. Watch you
Speaker 1: bleed out while he stands right over your dead cold body,
Speaker 1: just like Victor wemen Yama. Lightning apparently does strike twice
Speaker 1: in the exact same place, multiple generations in a row.
Speaker 1: Time is a flat circle for the San Antonio Sports Spurs,
Speaker 1: just one ping Paul ball away though for Portland, just
Speaker 1: like it was for Hakeim Elijahan. So time still is
Speaker 1: a flat circle for us too. It appears all right.
Speaker 1: Moving on, Grant Williams is as polarizing figure. When he
Speaker 1: left Boston, his former teammates joked that the locker room
Speaker 1: will finally be quiet. Then he went to Dallas. His
Speaker 1: teammates joked that they wish he would have stayed in Boston.
Speaker 1: They did not like him much. He got moved at
Speaker 1: the trade deadline to Charlotte, where he has been like
Speaker 1: slightly effective I guess thirteen five and two thirty six
Speaker 1: percent for three. But now that he's been gone a
Speaker 1: hot minute from Dallas, there are some very funny stories
Speaker 1: coming out about his limited time there. MAVs legend who
Speaker 1: knows why he's in the building. Michael Finley dropped one
Speaker 1: this week. One day in practice a player on our team.
Speaker 1: I won't call his name out, but it was Grant Williams.
Speaker 1: He decided he wanted to get under Luca's skin. He
Speaker 1: felt Luca didn't come that day ready to practice. So,
Speaker 1: to make a long story short, this is bad. They
Speaker 1: had a scrimmage going and he's talking trash to Luca
Speaker 1: up and down the court. So finally Luca says, okay,
Speaker 1: And I tell you, Luca decided to go on a
Speaker 1: twenty six to six run by himself. You could ask anyone.
Speaker 1: I am not exaggering. It was a twenty six six
Speaker 1: run by himself. He showed us everything, the threes, the
Speaker 1: post us, the floaters, everything by him self. I love
Speaker 1: everything about this quote. I do. I love the whole
Speaker 1: thing of Like, I'm not gonna say who it is,
Speaker 1: but his name's Grant Williams. Did you even need to say,
Speaker 1: Michael Finley that it was Grant Williams because we know
Speaker 1: already that there's only one player it could have been.
Speaker 1: You think Tim Hardaway Junior is like, Luca, you're not
Speaker 1: in shape today. Oh what have you been eating? Like? Oh,
Speaker 1: you got bags under your eyes, Luca? Oh do you
Speaker 1: have your shorts on?
Speaker 3: Luca.
Speaker 1: No, nobody who's played with Luca that long is gonna
Speaker 1: be dogging Luca. And then Luke gotta love Luca, just
Speaker 1: being like, all right, fuck this bitch, I'm about to
Speaker 1: just let him know. I'm ready to play whenever I
Speaker 1: want to play, Okay, like I will give you the
Speaker 1: business any time of the week. Never changed, Luca, never
Speaker 1: change and never changed. Grant Williams, Boy, oh boy, do
Speaker 1: you give us some good stories. Moving on, Finally, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of buzz about post All Star Game unders,
Speaker 1: which means low scoring games post All Star Game, abysmally
Speaker 1: low scoring games. We got a seventy two to seventy
Speaker 1: nine game the other day. We got to watch Philly
Speaker 1: play in the garden, and that's what it was. They
Speaker 1: scored seventy nine points twice. Remember a couple of months
Speaker 1: ago when everyone was upset because the scoring was crazy,
Speaker 1: when Luca scored seventy three in a game by himself. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not just Tom Haberstrow who's breaking down these numbers anymore.
Speaker 1: It's a story that's picking up steam. And it was
Speaker 1: also Ethan Strauss who wrote the original article. Mark Stein
Speaker 1: joined in on his substack and wrote this total scoring
Speaker 1: across the league had significantly decreased since the All Star break.
Speaker 1: Before the All Star Break, teams averaged one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifteen point five points per game and twenty two point
Speaker 1: seven free throws per game league wide. The NBA's composite
Speaker 1: scoring average hadn't been that high at the break since
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty nine nineteen seventy season. So apparently the
Speaker 1: drop of a three point eighty eight points per game
Speaker 1: is the largest dip in the post All Star game
Speaker 1: period in NBA history. Probably nothing happened to precipitate that, though,
Speaker 1: Like that's just probably completely random for I don't know,
Speaker 1: the last third of the season for thirty teams. Like,
Speaker 1: probably nothing to see here, right, Like those watching the
Speaker 1: games know that the refs as a whole probably just
Speaker 1: calling the game exactly the same, not swallowing their whistles
Speaker 1: at all. Why though, Why are the refs swallow their whistles?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like no way. It was like a
Speaker 1: mandate from the league that got embarrassed by one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty five one hundred and forty eight game in
Speaker 1: which everyone claims that there was no defense being played
Speaker 1: and they never wanted to play defense. There's no way
Speaker 1: that Adam Silver decided to make a call and say
Speaker 1: I'm tired of this shit, right There's no reason for that.
Speaker 1: What we do know is that the NBA games right
Speaker 1: now are slog Those two sixers Knicks games were basically unwatchable.
Speaker 1: In the first game, there was one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: two points scored, which would be a low under in
Speaker 1: an NCAA basketball game in the MEAC. In the second,
Speaker 1: the Knicks scored one hundred and nine and the game
Speaker 1: still was one hundred and it was twenty points under
Speaker 1: the total score that the Vegas thought it would be.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this kind of changes everything we were led
Speaker 1: to believe. This was the new age of scoring. Anytime,
Speaker 1: any point, somebody go out for sixty seventy, When would
Speaker 1: somebody score one hundred? To replay of a Tuesday Night
Speaker 1: Blackout special at nineteen nine too that you didn't get
Speaker 1: to see until the next day. God, I hope this
Speaker 1: trend does not continue. What's happening with the NBA. Let's
Speaker 1: get back to scoring, folks. I want to see some buckets.
Speaker 1: And finally, we end the episode with an interview with
Speaker 1: Sports illustrates basketball insider Robin Lundberg. Robin joined bet MGM
Speaker 1: the night where I was joined by my co host
Speaker 1: Nick Ashew. So let's get right.
Speaker 4: Into Robin Ludberg jumps on with us now SI now,
Speaker 4: And I'm not even gonna focus on this whole Zion
Speaker 4: thing because nobody wants to hear about my bet other
Speaker 4: than what it's done. It's like hearing about somebody's fantasy team.
Speaker 4: But I do want to get into what happened last night, Robin,
Speaker 4: between the Celtics and the Nuggets and what a lot
Speaker 4: of people look at as a potential finals matchup. Now,
Speaker 4: it was a close game once again, we're talking about
Speaker 4: Jason Tatum in the clutch again, and you sit there
Speaker 4: and wonder whether that is going to continue to be
Speaker 4: a theme the entire year. But just big picture, what
Speaker 4: did you take away from that matchup between those two teams,
Speaker 4: given the potential that is a finals matchup.
Speaker 5: Look, I think it's actually a little bit more about
Speaker 5: Denver than it is about Boston, and nobody's beating the
Speaker 5: Nuggets in a seven game series. I mean, I guess
Speaker 5: crazier things have happened, but it's hard they don't get
Speaker 5: covered in the same way. We still talk about Lebron
Speaker 5: and Steph and all these other people all the time,
Speaker 5: and we don't really talk about the Nuggets. But when
Speaker 5: you look at something that is unstoppable, the two man
Speaker 5: game of Jokich and Murray is about as unstoppable as
Speaker 5: anything I can recall in my NBA fandom, because Jokich
Speaker 5: is so big, you know, Trista had replied to a
Speaker 5: tweet I had last night that I said, Jokich is
Speaker 5: a combination of Shack, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson. He's
Speaker 5: so big, like Shack, he always gets exactly where he
Speaker 5: wants to be on the floor and controls what he's doing.
Speaker 5: He can see the floor like Magic, passes the ball,
Speaker 5: and he's got that touch like Bird. He's maybe he
Speaker 5: has the best touch of a big man ever. And
Speaker 5: then you partner him up with a point guard who
Speaker 5: can play pick and roll, pick and pop, break you
Speaker 5: down off the dribble, and a four man and who
Speaker 5: can rim dive and catch it and finish in Aaron Gordon.
Speaker 3: It's just really tough to stop them.
Speaker 5: On the Celtics side of things, it's some of the
Speaker 5: same problems we've seen throughout this era where they don't
Speaker 5: really have that lead guard who's going to get things
Speaker 5: under control and break it down in the clutch time,
Speaker 5: and you go to the wings and Jason Tatum just
Speaker 5: hasn't been that guy in those spots. So, as I've
Speaker 5: said before, I think Jimmy Butler and the Heat have
Speaker 5: a better chance of beating the Celtics than the Celtics
Speaker 5: do of beating the Nuggets.
Speaker 1: Celtics are Heat Nuggets. Exact result, Robin is fifty to one.
Speaker 1: We threw that out there last night. Ryan, our other
Speaker 1: co host who's out tonight. He hated it, but I
Speaker 1: kind of love it. So I do want to ask
Speaker 1: you about this Pelicans team, because right now they're beating
Speaker 1: the hell out of the Sixers ninety two seventy four,
Speaker 1: but they've kind of snuck up on everyone pretty much
Speaker 1: the entire season until maybe the last two weeks. They've
Speaker 1: just been sitting in the middle of the five spot,
Speaker 1: hanging around offensively, okay, his point Zion has been working defensively,
Speaker 1: eighth best in the league, second in the league in deflections.
Speaker 1: How high or how far do you think that this
Speaker 1: Pelicans team can go? Because they're a lot bigger than
Speaker 1: some of the other teams that they might face in
Speaker 1: the first or second round of the playoffs.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, it's another one of those players, Zion,
Speaker 5: that we get caught up and talking about everything except
Speaker 5: for what's actually happening on the court. Now that he's quietly,
Speaker 5: you know, they're quietly getting that done. And he's always
Speaker 5: been a very efficient monster when he's been out there.
Speaker 5: We've just discussed, you know how, his calorie intake for
Speaker 5: whatever reason, and of course his injury and that that
Speaker 5: is a legitimate concern with him going forward. But one
Speaker 5: thing I think we've seen in today's league is that
Speaker 5: they have been successful at creating parody. I mean, you
Speaker 5: look at the odds there on the side of the screen,
Speaker 5: so many of those teams are kind of bunched up.
Speaker 5: Like I said, I don't think anybody's beating the Nuggets,
Speaker 5: but the odds makers will tell you the Clippers aren't
Speaker 5: too far off. And then when you look at the
Speaker 5: rest of these teams, they're all right in that mix
Speaker 5: around the same odds. So do I think the Pelicans
Speaker 5: are going to make an extended run. No, I don't,
Speaker 5: because if they run into the Wolves I like the
Speaker 5: Wolves better if they run into the Thunder.
Speaker 3: The Thunder have been a better team.
Speaker 5: If they run into the Suns, the Sons have Kdie,
Speaker 5: if they run into the Lakers have Lebron James. So
Speaker 5: in those kind of series, I think that's always going
Speaker 5: to be the equalizer, which team has the better and
Speaker 5: proven players. But they're not that far off, and they're
Speaker 5: certainly in that grouping. And I think between the play
Speaker 5: in tournament and what they've done with the salary cap
Speaker 5: and some of the CBA changes, one thing I think
Speaker 5: the NBA has successfully done is create parody where we're
Speaker 5: no longer talking about the star stack teams as much,
Speaker 5: or can we get three guys together on the same team,
Speaker 5: or it's just this team and that team and nobody else.
Speaker 5: I think there is a big mix of squads that
Speaker 5: are on the same playing field.
Speaker 4: It's it's weird to look at the standings now in
Speaker 4: the West and we're looking at Lakers and Warriors just
Speaker 4: on the back end, and then it's the Timberwolves in
Speaker 4: Thunder in the one to two spots right now in
Speaker 4: the Western Conference. Now, I thought the Thunder would be
Speaker 4: much better this year. I thought maybe like five or
Speaker 4: six seed. I didn't expect them to burst into this
Speaker 4: spot this quickly. They're an incredible team to watch. Minnesota
Speaker 4: obviously taken a huge blow with Karl Anthony Towns missing
Speaker 4: about a month. But let's say that Karl Anthony Towns
Speaker 4: is back healthy by the time we get to the playoffs.
Speaker 4: Good to go Minnesota Oklahoma City at full strength. Out
Speaker 4: of those two teams, we know young teams kind of
Speaker 4: have to go through a couple of seasons of just
Speaker 4: losses and learning what it's like to play in the playoffs,
Speaker 4: very different than the regular season. But out of those
Speaker 4: two teams, the Timberwolves in the Thunder, what would be
Speaker 4: the team that you'd have at least a little more
Speaker 4: confidence in in the actual playoffs.
Speaker 5: I think I go with what you see my instinct,
Speaker 5: says the Thunder, because I do really like that team.
Speaker 5: But I think your point is well taken, where the
Speaker 5: Wolves at least have dipped their toes in the water
Speaker 5: a little bit, and you know, Root Gobert is another
Speaker 5: guy who's been there, done that, been around the block.
Speaker 5: It all depends on the health of Kat obviously, but
Speaker 5: I do like the way the Timberwolves are constructed for
Speaker 5: the playoffs, given I think they can defend, given they've
Speaker 5: got a guy who can break you down and score
Speaker 5: in any which way. In Anthony Edwards, and to what
Speaker 5: you said about the play in Tournament, you could make
Speaker 5: the case the play in Tournament is gonna save the
Speaker 5: entire season or at least the playoffs, because Luka Dancic,
Speaker 5: Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Lebron James would all be in
Speaker 5: danger of missing the playoffs entirely if it weren't for
Speaker 5: the play in Tournament. Now, at worst, you're gonna get
Speaker 5: to see them in what constitutes a many playoffs to
Speaker 5: get in there, to face teams like the Wolves and
Speaker 5: the Thunder, and then at best, you know a bunch
Speaker 5: of them actually do get in there, and we're seeing
Speaker 5: more series going forward, and really, you know, we've seen
Speaker 5: those guys, We've seen Lebron and Stephan the play in
Speaker 5: Tournament in recent years, and otherwise they'd be sitting at
Speaker 5: home and a lot fewer people would be tuning in
Speaker 5: to the East Robin.
Speaker 1: It has been really a hospital.
Speaker 3: And you got the.
Speaker 1: Sixers losing Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxi to a concussion.
Speaker 1: You've got the Knicks losing pretty much everyone ogn and Obi,
Speaker 1: Julius Randall, Mitchell, Robinson, Calves, also Donovan Mitchell, Max Druce
Speaker 1: has been in and out, and Evan Mobley.
Speaker 3: Now as well.
Speaker 1: If you had to guess out of all the dinged
Speaker 1: up teams in the East, who are you most confident
Speaker 1: in being healthy during playoff time?
Speaker 5: Most co I mean, that's it's tough to say who
Speaker 5: am most confident in being healthy just because I don't
Speaker 5: know the nature of the injuries.
Speaker 3: I can't say the Knicks because Thibodeau's the coach and
Speaker 3: he's likely they come back.
Speaker 5: They'll play forty eight minutes right upon return, so I
Speaker 5: don't know if I can go with them. You know,
Speaker 5: the Calves. I don't even believe in the Calves if
Speaker 5: they are healthy. Uh, let me say the Sixers. Let
Speaker 5: me say that the Joel Embiid injury could be a
Speaker 5: blessing in disguise because duel rebid breaks down as the
Speaker 5: season goes along every single year, and he's usually not
Speaker 5: the same player in the playoffs that he is in
Speaker 5: the regular season, So it sucks for them that he's
Speaker 5: been injured and missed this time. But if he can
Speaker 5: get right and can get out there for a few
Speaker 5: weeks to be ready for the playoffs, maybe there's a
Speaker 5: chance he can actually make it through the playoffs this
Speaker 5: year because he already had the injury which was sure
Speaker 5: to come in the first place.
Speaker 4: Do the Bucks look like a team to you that's
Speaker 4: kind of settled in a little bit now, a little
Speaker 4: more comfortable, kind of with their identity and playing under
Speaker 4: Doc Rivers.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so. Their defense looks better. And here's
Speaker 5: the thing. You know, this is what happens when you
Speaker 5: love the NBA and you follow it all the time,
Speaker 5: because we always say nothing matters until the playoffs, and
Speaker 5: then we discuss everything like it matters so much before
Speaker 5: the playoffs. But they've got proven guys. Dame is a
Speaker 5: proven clutch time performer. Check it out Dame time, right,
Speaker 5: you know, Jannis has been there, done that. It's the
Speaker 5: reason I talked about the Miami Heat. People act like
Speaker 5: it's crazy that the Heat would make a run again.
Speaker 5: How is that crazy?
Speaker 3: They've basically done it every single season.
Speaker 5: They made the finals in twenty twenty, they've been in
Speaker 5: the Eastern Conference Finals, They've been back to the NBA Finals.
Speaker 3: If you are looking at the past as a.
Speaker 5: Predictor of the future, when we get to May, the
Speaker 5: Miami Heat are going to be a viable team. So
Speaker 5: I think sometimes we have to You're almost better off
Speaker 5: taking the thirty thousand foot view than being in the weeds.
Speaker 3: Though. We all like being in the weeds, and you
Speaker 3: wouldn't be.
Speaker 5: Able to do the sprinkles that you guys like to
Speaker 5: do if you weren't.
Speaker 1: In the weeds, right, no doubt, the weeds is where
Speaker 1: the sprinkles go down, Robin, Like, that's where the insights come,
Speaker 1: is digging into the analytics.
Speaker 3: In terms of disappointing teams.
Speaker 1: I know you're in New York. There's no one more
Speaker 1: disappointing to me than the Brooklyn Nets. I know they
Speaker 1: weren't going to be good, but that game right around
Speaker 1: Christmas time where they rested all of their starters and
Speaker 1: even their backupsgainst the Milwaukee Bucks was when I knew
Speaker 1: that things were seriously effed up. To you from your
Speaker 1: vantage point, like, what is going on with this Nets team?
Speaker 5: Well, what's going on with them is that they had
Speaker 5: Kevin Durant, James Hard and Kyrie Irving now they don't
Speaker 5: and they're paying the bill for that. Right It's like
Speaker 5: it's like when you start getting the interest on the
Speaker 5: credit card bill and you're like, what the hell, I'm
Speaker 5: not meeting the you know, I'm not paying it down.
Speaker 5: I'm just paying the interest all the time. And that's
Speaker 5: what the Nets are doing right now. I mean, look,
Speaker 5: going forward, there's a chance they could fix the situation
Speaker 5: because if you go if you press fast forward a
Speaker 5: year from now and you're going into next summer, they
Speaker 5: have their own draft pick. They're capital clear because Ben
Speaker 5: Simmons will finally be off the books. They will have
Speaker 5: that surpus of draft picks going forward like the Phoenix
Speaker 5: Suns picks. But do you trust, you know, the current
Speaker 5: regime to execute that, because right now it does feel
Speaker 5: like they're kind of saying, oh, yeah, we'll land another
Speaker 5: star at some point. That's not much of a plan.
Speaker 5: That's not much of a plan. And you could make
Speaker 5: the argument it's the worst current situation in the league,
Speaker 5: but really it's because of the first James Harden trade,
Speaker 5: I think even more than the second James Harden trade.
Speaker 3: And some of that's bad luck.
Speaker 5: Sometimes we forget to just chalk things up to bad luck,
Speaker 5: because I do believe the Brooklyn Nets in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: one win the NBA Championship without injuries. They waxed the
Speaker 5: Celtics in the first round. They then lose Harden and
Speaker 5: they still were up on the Bucks with Katie and Kyrie.
Speaker 3: Then they lose Kyrie.
Speaker 5: Then they go to Game seven and they're an inch
Speaker 5: away from winning Game seven. And after that was the
Speaker 5: COVID year. Who knew that was gonna happen, And of
Speaker 5: course Kyrie was gonna be the one guy who was
Speaker 5: affected by that, and that led to sort of the
Speaker 5: downfall of everything else. But once you trade all those
Speaker 5: guys off, I mean, I feel like fans are a
Speaker 5: little unfairly hating on Michal Bridges, who I still think
Speaker 5: has exceeded what we thought he was in Phoenix. He's
Speaker 5: just not the And that's the problem with the Nets
Speaker 5: is they don't have the guy, you know, and I
Speaker 5: don't know how they find the guy. If they have
Speaker 5: the guy, we'd be talking about them in a much
Speaker 5: more favorable situation.
Speaker 3: But without that, they still owe their pick to Houston.
Speaker 5: This year, and you don't really know what move they
Speaker 5: make do they sell off all their parts to get
Speaker 5: even more draft picks, or do they try and tread
Speaker 5: water and hope for something to strike before their situation
Speaker 5: resets itself, because you know, their highest paid player is
Speaker 5: essentially a fashion model and a spectators.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're at the point now with this Nets team, though,
Speaker 4: I go go back to think of that Big three
Speaker 4: and is probably the greatest what if in NBA history
Speaker 4: we never really saw them on the floor. The potential
Speaker 4: could have been unbelievable, dynasty like, and you're right, sometimes
Speaker 4: it's bad luck and then things start to trickle down
Speaker 4: and more bad things snowball, and then here they are going,
Speaker 4: what the hell do we do now? Robin Lundberg s,
Speaker 4: I now always love having you on man, appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks guessing.
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