Speaker 1: So if you're a listening live and you're wondering why
Speaker 1: there's music, I hope you hear the music. It's a transition.
Speaker 1: It's a transition from one topic to another, and it
Speaker 1: makes me happy. It's a profess it's something professionals to.
Speaker 1: It's like it's something I I, as a professional, do
Speaker 1: love such a clown, all right. As hard as this
Speaker 1: is for me to say, there might be a ray
Speaker 1: of hope out in Lakerland. They've been down and out
Speaker 1: and I know they're having it. I know I even
Speaker 1: have a hard time believing that there's a ray of hope,
Speaker 1: but it's true they do. New head coach Darvin Ham,
Speaker 1: who ten years ago was an LA assistant working with
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant, is now making the rounds talking about his
Speaker 1: coaching full he's former Milwaukee Bucks head coach as well.
Speaker 1: He's an NBA champion. Thanks were going pretty well, pretty
Speaker 1: just like standard questions, until all of a sudden, Darvin
Speaker 1: Ham dropped an insane quote that might be the best
Speaker 1: quote I've ever heard about the fact that we all
Speaker 1: work in an industry that's like not really that serious.
Speaker 1: It's really not like that big. We're not talking about
Speaker 1: covering the Avaldi shooting here right, we're not talking about
Speaker 1: covering the war in Ukraine. Darvin Ham said this. I
Speaker 1: grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. This is where it gets weird.
Speaker 1: I was shot in the face by accident. You go
Speaker 1: through something like that, you do one of two things.
Speaker 1: It's going to make you fearful or fearless. And it
Speaker 1: made me fearless. I don't feel no pressure. Is just basketball. WHOA.
Speaker 1: I need some more clarity on how that went on,
Speaker 1: and like when and are you okay? And like wow, yes,
Speaker 1: Darvin Ham not a man to be messed with. And
Speaker 1: if you think that this was just a one off
Speaker 1: and that Darvin Ham's gonna be the only hard rock
Speaker 1: on the LA Lakers and it's just him and a
Speaker 1: bunch of guys from the front. Vogel Era, the Frank
Speaker 1: Frank Vogel little like minions. You're wrong. News just dropped today,
Speaker 1: courtesy of Shams. It's a different sound than the WOJS bomb.
Speaker 1: It's a poo poo. This is the bomb. This is
Speaker 1: the sound of the Shams bomb. Four time NBA Allstar
Speaker 1: Rashid Wallace has agreed on a deal to be an
Speaker 1: assistant head coach for the Lakers under new head coach
Speaker 1: Darvin Ham. Hell yeah, hell yeah. Both were teammates in
Speaker 1: Detroit and part of that two thousand and four title team.
Speaker 1: You guys remember two thousand and four Pistons. They were
Speaker 1: the last team to win it All without an All Star.
Speaker 1: How did they do this? They punched everyone in the mouth.
Speaker 1: They were tougher, they were meaner, they were stronger, they
Speaker 1: were dirtier. Literally, they were the toughest NBA team of
Speaker 1: probably the twenty first century. Penny Yardaway, who coached the
Speaker 1: University of Memphis, where Rashid coached as an assistant last year,
Speaker 1: said it was a question of loyalty Rashid. I think
Speaker 1: Rashid might be going to LA with Darvin Ham. That
Speaker 1: was the deal from the beginning. If Darvin had gotten
Speaker 1: a job last year, Rashid had already promised him that
Speaker 1: he was going to go with them. So I'm thinking
Speaker 1: this year, with him getting the Lakers job, Rashid might
Speaker 1: still be going along with that process. What does that
Speaker 1: mean for LA, you might ask, Well, it means that
Speaker 1: they have gone from Frank Vogel and a man named
Speaker 1: Mike Penberthy Uh, that's his name. I didn't make that up.
Speaker 1: Google that and you'll see two soft dudes to Darvin
Speaker 1: Ham and Rashid Wallace. And if you thought im Udoka
Speaker 1: was hard on his team this year, calling them out
Speaker 1: publicly saying that they didn't have mental intensity, they weren't tough,
Speaker 1: they weren't sharing the rock, they were you know, all
Speaker 1: these things that he said. If you think that was bad,
Speaker 1: take that toughness and then add it to someone who
Speaker 1: was shot in the face. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like you think it's gonna go like Emi Udoka from Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 1: Darvindam Saginaw, Michigan shot in the face. That don't mean
Speaker 1: to make light of it, but it's a different tribulation here.
Speaker 1: I know what was going on. And just like, wait
Speaker 1: what Darvin Ham says when Anthony Davis falls on the
Speaker 1: floor like six times, it has to leave the game
Speaker 1: and he's sitting in the street closed the next night.
Speaker 1: Listen here, I got shot in the face, You tweaked
Speaker 1: your ankle, You go out there, you go out there.
Speaker 1: It's like a dad that literally or a mom where
Speaker 1: they went through something very traumatic, like or even just
Speaker 1: like I went to college and I had a b
Speaker 1: and my mom is like I had all a's and
Speaker 1: I was raising your little ass and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: but I'm not you, and it's like, yeah, but but
Speaker 1: I was shot in the face. Only thing that remains
Speaker 1: to me is for Darvin Ham to hire somebody like
Speaker 1: Gary Payton to come in and teach these guys some defense.
Speaker 1: Rob Plinka said, I don't care really what he says,
Speaker 1: but I I like this team lacked an identity of
Speaker 1: toughness last season that Ham will bring this season. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: that's true, but the question is, truthfully, how do you
Speaker 1: expect toughness when you're a player who's only off seat,
Speaker 1: Like if you're a front office's only off season signings
Speaker 1: were guys on vet minimums that literally are just trying
Speaker 1: to get a ring. They're on their last miles. They're
Speaker 1: literally the nineteen sixty five pinto that's just like not
Speaker 1: even passing emissions tests, like you think, look like Carmelo
Speaker 1: wants to get into the paint with Evan Mobley, like
Speaker 1: he wants to go up against Joel m Beid. No shot,
Speaker 1: you think White Howard's gonna throw elbows at Jared Allen Listen,
Speaker 1: you can teach a new dog new tricks, but you
Speaker 1: can't make them run wind sprints when they don't close
Speaker 1: out on a corner three at some random game, like
Speaker 1: your name was dan Man Gundy. So I don't think
Speaker 1: so we all do know one truth, right and also
Speaker 1: really quickly, I'm not saying that this is like gonna
Speaker 1: mean anything for the Lakers, like that they're not gonna
Speaker 1: if you're thinking, I'm saying that they're gonna win any
Speaker 1: more games, like they're not. They're not going to the
Speaker 1: playoffs next year, but they will be fun and they
Speaker 1: will be tougher. I'm not saying they're gonna win get
Speaker 1: a title. They're still a train wreck, but at least
Speaker 1: now they're a train wreck with a backbone. So that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of where we're at though. But we all
Speaker 1: do know just one truth. Can't really judge this team
Speaker 1: until Kendrick Nunn is back on the court fully healthy.
Speaker 1: This is see the song is a transition about a
Speaker 1: team that took an l and then they bounced back.
Speaker 1: So what do you think that the next segment it's
Speaker 1: about the Warriors? Obviously, ain't't nobody. I don't think Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about this game, shall we? Oh boogoo?
Speaker 1: Oh folks, everybody said Golden State's dead. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: put it up on the tweets Golden State plus one
Speaker 1: fifty to win it all dot dot. That means one
Speaker 1: and a half times your money if you're not a
Speaker 1: better This team was minus two hundred to win it
Speaker 1: all the game before. What a swing? Come on, oh baby,
Speaker 1: you know if you watch the game, you know what
Speaker 1: it is. You should know what it is. Golden State
Speaker 1: isn't losing. This team doesn't lose in the finals. They've
Speaker 1: done a deal with the devil. Steph c has become
Speaker 1: somebody who doesn't miss one game one gaming. You write
Speaker 1: them off. Golden State's done. Don't do that, don't do that, No,
Speaker 1: what sir, Let's be honest. Come on, Golden State did
Speaker 1: in the first two quarters of Game one? What they do?
Speaker 1: They play with their food. Then the blitz comes in
Speaker 1: after halftime, right Genghis Khan ripping through villages just like
Speaker 1: just honestly just destroying, mauling you, coming in with an
Speaker 1: intensity that you were not sure was going to come
Speaker 1: because they're just up and down. First quarter, they let
Speaker 1: you in, they let you out, and then the fourth quarter.
Speaker 1: Like I usually say that, this team is organized chaos.
Speaker 1: The Golden State Warriors one of the most creative teams
Speaker 1: in NBA history. They don't do things with structure and
Speaker 1: order and discipline. It's fucking creation and what do you do.
Speaker 1: Some times things get messy, some things get bad. Turnovers
Speaker 1: are plenty, and that's exactly what happens when you think
Speaker 1: you're up twelve points going to the fourth quarter, Steph
Speaker 1: Curry sitting on the bench, and then the deluge of
Speaker 1: points from Jalen Brown happens. Right, they let the lead
Speaker 1: slip away. Don't act like somehow Golden State's just the
Speaker 1: worst team. Let's not act like what Boston did was
Speaker 1: so repeatable. Right, you're talking about look at these role players.
Speaker 1: Look at these role players. My man Al Horford twenty
Speaker 1: six games, twenty six points in game one, six threes.
Speaker 1: You think my man Al Horford is gonna do that
Speaker 1: in game two? Come on, Like Draymond knew that too,
Speaker 1: because he was talking about it, Like, you had two
Speaker 1: points in game two, he's over under ten and a half. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a big, big swing, big swing. Derek White he
Speaker 1: hit four threes in game one, did not hit four
Speaker 1: threes in game two. Marcus Smart, he played really well
Speaker 1: game one, what did he do two points? In Game two?
Speaker 1: Marcus Smart was an awful I mean historically bad one
Speaker 1: for six five turnovers, never created for his teammates, never
Speaker 1: generated offense. He was a liability to the point Udoka
Speaker 1: played him twenty five minutes with a minus twelve twelve
Speaker 1: rating and Pritchard had to play the point over Marcus
Speaker 1: Smart eugh. So let's be honest. These role players, they
Speaker 1: showed out in game one. They got open, they hit
Speaker 1: their shots early. That created confidence, and when Golden State
Speaker 1: left their foot off the gas, that's when the opportunity
Speaker 1: came for Boston. Boston's a good team. As for the Warriors,
Speaker 1: they lost the fourth quarter in Game one mostly because
Speaker 1: andre Iguidala ugh ugh n minus nine and twelve minutes.
Speaker 1: And I like andre iguidala I think he's a great player,
Speaker 1: but he hasn't played much all year and we're not
Speaker 1: even sure what he has left in the tank right now,
Speaker 1: and it didn't look like he integrated did particularly well,
Speaker 1: particularly fast game two. Game two. What happened he was
Speaker 1: out with nex soreness. Yep, I feel that. I feel that,
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr. Just tell him, go sit down a little while,
Speaker 1: Go sit down, You'll get a ring. Don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: You're just not gonna win finals MVP again. Listen, listen.
Speaker 1: Haven't you been tired of watching the ball go everywhere
Speaker 1: that you've turned it over to like you have? It's
Speaker 1: sore now, I can't feel myself Steph Curry. What we
Speaker 1: also know about him is that if you look at
Speaker 1: Boston and who they played, neutralize KD, They neutralized Kyrie,
Speaker 1: they neutralized Giannis, they neutralized somewhat Jimmy Butler. Steph Curry
Speaker 1: has not been neutralized. This man is averaging twenty seven
Speaker 1: twenty seven points, twenty nine and thirty. Shit, he's already
Speaker 1: an MVP. He's already gonna get the finals MVP. It's happening.
Speaker 1: And you might say, like, trust, you've said so many
Speaker 1: mean things about the Golden State Warriors. Are you trolling?
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't think so. Like I'm actually
Speaker 1: I'm serious, I'm dead serious. How do I know that
Speaker 1: Golden State's gonna win it all? Because that would make
Speaker 1: me so sad, It would make me so sad if
Speaker 1: they won it all. I am desperately searching for reasons
Speaker 1: that they could lose, and I am struggling to find them.
Speaker 1: Really like, they had to historically collapse in a fourth
Speaker 1: quarter for Boston to win Game one. Historic it was
Speaker 1: so gross. So Boston, of course they can bounce back
Speaker 1: after game one. They're great after losses. But you're still
Speaker 1: going up against championship medal of Golden State. And that's
Speaker 1: the difference. Celtics' top seven Celtics players by minutes played
Speaker 1: all had negative plus minus, with every single player who
Speaker 1: played more than twenty minutes in double digit negative numbers. Yuck.
Speaker 1: As an aside, really quickly, Damn Clay looks slow. He
Speaker 1: looks so slow on offense when he's dribbling the ball
Speaker 1: trying to quote unquote penetrate. It doesn't even look like that.
Speaker 1: It's not that's not Clay. He's shooting under thirty percent
Speaker 1: for the series. He needs to get back healthy healthy.
Speaker 1: Will his quickness ever return? I'm not sure? I hope.
Speaker 1: So those two injuries are tough, and what does Boston
Speaker 1: need to do in order to win and compete get
Speaker 1: some games under their belt again? One They need to
Speaker 1: up the physicality. They need to out physical Golden State.
Speaker 1: They're bigger, they're stronger, and they're meaner, and they have
Speaker 1: more depth, so they can body them up a little bit.
Speaker 1: If Boston can find a way to get under the
Speaker 1: skin of Jordan Poole, who you know very clearly has
Speaker 1: had up and down periods during Game one and Game two.
Speaker 1: Mostly down in Game one, a little up in Game
Speaker 1: two in the second half. They need to figure out
Speaker 1: a way to get basically Draymond Green out of the game,
Speaker 1: whether that's technical fouls, so that's foul trouble, you know.
Speaker 1: They need to make it really, really uncomfortable. They need
Speaker 1: to make it intense. Of course, it's easy. Role players
Speaker 1: need to hit their threes, baby, like they're gonna leave
Speaker 1: you open. Babis, you need to hit them. Grant Williams,
Speaker 1: Peyton Pritchard, you need Al Horford, you need Marcus Smart.
Speaker 1: All those guys need to hit threes, right, You need that.
Speaker 1: Star players, of course need to show up. Jason Tatum
Speaker 1: not only needs to be a scorer, he also needs
Speaker 1: to facilitate in the same way that he did and
Speaker 1: play make in the same way that he did in
Speaker 1: game one. Tatum in Game two had twenty eight points,
Speaker 1: but he was a negative thirty six for the game.
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum had twelve points thirteen assists in game two,
Speaker 1: he was a plus for the game. He doesn't need
Speaker 1: to look to score every time, and when he doesn't
Speaker 1: look to score every time, he just gets into the
Speaker 1: paint and like, let's the offense come. The team plays better,
Speaker 1: they get open shots, open looks. I think Jason Tatum
Speaker 1: needs nine ten assists in Game three in order for
Speaker 1: them to win. Jalen Brown needs to play a lot cleaner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, he just has hard time putting the ball
Speaker 1: on the ground, doesn't he He just does Boston moving forward.
Speaker 1: Protecting the ball is key too. They had a surreal
Speaker 1: nineteen turnovers in Game two, and fifteen of them were
Speaker 1: live ball turnovers that led to thirty three Warriors points.
Speaker 1: Boston had ninety eight possessions to Golden State's ninety seven,
Speaker 1: and some somehow managed to score nineteen fewer points all
Speaker 1: because of turnovers. So they need to figure out a
Speaker 1: way to force Golden State into turning the ball more often.
Speaker 1: Press them, make them hurry, make them feel like they
Speaker 1: need to make decisions quickly and then personally, you guys
Speaker 1: need to protect the rock better on your side of
Speaker 1: the floor as well. Credit to Draymond Green played awful
Speaker 1: game one, said he was going to play better. Steph
Speaker 1: even said five minutes after the game, I knew Dre
Speaker 1: was going to come out in game two with intensity
Speaker 1: through the roof. Set the tone defensively from the get go,
Speaker 1: from the jump ball, from the first possession where he
Speaker 1: got into it with the I want to say it
Speaker 1: was he Marcus Smart or Jalen Brown. He got into
Speaker 1: it later in the game with Jalen where Jalen I
Speaker 1: think he had his feet on Jalen's face or something.
Speaker 1: They started getting into it, like he had so much
Speaker 1: intensity that he probably should have been ejected during the game.
Speaker 1: Like And the whole idea that refs as an aside
Speaker 1: of the aside is that refs should be looking at
Speaker 1: how many technical fouls you already have before assessing a
Speaker 1: second technical is absolutely banana land. No. Like no, that's
Speaker 1: like being like, hey, I'm gonna pull you over. Looks
Speaker 1: like you got drugs in the back seat, But let
Speaker 1: me see if if you have any priors, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like before before I asked to search
Speaker 1: your trunk, let me see if you've been arrested recently.
Speaker 1: It was like, honestly, they were like, oh, well, the
Speaker 1: standard needs to be higher for Draymond Green to get
Speaker 1: a second technical because we know what the impact of
Speaker 1: that technical second technical is. That's garbage. Is it worth
Speaker 1: a technical foul on its own or is it not?
Speaker 1: It was and I liked Dreimon Green, and I was
Speaker 1: happy that he didn't get technicaled out because then Golden
Speaker 1: State might have lost. And then they we said, oh,
Speaker 1: it's because Draymond's ejection and blah blah blah. But drey
Speaker 1: felt he could push the envelope further, not less, because
Speaker 1: it was like, Oh, what you're gonna do, You're gonna
Speaker 1: eject me. I've already been ejected multiple times to this playoffs.
Speaker 1: I get a bad rap. He's not immune from consequences,
Speaker 1: and nobody wanted to send him back to the showers
Speaker 1: for the second tech. Just bonkers. Game three Wednesday night,
Speaker 1: TD Garden Folks. Boston has been strangely not so great
Speaker 1: at home right now this year in the playoffs, five
Speaker 1: and four at home this playoffs. They are eight and
Speaker 1: three on the road usually a huge advantage at home,
Speaker 1: and TD Garden's known, you know, Boston Garden's known for
Speaker 1: having a huge advantage. We talked about that in our
Speaker 1: winning time recaps, where there was like literally rats running
Speaker 1: through the locker room. They shut the lights off on you,
Speaker 1: They poop in your bed out in the hotel room.
Speaker 1: This was like Amber heard before Amber heard that was
Speaker 1: just like random Boston fans. That's probably where she got
Speaker 1: it from. They literally did it too, Bill Russell. They
Speaker 1: pooped in Bill Russell's bed for what reasons. Still don't
Speaker 1: know what do they think they what do you think
Speaker 1: they did the opponent's bed. I don't even know what
Speaker 1: is worse than that, but probably vomit, vomit blow. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not gonna even go in there anyway.
Speaker 1: Two games in a row, though Golden State has had
Speaker 1: massive third quarter runs. You gotta fix that. You can't
Speaker 1: allow Steve Kerr to out coach you coming out of halftime.
Speaker 1: Can't can't allow Golden State to do what they've done
Speaker 1: all year long. The problem is Boston has had bad
Speaker 1: third quarters all year. They don't even know why, They
Speaker 1: don't know what's happening. They have no answers. They need
Speaker 1: to figure that shit out. If Boston can win. If
Speaker 1: Boston wins any third quarter, I think they win that game.
Speaker 1: They're in good shape. They were up in both Game
Speaker 1: one and Game two at halftime by two points. Third
Speaker 1: quarter bugaboo all year. So Tatum, I think off Rip
Speaker 1: from halftime needs to be more aggressive. I don't mean
Speaker 1: just chucking, I mean more aggressive setting the tone. They
Speaker 1: need to set the tone more on defense, clamp down
Speaker 1: on Steph, blitz him, and I think Brown does need
Speaker 1: to do a better job coming out of the locker
Speaker 1: room too. Prediction. I think Boston does find a way
Speaker 1: to win Game three. Boston has not lost back to
Speaker 1: back games at all this playoffs, and frankly, neither have
Speaker 1: the Warriors, So I think this is going to be
Speaker 1: a back and forth situation. I think that's a trend
Speaker 1: that I'm willing to believe in. I expect the intensity
Speaker 1: at TV Garden will be high. I think the role
Speaker 1: players will show up at home. I think Peyton Pritchard
Speaker 1: could have a big night. I think Al Horford could
Speaker 1: find a way to get in ten points more than two, yeah,
Speaker 1: more than two. Nothing so far, though, has caused me
Speaker 1: to change my opinion from the beginning of the series.
Speaker 1: Warriors are winning it all. Steph is getting Finals MVP.
Speaker 1: It's a lock. Put your four to oh one k
Speaker 1: on it. That's all the time that we have for
Speaker 1: the Heat Check. We'll be back Wednesday, folks with a
Speaker 1: new episode preview in Game three of the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: If you listen to this live, thank you. I don't
Speaker 1: even know how many people could be on this. It's
Speaker 1: the very first time. We will see you on Wednesday
Speaker 1: as well. Follow us on the Heat Check on TikTok,
Speaker 1: on Twitter, on Instagram, on my personal Do not forget
Speaker 1: to download to the podcast wherever you get your podcast,
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Speaker 1: Please also tell your friends that these things are happening live.
Speaker 1: Oh it's also the video component is on YouTube. If
Speaker 1: you want to see me go crazy do crazy things
Speaker 1: with my hands and face, find me on YouTube and
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Speaker 1: you guys so much for listening. We will see you Wednesday.