KP’s Hurt, Dallas Is Alive, Lakers Misconceptions, the Caitlin Content Machine, and Big Fight Bill With Chris Mannix
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Coming up, the Celtics were looking so great and then poor Zingas got hurt. Oh no, next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I

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In hand. The WNBA is so hot. We just launched a ringer WNBA show podcast. Yeah, that's happening. You know what goes well with it? Make a little ultra. The taste, super smooth. Low calories and carbs. Why not save on calories if you're drinking a good beer? I like to keep it nice and cold. It's just really good. And you got the WNBA finals, like all kinds of crazy matchups. Might have the two best teams in the league playing in round two.

It's going to be amazing. We'll see how far Kate and Clark goes. You're not going to want to miss a moment. Stock up on Michelob Ultra for the WNBA finals. Michelob Ultra, superior light beer. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2024, Anheuser-Busch. Michelob Ultra, registered light beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new Rewatchables. We're diving into sports movies this month. We did Slapshot. We did Breaking Away this week. That's the new one. You can find it on all platforms. You can find it on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. Me, Sean Fennessey, Chris Ryan. This is one of the great late 70s movies and almost a perfect sports movie. So if you haven't seen it, how dare you? You should see it immediately.

If you're from Indiana, you know it well. If you like cycling, you know it well. If you love 70s movies, you know it well. But this is a classic and one of the reasons we do the podcast because we want to keep spreading the word for movies like this. So there you go. Sports movie coming up a week from now. We did The Longest Yard. So that's going to be the next one on Monday.

The real longest yard, the one from 1974. Yeah, the first great sports movie ever. That's when we did for a week from now. So you got six days to watch it. Coming up, I'm going to talk to Chris Mannix about how the NBA finals was looking great for Boston. And then it flipped because Porzingis is hurt. What does this mean? We're going to throw all the storylines. And then after that, I did a little six pack because I had a bunch of stuff that I wanted to hit in the sports and culture scene. So there you go. First, our friends from ProJet. ♪♪

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All right, we're going to kick things off with a special part of today's episode. It's brought to you by Michelob Ultra, which is the official beer sponsor of the NBA, my favorite sport. Win or lose, you're bound to enjoy the ride with a good beer in hand, and Michelob Ultra is good beer. It's crisp, it's light, it's refreshing, only 95 calories. So order yourself an ultra six-pack while we unpack six major things going on in the world of basketball and in sports right now. I'm going to start with the NBA finals. You'd think I'm going to start with Porzingis.

And I'm not. We're going to talk about Porzingis later with Chris Mannix. I'm going to start with the concept of identity because the Celtics who were like minus 220 to win the finals, heading into the finals against Dallas, even though the matchups were super favorable for them. And if you watch the first two games, they won both games, even though they shot the ball terribly in game two. And they just look like they're a better team. Now with Porzingis, maybe that'll even it out.

But people had an issue picking them to win the finals. And a lot of, especially national media people gravitated toward Luka because the Luka framework made sense, right? It's a star. Stars win finals. Best player in the series usually wins the finals. But really having the best player in a series is an identity thing. And I was thinking about sometimes there's years

Where the identity of a team is the star, not the actual star, right? So going backwards, this is, I did everything before the merger. I was looking at this, the 1979 Seattle Sonics during the stretch one, Bill Walton should have won four straight titles and he didn't. But,

They didn't really totally have a best player. Like Dennis Johnson won finals MVP, but really their guards were the star was Gus Williams and Dennis Johnson. And they had size. So they had things that made sense, but they didn't make sense in the traditional. We have a big star sense. Then you go to the 1989 Pistons. Isaiah is clearly the best player on the team.

But that wasn't a star driven title either because that's one of the best offensive teams of all time. And that team was like a Swiss army. If they go big, they could go small. That was their identity. That's why they won the title. 2004 Detroit, same thing. Defense, top five guys play perfectly together. And, you know, we weren't in 2004, like with Tatum and Brown, you know, Jason Kidd tries to

nudge that whole thing before game two. And it's like, I think Jalen Brown's the best part of the team. Everybody gets all fired up about, oh my God, look at the head games. Well, wait, is Jalen Brown the best part of the team? And the point is it doesn't effing matter because the 2004 Pistons, we didn't know their best player was. I still don't really know. Probably if I had to pick Ben Wallace that year was probably their best player, but

Ultimately, it didn't matter. And you know what we weren't doing in 2004? Having arguments about who is the best player in the Pistons over, wow, look at the Pistons. They're killing the Lakers right now, which is what they did. So this is a relatively modern thing where we have to argue about this stuff. 2006 Miami, that was a more fun argument because Shaq was still the best center in the league, but it was becoming Wade's team. And then in the finals-

Wade just grabbed the car keys and he grabbed the steering wheel and he's like, I'm going to take us home guys. And he was clearly their best player by the end of the finals. But we didn't know that heading into the finals. Uh, 2008 Celtics always had a Pierce or Garnett thing where Garnett was the best player in the team. Pierce beat LeBron in a game seven, younger LeBron, but still, and, uh, went toe to toe with Kobe in the finals and was a better player and won the finals MVP, uh,

I think KG was the best player on that team. The point is, and you, by the way, could have made a case Ray Allen could have won finals MVP, but nobody really cared. The point was they were awesome regular season, awesome team. And they won the whole thing. It was the identity of the big three. The fact that they could play big, they could play small. They were deep. And that was, that was what it was. 2009 Lakers. We argued that whole year about power Kobe, who's their best player. And I honestly, I still don't know.

I'm kidding. I just want to make sure the Laker fans are still listening. Kobe is the best player. They don't qualify for this. 2014 Spurs is a great one because that's old Duncan. Duncan was their best player. And in 2013, I still feel like he was, even though Parker kind of was. 2014 Spurs,

Kawhi won finals MVP, but Kawhi Parker, older Tim Duncan, really could have made a case for anybody. The real reason they won was their offense was just beautiful, the movement. And they had the perfect guy to guard LeBron in a season where that team, that Miami team was kind of fading and becoming a different thing. And then you look at 2024, if it is the Celtics that win the title, what's the identity of the team? Who's the best player?

The identity is the Jays. It's Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown together. That's, if you're going to compare them to some of these other teams, that's their identity. It's having those two guys. And then on top of it, having this incredible high end depth with Holiday, with Porzingis, with Derek White, even with Horford as a sixth man. And they probably have five of the top 50 guys in the league, plus Horford, plus some shooting. And that's why if they win, that's why they're going to win.

And the point is, it doesn't really matter who the best player was. This is stuff for people like me to talk about and get talk segments out of. Oh, who's the best player? Is it coming up on first take? It doesn't matter. Winning the title is what matters. And if they win, it's because of the Jays. So that's their identity. And that's all we should be talking about. That's my first thing for the six pack. Second one is a little NBA related. And it's a quickie, but

you know, Warner feels like they've blown the basketball package, which I've been telling you about for five weeks. And then people start reporting it after the fact. It's not done yet. We'll see. They might create a fourth package for them. Do you realize how dumb it is that they don't even have the deal signed for the three packages with the people that are giving them over $75 billion for the next 11 years? And because Warner screwed up and had an exclusivity thing,

Didn't exercise it in time. And from what I heard, and as you know, I have good sources in this stuff, it came down to a couple of conference finals games, a few, let's call it a few conference finals games, not per year, just a couple, a few over the course of 11 years. And that became a deal breaker as they headed to the end of the exclusivity period.

And David Zasloff, who runs Warner, was basically like, all right, we'll take it in the open market then. I don't know if he said that specifically, but if you let the exclusivity window close, you don't get basketball, you don't have a deal, then other people are allowed to bid and they didn't see NBC coming. And guess what? They screwed it up.

unless they didn't want basketball along, which is possible, but I don't think it's possible because for the next few weeks, they kept floating out. No, no, we might match. We're looking at the Amazon. The lawyers are going to be involved. And now it's either two options that seem to be sitting out there. One is that

They're going to try to match a lesser offer, the Amazon thing. No way. The second one is, oh, well, they actually might create a fourth package for us. That's not happening either. Because guess who's not going to want that? The other three partners who are paying all this money for exactly what is laid out in their deals. So now it's like, what happens? Are you going to sue? That's really what you're going to do. They're like the spurn lover who won't move their stuff out of the apartment, Warner. And guess what, guys? Get some boxes.

It's time. You don't want to have the spurn lover syndrome. And if they don't, they don't figure this out soon. I think it becomes damaging potentially for the person who is running the entire company. Cause at some point you have to have some confidence in who's running it. And if that person, um, not only blew a deal with basketball, but then is trying to hang on on the ledge. Oh, don't let me off, please. Not great.

I would let this one go, move on. They did the French open thing, do a lot of smaller deals and just admit that this, uh, this basketball thing didn't work out. Next one. Third thing, just a random soccer idea with apologies to Kevin Wilds is a half-baked idea. I don't know if you saw team USA get their butts kicked by Columbia the other day.

Well, I was thinking about how my entire life people have been saying that soccer was going to take off and that America was going to be good and sport of the future here. And we're going to have all these people and it just hasn't happened. And now I'm heading toward my mid fifties here and it feels like we're further away than we were 10, 12 years ago. Even though we have guys like Pooley Such, it's probably not happening. I think it's time instead of thinking about, do we invest in stuff, the younger academies, all that stuff.

Maybe we need a change in PR. And I was throwing this by Saruti and he thought it was funny. So I'm just going to introduce this theory here. Maybe they need to start going after five-star running backs, basically from like eighth grade on in football, and just lay out the actual financial situation running backs in the 2020s. Because like, let's say you become Saquon Barkley. You're one of the best talents at running back in a long time.

What does that mean financially? Like Saquon Barkley, the Giants wouldn't even pay him. He ended up going to the Eagles for like 11, 12 million a year. If you, if Saquon Barkley was an awesome, awesome soccer player, could he make what he's going to make in his entire NFL career? And like,

three Premier League seasons, they need to market, hey guys, there's way more money in soccer. Way more. Not to mention all the ancillary damage from football, but just show all the running back ages. Show when running back's careers are over at 27, 28, 29. In soccer, you keep playing. Just come to the MOS when you're 39 and you're washed up. You'll make another 20 million a year. This is now a PR campaign and I think soccer should look into it. That's my half-baked idea to save you a soccer.

All right. Fourth thing, we got to talk about the Caitlin Clark content frenzy, which I've tried to stay away from, but I've been just amazingly amused by everything that's happened with it. And why am I amused? Right? What's amusing about this? It's amusing because...

There's an old saying about when people wrote hit pieces in magazines or newspapers or blog posts that when they really went after somebody, it often said more about the writer than it did about the person that they were doing the hit piece on. Right. Are they resentful? Are they jealous? What's their purpose? They're trying to get attention for themselves. This Caitlin Clark story.

whatever prism you view sports through, whatever prism you view your own career through, what you want out of it, what kind of content you want to get day to day, week to week out of it. It's just perfect. Do you want to make this a story about race? Voila, here it is. Do you want to make it a story about

older ex-players resenting the new class of star? Boom, sitting right there. Do you want to make it about favoritism? You could do that too. Did she deserve to make the Olympic team? No, she's not one of the 12 best players, so why is she on it? Do you want to make it about this is the fault of why we can't grow women's basketball, especially at the Olympics, which is a case Christine Brennan made. This is the most successful Olympic team ever.

that probably in any sport, they're going for their eighth gold and nobody's cared because they just kill everybody. So we actually needed Caitlin to trumpet how good this team is. You could do that thing. You could do any sort of media beef you'd want to start. We saw it today. Stephen A got mad at Peter Rosenberg.

about something he said on a radio show and did an emergency YouTube clip on it. We've seen infighting with the media. It's like, oh, great. We all get to roll up our sleeves and just go at each other over this Caitlin Clark thing. We've seen reverse racism. I won't name the sites, but there's a couple of them that are trying to turn this into a sports helter skelter. We have the ratings.

People, there's like a ratings porn contingent out there talking about how great the ratings have been. What does this mean? Is this all Caitlin? Is she getting enough credit for what she does with the league? And then you have the ex-players. I always enjoy that. The older current players lobbing shots. You had some incidents on the court and everybody just lost their mind every time anything happened.

And it was weird because let's go back to the part where it was just kind of fun to watch Caitlin Clark play basketball and see how she was going to do as a rookie in this league. And instead it, it just had to become about all these big issues and just people. Everybody's like, Oh, is it time for my 15 minutes? I thought it was ridiculous. Um,

She's, you could argue, has started more beefs and more conflicts between people without intending to do anything. All she's doing is trying to play basketball, but it's almost turning into like, this is like a hip hop story. But the part that got super weird, I thought was the Olympics because on the surface, yeah, she should be on the Olympic team because people like Caitlin Clark and it's fun to watch her.

But there's a bigger picture thing with the Olympics that I think people missed. They just picked all the best players. Like you go look at, look at, look at the team they had, right? They have all the ages of the players are between 26 and 33. Griner's 33 and then Taurasi's 42. So she's the outlier and she has to be on the team because she's going for six gold medals and you have to have that. But it's a team where they just said,

We don't, we don't want to F around. We just want to keep winning the gold medal. We're not trying to accomplish. We're not trying to grow the game. We're just trying to kick everybody's butts. And they have. Here are the scores for the last four gold medal games. They won by 21. They won by 29. They won by 26. They won by 27. Putting her on this team when she was like four or five years younger than every other good player. Who, first of all, who are you bumping? Second of all,

You're just going to, she's going to be the only young player you have. To me, this is a failure of vision because, and I would say this about the men's team too. The men's team, you know, Bam, Booker, Tatum, Edwards, Hal Burton, even Anthony Davis and Bede's not 30 yet. And then the older guys are LeBron and Kawhi and Durant, Curry and Drew.

You don't need 12 players on a team like this. You need nine or 10, and then you need two happy to be there people. And this is what we figured out all those years ago in the dream team when crazy, uh, Leitner gets it over Shaq, which is, we're not going to litigate that here, but that was later was one of the best college players of all time. Shaq was one of the best center prospects of all time. He had to do it over again. Maybe put both of them on, but they, for a while there, they tried to have youth on the team.

And now they've just gravitated toward, we never want to lose the gold medal. We're just going to kick ass. And I think I agree with it. But I think if I was, like, if I was sports, I'm never going to get elected. I'm going to give up the dream.

I would want a team of like maybe nine hardcore all-stars, best players in their primes, peaks or heading toward their peaks. So like everyone from Edwards to Tatum to Booker and probably Curry's at the tail end of that. Then you want the one older star going for one last gold medal. So maybe in this case, that's LeBron. And then I would want the two young players.

I'd want two people like somebody like Chet, put him on the team, get him the experience. It's going to make him amazing. He's not going to care if he plays anyway. Or even Paolo, who was on the last USA team. But if you told me we had Paolo and Chet as the two young guys, great. That's amazing. What an awesome experience for those guys because they're not going to play anyway because you need nine or 10 guys to win. And I think you could make the same case with the women's team. Maybe the mistake was you take nine players

Taurasi's the old lion as the tent. And then you go super young with the other two. You have Caitlin and then you also have Juju Watkins. You have Cameron Brink, whatever you want to do. But those last two spots, which are a little ceremonial for the most part, and then that allows Caitlin on the team. The other piece of this, which I think people are missing, and I would call this the Tim Tebow theory, which rarely happens, but when somebody is such a big star,

It almost becomes not worth it to have them involved on your team unless they're just going to play all the time. And I say Tim Tebow because there was a summer, I think it was summer of 2013. The Patriots signed Tim Tebow as a backup quarterback. Super exciting. I was all in. It was like, this sounds great. It's perfect Belichick player. We'll play him at tight end, third QB. We'll run some goal line stuff for him. It'll be awesome. Well, what happened?

The first couple of practices, all anyone cared about was Tim Tebow. It was like, you're going to play Tebow? Where's Tebow? You're going to play Tebow? And guess what Belichick did? After, I don't know, I don't remember how long it was. He was like, F this. And just waved Tebow. He's like, I want no part of this. The ensuing hullabaloo day-to-day over Tebow.

Just made it not worth it to have Tebow. When that hullabaloo becomes too big, you better really feel good about the player. And I think with the Olympic team, to have Caitlin on the team, which everyone's like, how is she not on the team? She's going to grow the game. Well, guess what happens? You go to the Olympics and then it all becomes, is Caitlin going to play? Why isn't she playing? Caitlin only played four minutes. Should Caitlin play more? Is Caitlin better than this person? And it turns into a fucking nightmare. They don't want that.

So I totally get it. And by the way, she would have been four years younger than everyone else on the team. So I get why she didn't make it, but I think it's a failure of construction, um, more than anything else. All right. Two more things for the six pack. I'm in the honeymoon period with Drake May and it's marvelous. It's really great. What I didn't know, I haven't had, you know, I guess this will happen when the Red Sox bring up Marcelo Mayer. Although I don't know if I'm ever watching a Red Sox game again. Um,

But really with football, I've never had it before because I had the same quarterback for the entire time the internet existed, basically. With Drew Bledsoe and Tom Brady for, you know, into the 2020s. The little pieces every day, I've really enjoyed. Like there was stuff yesterday about Drake May playing dodgeball. I watched multiple clips of Drake May playing dodgeball. I've watched him in mini camps. I've watched his like little 40 yard throws or short throws. I've watched videos about people

that think he doesn't have as fast of a release as Jaden Daniels doing side-by-side minicamp videos. It's really great, but for the most part, it's fun as hell. And all it is is ceiling and upside and happiness, and there's no downside yet at all. It's basically like having a rookie quarterback with social media in 2024 is the Instagram filter effect where...

you know, like you, if you have kids or you have kids that, you know, they're friends and they'll take, they'll take this picture. And then by the time it's done on Instagram, they look like Cindy Crawford crossed with name a model from now. This is what the Drake May honeymoon period is. Everything just looks great. He looks magnificent. I wish we could just kind of freeze it right here because I know there's going to be a game, especially if he starts where

in the first year where he'll be terrible. Like, oh my God, is Drake May good? Right now, I feel like he's going to be the best quarterback of all time because I am in the honeymoon period with Drake May. All right. Last but not least, the Lakers. So we talked conspiracy bill. I know you saw conspiracy bill on Sunday's podcast, who's very suspicious of the JJ Redick and just the Lakers audibling from JJ Redick out of nowhere to the UConn coach, Dan Hurley.

And the reports were being broken by Adrian Roderowski, who once wrote a book about the Hurleys. And just it never smelled right to me. And it seemed like everybody was benefiting from the story being a story, but not the results of the story, which the results of the story technically were, oh my God, they actually hired Dan Hurley. And yet I wasn't talking to anybody who ever believed they were going to hire him. So it's like, all right, who gains from this?

Hmm. Well, the Lakers gained from this because they're obviously trying to cut the price down on JJ or they absolutely don't like any of the candidates. And, you know, maybe they half sincerely were trying to go for this. Hurley gains for this because now UConn's like, oh my God, we may lose him. And even though he just signed an extension, he can make more money. And then Woj gains from it because he's in this blood feud with Shams. And Shams had reported the Lakers were about to hire JJ. So now it's like, well, actually, no, they tried to hire Danny Hurley.

Here's where it really fell apart for me. They offered him six years, 70 million, which would have made him like the sixth highest paid coach. If you're going to actually try to hire somebody who just won two straight championships in a climate where the five best coaches in the league are all making eight figures a year. Let's just say this. It wasn't a godfather offer. It was like, what was Tom Hayden? It was a conciliary offer. It wasn't a godfather offer. They basically offered Tom Hayden money.

for Dan Hurley. And it wasn't going to be enough. I thought, I heard, and apparently I had the wrong information, but I heard it was triple figures and it just wasn't. You know, seven years for 120, now he's got to really figure out if he wants to take the job. But then something weird happened after. There was a whole, there was some discourse about, well, the Lakers are a family business. They don't really splurge like that. Family business was used a bunch of times. That was a big offer for them. They're a family business.

I just got to cry bullshit on this one. First of all, they paid the luxury tax more than any other team in the league. So we'll start there. Second of all, the Buss family owns 66% of the team. And then the other half, the other whatever third is somebody owns a majority minority stake of that. And then there's some other partners. So if they were really hurting for money,

With the way the franchise values of these teams are now, the Lakers, I would say, if they're going to get $5 billion for the expansion teams, $4.5 billion, $5 billion each, it's going right. Phoenix is going to be worth over $4 billion. The Lakers are the most important franchise in the league from a value standpoint. So they're a $7 billion team, let's say. I think that's reasonable. And you can't run the day-to-day because you're a family business.

you could probably sell 5% of your business at a $6 billion valuation and make so much money that you could then kind of nudge that toward the team would be my guess. I don't believe the family business thing. I don't think they ever really wanted to hire Dan Hurley. I just don't believe the story. I think it was a strategic play to try to drop the price on somebody they liked.

would be my guess. But please don't call the Lakers a family business. There's nobody a family business. And by the way, the other thing with the expansion stuff, because now the media deal is going to be done and

I think what happens is the league probably just names the price, which they did with WNBA. They had the expansion teams and basically the price, this was last year, was 50 million for the San Francisco team and the Portland team, which backed out. And then the Toronto team just ended up, the Toronto ownership team just ended up getting it. I think they're just going to say, here's the price.

It's four and a half billion each. It's five billion each. And it's going to be Seattle and Vegas. And can you hit the price? So when you think about the numbers in those contexts, I'm pretty sure the Lakers could have afforded Dan Hurley. I'm almost positive, which makes me think they didn't 100% want to hire Dan Hurley. Yeah, we really like him. Oh, we flew out to see him once. Here's an offer.

Anyway, that's my superior take. The Lakers, you're not a family business. You have more money to spend than just about anybody. And you have the best franchise and you're probably in the best market for where athletes want to live and where you can get the highest tickets. And I'm just not buying it. Not buying any of it. That was today's six major things. Remember, get yourself a six pack of Michelob Ultra, a Superior Light Beer, an official beer sponsor of the National Basketball Association. It's refreshing, crisp.

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All right, taping this, it is mid-afternoon Pacific time. This is a guy that I should have on a lot more than I do, but I'm, as always, awful at booking my own podcast. You've seen him in Abu Dhabi. You've seen him in Saudi Arabia. You've seen him in basically every continent in the world, and now he's in the U.S. covering the NBA Finals. Chris Mannix, it's good to have you on domestic soil. You're one of my favorite guys, Bill, who comes out of the woodwork for...

every big fight. It's like you, it's Damian Lillard, it's a handful of NBA coaches that when there's a big fight that they don't quite know enough about, my phone starts blowing up.

That's me. I'm big fight Bill. I'm also a medium-sized Bill. I'm medium-sized Bill, too, for fights. Yes, but I helped you make a little bit of money. I don't know if you doubled down on Usyk after you texted me, but you texted me a little bit before the fight. I said, you're going to make a good amount of money on Usyk. I told you I bet on Usyk because that's my guy.

I love him. But in general, there's been a lot of good pay-per-view fights that are just interesting enough to justify paying for them. But you wouldn't be telling your grandkids about any of them. That's where we've landed with boxing, at least until Tank gets the right challenger. But we're not here to talk about boxing. We're here to talk about a Boston Celtics team that came out of 2-0 in Boston on Sunday night, and it felt like they had solved Dallas.

I was trying to restrain myself from the pod with Rosillo, but everything I had seen, we've seen so many times in the finals or in really major series, there hits a point with a series where you feel like one team has figured out the other team. And I felt that way in game two. It's like they just figured out Dallas. You remember this happened with Golden State in 2002 in game four. Some point in game four, Golden State just figured out Boston.

And it was a wrap after that. I felt that way with Mavs Clippers round one. I went to game five. I was like, shit, really seems like Dallas has just figured the Clippers out. And it felt like Boston had figured them out. Now we're pulling Porzingis possibly out of this. So now what happens? Man, when it comes to Porzingis and his availability, my panic level is an 11. If I was, as a Celtics supporter, I would make my panic level 11.

And 11 because look, his value is, is,

incalculable to me. Like I know they're 30 and five during this season without Porzingis nine and one in the playoffs without Porzingis. But all you have to do is watch the first two games of the series to see just how valuable he is. I mean, he won game one for them, right? Like it was 37 to 20 at the end of the first quarter. Porzingis had 11 points in that game. Yeah. The Mavs made it close in the third, but that game for all intents and purposes was one that

in the first half and that was all Porzingis. A little bit less effective in game two, but he still got his points, still had some rebounds, still was a menace defending shots at the rim. Without him, I think this becomes a losable series for the Celtics. I do believe that. I have faith in Al Horford to step up, and I don't have the numbers in front of me, but

Al Horford, when he plays 30 minutes or less, he's a lot better than Al Horford who plays 30 minutes or more. He's just not a 30-plus-per-minute game per game player. And that means...

We might see some Luke Cornett in this game three if Porzingis doesn't play. And how about some Sam Houser who was just ripping off bricks in game two and looked like he lost his confidence? I think I was going to play either way, though. Right. Like, I thought he was really good in game one. It was two or three from the four, two for two from three. And he defended. I mean, there were some Sam Houser defensive moments in game one. He was awful in game two, but he's going to play no matter what.

If Porzingis is healthy, Luke Cornett's not seeing the floor. Not until garbage time, anyway. And look, I think Luke Cornett is fine during the regular season, but the minutes I've seen him play in the playoffs...

have been very shaky. And if you're needing him to play 10 to 15 real minutes with Porzingis out of the lineup, that would worry me if I was the Celtics. This is the Brissette spot that I've been crying for for two months because I actually think this is somebody that you can at least switch on defense with him. The KP thing, you mentioned the panic level being at 11. You meant 11 for the entire season, day after day after day. You didn't just mean this week.

This is a constant thing of every game you get through where Porzingis is healthy, you feel great if you're a Celtic fan. And the irony of that game on Sunday night was the game probably should have been over five different times. And each time Boston just couldn't land the knockout ball. That was why I was such, it was weird doing the podcast that night with Russel because I was like trying to not be negative. The Celts are up 2-0. They're 78-20, you know, and we're nitpicking on Tatum. I didn't love his shot selection.

But there was a lack of just finish them off in that game where they just Dallas was dying to roll over and be done with it. And they did. Celtics just couldn't do it. Now it's close in the last six, seven minutes. And that's when Porzingis gets hurt. So it was almost like them not being able to finish them off in the third quarter when Dallas looked like they were ready to go home and kid put out Luca and Kyrie together when normally rest of them. Cause he knew like this, if I don't,

If I don't save these two minutes here, we're done anyway. And then the Celtics can't finish him off. So I'm with you. They bring him in. He changes the game. He just makes it weird. He changes what Dallas wants to do offensively. He takes away their lobs. He creates these mismatches on the other end. And even in the six plays when he was hurt before they took him out,

Kyrie had that layup. Russell and I talked about it Sunday that KP was coming behind and just blocking against the backboard in game one. And in game two, he didn't want to jump and Kyrie got the layup. And it's those little moments like that, that if I'm Dallas, I'm like, all right, that guy's now gone. Either way, if he plays or if he's not, doesn't play, that guy's gone for the rest of the series. I guess my question is, have you seen enough from Dallas to think that it's even going to matter?

Because this looks like a bad matchup for, for Dallas anyway. So what do they, let's poke Porzingis out. What does Dallas need to do now? What needs to happen?

Well, I think for starters, and it's kind of cliche, I think some of their role players will make shots at home, right? Like, I think P.J. Washington will be better. I think Derrick Jones Jr. will be better. Josh Green will be better. These guys couldn't buy a bucket in that last game. But how much is that after the corner threes, though? Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Because they took him away. They took him away, but they did miss some open looks. Like, they missed some open threes in that game. And...

I think if you're Dallas, you can count on them being a little bit better at home and

I just got to believe there's at least one Kyrie game out there. And look, I'm with the people that say it's a bad matchup for Kyrie. Not only does he have, you know, three elite defenders coming at him in waves all game and Brown holiday and Derek white, they're also making him defend on the other end of the floor. They're putting him in action. Sometimes he's on a switch against Porzingis. Sometimes he's faced with Jalen Brown. They're forcing him to expend energy on that end of the floor. But again,

he's too good a player to be 0 for 8 in the next two games from three. Like, he's got to have at least one breakout game. And that game two was just close enough to make me believe if Kyrie has a breakout game and if some of these role players start making some shots, that they can take one of them. Probably game three. And then...

all of a sudden you're looking at game four and you're saying, is Porzingis going to play in that one? What's he going to look like? Then all of a sudden the pressure kind of shifts back to Boston for, for that one. And you know, that's why I think that this, this is still very much a series, maybe more so if Porzingis is out. I don't agree with you on the Kyrie thing, but I see the point. No, no, I see the point. You're right. Cause he missed how many open threes in the first two games and maybe five of them were wide open. Yeah.

On the other hand, I thought what they were making Dallas do, and this is whether Porzingis was in the game or not, was just a lot of one-on-one stuff and a lot of, hey, Luka and Kyrie, why don't you pretend you're in a sports movie and dribble through your legs a few times and try to beat whoever's guarding you, which I don't really think is how Dallas advanced through the first three rounds. I don't see that changing as much. I'm with you on the role players. The role players that, to me, are going to be helped the most without Porzingis are the two centers.

Cause now, now maybe the lab threat comes back in a little more great point on Horford. The other thing is it's Wednesday, Friday. This was the worst possible time for this injury to happen. Right. Cause fitted first game Sunday after nine days off and then Thursday and then Sunday was second game had some time off then Wednesday, this game three, but then playing Friday, all of a sudden the series can be two, two and 50 hours.

You know, so if you're putting huge miles on Horford in game three, you also have to know we're playing in two days. Yeah. Dallas has to know the same with Luca, to be fair. I mean, Luca, that one picture of him was wearing the full body wrap on the chest ribs and the full like back. I mean, he looked like he looked like he was preparing to film like a Saturday Night Live sketch or something.

So I'm not sure that's going to help him that much either, but it obviously hurts Horford the most because he's old. Now, do you walk away from Game 2 thinking Luka figured some things out? Because you had the one assist in Game 1, you had 10 more in Game 2. I thought the Celtics were sending more doubles in Game 2 than they did in Game 1. Is that kind of forecast Game 3? Yeah. If Porzingis is limited or not able to play...

it becomes even more important not to send doubles because we know if you send doubles at Luka, he's going to carve you up. He's going to find lobs. He's going to find corner threes. And without that rim protector in Porzingis, like the last thing you want for the Celtics is for Derek Lively to get any confidence. Like you don't want Daniel Gafford to start

feeling himself during these games. You want these guys shooting two times. How many shots has Derek Lively taken and made in this series? Three? Same thing with Gafford. He's been kind of out of control. I mean, he's had...

all kinds of dumb fouls and he just is kind of running around like a chicken with his head cut out. But the last thing a young guy, you want to give a young guy like that is any confidence. Like, you want him to feel out of his element. You don't want him involved in the game. So if I'm the Celtics, like, I'm looking at Jalen Brown, I'm looking at Drew Holiday, I'm saying, we're going to leave you guys alone on an island for the most part. Like, if Luka gets 50 on you, okay, you know, that's the way it's got to be. But we can't afford now more than ever to send extra bodies because we, we,

We don't want to make Al Horford defend the rim all that often. I don't believe that Luke Cornett can do it. So I think defending Luka one-on-one in this game three is going to be huge. I noticed two things just from going to both games. One is that I thought he got noticeably tired in the second halves of both games. Like really just kind of peaked for the first hour of the game and then held on after that because there was a moment in game two and it seemed like he was going to go for 60 points. And the Celtics were really concerned about

With not letting him just get that open 28 footer. And anytime...

You know, cause you don't, you don't think he's in three point range, but he always is. And it's just this thing. It used to be the biggest flaw with Robert Williams. Remember how many times for Robert Williams, he was always two feet further back than where the guy was. And you knew it in real time. Like, oh, that guy's going to shoot a three over Rob. He's not going to see it in time. And noticing the Celtics benched a couple of times when people would forget that Luke had the 28 foot range and the Porzingis fell asleep on one.

And all the coaches get mad. It's a, you can tell they've just been like the whole, you know, lead up to the series. Don't when that guy is in this territory, 28 feet away from shooting. So I thought they took those away and I thought he got tired as the game went on. The, the bigger thing that I noticed in person, and then there was a great YouTube clip today of all the times people blew by Luca in game two.

it's like 20 times and they're blowing by him and he kept doing the matador. Like he should change his name to Luca Luis Castillo Donchic because he was doing the matador wave by, but then trying to pick the guy from behind. And that just became his move. But every Celtic was just going by him. There were times when he was lost and wandering around. I don't know how much of that had to do with him being tired, hurt, whatever. But I think the Celtics are going to look at that. Everyone's talking about what's going to happen on defensive without Porzingis.

I think there's so much meat on the bone with attacking Luca and they really were figuring that out in game two. They got, what'd you think of my theory? I just don't understand why Tatum doesn't take 12 to 15 foot shots over and over again. He's just going by Luca and just not rising up Durant style. He feels like he just has to keep going and get to the rim somehow and either kick out or shoot a layup. What's happened to his 12 foot shot?

Why is it gone? I mean, don't you feel like that's been kind of drilled out of his game in recent years? In the last two years, right? This is the Rosillo theory about the Hanlonitis, basically, where you practice step-back threes and drives.

But nothing in between. I think the bigger problem with Tatum in these first two games is that he's not finishing with any kind of force, right? Like, he looks more like the rookie and second-year version of Tatum who was trying to kind of artfully finish around the rim. Bubble Tatum.

Yeah. I want to see the Tatum we've seen the last couple of years, just put on 20, 25 pounds of muscle and try to dunk over guys, go through guys. Jalen Brown does that exceptionally well. Like how many times you see Jalen Brown kind of dip around and look for layups. He's going to the rim hard. Like he's trying to get followed. He's trying to get to the free throw line. I want to see more of that from Tatum. That's, that's a bigger concern for me on the subject of Donchik though. Um,

I was at all the Timberwolves Mavericks games. I thought one of their

Their fatal mistakes was that Minnesota didn't do enough to put Donchich in action, right? Like, I mean, they were so isolation heavy and it was like Anthony Edwards going up against, you know, Derek Jones Jr. or PJ Washington. They just let Donchich hang out defending the guy standing in the dunker spot. And this is when Donchich, like I don't know how severe his knee injury is, but he was complaining about it at the time. Like, why are you not putting him in as many actions as you possibly can? And just like with Kyrie, I think Boston's done a decent job of that.

in this series. And Doncic, look, I don't know whether it's he doesn't care. I don't know if it's because he's hurt, but he's not a good defender. Like I've heard some things, you know, this year about how he's playing better. He's gotten like the average level. I don't see it. When he's got a guy in front of you that tries to go around, he's either getting beat or he's trying to do that thing like you talked about, kind of reach around and stuff you did in high school where you're trying to poke the ball away and get a steal on that end. So I'd put him in as many actions as I can if for no other reason that's going to wear him down.

Oh, look at door. I got to come up with a good name for the matador. But the thing is though, the thing is in the last couple minutes of that game, and they showed this in the other series too, he can dial it up defensively for like two and a half minutes. Cause Dallas, I thought played really, really good defense down the stretch. Part of that was cause the Celtics fell into that walk it up mode.

And, uh, you know, once things slow down, they become a lot easier to stop, but they do have it in them. The crowd's going to help. The crowd's going to give him some energy. I thought, I don't know how many Luca games I've seen in person this year, but I thought it was interesting. He wasn't talking that much to the refs and to the crowd.

And I don't know whether that was because he's not feeling good. I thought he was talking to the refs as much as he always does. Like he talks to the refs. I didn't feel like it was as much as in the, the Clippers. I was almost like they had to have an intervention with them in that Clipper series. Cause he was,

It was two and a half straight. He was doing a one-man show. I said, made that joke. He's made a one-man show on the court with the three refs. Just babble, babble, babble. But every time he thinks he gets fouled, he gives up on the play. Like completely gives up on it. Like he spends the rest of that play on his side of the court arguing with the referee. If I was Jason Kidd, that would drive me crazy. I was thinking if Porzingis was healthy going into this game three, because I really thought the Celts had a chance to

go up and we'll talk about the reasons after the break. But I was wondering, like, would this be the game where Luca just tried to

bomb a bunch of threes and really, really, really take over and do that thing. Now without Porzingis, I almost, if I'm, if I'm Dallas, I almost want to wait for that. It's like the Rocky four where you, you want to wait for to have the trainer go now and do like the, all right, now we got to do it. I want to see like who the Celtics play and what my matchups are and try to save him for the second half. Let's take one break. Cause I want to talk about the, uh, the big picture Celtics, uh, torture piece of this.

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All right. So here you have the Celtics. This has been an eight year odyssey, six conference finals and a really fascinating run. They're the second most successful team of the last eight years. But of course they didn't win a finals and coming out of the garden on Sunday. It's like that was the game played like crap. 25% from three. We played all the hits from the typical game that they would blow even dating back to the last couple of years.

You know, shades of like game five, 2002 Milwaukee, shades of some of those Miami losses, shades of game four, Golden State. Like we're playing the hits. Game two, Golden State in 2022. And they got through it. They got over this invisible hump.

And now they're going to go to Dallas in game three, where for whatever reason, they're more comfortable on the road. I don't really fully understand it, but they play more freely, especially Tatum. And I have some theories on that. And they're just going to bomb threes and they're actually going to blow them out in game three because they've solved Dallas. Now removing Porzingis. Are we sure we're not now underrating the fact that they still might do that?

That we haven't had a good Tatum yet. That Tatum, for whatever reason, is better on the road. And I don't get it, but it's true. And that he seems to be a mismatch for Dallas because he's going by everybody and they're throwing three guys at him and he's still creating all these shots. But his shot's not going in yet. But if his shot starts going in, I don't know what their answers are. Anyway, talk it out with me.

Is there a chance they come in and shoot the lights out? You've watched them all year. They've done this on the road over and over and over again. I think there's a chance because like every six weeks or so, they have a game like they had in game two where they shoot sub 30%. It looks like they're taking too many threes. More often than not, they lose those games and it leads to like

these classic Gary Washburn versus Joe Missoula moments at the press conference. It's a great local theater. Gary wonders why the Celtics don't drive more and Joe kind of fires back at him and says that they're all good shots. But oftentimes they lose those games and generally speaking, they respond with more great ones, right? Because they are a great three-point shooting team. Like what a 0.1 percentage point for being the number one percentage

percentage team in the NBA last year. So I have confidence they're going to bounce back and have a good shooting night in game three. The Tatum question, though, is interesting because everything Dallas has done, regardless of what Jason Kidd says, everything Dallas has done in this series has

is geared towards making Tatum inefficient. You know, game one, they're throwing multiple bodies at him. They're tilting the floor towards him. They're trying to get the ball out of his hands. Then you have the whole Tatum-Brown comment, which is designed to get into Tatum's head. And look, there are people in Dallas...

There are people that will tell you they think it worked, right? Tatum did take 22 shots in game two. Like, he did have the 12 assists, and that's what everybody's talking about. But he was six for 22 from the floor. So people in Dallas might tell you that maybe he was overaggressive like they wanted him to be. But have you ever seen, Bill,

more times where Jason Tatum was hunted defensively than game two. I've never seen it before. Like he was put in every action and they were trying to go one-on-one with him, with Luca and Kyrie every single time. I'd never seen that before. Now, yeah, I don't think that's a reflection on Tatum as a defensive player. I think that's Dallas trying to wear down the best player on Boston and make him inefficient or more inefficient on the, on the offensive end. So given that,

I don't know. It's all about how Tatum adjusts in this game three to what they throw up. Because they're going to have something new. It will be something that he hasn't seen before or something they haven't done yet that's going to try to throw him off the mark. If he adjusts well and shoots like six for ten from three, which is very possible, there's your Jason Tatum breakout game. There's your game six against Milwaukee from 2022. Game seven against Philadelphia. But everything Dallas is doing in this series is geared towards

making Tatum inefficient. So far, at least shooting-wise, they have been successful. Well, I agree with everything you just said. I also think Boston can learn from some of the stuff that didn't work too. Because even just sitting there in game two, one of the things my dad and I noticed was when Tatum was on the left side about 30 feet back, we're facing the dude. A lot of times the Celts make the mistake of they have them facing the guy either

straight ahead, so the rim's straight ahead of him, or he's on the right. And if he's on the right, he's not as good going to his left. He wants to go to his right. He wants to finish. He has that great Dr. J little swoop layup. And when he's on the left with some speed, he was just going by Luca, getting into the paint on his dominant hand. And then it's either a jump hook or it's like that scoop layup.

And I'm wondering if they're going to shift where he has the ball in the spots for game three. And I would encourage people in the first half, like, look, look where he's getting the ball at these spots. Cause it was the same kind of looks. Are they going to shift people around so that he's attacking kind of 45 degree diagonal with his right hand? And maybe that'll help him. Cause I thought strategically some of the ways they were using Tatum, it didn't make sense to me.

You know, if he doesn't have his three point shot and he's attacking straight ahead, then everybody can come over and help. Right. That's why drew is open on those little, those little passes sometimes, but it wasn't helping him kind of get unlocked. So I got to unlock him. Um, the other thing is the more Horford plays, if Horford's hitting threes, um,

that's eventually going to just open up more space for him in the middle. Right. Whereas Porzingis, he was at the top. So if he's at the top now, Tatum has to be at a little bit of a weird angle. I don't know. I'm babbling, but I just feel like they're going to put them in better spots than he was in the last game. Well, two things. One, I mean, I thought holiday bail Tatum out big time in,

in game two. What was like six of his 12 assists went to Holiday and that's because Holiday is so smart. Like just doing stuff you learn in high school, like follow the basketball, like get in the paint, step into open space, make yourself available. This is all basketball 101 that, you know, guys learn when they're kids. And I thought, you know,

There were a couple of times during that game that Tatum found himself kind of in no man's land and Holiday bailed him out. There were a couple of times, too. I was sitting next to some of the reporters on press row and

Very generous with the assists, I thought, some of the stack keepers on that one. There were at least two, three dribble assists in that game. 12 did feel a little high, I will say. Did that feel like a 12 assister? There were a few of them in that game. My question with where you put Tatum is what happened to the post-ups?

Like this is what we saw from Tatum. Yeah. Like where has that gone? Like that was a big part of Tatum's offensive game all season. Like, is it something they're seeing in Dallas that, that it doesn't make sense? Like, is it because Washington is a stronger player, but we heard all year long that Tatum had developed into a much better mid to low post player. And especially as a passer, like he was really good at passing out of those positions. I mean, I think if you're going to make an adjustment with him,

you know, give him a little bit of diversity. Don't, don't force him to make decisions off the dribble quite as often. Let him put his shoulder down, get to the basket, get to the foul line. This guy's capable of going to the foul line 10 times a game. We've seen that during the regular season. Just give him a chance to get easier looks than just these dribble drives where he's walking into three different defenders. Use him as a screener.

post them up on the foul line, put him 30 feet on the left. So he has a running start going to his hand. It's all stuff. I mean, he had no shots at the foul line in game two. He had no shots basically from eight to 15 feet. We took 22 shots in one foul line jumper. Like that's crazy to me. They're using them wrong. Um,

And then the other piece is I do feel like they were attacking Kyrie a lot. I feel like they can do that even more and put some miles on him. They have two guards that are really good at using screens, attacking the basket and kicking out, and they can leverage that. And Jalen, I think, who he wasn't as good in game two as he was in game one, but has really been, and he had a bunch of turnovers, but has been really smart about

I'm going to attack. I'm going to get in the paint. I'm going to attack. I'm going to get in the paint. And so that mentality was there. I just didn't think they shot well. And, you know, the Hauser piece of it, just, just wide open shots that it felt like they could have been up by 18 at any time. Give me, so you're sitting with all the seat mates. Who's like, who's like the winning lottery ticket when you're at,

these big games, is there anybody that's just like great to sit next to that just is just spouting wisdom the whole time? Is there an MVP that person doesn't exist? Uh, I don't think that person exists. I get stuck next to Jay King for these games, uh, who is the worst dress member of media that I've ever seen. Like he rolls in, like he just played 18 minutes at the Y, uh, for every game. So, uh,

There's that part of it. But I sitting next to the the Boston media cartel is fun. Sitting right behind Christian Megliola during these games is is fun. So telling everybody to calm down about Tatum. That Tatum game is funny because from a national perspective, it's

I think people were surprised that a lot of people, including me, like we're in Rosillo, we're talking about like the Tatum. That was weird Tatum game. Why, why are you even talking about that? You're up to nothing. And then on the local level, it's the complete opposite where that's probably all they were talking about for the next 24 hours. This Porzingis really hurt. And what's wrong with Tatum? It just never leaves the DNA in, in, in Boston. It just doesn't. Cause it's,

There were other really fun storylines to talk about, like the Drew Holiday, how magnificent he's been, what an amazing trade that was. He could go run the gamut, but I think it's because Tatum's been in our lives now, really since that draft, since the flip back, and then just was immediately on a big stage from the get-go, and now we have this seven-year reservoir of experience. I was telling somebody...

I don't remember anything like this with people murmuring when they don't like what they're seeing from Tatum as the play's happening with another Boston player. Like you would see it sometimes in baseball with a pitcher. Like if, you know, the pitcher throws two balls and it's certain pitchers and you could kind of hear murmuring in the crowd like, oh God. Like this would happen with Derek Lowe in the early 2000s. Oh no.

Oh God. I used to call it the Derek Lowe face. It was like, Oh God, he's making the Derek Lowe face. So no, but you could feel it in the stands, right? Like that was a real, I wasn't crazy. Like you could, there's like murmuring sometimes where it was like, Oh God, seven seconds left in the shot clock. And Tatum's got the ball 35 feet from the basket. This is just such a bizarre relationship because on paper, he's everything you would ever want from a star. And I love Tatum by the way.

But it's just weird. The push and pull of this whole thing has been nuts to watch. Well, the conversation in Boston about Tatum is it's built around like, is he...

He's finished sixth in the MVP voting. Is he a top six player in the NBA? Is he capable of doing what we've seen Jokic do in the playoffs? What we've seen or just recently saw Jalen Brunson do in the playoffs? The problem with Tatum is that, I mean, it's not that Boston has so much talent, but he's not been asked to do the things that some of these other players have been asked to do. So there's the question of like,

whether or not he's on that level regardless of the stats he puts up which which validate that which prove that out that he is on that level that's what the conversation is like in Boston when when it comes to to Jason Tatum is he is he the guy on this team and look I all the stuff we've talked about the six conference finals now two NBA finals right now is

when it comes to Tatum, it's almost being used as a negative. If they win this series, and I think ultimately Tatum's going to have a big part in it. I mean, he's already played a big role, but if they get to four wins, he's going to have a massive scoring night in one of them. I'm convinced of that. If that happens, all of a sudden, all the stuff we're criticizing him for becomes part of a more positive narrative. It's like, well, he won one championship and he went to six conference finals and two NBA finals. So once you get that championship,

All the times you came up short go from being negatives to part of a positive story, if that makes sense. Yeah, it's also a fundamental misunderstanding of why this team was so special. Like when the 2004 Pistons were ripping off wins and ended up just killing the Lakers in the finals, nobody was like, who's the alpha on this team? Is it Rip Hamilton or Chauncey Billups? It's almost like a fault of how we talk about basketball now. I think one of the great things about the Celtics team and one of the reasons I thought they're going to win the series is

is they can win games when Tatum isn't good. They can win games when Brown isn't good. And it's crazy with Porzingis, they could win games when Tatum and Brown weren't good. You know, as long as those guys were out there and doing a bunch of different stuff, they could still kind of patch wins together. And that was what made them crazy. The Mavericks, especially this series, cannot win if Luka plays badly. And they probably can't win in Boston either.

if Kyrie plays badly and Luca's like fine, not great. Right. There's, there's limits with both those guys. They just can't replace the offense. They scored 89 and 98 and those two get, they just can't put the points together. The Celtics can, and they can have these random games where they'll just hit 22 threes and maybe Tatum has one of them, you know? So I, so when I hear that stuff about, well, can he be the guy in a title team? It's like, well, they built a really good team. Like maybe that should be the topic. Like they,

You know, they have more depth at a high level than any teams in a while, right? You're probably going back to the mid-2010 Warriors. And if you're making a list of the top 60 players in the league, they have five of them. And they might even have five of the top, you know, 45 or 50. So that's why I think the Tatum thing is kind of silly. It's like, yeah, could it be Jokic? Probably not. Jokic is one of the top 20 players of all time already.

But I said to Rosillo on Sunday, what's your take on this? I felt like Tatum's not a finished product yet. And I still think there's more work to do, especially with shot selection. And I mentioned that little, that jumper eight to 15 feet. And I think Rosillo was more on the side of,

He's 26. He's played in over a hundred playoff games. This is kind of who he is. Do you think this is who he is or is there another level? I think he's 90% of the way there. Um, you know, I think that's a good percentage. You know, I love percentages. Yeah. You've got a little bit of wiggle room to grow. I mean, we've seen that grow to go 89%. We'll go 89%. What about 90.3%? Oh, you know, 50, 40, 90. One of those, uh, uh,

We've seen growth the last couple of years. We talked about the post game. Early on, that was not part of his repertoire. He wasn't a post player. He wasn't a very good passer out of the post. He became both those things this season. So I think there's room to grow. The mid-range stuff, though, it goes back to what we were talking about. Tatum is a Kobe acolyte. Tatum came up loving the mid-range game. He loved...

coming off screens and shooting the 18-footer. They kind of beat... Do you remember they went to the conference finals that first year? Of course I do. And that was the year that details came out

on Tatum, the Kobe series on ESPN Plus, where Tatum watched that like a dozen times. He was just obsessed with Kobe's insight into his game. So he wanted to be like Kobe, and Kobe was, for the most part, a mid-range jump shooter. But over time, the Celtics during the season, Drew Hanlon in the offseason, they drilled that out of him. They made him three-pointers or gave the basket. I don't think you can expect

that part of his game to come back because nobody wants it to come back. I mean, we might, but nobody internally in Boston wants it to come back. And certainly in the off season, they're not really working on it where I think the next 10% is finishing. Like, and again, it's what we discussed, discussed when I see Tatum dipsy do around the lane and not using that six foot nine, 240 plus pound frame the way he should, uh,

It's maddening. And that's the next step. When he starts finishing over guys and through guys and not worrying about...

using an angle off the backboard. If he starts doing that, he's A, going to score more and B, going to get to the free throw line a lot more. So that's where the 10%, I think comes in with Jason Tatum. You know what? I'm dropping that to 85% because we each had our own things that we thought he could get better at. So maybe that, maybe that's our answer. I agree with what you said, but I also think I'm right too, because

As you pointed out, he used to be really good from 14 to 18 feet and they've thrown this away. And yet you watch like some of the baskets Jalen got, especially in the first game where the kind of shots Tatum doesn't take.

Jalen was getting those like little eight footers, those little push shots or like, okay, I'm fine. I'll take this little 12 footer here. And Tatum just doesn't seem interested in that. So that's how I feel it can get better. I mean, I look at Jalen Brown. People thought that guy was a finished product, right? I think we thought maybe he could dribble better, but what did he do? He got stronger.

Um, he got way more aggro. He really committed to the defensive end in a totally different way. And I thought he was a good defensive player before, but something is different. Like he, he takes that. I mean, he was pissed. He didn't make all defense. I don't know if he was that great, but if we voted for all defense with six guards, six forwards and three centers, he might've had a chance to be one of the six forwards, you know, but I think he's better than he was last year. And he's a year older than Tatum.

which makes me think there might be hope for Tatum. One guy who's not going to be probably much better, but I think is getting better from the IQ point though is Drew. Drew is like those guys. I remember when I hit this point in pickup basketball before my body parts started to go one at a time, when you're just smarter than everyone you're playing,

And it's like, all right, all these guys, but I know exactly what I can do and can't do and what spots to go to. And you just, everything kind of slows down a little bit. And you've been in so many games and watch so many games. You're just like, oh, he's going to do that. So the rebound is going to come here and things click in a different way. And that, that was what I thought. Drew is becoming like the old guy in the pickup game in some spots where, uh,

You know, he's like, oh, Tatum's going to take that shot. The rebound's going to go right here. I'm going to get it. He gets 11 rebounds. He's six, he's six, three. And then the other thing is anytime they wanted somebody to stop scoring, where did they go? It was Drew. So I think Drew has a real chance to be finals MVP. It's weird. His plus seven 50 still.

That's crazy. I don't really understand. Don't you think? I mean, if you had to vote after two games, who would you have voted for? I would have voted for Holiday. I think he's had two elite defensive games and one great offensive game. Whereas Jalen had one complete game and then one good game in game two. I think I would edge Holiday in that one. The thing I love most about Drew's defense is that not only can he anticipate where a guy is going to go,

but when he anticipates, he sells out completely. Like, you know, that Nembhard steal he had at the end of game four, he anticipated him going right. And he didn't just hedge over there, like, or take a half a step. He went all the way over and forced Nembhard to effectively come into him. And what I watched in this series, again,

against Dallas, he knows Kyrie wants to go right. So he is putting his entire body between the right side and Kyrie Irving. And if Kyrie wants to pivot around and go left, yeah, he might have a bit of an opening there for a minute or two while Boston adjusts, but he's just not going to let him go right. He's going to form that wall

right in front of him on that right side. And I love that because sometimes you see guys, you know, gamble a little bit, step out, you know, do a little bit of hedging. Not Drew Holiday. He is all in on these anticipation moves. And like 90% of the time they pay off. One of my favorite players, future Hall of Famer,

um, winning player. I love that he's on team USA. It's like the exact type of guy who should be on team USA every four years. Right. Are you ready? I asked my dad on Thursday's pod. I was like, let's retire second row, Joe. It's over. He's now first row, Joe. He's doing a good job. He's got the winningest record of any coach after two years in the history of the sport. The Celtics are

There were 77 and 20. We taped it now. There's 70 and 20. I think it's been night and day him last year versus this year. A lot of the stubbornness is gone with him. He has a sense of the flow of the game now, and he'll realize the game's drifting a certain way, and he'll actually call timeouts, which he just never did last year.

I just think he's way better. He's been better dealing with the media, except for his foil Gary Washburn, which I'm sure will be a seven-part 30-for-30. But having assistants, I think, has really helped him. I mean, he lucked out with Charles Lee, who everybody loves, but the assistant coaching side's better. What else are you seeing from covering the team with him? What's different? A more relaxed version of him. And that's hard for people to see because publicly he just...

kind of comes off very different, right? He's a different guy. You know, how many coaches defend three-pointers after timeouts? Like, I mean, there's just a general oddness to him that's not going to change. But he's much more comfortable in his own skin this year than he was last year, which is completely understandable. I mean, sometimes we don't...

we don't give enough credit to what he had to go through last year. He was a back bench guy about to get a promotion. Then three days before his boss leaves in a sex scandal, like, and then he's, you mentioned the assistance. He's got a bunch of assistants around them. Probably half of them thought they deserve the job, right? Like all those guys go, uh,

at the end of last season. You bring in guys that are comfortable in their roles. You mentioned Charles. He's been great. I think Jeff Van Gundy is a strong candidate to take that role next year with the team. And Sam Cassell, who if Sam Cassell doesn't get a job at some point,

I don't, there's something wrong with, with the NBA because that guy's paid his dues. He's a really smart basketball guy. He has a great connection with players. He has been exactly what this team has needed as that, that second assistant on the bench. So I think all those, those,

Those are factors in Joe being better as a coach, a natural evolution, which for a 30 something year old is inevitably going to come. And then having guys around you that want to be there, that want to help you succeed, as opposed to maybe kind of begrudgingly being there on the bench. Yeah, which we've seen that a few times with basketball. When somebody takes over mid-season, he always gets a little dicey with the assistants. I still wonder if they got swept by Miami last year, if he would have gotten fired.

So the only I don't think that they would have fired him and hired somebody else.

I think if they got swept last year, Witt Grosbeck probably would have looked at Brad Stevens and said, you fixed this. You know, this didn't cause the Emei Udoka mess, but we elevate your guy, Joe Mazzulla. We failed to live up to expectations. If they got swept by Miami, you've got to go down. Look, I remember asking Brad after the Udoka stuff went down, like, did he consider...

taking the job. And he said no, but then Wick came on and was like, yeah, we had that conversation. It was a short one, but we had that conversation. My guess is that it would have been a Brad Stevens problem, that he would have made Brad take over and try to clean up the mess that was there. That would have been a tough story.

I mean, it's weird, but the game for Miami, when it just felt like that entire team was going to roll over, the coach was going to get fired and the team might be blown up. And then what do you do with Jalen Brown? And there were 19 different things that come out of that. And then they just played really well for three games, for two games in a row. Then White hits the miracle putback.

Now we're going to a game seven. And at least that saved some stuff and gave some levity and perspective to, all right, how should we actually approach this? Okay, Jalen, you're getting paid now. And I just, I really wonder what happens if they just get, if they roll over in game four in Miami and,

I don't know what happens. And I don't even know if Jay, I honestly don't know if Jalen's on the team. Like, I don't know how, how much they would have blown it up. Yeah. I don't know if they would have blown it up. I think a coaching change would have been possible because if you're getting swept by granted, Miami is one of the best eight seeds you'll, you'll ever see. But if you get swept by,

Uh, I think a coaching change was certainly, but it would have been off a game three, which was so dispiriting. And then you think game four should have been just as dispiriting if you get swept. And then now you got to look in the mirror and go, all right. I mean, my thing never changed. I'm not, I don't want to break up Tatum and Brown. I never want to break those guys up.

But when it's bad and you're angry and you're mad and you haven't won in a few years, that's when weird shit starts happening, you know? So maybe the coach would have been, but even trading, I mean, you have funny, does the market stuff seem now?

When they traded Marcus, like how many people texted you? Like, why would they trade that guy? He's the heart and soul of the team. How crazy does that seem now? It seems completely nuts. I think you have to factor in that he was traded before they knew they had Holiday, right? Like he was part of that Porzingis deal. So at the time, I was looking around going, well, who's going to be the point guard of this team? Like, is Derek White going to be able to do it? Do they have enough depth at that spot? So it definitely raised questions.

a lot of eyebrows across the league. I mean, not that...

Not that they thought there couldn't be an upgrade for Marcus, but you were doing a deal that didn't net you Tyus Jones too, right? Like you didn't have a built-in replacement there. So I think in that sense, it did raise intent. I would say one thing, you mentioned that Derek White shot. I'll always remember it because we all have stories that wind up in the saved folder forever. Like after Derek White made that shot, I managed to get Dave Roberts on the phone like the next morning. Oh, God.

And I was, I was going to write a story about like, you know, cause you know, Dave stole second base. He's known for that in Boston forever. Like he is, he could buy, you know, he could do no wrong in Boston, regardless of what happens in LA. Like Derek White was about to become that guy. If they had one game, seven, Derek White would have become that guy and had the whole story written, ready to go. If they won game seven and, uh,

They lay that egg in game seven. That would be a good website. Stories I wrote that I had to just put in the junk mail. I remember writing a couple, like two thirds, three fourths of a column and then a game shifting and just like, okay, toss that to the wood chopper. So State of Panic in Boston,

With the KP news, with these parts of the body that I don't even know how to pronounce, we went from a 1 out of 10 panic to, I would say, probably like an 8.5. But that could ratchet up if they lose Game 3. Luke Cornett, you're on Luke Cornett Watch. I need Luke Cornett to have a positive plus minus in Game 3. If he has a positive plus minus, I think they win. If he's like minus 6, I think they lose.

So if he's Sheldon Williams in whatever 2010 finals game that was, what was he like a minus 11 and three minutes? It's still like the record for worst half I've ever seen in person by anyone in a big game. And then, you know, maybe this will be, maybe this will be the Tatum quiet down game. Who knows? I was Mike.

My gut is that Boston in one of these two games is going to shoot really well because I've watched them do it all year and they do it when you don't expect it, which makes me think, could it be Wednesday night? What's the biggest fight of the summer?

Biggest fight of the summer so far is probably that massive Saudi Arabia card that's coming to LA on August 3rd. It's Terrence Crawford against Israel Madrimov. That's the top end of a card that is stacked. One thing about these Saudi cards is that every fight on the card could be a main event somewhere else. You watch the fight with Fury and Usyk. They had like

eight or nine other fights on that card. So you've got like Andy Ruiz against Jarrell Miller. That's a slobber knocker. You've got Isak Cruz fighting on that card. So I think it's that, I think was it, they changed the names all the time. BNPC Park, whatever it is in LA. That's the biggest one. Headlined by Crawford, but probably half a dozen or more big fights on that card. And what's the heavyweight fight you want to see?

I mean that so Usyk and Fury are going to fight again in December and I don't think that's going to go any different but

If as a boxing fan, you're kind of rooting for Tyson Fury to come out with the wings, you can finally get Fury and AJ. Because that's really the only mega fight that's left to be made in boxing. Like Usyk right now is an all-time great man. He has taken care of Anthony Joshua. He has taken care of Tyson Fury. He's taken care of Daniel Dubois. He is just cleaning out the heavyweight division. He's only had six fights in heavyweight division. He's beaten all the top guys. How many times has the cruiserweight come up

And just wreaked havoc like this because Holyfield came up, but he, you know, he lost a couple of those. He did. And David Hay had some success at heavyweight, but not like this, not becoming, you know, obviously undisputed. And, and again, not rolling through the very best. You make a list of the top five heavyweights in boxing right now, who's beaten like four of them. And he would beat all five if he got in the ring with them. So, you know, the, the, the never ending debate is, is,

Is he one of the great heavyweights of all time? Probably not because he's only fought six fights at heavyweight, but he's now one of the best fighters of the generation. No question. He has that one skill that some of the greatest guys have, like Hopkins was my favorite for this, figuring out what the distance is. So the first few rounds might look a certain way, but then

He just kind of figures out his angles and the exact distance where he's not going to get hurt too bad, but he's, and then that's it. And it's always in the middle of the fight. He just seems like he would be such a pain in the ass to fight. You know, does it just has crazy chin,

And just kind of solves you as, as the fight goes on. It's like watching, uh, you know, like some of the great basketball, like what Jokic can do against certain defenses where it's like, okay, you're doing that. All right. And he puts it in his supercomputer, but that's how I think of him. He's almost like a, like a chess chess guy.

His thing, too, is that he's never switched off. Like, he has these quotes that people love because they're in this broken English. And before the Fury fight, he said, I'm not going away or something to that effect. And what he meant and what he did was that you have to box him for the full 36 minutes of every fight. He is...

constantly in your face and that's a that's physical pressure that takes a toll on you but more than anything it's mental pressure like if you have to constantly be thinking about this guy who can crack who is left-handed who is has great head movement footwork if you're constantly thinking that is going to wear you down over the course of the fight then we saw the ninth round like it paid off like Usyk was losing like for the first six rounds of that fight he got buckled

in the first half of that fight. But then just the constant pressure got to Fury. And then that ninth round came when he looked like Trevor Burbick in that Tyson fight from back in the day, when he's just bouncing around off the ring ropes. That's the greatest strength of Usyk, the constant pressure for all 36 minutes. Well, that reminds us of Brockton's own Marvin Hagler. Another guy like that. He was the all-timer of that. He just kept coming. The only way to really fend him off was you had to do like what Mugabe did and just...

All right, let's throw bombs. Let's go. I'm not walking backwards anymore. We're just throwing bombs. Herd's trying to do it. But yeah, Usyk.

He's never going to be a bigger deal because he's not Mr. Excitement and it's really hard to say his name, but he's been pretty great. And then the Garcia getting DQ'd and looks like that was a tough one because that was a really cool story that all of a sudden went into the woodchopper. Yeah, and now we're left to wonder kind of what the New York State Athletic Commission is going to do with Ryan Garcia. It's a foregone conclusion that they're going to overturn the results of that

of that fight. Probably make it, they'll probably make it a no contest. Haney's team is pushing for a DQ, but I don't think they're going to get that. And then there'll be a suspension six months to a year. But the bigger problem is that Ryan Garcia, he's kind of unraveling. I mean, you saw the news just a couple of days ago where he got arrested at the Waldorf in LA for trashing a hotel room, like $15,000. And he's

worth the damage. You know, his team is now just talking about his mental health and saying he's going through a lot of stuff. Well, you kind of knew that months ago. Yeah, really? His behavior was erratic. So I can tell you, Bill, I mean, I've been around Ryan since 2018, like every one of his fights.

Who he was before this Devin Haney fight was completely different from the guy I've seen in the buildup to every other fight. You watch his behavior before the tank fight. Yeah, he's energetic and he's talking some trash, but he's not kind of going off the deep end. He's not spouting conspiracy theories. Something...

to Ryan Garcia over the last eight months that caused him to become a different person and to somebody that really likes the guy. I hope more than anything he gets it squared away. Well, couldn't part of that be the fact that he lost the tank fight?

No, I don't think it was that. I think there's, there's deeper rooted issues with Ryan. I mean, he, look, he, he's only a couple of years removed from needing a mental health break from boxing. He stepped away for, it was almost a year after the biggest win of his career. Like he had that knockout win over Luke Campbell. He was flying high at that point and had to step away to deal with his issues. I think he's probably going to have to do something like that again. And, you know, look again, I think he's a good guy. I really do. And he's obviously great for boxing. Cause he's exciting. Uh,

I just hope he gets this stuff kind of squared away so we can, you know, at least resume his life. The PD stuff with boxing is really tough when it comes out after the fact. Cause you know, if it's like basketball and it came out, I don't know, Luca was on steroids when he beat Minnesota. We'd be like, all right, well, you talkers, but when it's boxing and there's real damage, uh,

that sometimes guys might not be totally the same after they take all the left hooks that Haney took, you know, and you think like, all right, not only do you lose the fight unfairly, but he might not be the same boxer now. And it just feels like the, it's like, oh, he's suspended for six months. That doesn't seem like a fair enough punishment to me. It's not, it's not. And I think these suspensions need to be, you know, generally speaking one year or more, because that's the only way to make sure that,

that they have any teeth. And you're completely right about the punishments not really fitting the crime. Like, we are...

So it's not a question of if, but when we have a situation where a guy gets killed in the ring and then the fighter that does the damage or the octagon pops, pops for PDs after the fact, and then everybody's going to care. Then it's congressional hearings. Then we're talking about federal charges. You know, we're talking about murder charges going up against that guy in boxing. It seems to be content not dealing with it.

Until then, because this punishment speaks to the problem with boxing is that there's no oversight whatsoever on any aspect of it. No, I mean, look, there's been a couple of cases. I'm not going to bore you with the details, but in a couple of cases where like a boxer has tested positive and the state commission that

that was charged with regulating. It did nothing. Just did nothing. Just, you know, it went away. Now, part of that is that this will be the most listened to conversation about boxing ever, right? Because there's not a media covering boxing. They're not out there. Well, that's why Big Fight Bill is here. Big Fight Bill. I like Big Fight Bill. I want to see Big Fight Bill in LA. Big Fight Bill gets every fight, just for the record. I just, you know, boxing has the same issue that hockey has and certain sports where

People who are medium-sized or casual fans aren't really allowed to wade in because the dialogue is happening at such a great level. You can do it. All the people that come on your pod can do it. But then if I do it, it's like, ah, is he really? You just get all the big fights. It's like, yeah, guilty. But I see every big fight. I watch all of them. And I bet on all of them. And I have a great time. It's so much fun. Am I going to watch a random Thursday ESPN2 fight at 11 at night? I'm probably not.

But am I going to watch every tank fight? Yeah. Yeah. It is so much fun to bet on boxing though. Because like, I mean, if I see a good fight, I'll bet on a winner outcome over under number of rounds. It's like they'll have six bets going on, on one fight alone. It's a blast. The only, the only difference between you and Dame is your big fight bill. He's little fight Dame. Like I'll get texts from Dame about those Thursday night fights.

Thursday night fights. Like he's all in, man. Like he is the most dedicated. There's some good boxing fans out there. Van Lathan, big secret boxing fan. Cousin Sal. We have Raheem Palmer, who's like an open like boxing maniac. But they're out there. Kevin Clark is a good one. Yep. Kevin DMs me some of these. Yeah, there's a good one. Paul Pierce, huge boxing fan. Like I saw him in Boston the other day. He starts talking about fights that are happening coming up. So they're out there. They're in the closet, but they're definitely out there.

So pound for pound, you have Usyk one and who would you have two? I would have Crawford two and Noe Inoue over in Japan is number three. But this is the first time that I can remember that the pound for pound is switches as often as it does. Right. Like you didn't even say tank. Yeah. Tang needs better opponents. Like I make a pound for pound list partly based on the resume that you have. A tank doesn't have a great resume. So he's got 2024 Celtics.

Yeah, kind of. At least they had to play. At least they were forced to play. Yeah, they said to play Luka, right. Yeah, but like Crawford fights August 3rd. If Crawford beats Madrimov, who's a really good fighter, I'd probably bump Crawford back up to number one. If Inouye has a big event at the end of the year and wins in dominant style, I'd probably bump him up to number one. So there's a fluidity to these, you know, mythical pound for pound rankings out there.

Yeah. And then I think the fact that the cards have been coming on these crazy times because they're in all parts of the world, I actually kind of like, I like that. Yeah.

Saturday at 9.30 in the morning, all of a sudden, there's a seven-hour boxing card on DAZN that I could just have. They don't do enough of that, man. Like, I was in between game one and two. I took the train to New York to watch the top-ranked card, just to watch it. And there were some good young fighters that I wanted to see on there. And...

For some reason, they started that event at 11 p.m., 11 Eastern time at the Garden and didn't get over until 1, 1.15. Like, who are you catering to? What audience are you trying to build if you're starting an event at 11 o'clock Eastern time? Now, the Saudi cards...

They're a lot because for me, it starts like three in the morning. So when you're on site, it's a little bit much. But if I was just watching as a fan, I would love it if I could watch the main event of a heavyweight championship fight at like seven o'clock in the evening. That's great. Well, I think this is one of the opportunities for, I think we all think TKO is going to get involved in boxing at some point, just kind of waiting to see what their move is. And I'm kind of surprised that hasn't happened yet.

But I think that would be part of the appeal if you're them to get in on this because there's so many easily fixable things about when should the cards run?

you know, what weekend should we pick? All the stuff they're starting to do with UFC and WWE and just like, hey, why are we having WrestleMania against this crazy Final Four weekend? Like, that's stupid. We should move it to this weekend instead. So I think with boxing, the dumbest, most poorly run, most corrupt sport that either of us has ever liked, like there's some room to

to fix would be my guess. And that the steroids thing would be a, definitely a piece of it. Cause that Garcia thing was bullshit. Haney got hit by what? 15 straight flush left hooks and 10 rounds. Like that guy might not, might not be the same.

No. Anyway. Yeah. Guys like, you know, you see over, you know, look, remember the, was it Chavez, Meldrick, Taylor? Was Meldrick, Taylor ever the same after that Chavez fight? Like when guys go through wars like... The answer's no. Yeah, no. Like the guys go through, even like more recently, right? Like we called the Deontay Wilder fight a couple of weeks ago. I don't think Wilder's ever been the same since those last two fights against Tyson Fury where he was...

you know, catastrophically knocked out, especially in the last one where he was face down on the canvas. How about Pacquiao, the third fight against Marquez or the third or fourth fight, whatever, when he just got knocked out cold, he was never the same after that. Yeah. There's, I mean, there's, there's a big downside that you see Pacquiao's coming back. You see that he's, he's going to fight, I guess, for a title in September or October of this year at 45 years old.

The, the, the damaging fight where you're never the same is one of the great betting inefficiencies after the fact. Like Hagler, the Mugabe fight for Hagler, he was never the same after that. Like when he fought Leonard, he wasn't the same guy. That's one of the cases for figuring it, say Leonard won that fight, which I still think like Hagler was a shell of himself in that fight. He wasn't remotely the same. Riddick Bowe.

who had a couple wars and was just like shot completely from some of the punishment that he took. But then there's other guys like Holyfield was in, I don't know, 12 to 13 like crazy fights and just kind of kept going. Foreman had, he got knocked out by Ali and he had that crazy Ron Lyle fight and was able to just come back and fight for another 10 years. So I don't know. It affects people different ways. But I'm worried about Haney though because that was pretty brutal.

I think he's young enough that he can bounce back. And that's, he's not going to intentionally be in those types of fights moving forward. Like he's a, he's a stick and move guy. Like he's not looking to get into those types of fights. And look, I thought the Ryan fight changed on that very first punch. I don't think he ever recovered from that shot he took in the first round and he stayed on his feet, but he was never the same fighter after that. I think he's young enough and fights a style that's not,

uh, damaging enough that he can bounce back. And I was talking to him the other day, like, you know, the, I don't know what the pay-per-view number was for the first fight. I don't think it was great, but if they do a rematch next year, it's gonna be triple that man. That's a million pay-per-view by event because of all the drama. It's around the first fight and how good the first fight was.

Yeah, it's a good call. All right, Chris Mannix, I'll see you at some point during this finals. I saw you from afar a couple of times, but make a point to be line over. Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. Don't forget. What do you want to plug? Boxing podcast? What else? Sports Illustrated? Sports Illustrated, Boxing with Chris Mannix, where this kind of conversation, Bill, you get every single week on the pod with me and Sergio Mora mostly.

Sergio could sell your jokes like 20% better. I'm leaving this in the pod. Hey, Sergio. Sergio, be a better teammate sometimes. I don't know. Somebody's got to say it, right? Come on, Sergio. It's a give and take business. All right, Chris Mannix, good to see you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Chris Mannix. Thanks to Cochran and Steve Cerruti, as always. I'm going to see you on Wednesday night. I'm going to do a podcast after game three.

with a special guest. So stay tuned for that. Go South. See you Wednesday.