Part 1: The Best NBA Finals Angles With Ryen Russillo
01:07:37 Share

Coming up, a special two-part NBA Finals preview with a lot more next. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. With the Olympics this summer, things are only going to get more heated. Cool off with a pack of Michelob Ultra, a superior light beer. I love the Olympics. I love the track and field, but my favorite, hands down, is the basketball, especially now that all the other countries have gotten so good. I watch all the basketball.

I may or may not place a wager or two if it feels right. But I love all the Olympics. I really, really, really love the basketball. Here's another reason I like it. Michelob Ultra giving you the chance to take home the gold with Superior Access. You could win side merch and Visa gift card and more. Head to MichelobUltra.com slash Superior Access. LDA 21 and up.

This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all gotten back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place, every game, every Sunday. And you can even watch up to four different games at once.

with MultiView, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical. And also, YouTube TV is great. I got it this year. It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com slash BS, device and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games.

We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I have a new rewatch of what's coming for you on Monday night. We did Slapshot. It's only one of the best sports movies of all time. It's only the best hockey movie of all time. It is coming on Monday night. We might even put it a tiny bit earlier than usual, and you'll be able to watch it eventually as well on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel. Hope you're checking out my YouTube channel as well.

Just search for Bill Simmons. You will find it. Coming up, we are going to do a special two-part podcast. Me and Rosillo here for part one. And then we have something a little different for you for part two that's going to go up later that night. We're talking big finals right now. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. We are taping this on a non-sunny Sunday afternoon here in Los Angeles. Ryan Rosillo is here.

We're talking NBA finals, at least in part one. Celtics minus 225 favorites to win the title Mavericks plus 188 on Fando. Rosillo.

Are people kind of sleeping on what a massive upset it would be if Dallas actually won the championship here? Because I feel like in the last couple of days, because Luke and Kyrie look so good in the last round, that now a lot of people are like, I'll tell you, you won best player in the series. And it just feels like Dallas is a massive underdog, but isn't a massive underdog. What do you see watching it from 40,000 feet away? Okay, so you're frustrated about the series, correct?

I wouldn't say frustrated because I don't know if there's 100% of a right answer. I do have some thoughts that I'm going to get into, but I wanted to see what's your gut take on how Dallas is being treated as we head into this. Well, you started by saying it'd be a massive upset. I guess...

I don't feel that way because of Luca. So maybe I'm guilty of all the things that you're being critical of right now, because I mean, I'm going to pick Boston seven and it's just not a hedge. It's respect for Luca, knowing that he will figure out a way to dissect, you know, he's penciled in for 30, every one of these games. I mean, if you hold them to 24, it's a miracle, but he can undo pretty much anything you throw at him. And, um,

in a series where there's only five guys out there, I think he has all of this momentum that is preventing not only me but others from thinking it would be this huge upset 'cause it feels disrespectful of who Luka's been. - I completely agree. And yet, I'm gonna give you some historical stuff. This is such a fascinating series to me because the gut check, eye test, watching basketball, and also seeing really what's happened with the Mavericks the last three and a half months.

And not knowing what's going to happen with Porzingis. The series feels way closer, right? Like even the Celtics being minus 225 feels a little high when you think about how well Dallas is playing and the Porzingis X factor. But I'm going to give you some stuff. First, the Mavericks would be the third biggest finals underdog upset to win since the merger. Being plus 188 right now. The biggest one ever. Do you know who it is? It's the series that made Haralba Haralba.

Uh, Dallas, Miami. 04 Pistons, five to one underdogs in 2004 against the Lakers and they win. So that's by far the biggest underdog that's pulled off. The second biggest one was the 2019 Raptors who were plus 230. And that series was pretty goofy because KD comes back and immediately gets hurt. Clay gets hurt. By the end of it, it's like the, you know, the Warriors running on fumes and

But I don't remember the Raptors being underdogs like that, but apparently they were. So the Mavs would be number three if they won it, plus 185. This is since 1976. And then it goes 2016 Cavs, plus 180. 21 bucks, plus 165. 08 Celtics were underdogs, plus 160 against Kobe and the Lakers. And then the 12 Heat and the 11 Mavs were both plus 155.

So this would be the third, just by gambling odds, the third biggest upset since the merger. That was surprising to me. Would you have guessed that? No, I wouldn't have. I mean, the Toronto number would have been different if KD was totally healthy, but there was all the speculation about what it was going to be, considering they were looking for a three-peat at that point. I thought the Dallas odds would have been lower the first time against the Heat. And I think that's interesting, too. The Heat's second run through it, well, that was OKC, right?

Yeah. Guess what? OKC was favored in that 2012 Heat series. Yeah. I wouldn't remember. The 06 Heat were plus 130 underdogs and the 1995 Rockets were plus 130. And then the 1977 Blazers were plus 140. So anyway, the point is, it's really rare for a team that is this drastic of an underdog to win the finals. So there's that. Next thing, Dallas would be the second worst finals winner by record overall.

since the first bird magic season. So the worst one since 1980 is the '95 Rockets. They were 47 and 35. Dallas is 50 and 32. Miami in '06 was 52 and 30. And then there's three teams in the late '70s. The Sonics were 52 and 30 and 79. The '78 Bullets were 44 and 38. And the Blazers were 49 and 33.

So just from a regular season, hey, this is really unusual. This would be the second most unusual. Only one team has lost more games in the last 44 years and won the finals than this Dallas team. Do you remember that 95? That was irrelevant. Just before we go any further on that. The regular season stuff for me on them is irrelevant. They were 26 and 23 after they had lost, I think, six to eight. And...

That was the week of the trade deadline. So the first time they got those guys in the lineup together was February 10th. And Kyrie missed some time, too. Kyrie missed like 20 games. There's a very easy explanation, especially, too, when you think about 50 wins in the West this year. That's like 55 in a normal year. I'm just laying out history and stats. I have no opinion. But it is interesting, though. The 95 Rockets, they made the Drexler trade halfway through the season. Their team changed.

This 24 Dallas team, they make the Gafford and the Washington trade, their team changes. And then the 06 Miami, that had the coaching change, right? Van Gundy for Pat Riley at some point during the season. And then once you get in the 70s, the 70s are pretty weird. Those would be the three most drastic ones. So there's that. And then the other one that I thought was interesting, Dallas would be the fifth franchise since the merger of

to miss the playoffs and then win the finals the next year. And what's weird is that's only happened four times and two of them were recent, the 22 Warriors and the 20 Lakers with the bubble. And then the 08 Celtics, they missed because the year before they tanked. And then the 77 Blazers missed. So that's it. So just like removing everything from it, there's three giant history red flags with the Mavericks thing. And yet I still feel like

mentally on where you are. You almost throw it out. It's this different Mavs team that seems like it came together the last six weeks. So ignore all the history stuff and concentrate on the six weeks, I think is the right answer. I don't think there's any other answer because it's a different team. And considering the teams that they've gone through here, where granted, once Kawhi went down, the Clippers are entirely different. But you take on an OKC team where over the six games, the points were even.

And a bounce here or a bounce there, although I feel like Luca, you have to give it a little bit more credit than just

make or mislead stuff because we just see how great the looks are for him, how helpless you feel when he wants to make sure he's going to get a good look for himself. Or if you completely sell out to stop him in some clutch moment in the game, he's going to make the right read and depends on whether or not the guy's going to hit the shot. Like you just are going to get a good possession. Like he and Jokic are on the list of two where I go in a tight spot, give me a good look. I know those two guys are going to be the best two looks in the world. And the fact that defensively there's some real connectivity with this team is

that I watched the second game from Boston and Dallas this morning. I watched it again. And there's some stuff that you could say, oh boy, that might be scary for Dallas. But then I think about the defensive effort that I saw against Minnesota and I go, this isn't even close. It's not even close to being the same team. Yeah, they'd only been together less than three weeks. There's two other things from a history standpoint.

The Celtics. I did that list for you last week about the 20 losses or less finals teams. There's only one team that had 20 losses or less heading into the finals that actually lost the finals, and that was the 2016 Warriors. Everybody else won. 96 Bulls, 97 Bulls, 17 Warriors, 86 Celts, 87 Lakers. Keep going, going, going. So this Celtics team would have to be the second one ever. And there is 12...

15 examples. So those teams are 14 and one in the finals. So there's that. And the other thing, which I think is getting lost just because of who they played, but the Celtics have been dominant for eight months, right? They were 76 and 20 in the regular season. They were first in offense, second in defense, they plus 11.7 net rating in the playoffs. They were second in offense, third in defense, plus 10.8. They've been pretty consistent. And I don't know, I feel like

From an odd standpoint, the odds should be higher. And yet I understand why the odds are what they are because the Luke of fear factor. And because this is the kind of league we've grown up with where it's like you take the one guy who's not afraid of a situation is the best guy in the court. And that should overcome all this other stuff. And yet all the historical evidence says, yeah, most of the time that's not actually true.

Most of the time that team loses and here are all the examples. I think this is one of the harder series to figure out that we've had because the other thing we did mention, home court advantage just does not seem to matter anymore. I don't think it matters where these games are being played. I don't know if it really helps Boston.

other than maybe to have a game seven in Boston. But for the most part, I don't really feel like it's going to matter. The times are so late on the East Coast. That part's weird. Boston's been great on the road all season. I think they can go into Dallas and win. I just don't think it matters. And I think this is a really goofy series. So two things in all the different ways that I've looked at the series. If you go over the last however many years, you say, okay, LeBron, when he won it in the bubble,

He's still in the conversation for best player in the league. Is that fair four years ago? Yeah, no question. Okay. All right. So 21, Giannis, 22, Steph, little reminder season, 23, Jokic maintains his hold on the belt where you could have argued it or he'd had it for a little while. And then the kind of dot, dot, dot part of it here with Luca, where we just know if you're a Boston fan, Tatum's none of those guys.

So he's none of those guys. And I think this is a three-year Boston hangover where you could even add years if you wanted to. And this is something I've talked about in the past where if ever I do like a radio interview somewhere and they'll say, yo, what's up with Boston? What's up with Boston? It's like they had a schedule in 17, 18. Okay. And when they lost to Miami in 20, I didn't really think it was that big of a deal. 22, they showed something against Milwaukee that would be counter to the fact that people still think they're soft.

And I'll admit there's moments where it's not so much soft. It's just the late execution, which we're going to spend a lot of time talking about with the series because it'll probably creep up and scare you. If it happens in game one where Boston just stagnant offensively, lose at home and Lucas closing. Well, you're going to go up. Here we go again. But I think it's a three year hangover of not trusting the offense against Golden State and it looking very apparent that there was a gap. And then the Miami debacle of last year.

So if this Celtics season where they just added Drew and Przingis and this group hadn't really gotten through the second round and they're in this tier with all these other NBA teams and their rosters going, what's wrong with this guy? What's going on? It's different in that if it lived on its own,

I think the Celtics would be more public favorites, at least the way they'd be talked about. But it feels like the basketball community is just so sick of them and probably too disappointed by them that all that's baked in to the lead up of this where, again, the Boston run just wasn't that impressive. And Luka took out three teams with 50 wins. And yet the Boston, you know, they didn't have Porzingis this whole time, which just got kicked to the curb.

with the run. I know there are a bunch of stars missed on another team, but I do feel like it was a bigger deal to not have Porzingis than people gave a credit for. It was 23 a game. It was the guy who just made them completely unstoppable offensively. It had a ripple effect on their bench. There's guys either playing more. There's some games where they just got zero from the bench because the, the whole hierarchy got, got knocked around. If he plays and he's healthy, which I still haven't been able to get a straight answer on, they're going to have five of the best seven guys in the series. Um,

I guess one of the things that I'm really surprised by is, and I get it because Luca is super fun to watch and Kyrie has been the best version of Kyrie we've seen in, I don't know, since the 2017 finals and has shown a lot of different things over three rounds. I thought an OKC

when they were guarding him a specific way and he wasn't trying to force anything. He was just playing defense, getting people involved. And then this last round where he was really good. So it feels like people are glass half full on those guys in a lot of ways. And then on the Boston guys, glass half empty. Like Luca is better than Tatum. There's no question.

But Tatum's not that far away from Luka from a statistical standpoint. It's not like the distance it was with Minnesota, where if Ant's not going to play that well, it was like a chasm. Ant not playing well was like 22 to 24 points a game. Tatum and Brown in the playoffs have been like 51, 52 points a game, which is right around the same of where Luka and Kyrie are. But I just think from my test, it seems like those guys are so much...

so much more fun to watch play offense, it doesn't make sense to us that the stats are pretty similar. And they are. But it's built. I think it's because it builds in that Luke and Kyrie were at 59 points per game combined against Minnesota, the best defense in the NBA. And if you were just to look at this, if Dallas hadn't played Minnesota along their path to the NBA Finals,

You go, Boston's got all these different guys that can switch it to a ton of stuff. They've got some guys, they can start with Jalen Brown on him. It was big enough. If Tatum has to get him for some spots, as long as Drew doesn't get pinned deep in the post, you know, he can at least hold up a little bit. Like there's options, right? There's options. I think he's going to walk Derek White down when he gets him.

And then you're like, okay, but the other team had Ant, they had Jaden, they had Alexander Walker, and then they'd be filtered into these other big guys back there. And it didn't matter. Like it went to another level and that's the Boston side that scares you. So on the Minnesota piece, because I think that's part of what we need to do to unpack this Dallas-Boston matchup. The big question for me is what happened in Minnesota, which I think we have to tackle, but let's take a break and then we'll hit it.

With FanDuel, it's never too late to get into the action, this NBA playoffs. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That is $150 to use on same-game parlays, live bets, championship futures, exclusive markets, so much more. There's no better place to bet on all the playoff action than America's number one sports, but go to FanDuel.com slash BS to get started. FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA.

You must be 21 plus 18 plus in DC and present in select States, excluding North Carolina gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. First online real money wager on the $10 deposit required. Bonus bets are now withdrawal and expire seven days after receipt restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com.

This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. With the Olympics this summer, things are only going to get more heated. Cool off with a pack of Michelob Ultra, a superior light beer. I love the Olympics. I love the track and field, but my favorite, hands down, is the basketball, especially now that all the other countries have gotten so good. I watch all the basketball.

I may or may not place a wager or two if it feels right. But I love all the Olympics. I really, really, really love the basketball. Here's another reason I like it. Michelob Ultra giving you the chance to take home the gold with Superior Access. You could win side merch and Visa gift card and more. Head to MichelobUltra.com slash Superior Access. LDA 21 and up. This episode is supported by State Farm.

If you've ever been in an accident and you're okay, but you know what happened, your first reaction is going to be, man, why did that happen? If you ever buy a new house or a new car or a new anything, there's this little rush you get when you're like, I did it. I made it happen. But really, the only words you need to remember are like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. State Farm has options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to help choose the coverage you need.

Have coverage options to protect the things you value most. File a claim right on the State Farm mobile app and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Learn more at statefarm.com. So the Minnesota piece of this, we haven't talked about that series since it ended. And I can't decide what happened because you could tell me there was some rock, paper, scissors stuff going on with Denver and Minnesota and Dallas, right? Minnesota built to be

Denver, Dallas, for whatever reason, matched up perfectly against Minnesota. And maybe if Denver played Dallas, maybe that would have been a great matchup for them. I don't know. But watching it and I was just like, man, I couldn't tell whether it was like strategy mistakes that they were doing or what it was because in the previous round, OKC put Jalen Williams a lot on Kyrie and then followed that up with Wallace. And they really, I don't want to say they took Kyrie out of the series, but they really gave him issues. I mean, he averaged like 16 points a game in that series.

And then Minnesota, it seems like they couldn't decide what the red Kyrie strategy was and all of them turned out to be the wrong strategy. Right? So defensively, it was like, they just never figured it out. And then Luca just gained confidence as the series went along and just torched them. And then on the other side, they couldn't figure out who to attack and exploit on the Dallas side.

on the Dallas side. And every time they tried to attack Luca, it got weird. It's like, well, go to go when he's gone. Go bear. Well, we'll post up. Go bear. And it's like, all right, if you're going to start doing that, you're probably in trouble. But it was like they could just never solve it. So did Minnesota run out of gas or did Dallas go up a level or both? I don't think it's running out of gas. I mean, this team's too young to sit there and say they ran out of gas, even though it was like UFC fifth round exhausted at the end of game one.

And I think he might have just been so hyped. He might have just been so hyped and he was bringing the ball up to help Conley. He's guarding Kyrie. He's chasing him around. And then he's tasked with being the number one option the entire night on offense. But

It was so when people are going to say like, oh, what do you mean they didn't run out of gas? Like, look at him. Look how tired the guys were. I think that was a specific game thing for and he might have just been so hyped up that he he burned himself out a little bit. So the thing I keep coming back to when I try to figure out who I was going to pick is that it's two versus one. All right. And two versus one, meaning.

Minnesota had one guy they cared about on offense. And if you go back through all those cat games before he finally got hot in game four, and he sucked again in game five, those are a lot of good looks. The worst shot decisions cat made was when he decided to drive on lively. And I don't know that he got lively one time, by the way, maybe he got some free throws in game five, but it only worked once lively was out of the game in game four. And

When I look at Oklahoma City, Shea has that incredible game four where he goes 10 of 14 for mid-range shots for the most makes in the mid-range in five years since Chris Paul in a playoff game. And you're like, that's how you had to win that game? Yeah. You had to do that. And then you're watching Jalen Williams have these long stretches where, as a young guy, first taste of it, didn't really look comfortable offensively. And then if you look at the Clippers part of it,

You get the coin toss stars the coin toss brothers in Harden and PG is that you have no up with that Yeah, yeah, just like you have no idea. No, you have no idea There's two options one's good one's bad, but you know within the first six minutes of the game It's like oh hard tails right with Harden. I can usually tell be like oh We're doing a lot of entry passes so

When I land on Boston in seven games, I do believe this will be the first time where it goes, wait, we have to defend. We have to worry about more than one guy. Right. That's what I had in one Clipper game when it was Paul George and Harden were going together.

Because I think that only happened once in that series. Certainly OKC never happened. It was the floater game. I mean, Harden hits all of those floaters at the end of that one game where Dallas stayed back the entire time and was just letting him. But you're also expecting, like, is Harden going to make every single one of these floaters? And he does because he's obviously really talented. But from all the angles that I look at this, the one that makes me feel best about the Boston side of it is this is the first time in a couple series where that number two guy is

is going to feel like a better bet to show up than what you had with OKC and certainly Minnesota. Well, what if they get a healthy Porzingis as the other piece too? Because then they'll have a third guy who is better. I still think there's a scenario where he comes in and he's just really good and they've been kind of putting him on ice and keeping the injury glow on him, but it's fine. I don't know. Back to Minnesota for one second. Towns was eight for 33 from three in the series. That was higher than I thought.

And all of those shots felt like they were open. I don't really feel like any of them were contested. He finished with eight threes and 12 fouls. I went through them all, Bill. I went through every one of his shot attempts through the first three games. And I went in expecting way more decisions that I didn't like. And it was one of those deals where when you're only...

Like really focused on that. I got done. Like I have really easy thing where I'll go like good decision, bad decision, and then kind of questionable, maybe not on him, shot clock or whatever. There was an overwhelming number of them that were actually really good looks. And the best shooting, the self-annoyed best shooting big in the NBA didn't make them. You just get. And then you go to the previous series when their whole strategy was like,

Let's at least try to take out as much of Kyrie as we can. We'll let all these other guys beat us, which I think is the right strategy when you play Dallas. And then PJ goes 23 for 49 from three. Jones goes 10 for 27. So combined, they were 33 for 76. And then Josh Green was 10 for 27. So all their guys just started making it. I guess like if you're going to make the case against Dallas, their role guys, I think I'll kick their coverage a little bit from a shooting standpoint.

And we know at the finals, we know that there's levels to this stuff as you go and you get to that final round and the intensity and the scrutiny and everything starts three hours for the game. And even when you're doing shoot arounds, there's a bunch of people on the court already. Games start late. There's no flow to anything. And it's tough to rely on those guys. You know, it just is. Whereas at least the Celtics, their guys went through it in 2022 with the exception of Drew who went through it in 21 on the Bucs.

So really everybody they have out of their key six guys has been through all the beats of a four round playoff series, except for Porzingis. That's it. So I think that's an advantage for them. Um, the flip side is if you're Luca, who did you go against in the first three rounds? That is the type of person who can at least make you work for all the points you need to get door. Okay. Um, it makes you work.

Jalen and Tatum are at least going to make them work. And I think that's one of the things that interests me about this series from like just the basketball strategy standpoint, how much are they going to try to put on those two guys? Cause those are the type of guys I talked about this last week, Ben Simmons was like probably the most successful guy against Luca over the last six years. He knows a younger version of Luca, but it's six, nine athletic strong. That's who you want. At least like make them work. So he can't like put people on this hip pocket and do all the stuff he does.

One of my questions I have is who is Jalen going to guard in this series? Because I think you can make a case you should guard Kyrie. Because that's what OKC did where they put Jalen Williams on him a lot and they put size and athleticism and length on him and just tried to make him pass the ball around. And we've seen Jalen take all these other challenges. It feels like a very Jalen-y decision. Be like, you're going to guard Kyrie in game one. Yeah, fuck yeah. I've guarded all these different guys. People don't realize what a good two way. Like I can see him getting fired up for it.

and them just trying to take out Kyrie and then just throwing a bunch of people at Luka. So it'll be Tatum, it'll be Drew, you know, little Al Horford, like that, like whatever. They'll just kind of rotate dudes, but really try to take out Kyrie would be my guess. Jalen aside to Kyrie and Kyrie goes for 45 in game one and Jalen says in the postgame he's just proud of him.

I hope those guys aren't going to do that this run. So when I looked at the matchups, I'll give them to you from the March 1st game. Dallas started lively. PJ, Josh Green started, and then it was Kyrie and Luka. And you know me. I seem to always love Josh Green minutes, even when they're a little chaotic. And Jalen starts on Luka, but

It doesn't really matter. You can be assigned to him immediately within that game. A lot of the stuff that's the same stuff that we saw against Minnesota, those double drag screens, Luka works it left to right. He's looking for two different things off it, then throws to the corners. But I thought the most interesting part was that Przingis is on P.J. Washington and Tatum was on Lively. So I don't know if Lively now, who is really...

answered the bell about like if the crazy thing about lively if he's only this it's awesome right it's like a 15 year career yeah

So I think there's probably a little bit more trust depending on how Luka is going to be looking for switches. Because, you know, as soon as there was a double big lineup with Horford and Przingis, he was looking for Horford's guy to come up and set the screen. But Przingis, with all of his rim protection numbers, where he was the fifth best, depending on how many attempts at the rim in the NBA this season, like really lofty numbers, like up there with Embiid, up there with Kessler, up there with...

Who else? Rudy, I think, was fourth in that number. When you look at where Przingis is statistically and how much you think that should help Boston having some kind of rim protection there, I don't know if Missoula will do the same thing where it's like keep him on PJ but allowed to roam. But if you get OKC PJ, then you're in major trouble where then against Minnesota, it didn't even matter that he only shot 25% from three. So...

When I watch the game again this morning, Drew has to make sure he doesn't get stuck deep or Lucas setting up off the ball because that's a problem. I think White just isn't stout enough for him. It probably feels like Jalen and Tatum, but then it'll really be dictated on what kind of switch

what kind of switch Luca wants to run because I think he'd probably be more trusting and lively at this stage than he was when they played in March. Well, they're going to trap him a bunch too. That was one of the many weird Minnesota pieces I didn't get from that last series. You think so? They don't double a lot. I thought it was an easy series for Dallas. They just kind of did whatever they wanted to do. Whereas I thought OKC was a little more inventive with the way they defended. And it just came down to the side guys on Dallas just made a shitload of shots and they got some rebounds.

But I felt like OKC was way more in the ballpark for how to play with that team. And the Clipper series was weird because Luka was hurt because I was looking at some of those games and trying to remember what I thought. And Luka shot like, I don't know, 24% from three or like he just was limping around for most of the time. But I think the OKC was a better, basically Boston has to do what OKC, a lot of what they did in that last series was,

but rebound and protect the rim a little bit better. But you're right about Luka. I just want to add this, though, to think that through the grind, Luka has looked better and better physically as the playoffs have gone on because there were the Clippers moments where like, okay, wait, what's going on here? He shot 24% from three in that series. Even in the clinching game, he was one of 10. He starts game one against OKC, one for eight, and then

Against them in game two, I was actually worried about him, as we've already covered that part of it. Didn't take a lot of free throws in that game at all, but still finishes with 29-10-7, which is basically the least you'd expect from him. But he still had moments where physically it didn't look right. I don't know if it was him working the officials maybe a little bit more because of Dort's physicality, but then you go into the Minnesota part of it, you're saying, oh, they could have done this, they could have done that. I just think that's the brilliance of him. He was 44% from three, 43% from three in that game.

in that series because you think he got jade and this is the stout verse length thing with luca that that i think is very easy to identify as great as jayden is on the ball and he's one of the best in the game he

He got on the backside of Luca every single high screen. And then Luca is like, okay, you're behind me going for a ride. I'm not worried about you. I've got a retreating big. For the most part, Minnesota wants to drop there. I think sometimes they change it up a little bit, but consistently it was him knowing. He's got lively on some kind of roll. And then his vision to the corners is unmatched because he's as massive as he is.

and he can just stop and then make the decision, and you're battling four different decisions. So I think it looks easy, not because Minnesota screwed up because of how special he is. I think they screwed up not putting McDaniels on Kyrie and just being like, McDaniels, take out Kyrie as much as you can. So would you focus on... I think if they had to do it over again, it's unquestionably what they would have done is that. Because I think you bring up a good point in thinking about this. Do you think it might be like, hey, if Luka wants to switch and get in one-on-one, it's fine, but

Boston needs to make sure Kyrie is bottled up as much as possible off the ball. That's what I think. I think they're going to trap Luca so that they, he doesn't get going. Cause like in the first quarter of the Minnesota game was a great example. You could see what was unfolding as it was unfolding and everyone could see it except Minnesota. It was like, Oh man, I hope it doesn't make another shot. And then you make another shot. I was like, Oh damn, he made another one. It's like, you guys can control this a little bit.

Let somebody else make a shot. I don't, I think Boston is going to do everything they can to not let those Luca runs happen. And they have the perfect team to guard Kyrie. They really do. They even have a better version of what OKC had to at least, you know, you're not going to shut them down, but they have guards to throw at them. They have size to throw at them. They have rim protection. Of course, Ingus is going to play. And, you know, I just think it's a good matchup. It's funny though.

Because I heard some great stuff over the last couple days. There were some rollicking takes out there. Yeah, it doesn't seem like you mean great in the sense that most of us define great. Give us it, Bill. What do you got? Get it off your chest. Takes were flying.

Jalen's really good. I just want to start there. I think there is a chasm between the people who talked about the Celtics versus the people who actually watched them. Like Jalen in the playoffs for three rounds now, he's 25 points a game. He's shooting 54% and he's shooting 37% from three. And he's plus 6.8 when he plays. Kyrie's averaging 23 a game and shooting 49%.

And I think if you ask the normal person, be like, who's a better offensive player? They've got Kyrie a hundred times out of a hundred. He's way better than Jalen. It's like, is he? Jalen's for the last four years of the playoffs is averaging more points than he is. And, and he's a better shooter than Kyrie is at least from field goal percentage. It's at least like arguable that he could put up similar production as Kyrie.

But I think we've hit this point based off that last series where people are like, Luke and Kyrie, man, it's unstoppable. There's no two like this in the league. And Tatum and Brown have been pretty good for a long period of time. They just went 76 and 20, you know, the entire season. To me, it counts for something. Are they one of the three most disrespected 76 and 20 teams of all time? Do you agree with me that this is the best version of Jalen we've ever had and it's not close?

It's not close. This is the best version of him we've ever had. My Jalen stuff is well documented. I'm probably not as high on him as I need to be, which doesn't mean to say that I don't understand how special he is. I cannot believe some of the shot decisions and I can't believe how often these brutal turnarounds where I'm like, that's what you're coming up with. And then it goes in and then it just goes in. So Indiana series over and over again. Now, granted, so, well, they didn't have Halliburton. Well, the Celtics didn't have Porzingis, but over and over again, they were in these close games and he made huge shots. Yeah.

Made a three in the corner to save game one.

Right. Game three and game four, he made huge plays in both of those games. He made big, he made a big shot over Turner game three. He had big plays on both ends in game four. And it's like, well, it was against the Pacers. Like at some point you got to give the guy some credit. I thought he should have made all NBA. I made the case. He didn't make it, but you know, I think we've been pretty critical of him over the last few years. I think he is absolutely worked his ass off to get stronger, to be a better two way player. I think he's competitive as fucking shit.

The fact that he won that conference finals MVP, I thought was great. I thought, I don't know whether he deserved it or drew, but I thought it was awesome for him. Wait, the guy or drew or Tatum. I actually, I would have gone. I think I would have gone. You can't vote for holiday. Oh, come on. I thought drew was incredible in that series. Oh my God. I just thought he was great. Um, I thought they were very close. Like if any of them had won, I would have been fine with it. But, um,

Drew did not receive a vote. It was 5-4 voting for Jalen Overtain. I get it. I get it. I thought Drew was awesome. I just think the stuff Jalen has done and the chip that he has on his shoulder, which is weird. It's one of the only times ever somebody's got a massive contract and it actually turned out to be a good thing for their career. Usually it's the other way, right? It's like, I got this massive contract. Oh my God, I got fat.

Oh, I'm not working this hard. Oh, now the fans have turned on me. This is the opposite. This guy got this contract. He's been trying to justify it ever since. It's been pretty cool. He's been so good. He's been so good. And I think his defense has gotten better. I think he's the primary guy defensively, but it could have more to do with Tatum being

having to run more of their offense where it's kind of like the ant lesson we saw there where there's so many superstars. We're like, wait, who's SGA guarding or who's this guy guarding or how come? And you go, well, the downside is, but in the playoffs, you don't want to hear that kind of stuff. And Jalen is taking that stuff on. I also thought that Jalen had the easier defensive matchup

instead of Tatum and that Tatum's gravity was impacting stuff a little bit more. That's why I would have voted for him for Eastern Conference Finals MVP. But Jalen had the three in game one. He had the pass to White to close it out. He had the block. You know, he just had some of these moments that I think the voters probably fell in love with there a little bit more. So I have talked about him nonstop and I probably should look at him

as somebody who's delivered in so many of these playoff moments. And the problem for him was it turned into this guy who couldn't dribble with the offhand and the Miami series got so ugly. And that lives in a way in the internet that's like a tattoo. It just stuck to you. But this goes back to what we talked about earlier. It's the perception of things versus what the reality of it was, right? Like if I told you Jalen from 2020 to 24, 75 playoff games,

versus Kyrie basically from 2019 to 2024, 39 playoff games, who do you think averaged more points? I think 99 people out of 100 would say Kyrie. And it's Jalen. Jalen averaged 23 points during that stretch. Kyrie averaged 22. Jalen shot 49%. Kyrie shot 45. There's this weird...

I, and I think both of us are pretty aligned on this. It's been pretty awesome to watch Kyrie turn himself into a meaningful basketball player. Again, I think over everything else, we're going to root for good basketball and more good basketball players is always going to win the day. But now people have just tossed away the last seven years and allow the rollercoaster ride stuff with him and all the missed games and some pretty bad playoff performances. And the way he's played in the 2024 playoffs is the best he's played in seven years.

Well, we're aligned on this one and I fear that. We're just stating facts. Nobody wants to hear from you or I because they think it's only about the Boston thing. And I would remind everybody, I think the 2019 is one of my least favorite teams that I've ever watched. Yeah. And I couldn't wait for it to be over. So I do think it speaks to how we treat winning and that winning fixes everything about your perception.

And it's if the rules, I don't know when this changed. Maybe it's always been there, but it's more pronounced now. But if you're coming at

people that were critical of kairi with this hey where's the apology it's like fuck off miss me with all like what am i supposed to do like i'm psyched he's playing basketball again to the level that he's playing the stuff that he is capable of doing is as unique as we've ever seen for somebody that small but then it's like no now you have to do all this other stuff like i don't have to do any of that shit i don't have to do any of it because i'm not going to

He's missed 205 games in the last seven years and was missed or hurt, missed a postseason or was hurt in a postseason in four of those. One of the revisionist history things with him is that he, I mean, it was really Dallas or bust from him last year. Cause I went back and read some of the stories. Like, did I remember this wrong? Cause I, I remember like both of us were kind of stunned that they gave him the contract they gave. Cause we didn't know who they were competing against. So I went back.

There was like a possible Lakers thing, but he would have to take the mid-level. And then it was like, he's going to do an interview with Phoenix. But that was bullshit too. But it was after Bradley Beal. Right. But they leaked that whole story because Shams had it where it was right before the deadline for him to opt out of the Nets contract that it was like, you better trade me because I'm going to opt out and then I go for the mid-level. And you're like, okay, cool. And the Nets call his bluff. And then guess what?

He doesn't want to give up $30 million to play for the Lakers. So he was on this tear of all this stuff. It was all there, and it all deserved criticism. It just did the same way his playing right now deserves praise. But we're very odd in the way that we'll cover things or events where it's the present good is supposed to somehow erase something.

all of this stuff that was real and was just, I don't know, it was kind of a pain in the ass. - Dejan Wrojerowski in late June went on SportsCenter and he said, "The market for Kyrie Irving, legitimate places that he would leave Dallas for that makes sense that are available to him, it's extremely limited, perhaps almost nil.

The full expectation is he returns in Dallas. I don't think the money will be as much of an issue as how many fully guaranteed years are there for Kyrie Irving. That's where we were in June. And we were there because of the six years before it. And then he turned his career around and it was a gamble that they had to take because there was really no other way for them to get a major free agent. I posted on Twitter, I posted my notes from this podcast you and I did

At the end of March in 2023, remember they lost that terrible Charlotte game and they were 11th in the West. There was like eight games left in the season. And we were like, oh my God, they might miss the playoffs with Luca. And I had all my notes from that. And the notes were like, is Luca in one of the worst situations of any under 30 star? And I had him and LaMelo and ironically Edwards.

Um, stars best players that just missed the playoffs. And it was like, there's a Barkley here. There's a Dwayne Wade here. I had that whole list too. Like we did the whole podcast thinking there was no way this was going to turn around for Dallas. And then in one of the great kind of basketball reconstructions that we've seen starting with them losing that pick and I'm getting that pick back, doing the lab, we trade dumping the Bertons contract and they did all these things and it's, it's really impressive.

But it was also really bleak in June. And for some reason, that's been kicked out the window. But it also helps, too, when we're talking about the second best player in the world at 25 years old. Yeah, and I want to talk about him in one second. Let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Between your kids, work, and with football coming up, I know how difficult it can be to find time for yourself. I'm a big Power Walk guy. That's my special private time, walking around, listening to pods, doing phone calls, just...

get my legs moving and it's just like my time even when life gets busy it's important to make time for a little self-care in fact that's when you need it the most but if you need some help doing that i think therapy is a great place to start i have a bunch of people in my life

who are big therapy people and it's really helped them, even some family members. If you're ready to start therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to work with your schedule. All you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire to get started. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/billsimmons today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/billsimmons. This episode is brought to you by Nissan.

Flex your ruggedness in the Nissan Pathfinder Rock Creek. Power your epic adventures with 3.5 liter V6 engine, 295 horsepower. Take on those big bad trails on these big bad tires, 18 inch beadlock style wheels with all terrain tires to be exact.

designed to be aggressive all the way up to the front grill, which is magnificent. Find your path in the Nissan Pathfinder Rock Creek. Learn more at NissanUSA.com. Intelligent four-wheel drive cannot prevent collisions or provide enhanced traction in all conditions. Always monitor traffic and weather conditions. This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. If you're like me, you're constantly thinking about the safety of the people and things.

you value the most. We all have friends that had a break-in. Worst case scenario, home invasion. Second worst case scenario, they're away for a couple of days. They come back and things are just gone. And once you hear those stories, you realize you have to do something to secure your home. You could be like me. You can find Simply Safe. Been using it. They've been a sponsor forever.

Been using it for a while. We love it. You can try it for yourself right now. You can try it and get 20% off the system at simply safe.com slash BS. You can find out things like 24 seven professional monitoring. Someone always there to have your back during an emergency. You can find out how fast our agents can respond within five seconds of receiving the alarm.

They act, they respond to intruders. They even warn them that police is on the way and there's no contracts. You can choose to set up your system yourself or you can have one of their professionals

Do it for you. It is no surprise that SimpliSafe has been named the best home security systems by U.S. News and World Report for five years running and the best customer service and home security by Newsweek. So protect your home this summer. You can get 20% off any new SimpliSafe system when you sign up for fast protect monitoring. Just visit simplisafe.com slash BS. That is SimpliSafe with two I's. SimpliSafe.com.

slash BS. There's no safe, like simply safe. Going back to Dallas and some of the stuff they did. I went back cause I was like, this Gafford Washington thing feels unusual to me. I'm just going to go through all the seasons and try to figure out how unusual is this for a team to remake itself at the trade deadline? And then it actually works. Right? So you go back, I went back to 08, the Lakers did that Pau Gasol deal, which changed their season.

They make the finals. They lose, but they make the finals. Changed their season. Yeah. I mean, it changed. It changed. Changed three years. Well, but I mean, specifically, they made the finals that year. They didn't win. The Celtics made a very small P.J. Brown trade. That really helped them. He made a couple of big shots against the Cavs. A little tiny deal, not on the P.J. Washington sense. But then it really wasn't until 2015 when the Cavs did that. They got Shumpert and Mozgov and J.R. Smith. They traded some picks.

They didn't win that year. In 16, they got Channing Frye, but he still played for them. 17, they got Korver. 18, they got Clarkson, Nance, and Hood. They didn't win that year. This was the biggest trade deadline move that I saw that actually resulted in a finals. Same year. It was Marc Gasol in 2019 for Toronto.

where they traded for him. They gave up real stuff for him. He was super impactful for them. They ended up winning the finals, uh, 2020 Jay Crowder, Miami, 2022 Celtics, Derek white that helped them. I think make the finals and then Gafford, Washington. It's really unusual to trade around the fringes like this and get guys who can, you can get 40% of your team at crunch time, basically. Um,

at the trade deadline. They paid a lot. I mean, they definitely gave up a shitload for it. And then except, especially when you include the grant Williams, they'd give up a pick just to sign grant Williams. Right. So you're talking three first round picks, get those guys. But, um, it does make me wonder our team's going to get frisker on the trade deadline going forward. Like, could this be one of those things where people go, Hey, that, look at what Dallas did. They got those guys. And maybe this is the new inefficiency.

Once the rest of the decade, because we have more parody at the top than I think we ever had. I don't think we have parody, but I think we have contender parody where if you have one of the best eight to 10 guys in the league, you can at least whether you're Phoenix, whether you're OKC, whether you're Philly, whether you're Mike, whatever, you feel like you're kind of around sniffing around the title. So I don't know. Like Miami made a play for Rozier. I guess you could say that was the East Coast version of a trade like that. But do you feel like we'll see more of those trades?

This is one of the worst trade deadlines we've ever done. Yeah, it was tough. So there was that part where, remember, it was, oh my God, Bogdanovich, Bogdanovich, like, look how smart the Knicks are. And they got Burks. Right. And I mean, I think we were at least good enough to give credit to Dallas for

when it happened because for whatever reason i've always really liked gafford and then pj's motivation to come back home and how inspired he's been throughout all this and then on top of that the pj defensive assignments like there's a lot of times robert horry i don't remember us talking about that no not that part of it i don't think anybody projected that so big shot pj right i think this is one of those things where you look at it and go well does that mean next february

When we're doing all the look ahead stuff, the week of the trade deadline, will front offices actually go, hey, last year we would have been on the fence, but look what Dallas did. So let's be more motivated to do it. I don't know. I think with the second apron. I think it's possible. There's more talent just in general. So there's more of these guys when you think where the league was. We did this in a previous pod where the league was 20 years ago, where the league was 10 years ago. Just from a top 75, top 100 guys in the league standpoint, there's more guys to get.

And then I think from a superstar standpoint, we have more like really good guys than we did. You know, like the all NBA guys, even the guys in that like nine to 20 range, they're just really just deeper. So you might feel like, Hey, look at the league. We've had a different champion every year since 2018. You're never that far away. Maybe it becomes more like football where teams are like, if we're one of the eight teams, maybe we have a chance. Yeah.

I don't know that I'd go that far. Maybe, maybe, but it still seems that it,

ends up being some guy holding up a trophy where like okay well that makes sense i mean if it's donchic you're gonna go okay second but everyone will make him the best player in the world and forget about yokich if he's holding the trophy up and then if tatum's holding it up people are gonna go you know is tatum actually closer to one than he is five because that'll be what's on the shows the next day so that's still always the guiding rule of this league but the reason i was even hinting at the second apron because i love thinking about the stuff that's going to happen with the second apron we haven't really fully experienced the

the cuts that are going to have to happen where I look at bad teams with cap space, right? Like here's a perfect example. Look at the Orlando Magic. You try to figure out like, okay, what are they going to do with their cap space? So in the past, they just four-year a guy, probably even pay him a little bit more to come to the Magic and then worry about paying all their young guys down the road. Well, now I don't know that you can really do that. If you want to keep Franz, Paolo, and Suggs, which you would want to keep, and then you're paying them big money, like you may go, well, wait, we actually can't do the four-year thing in free agency with somebody who's this –

the secondary, maybe not even a secondary player, right? I think OKC's in the same boat, right? Yeah, OKC, I think that's why they wanted to do the Hayward deal a little bit there where they were clearing up some of the money and then adding the cap space, but they also probably felt like maybe Gordon offers them up some kind of shooting and playmaking. That didn't really happen. Did you see what Sam said? About Gordon? Yeah. He's basically like, I missed it. Yeah, I missed it. You rarely see a GM be like, yeah, missed it. Didn't work. My bad.

So I don't know if he was prioritizing what he thought he could be in a different environment outside of Charlotte or if he was prioritizing a little bit more flexibility. Anyway, the whole point and the whole reason I'm making this is I tie it into will we see teams a little bit more active? I wonder if there'll be a surplus of some of these players that are margin players that become available prior to the trade deadline as owners start staring down the real players.

restrictions that he could be facing by being a first or a second apron team. As you look at some of these salaries, like I was looking at some of the salary stuff this morning and how many teams are already projected over the second apron for 24 and 25. Well, we have more players available because you don't feel like you can stockpile contracts the way you did in the past. And it's just a question. It's a theory, but the math would make sense that maybe you're going to see more Gaffords available

So it could be just a supply part of it more so than it is the motivation to match what Dallas just did. Counter. That might only be one season. And then the media deal kicks in and all the numbers go way up. And then it'll be like, yeah, not as afraid of the second apron. I still don't understand the Gafford piece. PJ, look, I don't think there's any way to know PJ was going to turn into Robert Horry. And it was kudos to Dallas for...

figuring out, identifying him, but there was still no real evidence for it. Gafford was playing really well for these shitty Washington teams for years. And the house always would talk about, yeah, if anyone gets Gafford, that guy's good. That guy will be like, I just don't know how the league missed that when they have these giant organizations with a bunch of scouts. Can we go to Tatum for a second? Didn't we already do that? No, just quickly.

Sorry. The 42 club that I have, well, because it ties into Luka. The 42 club that I love to do points, rebounds, and assists. Anytime it's over 42 for a playoffs, it's usually a sign something's happening. So Luka is no surprise at 47, right? So this goes Luka, Joka, Giannis, Kawhi, Duncan, Iverson, Kobe,

Like it's all the people you would think is on this list. There's no cheapies. By the way, I love stuff like this. I love numbers like this that just go, oh, there's not one weird name there. It's not one weird players. I think when I came up with it, I think I got to 42 because I wanted to figure out a way to cut Carl Malone out of it.

And for some reason, 42 worked perfectly. And then that allowed me to get everybody in and not have them in. Um, the, your guy Barkley's there at 93, 44.5, but Tatum's on the list this year. Tatum's at 43.3. And I do think cause Tatum, it's a weird thing, man. When, when it's not great, you really feel it. And I think people have been watching them for so long that they kind of do the glass half empty thing for them. And there's,

You know, we've talked about this on Preview Pods. Like there's a little Tim Duncan-itis with him too, where it's just like Luca's got the swagger and he's talking shit and he goes on these heaters and it's like, this is fucking cool, man. There's nobody like Luca. Nobody's ever going to be like, oh man, Tatum. There's nobody like Tatum. But he's just been really, really, really high level, good and efficient for a few years here now. He's been one of the six best players in the league for three straight years.

He's the best two-way forward in the league. I don't count Giannis as a forward, as you know. I count him as a, I think he's a big man. And I do wonder if like, everyone's talking about this is going to be Luka's moment. This is going to be Luka's moment.

There's a flip side of this where it's like, maybe this could be Jason Tatum's moment too. There's a lot of pedigree building up toward this specific series. Some of the matchups he has, he's going to be, the rebounding is going to be huge for him. The playmaking, he's going to have to go head to head with Luka in a couple of games. And this could be the moment for him too, one way or the other. I know it's more fun to talk about Luka, but Tatum putting up like

29, 10 and eight in a finals and beating Dallas and winning the title. I don't, I don't feel like we'd have any more Tatum conversations after that. The numbers will have to be there, but well, that's going to happen. It's, it's, we already hinted at it, kind of joked about it with the whole Luca thing with the belt transfer of the segment we did a week ago. But if Tatum has numbers even close to what he's just had throughout the East and they pull this off,

there's going to be a big media Tatum parade because there's no other way to do the job. If he's 27, 10, and 6 and they win the title and he's the best guy in the team, then it'll be a reconsideration. Then people will start talking about him versus Kobe, playoff points before age 27. They'll be like, man, Tatum might end up with a pretty amazing career here. He's going to play 200 playoff games. There's a whole bunch of checkpoints that would happen with that. The Luka thing is more fun to talk about because...

You know, you're talking about this guy has a chance now to be one of the 15 best players in the history of the league. Right, but the visual thing that you mentioned is true because Tatum is like Duncan in the visual sense, probably not even as extreme as Duncan is. Like Kobe, for as great as he is and the resume and it's all incredible, he's probably one of the best examples of being so visually pleasing that even in those big moments... Yeah, you edit out a lot of the bad stuff. Yeah. You just...

He presented himself as someone that in the game, like nothing was more important. And he was the one that wanted it more than everybody else. So he was, he was good at,

And his big shots were awesome. Right. It was just, it was that much fun. And Luca is certainly different visually than Kobe because we're just talking about a massive gap in athleticism. But Luca's, the way he carries himself and he kind of takes on this villain now as the road guy. And part of it's because he's just

He's just, once I think he steps in those lines, he cannot help himself with being the biggest asshole. And I think I mean that as a compliment. Like there's a reason why he's always getting into it with somebody. And I'd certainly rather that than somebody that's passive. But between the two, I don't have any kind of debate where I'm like, oh, is Tatum actually better than, like, he's just not. There's no way. There's no way. That's not what we're talking about. I think it's more, it's way more fun to talk about Luca. Like I wrote down, I was thinking about this during the Minnesota series.

We haven't had like an old school shit talker, swagger guy like this in a long time. Like a guy who like actually seems like he likes being on the road, sucking the soul out of the crowd. But also the best player too, is what you're talking about. And you can back it up. I'm saying like, we're going back to like the bird magic era. We're going back to like Jordan. This is the kind of shit that we grew up with. We're these guys who were like, I don't care if anyone likes me.

I'm going to make shots and just start screaming at some guy sitting courtside. He was like, what's happening? I'm with my daughter. Why are you yelling at me? Just going nuts. He's, I wrote down, he's a road quieter. There are these certain guys that are like, you know, I, I always think the great players are always like on the road is always the best way to analyze them because they really thrive on like fucking shut all these people up.

It was just like, just silence. And I'm just staring around. I'm talking shit. And I'm just basically pulling everybody's pants down. And as much as I love Jokic, like he, you know, Jokic is...

He, he, he is who he is. Right. I don't think he's in there. I'm going to fucking shut up everybody. He just, he plays, then he goes and he, and he leaves and he goes back to his country and rides horses. Luca's like, Luca was like this. This is one of the reasons I loved him so much heading the draft. He was doing this as a 17 year old and they were shown in those games on NBA TV and it was unbelievable. He's going in these, in these,

opposing arenas where like, they were like kind of semi dangerous places. And he's talking shit to like 30 year olds. It was like, who, who is this guy? And he's carried it ever since. So I, I love thinking about Luca, the younger guy, because we've seen his dad who just is a legend, apparently just a legend. And there's a Slovenian hockey player here that is a neighbor of

And I ran into some of his family members, Kopitar. And I ran into some of his family members. And they were like, we were at the beach and I was talking to his family and all they wanted to talk about was Luca. Yeah. The entire time. And Luca this and Luca that. His dad. It was just...

He's this mythical feat. You think about some of these smaller countries where I think in the States, we can just be like, oh, it's another one of those guys in that part over there. Do you realize how small some of these places are? And now they have a guy who's potentially going to do this. It would make sense if Luca does this based on his background, his upbringing, and him checking boxes and being ahead of schedule. At age 17. Right. We fall in love with new and new is fun because we think it's going to be something we've never seen it before. That's why the women Yama stuff is so exciting. But

At the same time, like Luca keeps going like, oh, wait, you didn't think I could do this yet. You didn't think I could do this yet. And that's the thing that scares the shit out of you on the Celtics side of it. Because you're just going, yeah, this is this guy is supposed to win a championship because all these things. But when you talk about his demeanor, I would love to know what he was like on the ride to game five. Because watching him, like, did he know where he's just going to those guys being like, hey, first quarter, I'm going to.

I'm going to take their fucking souls. First quarter, because some of the shots he was taking, it was apparent to me that he had decided, I'm going to see what I can do here tonight. And granted, he's probably feeling a certain way. He feels like he's a little bit more locked in. He starts hitting all these deep threes. And I know it was 18-18 because Rudy was awesome on offense. But it was just one of those moments where it's like, man, he showed up in an elimination game and was like, I'm not waiting around. I'm going to win it in the first 12th.

It reminded me of LeBron in that 2012 game six game in Boston, which was the most important game, probably his career. When he came out in the first quarter and was just making 20 footers with that crazy look on his face. It was like, Oh no, this is bad. But the great guys, they go into a game and they're like, I'm fucking taking this in the first quarter. It was awesome. He, uh, he would have a chance here. It's interesting for the youngest finals MVPs. Um,

He'd be in the top 12 youngest. He's 25. It's a pretty good list. There's some guys like Magic's on it twice. Kareem, Tim Duncan, Dwayne Wade, Bill Walton. There's some weird ones too, like Dumars and Maxwell and DJ, but

Uh, Giannis was 26. Duncan was 26. The second time he won. It's right. It's more conceivable than I thought as I was doing the research. I was like, man, Lucas seems young. And it's like, nah, it's actually, this is right around the time, especially if he's somebody who has a chance to be a top 15 or 20 guy ever, which I think we're on pace now. It's still kind of young though. It's 25 in February. It's a little young, but it's not crazy. I think two years ago when I was in the 22 playoffs, uh,

When he went against the warriors and the conference finals, if they had made it that year, that would have been, Whoa, he's 22 that we're doing this now. A little like LeBron in oh seven. We're like, Whoa, we're doing this now. Um, this feels maybe a year early, but it's around when it should have happened. I think.

He's so good, yes. Because LeBron felt early, not to say that we didn't realize how good LeBron, but that's still, when you look at the rest of it, especially when you look at Dallas, granted, we've already talked about it, you've got to put this dividing line between who they were and who they became, and it's only gotten better. But the issue I had was just navigating the landmines of the West, and I still couldn't get there with them. And as I watched the Minnesota series, I went,

hey, this might be the simple stuff of if you're really going to try to build a playoff team that can go deep, you need two on-ball creators. You can't just have one. And that was the difference between Minnesota and Dallas. Do you think Denver would have beaten them? I would have said that, but I'm not going to do it to Dallas anymore. I've already been too disrespectful by not picking them. And by the way, I don't know that I've ever picked against a team that

four straight rounds. Miami doesn't count last year. I picked against them four times. So I don't, I doubt they'll have ever been a time where I picked against a team in four straight playoff rounds and they actually won the NBA title. Like last year, Miami, Denver was easy to pick because I still thought the Celtics series was one of the flukiest things we've ever seen. But that'll be, that'll be it. I had them over the Clippers. I had them over the Clippers in round one.

And then I thought, okay, so he was going to beat him. To be fair, more because of how injured Luka was. Once Leonard was out, I went, okay, well, now I'm not taking the Clippers. So I guess there's a technicality there. But when I thought Kawhi was going to play and be healthy the whole time. But yeah, I don't know that I can ever think of a team that I'll, when the series started, went, okay, I'm going to pick against them and they won a title. So that would be a new one for me. I'll feel pretty proud about that.

One other thing, Dan Shaughnessy wrote about... The curse of the Bambino? No, the Celtics have a chance to end a drought. I think it was tongue-in-cheek, but I couldn't tell. Boston title drought. Let's talk about it. Haven't won a title since February 2019. It's been five years and four months. So he was having fun with it, but it is... The Boston teams won 12 titles from February 2002 to February 2019. No titles in five and a half years. Apparently it's a drought.

I think he was. Well, it depends on what your standard is. I think he was kidding. I'm going to give you my favorite thing that I heard over the last couple of days. I was driving back from work because we did rewatchables on Friday and I was flipping around on the serious and that show speak was on Fox. And one of the topics was if Dallas wins the title, is Kyrie the best sidekick of all time?

And one of the guys made the case, yes, but he prefaced it. And it was something I could, I was driving on the highway, so I couldn't write this down, but he said something like, look, I know Scottie Pippen has six titles, but if, if Dallas wins this, Kyrie would have two.

And then he went, and I'm like, whoa. So we're tossing out 1986 Kev McHale, who is the best defensive center in the league and shot 60% in the playoffs in 26 and 10. We're tossing out 2001 Kobe. We're just going to toss away sidekicks now. And Kyrie, just because he looked good in a couple rounds, is now we're talking about him and the historical great sidekicks ever. It was Friday. It was really great. Yeah, that's.

That's the part. Like people have lost their mind. I think in the Kyrie conversation, I just think they have. He's really fun to watch. I get it. He's super fun to watch. He scored 16 a game against Oklahoma city. Yeah. He was fun to watch. I get it. But, and Jalen is just, nobody's going to be like, watch this Jalen Brown mixtape for six minutes, but Jalen scored more points than him in the playoffs. Um, we're going to end part one. We're going to bring in, uh, Brian Curtis for part two. Uh, thanks to Rossella. Thanks to Steve Cerruti.

and Kyle Creighton as well. And part two is going to come up a little bit later on Sunday. But this was part one. Thanks for listening.

Must be 21 plus 18 plus DC and present in select States. Fandle offering online sports wager in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas star casino, LLC game problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit Fandle.com slash RG in Colorado, DC, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text next step to 53342 in Arizona.

888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut, 809 with it in Indiana, 800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas, 877-770-STOP in Louisiana, mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland, 800gambler.net in West Virginia, 800-522-4700 in Wyoming,

Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York.