NBA Weekend Winners & Losers | SGA Tightens Grip On MVP, Wolves Rolling, LeBron's Groin Injury
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Danielle has taken up painting, oil painting, acrylic painting, other painting. I don't know what that painting type is, but it is just incredible. If I can convince her to open up a Shopify store, I know she'll be hearing the...

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I can't dunk it guys. Did you see me dunk? Never dunk!

Good morning, sweet world, and welcome to the No Dunks Podcast on The Athletic Network. It's Monday, March 10th, 2025. I'm J.E. Skeets here in the Classic Factory, and alongside me, as always, Tass Mellis. Basketball lovers, this is for you. Over yonder, making the magic happen, super producer, J.D. Hello. There he is, just the three of us today. No Trey Kirby.

He had a rough weekend battling some sort of stomach bug. By all accounts, he was on the can more this weekend than you were last week. Hi-yo! So hopefully Trey Kirby's feeling better today. He said he was, but he's got to rest up. He'll be back tomorrow, I'm sure. But yeah, I don't know if it was food poisoning or there's been sort of a virus going around here. There has been.

He had the Rhea. The Rhea, as we said on Friday. The Rhea Perlman. I'm just looking at our toilet hat right now. It would have been perfect for Trey. Send it over to him? Yeah. Although we'll get to Anthony Edwards a little later, who didn't show up for a third quarter of his game this weekend. With some bubble guts? Yeah, he got there late. You never know. Interesting. TK, feel better. Again, we'll see him tomorrow. Got some big news here before we get into our NBA weekend winners and losers.

Tickets are now on sale. They're finally on sale for the No Dunks Live podcast pizza party with Tabasco Brand. Look at that title for a show.

That is fun. Yeah, that whole thing you just said. No Dunks live podcast pizza party with Tabasco brand. It's going to be hot. Oh, yeah. This is going to be a blast. It's here in Atlanta at the Seven Stages Theater in Little Five, March 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern. Doors will open at 630 The Link.

Yeah.

Yes. They might be half accounted for already. We're very popular. But anyway, it's going to be a blast on March 27th. Guaranteed. And it is going to be... I mean, we have Pizza Party in the title. There's going to be pizza and Tabasco brand. So that's not... We're not misleading you with that title. Right, JD? I can confirm. Pizza will be there. You're hesitant. There is a hesitation. $25 investment for...

Most likely pizza? That's a good investment. Wait, why are we saying most likely pizza? Well, there's just a tiny hesitation there. We're not allowed to have pizza in the Seven Stages Theater? We are having pizza. We just have to decide where we're getting the pizza from. Oh, well, okay. We have time to figure that out. Yeah, yeah. All right, there's going to be pizza, but most importantly, you're going to be your favorite podcasters talking hoops that night. We'll have a blast. All right, we also had a missed wedgie that we didn't get.

that we need to show you guys. Yeah, Thursday night. We botched it. We forgot to show you on the Drop Podcast. I mean, it was a quickie. It was Yves Missy. I guess he gets credit here for that little put-back attempt, that rebound attempt on the offensive glass. So number 34. Thanks to everybody that did reach out. A few people reached out through IG to let us know, hey, you missed one.

Yes, we did. And we lost the site that used to get us all the clips for wedgies as well. Things have changed. Things have changed in the NBA world. We used that website for a decade since we started counting wedgies. Like 11 seasons. It's unfortunate, but things change in the NBA world. Things are changing the way people consume games, consume highlights. We just got to adapt. We got to roll. And I think we will. I think we will for the remaining...

14 wedgies this season because we've got a 48 number right now that we're looking at. You asked me before we went live what I did this weekend. I said, not really much of anything. I lied. I learned how to use QuickTime Player.

to screen record my computer so I could show us the wedgie. I can't believe you did because I tried it too. I'll show you. It didn't work. It was not easy. It took me hours. Oh, really? Just because the... Yeah, it's not intuitive. I'm telling you. What? Yeah. Well, it seems to work really well, but it just... The NBA knows when you're recording a game, so it says, uh-uh.

Oh, I might have some sort of like Chrome extension going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's probably taking us back to No Buffs with Survivor's footage I need to record sometimes. Okay. We're really peeling back the curtain today here. Talking about pizza and talking about wedgies. But let's get into NBA weekend winners tasks. Why don't you get us started? We'll do a few rounds of this. Maybe touch on a few NBA weekend losers. Where do you want to start?

Well, let's check in with the team that is expected to show up in the NBA Finals right now. It's the Oklahoma City Thunder. Got to check in on these guys because...

They had a great weekend. Friday, I expected them to lose. In all honesty, they had none of their starters playing. Not a Shea, not a Jalen Williams, not a Hartenstein, not a Holmgren, not a Lou Dort against Portland Trailblazers. Didn't matter. Aaron Wiggins came out, had a baller of a game. That guy's improved so much. Using those long legs, those long strides, the spin moves to get to the rim. And when he has just a half an inch of space, he uses those log arms. His reach is incredible. He is...

His reach is approximately 6'10", even though he's about 6'6". His wingspan is just monstrous. Anyways, we're talking about a guy off the bench who scored 30 against the Portland Trailblazers on a great contract. That contract is ridiculous. Anyways, besides that, they win against the Portland Trailblazers with none of their guys playing. Then Sunday against Denver, 1-2 in the Western Conference. This was a fun one. Fun one in OKC. They've got that little black floor option there.

the little logo of the actual state of Oklahoma. Things were cool. I just thought there was so much fun in this one. That Christian Brown lefty hook pass to the corner. You had Jokic passing into Jamal Murray, the big low option there. And then you had Chet Holmgren spinning Duncan after getting set up by Caruso. So that was great. It was a one-point game early in the fourth. And if you look at that score...

And the final score, and you see that blowout. Oh my goodness. It looks like a huge blowout. Yeah. A 24 point deficit. You're like, oh, yeah, if you didn't watch the game, you're like, oh, so they just kicked their ass. Yeah. No, you're right. For a majority of this game, it was very close. Yeah. Close at half, close into the fourth quarter. And then what OKC does time after time after time is they just rip off these...

you know, dominant runs here where suddenly you look up and like, holy crap, we're down 15. Like, how did that happen? And that's what they did. They are never close in the fourth quarter. They play the fewest clutch minutes in the NBA. That's what they do. They went on a 41-17 run to end this game. And I'm sure people who are watching were a little upset if you're a Denver fan because to start that run, Chet Holmgren gave Russell Westbrook a bit of a, you know, like a, eh.

A heel strike. Kind of with his palm. He got him. Didn't get called for it as Westbrook went to the floor. That would have been a sixth foul. That would have mattered. It was early in the fourth to some degree. Hartenstein was the guy playing Jokic. We'll get to that in a second. But after that, Jalen Williams with a beautiful turnaround fadeaway. He had it going. I mentioned him first before I mentioned Shea at all because it was this guy in the fourth quarter. He had 13 points in the fourth to lead the team. But it's the team's depth.

That is incredible. They had eight guys score in the fourth quarter. Shea got it going a bit. He was 11 of 28 going into the fourth quarter, only one of 10 from three, but starting to feel good in the fourth. He had three straight shots, nine points in the fourth, took him to 40 points on the night, eight boards, five assists, three blocks, because he's good at that third consecutive game with at least 40 points for him. And then, as I mentioned, Hartenstein was guarding Jokic. For the first time this season, they had him healthy against the Denver Nuggets. Right.

He was guarding him one-on-one. That's just a big guy for Jokic to contend with. You get a little helping Holmgren at times, but Harnstein played him well. And Jokic had 24 on the night. He scored 16, 23, and 24 in their three matchups against OKC now. So they've played him fairly well.

They get Denver again tonight. That's a league pass game. Still in OKC. Will they change the floor? Maybe. I'm sure because it's on league pass, I don't know if Danielle will be watching this time. She was watching yesterday and she watched the postgame interview and saw the entire team come up. It's Shea and then it's Holmgren behind him giving the 4-0. Hand gesture showing that he had 40 points.

She said, who are these guys? I don't know. But they are gaining that national notoriety, that's for sure. Because Wednesday, they get a Boston versus Boston national game on ESPN. So it is great for them to start to get to that national notoriety, for people to understand how Oklahoma is shaped. If you look at that floor, you see that little logo, the Texas hat, as some people call it. Be honest, were you looking at that going, man, I wonder what that would be like to poop out of my body? Oh, gosh. Yeah.

That's a callback to a cold open last week. Friday, right? Yeah, that was a great cold open. Well, maybe I'm lying. Maybe it was Thursday. I can't remember. Anyway. Too many poop cold opens. Too many poop, yeah. Pooping in the shape of states. Anyways, okay, see, they just tear up teams in fourth quarters. Yeah, it's wild this stat I saw from Zach Harper in the bounce this morning. The Oklahoma City Thunder are up to 42 double-digit wins on the season.

42 of their 53 wins, double-digit wins. The record is 50 by the 71-72 Lakers. So, in play. I mean, there's still a little under 20 games left for them. That is just amazing. But yeah, it's a close game. That's the thing. It was close. Now, Jokic got banged up.

He hurt the elbow. You know, I don't want to make an excuse for him, but it seemed to have an effect on him. His three-point shooting, his free throw shooting, he was grabbing on it. He says he's fine. I think he just banged it up when he fell to the floor after Hartenstein sort of fouled there where he was like, I got to hold on to him and he fell down onto the ground. I'm sure it hurt. And then Aaron Gordon left this game early too. That did change probably at least maybe the competitive factor of this game. He's important because that's my whole thing from this is like,

And I know we'll get into Shea a little bit more, but you're right. You brought up Jalen Williams, J-Dub. He was awesome, man. 26 points, nine boards, team-high eight assists, 50% from the floor, hit a couple threes, lived at the line, 10 of 11 there. Monstrous block. I was going to say, great defense. He never turns the ball over. I think he had one in this game. He's that secondary all-star, right? And it's like...

Shea has that and then he can have a check game and he can have another huge game from some of these other guys that catch fire from three and we always talk about Jokic and the Nuggets it's like if Jamal Murray doesn't have it going you're sort of in trouble and that's like this is what I just looked at these two teams like oh their depth or their guys that can be their second third fourth best player on any given night it's just so much more consistent for OKC than it is for Denver and obviously Jokic is going to give you what he gives you but you're then hoping you get a Jamal night or maybe a Michael Porter Jr. night and

And then when you lost Aaron Gordon, he'd been really well recently. He'd been hitting a ton of threes. So that sucked for them, losing him. Yeah, there's no doubt. I mean, Christian Brown had a good weekend. He had a good game. That lefty hook pass getting into the middle of the lane and being able to hook it to the opposite corner and that drop back pass. He's got it going on. That's for sure. He's going to get some most improved player votes. There's no doubt. And he had a 25-5-5 game as well.

That being said, if we start looking, if we start zooming out and looking at Nikola Jokic's career right now, he hasn't played with another all-star. It is wild to think about that and what he could have done. We're not there quite yet, but what he could have done with another all-star because Jamal Murray hasn't gotten there. He hasn't been super consistent in first half of seasons quite yet.

Christian Brown is a good player. Aaron Gordon is a freaking good player that's helped out. But they need Jamal Murray. Period. But Murray wasn't, he wasn't Jamal Murray, you know, 30-point Jamal Murray. No, he wasn't. I think he missed 11 of 17 shots. And then, you know, Porter was actually okay, but Westbrook was brutal. He was bad. This was just a bad Russ game. I don't know if it was the energy of playing in his old barn and, you know, the sort of like applause he got and just that energy or just one of those frustrating Westbrook games where he sort of like

you're just attacking and driving with no real plan in mind and like you obviously are playing a physical team in okc as well um he just had a bad one and my point is again it's like yokich needs a couple other guys to come along with him to win these games against really good teams like this yeah and it's going to need such in playoff series too it's not just going to be him i mean we saw what he did on friday night with the the stat line we've never seen in the 30 20 20

And they just got the victory in overtime, right? I mean, like even despite doing that, they just pulled it out with some big shot making down the stretch of that one. So yeah, that's all you are with this team to me. It's like, yeah, he's a monster, but who's there for the ride? And who will be consistently at least. Yeah, in the playoffs, your bench definitely can help out. We saw what OKC's benched in the fourth quarter. As I mentioned, everybody's scoring. They had eight guys scoring that quarter.

And then you look at the other side when Russell Westbrook got that heel strike to the face.

Who's coming along? Even off the bench, your Zeke Nagy wasn't great. Peyton Watson? Yeah, he had a three. But he wasn't great. The depth is a problem because OKC's depth comes through. It really does. And it snowballs. That's why they go on these runs. It's not all the time like, oh, Shea just took over here. It's everybody. They had the hilarious play where Doink's the fast break dunk. The ball goes like 80 feet in the air.

They come down with it and they kick it out to Dortny. It's the corner three. It was like, ha ha ha, three better than two. I meant to miss that dunk. It was just like, that was the exclamation on this game. But it was very entertaining. I was like locked into this one. It was. Like marquee game, ABC, obviously the MVP narrative around this game and then just these two good teams. It lived up to the billing. It was just like, ugh, when AG went out and then when Jokic got banged up.

And you sort of were. I was just the whole time like, when's O'Casey going to go on that monster run? They've just done it so many times this season. It's usually in the third or fourth quarter. And this one was in the fourth. Yeah. And just to correct myself, I said Peyton Watson had a three. I guess I was confusing it with their previous game we're going to talk about when they beat the Sacramento Kings on Friday. It was a Jalen Pickett three. Hmm.

Jalen Pickett. If Danielle was watching, she would have said, ooh, to that. Because they're going deep. They're trying to find somebody. Yeah.

To help out, Russell Westbrook, it was the bench unit in that fourth quarter when things started to turn bad for the Denver Nuggets. Dario Sarge has not turned out to be who he was. He was walking into the arena with Nikola Jokic, who was wearing very tight pants, I thought. Very tight, around his gluteus maximus, I should say. But anyway, cool pants. Do you think we get a similar outcome tonight?

when they run it back. Yeah, it's a great call. I don't know the status of AG. I mean, I assume Jokic is going to play. Again, he said he was fine, but very difficult to beat a team that's good, of course, like in back-to-back games, and they sort of ran away with this one. I don't know where to go with that. I mean, you can see OKC sort of waxing them again, but that's tough to do.

No idea? No idea. Yeah, we're going to get a lot of Russ, I'm sure. But Aaron Gordon, yeah, he's important.

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Let's keep it going here with weekend winners. It's sort of off of that dominant weekend from OKC, but the NBA MVP race is a winner of the weekend to me. Okay. Because this is awesome. And I don't know why people are getting so upset and are so ornery over this, the two-man race between Jokic and SGA. Just enjoy it. It's amazing. Friday night, we already alluded to it.

In the 149-141 overtime win for the Nuggets over the Suns, the Joker became the league's first player to ever record 30-plus points, 20-plus rebounds, and 20-plus assists in a single game. That's just a mind-boggling stat. And yeah, he got a little extra time, some free basketball, but you saw the breakdown. If you divided the game by time into two separate games, again, you're counting the overtime, so it's like the, what,

53 minutes. He had a triple-double in each of those. Yeah. In the first portion of the game and in the second portion of the game. Separate triple-doubles. Put them together and you have like a stat line we've never seen before. It's never been done. So that was cool because, you know, a lot of people had SGA as a frontrunner for MVP and then Jokic does this on Friday night and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, that is amazing. And then they're going to play two games here. And so what happens? SGA on Sunday. Not a bad counter. 40 points.

Eight boards, five assists. On a night he didn't shoot the three ball at all very well. Two of 11 from deep, but they win by 24 against Jokic's Nuggets on a nationally televised game. And it's, again, I just don't know why people get so upset about this or even want to call it now. Like that was a huge feather in the cap for SGA and his chances, I think, to win. Like I do think these are important games in terms of the narrative because they're both having dominant seasons, but

But we're just, again, going to come down to the spirit of this award, right? It's going to be who's having the more impressive season. That's probably Jokic, statistically speaking. But then SGA leading the league in scoring, awesome numbers themselves, on the best team in the league, or at least in the Western Conference. You know, a 65-plus win team. They're running away with the West. And all we talk about is how stacked the West is. I think he is ultimately going to win it, but I don't need to call it right now. You know what I mean? Right.

Like to go back to my boxing analogy I did last week where I'm like, these two heavyweights are just like throwing haymakers. It's like one night Jokic sets his career high for assists. And then the next night SGA goes for 50 plus again. Like they keep going back and forth, back and forth. So that's awesome. You're scoring a boxing fight as it goes on, right? If we're seven or eight rounds through, you maybe have SGA winning the fight, winning the NBA MVP race. Maybe you have Jokic, whatever. But here's what you don't do.

in a good fight between two fighters. You don't call it after the seventh or eighth round. Don't you want to see a couple more rounds? Of course, yes. Right, right. I like basketball. Let's see the ten full rounds is what I'm saying here. I do think SGA will win. I think he's going to be a deserving winner. But I don't need to plant my flag. It doesn't have to be so black or white. This is where sports media is. If you don't have a take and you don't stand on one side...

then I don't know what you're doing. But it's so silly with this to me. So I don't know. Like, this is just awesome. If you're a basketball sicko, this is fun as hell to watch. Yeah, maybe I'm not consuming that much social media, but I don't find people are that ornery, as you said. It's starting to ramp up. Okay. It is. It is a month away from the end of the regular season. And so I think that's probably...

That's the cutoff line. Like you said, people are going to do it all season long. It's going to be required of people, number one in the media or just on social media, period, to say, yeah, what's your side? Who are you riding with? And they have to take somebody. We're all guilty of it. We asked the late, great Dikembe Mutombo in January of 2018, who's your MVP?

And he didn't really want to answer. And he told us afterwards, why are you guys asking me that question? It was a fun conversation to have with Dikembe Montempo. That was January. And we were talking about it even then. You know, it is sort of late in the season. So you can have an opinion now, I think. But...

Yes, you can also not be entirely decided. I didn't say you couldn't have an opinion. We have made that very clear and we've done it all season and seasons prior. It's like, why do we have to be so hell-bent on calling it? Why do we have to call the fight when both guys are still throwing punches in the 7th or 8th round?

Right? Again, you're scoring the card, you're scoring the fight, you have a winner right now, but there's still time. As unfortunate as this, I'm sorry if one of those guys got hurt. Like if SGA twists an ankle and didn't play for like another 15 games,

I think Jokic has had a pretty damn good case then, right? It's still open for a winner. And we're going to have another battle tonight. Like, who's to say Jokic doesn't have a monster game tonight? And then it goes back a little bit. And this is good. This is better than like a guy just running away with it. And then we have like no real debate.

It's just amazing. And they're both going to be deserving. And unfortunately, one of them is not going to win it. And it's going to be like, whoa, that's wild what that guy did this year to not win it. But that's just the way it is because there's only one winner. I wonder if it hurts Shiggy Alexander that they haven't played basically any close games. It's almost to that point that there would be more highlights for everybody to see because they've played the fewest clutch minutes, the fewest close games ever.

in the NBA this season. And even close. The next closest team is the Wizards. And so they just are so far ahead of everybody. So it would help some of the storylines. It's so backwards thinking. It's like, we're so dominant that I don't even need to come through in the clutch because there is no clutch. Yeah, I guess we could speak...

...somewhat... ...resembles what Steph Curry did... ...when he wasn't playing fourth quarters... ...because they weren't needed... ...because the Warriors were kicking so much ass. I honestly see... ...a lot of comparisons to those teams... ...because... ...and it goes back to what we were saying... ...those teams were notorious for... ...second half... ...usually a third quarter...

We are just going to lock in here for five minutes and blow the game wide open. I'm talking about those old Warriors teams led by Steph. That's what OKC has sort of done time and time again here. There's some similarities there. But it's just, again, Jokic is a three-time MVP winner, and he's having a better year than he had in any of those. So that's like a big case for him, and he's just doing statistical box scores we've never seen. Whereas SGA is obviously, I mean, this guy's leading the league in scoring. We saw, even in a game, I don't even think SGA had a good game.

On Sunday.

No, he didn't. You wouldn't give that an A+. Don't even give it an A. He wasn't feeling it. And he's still 48-5. I mean, and taking over sort of down the stretch. Oh, yeah. It's awesome. It's awesome. And I'm just going to keep enjoying it. And I, more than anyone, should be like, no, it's SGA. He's a winner. I mean, I'm calling this guy who was an all-star like five years ago when I wanted him to be a first-time all-star. I picked him for MVP this year. Like, if anyone should be doing it, I guess it should be me. But I'm like, no, let's just see what happens in the final 20 games. Yeah.

Yeah, it'll be interesting here. We'll get to LeBron's injury and how them and the Nuggets are essentially in a fight for the second seed. It may help here that the Nuggets will finish second just for a little bit of the headlines, a little bit of the chatter. 11 or 12 games back. Yeah, they're going to be way back. There's no doubt. But Jokic dropping 21 assists, the most ever for a center.

Wilt Chamberlain. He just passed Wilt Chamberlain, which guys don't usually do because Wilt put up so many numbers, but that is, that's a ridiculous number. That's just a refer. 22 assists. I want to fact check you on that one. Thank you for fact checking. Yeah, 21 boards, 22 assists. Yeah, I'm getting all these games a little, but yeah, Wilt's was 21. And so that's why I'm referring to that. But Jokic's previous, I was 19. Yeah, did that last week. Yeah, exactly. Not long ago. And I think they're just going to keep doing this from here on out, which is,

Pretty damn special. All right, let's do another round, though. Who else do you have for a winner? Well, the Timberwolves. They've won five straight. I think they're playing their best ball of the season. They're looking more like a team. They're moving. They're cutting out there. Not quite the team that they're tied with, the Golden State Warriors. They're tied with six in the West with them. But this is more of who they should be. And...

They're a season best, eight games above .500. They're getting production from everyone. Chris Finch changed it up with the starting lineup. That's not something Chris Finch usually does at this point in the season. Friday versus the Heat, he said, Mike Conley, you're in. We need DiVincenzo to come off the bench. And Conley actually started in both games this weekend, even when Rudy Gobert came back on Sunday. So they're going back to that same lineup that they started the season with. And on Friday against the Heat, Conley, Nasrid, and DiVincenzo, they all scored 15.

That led the team. You might say, what about Anthony Edwards? What did he do? Well, he didn't come out of the locker room at half. Something going on in the belly there. He wasn't feeling good. Although when he came back, he played every single minute, the final 19 minutes of this game. 13 points, not a lot. 13 big boards, a lot.

Again, looking like a team. Sunday versus the Spurs. Conley starts again with Rudy coming back. Rudy Gobert had been out for 10 straight games with a back injury. DiVincenzo again off the bench. Eight guys scored in double digits for the Timberwolves. It just looks like a different team. Look at these numbers. I know they're playing the Spurs now.

here, but these numbers mean something. 56% from the floor, 50% from three, season high in points, 141, and tied their season high with assists. The biggest thing, 38. Anthony Edwards, only five three-point attempts. That's a good sign. He sat the entire fourth. He wasn't needed. Julius Randle, look at just their support, guys. Julius Randle, he's got five games back since his injury. They've won them all. 34 assists.

So almost seven per game for him and 22 of those assists on direct three-point shots. So he's getting in to the middle of the floor where he makes things happen and gets it out. So four games per, four assists per game directly to three-point shots. Jaden McDaniels, this guy looks like a different player. He starts games extremely well. Since the All-Star break, he's taken five more shots than he did in the first half of the season or pre-All-Star, I should say. He's shooting 51% from the floor, 93% from three, 93%.

93% from the free throw line, not from three. Who is this guy? 93% from the free throw line. That's surprising. Seven and a half boards, three and a half assists. He's just doing a lot. Rudy Gobert looked right, although he didn't look good.

on a lot of those plane rides, apparently, because his back was really stiff. Wasn't feeling good. Imagine being a seven-footer on... I know they're flying private, but you wouldn't want to have back issues being a seven-footer and then get on a plane. No, not at all. That would suck. Yeah, and he wouldn't have been ridiculed if he didn't get on those plane rides because they played a lot on the road. They just had seven road games over 16 days. But he wanted to be with the team, he said. So I think this is the best Timberwolves we've seen yet.

This season, again, everybody contributing. And it's going to be a race here down as we see them tied with the Warriors. I mean, all these teams are just solid teams right now. They needed these wins against this competition. That was bad competition, for sure. Let's be honest. And since Randall came back, they were on this five-game win streak. And they beat the Suns. They beat the Sixers. They beat the Hornets. They beat the Heat, who are amazing at blowing double-digit leads. And they beat the Spurs, like you said. So, I mean, you should...

The Minnesota Timberwolves, they're better than all five of those teams. They proved it. And they need those in order to obviously try and get into the playoffs, avoid the play-in, and just get in there cleanly. So that was a big little stretch here for them. And they are looking more like a team, I'll give you that, no matter what the competition is. Yeah. And this is the time of season. Everybody's supposed to get hot, so they're feeling better. Even when Rudy was gone for 10 straight games, they had the 11th best offense in the league. So they're looking...

And when they went into the postseason last year, they weren't anywhere close to the 11th best offense. They were a great defensive team that somehow found their groove offensively, and this is looking more like that team.

A winner of the weekend to the Celtics' real power duo. I say that because there were a lot of jokes flying around last week, including us here at No Dunks, throwing it in a headline about how Peyton Pritchard and Derek White were the greatest Celtics duo ever after they became the first guys for the Beantown Boys to score 40-plus points in the same game.

That was all a little tongue-in-cheek, of course. Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, they're the real great Celtics duo, at least of this generation. And they reminded us on Saturday night because, man...

The championship still runs through Boston. It does. And, you know, that malaise that they had that we all said, that's all it is. This is just a championship team that doesn't have a ton to play for right now. They're not all that concerned about Cleveland running away with the number one seed in the East. They think they can go win on the road there. They just, when they get locked in for a big game and those guys come to play, they're

That's pretty special. They won. They beat the Lakers 1-11, 1-0-1 on Saturday night. Tatum, 40 points, 12 boards, 8 assists, 2 steals. Jalen Brown, 31 points, 6 boards, and 3 steals. 29th time those two guys have scored 30-plus points in a game. That's fourth all-time for a duo since the NBA-ABA merger. It's like Shaq and Kobe is definitely one of them and a few other ones. But that's pretty impressive. They might become the all-time champions

for 30-plus point games when it's all said and done. If they play together, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of time to go. But competitive first half, and then the Celtics broke open the game in the third quarter, and defense was a big part of the reason. They held the Lakers to 13 points. Oh, yeah. On five of 23 shooting in that quarter. So that was awesome. And I'll even say the Jays sort of saved the best for last. Jason and Jalen...

Luka banked home a three, was like 430 to go in the game, cut the deficit to four. Lakers were like suddenly in this game, and that's when those guys, they did their part. Brown splashed a three right in Luka's eye, sort of as the counter. Tatum hit another three a few possessions later. Suddenly it's back to double digits. They scored Tatum and Brown every point for the Celtics over the final four minutes to put the game away.

It was impressive. It was impressive. It was like this weekend to me was like, oh yeah, there are three championship contenders. Really? And then there's the tier down, but it's OKC and it's Boston and it's Cleveland. And then it's like, where do you put your Denver Nuggets and your Lakers and a couple other teams in that second tier? But those three teams, you'll be shocked, I think, if they're not in the conference finals. Oh yeah. Right. A hundred percent. And to get to those conference finals, uh,

that real power do is going to have to play more than last season. Here's the social media take. These guys aren't just going to have an easy route to the finals like they did last year.

The Atlanta Hawks might play them in the first series. I know that's a joke. They're not worried. Well, it would be better than last year's team. The Hawks have beat them twice this year. They beat them twice last year. It's a start. And then the second series would be, if all the seedings stay, it would be the Knicks or the Pistons. Right. And then the Cavs. Yeah, it's going to be much more difficult. Way more difficult for this power duo.

That being said, it's fun watching Jalen Brown play Luka Doncic. And that was awesome. And then the other guy in Jason Tatum that we all don't talk about, but obviously is one of the best players in the NBA. Period. And he just makes plays for his teammates. He just plays basketball so well. Period. That's it. And the other big takeaway from that game on Saturday night was Al Horford.

Looking like young spry Al Horford. Second highest total minutes for a game this season. He played 37 minutes on Saturday night. 14 points, 9 boards, 4 assists, and he was being targeted. The Lakers were putting Al Horford in action, and he more than held his own. The numbers are pretty wild. LeBron, Luka, and Austin Reeves, so the three best perimeter scorers on the Lakers, they isolated Al Horford 23 times in that game.

according to second spectrum tracking data. And they didn't do that well. They shot 7 of 23 against Big Al, with LeBron and Luka only scoring three times. So, you know, Al got switched out there, but he could still move those tootsies. And he's obviously a super intelligent basketball player, so he understands the angles and how to use his size and where the help's coming from, and just did a really good job. And it's like, oh yeah. You're always reminded. You brought up Conley, and you bring up Horford, and you're like,

These guys have it for stretches still. They can't do it all 82 games, but they can do it for stretches. And this was a game they were missing Porzingis. Lakers were obviously small as well, and got even smaller when LeBron had to leave. But good win from the Celtics.

Yeah, the Lakers had some injuries they were dealing with. And as you said, the Celtics too. It is amazing to see Horford out there. 37 minutes he played. Now, that was the third highest on their team because they relied on the Jays. With Tatum playing 45 minutes, Jalen Brown nearly playing 42 minutes. So they're getting ready. They can turn it on when they want. That is for sure. That's the whole...

of this team this entire season. When they want to turn it on, they can be great. So here we go. Here we go. It is a month away. But when they want to win, Wednesday versus OKC in what is a finals preview for some. For some, because the Cavs are going to be...

I'm sure many people are going to pick Cavs. But anyway, Wednesday, finals preview. That'll be fun. Let's do one more round then of winners. Who you got? I have Kawhi Leonard hitting a game winner. That was a game winner. He got the ball at the three-point line. Here come the dribbles. He starts dribbling into the elbow. I counted the dribbles. There were eight dribbles that he took.

And he got past Keegan Murray when he threw that right elbow just to huck him back a little bit. And he got to the other elbow. It was sort of the mid-post. And he hit a lefty hook. Lefty hook. Yeah. From Kawhi Leonard. It wasn't quite like Kyrie Irving hitting that lefty hook last year against the Denver Nuggets because that was like the free throw line. This was, according to the play-by-play, this was a one-footer. That wasn't even close to one-footer. I don't get it. A couple more feet, I'd add. Way more. I mean, it was like seven. Anyway, it was a lefty hook. It was pretty...

And then he went in and jumped with his team. Didn't really get off the floor all that much. Kawhi doesn't do that. But this wasn't a great game for Kawhi. So to be 7 of 19, you'd think Harden would get the ball there. But Harden did his thing at the end of regulation. They went to Kawhi, and he got it. You know, they were playing without Norman Powell, but they got their –

Their contributions from Zubats and from Derek Jones Jr. off the bench. And this wasn't what looked to be a great Clippers lineup, including Ty Lue. He wasn't there because of back spasms. So they didn't have a lot of guys. But either way, this is a game. This is a matchup, I should say, that could be the first round of the play-in tournament. It's fun. I mean, every single game, wherever we are, it's going to be hard. And the Kings fought...

Zach Levine almost hit a game winner at the end of regulation. I thought Keon Ellis was fantastic in this game. Just a fun one. Just a fun one. Just want to give Kawhi his due because it's been a while, it feels like. It wasn't a four bouncer. No, no, no. Was it like a two bouncer? I didn't count that. Because it wasn't clean. No. It was like, obviously, hit backboard, hit rim, and went in. Oh, yeah. But he's got that soft touch. He's got those big paws to get it up there. It was a tough shot. And it was cool to see, like,

It was like the super, like, just mad ISO at the top. It's like, I am going to run the clock down until I make my move. And everyone's just standing there waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. Then he obviously went. He sort of got cut off. I thought JV came with some help. Like, it was challenged. But it was just a great playmaking by him. Yeah. Nice hook, baby. I didn't think we could get Clippers Kings, but you're right. Could be a plan. Could be 7-8. Yep, could be. I think they're there right now.

because of how things have gone on. Oh, that's my fantasy league standings. I was looking for NBA standings. How's your team doing? It's coming down to the wire, baby. Didn't you draft Kawhi Leonard? Sure did. Yeah. I also drafted Anthony Davis. When are you coming back? I need to know. Yeah, actually, no. The Wolves are right now in seventh because they're tied with the Warriors for sixth. Clippers, then the Kings, then those Mavs.

That don't have Anthony Davis. Holding on. Come on back. Come on back, baby. Yeah, it's only a game and a half between the Mavs and the Suns. We all thought, I definitely thought, the Suns are done. I mean, these injuries to the Mavs play a humongous part. We'll get to them in a second. I got them, fortunately, in losers a little bit later. You don't wake up dreaming of McDonald's fries. You wake up dreaming of McDonald's hash browns. McDonald's breakfast comes first. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

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deserves a little love because Max Struess had 17 points to lead an insanely balanced scoring attack as the Cavs beat the Bucs on Sunday 1-12-100 14th consecutive victory here for the Cavs they had to come back against the Hornets in the game prior but they beat the Bucs nobody scored more than 17 points for that Cavs team but eight guys had more than nine points

So everybody contributing. Mitchell talked about it after the game, talking about how good they're playing basketball, building confidence. I always love a Scott Van Pelt interview where he talks to the key player or usually the star, obviously, after the game on ESPN. He's good. He's great. So that was fun. That's just a dominant win. That's 14 straight, so we've got to talk about it a little bit, at least slip it in there. Steph Curry gets a mini winner of the weekend. 26th player in NBA history to score 25,000 career points.

He reached a milestone there in the third quarter against the Pistons. Close game. Very close game. Saw some little playoff Jimmy. It was a three-pointer, in case you were wondering. Steph Curry hit to get to 25,000. This isn't counting the playoffs. That was the whole LeBron thing we were doing for the 50,000. It's nice to get back to the regular season numbers, I got to be honest. Just back to the regular season numbers. Yeah, that's what people... There were a lot of comments after that.

Usually people are just angry when they say, where do these playoff numbers come from? But that feels right when you're watching tracking basketball. The regular season matters more. Like, just in terms of numbers. What's Curry at with playoff numbers? 30,000?

No, maybe not even. That's a lot. You think he'd have 10,000 points? No, no, no. That's way too much. I said 30,000. Another 5,000. Oh, my bad. My bad. I can't do math right now. Anyway. Yeah. That's way too much. It's pretty wild then when you say these numbers and then you compare them to LeBron. Yes. Yes. It's pretty amazing. Now he had a, what, five or six year head start on Curry and LeBron did. So there's that part, but man, it's nuts. Anyway, Curry's going to look to become the first player in the NBA history to make 4,000 three-pointers tonight.

Because he's seven triples shy of that milestone. And you're probably going, he's not going to hit seven tonight, Skeets. I say, why not? Yeah, why not? You guys had 11 games this season of seven or more three-pointers made. It could happen tonight versus the Blazers. It absolutely could happen. So that's something to watch. 4,000 three-pointers.

These numbers are fun. Now I'm looking at numbers. Numbers are getting big, aren't they? Yeah, he's almost got 4,000 playoff points. Oh, okay. So he is close to 30,000. He kicks ass in the playoffs. The most three-pointers made, the most three-pointers attempted. Yes. Of course. 618 three-pointers made in the playoffs. These are a lot of numbers. Listen. These are big. Well, let me help you put it into context here.

All shooters obviously go through slumps, even Curry. But he has never played three consecutive games without making at least one three-pointer. It's never happened in his career. And he's made at least one three-pointer in 967 of his 1,010 career games. That's a good one. That's a 96% if we round up splash rate. Holy crap. That's mind-boggling.

$4,000. He could get to $5,000. Probably won't, but he could if he wanted. Final mini winner of the weekend, Jamal Shedd's fingernails. Here's why. It looked like he hit a game-winning layup at the buzzer against the Wizards over the weekend, but a video review showed he got the shot off .1 seconds too late, and so the Wizards...

got the victory and you're going why are you giving this a winner of the weekend aren't you a Raptors fan because I'm sorry this is absolutely perfect perfect for those Raptors fans in attendance you thought you saw a game winner it was electric crowd went nuts it was a hell of a shot oh my god we win wow we win but then you're probably thinking hold on do we want to win not really aren't we trying to sort of tank help our chances at the lottery balls yeah you are

So this is the best of both worlds. You literally got to see a win, which I throw in air quotes. For three minutes, it was a win. I was like, oh my God, what a win. What a great night down at the Scotiabank Arena. And then they're like, hold on.

just late, like as close as you can possibly get to just being late. It is just on his fingernails when the shot clock lights up. So then it's a loss. So then you're like, yeah, so we also win. Yeah, I saw a close one. My homie Mike Nomi was in the building. He was elated. First, he was puzzled. He sent a message to everyone saying, who are these guys? What?

Who is AJ Lawson? Yeah, there's a lot of them. Who is Mr. Roden? Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of that. A lot of that. They are punting. Well. They get a single point for our rouge. There's a CFL. Nice reference. Yeah, nice. Why? Why would you reference the CFL either way? That's the win. Yeah, I'm with it. You say they're punting, but that was the perplexing part of the game before against the Magic. Yeah.

They played, they suddenly played their starters like down the stretch of that one and pulled out the victory in the second game against Orlando. Because remember the first game was Jacoby Walter hitting the insane three to win the game. Raptors fans are like, what the hell are we doing? Like, especially that game. It was like, I thought we were leaning into sort of the tank and these guys on two ways and all this G League guys get them experience and we'll lose, we lose. But then that one was really perplexing.

the second game against Orlando that they actually won and they looked to want to win it. But then this one we got back to somehow losing even though it looked like they won. Yeah, it all comes down to the ping pong balls. So right now they have a 10% shot.

At the number one overall pick. 10.5%. If they win games and they drop a spot in those standings, it'll be 9%. Aren't the Nets and Sixers right there? Yeah, they're close. So that's the two teams you're really keeping an eye on if you're a Raptors fan and you're looking at tankathon every day like I am. Give it a spin, man. Give it a little sim. They can get passed by one. Give it a little sim here. I don't sim too often. What'd you get? You don't want to hear this one.

Philadelphia 76ers. Oh, no, no. Oh, wow. Say it again. Say it again. They came back. They were Raptors. Came out. Whoa, there they are. Second spin? Second spin. Let's go. All right, let's do a quick round. Yeah, they did it. They won something. All right, call it. Call it silver. Raptors get flagged. All right, NBA weekend losers, Tass, who do you have?

Well, we got to go to the LeBron James injury. It's unfortunate. He left midway through the fourth quarter there against the Boston Celtics. He said he tweaked it after making a shot.

And then he went back on defense. Now, I will say when he went back on defense, he was running. And then now the talk after the game was, is this that same groin injury when he first got to L.A. where he missed a lot of games? It is a groin injury, but he said it's far different. And this is just going to be reportedly just one to two weeks. So it's not that same injury. Before the season, he said he wanted to play every game. He was going for it. He had only missed just four games to this point.

That being said, if we're looking at the Lakers and where they are with the Nuggets for that second seed currently, it's tough the rest of the season. I keep talking about these back-to-backs. Now, they've got five games over the next eight days. Four of those are two sets of back-to-backs, and then they still have another four sets of back-to-backs after this eight-day stretch. So that's tough. So where will the Lakers finish in the standings?

You know, it obviously hurts them not having reps. LeBron and Luka, of course. That's important. The standings are also important. It feels like they will drop a little bit, you know, into that 4-5 area, I think. It's going to be tight. But it looks like the Nuggets and Grizzlies could pass them, considering that LeBron will be out and have to...

make sure he's all right getting back. So if you're in that four or five, then you have the thunder in the second series if you get there. Anyway, I'm looking ahead, looking way too far ahead. Everything is just tight when it comes to the Western Conference standings. So it is unfortunate LeBron is leaving. He did say, again...

It won't be forever. It won't be too, too, too long. Yeah, he didn't seem super concerned. He said it wasn't as severe as that one way back in the day when he first got to L.A., that groin injury around Christmas, right? I think is when he said he injured it. But still, I mean, the guy's 40 years old and his groin injury, and you saw him obviously in some discomfort, so you're going to have to take your time. And you're right, you're losing out on reps between him and Luka. They're also just short other bigs on their team.

The Rui Hachimura part, I don't know when he's supposed to come back. You had no Jackson Hayes. They're just small.

And LeBron's like one of their biggest guys. Yeah. And was having a pretty good game before the injury in terms of at least helping out on the glass and stuff like that. So see how they adapt here. Not good. No. No. Not great. So I understand why you have him as a loser. I mean, we had a couple unfortunate updates, like Jalen Brunson's going to miss a week or two for the Knicks. Amon Thompson, I think, is out a week or two for the Rockets. Obviously, this LeBron. So it's a bummer.

There's many of them. Yeah, they are a tiny team. Even before LeBron's injury, that was a worry. Jackson Hayes starting at center now. He's currently out, so you're throwing Jared Vanderbilt in there. You're obviously seeing a lot of Trey Jemison. Oh, yeah. A ton of him. There's a lot of who is that guy coming off the bench.

But he plays well for them. So, yeah, hopefully they could easily win or hold on to that second seed because they're that good and because they have Luka taking in offense places. Now, JJ Redick said, what do we got to do here now? Play hard and play defense. And that's what this team has been doing, and they've been overcoming the size because of how quickly and how hard they play on the perimeter defense.

That being said, Austin Reeves is getting back and looking good, but this is him getting back. As you said, Rui...

Maybe a little while. So he's not back. So yes, there are some depth concerns, but there are a lot of guys. The size is definitely the concern, I would say. The best case scenario for the Lakers with LeBron, let's say it's a week and a half or two weeks, is that they're still, when it's all said and done, still in the second or third spot even. Let's say they split to three, right? I mean, it's still going to be a 2-3 matchup. So they're on that side of the bracket. The worst case scenario is that you somehow...

fall all the way to fifth because, you know, it's Nuggets, Grizzlies, Rockets, not that all far behind the Lakers in terms of games behind them. So, you know, then there's a little buffer between your Warriors and your Wolves and those teams. So it'd be pretty incredible if they slipped all the way back into the play-in like they were earlier in the season. Yeah, that's unlikely. That would be bad. That would be terrible. So if they can just sort of stay within those two, three, four spots, I think they'd be okay until LeBron comes back.

Some other mini losers. I got a few for you here. The Bucs? Yeah. We've talked a lot about the Knicks stinking against the best teams in the league, and they have a really bad record against the best. Milwaukee's now 0-9 against the top three teams in the Eastern Conference. Maybe some concern. You know, they lost to the Cavs again, brought up that win for the Cavaliers, but they are 0-9 against Cleveland, Boston, and New York.

And this loss against the Cavs opened a string of eight consecutive games in which the Bucs face a team with a winning record. So tough part of their schedule here. But are you concerned about that? 0-9? You know, not being able to beat these other good Eastern Conference teams? Absolutely. Yeah. If you're...

that you're going to advance to the Eastern Conference Final, yeah, you're going to have to beat one of them in a second-round series. Honestly, I'm looking forward to whoever they play in the first round. I think the Pacers, Bucks was a great series last year. Now Giannis was out. So Giannis has to be back this season. But yeah, I am. They took that chance on Trey and Chris Middleton for Kyle Kuzma because they want him to be the number three guy.

But Giannis is just going to have to be an absolute monster. What he's done with his mid-range shot and how he's got more comfortable with that, he's evolved there. And so that's great. Dame's going to have to do it. It's going to be tough, but at the same time, you know, the Knicks have not looked great. Obviously, the Brunson injury hurts. I thought this was the point where the Bucs could jump the Knicks for a three, but that has not happened. Pascal Siakam, he's going to get a loser of the weekend. Right. For what a lot of people call the quack two. Yeah.

Not the quick two, the quack two. I think Seth Partnow came up with that terminology. But here's what I'm talking about. Indiana was trailing the Hawks 119-116 on Saturday night. 7.4 seconds left in the game. Pacers don't have a timeout, but they bring the ball up the floor and it gets its way to Siakam up top. And he decides...

to attack Dyson Daniels, who sort of gives him the old, Ole, after you, good sir, let me hold the door for you, because you're down three, my man, and there's not a lot of time left in this game with you driving, and Siakam goes in and takes the easy two. He dunks it home. But by the time he dunks it, there's like one and a half seconds left. They inbound the ball to Trey, they foul, but it's like it doesn't matter what happens on the other end. You're not probably hitting a 90-foot shot, and you didn't. Spoiler. Yeah.

baffling decision from Siakam. Especially, he is one of the Pacers' sort of highest IQ guys, I would say. And he just had a brain fart, I think. He either didn't know the score or he didn't know the time.

Right? Because if you're going to take that quick two, then you're thinking, oh, maybe there's a little more time left and we can play the foul game and get another chance at it. But he took full responsibility after he said it was a stupid play by me. So I guess he didn't know, again, either score or time. But yeah, you got to shoot that three. Like Nemhard, I guess he could have forced one, but when he gave it to Siakam, I thought Siakam was going to dribble into it. It was going to be a tough shot regardless, but you sort of have to shoot it.

or at least get to the paint, kick out to somebody. Instead, he drove, and like I said, the Hawks were like, here you go, go ahead. I couldn't believe it after watching that. It looked like he dunked it and then was ready to walk off the floor. So I think he thought they were down five or something and the game was over because it didn't look right. It's possible, but Hawks got two wins against the Pacers in sort of a baseball series that they just had here too. Hawks are up to seventh. They are. They're hosting, baby. They're going to be playing the Boston Celtics.

Maybe. If they advance and get through. Possibly. And then finally, an unfortunate loser of the weekend to the injury-depleted Dallas Mavericks. Because holy crap. Now it's a joke what's going on with how many guys are out. The Suns beat them.

on national television yesterday after that Thunder Nuggets game. And that win pulls the Suns within one and a half games of Dallas for the 10th seed in the Western Conference, that final spot in the play-in tournament. But man, the Mavs entered this game with nine available players and three of them suffered injuries in that game on Sunday. Two got hurt on the same play. They collided. Kessler Edwards,

And Dwight Powell, banged heads, chasing a rebound. Just a weird fluke accident. You know, guys had to get stitches and all that. Powell, he didn't return. Edwards did. And then Brandon Williams also got hurt. He had hamstring tightness, so he had to leave. And then Dante Exum and Caleb Martin, they were on minutes restrictions because they just came back from injury. Point is...

The Mavs got into a point where they basically had no subs down the stretch of this game. Like, Kidd couldn't really put anybody in because they were on mince restrictions or not obviously out there because they were injured. Just a season from hell. You had Klay, Max Christie, and Dinwiddie. They played the entire fourth quarter because they had to, and the other two guys played a good chunk of it down the stretch too. And they lost and are like, I don't know, it's starting to look like they're not going to hang on to that 10 seed. And the Suns might just be like gifted at basically.

It's possible because just everybody is not playing. That's not their team. The ESPN commentators were saying when they came out for warm-ups, they had only three guys on one side of the layup line, three guys on the other side, and they were following each other and then three guys kind of rebounding. Like there was nobody out there. They had the nine guys, as you said.

Anthony Davis is there on the bench. He is getting closer. So, you know, that may happen, maybe. But I don't know. Don't you have to make a decision as a franchise here? Like, is it even, is it worth it? We're talking about AD, who has had a lot of injuries in his career. Is it worth it to bring him back? I know it's going to help your fantasy team, but to get a play-in spot? Yeah. Well, I don't know.

Isn't that just like a little bit more of a dagger to the fans? Like we're not even trying for it. I mean, I know that there's been enough daggers, but that home crowd was alive even for that game. Trying to cheer on the underdogs in this situation. Yeah, they were, they were. And I was too, just to have something exciting for my kids watching. Like, here we go. Second national televised game. Unfortunately for the Dallas Mavericks, you know,

Yeah, they just didn't have their guys. So it was sad. They do have a heavy road schedule the rest of the season. There's a lot of road games. But there are games, this team that does fight, they are winnable games. It is crazy to say, but they have a far easier schedule than the Phoenix Suns anyway. All right, so those are our winners and losers of the NBA weekend. Tell us who we missed. Let us know in the stream team. Let us know in the YouTube comments. You can tweet them in as well, at NoDunkSync.

Pick them. Tonight, we're running it back. Nuggets Thunder, part two, round two, fight. Got to. What's the line? Okay, see you at home. They're eight and a half point favorites against the Denver Nuggets. Surprise, none of you decided, you know, let's just ride with the thunder. I'm surprised with that. Feels like it's Tass versus the three other guys. Yeah, it happens a lot around here. Every graphic shows you alone. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. So I'm taking the thunder to win by nine or more.

I feel like with the Jokic situation, the Aaron Gordon situation... You know, beating a team twice, it ain't easy. No, right. So is that why you feel comfortable taking points, obviously? Points, yeah. There's a pretty big line. This might not be a double-digit win tonight, I guess is what I'm banking on. I'm hoping it's not to get the cover, but...

Yeah, I'm obviously going with some assumptions here that Jokic is going to play. I think Westbrook's going to have a better game. Maybe they just shoot the three ball a little bit better. Maybe they don't get blocked as much. They never get blocked left and right in that game on Sunday, which that was sort of like their versions of turnovers in this one going the other way. They also need to get OKC turning the ball over a little bit more. That would help get some easier buckets, but I'll take Denver.

i'll take denver give me i want a big i want a big monster yokich game tonight and that'd be fun it would be get everybody talking about the mvp race a little bit more that's what we need so yeah but i hear you i mean like i said what was the stat i said like 40 plus wins by double digits it's crazy it is yeah they don't play close games so i'm just double checking on the injury report nothing to report here

Aaron Gordon, though? All we're getting right now is could be out. That's all we're getting from what I'm seeing. I'm hoping AG's there for this line for my nuggets here to cover in OKC. Hopefully it's entertaining as it was on Sunday. That was really fun. All right, we'll call it there, but you should join us tonight. We'll probably be watching some of that one tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on Playback every Monday night. We go live, bounce around the schedule. There's 12 games on tonight.

How did that happen? I don't know. A lot of early games too. So we'll go on around nine, catch a lot of the endings for those early games and we'll watch some of that Thunder Nuggets game. Hopefully it's entertaining. Probably see that one through to the end. So join us. That link is in the show notes as well. Join our free playback room and hang out with the guys tonight. I don't know if TDA is going to be there or not.

I guess you could get him on the toilet. I mean, you can speak to that. Yep. He can be on playback from the toilet. Absolutely. That's allowed. That's allowed? Yeah. We won't get banned from playback for that? Yeah. I guess you can blur out your background, I guess. Sure, sure, sure. There's no smell on playback, too, so that's a positive. Right. So join us tonight.

And again, a reminder, those tickets are now available for a live show in Atlanta March 27th. So go get those. No idea how fast those are going to go, so...

Don't drag your feet. Get a ticket. Come on out. Hang with us on March 27th. All right. Until tonight on Playback or tomorrow here from the Classic Factory, Clipper Bros. You heard it here first. Have a great time. Turn up. Love you guys. Awesome. Thanks for joining us. And remember, it's nice to have an umbrella in the car just in case. That's very smart. Yeah. You don't have one. Always. Oh, I have multiple. In your, what do you call it? Your frunk? Yeah. I didn't like calling it a frunk at first, but it's the word for it. So that's fine.

That was weird. The front trunk. I don't mind it. Yeah, I don't mind it. No, it's totally fine. But really, you should keep the umbrella in your actual car. Oh, you're that person? Like, I say put it on the... You know how you... Do you have... What do you call those little... What's the word I'm looking for? I want to call it a shelf, but it's not a shelf on the... On the door? On the door.

Yeah, a little bit. Like a cubby. Yeah. I don't know what it's called. What is that called? It's a door cubby. It's not a compartment. It is a compartment. It is a compartment. Anyway, that's where I put mine.

I thought a compartment needs a lid. That's a glove compartment, you're right. Can I also put it in there? No, the console is the middle thingy. So I guess it is a compartment. Yeah, you're right. I never have it in my car. I always have it in my trunk or frunk. But it's nice to have it in. Yeah, because you're going to get a little wet if you have to go to the frunk. Can you crawl through to your frunk? Through your car? Probably not. You can crawl to the trunk, though. In some cars? Absolutely.

You know, my former manager at TSN, ESPN Junior, they called it, Corey O'Hanley, he used to say anybody who has an umbrella is just soft. Oh, jeez. Come on, Corey. Come on. It's a little ridiculous. I think they do believe that on the West Coast a little bit, right? Maybe like in Vancouver, was he from the West Coast? He was from the East Coast, the east coast you can find. He was a newfie. I mean, I kind of agree with Corey, to be honest.

I hate umbrellas. I just hate them. Yeah, no one likes them. But you know what? I hate being soaking wet. You're coming from your car to the front door? Oh, okay. Well, I'm saying, yeah. He's saying you got to have it in your car in case of an emergency. Yeah, okay. I did think of it because I was coming from the car to here, but I wouldn't take an umbrella from literally like 80 feet. No, no, no, no. No. Not ever. That all said, I definitely did that this morning. Embrace the day, people. Yeah.

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