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Good morning, sweet Jeffs, and welcome to the No Dunks podcast on The Athletic Network. It's Tuesday, March 18th, 2025. I'm Jeff Skeets here in the Classic Factory, and alongside me, as always, Tass Mellis. Jeff lovers, this is for you. Actually, people were looking for that old video of Jeff...
The sun's guy falling. They can't find it. We'll find that, Jeff. Oh, the guy that did the backflip and lays on his head? We'll find it. We'll find it. Next to him, it's the bearded woman, Top Shot Hot Boy, Trey Kirby. Hey-o. Hey-o. And over yonder, making the magic happen, Super Producer, JD. Hello. There he is. Here we are. Shout out to the live...
Tribe. No, that's the other show. The other Jeff show. I think that's why I thought that. Jeff Probst. Shout out to the stream team joining us live right now on YouTube. Hit the like button, subscribe, share the show, podcast listeners, five-star ratings and reviews. Popcorn, peanuts, pizza party. No Dunks Live podcast pizza party with Tabasco coming up next week, next Thursday, March 27th here in Atlanta at the Seven Stages Theater. Go get your tickets.
That link is in the show notes right now. It's March. Things are weird. You just did an impression of Tang, who is the concession guy.
At the Sky Dome. That's what you just did. I know. But you threw pizza pizza in there. He didn't have to explain it. Why did you throw pizza pizza in there? I threw pizza party in there. Yeah, but he never serves pizza at the Sky Dome. Because I'm tired of saying the same damn thing every day when it comes to trying to sell tickets to this show. So you threw in Tang there, who gives out drinks at the Rogers Center at the Sky Dome in Toronto. I'll tell you why. Baseball's underway. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Otani playing well over there in Tokyo. Yeah, starting. Isn't it official? It started. Today? Yeah. No, yesterday. Yesterday, my bad. Depends where you are in the world. I guess so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it started yesterday. Dodgers win, Dodgers win. I don't know if that's true. I know they played the Cubs, though. In Tokyo. They were up. Otani hit a double. He did a weird celebration at second base. He was like...
That's all I saw. That looks like go time. That's the only thing I saw. 4-1 Dodgers. Good game. Good game for all the Jeffs out there. There we go. Jeff Kent had a double. Six RBIs. Name other Jeffs that played baseball. Jeff Bagwell. Bagwell, that's a nice name. Good one. Great Jeff. There's a pitcher. There's a pitcher. He had a big beard. Like a beard. Jeff Friarden? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Jeff Friarden. Did he have a beard? Yeah.
That's for the Twins, I think. And the Braves. Yeah, he had some bad moments against the Blue Jays. Jeff Blauser, former Brave as well. Big Blauser. Name your Jeffs in the chat right now. All right, we're going to get to some of last night's action. We had some crazy overtime games that we'll touch on. But first, some news. Paul George's first season with the 76ers is over.
He's going to be sidelined for the next six weeks after receiving injections in both his left adductor muscle and left knee, according to the team. So this timetable will force him to miss the remainder of the regular season. Sixers decide, like Joel Embiid, to shut down Paul George for the remainder of the season. TK, what do you think?
Any thoughts on this? I think this is something we expected that they would do after the injury that he picked up, which was like, what, the fourth or fifth injury for Paul George this season. So he's done. Yeah, just getting a lot of injections, it sounds like. He had apparently two injections for two separate injuries here. Maybe earlier in the season he was getting them in his pinky as well. He's basically procedure P instead of podcast P. Definitely not play-in push, not playoff push. The championship...
Contention didn't last very long after Paul George shut the podcast down. But just a disaster season for Paul George and for the Sixers. Embiid comes in...
Not healthy. We're thinking Paul George is going to carry the team in his stead, and that wasn't the case. Only 41 games, 16 points per game. The worst he's played basically since he was a rookie, and now the Sixers are on the hook for his contract going forward. He's going to be turning 35 in the month of May. There were reports that maybe they would look into trading his contract over the summer. I don't know who's going to be very interested in this. No. With the way he played this year.
very different than 10 months ago when he was signed to that four-year contract because he had a great year last season. He was a really good player. He was an all-star last season. To see him come in this way was surprising. The question is, why did he come in this type of way? Was he ready to play sort of a supportive role to Joel Embiid so when that
Joel Embiid's start didn't happen and he was injured. Was it a trickle-down effect? That's the question going forward here. Or is it just Paul George is not the same guy as he was literally his worst season since 12-13. I mean, a long time ago since he was the most improved player in the league. It looks like a drastically different player. So I think you just might get him off the court.
Get him as healthy as possible, as many months as possible before next season, just like Joel Embiid. Yeah, I mean, in his defense, he also came into the season banged up because he hyperextended his left knee in preseason, and that delayed his regular season start. I think it took five or six games to get him into the lineup. Then he hyperextended his left knee again on November 20th.
That was in the first game with Embiid and Maxey. That was the first game where we saw the big three of the Sixers. And then in January, like you said, Trey, playing through pain, he had that splint on his left pinky finger, and then he missed the last two weeks with left groin soreness. So it's just like it's a season for hell from him in terms of injuries, getting injured to start, and then all these other things that he picked up only playing the 41 games. So that's the thing, though. It's like, well, is this just one of those years because he was all banged up, it's all injuries, he'll bounce back.
next year if he comes in fully healthy or at the age he's at, the mileage on his body, has he hit a part of his career where there's a drastic decline and he's more of like a 15 or 16 point per game scorer. Yeah. Because, yeah, there's $162 million left on that contract and then what Embiid has...
Nearly $250 million left on his contract. And it's hard not to think of Paul George sort of regressing when you see what's happening to Joel Embiid and you make that sort of connection. And Paul George has had an incredible second part to his career after breaking that leg in Las Vegas and bouncing back. And so you start to think, well, maybe it's all just sort of added up.
Or maybe not. Maybe he'll be healthy for another three seasons as Daryl Morey. Went all out. Four years, max. They go get Yabusele. They go get Caleb Martin. They go get Eric Gordon. It was a great offseason. And then it's turned. Great September. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the unfortunate part. Injuries have been like a recurring theme for both Embiid and Paul George throughout their careers. So it's like, this is like, on one hand, you're like, ah, unlucky. Yeah.
damn, Embiid played less than 20 games. Paul George couldn't play half the season. Even Maxie, right, missed some time. We'll be fine. But it's like, will you? Because those two guys, Embiid and Paul George, this has sort of happened more times than not over their career. Paul George has missed a significant amount of games. And having great seasons and all-star seasons and all-NBA seasons. Same with Embiid when he plays, but they just can't play. The Sixers, though, are 23-45 on the season. They have lost 18 of their last 22 games.
They're tied with the Nets for the league's 5th/6th worst record. And this is something to keep an eye on because they want to keep that pick. And if they finish the season 5th in the "tank standings" they will have a 63.9% chance of keeping their top 6 protected first round pick. If they finish 6th, they'll have a 45.8% chance of keeping it. So, you know, pretty drastic percentage drop off there just from 5th to 6th.
Not to even consider they could even drop to seventh and stuff like that. You know, who knows? Lots of basketball still to be played. Teams are just as bad as they are in the standings. And then whatever happens with the lottery. What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss, Scoots? Wow. Not a lot.
I mean, this might be the best thing that Paul George does for the Sixers this year is being so unavailable and never carrying the team when he had a chance to that they actually are able to keep a top six pick. That would be helpful for a Sixers team that doesn't have a ton of young guys going forward. Obviously, they've got Tyrese Maxey, great player. Jared McCain had a hot start to the season. We'll see if he's able to stay healthy next year and replicate the success he had in about 20 games. And Quentin Grimes is straight up
balling right now. I guess he could leave if he wanted to. He's going to be a restricted free agent, I do believe. I think he's a restricted free agent. He's still young. Nonetheless, those are like the three guys who have done anything for the 76ers this year. They all do kind of play the same position, as does Paul George. So I don't necessarily know how all those guys fit together, but you would rather get a top six pick than lose it. So congratulations to the Sixers. I don't think they wanted to have good lottery odds this season, but they do.
You don't think that Paul George will be traded, though, when Trey sort of mentioned that. Well... You just don't think anyone would trade for him. Not now. No, I don't think... It's a little like the Zach Levine scenario in Chicago. It looked like the rest of this contract was just far too big for another team to want to take it on with the way he's playing. That being said, Zach Levine turned it on this season. So you could see a scenario where Paul George looks like Paul George again, and somebody could want him. Sure. But right now...
Absolutely not. I do not think so. No. And you saw actually at the trade deadline and the Warriors were obviously went and got Jimmy Butler, but there was talks about Paul George. It seemed like those died off because of what he did for the first four months of the season because they wanted him in the offseason. So it's a roller coaster, man. He could definitely come back and play like Paul George again, I suppose. And then the final question. Does he bring back the podcast? No.
Might as well. Yeah, I mean, got the playoff free time. A lot of people interested in these, you know, the races to get into the playoffs. Obviously, the playoffs draw big numbers. I think now's the time to get back in the game, do you? Absolutely. He used to call himself Playoff P as well.
Yeah, that's a good point. So he knows a lot about losing in the playoffs. He can tell us how all these teams are going to fall short. We'll see. We'll see if Podcast P brings back the podcast. Okay, let's get to some of last night's games. And we did have some very entertaining overtime finishes. Let's start with Obi Toppin hitting a wild three.
in overtime. He had a couple. One he banked in, then the other one he hit fading in the corner as the depleted Indiana Pacers sort of shocked the Timberwolves here in a really...
Crazy game, surprising victory for Indy. Yeah, four threes in overtime for Obi Toppin, and the pull-up bank from the top of the key wasn't the craziest make. No. He basically hit the Tyrese Halliburton shot from the same corner that Halliburton did, obviously inbounds play for Halliburton, but I saw he reused Peter Griffin fading away as he put that up when he hit the four-pointer to win the game against the Knicks or Lakers.
They won in Indiana, and then he used it again for OB Toppin last night. And Toppin was incredible. Seven threes on the night and was just on fire for the entirety of the night. TJ McConnell made a ton of big plays in this one. Had the layup that sent the game into overtime. Just went right by Jaden McDaniels. Just a straight-up blow-by that started at basically half-court. The play got blown up, and he just went right by him. No Gobert at that point, so no help.
at the rim, but pretty poor defense, I thought, from McDaniels then. T.J. McConnell was the guy who found...
Obi Toppin in the corner after beating Randall off the dribble. They got a couple of switches. Great contest from Nikhil Alexander-Walker. Just he's a little bit too short to be able to get a hand in Obi Toppin's face on a night when he really had it going. I thought Anthony Edwards had a pretty underwhelming 38-point game in this one. Just zero effort in the first five minutes of the game. Didn't take a shot. Got going in the second half, but it was one of six in the fourth quarter. One for 11 from the three-point line. Five turnovers or three assists.
Five assists, three turnovers. I wrote it backwards, but went to the line. So he was at least driving. But I just thought kind of a disappointing effort from Anthony Edwards. Seemed to me like he looked across the way, saw no Tyrese Halliburton, saw no Pascal Siakam, saw no Miles Turner. Thought we got this one. Didn't come out and didn't give the effort necessary to win. And that put them behind the eight ball. And they were playing from behind basically the whole game.
This is why games in March are fun. This is why Podcast P should get on the podcast. There's games like this where the Timberwolves had their eight-game win streak snapped. We'll get to the Golden State Warriors losing to an under-man Nuggets team having their seven-game win streak snapped. This one was more surprising because the Pacers weren't playing.
Anybody? No, Halliburton, no Siakam, no Turner, no Aaron Neesmith. In the third quarter, they lose Andrew Nembhard because he gets tossed after that Rudy Gobert shoulder. Then Benedict Matherin fouls out. And so they lost everybody. I think they're six best guys. Yeah, yeah.
Everybody. Literally everybody. But Obi Toppin was awesome. Seven threes was a career high. There was only one other guy who scored in overtime other than Obi Toppin. Thomas Bryant was the only other guy because Obi Toppin had 12. Yeah, the banker was more surprising. It was a ridiculous surprising through with 24 seconds left. And that one where he faded into the corner to hit that three was awesome.
That was miraculous. I mean, you mentioned the TJ McConnell blow by Jane McDaniels and the lean back a little bit to get it past McDaniels. I mean, this was fun. Quentin Jackson was making play. Teams can win in March. These guys are all NBA players. And it's a good win for the Pacers when you look at the standings. They're now 4th.
in the Easter Conference. They're tied for fourth with the Milwaukee Bucks. They've got 11 of their next 15 at home. So this could mean a home playoff series for the Indiana Pacers. It's a big win. March wins matter. I did not have Obi Toppin turning into Prime Reggie Miller on my bingo card from last night. He was on fire. He had the lucky bank job from up top. Conley had one too. That was even crazier because it banked and
And then went around the rim and then dropped in. So insane shots being dropped there in Minnesota. But yeah, you do have to...
oddly have to tune into some of these games. You got guys that are like, they're playing for an opportunity or in some cases playing for a contract. And, you know, this weird end of season games can be entertaining. We also had a lot of blowouts last night. Yes, we did. But this one and then obviously this Rockets one that we can get to in a second also went to overtime. I mean, they're fun. Yeah. Fun down the stretch at least. You learn enough players' names here. Just like you're watching the March Madness tournament. Oh, what's that guy's name? It kind of happens in the NBA here. Oh, yes.
Quentin Jackson just had to go through that and make sure I know how to spell Quentin, right? T-O-N. And, you know, Tony Bradley we'll get to here in a sec. Tony Bradley was hooping. He was balling for the Sixers. What a weird world. 132-130 for Indiana there. All right, let's go to the other overtime game. The Rockets kept their winning streak alive. Got to seven straight. They got to 144-137 overtime victory over the 76ers. You're already laughing. Yeah.
Because with this one, I didn't expect the Rockets to be able to come back. They didn't leave the entire four quarters. The entire four quarters, they were down 25 in the second half, down eight with less than a minute left, and they somehow got it to overtime because they outscored the 76ers 10-2.
under a minute there. It was the bucket with four seconds left where Jabari Smith is at the free throw line. It's the second free throw. He has to miss it so the Rockets can get a rebound and just put it back to tie the game.
And that Shangoon rebound was awesome. He just... Was it O'Shea Brissett? Yeah. He just... He just trucked him in. He grabbed onto him and just moved him under the basket. Even Brissett was like, what the hell am I supposed to do? Yeah. It was so easy. And it was a perfectly missed free throw and perfect rebound and put it... It was like...
easiest for that scenario you've ever seen because it's like pandemonium it's like oh it's got to be a crazy tip is like okay i'm just gonna miss it it's gonna go high and you just truck the guy and get the rebound yeah sometimes we see like really athletic players making the game look easy like your vince carter he makes the game look easy that was the most easy looking rebound you've ever seen and it was a good play or good coaching by ima udoka putting alper and shen good in he didn't play the entire fourth quarter he hadn't played since midway through the third he comes in
And he scores. Well, that was so easy. And, yeah, the other side, there was two guys taking out Steven Adams on the other side of the free throw. And they actually did a good job of taking him out. But the other guy, he just got a rebound and scored. Shen Gun, that was so easy. And then Philadelphia had a chance to win it. They got a pretty good look. I think it was Jalen Hood-Shafino. Yeah. He's playing for Philly. He's on the Sixers. I know. He's taking games.
Game-tying shots for him. He got a really good look at it, but it didn't drop. Yeah, and then we got overtime. And it was fun to watch Quentin Grimes. I mean, he had a career-high 46.
13 rebounds, career best, 8 three-pointers. Going back and watching his plays, it started with an open three, but then you could see some off-the-bounce actual defender all over him where he hit shots. This is definitely the best he's ever played. And it was 24 threes that his team hit, tying a Philadelphia franchise high. That's weird. In March. Yeah, March, baby. Again, eight threes, Quinn Grimes playing his best, and...
Don't let Nico Harrison watch. I mean, that was the guy that they just traded for Caleb Martin. They've traded everybody from that Dallas Mavericks team. This guy, Quinn Grimes, definitely playing the best he's ever played in his career. It looks good. It looks like not only can he be a secondary scorer, but it looks like he's got a little bit of on the –
with the ball, making it happen for himself. A little bit, you know, not a ton. I'm not going crazy and going to consider Quentin Grimes, who I've always loved as a 25 point game score, but he can defend and he can do his thing. He should have had exactly 42 points in this one. Cause he had 40 and he had the ball at the half court line with nine seconds left.
Ryan Hollins is on the Rockets broadcast. He said, oh, they got a foul now. Just hang on to it, buddy. You got 40 at that time. Hold on to it. Get fouled. Make two free throws. You got 42 and you win. That was a dumb pass. Yeah. To Jalen Green. He like handed it right to him. Right to him. Yeah. Yeah.
No, that was bad. They had to go out of their way to lose that game. Look, every shot was going to Grimes, and he did start to miss some down the stretch. In overtime, I should say, I think he missed a couple threes. He was still getting some outlooks, even though he was the only guy you had to worry about on Philly. He was still getting loose and still rising up, but they started to dry up a little bit. Still, an incredible game. And I was reminded, just looking at it, like, yeah, you said he was traded for Caleb Martin.
He was traded with a pick. A second round pick in the 2025 draft, but it was Grimes and a pick to get Caleb Martin. Well, wasn't it because Caleb Martin went through the examinations afterwards that...
Yes. And yes, the physicals said, well, this guy's not super healthy. We need something else. And they got a second round pick out of it. Yeah, weird thing. But kind of a perfect loss here for the 76ers. That's a good tank loss right there. As we talked about looking at the standings there and their chances of trying to keep their pick. But yeah, entertaining. Like you said, they were down 25. Then they got all the way back by the end of the third quarter. Then they were like down 10 again. Then they got that back. And then they were down, would you say, eight with like a minute to go. There's so many times where you're like, oh.
Bad Rockets loss. Man, Grimes is on fire. This one they're going to wish they had back and somehow pulled it out. We had the incident with Fred Van Vliet getting tossed, too. End of regulation, if I can remember correctly. Yeah. Right?
A couple of minutes left, I think. Yeah, it was pretty late. And he thought he got fouled on a three-point attempt. I guess it was O'Shea Brissett again. It was. What a game for this guy last night. So then he screams the other way. It looks like he's going to have an easy layup. But Van Vliet comes screaming back and, with some force, tries to prevent the easy layup. He does. Smacks him. They go and review it. And they ended up tossing him. I don't think Van Vliet hit his head.
He was coming back so fast on defense that he sort of pushes the guy in the air, and that's probably the excessive portion of it, but didn't hit his head. So he was a little like, what the hell? Why am I getting tossed for this? He took a 60-yard sprint and smashed into him. They showed like, you know, they're doing the replay, and they started on the baseline angle, and the first thing you see is a still shot of Fred Van Vliet eyeing O'Shea Brissett underneath the hoop, and the guy looks like Mike Singletary.
how locked in he is to be able to truck him and he smacked him so like I was a little surprised it was a flagrant two but I mean you talk about wind up the guy had like three seconds of wind up he's like I'm knocking this guy down and I'm sprinting from half court to do it I thought not surprising he got kicked out but he just went mad he just went crazy yeah
Fred gets mad sometimes. Yeah, he's got some official thing. He also came back after a month and stepped on an official's foot to turn his ankle and then missed more time. So I don't know. Maybe he's got a thing with the referee. Oh, sure. But I couldn't find that play where he stepped on an ankle. I'm still looking for it. Because he came off and said, yeah, I stepped on an ankle. Or I stepped on the referee's foot. I'm hurt again. Can't find it. Can't find it. Damn. We've got two things to find now. That...
Jeff. And a guy named Jeff. And Jeff, yeah. Landed on his head. We'll find all your clips. Damn, that's going to be tough. Jalen Green and Jabari Smith were both awesome in this one. Jalen Green was making a ton of shots to help bring him back in the third quarter. And then I thought actually the chemistry between Jalen and Jabari was really good. Jabari hitting a bunch of catch-and-shoot three-pointers. I think he had five.
but he was even better rolling. Like, he was the roll man for a lot of these Jalen Green pick and rolls, and sometimes it was catch and drive to the hoop and finish with a lefty. Sometimes it was a little mid-range jumper. He was really, really good, I thought, for the Rockets last night. Yeah, and a big win for Houston to come back and get the victory in overtime when you consider that the Nuggets...
win their game, which we'll get to. And the Lakers won theirs easily against the Spurs. Now the Grizzlies fell, but that is a huge race there between really between two and five. It's a game that separates those four teams. So a big win, no matter how you got it done. Apple card is everything a credit card should be. It's easy to manage built to be secure and gives users up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase. The best part about Apple card is applying is quick and easy. Applying the wallet app on the iPhone and see your credit limit offer in minutes.
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beating the Warriors 114-105. No Jokic, no Jamal Murray, no Christian Brown, but Aaron Gordon. His best game ever in a Nuggets uniform, at least highest scoring game, I think 38 points for him, and he came back from that sore calf, and then Westbrook
It was a classic Westbrook game, honestly. It was like low efficiency when you're looking at the shooting numbers, but triple-double, 12 points, 11 boards, 16 assists, 3 steals, and he was relentless, Trey, with his intensity. And for this Nuggets team, this undermanned Nuggets team, to sort of shock the Warriors here. I don't know how you would go about finding the stats for this, but Russell Westbrook has to have one of the best winning percentages when his team is quote-unquote undermanned. He's made for these games when you're like...
Our top two guys are out. Go nuts. And he just went nuts. Like, it was complete Westbrook mode, like you're saying. He's shooting air balls, but it doesn't matter. They're going to Aaron Gordon, and he's the one scoring 16 assists for Westbrook. Apparently, according to ESPN, the Nuggets shot 16 for 24 off of his passes, like every pass.
He threw, was setting up a basket for him. 37 transition points for Denver, which was much needed on a night when they didn't have Jokic or Murray. Get out in the open court and score. That's where Westbrook thrives. That's where Christian Brown thrives, even though he wasn't playing. Gordon can score as well. We even got a throwback to Russell Westbrook. Is he a cat or a dog? Afterwards, Mike Malone said, he's not just a dog, he's a wolf. He's different offensively and defensively. He's always on 10, always on 12.
And that's exactly right. I couldn't believe that that was one of the quotes about this game, but that's why you like to have Westbrook. This should have been a loss for the Nuggets, but sometimes being undermanned can be an advantage. The other team takes their foot off the gas, and Westbrook's hitting the gas the entire time. Does Russell Westbrook tell his coach and everybody in the locker room that I'm a wolf? Because he told us that when we asked him, is he a cat or a dog? He said, I'm a wolf.
And he turned his back to us. This is like over a decade of crazy. Yeah, that's another clip we can give you. That was great. But that is exactly why the Nuggets signed Russell Westbrook. Jokic asked for them to go get Russell Westbrook because of the motor that the guy has. And he's always had. He needed to have somebody else around. Jokic needed to have his Bruce Brown type of guy around the locker room just to keep things going.
There's a reason why Vlatko Cancar was able to grab an offensive rebound. He was a beautiful offensive rebound. Aaron Gorham, same thing. With a couple minutes left to seal it, offensive rebound, scores. That's why they had 19 offensive rebounds. I'm giving all the credit to Russell Westbrook, but there's a big part of it.
was him. And Aaron Gordon, yeah, obviously I said, you know, these are all capable NBA players. Aaron Gordon was sort of the number one guy in Orlando. And on one night, he can definitely be that for a Denver Nuggets team that just kept cutting all over the place. And Westbrook was finding those guys. You mentioned those stats, Trey, of all those assists. Now, of course, there's lots of turnovers that happened. Oh, it was a sloppy game. It was 40 turnovers. Yeah.
20 each team. It was not pretty. Yeah, that's why Steve Kerr said we lost the game. We can't turn it over 20 times. But so did the Nuggets. Westbrook had seven. Aaron Gordon had seven. They had plenty on their side as well, but they had a motor. After watching Curry commit seven of those turnovers and miss a whole bunch of three-pointers, he was 4 of 14, Curry was last night, Kerr acknowledged he needs to find some rest for his superstar guard. He said, quote, he's tired now.
Kerr said after Curry logged 35 minutes. Steph's been carrying us for a month. He's been amazing. He's tired. So we got to get him some rest.
Jesse can see it. He doesn't have his energy right now. End quote. Yeah, Curry's asked about this. He said, nah, I just played like crap. You can find an excuse if you want. I know. But you do wonder if he's going to play tonight because I think they have a game against the Bucs. Yeah. You know, seems like Curry's like showing his hand here a little bit. Like we might have to give him this night off. Yeah. Well,
Was it odd that yesterday they didn't give the night off because Jokic had the night off in that instance? Well, I think they definitely sent him off. Sent him out now. Yeah. When you look at playing the Olympics and what he's had to do this last while, and, you know, I made the statement when I was sitting on a toilet when I was doing the pick-and-pay off last week that I thought this may be Steph Curry's best month ever.
As a number one guy, obviously we looked at the MVP seasons. Come on, Tess. He's pretty good. You're a dumbass sitting on the toilet. I mean, I was referring to specifically Curry just being the number one guy and then everybody else sort of falling in their place. Now, what does Steph do now? I mean, I think he does have to sit eventually here a little bit. It would probably be smart for the long... Yeah, exactly. And you're seeing...
Good point about maybe you should have done it last night.
But then again, maybe they're saying, okay, that'll be the easy victory. Quote-unquote easy victory. We take care of business with no Jokic, no Jamal, and then we rest them. But now they could lose again tonight here against Milwaukee. And he was questionable going into last night before the Nuggets injuries. He's having back issues, he said, and warm-ups and stuff. Yeah, the thing is the Golden State wants that sixth seed. So that's the other part of it. They are tied with the Wolves for sixth. And it's very unlikely that they're going to come and
be able to hunt down the Grizzlies at fifth. So, I mean, we could see the Warriors in a playing game. That's true. They didn't know Obi Toppin was turning into a superhero to beat the Wolves last night, so that's part of the equation as well. Any other takeaways from that game, TK? No. Vlatkov, Chanchar, huge rebound. It was massive. Like, the Nuggets had
the Warriors crowd completely out of the game for the majority of the game. Warriors finally made a comeback in the fourth quarter. Aaron Gordon hits a jumper that helps silence the crowd. And then the Chanchar rebound was actually big time. I think he got the putback as well. And that was just a couple of momentum plays.
Hadn't talked about that guy. Nope. Since he did a cannonball with Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic after winning the championship. I think he got hurt immediately afterwards. It's just nice to be able to say Vlako Cancar again. It's a great name. It really is. Spencer Jones was also playing for the Knights. Yeah, new guy alert. Spencer Jones. I thought that was a mistake.
New guy alert is great. They should blast that on the screen. 15 games? What? That's the thing. New guy alert to me. They get in when you're not watching sometimes. That's true. Another game I wanted to touch on, the Knicks storming back to beat the Heat, 116-95. There were like four things I wanted to address from this game. First one, Carl Anthony Towns.
bombing deep triples in the second quarter when he went on his own personal 15-0 run after the heat got up. Yeah, he was attacking, he was dunking,
Then he saw that first three go in and he just kept stepping further and further back. I started feeling bad for Khalil Ware. It's like, they're getting on him. You gotta be aware. But there was a couple of cats like six feet behind the line. It's like, okay. At some point you gotta stop getting up on him. But anyway, he just caught fire. Had the great celebration, I thought. That was very funny. Looking at his threes. Very, very funny. Josh Hart had a triple-double. 12 points, 13 boards, 11 assists. His eighth triple-double this season, which ties Hall of Fame guard Walt Frazier.
for the most ever for a Knicks player in one season. That was in 1968-69. Wow. That Walt Frazier did that? I was like, man, Anthony Mason. How many did Mason have? I guess not enough. Not that many. Good job by Hart. Miami, that loss, their eighth consecutive defeat, the longest streak during Eric Spolster's career.
17 years this guy's been coaching. He's sweating now. He's very sweaty now. The Heat have gone 4-15 since trading Jimmy Butler. They've been held under 100 points now for three consecutive games. That's the first time since 2018. That's just very rare in today's NBA. I don't care if you're losing. You usually crack 100, but they can't score. And then the final thing.
Very weird. Last night's game was delayed for about 10 minutes in the third quarter after comedian Tracy Morgan was vomiting while sitting courtside. So they had to like pause the game, clean it up. And he was taken away in a wheelchair. He was holding a towel over his face. Hopefully he's okay. I can't find any like updated reports on his health, but that was a pretty scary, weird moment. And there was a delay, but as soon as they cleaned it all up and got Morgan out of there, the Knicks outscored the heat 24 to six. So they just like put the game away right after that.
So those are some random things that were happening in the game last night. I figure he just got sick from watching the Miami Heat. Let's hope it was that. Heat were up 12-0 in this one. They had the lead after four minutes, and it was basically just congratulating the Knicks on even being able to play this game. Returning home from a long road trip, they're like, how are they doing?
It's so hard. They won the last 44 minutes of this game by 33 points. Miami went six of 23 from three. 23 three-point attempts is hardly anything. That's a crazy low number. Six makes, even worse. Five of them were Duncan Robinsons, and then Pella Larson hit one with three minutes and 22 seconds left in the fourth quarter. So really they had one guy make three-pointers. Yeah. And it was a...
But Mikael Bridges, another nice game, 28 points, 10 of 14 from the field, 4 of 6 from 3, but 3 of 4 from the midrange. And the 5 games without Jalen Brunson, 23 a game, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 73% true shooting. The guy is looking like a number one option right now. The question will be, how do they get this Bridges production with Jalen Brunson handling the ball? Because they're playing differently right now. They're running plays for Bridges to get going in the midrange offensively.
Towns obviously had his huge 15-0 max goof run that was really good. They got to figure out a way to have Jalen or to have Mikael Bridges not just hanging out in the corner the entire time. OG was pretty aggressive in this one. I didn't think he had a great game, but at least he was trying to score. That's been important for the Knicks with Brunson out here. But if they can figure out a way to keep Bridges as productive as he has been...
They take an even bigger leap, I think, offensively. And this is a team that's been a top five offense all year long. So they've still got another level to go to, I do believe. It's tough to do, though, right? Brunson's just one of those guys that just needs the ball in his hands. And that's not a knock because he's elite. He's awesome. Get him in pick and roll action. It's amazing. It works. And like you said, they've had an incredible offensive season all year long. But like, yeah, it's like Bridges sort of needs it too. And it's like, how do you make that work? But I don't know. It's...
Some guards just need the ball. And Brunson, he's that guy. Not that I think you could put him off ball, and he's such a good three-point shooter. It's not like he can't hit those, but it's something weird. A guy that's his height, his entire career, he just has it. He's got the rock, man. All decisions are through him. And that's good because he's amazing. He's elite. But yeah, Bridges, this was the one blessing in disguise. We're like, well, maybe this unlocks a couple guys on the Knicks, this Brunson injury. And it has a little bit. Yeah, and we saw Mikael Bridges...
with the Phoenix Suns and able to go to the finals and he definitely was a third, fourth guy where he was able to be good. Then he went to the Nets team and he was the number one guy and he was good. He was better than good for that one stretch. Yeah, that goes with that second half of the season, that half of the season when he was with the Brooklyn Nets. Yeah, he was awesome.
We merge those two guys here, maybe, at this point. But yes, with Jalen, Carl, OG's playing great, and Mikael Bridges and Josh Hartballen. Yeah, it looks like they've got a great offense, again, to...
Eric Spolstra sweat on the other side, as you said, eight straight games first time in his coaching career. That was a clip I could not find. I was looking deep into the archives to find Eric Spolstra sweating because we talked about JB Bickerstaff. We talked about Chauncey Billups. I found a Chauncey Billups one. We've got a short coming, but I needed an Eric Spolstra. Where is it? See, we're going to give you clips of Jeff Spolstra
and other ones here. An ankle. A wolf, an ankle. You need to find us, if you're listening out there, a clip of Eric Swolstra sweating. I can't find him. I think it's going to be tough, man. That slick hair, man. I think he is sweating. It's just tough to see. I might be lying. Maybe he doesn't sweat. I don't know. When he bumped LeBron, was he sweating? I don't know. Oh, wow. Way back in the day. Big news, though, with that heat loss, I mean another loss, and a Chicago Bulls win in Utah.
The Chicago Bulls are no longer in the 10th spot in the East. They're up to nine. The heat of... We're number nine! We're number nine!
All it took was an eight-game losing streak, and it's the Bulls winning five of six. What's going on, man? 26 for Fantasia White. 18 points, 12 assists for Steamboat Willie Jones. And 17 points and nine rebounds for the untouchable Matas Bouzelis. What a win for these Bulls, up to ninth. This is the first time they've been out of 10th place either way in more than eight weeks. That's unbelievable.
76 days, I think is what it is. Here's a question. How much of a diehard are you? You think you'll fly home for the 9-10 game? No. No, no, no. That would be crazy. I'm saving it for the 8-9 game. After they win the first one, I'm going to fly to wherever. Okay. That makes more sense because that would be wild. Fly home for the 9-10 game. Bulls win. Doesn't even mean they're in the playoffs. They've got to win again. Yeah.
That's true sicko. Hey, man, 2-0 against Miami this year. Feeling good. Any other takeaways from any of last night's games? There were a lot of blowouts. I don't know if there's any that impressed you. Big W for the Sacramento Kings. It was. 28.7 assists for Malik Monk, 23-6 for Zach Levine, 22-8 for DeMar DeRozan. They had 35 assists on 46 makes against the Grizzlies, who have not beat a team with a winning record since February 2nd.
This team is a little fraudulent, I do believe. Jake Laravia got his revenge. 12 points, 2 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 threes. Was one of the best players on the courts. There's 5 Jake Laravias out there is what it felt like. Unfortunately for Sacramento, DeMonta Sabonis went down with a couple injuries. Got hit in the head. Was bleeding all over the place. And then at the beginning of the third quarter, he rolled his ankle. Didn't look like a terrible one, but he didn't even take his free throws. So it wasn't a question of will he ever come back in. So maybe a little bit of an emergency, but...
I don't know, probably a week and a half, two weeks. Just guessing. Yeah, otherwise, it's great to see Austin Reeves balling. He really carried Luka in their win over the San Antonio Spurs. He just looks great. And then you see the random photos of Luka and Austin Reeves and their hairdo together. It's just nice. It's just nice. Austin Reeves is important to that team when they get to the playoffs. So he dropped 30 points.
Back-to-back 30-point games. He's looking great. His numbers have been amazing, I think, since the All-Star break.
and especially of course since LeBron's gone down he's on fire in terms of shooting the ball oh no not back to back 30 point games I lied but four straight games of 28 or more yeah he's hooping very well he's hooping right now as the Lakers got that win over the Spurs alright yeah anything else I mean again there's some some yawners I mean the Raptors lost by 40 yeah the Pelicans may have lost by more I don't know or close to that to the Pistons 46 oh okay they did lose by more okay big Zion dunk
It was the dunk of the night. Yep. According to dunk score. I believe it. It was big. Yep. It was on Bistu. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Met him at the rim and Zion had like a big lead up. Good dunk. Good dunk. Yeah. But they got destroyed. They got smacked. Absolutely destroyed. 81 points. All right. Well, let's pivot to a look at some NBA award races. And this was inspired by us sort of like...
you know, organically like talking about like rookie of the year and defensive player of the year, like we were talking about it on yesterday's show. And I was like, I wonder what the odds say for some of these. So let's take a look at them. That's all we're doing here. I mean, you can make your picks if you want to, but I think my main takeaway from looking at these is going to be, it's sort of like a two man race in a lot of them. And the odds sort of like represent that. Start with MVP. Everybody knows this is a two man race and it might just be a one man race. SGA is the odds on favorite. These are all coming by way of bet MGM.
Minus 750 when I checked last night. SGA is to win MVP. Jokic second at plus 425. And then, because we wanted to have four names on every one of these graphics, there's Giannis and Tatum at plus 50,000.
So BetMGM sure thinks it's a two-man race, and it's looking pretty likely that she is going to win. But if you want to donate to the coffers, BetMGM will gladly take your action. That's right. You want to throw away some money? Bet on Janus or Tatum. You want to throw away money? Bet on Jokic. This one's over, man. I think SGA is going to win this by like two and a half to three. 70 to 30. You don't think it'll be one of the closest of all time or anything like that? Yeah, what do you think?
Yeah, the fact that SGA has all these wins going for them, and if you want to split hairs, here's a hair in the favor of Shea Gilders, Alexander. Jokic's defense at the rim. Opponents are shooting 69.2% when Jokic is defending at the rim. That's almost 300 shots he's defending at the rim. And he takes his time. He doesn't jump after every single one of them. He lets guys go at it. Tom Habershaw with that stat, and I think that is...
that's a good stat if you're making making the case for shea gilchrist alexander who goes back and blocks a bunch of shots um he's an incredible defender on the best defense in the league yeah yeah yeah so yeah you want to paint a picture that's a that's a good one for for shea shopping is hard nothing ever fits everything i own was a birthday present i got this hawaiian shirt on vacation 10 years ago and now i'm the hawaiian shirt guy there's a better way making
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Alright, next one, Rookie of the Year. This one surprised me, because we were debating a little bit, like, is this sort of still wide open? Like, you know, Trey's whole joke all season long was it changes every week, and I think it was true to some extent, but BetMGM has Castle as even more of a favorite to win Rookie of the Year than SGA as MVP.
He's minus 900 and then it's Richa Shea at plus 1600. Same with Wells and then Zach Eadie rounding out the board at plus 2500. Were you as surprised with that as I was at least to be that much of a favorite?
Yeah, yes. But I also just think that they really don't want to give it to Jalen Wells. I mean, the guy's been near the top of the favorites leaderboard, but like rarely the favorite to the point where at one point Khalil Ware had five good games and they made him the favorite to just take everybody's money. Yeah. Literally he had five games. They're like, oh wait, this guy's going to win rookie of the year. Now he's not even on the board. He's not even a realistic...
competitor here, I don't think. But I don't know. It was a down draft this year. I think a second round pick winning rookie of the year makes the draft look even worse. And Steph Castle is balling right now. 20 points per game in March and nobody cares right now because nobody's watching. No Fox, no Wemby. The Spurs games don't matter, but it's a good time for him to get his stats up because he's able to pass guys like Reese Lachey and Jalen Wells for the scoring lead amongst rookies. Jalen Wells is also playing the worst he has all season. I
I would vote for him. He's been a key contributor for a team that's a top four seed in the Western Conference. But since All-Star, 10 points per game, 31% from three. He's probably trailing off a little bit because he's actually had a huge load of minutes compared to some of these other guys who aren't playing quite as much. And, you know, Reese the Chase had been good as well. I think he would be my probably second choice. I don't know.
Yeah, I think Castle is that big favorite because that's where the money is currently going, and that's what BetMGM is looking for, those dollar-dollar bills. That being said, if we're talking about the best player long-term, it could be Stephon Castle, easily. He does look fantastic. It is great to see some of these guys play their best of the season now, which is cool for a super young player. You see it in Castle. You see it in Alex Saar, who's playing extremely well. You see it in Zachary Rissachet.
If you're watching, those two 19-year-old guys, they're super young Frenchmen that are going to be good for a long time, it sure feels like. And so is Stephon Castle. And so is Jalen Wells. I mean, they're all good players. Yeah, and this rookie of the year race went...
when Jared McCain got injured. I mean, he was the leading guy. He was scoring 15 a game. And now when we see what happened in the Sixers season, like he would have had a hell of an opportunity to score a lot of points and probably would have run away with this. Here's a trivia question for you guys, though. Can you name the five rookies this season that have played over
So played a decent chunk of minutes for their team. We got three of them on the board? No, you have two. Wells and Risa Shea? Well, no. Wells and Castle. Wells and Castle. Are the only two. Over 1,500. Bob Carrington? Huh, leads. All rookies. Nearly 2,000 minutes played. Good call. Yves Misi. That's right. 1,700 plus for the Pels. Remember when he was Rookie of the Year for about a week? And then one more. This is the toughest one. Zach Eady get there? No. Sar? No.
No. No. He's got to be close. Good guess. He's probably close. But you're on the right team. This guy's a forgotten guy. Keyshawn George. Keyshawn George. That's right. He is also over 1,600 minutes. So there you go. Yeah. I was just looking at Dalton Connect's minutes. I thought he'd be a candidate. He's about a good year.
Not good enough. There's a lot of good years. Yeah. There's not a lot of like, whoa, great years from any of these guys. And that's fine. That doesn't mean they're not going to turn into really good players. All right. Next one here. Let's keep it going. Defensive player of the year. Here are your odds from BetMGM. Mobley the favorite, but it's a little closer than those other races we looked at. He's minus 300 for the Cavaliers. You got Draymond Green plus 600.
Dyson Daniels plus 900 and then Jackson Jr. plus 1000. TK, your thoughts on this? I'm kind of surprised Jaron Jackson Jr. is so low. I guess he did just miss a little bit of time. And like I've said, the Grizzlies actually haven't been a very good defensive team since the calendar flipped over to 2025. But it seemed to me like he was the leader when he went out with his injury. Didn't miss, he missed what, five games?
But just really dropped down. But I think Evan Mobley is a good choice for defensive player of the year. The Cavs have been a great defensive team. Jared Allen, a great defender as well. But the versatility that Mobley brings, being able to be a switchable guy, but also being able to be the five when they need to go to a smaller lineup, I think it earns him some votes. And, you know, like he's not going to be on our most improved player list.
leader board. So here's another good way for him to get an award when he definitely deserves one. Yeah, Evan Mobley has been a great defender for a long time. He was third in defensive player of the year voting for his second year. And then last year, his third year, he wasn't eligible because of games played. So yeah, I'm totally fine. Sort of. It is kind of like a resume award handed out at times. And yes, that team is ridiculously good defensively.
The Jaron Jackson Grizzlies team has dropped off dramatically since the calendar year. They were fourth in 2024 until they were 21st in 2025, since January 1st. So they have really, really, really fallen off. It is surprising to see Draymond Green up there a little bit.
See him second. A little shocking, but the Warriors have been good since Jimmy at least. They're top 10 defensively. I'm more shocked that there's not a representative for the Thunder. No Dort. Yeah, where is Dort? I think he's pretty close to next on the list, like 5th, 6th, or 7th. I forget what it was, but like...
That's a little shocking because we talk about this word a lot. It's a bit of a, like, who's the best defender on your team when you're an elite defense, which they are, and a lot of guys deserve some praise, even SGA included. But Dort, to me, is like, you know, you get put in the Dortcher Chamber for a reason. Like, he's tough as hell. And I don't think he's going to win, but it's shocking that his odds aren't even on there. Top four. He'll get votes. Yeah, and he should. These are for the bettors. I guess the bettors aren't betting on Dort.
Yeah. I guess. There was an interesting article from Hollinger, I think it was yesterday or the day before, about Chris Dunn not qualifying enough games, especially because of minutes played in games, to make not Defensive Player of the Year maybe, but all-defense sort of honors. Sort of really interesting. Of all the awards, that one's maybe one where we shouldn't get so hell-bent on the 20 minutes played per game or maybe even the 65 games because...
you're sort of a specialist as a defensive player. I thought it was an interesting article. Yeah, me too. And Chris Dunn's been great. Yeah, basically like the Caruso stipulation, right? Like he, I don't think he would have made it last year or something like that. I don't know what it was, but what you're saying, these guys aren't necessarily playing more than 20 minutes a game, but as defensive specialists, they're the best defensive player out there. So that's something that'll probably change. Yeah, because we don't do it for rookies. Most improved, I think we said. Maybe he doesn't have that.
Yeah, somebody told me that. Yeah, I think you're right. Let's go to sixth man of the year. This really is a two-man race, in a weird way, similar to MVP. It's Peyton Pritchard is the favorite, minus 300, and then Malik Beasley with the Pistons, plus 250, and then you've got a couple of Cavs on the list there in DeAndre Hunter and Ty Jerome at plus 2,500. Take your pick. It's Pritchard or Beasley.
Trey, if season ended today, would you vote for Fast PP? Still one of the dumbest nicknames I've ever heard. Or Beasley. Fast PP or the Wiggle Worm. Who am I choosing? I don't know. It feels like it must be recency bias, but I think Malik Beasley should be leading this. But maybe it's just because I've seen a lot of Pistons games where he's hitting like seven threes off the bench and, you know, giving them...
A little bit of, I hate to say it, I hate to say it, he's bringing the aura to this team, but he is, man. He's bringing a little bit of aura to the Detroit Pistons, and he has been instrumental in them getting a lot of wins. But, you know, Peyton Pritchard just had a 40-point game. I'm sure he started that one. And he was awesome in the first half of the season as well. Maybe it's just Beasley's case is picking up steam the second half, and Pritchard's just kind of been there the entirety of the season, but...
From a recency standpoint, I'm definitely going with Wiggles. Pritchard didn't start that one. He didn't. He has come off the bench all 67 games, which I mean, I think that's calculated a little bit as well for his chances to win this award. And I think it should be. Yeah, I think it matters a little bit. He's done it since the beginning of the season. Malik Beasley has been freaking awesome. He deserves plenty of votes now.
DeAndre Hunter, I thought, was going to be there for a while. That ain't happening anymore with the trade going on to Cleveland. He doesn't have such a big role. But it's great to see the word Jerome on the graphic. It's just so weird. On our graphic here, it looks like, is that a first name that's on the graphic? Nah, just the last name. Because you've only got the last names on there. You just see a Jerome on there.
Yeah. He's a two-namer. He's a two-namer. That's true. Never call him. You never call him Jerome. How about this to decide six-man of the year? We didn't have it over All-Star Weekend this year where we had, like, Caitlin Clark or Sabrina taking on Steph or Claire because we didn't do it this year. And we just have, like, a little mini shootout between these two guys from three. So a three-point contest to decide the award.
Sure. Just do it during the play-in game or something like that. Like halftime of the play-in game. I bring that up because they're shooting identical percentages from deep right now. 41.8% for both guys. They've been amazing for their teams. Obviously both winning basketball teams. Yeah, a little shootout between Pritchard and Beasley. It'll be fun as hell. Put the award there at center court.
Get rid of the, those, what are they called? The sprite balls or what? Starry. Oh, starry. Starry range, yeah. Let me get them the hell out of here. All right, final one here. Most improved player.
You might be wondering, who the hell's even up for this award? Well, Cunningham's the favorite. Cade Cunningham of the Pistons turned into an All-Star this year. That's sort of the trend with this award. Minus 275 to take home MIP. And then Dyson Daniels making the list again. He's plus 250. And then a couple guys with long shot chances here. Tyler Hero, plus 3,000. And Christian Brown, plus 4,000 for the Nuggets. Tess.
You think it goes to Cade and this trend of a guy that's good turning into an all-star, and we just continue to keep rewarding them for MIP, whether you like it or not. In this scenario, for sure. He's just been...
drastically better and slightly unexpected for some people. Yeah, for some. Yeah. Here we are, year four of Cade Cunningham turning his team into a winning team. There's also that part of it that they went from an abysmal team his first three years of his career to fantastically good. Yeah, he just looks like a number one pick all of a sudden. Bang. How great he's become. Okay. Carrying his team, frankly. He's, yes. I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it.
A first pick winning most improved player. Yeah. Honestly, disgusting. But we've had second picks. I was going to say. So this could be the final nail in the coffin of most improved player. The guy's a first overall draft pick. Ridiculous. This is a team award. They're saying Detroit Pistons, you improved the most this year. So you're getting most improved player, Kate Cunningham. We got to give you something. The numbers aren't that much better.
I think it'd be fascinating if Jalen Johnson didn't get injured. This would be a very interesting race, I think. The Wemba-Yama factor would have been fascinating. Also would be dumb. I agree. You're preaching to the choir. Yeah, it's a good point. John Morant won this as a number two pick. The Grizzlies had an awesome season that year. He didn't even want the award given to Bane. They had two opportunities to win it. Who's Cade going to give it to? He has to. Okay, sure. He deserves something. If he doesn't get sixth mid, yeah.
As much as I like Dyson Daniels, a lot of it is more minutes. You're playing. Now you're good. I mean, it's just because he jumped from 22 to 34 minutes. He has obviously been amazing, leading the league in steals, the most steals we've had in a long time in the NBA, all that. He'll be first team all defense. He'll make that. Whether he wins DPY or not. Anyway, a little check in there with the awards. Bet MGM didn't have the coach of the year odds.
So I was like, I guess I can't include it. I assume Kenny Atkinson is the favorite. Gotta be Kenny. It has to be. I saw there was a post going around the other day from Thunder account, Thunder fans, saying, why isn't Mark Dagnall getting more love for Coach Zier? He won it last year, I guess is the response to that. I don't think a coach has ever gone back to back. It's like, okay, you were a good coach. We know you're a good coach. You still have a good team.
We're not giving it to you again. Right. That's the main reason, I would say. But, yeah, Kenny Atkinson. Anyone else? Maybe JB Bickerstaff for sure. Eme Udoka. We'll get votes for sure. Yeah. Okay. There you go. Those are your probably top three. JJ Redick.
I think he'll finish top five. Yeah. You think Kenny will win this award, though? Kenny Atkinson? Blowout. Blowout, he says. Well, first we have to find out who the coaches give. That's exactly right, yeah. The one that always confuses people for a second. Everyone's like... Sneaking in here. You're like, oh, Kenny Atkinson won Coach of the Year. They're like, oh, wait, no, that's the coach's award. But I like his chances to repeat. All right, let's go to Pick'Em Tonight tasks. Where are we going, man? There's only four games on.
We're going to Los Angeles. The Clippers are hosting the Cavs. The Cavs favored by four and a half points on the road. They're at 56-11. They've only got 15 games left, so will they win 70 games? Well, they've got to go 14-1 the rest of the way. That's tough. It's also a little tough is that Evan Mobley questionable. Four of the Cavaliers' 11 losses this season have come with Mobley on the sideline.
It's kind of a lot. Four of 11. Yeah. For them. For them, yes. So not sure if he's playing or not, but three of us are still confident in the Cavs winning in Los Angeles by five. Skeets, you've got the points and you're taking the Clippers. Yeah. Were you last? No. No, I wasn't last in the dock this morning. I just felt like swerving a little bit.
thought the line was a little odd so I was like you know I was wrong last night obviously taking the Warriors thought they would take care of business especially then you learn Jokic and Murray aren't playing like oh this is gonna be an easy one no
they straight up lose. So anything can happen as we just talked about weird March games. I'll take the clips and the points. What I do like about this last, I guess, month of the regular season, even at the top, even though Cleveland is a million games up on the Celtics and the Thunder a million games up on the Rockets out West, those two teams are playing for the best record.
in the NBA. If they believe they're going to see each other in the finals, that could matter. And they're almost tied right now, right? I guess one more game played, one more loss for the Thunder at this point. So that's sort of like, you've got to know, they've got to have that in the back of their head. And there's some depth on that team so they don't have to play all their stars every night and they can still win, but they're like second and third units. Something to watch, man. And they're coming off a loss against the Magic, so
Yeah. So maybe they'll be a little hungry. We'll see. Yeah, that's one of the four games on tonight. We also have Bucks at Warriors. Will Steph play in that? That's on NBA TV. Nets at Celtics. And Hawks at Hornets. What? I don't know what you said. Hawks. You almost cracked. I was almost cacahed. I was almost cacahed. Hawks! When did we cacah? I cacahed yesterday while watching playback for some reason. Oh, wow. Without me. Yeah. Yeah.
I can't remember why. Wow. I didn't know we had that. I thought that. I was using it for another show. What other show were you using a hawk?
Is This Good? Oh, wow. What's the scenario? We're talking sound effects, that's all. Oh, we're talking sound effects. Talking sound effects. I did listen to Is This Bad, your obviously spinoff show of Is This Good, or under the same feed about Bohemian Rhapsody. Yes. Agree? Disagree? Oh, agreed with... I enjoyed it a lot. I like when it's a movie that I know is absolute garbage and then everybody just talks crap about it. Those are fun listens. They are. And that's what that was. Pretty much. Because it's not good.
I can't believe you had to watch that again. Yeah, me neither. Anyway, but you did inspire me to want to watch the Elton John one, I guess. Oh, yeah. Rocketman's great. Yeah? Rocketman's good. Yeah, it didn't look good at all to me. But I'd like to hear that you guys think it's all right. It's a musical, so prepare. Prepare yourself. Okay. But I liked it.
prepare myself by like singing and yeah prepare to see songs in the streets and things right right but that's what you like about the whimsy what do you think Bohemian Rhapsody could have used not enough whimsy probably right not enough whimsy not enough whimsy wow yeah
Not enough whimsy. Anybody watch Better Man yet? No. Robbie Williams? Oh, is that the monkey? Yeah, Monkey Man. Oh, yeah. You want to talk about whimsy? Maybe they went too far. That's pretty whimsical. Did you watch it? Not yet. Oh, okay. But I will. I mean, that's a rental at home for sure. Yeah. I'm just going to sit there waiting for Angels to come on. It's the only song I know. Oh.
yeah you and Lee Ellis yeah anybody watched the Bob Dylan movie no I'll watch that one I'll watch that one hey musicals doesn't I think Wicked's coming to one of the streamings Peacock yeah maybe not Peacock no I think you're right not Peacock yeah
I already bought it. You already bought it? Yeah, I spent a freaking load on that. Oh, you probably spent like $2,500? Yeah, I don't know. Oh, man, I hate that when they suck me into buying it. Then I look and see like the movies that I've actually spent money to buy on. It's like Neighbors 2, Despicable Me, Rise of Gru. It's just like we need to watch this movie tonight.
And now I have it forever. I mean, I don't have kids, so I'm sure this is a part of the equation. I have never bought a movie. Never bought a movie. Never bought a movie. Wow. I've rented movies where you have to pay like the... Four bucks. Yeah, the $4.99. Okay, yeah, that's fine. Never bought. Because I'm like, there's no way I'll watch this enough. I'll never watch it again. There's no way.
I'm watching Neighbors 2 every night. But if you have kids, I feel like you would. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You might get that wicked money back. You're definitely getting that money back. I don't know. It's that good? The kids are going to watch it that many times? It's very musical. Okay. We're talking about three watches. Three watches. Yeah, three watches and you get your money's worth. I mean, you almost got your money's worth now anyway. It's like how much does a movie theater cost? You didn't go to the theater. You're right. You're right. Pop your own corn.
Saving money right there. That was a good try. It's all perspective. Neighbors 2. Just a quick. Was it all right? Neighbors 1 was worth it. I'll come over and watch it on my fire stick. I don't remember it being as good as Neighbors 1. I see Rotten Tomatoes. 72 for Neighbors 1.
It's just called Neighbors. And then 64 for Neighbors 2. Pretty close, though. Pretty close. That's 72 for Neighbors. Give me a name. Who is this? Seth Rogen and Alice Byron and Zac Efron. Oh, no, no.
Oh, Nate. I've watched that first one. First one's funny. Yeah, it's good. It's pretty good. It's great. Rose Byron. The second one? Oh, yeah. Well, happy Gilmore 2. They just released the trailer for it. That's coming back. Looking forward to that. Only on Netflix. Of course. Can't even go see it in the movie theater. Of course.
All right, we'll call it there. We'll be back tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Eastern. We'll be talking about these games tonight. Maybe looking ahead to the March Madness Men's Bracket, looking at some big names, some prospects to watch for us NBA sickos. So we can look forward to that. Until then, Clipper Bros. You heard it here first. Have a great time. Turn up.
Love you guys. Awesome. Thanks for joining us. And remember, I'm back to the six man of the year stats here. Here's a reason why Malik Beasley could win. Yeah, they have the same three point percentage, Pritchard and Malik Beasley at 41.8. But Malik Beasley is 42.4% when he comes off the bench, 39.9 when he starts. So he's a better bench player. I love it. I love it. Wow. Embrace the day, people.
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What up, y'all? Zena Kata here with a huge announcement. We're dropping a new show. No off-season, the Athletic Women's Basketball Show. Same place, same time, but we're bringing the heat with some brand new energy. Join myself, Ben, Chantel, and Sabrina as we give you an inside look at the game with candid conversations, in-depth analysis, and taking on the hottest topics around women's basketball. Plus, we're bringing in the biggest
the biggest names in the game to weigh in on all the action. So mark your calendars because no off season. The athletic women's basketball show is launching Monday, March 17th with fresh episodes every Tuesday and Friday. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.