Respect The Cup | Bucks & Thunder Advance To Final
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Good evening, sweet world, and welcome to the No Dunks Podcast on The Athletic Network. It's Saturday, December 14th, 2024. I'm J.E. Skeets, here from the 27th floor of an undisclosed hotel room in Las Vegas, and alongside me, as always, Tass Melas. Podcast listeners, this is for you. Everybody get comfy in these seats. And next to him, it's the bearded one, my top shot hot boy, Trey Kirby. Hey, yo. Hey, yo. Hey, yo.

And of course, floating behind the camera making this magic happen, JD. Oh yeah, get a shot of yourself. Hello. Hey, there he is. Great floating. We are here in Vegas, early flight this morning from Atlanta. Got here in time for the two games, the semi-finals of the NBA Cup. One very entertaining.

One a little more boring. Yeah, I can't decide. Is it just because we took in two sports games that we found the second one boring? Nah. I think Rocket's Thunder was a slog. No matter if you were live or it was your second game or whatever. It was a tough one. That was a rough game. It was. Let's start with the entertaining one. The better one. Let's start with Giannis scoring 32 points.

An assist away from a triple-double. Damian Lillard at a 25. Bucs beat the Hawks. Sad caca. A lot of Hawks fans in the house. More Hawks fans than Bucs fans, I would say. Yeah, yeah. Maybe a part of that was the Falcons playing here on Monday night against the Raiders. But Bucs win 110-102 to earn a spot in the NBA Cup Championship game. It was the entertaining game of the two. Maybe it was because we had better seats. Yeah.

small part of it. That was cool. The game was better. The game was better. That was the biggest part. It was close and teams were making shots and we didn't have a million reviews. Yeah. It was a fun game. It was awesome. The superstars showed up. Giannis had an awesome game. Trey Young had an awesome game. Damian Lillard had a pretty good game. If Jalen Johnson plays a little bit better, maybe we're talking about the Hawks in the cup final. But,

Giannis was the man out there. Almost a triple-double, like you said, and it felt like he just got to the free-throw line any time the Bucs were struggling to score. He would get the ball at about the three-point line on a fast break. He would see Capella. He would hit him with a little bit of a hezzy, and then he would go right, lower his shoulder, get the foul, go to the line. Hawks fans counting him down. One, two, three, four, five, six. They were getting to 14, counting too fast. But...

But it felt like we were back in Atlanta. Nice win for the Bucs. Yeah, well, this is the funny part to me. It was the more entertaining game, but we had Trae Young 14-17 at the free throw line. Giannis, like you said, 12-18 at the free throw line. So it was a parade to the line for the superstars. But there was more juice to this game. It was obviously closer down the stretch as well because we had the huge, the highlight of the day.

was Giannis blocking the Capella alley-oop when it was like a five-point game with like two and a half to go. Yeah, and I don't think that has anything to do with us being a mere feet away from it. We were second row behind the hoop to watch a Giannis Antetokounmpo come and recover and block an alley-oop. That was awesome. And I think just the fourth quarter of Giannis, he got on the floor, he dove on the floor. Yeah.

And then on an offensive possession where Middleton knocked the ball off himself, Giannis got mad. He said, Middleton, what's up? Yeah, Middleton was struggling down the stretch. Yeah, and I loved it. It was them being open about things. This is what we got to do, dude. And then the next possession, he comes back down the floor and he has to recover and block it like it's the Phoenix Suns finals game where he came out of nowhere. And at first we thought maybe Giannis and Brook...

Sort of double blocked it. Yeah. But it was all Giannis to be able to get back and recover. He just wanted to win this freaking game, obviously. He wanted to win this game, yeah. He wanted an NBA Cup win. And last year he was here. It didn't happen. Right, right. And this year, the 30-year-old Giannis just had his birthday. Man, that was impressive. No one has talked about Giannis' birthday more than Tess. Classic birthday update. I was glad to see he could still drag his body all the way.

around at the old age of 30. - Yeah, that old guy, we're gonna see him in the old age area of the blackjack tables in the casinos. - See you on Fremont Street. - Yeah, the very old area, the Fremont Street area. It was weird for him because last year he was here for his birthday.

and you got to celebrate this year. I know, no one wants to talk about his birthday. No one has ever talked about his birthday more than you. The dates changed from the in-season tournament to the NBA Cup from year one to year two. So he turned 29 here, but he was already turned 38. It doesn't matter. But he was awesome. Actually, I think the biggest fan out here was Thanasis Edekubo. He was in the front row. That guy got on the floor. And it was at some point he started yelling. And I think Trey said, what's up, dude?

Yeah, they exchanged something. Because Thanasis was in there. But anyways, those two guys really wanted to win. Do you think Thanasis pays for that ticket? No way. Or is that a Giannis comp or a Bucks comp? I wonder how that works. Great seats. Better than ours. Yeah, we got comped. You don't think Thanasis has a good comp? It's a good point. It's a good point. Good point. Anyways, it was great because for the first time,

Both of those guys in an NBA Cup game, like Trey and Giannis, were desperate to win this game. Yeah, definitely. Well, I guess that's a big picture question. Like, does the Cup work? Did the teams respect the Cup? Which has been our ongoing bit here for a couple days now, the idea of respecting the Cup. Do you believe all four did, Trey, today, from effort-wise?

- Effort-wise, yes. - Yeah, yeah, I think so too. - Execution-wise, the Rockets did not respect the Cup. To bring in that kind of shooting to Las Vegas, disrespectful. Disrespectful to Lethal Shooter. They're gonna be sharing the same court as Lethal Shooter. Maybe he can tutor the Rockets on how to actually make a shot. That was disgusting, Skeets. I hate that we have to record a podcast after watching that. - Yeah, you were getting upset. - Well, the game was over. It was 10:52, the Rockets went up by 11. Or the Thunder went up by 11. I said, "This game's over." You said, "No, watch.

- A little run. - Well, he did. - Yeah, they got it down to five and then Shay checked in and they lost by what, 16? - Yes. - It was over when I told you. I had my white belt on, Dave Grisham mode. The Rockets couldn't score. That was what was exciting about the first game. Neither team could score for a while in Bucks-Hawks, but then they both kind of turned it on.

Hawks actually had a lead coming into the fourth quarter. Unfortunately for them, they finally went cold in like the last two minutes. I think they scored two points on Trey Young driving to the hoop and they kind of just like were playing the take away the three pointer. He got a layup. But Trey had a nice look from deep.

Shots he makes, but also shots that are definitely risky. Jalen Johnson had a wide open look from the corner that didn't go down. The Bucs just executed down the stretch a little bit better, and they were the best executing team we saw today. Again, it is funny. The Bucs score was 110-102, and then this second game that we just got back from was OKC 111-96. Yeah.

So it is pretty similar in terms of offensive output, but they felt like two completely different games. And to see Shea get to 30 points didn't feel like he had a good game at all. Oh, he had a horrible game. It was not Shea-like. Well, he had the crowd like oohing and aahing through the first five or six minutes of the game on every play he did because he was like...

you know, pivoting left to right, dropping guys sort of here, but he just couldn't finish. And you could see him getting visibly frustrated. He was so mad. Yeah. But then he still gets to 30, like you said. Yeah, because he was shaking guys and the crowd was loving it. They were enjoying it. They were saying, is this Penn & Teller? What is this show going on in front of me? It looked like there's people falling in front of Shea Gildress Alexander as he did his moves and then he just didn't have the touch. It was so strange. But no one had the touch.

for so long in that game. Sightlines. Yeah. Neutral court. Neutral court, yeah. I mean, it happens every Final Four. The teams get there, nobody can shoot. And everybody blames it on a neutral court. Well, that one almost makes more sense because they usually are playing in, like, giant football stadiums. And it is a little different. This is, of course, a normal small stadium. But, you know, you bring up a good question. It's like, why is this in Vegas? Like, in all honesty, why is it here?

It's fun to come to Vegas. It's exciting for the guys that are playing, but we're watching the game and we're looking at the staffs that travel with the team. There's another 75 people that come with every NBA team. It's awesome for them to get to spend five days in Vegas. Yes, yes. I guess like, but from, I don't know how it looked on television, but like production standpoint, there's almost no way you could have told us being in the arena for both these games that we were in Vegas.

They don't lean into the Vegas vibe. They probably don't want to go heavy on the gambling aspect of things, even though if it were Daily Fantasy, we would be seeing ads for it every five seconds. But they could have done more showgirls sort of entertainment stuff or weird magic shows or Elvis impersonators, literally anything. They do the walk-in, the red carpet. I suppose that's...

A little bit Vegas-y. More Hollywood. It's a little different. It's ritzy, at least. They try and give you a gold court. It looks khaki. Yes. You know? I think they could go over the top, but if that's the case, people would be like, why does this court look so weird? And then they did one, like, sort of in-arena entertainment game called Stack the Chips, which was a shooting game. Yeah. Yeah.

That was the only, like, gamble angle. Yeah, people at home don't see that. No, no. It didn't scream Vegas to me like this. It wouldn't have been any different if they were playing this game in Philadelphia. Yeah. Right. But it fills out a stadium of fans that are excited just to go watch basketball. We saw fans from all sort of different fan bases that were in an arena, and they're pumped. I mean, it worked in comparison to last year when the semifinals were on a Thursday.

Or is it a Tuesday? I would have to know when Giannis' birthday is. It was December 7th. It was definitely midweek. It was midweek. Yeah, compared to the Saturday that they had it on here. This was smarter. It was filth.

People were excited. I said Penn and Teller earlier. It was an event in Las Vegas that people got here and were excited for. More so the first game versus the second game. Are people showing up in Vegas still pumped to go to Penn and Teller? I don't know. I mean, I was. How many shows are the Magic shows? They don't know.

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I was like blown away by how into the crowd was that first game. I was. I was like, this is a, it was starting at 1.30 local time. And I couldn't believe how many Hawks fans were there and how vocal the crowd was. And it was like that good, like sort of like, you know, there's a contingent of Bucs fans as well. You're in the arena where it's like, oh, you're like both teams score and there's like that sort of uproar. So that was cool. I thought the Thunder Rockets one was...

Eh, a little less flat. Maybe that had to do with the game, but I feel like the fan bases were out. Flat's a good word. Because the shots were flat. Yes. That was a problem. Yeah. When you're...

I thought it was hard to tell who there was more fans of until at the end when, who was it? There were Beef and Shingun. Case and Wallace. Case and Wallace. There was a big OKC chant. So I was like, that must mean there's more OKC people. Yeah, but we barely heard them for the first 46 minutes because their shots weren't right. They weren't right. Yeah.

Do you have any more thoughts on Bucs-Hawks before we maybe get a little bit more into it? Well, the Bucs and Hawks played 10 days ago, and I watched those, as opposed to being in a stadium here, I watched it from my seat in my house, and you could tell the Hawks were a faster, more athletic team. I mean, the numbers changed drastically in terms of the offensive boards, the

In that game, they had 16 offensive boards down to seven in this one. They had 30 fast break points in that one. They had down to 15 in this one. I mean, they were after it in that game, and the Bucs got back in this one. It was fun to watch, actually, from our angle being two rows behind. You saw, even after a make, the Hawks pushed it. We had a DeAndre Hunter three after a make. It was fun. They were pushing it, but the Bucs were actually getting back. They're ready. They're ready to win this friggin' thing. Yeah.

they were far more into it. The Bucks didn't look like an old-ass team today. Only Doc looked old when he was hunched over on the sidelines grabbing his knees, as he always does as the game goes on. He's got bad knees. He's got bad knees. He's got bad hips and a bad back, so he stands. Exactly. He's got an interesting stand. Yeah, Hawks-Bucks was awesome. That was a fun game. That's what...

People want to see it when they come to the Cup. Both teams respecting it, playing hard. Both teams are giving a defensive effort and playing well offensively, too. That was fun to watch. Yeah, and I don't know if I liked it at the time, but players were getting away with fouls.

It was fine with me then. Even though you said that Yanni's had how many free throws he had? 18 free throws. They were getting away with stuff. It was a physical game. It was physical, for sure. Yeah, and it was fun at the same time. It was hilarious being so close to the Bucks bench, too, and watching the guys that didn't play a single minute. I'm talking guys like Marjan Bochamp.

Chris Livingston, Tyler Smith, Pat Connaughton, who is very vocal by the way, and up all the time. They're so pumped watching this game because it's like, hey, if we win this, I'm getting, what do they got? Another $150,000 or something like that? Just by winning that game and advancing to the finals? Yep. They were into it. AJ Johnson loved that game. Yes, yes.

So it's like there is that weird little element of guys not even playing, really invested, let alone people three rows back like, damn, I need two more points for the over and all the gambling literally going on here in Vegas. Like, come on, help me out. I'm like, okay, okay, I'll try and get you that. So yeah, super entertaining. Just last, last thing. Okay, on that game. Very last thing.

I think we saw a no-pass alley-oop from the Hawks, which is awesome. That looks like a Vegas show. I mean, the ball went through. Or it was a rebound, but they had a three-pass alley-oop. I don't think they dribbled once. It was beautiful. I'm trying to remember what play you're talking about. I'm talking about a Capella rebound. Out to Dyson Daniels. Out to Trey. Out to, I think it was Jalen Johnson. No dribble, you mean? Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah. What was the word I used? I thought you said no-pass. Yeah.

I was like, how do you do a no pass alley-oop? That's an amazing thing. There was lots of passes but zero dribbles. That was phenomenal. But I don't think we've ever seen Trae Young play D as hard he did that one possession against

Chris Middleton was bodying him at the three-point line. Trey was getting physical. They brought a double and they passed out weak side three-point shot and Trey had to get out to Dairy Milk, to AJ Green. And AJ Green

He shot that three-point shot, and Trae Young got a piece of it. I mean, you don't see that. And it was great to see A.J. Green. Now known as Dairy Milk, not Dairy Bird. Dairy Bird. Dairy Bird was because we were really close to the box bench. He looks...

I mean, he looks extremely fit. That guy's jacked! Yeah, you didn't... Milk does a body good, man! Exactly! Holy crap! That's exactly what I said. That's exactly the note I made. I do like our friend John John. We were telling him, like, why is he called Dairy Bird? Why don't we go through it? And then he was like... Then he hit a three. He's like, got milk! Got milk! Yeah. You should yell that at people when he hits a three. You were saying he should do a celebration where...

He turns his thumbs under like this and somebody milks his udders. What a weird collaboration. That would be weird. Why couldn't he just do this? Why couldn't he just do this? I think it's funnier if he goes like this and then Chris Middleton's doing the udders. So basically you're saying that for our podcast listeners, he would be the cow, he would be the udder. I'm the cow, yeah. I'm the milkman. AJ Green's the...

providing the milk and somebody else is milking him. Milking his thumbs. I think that's a new radical celebration. He should do it once at least. That's amazing. Okay, let's go to the second game. Obviously we've crapped on it a little bit. But Shea Gildas Alexander scored 20 of his 32 points in the second half. OKC, they pulled away late to beat the Rockets, won 11-96. So they will go on to face the Bucs on Tuesday night in the NBA Cup championship game.

Yeah, it was a really rough start, Trey. Nobody could score for a big stretch of this game. And so that was sort of the first half, and then the second half, there was like, I don't know, there was like a couple minutes where some shots started to fall, but then of course it turned into the timeout, timeout, review, review, timeout, timeout, review game, which...

It needs to be fixed. No flow to this game at all. The first half had no flow just because nobody could score. It was 42-41 at halftime, and both teams were shooting like 35% and under. Not a surprise. They're both great defensive teams. Look, the Rockets have trouble scoring defensively.

Period. You know, they're not a great offensive team. The Thunder are the best defensive team in the league. And they were making it really tough. Hardenstein was eating Shangoon up. Like, Shangoon was completely out of sorts. Didn't really get his touches where he usually does. I thought Hardenstein really dominated the paint for the Thunder. In the third quarter, both teams actually scored a little bit. They were actually able to get a little bit of rhythm. And then, like you said, in the fourth quarter, OKC got up a little bit. And then it was just like...

Couldn't keep going like it was every 30 seconds. This clock was stopping it felt like it was insanity and

yeah to see jay goon really really you're gonna fall asleep like jimmy goldstein jimmy goldstein falling asleep during the broadcast he didn't fall asleep he was just he was like yeah wow he was slumped well you know he's slumping at least yeah well you were just misreading the situation i mean he's got a hat on maybe it's so heavy on his head it's like he did at one point grab the ball and it bounced over to the side he did like yeah like a shot pass

to get it back okay well this will blow your mind jimmy goldstein 84 years old oscar robertson 85 years old 86 86 years old he looks he looks great he looks 20 younger than jimmy goldstein yeah this is a jack armstrong um leo routon situation where it's like what

Who's the old guy? I don't know what the more surprising thing was to see legends of the game surviving both games, hanging out there and watching both games. Joe Quinoa, Gary Payton, Rip Hamilton. Rip. Oscar Robinson. Oh, yeah. Yeah, big O. Yeah, there's got to be others. I can't believe he's 86, though. He looks great. Yeah, he looks incredible.

Yeah, and that's why you do it in Vegas, I guess, because gentlemen like Oscar Robinson, who's 85, 86, can be up until 7 p.m. These games ended, what time is it now? These games ended half an hour ago, 8.30 p.m. local. I think these games are designed for the older gentlemen. That's why they're here. These games are designed for Jimmy Goldstein. Yeah, I guess so.

♪♪♪

Was it fun to watch two games in one day? Absolutely. I would have loved to see Reed Shepard play a game. You know, Reed Shepard hasn't played the last two games for the Houston Rockets. His first two missed games. I'm disappointed. I came to Vegas to see Reed Shepard. Wow. You did call that in the preseason.

I'll give you credit for that. There was a lot of talk about him for Rookie of the Year, and you're like, I don't think he's going to play enough. Yeah, well, I didn't expect him to play zero minutes like he played these last... Yeah, that was the weird thing with Emiya Yudoka, with the rotation. He played Steven Adams in that first half. A lot. And Jalen Green and Albert Nsengun just weren't used a lot. The rotation just wasn't... He wasn't looking to score. He looked... He thought this was a brawl. He definitely...

Favors defense, which is why Reed Shepard doesn't get a ton of minutes. But this is the kind of game that maybe it would be okay to dust him off just because he's a decent shooter. The Rockets ended up shooting 24% from three, and they weren't much better inside. They finished 35% for the game. 19 offensive rebounds, but somehow that only turned into like 18 points for them overall.

on a second chance point. So even when they're getting their own rebounds, they're not able to reconvert offensively just because they looked quite a bit smaller, I thought, than OKC as well. And meanwhile, you got Shea, who didn't have his greatest game and still somehow takes his way over 30 points, getting enough free throws, getting to the hoop enough, hitting threes here and there. Yeah.

Like, even when they have bad offensive nights, they can still be efficient enough to pull off a win because they've got more talent, certainly, than the Rockets do. Like, Jalen Williams would be the best scorer on the Rockets instantly, and he's the number two guy on OKC. Yeah, and that's a good point about Shade. Not really having a good game, still gets to 32, 8, 6, 5 steals. And even Jalen Williams, who, again, had a little stretch where he caught fire. I wouldn't say a great game. Shot 8 of 20. Mm-hmm.

But still, he gets to 20 points, still gets 5 boards, still gets 5 assists, they still contribute. And they still, you know... We're walking with a bit of an attitude at the end when Wallace got into it with Shen Goon and some barking going on. Yeah, they were fighting hard for this. And I feel like I like this match- the only thing I liked about this match-up, not the game, but you could see the Thunder looking at the... Sorry, the Rockets looking at the Thunder going, "Oh yeah."

We're that, maybe, in a year or two. Now, can they have... They don't have a Shea. Well, that's the thing. They don't have a Jalen, even. A game like this makes it clear to me how far behind Houston is. Because neither team played well, but OKC still dominated this game. And they weren't even...

in any danger in the second half at all. Who was the best player for the Rockets tonight? Exactly. Amin Thompson, probably? Oh, 100%. He had, what, 13 in the first half, maybe 6 in the second half? Yeah, he finished with 19. 19-7, three steals. Yeah, and that's why I thought Udoka just should play through

both Jalen Green and Shingun Moore. And they literally sat at times. And they decided to go to the Stephen Adams, hey, we're going to score in the paint, I guess. I mean, OKC is the best defensive points in the paint team in the league. They're good at it. They're extremely good at pushing up and getting players out of the paint and defending in the paint. But at the same time, I thought Udoka should have just gone through. Jalen Green is a freaking athletic guy.

Beast. He should have been able to get in the lane more. And Shang-Gun, same thing. I mean, play through Heart and Shine. Yeah, they got dominated, they got pushed out of the paint, and weren't able to get into it. So that was the disappointing thing. Do you have a fix for the end-of-the-game situation where we get a million timeouts and a million reviews? This is sort of like, I feel like, in the discourse right now, like the entertainment value of a game where people are like, this is not great.

entertaining basketball. Does anything come to mind besides... What's the FIBA rule? You can't call a timeout after... You can't call a timeout after a made basket, right? Like there has to be a stoppage. I think that's correct. That's what it should be. Yeah, it's that. It's either reduced timeouts. And I know this has been talked about before, but tell me, convince me this isn't a much more entertaining idea than a review. Literally do possession arrow, but make it way more fun.

Have the guy shoot for it. Like they're literally doing pickup. So there's a, you challenge, it's the possession arrow to whoever the team, and the guy, instead of taking a three-pointer, because they're too damn good, whatever, make it a bomb, make it 30 feet. It would be so much more entertaining.

And then maybe there's, like, a weird strategy of, like, oh, damn, we better have our bomber out there. Like, say it could be anybody on the floor. Like, Peyton Pritchard's got to be out there in a clutch situation. Anything than go to, like, watching refs watch a review. It's stupid. I will say we were having a great time with James Capers doing the reviews tonight. He got quite a few chances at it. And every time except for the last time, as soon as he would start talking, somebody would sub in and the buzzer would go off and he would have to...

wait challenge confirmed yeah that was that was a good bit yeah good buzzer can't talk but otherwise oh uh yeah no reviews would be good yes going international is is a great call because we just saw teams get a bucket scored on them and be able to just call time out yeah

It happened over and over and over again. I mean, I don't know how many timeouts were called in the fourth quarter, but there was a lot. So if you just had to play basketball and then have to call timeout when an actual stoppage happened...

That's better. It seems like a game of basketball more so than what we were watching. There was just way too many timeouts. And I don't know if it had anything to do with they had to meet a certain quota of TV timeouts. I mean, I don't know. But it just didn't seem logical. If that is the case, then I mean, they're literally ruining the game by doing that. They're making it less entertaining, which should be at its core the most important thing.

Yeah. No, I say, I see meet the TV timeouts. It definitely seemed like the teams were just calling timeouts. Yeah. We watch a million games. This is what happens all the time. Yeah. I don't know. This seemed worse. No, it happens so often. Well, it's crazy though, because when you compare the two games we watched, like Hawks Bucks was close in the fourth quarter.

It wasn't stopping like this one was. The Rockets-Thunder game. That one stopped way more often, even though it was never even like a two-possession game. Yeah. It was never... The score never changed sides. No lead changes. No ties. Yeah. It felt like Udoka, especially Udoka, was going after something. I mean, he was... Point differential. Yeah. It was point differential. Nobody told him that point differential doesn't matter anymore. All right. So we have Bucks-Thunder Tuesday night. We're going to be there.

We respect the cup and I want to know who's going to win. And by how many, even if you want to give me a line for Tuesday night, Bucs will be the home team, whatever that means. Whatever that means, they get to pick their Jersey, I guess. I don't know. Who are you going? I'm taking the Bucs. Really? Yeah. I'm going against OKC, the more dominant team in the NBA this year. I just feel like they are ready. They're here to win the cup.

And OKC didn't perform well here in Vegas, whether it's the sight lines in the arena. That was a problem, I guess. I thought they would turn it when they turned around at halftime and they were going at the end that didn't have the background of bright lights and the restaurant slash bar. The Michelob Ultra Courtside. Yeah, the bar. Which isn't Courtside.

No, it's not. It's like 50 feet away. Yeah, but the Hawks were shooting on that end in the first game, and then they turned it around and were better in the second half. So I thought that might happen with OKC. Which I guess it did. It did score more. Sort of. OK, so you're going Bucs. I'm taking the Bucs, yeah. I feel like they're here. I think they could have played better, actually, tonight. Like, Dame could have played better. I think both teams are saying that after tonight.

Milwaukee and OKC are like, wow, we won, but we can play way better. Yeah, but they literally can't play better, I think. Chris Milton was not right. I mean, he's still getting back to who he is, but he literally lost the ball a couple times in the fourth quarter where they're trying to go through him. They're trying to figure out the chemistry between him. He was afraid to throw it inbounds, and they're like, what are you doing, man? He had a brutal turnover in the fourth quarter. Yeah, he was good in the first half, I thought, but.

He's rounding into form, which is why he's still coming off the bench. He is. He is. Okay, he's going Milwaukee. They're figuring it out. Are you going the young upstart Oklahoma City Thunder, or are you going with these vets in Milwaukee? Look, I do love that Torian Prince is now 13-0 in cup play. Mr. Cup, making it happen. And Darvin. And Darvin, of course. But I think OKC is going to win, based on what I saw tonight. Because I thought the Bucs struggled well.

They could have got better shots against the Hawks. And the Hawks are an okay defense. The Thunder are an awesome defense. So I kind of think that, okay, see, we'll shut them down. Okay. Good to have him, yeah. Got to agree with him. I think this is like...

was a very bad OKC game. I think they're going to play much better on Tuesday night. And I think that the youthful energy is going to rear its head a little bit more against Milwaukee. Yeah, we're going to get Andre Jackson versus Shea Gildress Alexander. Sure. Might not go good. Might go good. He can play. And we said it, like, Shea to score...

Over 30. He didn't even play well. No. Oh my God. But the moves were amazing and he just literally could not finish. He just had no touch. He finished, what, 8 for 21? Yeah. So he was getting to the hoop and getting shots, but he just wasn't able to convert and then knocked down the free throws. All we can hope for is a close game. So we will be back on Tuesday night following the NBA Cup championship game.

It is Bucks. It's Thunder. So we'll be back right here probably on the 27th floor of this undisclosed hotel. Are we going to take the chair back in the meantime? One of these chairs does not belong here. Did you guys, did security ask you any questions at all? Because one of these chairs, these very comfortable, hilariously perfect podcast chairs were from your room.

But the one was you're on a floor like you're on a floor with a whole different elevator bay than JD. Yeah, I didn't realize that. So you took a chair down to the lobby and then went across to another elevator where he had to meet you to bring this up. Well, yeah, also because you need to put your card in an elevator to get up to the proper room to get to your room access. So I couldn't just plop it into their elevator.

- Elevator, it's a JD's elevator. - Send it up. - Send it up and hope JD opens the elevator door. - But, but, no, did anybody, like, anybody say anything? - We're in Vegas. No.

That's kind of a good point. I know. You ride in an elevator with a dog. It's just a thing. I did ride in an elevator with a dog. You never know what's going to be in there. Yeah, I was carrying it, and I did see a security officer, and I thought, okay, well, I'll be prepared to tell him, hey, we're recording a podcast. Modern day podcasts are recorded in hotel rooms. In three chairs. But he just moved on, I guess, because he said, this is Vegas.

Weird things happen. Did either of you sit in the chair when you were on the elevator? Nah, we joked about it. We talked about it to someone. I think we said to somebody in the elevator, hey, would you like to have a seat? Oh, it's classic. It didn't happen. No? She joked about it. She laughed. Nobody wanted to do it, huh? No. Maybe next time. They're like, what are these guys doing with this chair? Maybe next time.

what weird thing is going on on the 27th floor yeah they're probably weird okay let's call it there we will be back like i said on tuesday night following the nba cop championship game we'll also maybe that night or maybe later in the week get into the minor trades

trickling in. I guess they're not official official yet. Probably are official tomorrow. Yeah. Dennis Schroeder already tweeted it. Oh, wow. That he's on the Warriors. Yes. Brian obviously going to the Pacers. What's that? I can't believe two MVPs together on the Warriors again. Oh, Dennis Schroeder. Yeah, that's right.

And then, yeah, Schroeder to the Warriors. So we'll get into that either on Tuesday night or we'll do it later in the week. But until next time, Clipper Bros. You heard it here first. Have a great time. Turn up. Love you guys. Awesome. Thanks for joining us. And remember, the NBA Cup is already better than the first version of the tournament because it was called the in-season tournament. Because it's better because it was called the in-season tournament.

Now it's called the NBA Cup. And we respect it. We respect it and respect you. We'll see you Tuesday night. The first ever 12-team college football playoff is set, and you can join me, David Ubbin. And me, two-time national champion of Alabama, Damian Harris. And me, Chris Vanini, two-time national champion in the college football 25 video game. On Until Saturday, the Athletics College Football Podcast for all the playoff previews, predictions, coaching carousel, and transfer portal news four times a week throughout the CFP.

Dame, how do you think Bama's going to do in the playoffs? Shut up, David. Listen, the time may be out of the playoffs, but I'm super excited to see the 12 best teams in the nation play. All the banter, insights, and more on Until Saturday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.