Harden My Turnovers

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[00:00:29] Sports Reports, no gimmicks, no clowns. Two-Fly, Mr. Loddickle, we run this town. Real talk only, no chasing, no doubt. From the east to the west, it's the order we shout. Mic check, lights, flash, game time, stay ready. Two vets in the zone, keep the pressure real heavy. Big hits, big plays, yeah, we breaking it down. Truth rings in your speakers, every word is the crown. From the north side hustle to that southern flame. Midwest grind, west coast in the game. Sports Talk Kings, yeah, we wear that crown. Turn it up, let them know. It's about to go.

[00:01:03] Sports Reports, no gimmicks, no clowns. Two-Fly, Mr. Logical, we run this town. We'll talk only, no chasing, no doubt. From the east to the west, it's the order we shout.

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[00:01:40] You are now listening to the sounds of Sports Reports' order. We got a lot of NBA to get to. I'm gonna try to put Mr. Logical on the spot and see what he says. We gonna do some college football expansion talk. Like, review, subscribe, share, rate, do all the free things, do all the good things. Liquid Death in hand. We are everywhere you get your podcast. Say less, say more. Shout out to Devontae Smith.

[00:02:08] Okay, there it is. Got a juicer. There you go. All right, let's get right to it. All right, so you pride yourself on being Mr. Logical. Absolutely. 100%. It's time to see if you're willing to make a hot take here. Okay. Are the New York Knicks gonna win the NBA title? No. Oh, he wouldn't do it.

[00:02:38] No, like, cause logically, I look at it logically. I think we're gonna get to Oklahoma City, obviously we do our review. Right, right. I think whatever the, I think if the Minnesota Timberwolves get through the gauntlet that is more than likely them beating San Antonio, or obviously them beating San Antonio, the more than likely matching up with OKC in the Western Conference Finals,

[00:03:03] if they match up with the Knicks, that kind of gauntlet, that kind of run through the West, I don't think they're gonna look at the Knicks and feel like, oh, we can't compete. And I think the level of confidence those guys are playing with would be through the roof. Okay. San Antonio, if they were to make it through, they would have the same kind of confidence, beating OKC, kind of being the only team all year long that seemed to have OKC's number,

[00:03:30] and then beating them in the Western Conference Finals where OKC presumably will have, will have home court advantage. I don't know how many games it'll go as they go. You don't think that could be a detriment though? Like they would be too full of themselves? Nah, cause I think you, cause I think they already believe they could beat OKC. And then just the matchup with the Knicks. I think the Knicks, I think the Knicks can win the East because I think there's glaring flaws

[00:03:57] that can be exploited by the Knicks with the other three teams that are in the Eastern Conference playoffs currently. I don't think those same flaws translate to the NBA Finals with the team that comes out of the West. And OKC, obviously if they, like if they win the Western Conference, then that's, that's another step that like, yeah, we, we've dominated all year long. We're not gonna, you know, stumble our way through.

[00:04:25] And like I said, maybe they took Indiana lightly last year. Maybe that was their wake up call, but I can't. No, so, so I think that with OKC in Indiana in particular, I think that's the Spurs thing, you know, OKC hadn't been there before. They hadn't done it. They were young. So they got to the finals. I don't think they took Indiana lightly. I think they just didn't know how to put it away.

[00:04:51] Because if you remember two years ago, you know, Luka took them out in Dallas, you know, six games. They didn't even get to the seventh game. And it was because in the clutch, OKC couldn't figure certain things out. Their role players couldn't hit the ocean off the side. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. So they were gonna take game one and Luka just kept knocking down shots. Yeah. So then last year, you know, when they got to the finals, I think it was just that thing of they were just better than Indiana,

[00:05:22] but they were bailed out because Indiana hadn't been there either. So, like, if they would have played Boston, for example, with Jason Tatum last year, I don't know if Oklahoma City wins that because they wouldn't have had the ability to put the game away, potentially, unless it was a blowout. But when it comes to the Knicks, you know, I look at what they're doing right now, and even I, the Knick hater, have to be impressed, you know. And we're back to square one, right?

[00:05:51] Embiid missed game two. He's back tonight. Right. So now you gotta readjust. And he's coming off of injury, so he's hanging around, you know, instead of going down low, he's hanging back there at the three-point line. You know, he's at the elbow. He's doing everything but what he should be doing. And now the Sixers are at a place where you don't want to be, relying on Paul George. Yeah.

[00:06:19] I'm watching the Knicks game right now. They just had a bad inbounds. I think it's Landry Shamit that just kind of just threw the ball away. Wichita State. The thing I like about the Knicks is that, like, they're a tough team. I guess it's not a foul call. Oh, shit. And B's on the ground again. They're a tough team. They're going to play with that edge. And I think they have bona fide scores. They have true wing defenders.

[00:06:49] Like I said, I think Cleveland has flaws because they have a superstar that has to kind of share the spotlight with the other two guys. And then James Harden just hasn't known but not much. I think Philly. Philly's a good team, but I just don't feel like – I don't think their health is enough. Ooh, good defense, Embiid.

[00:07:16] Yeah, and that's what I was saying last year about Philly because last year, you know, El Residente, he had Philly making the finals. You know, he believed, you know, once they made their moves and everything, and I told him, like, you might be a year too early because they had to rely on too many dudes that aren't healthy. You know, whether it's Embiid, whether it's Paul George, you know, Maxie was missing time. So it was just – that was the thing.

[00:07:42] And I think Maxie's currently playing with, like, two of his fingers taped together because he has, like, some nerve pain in one of his pinkies. And then going back to last year, you know, they had – still had people on the roster like Ert and Gordon and people like that where I said it's one thing when you're starting lineup, you feel like you have too many – you don't have enough basketball. So, like, you know, when D-Wade, LeBron, and Bosh got together, it's like there's only one basketball, you know what I mean?

[00:08:12] Like Kobe, you know, when you're on his team, there's only one basketball. But with the Sixers, I felt like even the guys coming off the bench needed shots. So, you know, it was just kind of – and then they were trying to work in Jared McCain too. So there was just a lot of firepower that they had that made them an attractive team, but too many dudes that needed shots to be effective. Like the old Portland Trailblazers when they had two starting lineups effectively, and it was like – Like I said, when you have two quarterbacks, you really don't have one. Right.

[00:08:42] And in the playoffs, your rotation generally is going to shorten out. So, you know what I mean? And so that's why I think it was a year early. Now when I look at Philly this year, it's just Embiid, you know? Like he just – like hold on. Before I even go any further, like – Hold on. Let me tell you what's wrong with the playoffs right now. Yeah. There's been some very exciting games. But these games are very one-sided as far as officiating goes.

[00:09:12] Like I feel like Jalen Brunson is just winking at the ref and getting foul calls. You know, when I watch OKC and the Lakers, it's just literally OKC diving across the floor. You know – He's on the floor again. Cleveland – We've been doing this show for nine minutes. Embiid has been on the floor four times in live action. Like – and it was on a commercial break at one point. So we've been on air for nine minutes. That's when I started the game.

[00:09:41] He's been on the floor four times already. Yeah. Like even Cleveland. Cleveland's been getting beat up. But if they touch Detroit, foul. You know, like these games are so one-sided as far as the – Game one of Minnesota and San Antonio was that way. Like Minnesota was getting the friendly whistle. It's just like – it's weird. Like just let them play ball or call the foul on both ends. Like I just don't understand. I think they do let them play ball.

[00:10:09] Look at AI in there in the flag jersey. I think the problem is – I know it says one-sided. But I think some of the teams that are getting more foul calls are also playing poorly in other aspects. So it looks like every defensive possession we're getting a foul call because you're not operating effectively offensively.

[00:10:38] The Knicks are upset with the refs right now. I personally think like – And I don't know why. They've been getting the calls. I think that pass got tipped by Oubre. It did. But Oubre has been getting beat up tonight and not getting calls. Like that's why – That's why like I'm at odds with the Laker fans right now because even though I'm agreeing with them that the refs seem to be a little more OKC centered, it's like this is the first time the Lakers have had – I know. But this is the first time the Lakers have had to deal with that.

[00:11:07] So now the Lakers are experiencing what everybody else experiences when they play the Lakers. But it's – You got the – Like J.J. Reddick mentioned the superstar calls as we're bouncing around all the playoffs. Yeah. We'll get back to the Knicks here in a second. Some of the contact just needs to be called. And I'll go back to my son's freshman year. They had a freshman team. And the ref called – Like we got the tip off.

[00:11:36] The other team got the ball. They were trying to set up a little screen. Our kid was trying to fight through the screen. And he got his hand in between the screener and the kid running off the screen just to try to keep up, just trying to squeeze through. The ref called that. We are four seconds into the game. I was like, dog, if you call a nat in a freshman basketball game, we could be here all day. We were. They called 60 fouls. Yeah.

[00:12:06] So that's the problem. So these refs, you know the game's going to be intense. I think they just need to have an honest conversation with both coaching staff before the game or at least the day before and just kind of say, hey, listen. If you guys want to play physical, we'll let it go. But if we start calling, I don't want to hear shit from either one of you, the benches, because we let it go early, let you guys establish your rhythm.

[00:12:33] But if guys are out of position, hacking that player's hitting arms, we got to call that. Maybe – I don't like the – I don't like the moving screens because a lot of times guys are just trying to – they know the screen's coming, and they run into the guy's leg that's trying to set the screen. I'm in place. He tripped over my leg, so I was going to follow on me. So I like – I don't like those calls. I don't like anything far from the basket. If a guy is trying to defend a guy, you know, 94 feet, let him do it.

[00:13:03] Unless he's hacking him and truly hindering him from, like, holding the ball, grabbing his arm. But if the guy's just trying to play and they're both bumping, he's got his elbow in him, let it go. They keep calling these push-offs, and you can't call it the whole game. And I think that's the problem because the plays look the same. A block and a charge on either end of the floor looks the same. So if you don't call it one way and you call it the other way, the opposing coach that didn't get that call is going to be split. But see, but that's the problem with guarding somebody like – That's the inconsistency problem.

[00:13:33] But that's the problem with guarding somebody like Brunson because you always talk about how guys like LeBron are big, so they kind of have to sell it a little bit more because they're constantly getting hit. But he's so strong that you're not knocking him off the square or whatever. But with a guy like Brunson who's small, 5'11", 6'2", you bump him a little bit. I think he's listening to 6'2". He ain't no damn 6'2". But you bump him a little bit, and it looks awful because of how small he is.

[00:14:01] But also, he's smacking you with his hand the whole time he's dribbling the ball. He generates a lot of contact. So that's what I mean. So as a ref, you got to tell Mike Brown, like, listen, Jalen Brunson creates a lot of contact. So if he's going to create this contact and try to shoot these fallaway jumpers, if he's creating contact that whole possession and he gets bumped at the end, we're letting it go. But if he comes off a screen and gets bumped, we'll call it.

[00:14:30] But if you're throwing this, doing this every time you switch hands, and you're throwing elbows and shoulders and biceps into your defender, and then you fall away and shoot a jump shot, then... Yeah, and we'll get... I got a thought about that with James Harden, too, that we'll get when we get there. But the Sixers, it's crazy because, like, we found Mikael Bridges. You know, he had the bad series in the first round.

[00:14:55] And so far in this series, you know, he's been looking like the guy that they paid money for. You know, like, I think he must have heard some rumors about, hey, Giannis is coming. And he's like, uh-uh. So now he's trying to play his little heart out. You know, the Sixers also, I think this is where they're missing a guy like Jarrett McCain. You know, just that guy that you could put out and go to that corner and hit this three or come off top, come off the screen, come off the curl, make the defense find you.

[00:15:25] Yeah, he has a very fluid offensive game. I don't know what Nick Harris thought in that trade. It's like... I think... Like I said, the way he was playing last night, like, he was moving. And he had that little reverse layup towards the end of the game. He looks like a fluid scorer. Well, I think the thought was... I don't know how to put him in. Well, I think the thought was, you know, hey, we got DJ Edge come now that we got to give your minutes to. You know what I mean?

[00:15:51] And, of course, I'd look at it and say, well, you could still carve out 15 to 20 minutes for him. You know what I mean? But then you got a guy like Oubre who you're going to play. Oubre, you could put him, Oubre, Embiid, another wing defender, and a four out there. Yeah, because I feel like in a series like this, you know, if you put... I mean, I know I just said what I said about Paul George, but generally he's been playing well these playoffs.

[00:16:20] So if you had Paul George and McCain on the floor at the same time, you could spread it out. You know what I'm saying? And keep the floor open. And they're going to knock down shots. That creates the room that Embiid needs to go down there and operate. But, you know what I mean? But they chose not to do that. Most of these coaches just don't know how to coach their starters. Well, I think... Their stars and their starters. And they don't know how to build the rest. Yeah, you know what I think it is?

[00:16:47] I think it's like when you job search nowadays and there's no entry level anymore. Like every job is like two years of experience. I don't got time to train you. I need you to have eight years of experience. Like, yeah, you want to pay me $62,000? Yeah, I don't have time to train you. I need somebody that's going to come in here and hit the ground running. And that's what I think is happening in the NBA where you see things like Jared McCain getting traded.

[00:17:12] Or like they don't know how to manage their rosters or, you know, manage the rotations. Especially when it happened. And you and I and other pundits were like, why did you trade Jared McCain? You just drafted him last year. Right. She was like, but yeah, he came into the league having 30 point games. Yeah, I just feel like some sometimes his coaches really just don't know how to like we talked about Missoula last week. Like, yo, trust the bitch.

[00:17:40] These dudes are is I was telling some talk about some guys. Y'all played 82 games. It's 400 dudes in the league. They are the best, presumably the best 400 guys in the world at this sport. You can factor in maybe it's 100 guys in this country. Maybe it's a 20 or 30 guys in college that might be better than the few. But even with that, that's still you still less than 600 people currently on earth that could play in the NBA.

[00:18:08] And you have 14 of them. And you like, you know what? A rotation seven guys. I know. Yeah, we've gone 10 and you guys have big shots for us. And recently you had a 30 point game last week when we set the starters. But now we're in the playoffs. The starters are 0 for 7, 0 for 9 from 3 and exhausted. I'm not going to give them three minutes. You go in there just, you know, go in there and shoot your heart out. Yeah. Go in there and shoot your heart out for the next few minutes. Nah, we'll keep Derek White out there shooting threes. We'll keep Peyton Bridget out there and shoot threes.

[00:18:37] So for all intents and purposes, for you, is the series over? In Philly? Yeah. No, it's not over because no one's – it's a – the series doesn't start until the home team loses. They're battling. Right now the score is 80-76. The Philly – Philly fan base in general is just really live right now because you have the Flyers. The Flyers are down 0-3. But they're in the playoffs.

[00:19:07] They just beat Pittsburgh. The place is packed. Like I said, I got this Philly hat on last night. They were giving out free hats at the baseball game. The environment is great. So as long as that kind of energy is coming from the crowd, I think you've got a shot. And right now the Knicks aren't playing great. They spent the last few minutes playing Hacker Robinson. Yeah. Brunson just got one of those calls you're talking about. I don't know if you're watching it live, but he's got one of those calls you're talking about. But yeah, Philly just has – they have.

[00:19:36] Oh, he's doing the SGA thing where he sticks his arm in. Oh, yeah. I will review that, Nick. I hate this when players do it, but it's like – I know. They do it after every whistle too. You know, it's annoying. But, you know, but I think that the Knicks have all the ingredients. Like we talked about it. Coming into the season, they should have been the favorites to win the East in the first place. You know what I mean? It's just that I didn't trust them. You know, and, you know, Mike Brown has done a good job this year.

[00:20:06] You know, it sounded like early in the first round there was some talk that if he didn't get to the conference finals or the finals that he might be in jeopardy. But I don't believe that considering that they just got rid of Tibbs. Yeah, I wouldn't believe that. And they beat Boston. And they were, like I said, before Jason Tatum towards Achilles, they were up in that game and they were about to go up, I believe it was at 3-1 then, right? They were going up 3-1. I think they were up like seven or eight points. Yeah, they were up nine.

[00:20:35] And, yeah, when he got hurt. But, yeah, so I think the Knicks are in a good place, you know, even if Philly comes back and wins this game tonight. You know, I think they're in a good place because they just have more reliability. Like if Mikael Bridges is going to play like this, like he's been playing the last two games, they're going to be tough to beat. But also, you know, without Adenobe, that might free up a little bit of space for Philly to get their offense right.

[00:21:05] Landry Schammer just knocked down a three. And the thing with the Knicks, the Knicks have their guy that they go through to generate offense. And then they have their second guy. That's clear. I think the Sixers having Embiid. Embiid is a guy you go to when you want to see him get his bucket.

[00:21:29] I know he had nearly a triple-double with assists against Boston, but that was kind of an anomaly of a game. I think Embiid is one of those guys where you work it around to get him to his spot so he can get his shot off. Whereas I think Maxey is a guy you can run your offense through. But I think Paul George operates like the guy the offense goes through.

[00:21:51] So I think in those crunch time moments, like they've been – I think the score was like 78 to 76. The Sixers haven't even gotten a good look at the basket because they really just don't have that guy that kind of drives what they do consistently, especially in like crunch time. Like I said, Embiid is a solo act. I think it's odd that I'm putting it that way, but I think Embiid could put 50 on you.

[00:22:19] Yeah, if Edgecombe could shoot – If Edgecombe could shoot, like Philly would really be dangerous. You know, he gets open looks because the defense says, here, take it. And he's not making them pay. So in turn, the defense doesn't have to account for him in that way. So Paul George can't get loose. There is no space for Maxey to get to the basket. You know, Embiid has to kind of figure out how to get a basket.

[00:22:48] Like he's getting a lot of rebounds. VJ has to get downhill. Like they got to figure out a way to get him downhill to the hoop. Why did he just got to do it? He's like 19 years old. You know what I'm saying? Like put on the jets and go. Yeah, but if everyone knows that's what you're going to do, like Maxey – Maxey, his speed is different because he will pull up. He will shoot that little step back or the side step three. Whereas I don't know if VJ – like I've been saying this term a lot.

[00:23:17] I don't think – I don't know if he has the green light to do that off the dribble. You know, 14 seconds left from the play clock. I think Maxey can do his wiggle and get a step back and shoot that three or use his speed to get downhill. I think VJ is probably – he's probably going to absorb some of that – like that talent and information and those kind of skills from Maxey. But that still leaves Paul George and Embiid as two guys that like –

[00:23:44] I got to create time for you to get your thing – like get your shine on. Whereas I think Maxey can just kind of create it on his own. Yeah, then we got another game three following this. Minnesota gets the home game against San Antonio. Game two, San Antonio came out and smacked them around. You know, I don't know if Minnesota – Up the ass, that's what they say. Yeah, I don't know if Minnesota shot their load in game one.

[00:24:11] But I know last year, for example, there was a game in that series where Minnesota beat OKC by 32, but obviously OKC came back and won that series. So same question, lesser degree. Are the Wolves – is there 15 minutes of fame up? No, because they have a bit of a – as right now they have home court advantage.

[00:24:39] I think – and we talked about this last week. Sometimes when it's on, everybody's just shooting a rock, and eventually it will go in. You're like – if everybody's on, if the lead is consistently 8, 9, 10, 12 points, they make a run, get it to 7, you guys go on a run, get it back to 14, you come back out of timeout with a couple of guys off the bench, they know they're up 14, I'm open in the corner, I'm shooting the 3, now we up 17.

[00:25:09] Those kind of games happen. When you get to Minnesota and the crowd is right on top of you and everyone's yelling, everybody's in their shirts, and they're grabbing at you defensively, and they're not calling it because it's playoff intensity, and your role players aren't getting those shots off. Wimby falls a lot, hits the deck a lot. You know, if he's getting bumped and not getting calls, does that make him resort to shooting a 3 like he did in the first game?

[00:25:39] So I think when – we talk about those games where guys are scoring like 50, 60 points. No matter where they are on the floor, there's no doubt about it. Donovan Mitchell scored like, what, 70-something in the game a few years ago. He was shooting whatever he wanted because he just knew, I'm locked in. And Wimby can be one of those guys that gets you 35 to 40. But if those first couple of threes don't fall or if someone defends him at the rim

[00:26:06] or he misses like a little easy shot, does he go back to just being a finesse player? Like I got to see the ball go through the hoop. And now you're burning your energy. I think he's still on a bit of a pitch count. So they rest him. If he doesn't get, you know, two or three blocks, six, seven rebounds and like eight points in the first quarter, does that turn into a 17-point, maybe 20-point game total? I think that's what happened in game one.

[00:26:34] Like he was so amped up defensively that when you saw the box where he had a triple-double, but he had 11 points. I think tonight we find out what the Spurs are made of, you know, from the standpoint of this is their first time in the playoffs with this team. You know, they went into Portland game three, you know, but that's a different environment. This series, you're going up against the team that's been to the Western Conference Finals two years in a row. So Minnesota's locked in and ready to go.

[00:27:03] And they have an assassin on their team. And they have an assassin. Now, granted, he's still injured. He's dying to get one on Wemby. Yeah, you know, and you got, you know, but the problem for Minnesota is they keep dropping like flies. You know, the sumo is a little banged up again. You know, Jaden McDaniels has been having to be the offensive leader, which is a new role for him. 40 points in the playoffs and then now your body is like, hey, man, that's all I got for you.

[00:27:34] Can't get back to the floor? Like, no, you see what we were doing out there? Yeah, and then you got, you know, Mike Conley only got so many of those game ones in him, you know, left over, you know. Then you got. Well, maybe they took that break in game too. Like I said, they have home court advantage. You call it off and say, you know what, let's regroup. Let's win both at home. And then come back here and close it out.

[00:28:01] And that's why I say the key to this series for me is Julius Randle, because I don't think, I don't know if the Spurs can keep up the level of intensity of defense that they played in game two. That was like their best effort of the season, you know, and that's a lot of energy, especially when we talk about how physical the playoffs are, you know, getting, you're on the road now, so does that intensity remain the same way it did when the crowd was cheering for you?

[00:28:29] So I think tonight's the night where we learn about the Spurs, because if you, like, and I'm not saying that if they lose tonight, they're not going to win the series. That's not what I'm saying at all. But what I'm saying is, is that if you come into this game three knowing that it's going to be rabid and rowdy and you lose this game, you can't tell me you expect to go win, you know, game one in OKC. Like, you know what I mean? So that's where, you know, you start to figure things out.

[00:28:55] But I think the Spurs still win this series, you know, just because I just don't know how healthy Minnesota is. If Ant is still going to be coming off the bench, say, in game five, for example, that's going to be a tough road for Minnesota to win this series. If he's still coming off the bench in game five, that means Minnesota has won a couple of games. And it's effective. So if they have to switch up what they, you know, whatever their plan is, like I said,

[00:29:23] if he gets healthy, like if he gets to 100%, like I said, he dropped 11 game, game one's fourth quarter. Like I said, sometimes you just need a star to get a star opportunity. And like I said, he's he is the guy that wants it. We talk about guys not wanting it. We, you know, we kind of fault James Harden for feeling like he doesn't want it. Ant is one of those guys who wants it. All right. I'm just looking at this. Oh, that was a travel.

[00:29:53] Looking at this Sixers game. It's scrappy, man. It's like a. It's like an old school game almost. You know what I'm saying? But then over in the Midwest. Here's the question of all questions, Mr. Logible. I guess outside of the Spurs, I say. But do you think people still fear OKC? I don't think it's a fear.

[00:30:19] I think people are annoyed by them, but they're also good enough to beat you straight up. But that's the problem. It's like the member that boxer Prince Nassim Ahmed would do all those herky-durky dances. And he had like a 14 minute intro to get to the stage. He was like playing the piano one time. It was annoying. Like he took the thing off. Like it was like, like he was like Beauty and the Beast or something. It was like annoying. I'm watching this fight. I'm like, yo, get to the ring.

[00:30:47] But he gets in the ring and he was still beating, you know, still about to ask. That's what the OKC Thunder are. It's like they could be annoying, the flopping. I don't understand why these guys are flopping this much. Even if you get hit in the face, just stay there defensively. Because what if they don't call it? So normally you're flailing like that. You're like, oh, and the dude just turns around and gets the easy layup. And now you're looking at the ref like he's like, yo, he didn't hit you.

[00:31:15] Like, so now you got to fake like you got hit. And now you got to act like it. It's like when your kid's crying. I'm like, yo, nothing happened to you. What you crying for? You know, sometimes fall two inches onto the floor and not you didn't fall at the counter. You tripped over the rug. Stop crying. Now you got to get up. Now you're embarrassed. See, sometimes with OKC, I feel like a lot of people are just piling on. Like it's the popular talking point.

[00:31:43] So they over exaggerated a little bit. But what Chet did last night was absolutely disgusting. Absolutely. Yeah. And fell backwards. And I'm like, OK, that's where I kind of hit my point of what are y'all doing? But the thing that the thing that's bad for the Lakers right now, obviously, is that they're playing OKC. But the bad part of that is so you had Austin Reeves put up 31 last night.

[00:32:13] You know, and I've talked about how he hasn't showed up in the playoffs or whatever. SGA is only averaging 20 in the series. You know, he scored 22 in game one or 18 in game one, 22 last night. And they still won both games by double digits. So that goes back to. That's the thing. That's what I'm saying. That's the Prince. I see my bad part is like they have all the weapons they need to beat you. And they don't even got J-Dub. And they do.

[00:32:43] But that's the thing. J-Dub. I'm not knocking his contributions, but they have so many guys. Like what J-Dub gives you is split now between Kaysom Wallace and Jerry McCain. So you can put them out there at the same time. And A.J. Mitchell's been killing it. And it's seamless because Kaysom is your on-ball defender of whoever the point guard is. So Austin Reeves came back in again. They'll check him back in.

[00:33:13] But in that meantime, when Austin Reeves on the bench, McCain's in there doing his thing. I think they're young. Like Chuck said to Draymond the other day, it's a young man's game. I think OKC is young. I think the team, I think they're young. They're scrappy. Borderline theatrical. But the problem for Adam Silver is that they're going to probably make the NBA Finals. More than likely.

[00:33:42] If I had, I don't know what the breakdown is. If it was a percentage of the remaining eight teams, I imagine they have a 25% chance and everybody else is fighting over the 75%. Let's look at the odds. If I had to guess, that's probably high. But in my estimation, I'm thinking that's probably the divide. Yeah. Yeah. So as of right now, ESPN has OKC minus 170.

[00:34:10] Spurs plus 425. Knicks plus 700. Detroit plus 1500. So they're heavily favored to win it. But the narrative surrounding them, and this is another thing I talked about last show. The NBA pundits do a poor job of highlighting the quality of the playoffs. It was a quality series that, a first round where two teams came back from 3-1.

[00:34:36] The young Detroit team that made to the, you know, number one overall seed in the East. Number one Eastern Conference seed. Battle back from 3-1. Boston losing a 3-1 lead. These are great talking points to have, but it feels like the NBA pundits want to go to whatever Jalen Brown's saying on his Twitch and the foul call from OKC. Well, Adam Silver's like, yo, OKC's going to be in the finals. I can't have casual fans thinking that the Thunder just flopped.

[00:35:04] So, like, you guys need to talk about how much they are dominating the greatest player of this current era in LeBron James and how much they're dominating one of the greatest franchises. Like, that needs to be the conversation. And they have a chance to get the number one pick on Sunday. Yeah, so it's like, that needs to be the conversation. But I don't know if that conversation has to move the needle. But the way OKC is playing is obnoxious.

[00:35:30] If we were playing at Hill Air Force Base on a Wednesday at 2.30, I'm like, dog, how are you this big and you're on the ground this much? Yeah, so as far as the Lakers go, you know, they keep trying to trap SGA. And I get it. You know, he's the MVP, probably going to win the MVP again. You're trying to get the ball out of his hand. You know, I get it.

[00:35:58] But the problem is OKC is good enough to do this. You know, Jared McCain, you brought him up. He's eight for ten from three in these first two games. So now it's crazy because now you go to L.A. So you hope that some of that reverses a little bit. But I'm like, if I'm if I'm JJ Reddick. I say, you know what? I got Mark. I got Marcus Smart. You know, you just stay with him the whole game and whatever happens, happens.

[00:36:27] And then you got DeAndre Ayton out here, you know, doing the click capella thing that he didn't want to be associated with, you know, big for no reason, you know, not adding anything to the Lakers offense. So I don't know, man. I think he's doing fine. The problem with the Lakers offense is that there's there's even with LeBron, there's not a lot of. If I'm OKC, there's nothing I need a game plan for.

[00:36:56] If we're going to run a two three zone. Cool. If we're going to go, man, cool. There's no special thing I have to do to defend the Lakers. If also Reese wants to go and get, you know, get his wiggle on the top of the key and maybe get some space. I'll live and die with that. But if LeBron is going to orchestrate the offense from where wherever he's standing, wherever he gets the ball, I'm good with that. There's not a single person that I have to game plan for offensively. Yeah.

[00:37:26] So if Luke Gnar gets an open look, that's fine. But he's not going to shoot 10 threes. Yeah, I don't know. If he goes one for five, he'll stop shooting. I've been trying to figure out if Luke is going to come back. And, you know, and then on top of that, he had an eight week injury. I gave the Lakers one game where we made our predictions about this series. I don't even know if I see that one game now. You know what I mean?

[00:37:49] Because like I said, like even last night, you know, they were toe to toe with OKC for about three and a third quarters. And, you know, they even had to leave at points. And I never felt the Lakers were going to win that game last night. Like it just never registers. They don't they don't have what you need as an NBA team to really like right now because injuries Vanderbilt's out.

[00:38:18] Like I think he broke his finger on the backboard. Luca being out. There's not I don't think there's a score that comes off the bench with their second unit. I think they just bring in another big and Jackson Hayes. Kennard, maybe. But he's not technically a score. He's just a shooter. You know, they don't bring in a guy like they don't bring in a guy like help Jordan Clarkson. Jordan Clarkson gets the ball in his hand.

[00:38:45] And like he you can tell like he he's trying to initiate something. He might not always take like that shot. But he's he you can tell he's that type of player. I don't think the Lakers bring that guy in the guy with that kind of confidence to just. Just kind of run run the offense. They drafted this guy last year that they gave up on. They could probably use him right now. But he's just a shooter. But like that's the thing. He's like there's. Well, I think he's a shooter.

[00:39:14] I think he's just a shooter because he plays for the Lakers. I don't think he can. I don't think his his handle allows him to play like. No, he's not going to come in the game and be Kevin Durant or some shit. No, no, no. Give me a good six man. Like a guy that you know you could rely on. Like OKC. How about that? Kaminga. Yeah. I don't think he's going to come in and play like Kaminga. I don't think he. I don't think he.

[00:39:40] I don't think we know because they never did anything with them. They definitely did jam him up pretty bad. I don't know. Like that's also part of their problem is like you didn't keep the players you needed. Like there's there's tiers of players that you need. There's tiers of things that you need. Like when you're building a house, it can't just have nice countertops and floors. Like you got to get some nice doors in there. You got to get you got to put the whole thing together.

[00:40:09] It can't just be like, oh, this is a great location. Like, yeah, but the house isn't built properly. Shit's missing. And that's the Lakers problems. The entirety of LeBron's time there is like you had pieces you didn't like. You move them. You replace some of the similar pieces. And it seems like it's like they're making a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. And every single time it's like you keep thinking LeBron is 2019 LeBron that showed up there. Like, no, this dude has a 19 year old son.

[00:40:39] Like, you got to start thinking differently about the guy who's leading your team. Dallas should have kept Jalen Brunson instead of Luka. But let's take it over. I think they could have made it work with the Porzingis, Brunson and Luka. I think they could have made that work. I mean, they made the Western Conference Finals. I'm talking about like still. Like, I think they still could have like made that work. I don't know what Porzingis was upset about.

[00:41:08] But that's just the NBA. Like, listen, we could armchair quarterback this all day. And, you know, we never worked in any kind of NBA office. We just kind of looked at the results of the decisions that these guys are making. And it's like that didn't seem, especially when you look back on it and say, I don't think I didn't think that was going to work. And then it doesn't work. So you don't even need to be a genius. We're like, oh, you never played the game. Well, I know like trade Luka probably wasn't a good idea. Yeah. So Harden strikes again. You know what I'm saying?

[00:41:38] So if you if you allow me a second here. So in these playoffs that we're in right now, James Harden has 52 made field goals. 53 assists. Awesome. 47 turnovers. Four out of their nine playoff games, more turnovers than field goals.

[00:42:05] So he's up to 47 now overall in his career in this series against Detroit. Two games, 11 turnovers, nine field goals. Cleveland, this playoff, 0-4 on the road. Since Donovan Mitchell has been there, 4-13 in road playoff games. And they haven't won a playoff game on the road this playoff yet. They're going back home.

[00:42:35] Are they done, Mr. Logical? I mean, if you can't win a game on the road, then you're done. I mean, like just logically speaking. They don't have a closer. They do have a closer. They just he just can't do nothing because nobody else is doing anything. No, the closers close no matter what. You know what I mean? Closers close games. Kobe close games. LeBron close games. Jordan close games. Jalen Brunson close his games. No matter how you feel about Cat. But Jalen Brunson close his games.

[00:43:05] Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum in these certain moments close games. James Harden is literally falling on the floor and giving the ball to the other team. What's his name? Evan Mobley is out here getting his Roy Hibbert on one rebound last night. You know, you got Jared. I know. You got Jared Allen who can hit a little floater here and there. But like the floor is just tightened up. Donovan Mitchell can't even get to the basket. You know, but the other. It is.

[00:43:34] I was about to say that. Well, yeah, actually. Actually, yeah. Let me get to coaching. Here's coaching for you. This is a quote from Kenny Atkinson. All right. And this is just a short sentence. Quote. I don't know what it is with the start of games. It's you. You. Get the team ready. It's you. You should be like, hey, we're going to attack this way. Hey, guys, in game one, we fell behind by 15 points.

[00:44:01] There's no way we're going to win in Detroit if we fall behind double digits. What do you do? Fall behind double digits. Mr. Lockett, in game one, in game one, Detroit had 31 points off of Cleveland turnovers. 31 points. Listen, I remember when the trade happened, you were a little bit more optimistic about it than I was. Yes. I wasn't. Because I just.

[00:44:29] But even you couldn't have thought it was going to look like this. I didn't think it was going to work. I didn't know. Like, I didn't know, like, the nuance of why it wasn't going to work. I just knew that Cleveland seems to always. A lot of teams and a lot of organizations seem to want to get rid of their team and dismantle the team because they think the team should be at this level. And they're at a different level.

[00:44:57] And I think they're living through seeing their team through this lens of like, yo, your team isn't this level good. Yeah. So don't make the move where you give up draft capital, where you move a guy too early, move a guy too early in his contract. You draft the guy and give up on him too soon because, like, your team is not that good. Well, they're probably going to fire Atkinson and get rid of Mitchell. James Harden is probably one of the best basketball players we've seen.

[00:45:28] He was on a great, he had a, they had a great opportunity at OKC. I think they blew that up too early. But there's no HD footage of basketball after April 30th of any calendar year where you can say James Harden was the best player in the playoffs, in his conference, or even in the series that he played in.

[00:45:57] It just hadn't happened. Sometimes on his whole damn team. I didn't think that was ever going to happen. That's what I'm saying. Like, there isn't one moment where it's like, oh, like when I say 2018 Bron, you don't even rock with Bron to the level that I do, but you're like, yeah, that was a different year. He looked different. He was taken on to Kobe in game seven against the Celtics. You remember that because, like, he went six for 24, but he grabbed 15 rebounds.

[00:46:24] We remember those things because these are the moments where those would, where you do these kind of things. Harden did put up a 45-point game in TD Bank when Embiid didn't play. Yeah, and they lost that series because Jason Taylor put up 50. I know, but Harden had two height. Harden had two 45-point games in that series. But, you know, but also if you're Cade Cunningham, you just see food.

[00:46:52] You know, say you look out there and you're like, who going to guard me? Mitchell too small. You know, Harden just don't even try to play defense. You know what I mean? Max Struess ain't going to get it done. Maybe you can go to the bench and get Jalen Tyson, you know, to get a little more size on him. But, like, the other problem with that is that once guys make a certain amount of money and achieve a certain status in the league, there's no reason for James Harden to be starting right now. You know what I mean?

[00:47:22] Like, if he wasn't James Harden, he was just a regular point guard, he'd have been benched in the last series. But because he's James Harden, you have to play him. No, you don't. Your job is on the line. Sit his ass on the bench and, you know, you got to. We know there's a financial component to these decisions. Hey, you know what? I'm going to walk in Dan Gilbert's office.

[00:47:48] I'm going to walk in Dan Gilbert's office and say, do you want the financial responsibility of paying him? Or do you want the financial windfall of playing a... You guys put so much money off these TV deals? No, I know. I know. But I'm just saying. Or do you want the financial of the windfall of potentially having more playoff games at home this year? Because after these two, we might not. Nah, see, he's guaranteed the 41 home playoff games in a regular season. That's where his bread's buttered. I mean, like, let's keep it real.

[00:48:17] Like, we talk about this a lot of times. A lot of owners is like, ooh, the B's on the floor again. And won't somebody knock Duncan Robinson on his ass? Because Duncan Robinson is out there to ball. He's not there to flop. He doesn't flail. He just shoots. I didn't say flop. I said knock him on his ass. He ain't got to flop. You hit him. He'll get back up. That went to Division III basketball, to Division I, to NBA. But Cleveland's had some bad go at it, man.

[00:48:46] Because game one, Ron Holland hit a three from about near half court at the end of the third quarter. Then, you know, last night, Dennis Jenkins hit a late three in the third quarter at the buzzer. And then, you know, the other part of that goes back to what I was talking about earlier, is the referees are letting Duren and Stewart push people around and do the physical things that we know Detroit to do.

[00:49:14] But Cleveland, any little contact at all, there's a foul call. And, you know, so you already got Evan Mobley soft, right? You know what I mean? And he's not getting the foul call. So you've effectively neutered him because he don't want to go down there anyway. And now you're not giving him the call. That's coaching. That's coaching. We talked about it with the Lakers. You can't turn the ball over 20 times. You can be mad about the fouls.

[00:49:42] But let's say hypothetically you got 11 turnovers. And those other nine possessions, you got nine good looks. And you knock down four of those nine. The score isn't. You're not down eight and nine. Late in the fourth complaining about fouls and foul calls. Score's probably tied. Maybe you're at one or two because you didn't give away 20 possessions. You only gave away 12.

[00:50:13] Well, they were giving away back-to-back possession. It was one possession where I saw the Lakers had a made layup. And OKC came down and shot a three. It was three on two. It was only two Lakers back, three Thunders back. And Cason got a wide open three. Like Marcus Smart was crossing half court when the ball was going through the net. That's not the refs. That's effort. That's what you could do.

[00:50:42] Cleveland, you have a guy in James Harden who does not play top-tier winning basketball in the playoffs. He hasn't his entire career. He doesn't go old dog 30. He doesn't flip a switch. He doesn't do the press game conference like Kobe said. You know, job's not done. He doesn't have that intensity and the size to dominate like Shaq did. Like some of these guys just don't have it.

[00:51:13] You have to figure out a way to get it to where who's going to score. Is Mobley going to be our guy that scores? Or are we going to shoot more threes? What are we going to do? But more than likely, you're going to lose this series. You're probably going to lose your job. And James Harden is going to probably be on insert whatever team Giannis goes to next year. Man, send James Harden to Sacramento where he belonged.

[00:51:37] But, you know, it goes back to that thing that I always talk about when I talk about, hey, they let teams play a certain way during the season. Then in the playoffs, you turn the whistle off or, you know, that's what happens to James Harden a lot of times is that he plays a certain way. And you know what I mean? And then he doesn't get those calls in the playoffs. He should have stayed Houston James Harden. And now he's slow.

[00:52:04] He's slow into the season with that fat suit and looking out of shape, just to shit on these dudes. He had like John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins in his locker room. And he was saying something. I can't win with these guys. They were like four games into the season just to get traded to Brooklyn. Like, I'm not saying like it's a respect and a loss of respect for him. But it was like, yo, you can't act like that and literally do nothing.

[00:52:27] He's done nothing remarkable as far as like that caliber player that he is compared to the other stars of the league. From that time that he was, he came into Houston supposedly out of shape. Rumor has he was wearing a fat suit or he was wearing like multiple shirts so he looked bigger or whatever the case may be. Whatever he did to orchestrate that trade to Brooklyn. There hasn't been a moment where it's like, yeah, James Harden's that guy. Yeah.

[00:52:56] So, you know, at this point, you know, it is what it is. You know, Jared Allen. So in addition to Mobley with the one point, Jared Allen, two points, three rebounds. You know, but of course it comes down to three pointers. Right. So Detroit 14 to 28 last night, Cleveland 7 of 32, you know, so just make 10 threes and we got a whole different game.

[00:53:21] You know, Max Struess, 27 minutes, one for six, all three pointers. Whereas here's the coaching part. Keon Ellis played five minutes and made the only three that he took. Played five minutes in the whole game. So, you know, in six out of these playoff games that they played this year, the Cavs have lost the fourth quarter. That's a whole lot of coaching.

[00:53:51] They don't have a closer. You know what I'm saying? They don't have a guy that says, hey, give me the book bag. Let me throw it on my shoulders. Y'all hopping here with me. They don't have that guy. Some teams do. Some teams don't. Even teams that don't win the series have a guy like that. Like I said, Philly has that guy. I think Max is that guy. We saw it last year when the Knicks were about to win in five at the Garden and he took over at the four point play. Some teams just have the guy that can close games out.

[00:54:21] Cleveland doesn't have that guy. I can't even argue against it right now. Not that guy. So, is this the end of the road for Jalen Brown? I mean, the contract is so gigantic. I don't know how it could be. Picks? I saw something ridiculous because it's always the case. But this one, I actually kind of like, I didn't research it, but I think it might be plausible.

[00:54:50] I guess Austin Reeves is due for a big extension. I don't know if the Boston sees him and thinks that he's worth big money. But if they're offering him $220 million with Jalen's like $300 million and then some picks from L.A. And maybe Rui, maybe that'll bounce out and they give Austin a four-year $220 million or something like that.

[00:55:18] I feel like you're just speaking his mind. I think he, ironically, one of the knocks on him, we talked about this before a lot of times in the show, there were some NBA execs that felt like he was too intelligent to love basketball the way that they kind of need him to love it to the point where he's going to like just die on the basketball cross for the team. I think he understands like, I don't need to do that. He started his own brand. He's a freaking NASA scientist.

[00:55:48] He's like, I have all this money I've already signed for. I'm already building. I bet his financial portfolio is pretty solid to the point where I don't think he's beholden to the organization and whatever they say you cannot say you can't say. He's like, I'm straight without whatever you guys got for me. And I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize my career because he's a smart guy. But he's like, I'm not going to sit here silently because I feel like Joel Embiid flopped. And he did. Joel Embiid's 285 pounds. Jalen Brown's a big, strong dude.

[00:56:18] He bumped him and he fell to his knees and then rolled on his back with his arms up. I'm like, I've been in street fights where people aggressively attacked me and I didn't fall like that. And I'm 5'8". This is hilarious. This Dominic Barlow from the Sixers just looks like Junior Wimby. But yeah, I think that there are some conversations.

[00:56:47] He got on SGA too. I saw another video talking about SGA. He was like, hey, he flops. He's like, we and him do the same move. But yeah, he's about to win back-to-back MVPs. And yet I get called for a foul every single time I do it. Yeah. And he's been going at it with Stephen A on Twitter. I can't. I don't even listen to Stephen A. Even if Stephen A. has an articulated point, I can't deal with it. Shout out to Stephen A for bringing back Skip Bayless today. Who?

[00:57:18] And then what did Skip Bayless do his first day back on first take? Start bashing LeBron? He ranked LeBron number nine on his all-time list. It's so corny. But I want to shout out to them. This is the reason me and you have a show. Because we are both equally sick of both of them all these years. And this is why we've done this. And this is why we have all these episodes documented. Because Skip and Stephen A. Smith are two of the absolute,

[00:57:46] just most dramatic weasels in sports media. And it's ridiculous. You have all this access, but yet you act like these players are supposed to praise you. Like, dog, you're a fan. Be a fan. Y'all see that, right? Mr. Logical would never say that about Nick Wright. Nick Brown. But yeah, so Jalen Brown allegedly is frustrated with the organization.

[00:58:15] The problem here for me is that he's got his mouthpiece speaking for him. You know, because I feel like he's speaking through Tracy McGrady, you know, who was the one that originally brought this up on the podcast. Is what he really, like, a counselor is? He's just been, they say, like, they have a mentor-mentee relationship. Okay. But also, there was a reporter, and I'm so sorry because I forgot his name. But after Boston, one of the games where Boston beat Philly,

[00:58:46] I think it was game one, the game where Boston blew him out, he got on his radio show, and he came out and he said, hey, Jamal Mosley is going to be the coach of the Pelicans. He's going to get fired and be the coach of the Pelicans. And Jalen Brown's getting traded. So, you know, here we go. Who, the Pelicans? One out of three. One out of three. One out of three so far. Mosley's fired, you know, so here we go.

[00:59:13] But Jalen Brown, you know, allegedly has these frustrations with the organization. Brad Stevens came out and was basically like, he didn't say these words, but I interpreted it as, if you got a problem, come talk to me. That's how I took Brad Stevens' comments. Brad Stevens also made some comments that made me feel like he was shitting on Jalen Brown a little bit. You know what I'm saying? Because you can say things without saying things, right?

[00:59:38] So we were talking about how, hey, this guy deserves MVP consideration. Like, look at Boston, still in the two seed right now. And Brad Stevens made some comments that kind of alluded to there's a lot of teams tanking out here. So were we a bit overrated this year? And it just kind of feels like, hmm. We were really at two teams. Right, right.

[01:00:07] And if you look at those numbers. They're going to have to pick between Tatum and Brad. And if you look at those advanced stats. And I think they picked Tatum. And I think if the frustration comes with it, I think the frustration is that Jalen Brown's like, I'm always available. I'm here. He saw what I could do without him. But yet, he's still the golden child.

[01:00:27] And then if you look at those advanced stats, it shows that Jalen Brown, even though he had his best season, it doesn't really look like he had impact. Like, he scored a lot of points. But the on-off isn't that different. You know, like the way we talk about Jokic or people of that ilk. They have a good team. They have a good structure. I think that the loss. Boston better be careful. That is a golden.

[01:00:57] You learn more in a loss than you do in a win. I think with Boston, I think they just felt as if winning was proof that there was no flaws. And because they were winning without Jason Tatum and they were winning in spite of the plus minus for Jalen Brown when he's on the court. All these advanced analytics is like, all right. But how badly?

[01:01:26] What happens in the playoffs when you lose? Those games you lose, what is a problem? Because we talked about it before the playoffs started. Boston will go into a game and go 7 for 34 from 3 and lose that game. And they'll come right back out the next game or they'll go on a press conference and say, this is how we play. We're going to keep shooting.

[01:01:49] They'll win the next two games and they'll go 17 for 38 from 3 and 20 for 40 from 3 and see like, see, we're perfectly fine. And we're like, all right, cool. And they go on, they win the series. This year, they had multiple games in that first round where they played. They shot poorly from 3, whereas normally just one game. They did it against Orlando. They had one against Miami.

[01:02:17] Not the year they went down 0-3, but the year after that, they had a bad game against Miami where they went like, you know, 7 for 30 from 3 or something like that. But they always right the ship, so they never make any corrections. They never make any adjustments. This is what's going on here now. And I think Jalen Brown might be thinking like, yo, we can't keep playing like this. We can't just let core pieces go like Horford, Porzingis, some of these other guys and bring in guys the way that L.A. did. And Drew Holiday might have been the biggest one of all.

[01:02:48] Like, we can't do that. We have to figure out a way to pay these guys. Granted, he could have not taken $325 million, but, you know, you got a future. But Boston got to be careful here, too, because, like, I know the logical thing is to think, like, Brown out Tatum in. But, you know, I'm saying, I don't know. Is Tatum starting an injury-prone stretch? I saw a guy today on one of those, one of the clips.

[01:03:17] He didn't explain it, and I figured, like, I was going to, me and you could talk about it, because I didn't really want to hear his answer and regurgitate his answer. But what he said was, like, if I'm Boston, I'm looking to trade Tatum over Brown. And everyone on the panel kind of looked at him like, what? And then he just repeated it. So, like I said, I wasn't influenced by anything he said other than just stating it. And I was thinking, like, what would Mike think? Like, what do I think?

[01:03:42] I think Tatum is probably a more appealing trade because I think the team that's getting him will look at the Paul George, like, frame, but with, like, the success that we thought Paul George was going to have.

[01:04:05] Not a knock on Paul George, but Paul George, the way he played, he was, like, he's taller than Tracy. He's, like, Tracy McGrady's height, a little bit more size, went toe-to-toe with LeBron. And then now you have Tatum, who's, like, that guy who's, like, okay, this is what we thought Paul George was going to be. He has his championships. He might have a bit of a chip on his shoulder because he didn't win either MVP, the conference MVP or the finals MVP.

[01:04:33] But he's clearly, like, your, you know, your prized piece in Boston. I think if you had to make a move, now, I wouldn't do it if I was Boston, but if I'm calling Boston about trading for anyone, I'm asking about Tatum more than Brown. And I think Boston would probably get more for Tatum than Brown. So this is the problem.

[01:04:59] If Boston was neutral from the standpoint of they just decided to break this up before we got here, you know, and before they won the title, like, if they would have panicked, then I could see that, you know, because of Tatum's trade value. He's going to net you a lot more than Jalen Brown would have. But the problem in this scenario now that we're here is that Jalen Brown is the malcontent now, you know, allegedly. You know, he's the one that has the issue.

[01:05:28] He's the one that this is his favorite year of his career. And then you've got people speculating like, yeah, Tatum wasn't there. So this is Jalen Brown's mess that has to be cleaned up. So from that standpoint, how do you keep them if you're going to break up the team based off this, this mischagosh has been kind of gets spooled up. Like, well, the guy who spooled it up. Right. He's probably the one that has to go. You know what I mean?

[01:05:54] And I feel that Tatum is probably easier to build a team around, like just playing style wise. He's probably the one that you could fill out a roster with those shooters that we're talking about, the housers and people like that. And be fine. Whereas with Jalen Brown, I think you might need to be a little more strategic in who you put around.

[01:06:17] Like if you're trading for if you're trading and you're keeping Jalen Brown, you're probably going to want a player that can do something similar to what Jason Tatum does. Like a guy who's right. Atlanta has a lot of long wing guys like right. You know what I mean? Like Jalen Johnson. You need a guy who can do a little bit of what Jason Tatum does. And see, you know what? The primary ball handling and scoring responsibilities will go to Jalen Brown. You know what?

[01:06:46] I put it like this. I put it like this. And I don't mean no disrespect with the words that are about to come out of my mouth. Yep. Same. So it's like you meet like your Alicia Keys, right? And then you meet your Halle Berry, young Halle Berry. And, you know, some things are going on. Or Megan Thee Stallion might be a good example with everything going on. And you're like, yo, I could meet a couple of those.

[01:07:16] There's only one Halle. You know what I mean? So that's how this scenario kind of plays out. Like you could find Jalen Browns anywhere. You know what I mean? You could find those. Like, you know, it might not look exactly like him from a production standpoint, but playing style-wise, you could find a lot of Jalen Browns. You could find your Kamingas and people of that ilk. You know what I'm saying? But how many Jason Tatums can I find?

[01:07:42] And not only that, not only that, but from a playing style standpoint, a star of that ilk that's not a point guard that is so willing to pass the ball and set up the offense or run the offense. There's not a lot of that out there to run it as effectively as Jason Tatum runs it. I'm Brad Stevens. That's the problem. I'm Brad Stevens.

[01:08:07] I'm figuring out a way to, I'm going all, I want to say all in. I'm going into my draft capital stash to try to make a move to get me to look like the 2023 and 2024 Celtics as much as possible.

[01:08:37] Yeah. I'm trying to, I'm trying to find, I'm trying to find who's, who's trying to come off of a unicorn type player because they just fired a coach. Who's trying to come off of a guy who, a scrappy point guard that can defend who, like what team is trying to make these kinds of moves so I can rebuild and reset. Jalen Suggs. Back to, I think Jalen Suggs will work perfectly because he's a, he's a scrappy guy.

[01:09:04] He doesn't, I don't think he commands shots when he has a ball in his hand. I think he takes them, but I think he takes them now because it's Paolo and Franz and all these other guys are, are controlling the offense. I think in Boston, I think if they told him like, Hey, go back to how you played in Gonzaga. But when we're at 14 to 12 to 14 shots, sex is on a play clock. You look for zero or you look for seven. Yeah. Yeah. You put them on Boston.

[01:09:31] I think he could be your dark white replacement at some point, you know? But, but like, but when I think about it, right. Cause we, everybody's had these arguments for years, right? Tatum or Brown. And I've always said that I don't think the gap is that big between them. I still feel that way. The difference is, is right here. You know what I'm saying? Because of Tatum had Jalen Brown's intensity, his belief in itself, you know,

[01:09:59] I think Jalen Brown just has a love of intensity that most people just don't have. Maybe that could be it, but, but, but that's the difference. More exceptional than, but I think, but I think that's the reason why he's not like, he doesn't have like the, the, the, the aesthetics of how he looks as a basketball player. That's what I'm saying. That's the reason why Tatum out weighs him, I guess, if you want to like,

[01:10:26] that's the reason why Tatum is better because he's just more naturally gifted. He looks, he looks like, he looks like the, like I said, if you were to draw your current day's basketball player, I think he is your upgraded version of Grant Hill. How Grant Hill was like the upgrade on Jordan before the injuries came. Now with the way guys play, he's probably LeBron's height, little slimmer moves,

[01:10:54] moves more like a six, two guard, but plays a six, eight and six, nine. That's what that position was basketball. I think Tatum is that guy, but I think Jalen Brown has never looked in the mirror and thought to himself, I'm lacking in this space. Yeah. Like he's like, I'm not number two. I'm one A. I'm one. Like I am one and we are a team.

[01:11:23] And he can say we're a team of ones, but I just, I, and I think, I just think that it's like, it's like wanting Nick Young to have Kobe. Now I know that's drastic, but like Nick Young probably had the same level of talent as Kobe physically, basketball and everything, but he's never going to have Kobe's mentality. Scotty Pippen probably is, I mean, I was a hall of famer. He was never going to have Jordan's level of intensity because that's like an elite level of that particular attribute.

[01:11:50] I think Tatum kind of gets knocked because he doesn't have what Jalen Brown has, but I think between the two of them, that's why it works because. Because I can see both of them last minute of the game, getting the best available shot for either one of them versus we talked about James Harden, Donovan Mitchell 45 seconds left. They're down four. You think the two of them are working together to figure out what the best shot is?

[01:12:20] No, but 45 seconds down for Jason Brown, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum. I think they're figuring out what's the best shot for right now in this situation. We've got 45 seconds. We have enough. We've got a couple of possessions, maybe a foul in between. I think they're both thinking that far ahead. So for that reason, I just keep just because like winning cures all. Right. I will upgrade my role players. And then just run it back.

[01:12:45] Well, I think Boston, you know, can still be who we know them to be, but it comes down to coaching. So Mr. Logical, we talked about March Madness expansion. College football said, don't leave us out the conversation. Man, just pull it up. Pull out one through 24, man.

[01:13:10] This is so, this is like one of our first episodes. I got it from Layer Kick, so I can't take credit for this line. But it was like, don't piss in my pocket and tell me it's raining. This is one of those examples of that. I get it. Just be honest. Just do me a favor. Just go ahead. Give the Big Ten four spots. Give the, let's be realistic. Give the Big Ten three spots. Give the SEC three guaranteed spots.

[01:13:38] And have everybody else fight for the other six. Because that's all the college football playoff system wants. You do not want a matchup of Indiana versus JMU. Or how many buys we get in this scenario? In our scenario that we're creating. So, so, so right now, you know, the top four seeds get a buy. In this setup, it would be the top eight.

[01:14:06] So, basically, all they're doing is copying FCS right now. So, we got nine versus 24? Yes. 10-23. Okay. So, we got Bama, JMU, Miami, Iowa. Uh-huh. Notre Dame, Georgia Tech. Oh, look at you go. You got BYU. Like. BYU Houston. So, if we're looking. Tulane, Texas.

[01:14:36] Virginia, Vanderbilt. So, you think Virginia has an opportunity to compete for the national championship? No. No. Tulane. You got Michigan, Utah. And Arizona and USC. It's just too many teams. I don't think. I think 12 is plenty. And I think 12 with the two Cinderella potential teams they had in their last year is probably

[01:15:06] the perfect. Hold up. Side note. The Timberwolves are one for 14 from the floor right now. It's not looking good at all. It's not. It's 16-3 and Castles at the free throw line. But, um, I'm just not. I thought last season's playoffs were just fine. I don't know why the.

[01:15:31] I don't know why Indiana winning the national championship has thrown such a monkey wrench into this. I guess because it's new. And. But it's not sustainable. Because what Indiana did last year, they ran out a bunch of 23, 22 and 23 year olds that had four or five years of college experience, two or three years at GMU. They were with that coach for a long time. All of those guys are gone. Yes. They're getting, they're landing a lot of number one players, but that's what hype is.

[01:16:02] I don't know why we keep falling for this. We fall for it with music. We fall for it with artists. We fall for it with movies. We fall for it with TV shows. We fall for fashion. Certain things are sustainable. Certain things are hype. Indiana. As of right now. Is the new hype wave team. That philosophy, like you said, we're trying to pick out another team that can do it.

[01:16:29] What you need is a guy that's literally come up through the ranks and he has players that he's coached for three or four years at a lower level and he's going to bring them all up. That's not sustainable. They had, and they got, and he got his quarterback from Cal. He got me. He got, he got this year's quarterback from TCU. He's getting, and then he's getting like a, yeah, he got the guy from TCU and the coach

[01:16:54] at TCU is like, yeah, he had more turnovers and touchdowns, but you know, we're not going to talk about that. And Kurt Tugnetti, who's like, oh, we'll figure out the whole turnover thing. But if he doesn't, the game's, if Mendoza doesn't score that touchdown on that fourth and eight, this entire season is different. Miami wins the national championship. I think Miami goes down scores and wins.

[01:17:20] Because Miami's a traditional team that has Hall of Fame NFL caliber players have come through those hallways. That's what you're going to get. What they're trying to do with this expansion is make sure that these other teams don't get in and we can get as many SEC and blue blood teams in as possible because they want to get all of them in all the time. But the JMU two lane thing last year ruined it.

[01:17:49] And they couldn't get all the SEC schools in that they wanted. They couldn't get all the big 10 schools in that they wanted. They felt like they lost some money. So now they figure we'll throw a few more games out there and that'll be enough to recoup the money we feel that we're owed. But it saturates, it completely waters down the tournament in and of itself.

[01:18:10] So the problem is when I was growing up, one of the things that I valued about college football was that it wasn't the NFL. You know, they had their own rules. They had the stadium atmosphere, the bands, all that stuff like that. And all college football is doing right now is turning itself into the NFL. From the standpoint of in the NFL, you get multiple chances.

[01:18:38] You know, you could go nine and eight, make the playoffs, and you could go on a Super Bowl run. We saw Eli do it nine and seven twice. You know, so when you look at college football. Kurt Warner did it in the game where he threw it against Pittsburgh. He almost won it. Yeah, he almost won it. Yeah. Then when you look at college football, when I was growing up, it was, ooh, you got a loss after November? You're done here. So it was like a playoff. You know what I mean? And then you had, you lost early in the season?

[01:19:08] Okay, that happens. You got 10 more games to make it up. So now we get to this point of we got three lost teams in the playoffs. And this is a symptom of Ole Miss, Alabama, and South Carolina not getting in the playoff that first year. That's what this is a symptom of. All right.

[01:19:28] Secondly, the thing that scares me about this is that North Dakota State has won 10 out of the last 15 FCS championships because FCS has been doing this since 2010. So from that time, North Dakota State has won 10 championships. Only one other team has won more than one. You know, so there's two teams. So North Dakota State got 10.

[01:19:57] South Dakota State got two. And then you got your Montana State, Sam Houston State, and James Madison. Shout out to Virginia. You know what I'm saying? So then, you know, that scares me because I think of, ooh, Ohio State. Like, think about this for a second. If Georgia had made all these playoffs or if Alabama had made all these playoffs,

[01:20:24] like, they could have ran a three-run, you know, like a two-loss Georgia. That year that Georgia killed Florida State in the Orange Bowl when it was still the 14th playoff, they might have won the national title that year if they got in the playoff. You know, so from that standpoint, I like the 12 works. Yeah, I like eight. I like eight. I've always liked eight. I like 12. I like the bye. I thought last year they figured out the bye, make sure, you know, I like 12.

[01:20:53] But the teams off the bye don't do well. Well, that's on you. You got to practice how you play. I like 12 because it did give – I'm going to say give. Ohio State was able to play for the national title. Hell, Miami played this past season against the number one team. Right, and see, and you could argue, but you could argue, you know, that they shouldn't have been able to.

[01:21:21] But my issue is who did you want in? Because it's not as if Miami was undefeated and Indiana had the two and three losses and had to get snuck in over Notre Dame or something of that position. But it was like you had the number one team, and then you had all your playoff teams to include Miami, who you put in over Notre Dame, who you had –

[01:21:51] Notre Dame was ranked above Miami every single week. We were having this conversation. What if? What if? What if? What if? And the last what if question was, what if Duke beats Virginia? That was the question. And me and you talked about it. They talked about it on Fox. They talked about it on CBS. They talked about it on ESPN. Everyone had this question. All of a sudden, Duke beats Virginia. Notre Dame is out. Miami is in.

[01:22:19] And how – and all of that stuff happened. So you, instead of sticking to your convictions as a committee, saying, hey, this is what we felt. They should have done it before. Personally, I think they should have just had Miami ahead of Notre Dame just off the head-to-head. Well, see, the problem is – Because their season looked exactly what it was like. Well, what the problem is is that – Because they didn't do that, now we need a whole new system. Well, the problem is is that the committee lies to us. So they say that they look at every week fresh.

[01:22:50] So when they put Notre Dame ahead of Miami, you know, Miami was coming off those losses to SMU and Louisville. So it made sense to drop Miami. But I am of the belief of head-to-head. So, like, they should have never been below Notre Dame. You know, but the problem is is that if you're looking at it freshly, I can't sit up here and say that a team that just lost two out in their last three games should be in the top ten

[01:23:17] or ahead of Notre Dame who was playing the way that Notre Dame was playing. So I get the argument that way. But it just didn't – like, for me, they both played 12 games. They were expecting Virginia to win, get in, and say, well, Virginia is this record and they won the ACC. Right. But Miami can't get in. Miami couldn't get in.

[01:23:45] But the fact that Miami's record was substantially better than Duke's was enough for them to rationalize it because ultimately you have to sell tickets to the event. And you have to honor the head-to-head. But Notre Dame would have sold tickets. Like, but the thing – so the thing for me, though, is that – I'm saying not putting Duke in. They weren't going to put Duke in. Well, yeah, they had five losses too. Yeah. But, like, my thing is, like, you play 12 games. Season's over.

[01:24:15] Miami's not playing in the ACC title game. Notre Dame isn't playing another game. That's where you can have the conversation of the season is over. No more losses are going to happen. I'm looking at this freshly. I got a head-to-head. Now I put Miami ahead of Notre Dame. You know what I'm saying? Versus Brady. That was what I had. It was like their season looked the same.

[01:24:38] They played the same level caliber of substandard teams. They played the same caliber of average teams. Their record and performance was about the same. I think one school probably scored. They had a common opponent. And I think they had two common opponents. And Miami scored more points than Notre Dame did against those two common opponents.

[01:25:03] Some cockamamie thing that everyone was talking about other than Miami beat Notre Dame head-to-head. So even with all the other stuff that came along with that, Miami still beat Notre Dame head-to-head. That should have been the whole conversation. But since they didn't initially have that conversation, they had to dance around it until the point it got where it was going to be final. There's nothing you can say about it.

[01:25:29] So when they came out and Miami was in the running for the national championship and Notre Dame wasn't, there's no more conversation the committee was committed to provide after that Sunday selection show. So they're like, okay, we can say whatever we want because we're going back to our respective divisions or conferences. And we're going to watch the playoffs like everybody else. So there are a couple of silver linings here, even though I hate it. There's a couple of silver linings here.

[01:25:59] One, with this proposal, you're getting rid of conference championship games. You know what I'm saying? Which I've been wanting that for March Madness. But in college football, it makes even more sense because in football, you have the uneven schedules. You know, we talked about how Texas had the easy SEC schedule the last two years. They made the SEC title game both those years. You know, last year, Indiana didn't play Ohio State in the regular season. They didn't play Michigan.

[01:26:28] You know, so on and so forth. You know, you look at the ACC. Virginia didn't play Miami. They didn't play Clemson. They didn't play, you know, like you just go down the list. So the conference championship isn't even a, you know, back when the conferences were smaller, the conference championship game was, hey, let's get Florida against Bama. Let's get Florida State against Virginia Tech because they went through their divisions. Now, there's not divisions anymore.

[01:26:55] And most teams that make the conference championship game are there by virtue of their schedule versus this is an elite team. So I think that proves that. But that's a byproduct of them chasing the bag. They could have kept the Pac-12 with USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal, Oregon, Oregon State. Even Utah was in there in that little, you know, in that mix.

[01:27:23] They could have kept the Big Ten the way it was. They could have kept the SEC the way it was. They didn't. They made all these changes and now it's starting to bite them in the ass because now you have Texas not making the college football playoffs in consecutive years.

[01:27:41] When you have your marquee guy that you want to highlight, you can't get him in the tournament because you wrote the rules because you thought the rules were only going to fit these bigger conferences. So then, you know, you've got the other silver lining is that the season would start a week earlier. You know, so what's so we call it week zero now. That would start the Thursday before, you know, it starts now.

[01:28:11] That would give you two weeks on the NFL, right? Yep. And, you know, say and potentially, you know, you could turn week zero from USC against Nevada to USC against Arizona like that playoff matchup would have been potentially. So, you know, we'll see. You know, I'm here for the experiment because some of these games do look good to me. I mean, I'm going to watch anyway, but I would have been interested in Miami, Iowa, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame.

[01:28:40] I would have been interested in Michigan, Utah and how ironic that Kyle Whittingham is the coach of Michigan now. Give it. Well, make it happen on week zero. I want all of these. I want if you're college football, I know the NCAA seems to not have a real grip and or control of anything that's happened in the NCAA except they get to make all the rules and kind of collect all the money. But yet all the conferences seem to make all the decisions. I have no ideas completely.

[01:29:09] It's like it makes for running asylum in the college football. Yeah. Give me these matchups. Give me these blue collar. Give me LSU, Michigan week zero into August. Let's get football started off right. You get a two week head start in the NFL. It's football. We all love it. People love it. Even people who don't love football love it. Hell, Rachel's gone to a bunch of high school football games.

[01:29:39] She's like, I can't really follow it. We went to a bunch of seven on seven tournaments. She's like, I like this way better. So even the non-traditional sense of football still can encapsulate a fan. You just got to put it out there to where we're not going with the traditional college football. You play Mercer State or Mike Wilson University and you pay. We would kick some ass.

[01:30:06] We get to see how all this spring practice, all your commitment hype, all your commitment videos, all of the spring practice videos, all the training videos, all the NIO money you spent. All right, cool. Oregon versus Minnesota. Or not because that's probably a big thing. Oregon, Texas Tech rematch week zero. What you got? Right. Right. So, you know, I mean, that's what it is.

[01:30:36] You know, like I said, I'm here for the experiment just because it's more football. I'll never say no to more football, but it's not necessary by any means. No one is not necessary by any means. People are going to complain. People are going to complain. People are going to talk about how the regular season doesn't matter. Guess what? You're still going to be excited for Ohio State, Michigan. You're still going to be excited for Florida State, Florida. You're still going to be excited for Arizona, Arizona State if you live in the West.

[01:31:06] BYU, Utah, Holi, Florida. USC, UCLA. You're still going to be excited. Push, push, USC, Notre Dame. Whenever they make that up, it's going to happen. Oh, by the way, real quick update. I'm 26, 25. Yeah, Minnesota's back. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So we will be back on Tuesday, y'all. You know what I'm saying? We'll have some playoffs. The Sixers might not be with us no more that night.

[01:31:34] But he is the one and only world famous, world renowned. Now, he is cool, calm, and collected. As long as you're not talking about LeBron James. I'm always calm. He ain't talking about the GOAT. You ain't calm when Rez on the show. He was born in Texas. Raised in the game. You know what I'm saying? Representing everything New Jersey. You know what I'm saying? He told me, keep your eyes on the New Jersey Devils next year.

[01:32:02] He is Mr. Logical. Don't bring feelings to a back fight. Don't do it. And then, of course, down here in the Alamo, it's your unorthodox statistician going left so much you thought I was southpaw. Next Saturday, we finally get Gina versus Ronda. I'm here for it. I saw Pacquiao and Floyd agree to their deal today. So we all going left. But I'm the only one that you think. 40-year-olds out here fighting. That's right.

[01:32:31] I am 2-5. This is Sports Reports' Order. Like, review, subscribe, share, rate, do all the free things, do all the good things, liquid death in hand. Join us. Thank you for your support. Say less, say more. Everywhere you get your podcasts. Sports Reports' Order is out. Sports Reports. Sports Reports. No gimmicks, no clowns. 2-5, Mr. Logical. We run this town. Real talk only. No chasing, no doubt.

[01:32:59] From the east to the west, it's the order we shout. Mic check, lights flash. Game time. Stay ready. Two vets in the zone. Keep the pressure real heavy. Big hits, big plays. Yeah, we breaking it down. Truth rings in your speakers. Every word is the crown. From the north side hustle to that southern flame. Midwest grind. West coast in the game. Sports talk kings. Yeah, we wear that crown. Turn it up. Let them know it's about to go down. Sports Reports. No gimmicks, no clowns. 2-5, Mr. Logical. We run this town. Real talk only.

[01:33:28] No chasing, no doubt. From the east to the west.