Jalen Williams's and Wemby’s Injuries, Game 3 Previews, and Mets Corner!

Coming up on the Zacklow show, it's Thursday. We have three huge games tonight, including two pivotal game threes, Nick's Hawks and Thunder wolves. We'll talk about those a little bit. And then Steve Jones Jr. is coming on to talk about all the stuff that happened last night and all of Friday's major game. Steve Jones Jr., you know, from Twitter, from the Dunker Spot, one of those guys where if you want to understand what happened in the game, you got to follow him, you got to follow his Twitter, Detroit Orlando, the pistons even it up. What did they do? What are some counters for the magic in game three Oklahoma City Phoenix? It looked like the headline was going to be, whoa, boy, J. Dubb is all the way back. How scary is this freaking team? And then in the third quarter, he pulled up with a hamstring issue. We'll talk about the implications of that for the thunder. When do they actually need jail and Williams back? How do they adjust without them? Phoenix, Devon Booker went at the officials. There were some shaky calls in game three. We'll talk about or game two. We'll talk about whether they were right or wrong. And then Steven, I will get into Lakers, Rockets, Houston. Hello, the playoffs started and six or Celtics. Shay Sarano comes on to talk about spurs blazers. His life is a spurs fan. His relationship with his dad, Denny Avdia, Scoot Anderson, that whole series going back to Portland with or without Wembee in game three. We'll see. And then it's time. That's corner. Yeah, they won. Throw God damn parade. That's corner. I'll come it up on the Zach Lo Show. The Zach Lo Show is brought to you by Fandool. The NBA postseason is here. And Fandool knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. Fandool is the best place to bet the teams, players and plays during their playoff run. Build the same game parley or try live betting and jump in after tip off. And don't forget, with Fandool, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the Fandool sportsbook app now and play your game. 20 or over in select states, 18 and over in DC Kentucky oilman gambling problem called one in 100 gambler called one 888 789 7777 or is it ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Welcome to the Zach Lo Show day six of the NBA playoffs three more big games tonight including pivotal game threes between the wolves and nuggets and nicks and hawks two fascinating series. Who you got in those two series, Steve Jones, Jr. If you've made picks, did you make picks? I have nicks and six. Me too. What was the other one you said? Nuggets wolves. I have nuggets and seven. Okay, I had nicks and six. I'm I still feel good despite the hilarity of the last game. And I had nuggets and six still feel pretty good about the nuggets and six or seven, but that's going to be a fun one tonight as those resume will see what adjustments come to bear. Let's talk about the games from last night first, Oklahoma City Phoenix. Looked very much like the headline of that game was going to be whoa, Jalen Williams is like all the way back. He's spinning through double teams. He's roasting also Iga Dara on switches. He's running in transition. His size on defense. You like feel it on the wing is Phoenix is like, is he? Where is he? Is he going to rotate here? Is he going to rotate? Oh, we just turned them all over again. And then the headline shifted to uh oh, hamstring pulled up in the third quarter. He'll have an MRI today. We'll know today tomorrow whenever what his status is. I would assume they treated this. It was the other hamstring in the regular season, but they aired on the side of extreme caution in the regular season because they're worth the number one seed the whole season. They didn't need to do anything up to oh in this series. I would expect them to also air on the side of maybe less extreme caution, but I would expect so I, but I do expect them to miss sometime just, you know, you have the luxury of it. Um, Steve, what do they actually need Jalen Williams to do? Could they win the title without Jalen Williams? I mean, based on the success they had all year, you can make the argument that they could because they have the depth. They still have the line up versatility. The defense is still strong. I think part of I'm glad you mentioned at the shame of the injury is you really felt the force that he played with on both ends of the floor and how he can elevate them. So reminder of how good Jalen Williams is for the so come a city thunder machine. So for me, I think to win a championship in this western conference, they will probably need him absolutely by the conference finals by the latest. I would agree. Second round. I think next round, which we will talk about, even if it ends up being the Lakers with Luca and Reeves at just say wildly optimistic. They're both 90 percent of themselves. I think they can beat the Lakers without J. Dubb. That's how good they are. They have all, you know, they have a J Mitchell. They have Kaisen Wallace. If Kruzel will now play every game, which he doesn't in the regular season, they went double big a little bit more right away last night after J. Dubb got hurt. But the shame of it is not only was he playing well, a couple of things happened right before he got injured that I was like super excited to see. Number one, they ran an empty side pick and roll with him in heart and steam on the right side of the floor that ended in a lob dunk for heart and steam with Shay off the ball. And like that's one of the things that having AJ Mitchell is a very good player. You can move Shay off the ball a little bit when they share the floor. J. Dubb is bigger, which you actually really feel, I think, defensively when he's like the second biggest guy on the floor in their chat at the five or whoever at the five lineups. They're one big lineups. But he's also like, this guy's an all NBA level ball handler and all NBA level secondary option. And you can, it just opens up more stuff for Shay. And they also finally, I've been waiting for this Steve Jones junior. They tried it out. Shay, Kruzel, AJ Mitchell, J. Dubb and Shet, which is a five man lineup that played seven possessions in the regular season. And I'm like, maybe they just don't want to try this out. Maybe it's too small. Maybe it's like they want to lose, they want Kason. They finally tried it out. And I was like, yes, let's go. And then he got hurt right away. But I do think, I do think as great as they are, whoever gets to the conference finals, assuming Wembee is healthy and knock up Woody will be after this concussion, assuming the nuggets whoever gets through that side of the bracket is healthy. I just think those teams are so good that the margin from as great as Oklahoma City is to how their ceiling is nudged up with the six, eight monster like that. I do think they need them to get to the finals. No, I agree, especially with Stan Tony's ability to poke at them defensively and then Denver, their ability to, you know, score on the other end. I think you need Jaylen Williams and his force, especially with how teams want to guard Shay. You put Jaylen Williams one pass away. You're trying to help. It makes a huge difference. I don't know what to really say about this series. Oklahoma City is plus 25 per 100 possessions. The Sun's offense is drawing dead. The Suns have turned the ball over on 21% of their possessions, which is you have no shot. The Thunder are just making them shoot a ton of contested pull-up mid-range jumpers. Their threes are way down. Their rim shots are way way down. And only 19% of their shots have come at the basket. They just have no answer for the Thunder defense. So let's talk about the officiating because that became a story last night. Devon Booker called out James, was it James Williams? I think by name for having a crap game, maybe it was James Capers. I can't remember which James was. It was one of them. And we had, let's see, we had a unnatural offense, a most shooting motion offensive foul on Devon Booker. We had Devon Booker getting called for a technical for kind of saving the ball in a scrum play that there was actually a foul call, but he saved it and hit big jail of Williams in the butt. He got called for a technical. And I understand the frustration. I'll just put it to you. Do you understand the frustration? Did you think that was officiating like shaking him? I mean, I never really think too much about the officials. That's my dad's fault. But I think for if you're in the perspective of Devon Booker, yeah, they're really physical. They hit me. They're showing their hands. Every drive I'm getting hit. I'm kind of tired of it. I'm not getting the calls I need. I'm out of rhythm. I'd like to go home and get some calls. So I understand that portion of it as far as it goes. I think O.K.C.'s defense has been too overwhelming for me to say, hey, they are purely winning this because. No one's gonna say that. But I mean, I think if I'm Devon Booker, and this is the playoffs, we play a little bit of game of thrones here. Let's talk about the rest so we can change this so I can get some quick whistles and get rhythm. And we can have some fun when I go home. So I think that is more of the play. And it's not even something he usually does. It's like what the first time that he's really just gone out like this to this degree. I like it. I just like I respect him because he does not do this. Like you know that there's going to be Dylan Brooks, Chicanery in this series. And there was a lot last night. And it was delightful. First of all, Shay and Lou Dorte with Hall of Fame level facial expressions in reaction to Dylan Brooks, just Hall of Fame. Shay's like, look at this guy over here. I couldn't decide if he flipped the bird or not. It was like he's pointing, but in the act of pointing, the middle fingers elevated. Then he quickly switched to the thumb that they're like, oh, look at this guy. And then Lou Dorte when they got tangled up under the rim gave just a great like, whoa, okay, all right. But I hated the, first of all, I hate all reviews, but I hated the offensive foul on Booker where he went up into Caruso and they called it an unnatural shooting motion. Look normal to me. And then like a few minutes after that, maybe it was even the possession after that. Shay isolated on Goliath. Now, Gillespie puts his left arm out to try to cut Shay off and he's like, you know what's going to happen? There's a reason why guys defend Shay with their hands behind their backs sometime. And then Shay picks up his dribble, sticks the ball underneath Gillespie's arm and raises it up and gets a foul call. It's a rip through, it's a, I guess a foul, but like, it's a wildly unnatural shooting motion. Like, it actually looks like if you watch the shooting motion, it looks like he's going to shoot a two handed, underhand shot up around Gillespie's arm. If not, if that's not an unnatural shooting motion, what is it? And then Shay had the classic like pump fake guy kind of bites on a little bit in the second half. And I just like, barf into him and get a foul call. So I get the frustration and the technical was bullshit. Sorry. That was a bad technical. See, so you think the rest, they didn't, they didn't have the best effort in that game. I didn't. I don't think it matters because Oklahoma City's defense is just so good. And you just watch these booker, green, whatever Gillespie picking rules. And here comes, you know, they bring the big guy up. Also, it comes up, chat, eye heart, big jail in Williams. So ever it is, they're up pretty high to cut off the ball handler. Two shooters on the weak side, incomes the low man. As you pointed out on Twitter, they seem to like having Shay as the low man, the, the sun. Even though Shay is just blocking shots at the rim, like fucking the campaign of tumbo in this series. And then, and then there's one other guy. And you really, this is where you really feel jail in Williams size when he's the zone up guy between Shay's guy in the corner and the other shooter on the wing. The sun's trying to bring that shooter up toward the top of the arc to make that jail in Williams defender defend the most space possible. And it just like doesn't even matter because the thunder are so big and so fast, especially when they have Jaydub the size factor and so tenacious that you can see the ball handlers pause and second guest themselves, like Booker had one, you highlighted on Twitter where Igodaro was like wide open under the rim, rolled to the rim, rolled behind the big guy defender, Booker rises up to shoot or pass or something, 12 feet away. Looks like an easy dump off, but he sees this monster, six, eight jail in Williams, rotating down toward Igodaro kind of panics because he's coming real fast and he's big and tries to throw it against his momentum back outside and it gets picked off. And there was like three of those where Devon Booker went left on a pick and roll, got up, thought he had something realize, I don't know what I have, I might have something. It's not what I thought I had and I might have that other thing over there, but they're coming that way and through this pass against his momentum and it was stolen or went out of bounds and they're just, they're just under talented against his team. They don't have enough offensive firepower, I would be surprised if they won a game, but the defense is obviously a warning shot to the rest of the league, like we have another year we can get to and we're already at it. They just, they closed windows so quick as you said and I think the biggest thing is like in theory, if you're Phoenix, Devon Booker should be able to get this coverage that should open this up and Oklahoma City's too versatile and they have too much nuance to where their bigs can be at the level, they can mix in a switch, we can help on the weak side. You're thinking there's an advantage it's gone next time we give you something different. So how many times you've seen Phoenix try to run a set, go off ball, try and get Booker off ball, try and get some juggle handoffs, play through Oso, Oklahoma City denies their physical and you look, they're 14 on the clock and either Dylan Brooks, Devon Booker, Jay and Green has the ball with a pause of, okay, guess I have to go find one. That's not ideal. They've just taken a lot of things off the offensive menu for the sons. Um, yeah, I mean, we can sit here and talk about like maybe they'll start Roy Sonil for some more shooting and he's certainly loosened up the offense last night. Maybe Grayson Allen gets healthy. That would help. Maybe Mark Williams gets healthy. That would help. And Anna, there's not, I would be surprised no matter who plays if they want a game in the series. No shame in that. The only thing that's going to matter coming out of this series is jail and Williams health and we'll learn about it more in the next 42 to 78 hours, whatever it is or 48 to 72 hours. I don't know why I went with the other numbers. And you know, knock on wood. He's obviously had a brutal season of just one injury after another from the wrist, which you played through last year to the right hamstring to the left hamstring. And you just want, he's an all NBA player. You want to see him healthy. He obviously had legendary games in the finals last year that they needed every bit of them against the Pacers and as great as they are and as sexy as a hot take it might be to say, they don't even need them to win the championship. Yeah, there's a universe where they can win the title without him because they'd be favorites over someone coming out of the East and all that. I just find it hard to believe that they can get through at least the last two playoff rounds without him at that level of competition. Maybe they could, but I think they're margin shrinks to a dangerous place. Okay. Any other thoughts on the series or can we switch gears and leave the suns in the desert? We can switch gears. Orlando Detroit, Steve, if you like offense, you should probably watch a different series. In the regular season, the worst offense in the NBA, the Brooklyn Nets averaged 108 points per 100 possessions. Through two games in this slugfest, Detroit, 101 points per 100 possessions, Orlando 98 points per 100 possessions. They are 14th and 16th in offensive rating among the playoff teams with Phoenix sandwiched in between them. They are 15th and 16th among 16 playoff teams in three point percentage. So everybody is missing everything. But Detroit came out last night. They played a much cleaner defensive game. You could count the real mistakes on one hand after what I call the frazzled performance in game one. And they had some counters to Orlando's scheme of switching the K Durin. Go underneath and switch and try to take Durin out of the game. Durin didn't have a, I thought Durin had another game. He looks really, really frazzled and sped up and forcing it on offense. But Detroit discovered some things about how to counter that. What did you see from the piston's offense in terms of like, okay, we saw what Orlando did in game one. Where's what we're going to come out and try to counter it in game two? Well, one, I thought Kay Cunningham set the tone early in Assar Thompson helped as far as just try and do get to a space where okay, you had success mixing in switching and being at the level and dropping back, I'm going to, I'm going to push your hand early. So I'm going to turn the corner and window card junior, you come with me. I'm in the paint. Assar, please try and do a help be the trees. Please try and set a flare. I'll find you late. So, hey, say at this high screen for me, as soon as I see window card junior jump out, I'm just going to give you a pocket pass, get a roll, Jaylander and get a feel for something so we can get something. Here's Assar Thompson coming from the corner. That was big. I think little things like working to just set a pin down for a big whether it was Isaiah Stewart or Jaylander in to try and get Orlando's big on the move to where okay, you may want to switch, but it's not as comfortable because you're running up to where I'm at. So I think he got go on one early in that game. I think it was an adventure for Jaylander and I think he was thinking a lot, especially in that first half. I think he felt it. There was a position about one 30 mark in that second quarter, Jaylander and screens for Kate coming in, right? In Orlando, switches Franz Vaughan to him and Kate fires it right to Javonte green on the right wing because he's thinking, okay, Jaylander and it's going to roll and see you. Let's get you one big fella and Jaylander and just buffered at the elbow. And it's like, oh, okay, and Kate's like, okay, give me the ball and then he scores on window card junior. I think the big thing, if we're talking purely about Jaylander and in the third quarter, was his ability to position himself to make sure that he got a role. And so he did a good job of flipping the angle of his screens. And so typically if you're going to set a screen, the defense is going to just kind of slide and give themselves a position where they can get under you. And then that way you can't roll your own into their body. And he just kind of worked a position where he could get a touch and then release and that allowed him to get a role. And so they went to these super high picking roles and he set them flat and he's like, I'm actually not really hitting you. I'm just going to touch you and get out of here. And so them being able to get him rolling, I thought was really important at third quarter. The other thing was Kate cutting him, kind of looking at everyone on the Orlando Magic side saying, I think I can score on you. Shallow, let's dance, Franz, Desmond Bay and Jalen, let's go. I think part of that is poking at the switching aspect where, okay, I don't want you to be as comfortable. I feel comfortable attacking and getting to my spots. And if I could cycle through these matchups, like it's not Apple's apples, but the Miami Milwaukee series where Jimmy Beller just didn't care who was guarding him and said, it doesn't matter. And now you're searching for something. If you're Detroit, can we get Kate to position where, okay, maybe we get to run rolling. We also have Kate playing at this high level. Does that make Orlando change what they want to do defensively? And is that open things back up for us, whatever playoff questions you have about Detroit? If we can get to run rolling and we can get rotation from Orlando, we now at least have openings as opposed to just what game one was. Yeah, I don't want to exaggerate it. Like the piston scored 99 points per 100 possessions last night. They had a bad offensive game partly because they're turning it over like 20 times a game. And and during is a big part of that. He's in his own head. You can see him being like, I got to do something, I haven't compromised the defense, but I'm, let me just drive it. Wendell Carter Jr. and see what happens and what's happening is Wendell Carter Jr. is just like, thanks, I'm going to take the ball and you're going to fall over. And I'm going to dunk it on the other end. But to your point about like the switching going under and switching gum them up in game one. And last night I was waiting to see how they would adjust. And adjustment number one is exactly what we said, jail and urine slipping so hard out of these picks. Sometimes not even setting them, like not setting a screen at all, just like getting into the area where a pick were to have if it were to happen would happen here. And then I'm out and Kate, understanding that and delivering the past early, like you can't switch. You don't have time to switch. And you saw a urine get a, he got one dunk out of it. You got flagrant fouled by Wendell Carter, Jr. And then he hit a Sar Thompson for two dunks on sort of the big to big kind of passing. You saw that and then you saw, like you said, Kate being like, Oh, okay, but I'm Kate cunning him. You're going to switch Wendell Carter, Jr. on to me. He can't guard me. I'm just going to go buy him. And yeah, there's going to be some traffic around the basket because we play a lot of guys who are non shooters, but it's not traffic. I can't navigate because the biggest guy on the floor is the guy guarding me. And I'm going to get by that guy and like, what am I? I'm afraid of palo bancaro around the room. I'm afraid of Desmond Bain. No, I'm just going to go. And that the other thing to your point was he started to hunt other guys. And the magic are not like a super huntable team. Like they have a lot of good defenders. But Kate, cutting him can do damage against palo bancaro 101. Kate, cutting him can beat Desmond Bain 101. He can post up Desmond Bain. And particularly if Bain is on Duncan Robinson. And I think last night was a reminder of how critical Duncan Robinson shooting and movement is to their team. If Bain's on Duncan Robinson, by all means, start setting some Duncan Robinson screens for Kate, cutting him and start randomly flaring out here and they're slipping out of them, getting switches. And you even saw like they've had Duncan Robinson and Durin set like really sort of random. I wouldn't even call them staggered screens. Just like they would just run up together like a big rugby scrum and set picks for Kate, cutting him and make the magic guess. Like what direction is Kate going to go? Wait, who's screening for who and where and why is it a back screen? Is it not? Where's Duncan Robinson going? Just sewing that kind of confusion. It's not, again, it was a bad offensive game. But when they defend like they did last night, they just need like an okay offensive game. And I thought they made some of the right adjustments. Now the question for you, but your coaching hat on Steve Jones, you near is you just saw that as Orlando. Your offense is a whole other mess that we can talk about. But you saw what Detroit did against your defense. The counter came. What's your counter to the counter? If they have, they haven't figured anything out. But if the pistons have at least a like found the right levers to pull against our goal under and switch thing which worked in game one, we're going to see those same levers again. What's our adjustment for game three? Well, that's what I was looking for in that third quarter because Detroit really got some casual rules. But if I'm Orlando, I'm thinking okay, we do not want to give two on the ball and just purely give them the roles. We could go drop and just drop back and try and contain and say, Hey, this is the shot you get. We did take terms that way. Or we could kind of stick and just try and mix and okay, let's make sure we protect and have talent and slips. Hey, you fight over, you know, show some nuance and let's try and mix things up to where we're not going to get this automatically. And so I think for Orlando, it's more they have to keep terms within what they've done in so far in game one game two. They can't necessarily like Detroit as not great offensively as it was in totality. They can't let them feel unlocked. So I think it's okay. Maybe we just switch harder and maybe we show help earlier to take away the jail in general. And we just kind of recreate it that way. It's where we got this switch. You don't necessarily have the role still and now we get you back to thinking a little bit. And so it could just be doubling down harder on that. But I don't know how much they want to just give Detroit traditional pick and roll coverage is overall. Yeah, I could see them going under on Cade and not switching just like we'll stay home up. We'll still go under screens and like if you can beat us with jump shots, beat us with jump shots and maybe you will. I can see them like if they switch, I can see them like sending a double team at Cade and just every once in a while just throw them off rhythm and say, Hey, look, we're going to double you. Get the ball at your hands. And we're going to force you to make a bunch of interior passes because again, you're not going to have clean spacing on the floor. Someone's going to be in the dunker spot. Someone's going to be here. Just mix it up a little bit like that. What about Orlando's offense, which was good enough, certainly in game one and was a little bit of a mess last night. I think fell into some of their more static bad habits, bad shots selection. It's funny, like the magic talk a lot about how we can't let our offense dictate our defense. Like we have a bad offensive game. Sometimes our defense isn't good enough because you know, the players let their offense dictate their defense. I feel like sometimes the magic let their offense dictate their offense. Like if they start to go through a rut on offense, they don't dig out of it. They actually just fall back on their absolute worst habits offensively of just standing around, ISOing, not going at the right matchups. But how can they attack what was one of the three best defenses in the NBA this year? Well, I mean, I think you look at the way they looked at Dunkin Robinson, especially Palaban Caro, and he said, please come here repeatedly. Let's attack you and let's use that as a matchup. And so I think it's more so. Okay, let's use Palaban's screener, see if we can get Cade in action, see if we can get Dunkin Robinson in action. I don't know how much of this is going to be a pure movement series for Orlando's because of how they want to two degree control tempo in the half court and trying to attack matchups win matchups and leverage the high confidence of their top four players against Detroit and keep this thing close in the fourth quarter. You got to deal with us. So I'm thinking there'll probably attack matchups trying to get palatable closest in the block, trying to probably establish fronds. So I wouldn't be surprised if hey, Cade, you're in action. Dunkin Robinson, you're in action. Tobias Harris, you might be in action. We're going to try and poke at you guys in a way to where, okay, because that first quarter, you felt Detroit's energy and effort when they were rotating, protecting drives, getting back out and rotating that second quarter, which wasn't the prettiest, you know, Orlando, you felt Orlando, while not really scoring, still having the confidence of we know we can get a basket. And so it's, that's where it's like, it's a mirror series because they both need their defense to allow what they want to do offensively to make sense. But if I'm Orlando, we've got to find pressure points because when Palo has a go and gets the line, Detroit may send a double, but I think there was one, they didn't want to switch Dunkin Robinson. And so Tobias stayed on him. Dougal was like, well, I'm in a double and it opened up a three for doesn't bang. So it's like one pass away. And it was actually, I think it was one where Palo did not have a switch. You just had to buy his Harris on him. And they rushed at him. Dunkin Robinson doubled as you said from band. And I was like, why are you? Like what? The worst case scenario is Palo Bancaro takes an 18 foot fade away over the guide that you have assigned to guard Palo Bancaro. Just stay home. Don't the Desmond Bane 3 is like a gift for them. Chill out on the help. But I agree with you. Like Palo in the playoffs has 17 post touches. That's number one among all players. 1.8 points per possession according to second spectrum tracking data out of those plays. And I just like, they're going to try to hide Dunkin Robinson on Suggs or Anthony Black who needs to do a little bit more in the series or whoever is not Desmond Bane. But a lot of times he stuck on Bane because Bane's guarding him a lot on the other end. On those possessions, you could not let that go to waste. Dunkin Robinson is guarding your most dangerous shooter by a country mile. A guy who can catch and shoot off movement, an accomplished screen flare guy. Bring him into the action. Have him set a cross screen for bancaro underneath the room. Whatever it is, there aren't a lot of places to attack the pistons. That's one. And you know, maybe just more picking roles aimed at Durin because he can be he can have some hiccups on defense. But these are just like Orlando's just not a good offensive team. And it's just going to come down to turnovers, rebounding, free throws, like all those kinds of things. But it will be I think this is going to be a series along series now. And I don't know how much of an attractive chess match it's going to be. But last night was I thought a good, the right kind of response from the pistons on both ends of the floor. Not a spectacular one, although that 30-3 run was like, whoa, that is an avalanche. But you know, I think we're set up for a fun series. I picked Detroit in five because I just thought they would come out like they were shot out of a cannon anxious to end the home play off losing streak. I just didn't know what to make of Orlando. But that game one performance was eye opening. I would switch my pick now to Detroit in seven. I think it's going to be a long series. Oh seven. Okay. I also will, I also will pick I think we're having a confrontation in game three. I think we're having double technicals, a shoving match involving over under 4.5 players because Isaiah Stewart was doing Isaiah Stewart stuff last night, including challenging every shot at the rim and winning like 80% of them. And then Palo got him. And the game, if the game had been closer, I wonder what would have happened because you could tell Palo was like, shut, shut up. I got you on that one. And Isaiah Stewart was like, I'll bring I'll be here next time. Like you want to do it again. I'll be here next time. Like something's happening in this series pretty soon. All right. You want to move on to the West? Yeah. This is probably the game I'm most excited about Friday. Oh, Rockets Lakers. Okay. I thought Houston's, I thought Emeo Doca's coaching performance in game two was borderline insane. I just did not understand anything the Rockets were doing on offense. Reed Shepard Kevin Durant and Alperin Chen Goon played four minutes together the entire game. That threesome is your only roadmap to functional NBA offense against a team who is missing its two best players, which should be shouted from the rooftops all the time. The rockets are struggling against the team, missing its two best players against the team that has had to have Luke Canard score like 30 points a game to win these games. Those three guys playing four minutes together, Reed Shepard coming off the bench and playing 11 minutes. And he didn't play well. He didn't make shots. He was a little like a little frazzled himself. I just thought was like a coaching self sabotage of the level that I have not seen in a long time. Their offense is so bad that there are so many possessions where like nothing happens until there's 14 on the shot clock. And then one thing happens, it doesn't do anything. Like it doesn't switch the match up in any favorable way for the rockets. And then they act like 14 on the shot clock means we're done. Like we just can't do anything else. And Alper and Shengoon or Amin Thompson is like, all right, I guess I'm just going to dribble from 20 feet out and pray that something happens. And they miss shots or Marcus smart strips them. I just can't believe the lack of functionality in their offense. A lot of it just comes down to, if Reed Shepard is going to play 11 minutes, they don't have any guards who can run a functional pick and roll. They don't have anybody but to rant to do it. And he had nine turnovers, he's 37 years old or whatever he is. They don't have enough. They play a bunch of lineups with two, even three guys who are complete zeros from three point range, including Shengoon who has forgotten how to shoot threes. And so there's just like even if the Lakers have to send help somewhere and they're junking up the series with switching and doubling Durant every time. They don't care because they can double Durant. Behind him are Clint Capella, Josh Akogi and Amin Thompson in a traffic jam that the Lakers can navigate. I just think you, I don't understand why, why is Reed Shepard on the team? Why did they draft him? They're only path to offense is that triangle of players and to play it four minutes in a game that you didn't necessarily have to win, but no one wants to be down to zero. It's kind of a crisis. And you couldn't score at all and you had no offense other than, okay, someone just do, we'll do one thing and then someone dribble 50 times and get to the rim. I just thought it was like unconscionably bad. Not here. I mean, I think Houston was searching in that game to throughout the game line up wise trying to find what they do. And I think they have to commit offensively to searching was Reed Shepard playing hide and seek in the locker room. What are they searching for? He's sitting on the bench like, well, no, let's let's think about it, right? You go back to the start of the second half. They ding Alper and Shengoon and pick a role. Pretty good. And they find some skip passes. They go to switch. They switch and double. And so that's when Houston went small and so we're going to switch everything. And then that's when they really had the line up where people are like, why are these people playing together? And like, he may tap the defense button. So do you have any other buttons that the only button? Is it like the button that Zach Alphanakis has on between two ferns, or it's just one button that you just tap over and over again, like, it's like, anyway, I'm sorry. I just was like in watching the game in complete shock. Well, one, you got to give a lot of credit to the Lakers defense for the timing on these double teams. They're playing great. It's consistently. It's been incredible. And I think for Houston, Tempo has been a concern all year long as far as getting to your stuff sooner, give yourself a little bit more room for air, get to a second action. And so I think there were pockets in the third quarter where they were able to get to something that resembled flow and they're going to have to make quick decisions if Kevin Durant is going to get low, but double to this level to where, OK, it may not be a perfect world, but you got to drive some of these closeouts. It can't always be a three. You got to make some shots, but drive a closeout. Get the ball back to Alper and Shingu. There were moments where, OK, Kevin Durant gets double, the timing was excellent by the Lakers. But he advances it to Barrett Smith. Barrett tries to drive, gets to Shingu, but now Shingu is able to get to Kevin Durant and get a roll out of it. Use what the Lakers are doing against them to a degree because the reason they're switching in doubly is because they don't want Alper and Shingu in rolling, and they just, so we don't want Kevin Durant to have the space. We don't want Alper and Shingu in the roll, so we're going to place him in this box. They have to leverage that against them. And so I think using Armand Thompson as a screener, they did that once I could believe in the third quarter. The problem was LeBron sniffed it out, so it didn't really matter. But hey, can you just use him as someone who can poke at Prolaker switching? I think the double edge sword for the Rockets offense is you don't have Alper and Shingu can go in because the Lakers, especially Game 1 and Game 2 said, okay, we're going to push your catches out. We're going to show baseline help. It made it to be a hard double. What are you going to do about it? Is that going to affect your aggression level? If it does, okay, we're not leading on that. Now we over lean on Kevin Durant, trying to use him to screen Prolaker Shingu and trying to use him off wall in staggers and pin down to take 48 seconds, trying to use him in dribble handoffs. But they've got to find a way to find the comfort and use the space to keep pressure on Lakers defense. Like there was a set they ran in that, I think it was the fourth quarter, Kevin Durant, picking roll, got the switch, Marcus Mark couldn't double, turned the corner finished. The problem is like the Lakers are comfortable and they adjust on the fly and they're willing unlike many teams, like you put people in the corners, usually the defense stays flat, right? We saw it last year in the playoffs, they'll just come up to the elbow anyways and say whatever, make this pass. And so now that you have the rhythm of what they've shown you, can you poke at it and make it a little bit untenable? I don't know. To your point, but there's a half point. They opened the second half with a functional basketball play, clearly a scripted one. Kevin Durant came off a Josh Akogi pin down on the left side of the floor. Why is that important? Because Luke Conard is guarding Josh Akogi and the rockets cannot just sit there and let Luke Conard exist in the series without going at him and they did that way too often, just let him exist without punishing him. Switch of Luke Conard on Kevin Durant. Great. That's a great accomplishment. That's what you want. Step one, Lakers double. Step two, Kevin Durant passes to Jabari Smith on the right wing, step three, defense resets. This is the moment on so many rockets possessions where everything just dies. And you know what happened on this possession? Jabari Smith went right back to Kevin Durant, Shengoon flew up and set a second, a pick and roll for Kevin Durant. And the Lakers are like, oh, we got to defend another thing and they're moving it fast. And Shengoon rolled to the rim. The help was not there. He kicked it to Jabari Smith Jr in the corner who missed a wide open three. Great process. Did make the shot. And it's like, why can't we do that every time? And they have a vibe of like, I always remember year one of the LeBron heat when they were trying to figure out how to use Wade and LeBron and like, first world problems, the delta between the stuff they would run out of timeouts and the stuff they would run in the flow of the game was so wide like they would run the sophisticated five man stuff out of timeouts. And they do it once and then the game would be going on. And it was like, they didn't know how to do any of that in the flow of the game. The rockets have that vibe to them. And I'm like, can we just bottle that? We had another possession where after a Lakers make it was in the first quarter, I think. I'm in Thompson ran like Ram sprint dribbled up the floor. I think a Kogi set a screen for him with 20 on the shot clock. I paused it. It was like 20 on the shot clock after a make. The Lakers were not back on defense. They were not set. They had nobody back at the rim Thompson got ahead of steam against canard and laid the ball in and it's like, oh, we're allowed to do that. We're allowed to like do something with 20 on the shot clock and go. And I was like, yeah, do more. That's the only way you're going to score because the Lakers to give them credit. Super high IQ team. They have the rockets on their heels because they don't know what to expect defensively. And offensively, look, they're only scoring 113 points, 100 possessions, which is like average to below average, but given the talent on the floor, they are dictating the terms of the series offensively and getting pretty good shots across the board. I mentioned Palo's post numbers. He has 17 post touches. LeBron is number two with 16 post touches and they're getting 1.4 points per possession according to second spectrum out of those post touches. And Akogi is the only guy on the team who can kind of not get bulldozed, even if it's like a slow motion bulldoze, like just like six dribbles. If you give them six dribbles, I'm and Thompson is going to be under the basket. And Tarihsen is going to be under the basket and between that and Kenard. And I have to give JJ credit, like people don't think the Lakers are a good shooting team. They actually have a pretty decent amount of shooting now. And they're getting stuff out of smart, eight in picking roles and LeBron, eight in picking roles. And the reason they're getting stuff out of it is on the strong side is Rui Hachimura and he's a good shooter. And on the weak side is Luke Kenard setting some screening action with whoever is the fifth guy on the floor that's just meant to distract the defense because it's Luke Kenard and it's working. They're just totally glued up on both of those guys. And Aiden's getting dunged at the rim like the Lakers are running good stuff in this series. But this all comes down to if Houston just can't score at all, they're not going to win this series. And if they lose this series in dispiriting fashion, I think the offseason ramifications could be massive, but we can come back to that any any final thoughts on what you're seeing. X's and O's wise here. Was I asked one question because they tried to put Reach up at one pass away from Kevin Arant a few times in that game. Do you think Houston can have enough success to make you the Lakers dial it back? Dot. I don't think so because I just think the Lakers are going to survive with junk defenses anyway. Like whatever it is, they're just going to keep just randomly switching, doubling. I don't think so. But to your point about Reid Shepherd, it's like, like you run a shepherd, Chenggu and Pick and Roll, and you have a guy who knows how to compromise the defense. Kevin Durant on the weak side, now you've got something, Durant and Reid Shepherd, two man game together with Chenggu and Lurking over here, and now you've got something. It's going to be threatening. I just don't know that the Lakers have any other response other than just continue to junk it up a little bit to their credit. They're doing it quite well. I'm so frustrated because I understand Van Ville is hurt. Dorian Finney Smith has been a zero. Steven Adams is a whole ingredient in your offense that's gone, by the way, I should have led with this. The rockets are scoring 105 points per 100 possessions, which would have been dead last by a mile in the regular season. To have that number while rebounding 43% of your own misses, like that's like a record setting level of offensive rebounding, and your points for possession are still so bad, is almost so bizarre that it's an accomplishment of some kind. But I'm just frustrated because if, let's say they lose in six or five or something that's not like, we made a real strong comeback and got it to game seven and whatever. What have I learned about my team? If I get to the offseason and the rotation is the way that it's been in the first two games? The whole blessing in disguise, which I never bought for a second about Fred Van Ville getting injured was, well, I'm going to learn a lot about what I have and read Shepard and Ahmed Thompson, and that's going to inform how I build my team going forward. Right now, I don't feel like I'm in Thompson is not a point guard right now, and that's fine. He's still very good for what he is. I haven't learned enough about me, Shepard. I haven't learned anything useful about my team, and I'm going to go into this offseason facing massive decisions about my coach, about Yannis, about whatever. And if I'm a team like Miami, and this all goes haywire for the rockets, I might just poke around like, hey, you guys still want the rant because we might be able to like the ramifications are huge, but I just feel like I'm frustrated because I don't have as much information about my players as I should based on the roster. Okay. That's it. Okay. So so so so so so so so so so so so rockets and six, I don't know. I picked rock. I mean, I just can't believe I picked the rockets to win the series. Obviously, Durant missing game one was a little bit of a wild card. I just can't believe how bad they've looked against the Lakers team with no Luca and no Reeves. It's just it's shocking to me. All right. Sixers Celtics. Let's wrap with that. Sixers. Awesome win in game two in Boston, VJ and Tyrese Maxi, who I will not call them by their horrible nickname. We're outstanding. A lot of it is just in game one. They shot four of 23 on threes. The sixers did in game two. They shot 19 of 39 while the Celtics shot 13 of 50. But you were on this right from the beginning in game one, where people were shitting on Nick nerfs, people were shitting on the sixers for looking overmatched and it'll prepared. And I was watching it and I was like, I think they've actually got some good ideas. And I said this, I think with Bill on Sunday, I think they've actually got some good ideas on how to exploit Boston's tendencies on defense. And those good ideas didn't work in game one. They worked in game two. I'm wondering if you can kind of explain in layman's terms of what Philly is doing and how they are leveraging Boston's habits on defense against them. Well, Boston was lights out in game one as far as dictating terms to Philadelphia and saying, hey, we're going to keep our big back. This is a team that's really going to collapse and protecting the paint. One of my favorite things to watch, if you're trying to drive into Boston, you're going to see Jersey's just emerge and bodies in your way. But basically Tyrese Maxi here are your options. You will have space. Trust our defense to navigate the screen. So if you want to pull up, it's going to be contested. If you want to turn the corner into the space that you see, there will be a wing or a guard that meets you somewhere near around the paint to protect the big. So they can stay back. And then you have to make the decision on if you would like to kick the ball and they didn't make the shots in game one. And then if you would like to actually fully turn the corner, if you're able to at some point, there will be other bodies around you. So we're just going to dictate these are shots you get, paint touch is going to be tough. You're not going to get pull ups. You're not fully well. They're very active in game one game two. So nothing was like, well, what if we just make the shots and Tyrese Maxi was just, I'm going to make very quick decisions. So okay, that's fantastic. Let's make sure we force this over so the navigation is not as strong. Let me get to a pull up. And this is great. The biggest back. If I'm going to drive one on one and you want to show this elbow help, I'm going to get off here real quick and we're going to play out of it. If I'm Paul George, give me Peyton Pritchard, Quinn Grimes, come on, pass away. You want to help? Like, they were just very decisive. And so BJ Edgecom saying, oh, that's right. You are giving me space. Do you not know? I like to sneak pick and rolls and get to a mid range pull up or from three like, they understood what shots were available and they knock them down. And I think for Boston, the balancing act was okay. As a defense, you want to dictate terms, but sometimes the other team agrees. So now, do we lean in on what we know has been successful? Do we lean in on still trying to protect the paint? How do we balance that? I think they stuck with their guns because the sixers have the formula as far as, okay, let's try and get Boston bought down light in the shot club. Let's be active. And let's make shots and see what happens. They just kept doing that and Boston didn't necessarily have the offense or the defensive answers to kind of push them back into place. Yeah. Yeah. To be clear, if MB does not play this series, I still expect Boston to win in a short series. Like, nothing that happened in game two changes my prognosis for the series. I just want to give the sixers credit because I think they positioned the puzzle pieces or the chess pieces in the right way. So just imagine this, like, it's very simple. They know how Boston is going to play defense aggressively, as you said. So let's just imagine Tyree's Maxi and Bona run a pick and roll. They don't do it in the middle of the floor. They do it from the right side of the floor, though, let's just say to write the right wing. And Tyree's is going to go left, so he's going into the middle of the floor. The next shooter in line is not at the top of the arc. He's on the opposite wing. There is far apart Tyree's and the next shooter are as far apart as basically possible for two guys to be sharing that space at the top of the arc. Everyone else is in the corners on the dunker spot, whatever. And the point of that is when Tyree gets into the middle, the sixers know that guy guarding let's say Grimes or Edgecomb on the other wing is coming in to the nail. He's going to meet me at the nail and what Boston likes to do is have that defender switch onto Tyree's Maxi and have Tyree's Maxi's defender zoom over and peel onto the shooter, the Grimes Edgecomb spot on the other side of the floor. And what Philly is doing is saying, we're going to make that switch impossible. It's too much distance for you to cover. And so you're not going to be able to make that switch and you're going to have choices. You either don't help and Tyree's is going to get into the lane or you help like that. And we're going to pass it to VJ Edgecomb before you can even come close to executing that switch. He's going to get an open three or he's going to have a wide open alley to attack the rim. They also baited Boston, sometimes they'll switch it up and they'll have a shooter in the strong side corner and a guy in the dunker spot in that corner and Tyree's will go toward that corner, knowing that Boston likes to do that same thing. Have that corner defender zoom over and take him and then have Tyree's defender peel out and take the corner guy and they're getting ahead of that switch and getting open three's out of it. And Mizzoula talked after the game about, well, I think we over helped a little bit. And I think you'll see Boston dial some of that stuff back, particularly from the corners. But we're just not going to make that switch from the strong side corner. In the fourth quarter, when Philly won the game, Boston dialed back its coverages a little bit and basically said to Tyree's Maxi, we're not sending that third guy at you. We're going to play you two on two and Tyree's Maxi was like, cool, here's some like pull up threes in your face. And then they did the next thing, which was, okay, he's making pull up threes. We're going to bring Keta up much higher to the level of the screen. And Tyree's Maxi was like, sweet, I'm just going to blow by Nimiya's Keta and get a layup. And so you saw scheme by scheme by scheme Tyree's Maxi with some smart positioning from the sixers, beat the counter to the counter to the counter. And the Celtics, I think, are going to mix it up, but probably dial back to help a little bit. And basically say, we don't think you can do that one, two, three more games in this series. Also, we didn't play a very good offensive game ourselves, and we've got some buttons we can push. But I thought Philly did a nice job arranging the board to bait the Celtics into doing things the Celtics like to do and use it against them. That's the fun of the playoffs. So one team is trying to take something away, and we respond and poke right back at it. And so I think also just working to clear wings, too, and just be like, actually, you know, there's actually not someone you can show help to, we're going to just have this space and work with it. But I like seeing Boston established ourselves defensively, and now have to find a way to dial back and just kind of contain Philadelphia. And to your point, I think early, they'll just dial it down a little bit and say, make shots. We're not going to hand you shots, make place. And now, if we need to, we can up the activity, we can up the rotations. But I like seeing a seed respond to what the team has done and saying, actually, we can make this something that's difficult for you to deal with. Yeah, it's fun. I thought game two is really fun, just because Philly made it a series and Philly Philly is stressed Boston a little bit in a way that I wasn't sure they're going to be able to do that. I actually know we can hit you a little bit in one of your weeks, but not weak spots, but we can we know what you're going to do. We'll go land a body blow here and there and see how you respond. I didn't think the Celtics offense had a game. I thought they were a little sticky. I love when Boston doesn't just give Tatum or Brown the ball, but gets them a head start, like run them off a down screen and they catch it on the move on the wing or they come off a pin down and catch it on the move with an advantage. I didn't see enough of that. I don't think they hunted Maxi aggressively enough, especially when he's on Sam Houcher. Like, that's your best shoot or man, put him in more stuff. I just thought they played a little bit of a blah game other than obviously missed. They shot horribly from three. I just didn't think they ran kind of enough of their best stuff and I was also surprised. I don't know if you were. I thought Shireman did not play enough. I thought Jordan Walsh and Shireman, but particularly Shireman because of the way he keeps the ball moving on offense. I thought he would have played more. I was a little surprised he didn't play very much. I've left in minutes, I think. He's an important piece. I think it's interesting for Joe Mizzou as far as trying to figure out which one of these energizer bunnies. I'd like to call them. Do I place in some of these series at times? I think Shireman could be the most effective because of his shooting. I love when they set a flare for Jason Tatum when he's trailing a play and letting him get downhill and run, pick and roll. Does it this feel like a Boston Celtics stopped flowing and fell into bad habits type game or did it feel like we aren't necessarily creating the shots we need to. No, it was it was not quite fall into bad habits. It was just like I've seen the Celtics play a offensive games with Tatum and Brown back and press a lot of the right buttons and press multiple of them on the same possession. This felt like a B minus C plus, like just a little doll, a little predictable in a way that I thought they were every team has these games every once in a while. I just think they're they're going to be fine. I would expect them to I picked them in five. I'd probably just even stick by that pick. I think they can win both games in Philly and you know, but at least we have like a little bit of a series. But yeah, it's an intro there. They play the Celtics play a very interesting style on both ends of the floor and very much it's very much ingrained within them that the two ends of the floor are tied together and what we do on one end very much affects what we do on the other end. And people think of that a lot is like, well, that's why they have a low turnover style or that's why they don't take a ton of shots at the rim because they don't want to compromise their defense. I think a lot of what they do on like I think one of the reasons they like this aggressive help and switching defense. I think I've never asked Mizzoula about it. I think one of the reasons they like it is it messes up all the matchups so that if they get a stop all of a sudden because Jason Tatum has flashed from here to here and switched on to that guy. You've got the wrong guy close to Jason Tatum or you've got the wrong guy close to pay and preacher like everything is scrambled up and all of a sudden they've got and they're running the other way with an advantage. I'd like to actually talk to him about that because they're they're just a very interesting team on both ends of the floor. No, that's a good point. It's a good point. And also, I think their ability to take care of the ball, get back in transition to tough matchup for Philly overall. But, well, now you got to be thinking about the cross matching. That's interesting concept because that's not an easy thing to kind of deal with. And I think we have Boston and Mazni really tapped into, hey, we're going to put a wing on a big and just switch things. It's kind of kept it vanilla to a degree as far as it should drop. So it's like, what do they have up their sleeve? That's true. Could you put just do we are we that worried about adembona? Why don't we put some house or on him or somebody on him? And I know Bill has talked about playing Tatum at center. I personally think that Bill is a little too into that lineup for my taste, but they can certainly do it. But even just inverting the matchups, it risks some offensive rebounding like Drummond is a legitimately all-time great offensive rebounder. But I just all look, all I'm asking for in these kinds of series where there's a big, heavy favorite and the best player on the other team or the second best player, I guess, is injured. It's like, just get me to a game for where it's exciting. And we're there. No matter what happens in game three, especially if Philly wins game three, then game four is like, whoa, boy exciting. But even if Boston resets to norms in game three, game four is kind of fun. That's all I want. Steve Jones Jr. won half of the dunker spot with Nikaez Duncan. If you want to know what happened in the game, not whose legacy is on the line or who choked or whatever, the dunker spot is a great podcast for you. And Steve and Nikaez, their Twitter, their highlight and plays, they're doing the Yolman's work for you during the game to be like, oh, that's why they did that thing. Thank you for your time and your insights, sir. Thank you. The Zach Lo Show is brought to you by FanDuel NBA fans. This is your reminder to check in daily because every day during the playoffs, FanDuel is serving up a happy hour. We're talking special drops you won't want to miss from profit boost to bonus bets and more. In the best part, it's every single day, including today, check for a new reward every single day of the NBA playoffs and don't miss your shot to get a little extra out of the action. Head to FanDuel.com/low to get started. 21 or over and select states are 18 and over a DC Kentucky or Wyoming opt in required. Rewards are knowledge reliable, restrictions apply, including bonus and token expiration, leg requirements and max weight your amount gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler, call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Men's Warehouse. So you've looked at all the data, you've looked at your lineup and yep, you need to freshen up your wardrobe. So check out Men's Warehouse, they've got you covered for every occasion with a huge variety of clothing and styles, from tailor clothing like suits, sports coats, dress shirts, tuxes for more formal events, to casual clothing like polo, shirts, shorts, and jeans for everyday wear. The Men's Warehouse experts can help you find the right look while their onsite tailor's guarantee your clothes have the right fit for your body. Men's Warehouse has over 600 locations nationwide. They are here in nearby when you're ready to love the way you look. All right, we have another series to discuss spurs, blazers, one one, and look who it is. My whole friend who it is. Shea Serrano, what is going on? What's up, Zachariah? How the hell have you been? I've been all right multiple times. So many times I lost count best selling New York Times best selling author. Shea Serrano five times. I'd look for five of them. Five of them things like Timmy, like Timmy. Same number of rings as your favorite team. The series took an unfortunate turn. We're recording this Thursday morning. We won't know about Victor Webinama's availability for game three until I'm guessing, you know, probably pretty close to the game or day of game. So, you know, what can you do? The fall was a little scary. And this blazer's team Shea is frisky. They defend really hard. Scoot Henderson was unbelievable in game two. And I would say if Webinama doesn't play game three, I think that's a toss-up game. And I would pick the spurs to win the series, even if it goes to one Portland. But are you mentally prepared for like, we're down to one in game four in Portland when B comes back? Are you ready to feel the or are you going to be just like as long as Webinama is back for game four? You're going to be so confident that it's fine. No, I'm terrified. I was terrified going into the series, going into the series. I had convinced myself that Scoot Henderson was the new Allen Iverson and that and that Denny was Dennis Rodman and Michael Jordan mixed together. Like that's the level of nervousness. I was already going in and then Wimby goes down and now I'm in a full on panic. We could be up three oh at up 45 points in the fourth quarter. I'm still terrified. This one playoffs are fun, you know. The two guys you mentioned were the lead stories I think of of game two and Scoot. You know, Scoot came back about two weeks into his return this year. I did a let's revisit the Brandon Miller Scoot Henderson segment because I was like, I think Scoot actually looks pretty good considering he just came back. He looks real good. His pull-up shooting the other day was outrageous. He had no assists. I think that's actually like indicative of with Denny being the point guard basically and with Drew Holliday out there is like another point guard. He's found this comfort zone where he actually doesn't have to do too much. The game is a little simpler for him. You don't see a lot of wild turnovers from him. He almost is able to play a more streamlined game. That helped him. Denny is just a monster getting to the rim. He's going after Fox on defense. I didn't love the way Fox closed the game for the spurs. Once when being hurt, that was a little rough, but you know, what can one do? So we got a series and like, look, I'm pretty confident the spurs win. As long as Wemba Niyama misses only one game. Sean's reported last night. I don't know if you saw this that he did some conditioning work yesterday, which means he's starting to clear the first hurdles of the concussion protocol. But you know, we'll see you get you to buckle up. Well, we were we were two and one against them in the season series without Wemba. He didn't play in any of the games. Like so, so like if I want to try to calm myself down, I can say we can beat these guys. We should we should beat these guys. But yeah, watching everything fall apart at the end of game two. We're up 13 14 points with eight minutes left and you're like, all right, we're good. We're going to win this game. Wemba can sit out the next two, just get totally fine. Come back to San Antonio. Maybe up three, one, maybe tied to two. We can beat them. But yeah, I'm still I'm still I'm so you know, it's crazy. I came for game two. I didn't start watching the game. I got home from I'm coaching a high school basketball team for spring ball. And so we had a game that night. And I got home during halftime, turned the game on, got my little snacks ready. And then the third quarter started and I was like, "Why is Luke in there?" Like I had no idea, I turned my phone on. Oh my God, please God, no. And then I saw the, I'm a wreck right now, Zach. It was scary. And look, it was also shaping up to be a really interesting battle between the Blazers and Wembee. So, you know this, you watch every Spurs game. Some teams guard Wembee with their centers. Some teams guard him with the wing and try to hide their center on Steph Castle or Harrison Barnes or Kelden Johnson, who's ever available. And the Blazers went right to that well immediately. Like Kamara, you're just going to get up under Wembee. We're going to put Klingon over here on Castle, dare Castle to shoot. Castle's like, "Oh cool. I'll just, I mean, he's not shooting efficiently, but he's had some threes. He had some bulldozer drives into, who's ever in front of him. And it was just Wembee seen that before. They were ready for it. He knows all the counters to it from everything from Ronimoff Pindowns from Devon Vasell. Run, have him set Pindowns for the best shooter on the team Devon Vasell. Have whoever the center is guarding set Pindowns from Wembee to get that switch, get offensive rebounds, post up all of it. They know how to do it. And it was so interesting to watch him figure it out again in real time under playoff physicality. Then Jew holiday took the assignment and Jews like all about it. This is like the best thing that's ever happened to Jew holiday. I get to guard this guy and just be true holiday up under him being annoying. And on defense, before he went out, did you get a chance to go back and watch the first half? Yeah, yeah. So I'm looking at, I'm looking at watching the first half. And I'm like, man, they're putting Wembee in a lot of picking roles like they're having more than usual. It felt like to me, they're bringing him in to the action because it's this existential Wembee debate of like, do we want to have him away from the ball where he's just this roving menace with a million float wingspan? Or do we want to bring him into the action and try to loosen up the other parts of the floor? And I looked it up on the tracking data. And it was on track to be the second most picks any team had put Wembee on in a game this year before he went out. Like if you do it per possession, it's the second or third highest. So they were trying something new and now now we just get to wait for game through which is tomorrow. What are you going to, are you going to, who's going to watch it with you? What's your good, what's going to be your routine? I'm going to watch it at the house. It's going to be probably one of the twins will be home. If I had to guess and he'll probably wander down every so often. My youngest son will be there. But mainly during the playoffs, everybody is like, leave dad alone when the game, when the game is on, you know what I mean? So it's me and the dog is always watching the game together because she doesn't interrupt too much. But that's my, that's my, I'm just sitting locked in in the living room. What I really wanted to talk to you about was your game one experience. So you've written a lot over the years about at the ringer about going to games with your dad, going to spurs games with your dad when you were a kid. And watching your dad at those games, watching how he behaved, what those games meant to you as a kid. And then game one of their first playoff game in seven years. You and your dad got to sit court side near the spurs bench. Yeah, buddy. And I, I just wonder sort of. I mean, just what, what, what did that mean for you to be able to give him or share with him? Not only a spurs game, but from that, that vantage point. And like, what, do you guys talk? What, what, how, how was the whole thing? The whole thing was really, really cool. And, and a little more emotional than I was anticipating. I knew we were going to have a good time. We always have a good time at a game. Doesn't matter where we're sitting. But there was a point where we literally, in like the Alamo dome, sat in the very last row of the, like, that seat. That stadium holds 70,000 people or whatever. We were in the top, top. We went all the way from the very, very top now to the, to the very, very bottom. But it was just so, it was just so neat. We were, as you mentioned, Cady corner to the spurs bench. So, so all the guys are right there were right there during the, the lineups. But also, Timmy was, Timmy was my favorite basketball player of all time. Reggie Miller was, uh, commentated in the games. My second favorite basketball player of all time. David was there. Pop was there. Garvin was there. Sean Elliott was there. Like, everywhere you looked, there was like, oh my god, I love this guy. This person means, uh, a ton to me. My dad at the games is a very mellow. Sit there, drink his little coke, clap his hand, like a stoic old Mexican man. And I'm like, just standing, I'm standing on my feet for, for 47 of the 48 minutes. Just screaming out on the court. But it would be screaming and lead down high five. Like, you're just doing all the things you do with your, with your dad. But, I mean, you know this because you're a parent, you're a husband. You spend so much of your life as the husband, as the father. And very rarely do you get the chance to be like, oh, I'm the kid again in a situation. And go into the game, sit there with him. He drove us there and have to worry about it. Like he did the parking, handed all of that. You just, you know, for, for two and a half hours, it felt like I was 14 years old. Again, just watching these superheroes play basketball, sitting next to this superhero who raised me. It's a really beautiful experience. Had he ever sat that close at a game? And was there any part of him that felt uncomfortable sitting that close at a game? He had never sat that close. I had never sat that close. He was 100% comfortable. He said, we should, we should do this every game. Everything. They should be, these should be our seats. I think, I think you're right, Dad. So I took my dad. So before we get there, one of the pieces you wrote for the ringer about watching games with your dad, you wrote about, what did you write about? You wrote about him, like, I can't remember exactly what it was. I should remember it, but something like little things that he would say to you during the game. I don't even remember if it was about the game or about, like, but there was one or two things that like stuck with you. I mean, the memory that I have is you would be driving home and you'd pass a clock tower. Or and you would be just amazed that that you were awake at 10 30 PM is a little kid. But there was a couple of, I can't remember. There are a couple of remarks from Dad, like, said to you that just like embedded themselves in your brain. Maybe about even the spurs or sports or something. Do you remember what those were? Yeah, I remember, I remember all of the, I've mentioned when we were driving home from this game, the clock here, your, your referencing, is this like a digital, like a, just one of those ones that's lit up in lights and it's at the security service bank off a highway 90 in San Antonio. We had, we'd have to drive past that to get home. And I told him when we were driving home, we live on the other side of town now. But I was like, Dad, let's drive past security service so I could see the, the clock. I know exactly what you're talking about. But so the one, the one, the one that stands out the most to me is we were at a spurs game. This is, this is a hemisphere arena. So we're in the SBC center now or ATT center, whatever you want to call it. It was an Alamedome was before that and then before that was the hemisphere arena. This is pre David Robinson, like, that's, that's when I started going to the games. But we were at a game, the spurs were getting blown out. At the time, he was a bus driver for, for via, which is the like metro bus system here in San Antonio. And they would just give tickets away because nobody wanted to go to the spurs game because they were so terrible. So we would, that's how we started going to the games. We're at a game. We're sitting up way high, high in the seats watching. And I don't remember who the players were. I don't remember what the teams were. But I know we were on offense. The ball got knocked back to the other side of the court. When the spurs players was running after it, like as fast as he could, trying to catch it before it went out of bounds. And then he just dove, like full body dove right around the free throw line trying to catch the ball before it rolled out of bounds. And he dives. The ball rolls out of bounds. He doesn't get it. And everybody just starts clapping and cheering. And I didn't understand. He didn't do what he wanted to do. What's going on? Dad, why are they, they cheering for this guy who didn't accomplish the thing. And then he very, and like that very old, I guess at the time he was a young dad, but in that very dad way, he didn't even look at me. He just said, because he tried, son. And I was like, it just stuck with me forever. And I was like, oh, you just got to try. All you got to do is try. If you try, great. That's it. That's all you, that's all you can control. That one is, that will be in my head forever. It's funny. What you remember from these things. So baseball is my dad's sport. And the first game I ever went to was a Mets Pirates game in Pittsburgh, because my mom's family is from Pittsburgh. And I, of course, loved baseball. I didn't have a team at that point. But the Mets were the local team for me growing up. And I just, and I don't remember anything. I remember three rubber stadium, ugly stadium, extra turf. Both teams are pretty good. It was like the mid 80s. The only thing I remember was Mookie Wilson led off for the Mets top of the first. And they show all the stats on the screen. I'm six or seven years old. I don't really know like what these numbers mean. And he's batting over 300. And my dad just says to me, just, I must have asked like, what does all that mean? And he just said, wait, anything over 300 is good. Like he's not going to explain like the ratio and how walks factor in and whatever. I just, but I remember vividly like Mookie Wilson's hitting over 300 and over 300 is good. And all these 40 plus years later, that's stuck in my head. And then I asked about your dad being comfortable or uncomfortable. Because last year I took my dad to a Mets Dodgers game at City Field. I took my dad and my wife and my daughter. I had won these tickets at a silent auction like right behind home plate. And so you get like the VIP entry through the Delta Club and all this. And like Otani's right there 10 feet. in front of us in the on deck circle, and they're, you know, the Delta Club, all the free food you can eat, they're bringing my daughter ice cream bars and all this. My dad grew up on like a farm in New Hampshire, and he was wildly uncomfortable. He was like, I don't think this is how people should watch baseball games like this. He would have rather have gone into the upper deck. And he's like, I'm not, like, I'm not sure I'm going to bring you to this again. It was just so funny to watch him see it from that vantage point. Yeah, it's really anytime your dad or any parent is like out of, out of where they're supposed to be or where they feel they're supposed to be, it's the, it's the most adorable thing. I do wonder, I do wonder with my own sons who, when they were born in Houston, we were living in Houston at the time. So we would go to two basketball games every year because the spurs would come to town. So we just go watch whenever the spurs and rockets would play, we would go to that. And I think memory that I always have of them is we went to the spurs game. The game starts, Houston goes up like six zero at the start of the game. And it's whatever to watch the game. And then I look and one of the twins is crying. And I'm like, son, what's wrong? He just said, you said we were good. We're not any good. He thought he thought the game was over. We're down by by six points. I do wonder what like what are kids are good. Is she going to remember the ice cream bars at the game with her dad? What's her thing? You know, she talks about the ice cream bars perfectly. Every time, every time we watch a game on television, she's like, remember how they brought those ice cream bars to our seats and we even have to pay for them. Like yes, she talks about, she talks about, she fell in love with Francis Cole indoor at that game. So she talks about him constantly. She's, she's into it. And I actually wanted to, you talked about a multi-generational thing. And one of the, from your generation to your kids, you talked about how proud you were when your kids started to actually care about the game and pay attention to the game and not want to go play on the, you know, the little like, play areas that they have for kids during the game. And I've gone through similar things both with the meds. And when we were in Toronto for the holidays, my wife's family lived in, lives in Toronto. My, my wife's older sister is a seasoned ticket holder with the raptors. And we bought two extra tickets for my daughter and her cousin who's about her same age. And they got to sit in their own seats like away from the adults. I was in the press section. And it was like raptors nuggets. My daughter doesn't care about the raptors. And I could see them from where I was sitting. And I was watching them to see like, are they gonna just be goofing around or not paying attention? And they were super into the game. And the game ends with nuggets up by three Brandon Agerham hits like an almost half court shot to tie the game. And everyone's going crazy and send it into overtime except the reps rule that the shot is a little bit late. And so we reconvene after the game. And I'm like, did you guys have fun? And I'm expecting to be like, it was so funny how the jumbo tron, the raptor mascot did this thing. And my daughter was like, we thought that shot was good. We thought we were going over to like, it was going to go over to, did they review it? Like, was that the right couple like that? That is. So you've had similar experiences, right? We're like, now they care. Yeah. Well, maybe my favorite one of once they really started being like into the game was was this was again in Houston. We've gone a bunch games here in San Antonio. But the Houston ones, they were so much younger, you know, six, seven, eight, nine years old, whatever. And we were at one Houston Spurs game. And this is when Lamarcus was on the team. And it was close game, close game. And then the Spurs pull away at the end, like in the last minute or so, they go up by six or seven. The people around us, we're sitting in the, it's in Houston, where we've got our Spurs gear on, we're in the middle of the enemy territory. And everybody's being cool. Like, we were all talking trash with each other. Nobody's being disrespectful, right? Because it's kids. They were everybody's chill. But the games going, we go up. It's clear we're going to win. And they start getting up to leave. And so I just start telling everybody, I have a safe drive home, have like that doing that sort of thing. Yeah. And then the twins started doing it too. They were like, can we, can we? And I say, yeah, yeah, you can't, because they knew what they understood was going on at that point. And they're just be safe. Have a safe drive home. Like, I don't know, the little things like that are so much fun, man. You also talked about, and I wonder if you've actually talked about this directly with your dad. You wrote about how you must, you thought your dad must have felt a certain responsibility for and hope that the Spurs would be good because he had foisted Spurs fandom on you. And now you obviously have to feel that with your kids. But if you ever talked about that with your dad, like, did you, did he actually, because I have a story about this too, but just the, because I can very much relate to this, like, I'm inheriting this fandom kind of not by choice. And I hope it works out. We talked, we talked about it a little after when they, when they were in their first title in 99 was the first time that we had any sort of him. I'm so glad that they won. I'm so glad that you got to experience this because I never did. And I was a little nervous that you were going to be 50 years old and never have this feeling. And so we talked briefly about it, but he's never been, I mean, if you didn't know any old Mexican dudes, they just don't say anything that's not about like how to change the oil on your car or what are you doing? I mean, like that. But what's your, what's your thing? So my dad is from New Hampshire, as I mentioned. So he's a Boston fan through and through a huge Red Sox fan. And so when I was a little kid, I started to like baseball. It was baseball. It was the game in the 80s, right? And I wanted to, I was going to just be a Red Sox fan because that's what you do. You take your dad's fandom. And he actually took me aside when I was like six, seven years old and was basically like, I can't do that to you. It's just like, it's just too, I cannot voice that on you. I think you should pick a national league team. You can't, you can't, there's no, you're not allowed to pick the Yankees. Like you, it was explicit, like you cannot be a Yankees. And he was like, the national league team is the Mets. They're pretty good. Your mom is from Pittsburgh. So the pirates are pretty good. They're a national league team. How about one of those two teams? Then we went to that game and we decided whoever wins that game is going to be my favorite team for it. They played for it. They played for your heart. Thank God the basketball view. Thank God the Mets won. And then 86 became a very awkward moment in our household because that was a crazy die hard Mets fan. Like Darryl Strawberry was my favorite player. And it obviously ends in like excruciating heartbreak for my dad. But now my daughter is a Mets fan because of me. And I don't know if you're following baseball. They just snapped a 12 game losing streak last night and are like a clown show and getting mocked all over the war. I've like the New Yorker mocked them. The New York Times wrote a story mocking them and just like sad sack Mets. And I'm like, what have I wrought now? And she's too young to really care. But I'm like, have I done the, have I done the thing my dad didn't do to me to my daughter? I'm concerned about it. The Mets are are one of two baseball teams that I know about, but only because I follow Sean Finnecy. So I just catch all of the Mets. Like I found myself the other day reading Mets fix. Like a Mets theme. I subscribe to Mets fix. Yeah. So yeah, I know about them and I know about the Dodgers because of my buddy Peter Marietta is like a huge huge Dodgers fan. But those are only two team. I don't know anything else. By the way, another thing speaking of 99 that I could really relate to is that you wrote about the Spurs is they win the title. Mm-hmm. And you remember your dad running out to the car. Just describe, just describe. Yeah, the Spurs ended up winning the championship. And for whatever reason, he just ran outside and started honking the horn in his truck. Just blah, blah, blah. And everybody in the neighborhood was doing it. When we won game one, driving out of there, people were honky. It's like a thing in San Antonio, right? And, and yeah, I just would never I never will forget the sound of the neighborhood. Just sort of you realize everybody's watching the game. We're at the area at the home. You're watching it with your family, whatever game five. And just hearing all over the place and him running out to participate in this. Be seeing your dad be excited about something is one of the like strangest things the first time it happens. You know what I mean? Like he would like he ran. He didn't walk. He ran out of the house he didn't hug us. He didn't we did it. He just ran out of the house blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the in the and the car is incredible. My dad quietly and sound literally soundly wept and just soundly wiped away tears when the Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004. That was the extent of it. But the honking I could really relate to because I don't care about football at all, like not at all. One of the giants Patriots super balls that the giants won recently. That mean in the last 15 years recently. I was in New York City and watching it at a friend's house and then my wife and I were walking back to our apartment and the streets were just over like every bar was overflowing with people going crazy. Honks the horns were honking and all this and I didn't care about it. It's so cool like to be in New York for an event like this and then fly forward four years ago. The opposite this is like moving to the suburbs just just in one anecdote. Croatia beats Brazil in the world cup in penalty kicks and like an epic comeback penalty kick win. My wife is from Croatia and we're going crazy in the house running around the house. She's crying. We're screaming. She opens the door like thinking there's got to be some communal recognition of what just happened. And of course there's There's no creation people there's nothing no one was watching the game and just like silence. And she comes back in the house and immediately calls the closest Croatian restaurant and makes a reservation for like 16 people because we're just going to invite everybody to a place where they're actually acknowledged. But that communal acknowledgement and celebration is like so fun. And I was in San Antonio, the year they claimed, they won the 2014 title, which they clinched at home. And I have never seen a scene like that ever. And the arena is not like near downtown. So it's not as if you're going to walk out to bars and restaurants. Arnevitz, Kevin Arnevitz, our mutual friend drove us home from the game to our hotel. We literally could not get to our hotel. Every street was blocked off with police and crazy fans. People were hanging on like out of cars, in the back of pickup trucks on top of cars. And we eventually just had to speed down a runway road, the wrong way down a one-way street to get back to our team. So like we have to like type. We got pulled over, I think. If I remember, we got pulled over and Kevin had like explained to the cop like we're just trying to get back to our, it was an absolutely crazy scene. San Antonio's crazy. Yeah, it's a beautiful basketball town. That was, that's my favorite championship we've, we've ever won of the five because there's a small part of you that thought it was over. We weren't going to ever do it again with that core. Anyway, we had lost in 2013 and you're like, man, this is never going to happen again. And then, yeah, that gave, that gave five, oh, an avalanche by San Antonio. I would never forget Mike Breene screaming when Mono hits the three with like three threes in a row. And yeah, when the spurs are good, San Antonio is like just alive in a way that not a lot of places are because it's our only professional team. We don't have any, there's no football, there's no base. We've got a minor league, minor league stuff. But as far as like the professional, there's no, nothing competing with it. And so it's a basketball town, it's a military city, basketball city. And yeah, when it's leaving the arena, game one, just being in the arena before the start of game one, and you could feel like it had been years, oh, my God, we're back. We're playing high stakes basketball. It just grabs a hold of everybody here, even at night, non basketball fact, my wife doesn't care about basketball at all, like not at all. And she took the kids to, there's this place called the rock in San Antonio where they have like a giant screen and they, they like show games there. She was like there to watch the game with the kids because like again, she could, she could tell you two people who play in the NBA, but she was like, I want to, you just want to be a part of the, like it just grabs a hold of you. It's, it's, it's magical in sports, does that? And now you're in it. Now, let's, let's just briefly turn to game three Portland, you're going to do another great basketball city in Portland where the fans are crazy. We don't know if Wendy's going to play. It's a home game. So presumably the owner of the Blazers will actually fund like the two way players going to the game. Maybe the team photographer can get like an Uber ride paid for if he doesn't have a car from his house to the game. But put your coaches head on like what, when be a side what, like what, give me something you're watching for in this game or something about the Blazers that's getting under your skin. Like what do we got in there? What's in your vision? I do not like Denny at all. Like I do not like watching him play basketball. He's so good and he's so smart. And just the thing that he does where he gets the ball to the three point line and you're like, well, he's about to just crash into everybody and then make something happen. He does it every single time. There's nothing you can do about it. I don't like, I don't like it at all. If I, if they were playing anybody else, I would love it. But I hate that what, what I'm most excited to watch, what I'm like most curious to see, you, you touched on it briefly at the end of game two, you didn't like the way that the deer and fox played the, the, the last like, I mean, I wouldn't say didn't like he missed a couple of shots when he was going to Denny, Denny had five fouls or going at the clinging in on the drop coverage. You missed a couple shots. And then they were loading up to him. Like there was one where he turned the corner on like a handoff play and they just brought everybody in and forced him to kick it to the corner and that's when Drew holiday blocked a three in the corner. So like they were making it hard for him and he just missed shots. It wasn't like he was shying away from the moment or he choked. But in that moment, that with Wembe out and castle and Harper's their first goal and that's what you want, like a 28 point fox game. Yes, that's exactly right. So I'm, I really want to see that I really, I feel like Wembe goes down. It's sort of hard to get your feet back under you in the moment. If you're, if you're one of those first players there, I imagine, right? So I'm anticipating they're going to come in here and both castle and, and fox are going to be like, okay, we, we got to go win this game. It's got to be us. Us too. The other guys will follow whatever, whatever we do. So I really want to see that happen. I think it's going to happen. We watched it a number of years ago with Derek White, the game in Denver, when he's like, I'm just going to go win this game. He like made the leap that night. I like, I want to see that happen in the playoffs, same with Devon Vaselle. This is the first time in the playoffs. He's like, he's our, are like a assassin player, but let me see you go do it on the road. Let me watch you go make it happen. I'm really interested in seeing what we do there. I really love Portland basketball games. I got to go to one. I happened to be in Portland for like a work thing and the spurs were in town. And I was like, I'm going to go watch the spurs play. And it was the, I think it was the first game back after Lamarca's left Portland to go to San Antonio. So they were, they were booing the, they were booing the hell out of that man. They do that cool thing where they pass the game ball down through the stands. Yeah. I've never seen that before. I just, it's, it's, it's going to be a madhouse in there. And, and I'm a little bit nervous. I do think we're going to win, but I'm a little, I'm a little bit nervous about it, but that's mainly what I'm watching for. I just want to see, I just want to see I got, I love Dylan Harper. Can I tell you my Dylan Harper theory? I'm not talking about Dylan Harper, but yeah, of course. I've not gotten to tell anybody this, on a podcast yet, I want to make this public. But I have this theory of like, if a father played in the NBA and a son plays in the NBA, the roles always get inverted. Whatever they were, the son becomes this other thing. So like you look at Michael Thompson, right, a role player, great role player, Clay Thompson comes in superstar, right, Dale Curry, role player, Steph Curry, superstar, LeBron James, superstar, Barney James, role player, if you're, if I'm looking at Ron Harper and I'm like, we get a superstar version of Ron Harper who Ron Harper was already a monster. But if we get a better version of Ron Harper, I've been very high on Dylan since the, since the first, the, the, the, the summer league game, our first summer league game he played against Cooper flag. Everybody's like Cooper flag Cooper flag Cooper flag and he locked them up. Locked them up. That's like, hell yeah. This, he's got the dog, you know, I'm very excited about Dylan Harper. I really, I'm, he's so steady and calm. I think it, I think it translates well to the road. I think we win the game. I think they're going to play great fingers crossed. Yeah. I mean, look, pre injury, Ron, pre knee injury, Ron Harper was a monster and Dylan Harper has a chance to be better than that defensively. That's been my favorite thing about him since I started watching his clips at Rutgers. Like that guy, and, and you've seen them, they, they gave, they've given everybody a try on Denny. Like the primary guy is Castle, but that's what you're, I do wonder if in this game, they'll, they'll try and Portland has some agency in this too. Try to play Denny and scoot a little bit more conservatively, like make them shoot jumpers, go under screens against them instead of giving them lanes to attack. But again, Portland can disguise things to make it harder to do that. And I'm glad you mentioned this cell, like he has really amped up in the last month, the non shooting parts of his game, defense, like he's getting, he's flying in for these, like really well, like contested defensive rebounds. He got a couple of shoplocks and deflections in game one. That guy is starting to put together all the elements of his game. So I'm interested to see sort of all of those things. It should be a fun game three. I guess, I guess the dogs got to get ready for the button. She's got to get ready. My beloved penny is going to be on that recliner with me. I think that's the proper way to watch a big, a big postseason game is either by yourself or with the fewest amount of people around you as possible. Because you don't, I mean, if you're anything like me, you don't want people to see you like that. If it goes badly, like that side of me is not for anyone else to consume. Yeah. Yeah. You need to watch a game with a person who is the same level of fan as you are when you get to this stage of the playoffs because you're both going to be maniacs. You remember when, when, when Caso had a 40 point triple double in the, again, some maniacs in the, I was at that, I was at that game. I went with our friend Kurt Goldberg, right? Ah, Professor Goldberg. Kurt came down from Austin. He said, Hey, I'm going to be at this game. You want to come. I got to take it for you if you want to come. I'll meet you up there. Great. I'll be there. And Kurt, Kurt is Kurt. He gets great, great seats. So we were in one of those like open air boxes. And I'm sitting there, me and Kurt just sitting there chatting and then Manu comes and sits right in front of us and him and Kurt and Manu are buddies. And then R.C. Buford comes, sits behind us and I was like sandwiched in between these two like, Oh my god, I'm watching the game with these guys. But I'm sitting there watching the game and I'm screaming my head off the whole time. Like, and I didn't realize like most of the people in the boxes were not doing that because I'm just watching the game. Go ahead. And then at the, at the third quarter, I get, I get a tap on my shoulder and I turn around and it's R.C. It is like, Oh, you're, you're a real fan. And I was like, Oh, but I got, am I not supposed to be my bad? I didn't know. It's great. I love, we love to see this is going on. But yeah, you got to watch a game with people who like react the way that you react to basketball. Otherwise, you look like a crazy person. I'm, I, when you start telling that sorry, I know R.C. well enough to know he would have loved to see unhinged. you would not have ever been like, sir, this is a, this is a professional atmosphere. All right, Chase Serrano, you know I'm from everywhere. Good luck in game three to you and your family. Thanks for coming on and I will see you down the road, my friend. All right, later. Well, I thought a couple of weeks ago, let's just wait until they break the losing streak to do a met's corner. And then the losing streak never ended and we scheduled one because it was obviously an emergency. And then the met's did a thing last night that they had not done in 12 games. They want a baseball game against the Minnesota twins. Not surprisingly, they won three two because the only games they can win are three to something or two to something or one to something because God knows they're not going to score more than three runs in any game. They held on for dear life. They are now eight and 16. Sean, I just don't even know. I know where I want to start. But you have, you, you have experienced more pain in the last 15 years than I have because I took a little gap, a gap. So I just yield the floor to you. How are you doing? If we had spoken two nights ago or yesterday, my voice would have been raised. I would have been ranting. I might have been crying. Today, I feel weirdly, weirdly, okay. And that's baseball for you. You know, one win and all of a sudden the gear started turning in my head and thinking like, is there a way out of this? Is this could this be okay? And this is the insidious nature of this sport and this team that has been bedevelling me for 40 years is even after probably, I think the most sustained awful stretch that I can remember. And I know that long losing streak in my lifetime, but this is, this was bad. I'm so glad I came back. I'm so glad. I feel like I've really 45 and 24. I didn't even bother doing the math for like, I wonder what their record is after 45 and 24, best record of baseball last year because I just, it's right. I feel like I'm experiencing just the worst right away. So continue. I'm sorry. No, no, I mean, I think they have like a 400 winning percentage since that 45 and 24 stretch, which, where do you really want to start? I guess is the question. Like, do you want to speak specifically about the team and its failures? Do you want to speak about the manager on his future? Do you want to speak about the injuries? No, speak about David Sterns and his construction of the roster? Sure. Let's talk about that. Well, I want to start with, first of all, Soto came back. You did. And Lindor immediately got hurt and we're awaiting MIR results on Lindor. Lindor, who, um, after 21 games was on pace for eight RBI's for the season. And then quadrupled his RBI total with one swing and had another one last night and seemed to be turning the corner. And of course, as soon as, like, Lindor maybe have been alive, you got hurt. Soto came back immediately hit a long flyball in the first any two advance but shed from second to third. And I was watching with my daughter. I was like, Oh, that's what it looks like for a guy to hit a ball hard and far. Like hard, high and far. I forgot, forgot all about that. I want to start here. I'm 48 years old. I was an absolutely insane met's fan as people know from my awareness till 2003 or 2004. And there were a lot of good times in that span. There's a world series. The late 90s were generally very good. The 80s and early 90s until the bottom fall out in 91 were okay. Obviously. The only thing that I'm asking for living in Fairfield County, Connecticut where it's like 75% Yankee fans. The only thing that I'm asking for is don't fucking embarrass me. Don't make me go around and have to get laughed at and pity. Now it's pity. Now it's like, well, you're really going through a tough time by all the fans of the evil empire. And right away, this is just everyone is clowning the meds. So just a sample of things that I saw. The twins, the fucking twins, tweet out like things that come in dozens, eggs and meds losses. The New York Times runs an entire article about the curse of mom Donnie, meeting Mr. and Mrs. Met and makes a mistake in the article. And instead of having any journalist to integrity about the mistake, turns the correction into a joke at the Mexicans, saying, oh, we messed up the day that they suffered their 11th game loss, whatever, 11th straight laws, they were off. Even the meds can't lose on an off day. You know what, New York Times? Screw you. Screw you. I'm a subscriber. I'm a games app subscriber. Yes, I am as well. Maybe I won't be about that. The Associated Press ran a story for their first home game where they sent a reporter to go to the game and talk to fans and just about why are you at this game in this empty cold stadium? And one of the fans was like, yeah, I tried to get my wife to go and my kid to go. Nobody would come with me. So I just want to take it and came by myself and that stories accompanied by photos of guys in the paper bag like where the saints in the 1980s. And this is even worse for me because tomorrow, the meds are hosting a group from My Home Town, kids and parents from My Home Town for something. I won't, it's just a nice little fun thing. And so this has been known for months. And there's like a hundred people from our school going to the game. I'm not going to go because there's three NBA playoff games that night. But it's all everyone's been talking about like, oh, we're going to go to the meds game. We all have a bunch of cheap seats. So this is just fresh in my community. Everyone's talking about the meds. And then as gradually more and more people realize like, oh, we might go, there might be on a 14 game losing streak when we go, are they're going to get boo? I've been prepping my daughter like, they're going to get booed. Just be and she's like, why they're trying their best. You want to let's fans go up there and try to hit a baseball. So this is all I'm asking for is don't turn the meds into the continuous walking punchline of my life. And this is what they are now. It's just humiliating. I don't want to be humiliated. Is that too much to ask? A plus rant. I couldn't have said it better myself. That was amazing. I didn't realize when you dubbed this segment, Metz Corner, that it was meant to mirror the boy and the dunce cap in the classroom sitting in the corner. Like that's what we are. It's two freaking losers wearing a dunce cap, spending every afternoon or in every evening in your case, checking in on what's going on with this pain cave. But everything you said is true. And you know, nature pours a vacuum and nobody loves a loser. You know, like that's just these are just facts. The meds are just losers, man. Like I don't know what the heck is going on. I honestly thought going into the season that they were going to be good. The first Metz Corner of the season, I was like, God, they're going to be really tough to pitch to this line. It's going to be really interesting. Could I have been more wrong about anything in my entire life? The roster is a joke. Every night, I can't imagine they're going to score more than three runs. It is astonishing how boring the team is. Maybe it was false optimism in an effort to be more positive at the stage of my life. I really did think that something interesting was going to be happening this year. And it's actually the opposite. And it's exactly what you're saying, which is it's embarrassment. It's a it's a pathetic quality that it's not just Yankee fans. It's not just, um, you know, trolls online. It's like everyone is justified to mock whatever this is all baseball fans. Anybody who's aware of American sports is justified in making fun of what the team is doing. And there's rational, logical, analytical reasons. Why? But then there's also this other thing. There's this cosmic cloud. And I know many fans of many teams feel this way, right? Like if you're a Bengals fan, you feel like you're cursed. If you're a Browns fan, you feel like you're cursed. If you're, you know, a Saber's fan, you feel like you're cursed. There's a lot of franchises that have these negative feelings. The Vikings have never won a Super Bowl, for example. But the Mets man, they tend to make their awfulness operatic. And this has been an operatically bad stretch. Um, I mean, they have the highest payroll in baseball and they're eight and 16. That's, that's the number one reason why every fan of any team is justified in mocking them. That should be impossible to do. Um, before the season, your optimism, our optimism was not misplaced. They're over under was like 90, 90 and a half, 89 and a half, like solid playoff contender, kind of number. I predicted 91 wins. Keith law predicted that they would make the world series and lose to the Mariners. And I understand all my rational baseball friends. I'm on a few text chains. First of all, one of the text chains last night, a Cubs fan Tim who's been mentioned many times, tech. There's three of us. It's a small chance two Mets fans and a Cubs fan texted us in the ninth, wake up your kids as in like you got like they might win wake up your kids. Like even he's just, you know, like getting into it. Um, uh, I don't even know where I was going with that, but it's, it's, oh, um, the raster like my rational, I have another text chain with two Mariners fans and some other people. They're like, you can't even look at the standings till Memorial Day. None of this matter. the meds will be fine. Like they didn't even like register. That's something historically terrible was going on. Partly because the mariners are not having good season either. And I'm like, really, because it feels like the season is over. And they're awful. And none of them can hit and everyone who was in injury or risk is already injured. And the bullpen has been a disaster again. Not again. I mean, like Diaz, Diaz is not pitching well for the Dodgers, but airbender is bending nothing. And airfliner. And now there's like no one has ever lost 12 games in early April and made the playoffs or something like that. Or maybe it's at any point in the season. So, yeah, forgive me if I feel like the season is over, especially if Lindor is now going to be injured. Senga, it's like they don't even count. No, if they can count on him anymore. We're two weeks and three weeks a month into the season. It's like, well, we're not sure about Peterson. Is he going to be in the rotation? And we'll use an opener for him. And Senga will have, we got to really get him right. And now they're starting to hoot this guy. Christian Scott is starting today. We're already at this stage of the season. We're random dudes. We had a six-man rotation with Maniah is seventh guy. And now a random dude is starting again. What's happening? Well, it's to Scott's credit. He was a high profile prospect three seasons ago. He got injured and got Tommy John. And he has been working his way back from Tommy John three seasons ago. There was a feeling like this was the number three starter of the future. I'm still hopeful that that's what Christian Scott is. And what Christian Scott represents and what Nolan McLean represents. Oh, thank God for Nolan McLean. Thank God. I thank God for him. To me, that's, I think, what the general manager of the team is banking on for the long-term health of this team. So we can talk about that at some point. It's like, how does this look in the long-term versus how much of pain are we going to endure this season? But this season, Nolan McLean, Clay Holmes and Freddie Perolta have been good. Freddie's been decent decent. I would say he's been above average. I would say that's fair. I would say he has done more than enough to win all but one start he has made. Well, I pity our starting picture. I was watching we were watching Clay Holmes last night. My daughter and I, I'm like, I taught her what run support means. Like, like, we'd be nice to give him some run support. She was like, well, what is it exactly? Does that mean I explained her? I was like, I feel bad for these guys. They throw out seven innings, one run loss. No, they'll never get any wins. None of these starters will get 10 wins the way this is going. Clay Holmes is quietly climbing that very long list of met starters who you genuinely believe in. Where like every time he's on the bump, I'm like, I think I think he's going to throw seven innings and give up one run today. And that's so strange because he's a convertive reliever who's in his thirties, but he's got this incredible pitch mix. He's really fun to watch pitch. He's a real bulldog. Anyway, they've gotten good starting pitching from their one, two, three in their rotation. McLean who, you know, has carried a perfect game into the sixth inning in two games already this season looks like Jacob DeGram. I mean, he looks like a dude who we're going to be pouring our heart and soul into for the next 10 years. God willing. So like that's the good, right? Those are those are the three good things that we have as those guys. Peterson and Sangha, neither of those guys are part of the long term future of this team. Neither of them are probably going to end the season in the rotation. It's sad. Peterson was a first-round pick. I've rooted hard for him over the years. I'll start last year. He was an all-star last year. I thought that that was him coming around. You know, there's that adage about lefties kind of figuring it all out in their late 20s and then going on to have long careers, but he's really backslid. We'll see if he can be effective out of the bullpen. But the lineup makes me want to drink bleach, man. I can't believe how painful, how pathetic, how sad it is to watch these guys hit. The approach is baffling. Now, we've got a whole new coaching staff, aside from the general manager, new hitting coaches. It's not just that this team spends a lot of money in its payroll, which is publicly available. It's that they spend a lot of money across a lot of bans of the organization. The analytics teams and the coaching staffs have these very specific backgrounds, and one assumes they're supplying a tremendous amount of data and strategy to the players on a daily basis. And what I see is a lot of guys thinking first ball, fast ball, trying to get ahead early and try to get a hit early in the count. So with getting the pitch that they're looking for, which is a codified baseball strategy right now. But that is leading to 100 million ground balls the second base. I can't believe how many ground balls this team hits, and I can't believe the lack of action to your point about Wonsato hitting one long fly ball that was caught being the 12th most exciting thing that's happened to the team this year. It's astonishing. And it's really to a man other than Francisco Alvarez. Every single hitter this season, aside from Francisco Alvarez, when they're up at the plate, I'm like, this is going to be a put out at third base. And they're going to go down one, two, three. And there's going to be no strategy. Mendoza is going to take no chances. Like we're in a place where they just got it, like try to bump three times in a row. You know, try to do something. Yeah, bring back the bond. Bring back the bond. Even Alvarez. Not supposed to bump 2026, but try something. Even Alvarez, just classic stat line for the meds this season, four home runs, five RBIs, like awesome. Just none of this every home runs is solo home run. He hits the ball hard though. I want him to play every day because he matches the ball. And we did, it's like I assume at some point these guys will play to their track records, right? Like Bichette is going to play better than they had double last night scored the first run. Polanco's already injured. Robert's been all right. Simeon just, I mean, Nimo has an 863 OPS right now. And that, like you can combine three guys in our lineup and not quite get to an 863 OPS. Pete, Pete has not been very good for the world. Just one assumes he will come around. But yeah, you know, this is the other thing why everyone's justified to make fun of them because they have the highest payroll and baseball. So you're not allowed when you, you're paying one, so to three quarters of a billion dollars and you have the highest payroll and baseball to be like, yeah, but in three years, we're really well set up. Like if you look at all these, you can't, no, you don't get to do that. And you let a franchise icon all time a home run leader walk for nothing. You traded the longest tender player on the team, I think, in Nimo, who I could take her leave, but at least like the guy was good for 20 to 25 home runs and hit the ball pretty hard. And Diaz is not lighting it up, but the, you know, definitely has been awful. But I want to go back to what you said before. So I remember we talked about this one on one of our earlier segments. Like the meds being a cosmic joke to me kind of caught me off guard because in my time as a, as a die hard meds fan, yeah, they had six straight sub 500 seasons from 91 to 96 or six or six, I think six. And there's like the Vince Coleman firework thing. Like there's some embarrassment in there. But I mean, every team other than the Yankees goes through troughs like that and they weren't like horrible, horrible other than one or two of those years. I grew up they were awesome and they won a World Series and they went deep into the playoffs in other years. Then in the mid 90s to late 90s, they got really good again. They made another World Series. And then I kind of, so I remember talking you like I don't like why are they considered this joke of a franchise and you filled me in on some of the collapses of the Willie Randolph era and this and that. And now it's like, oh, now I get it. Now I'm living it. Now I'm now I'm getting my real taste of it. This is what it feels like for sure. I was trying to think back because you know, the Phillies have been awful this season too. And they actually are now the owners of not just the basement in the National League East, but though I think they now have the worst record in baseball and the worst run differential and was texting with Chris Ryan a bit and our friend Tracy who's also a Cubs fan and we were I was wondering when was the last time the met and the Phillies were both bad. And this was a time when you were not following the team. I had forgotten that in 2017, the Mets and the Phillies combined to win. I believe 136 games. They won 66 and 70 games and they were at the bottom of the National League East. That's not that long ago. That's only nine years ago that the Mets won 70 games in the season and the Phillies were even worse. So it's not like this can't happen to big market clubs that spend money. But the Mets in 2017 when they were still under the Wilpons ownership were not spending $380 million like this team. And if you look at the way the money has been allocated on this roster, it's scary, dude. Don't forget the Frankie Montauss is making like $18 million this year. Don't forget that Luis Robert is making $20 million this year. Don't forget that Boba Shed is making $42 million this year. With a he's got a player option, right? With a player option that I think elevates it to $50 million. I mean, if he plays like this, you can pen that one in right now. Like, of course, I'm opting in. You know, I think that there is something kind of fascinating about the fact that there's only three guys under contract in 2028. And we can look down the road and we can say, oh, well, you know, Christian Scott will be in the rotation and Nolan McLean will be leading the team. And Jonah Tongue will be up by then too. And Jack when and you're two and we'll have this super rotation of 24 year olds. And hey, maybe Ryan Clifford will be up. And by then Carson Benz will be an all star. And we can kind of like game out what we what I think David Sterns really wants and what I suggested to you over the winter, what I thought he was doing, but the short term moves to make the team competitive now while you've got all these guys and even the trade for Peralta, which featured two big prospects who I think are not off to the greatest starts in Milwaukee. But that was a heavy price to pay. All of that could look, it could look, it could go from looking really stupid to catastrophic very quickly. And then we're going to wake up one day and it's going to be 10 years and the meds are going to have one [BLANK_AUDIO] 91 season under Steve Cullen. I mean, the team has just not been successful under Cullen. They're like, we can't avoid this topic anymore. They had one 100 win season, which was the culmination of a group of players who were developed under a different ownership coming into their true primes, their 26, 27, 28 year old seasons, plus stepping out and spending big on a couple of pitchers like Max Scherzer, which was the big announcement that Cullen made in addition to acquiring Francisco Indoor. So they had 100 win season that year and collapsed mightily in the playoffs and embarrassingly. Since then, 2024 was a lot of fun, but doesn't it feel flukeish when you look back on it now? - It's amazing. I mean, 18 months ago, the meds were in the National League Championship cheers. It was like, it was like yesterday in sports terms. - Sean Malal also makes $25 million, by the way, just for the record. He's not, I'm not even in the rotation. - I mean, he's barely in the bullpen. And Peralta, the lack of an extension for him is interesting. We'll see what happens there. A lot has been written about that. Just to just some things. 30th, as of going into yesterday's game, 30th and on base percentage, 30th in slugging percentage, 30th in OPS. Buster only had this piece out where he was talking on one of his tidbits about how teams were throwing more than the usual percentage of fastballs against the meds, which was, I guess, like is considered almost disrespectful of your lineup. Like we can even dial up our fastball even more because you can't hit the straight thing or the seam or whatever. It's just, it's shocking. And I would actually, you brought up Steve Cohen, rather than me say it, would you like to talk about his Twitter account? - Yeah, you should delete it. I don't understand. I do, I do understand his mentality because I'm very appreciative of him as an owner because I found the willpons to be baffling as an ownership group and their cheapness. And I know that there were some specific reasons especially in the 2010s why they got even cheaper than they had been prior to that. But Steve Cohen has spent money every single year he has owned the team. He has thrown a ton of money into the organization. They've clearly improved the way that the farm system operates, the way that the department's beyond what happens on the field operate. Just going to City Field is a lot of fun. You know, it's great. It's a great ballpark. So all of those organizational things, I can laud them and appreciate them. His communication with the fanbase leaves a lot to be desired. Skolding the fanbase in the first 10 games of the year after the collapse of last season is Nightmare PR. And I realize he's extraordinarily wealthy and there's probably no one who can speak to him about why this is a terrible idea. But from the free ticket sales, you know, the free ticket giveaway that he spoke about and then the lack of people showing up for that and him scolding fans about that, followed by in the midst of the losing streak, the infamous green shoots tweet, which is, I thought was just a deplorable act of communication. Like, I can't imagine a stupider thing happening to the meds this year. And they were like five to six games into the losing streak by that point. And you sent it to me on, you texted me, I hadn't seen it. I mean, green shoots in a six game losing streak is for pick your small market rebuilding team. Exactly. Like, it's not, it's not for this team. Exactly. That's not near sports fans are obnoxious. And they're, they're, they're anxious and they're prone to anger, but they're not stupid. Like, we're not stupid. We watch the team every night. I watch the team every night and like, they can't hit. We can tell this, this idea that like a long flyball from Marcus Simeon is reason to be optimistic is embarrassing. Marcus Simeon is a 35 year old second baseman who has not slugged above 400 in three years. What are we talking about? Don't like, don't, don't embarrass us is really what I want to say. Is Ronnie Mauricio, did he do something wrong to somebody? I feel like we brought him up here to Game Winning Hit and I've never seen him again. He's in the minors and I see these updates. Like Ronnie Mauricio was three for four in AAA. I'm like, what, feels like we might be able to use him for something. I don't know. I think if Lindor goes down for a long period of time, they should just let Mauricio be the full time shortstop. Let Bishop play third base and stick him there because that's where they're gonna need him and he's still developing as a third baseman. And I think they should just let Mauricio, they've never given Mauricio more than like a 10 or 15 game stretch to see if he's a player who can stick in the league and he's now presumably fully recovered from his injuries two seasons ago and I'd like to see it. But you know, I also wanted Mark Vientos to get consistent playing time and he's getting it. You know what he's doing? Dumb shit. I came running hit last night. You know, running through a stop sign last night, two nights ago trying to get the force out a third base on a bun when he's not that elegant a fielder. He just, he's got brain lock in a couple of different ways. That's the other thing like the team is wildly undisciplined Zach. And that, that falls on the manager man. They make a lot of mistakes. Oh Ronnie, but we just got an update. Ronnie Mauricio is on his way to Queens and we'll be recalled with Francis Crowell and door likely headed to the aisle. Okay, great. There you go. I think that's your starting shortstop for the next three weeks, whatever it is on the undisciplined thing. I've been protective of our daughter on the stream of Lindor like what? Like, why did you not charge the ball of those sorts of mental errors? I've been, I've been, she was devastated to learn this morning that he got hurt, but I've been protecting her because those have been, those have been also that look. I mean, here's where I'll let out. They're eight and 16. Is there a small part of my brain that's like, hey, why not make history? If no team has ever lost 12 in a row, they've got all this talent. Why not, you know, every impulse of my body, 90% of it wants to say the season is over. This is discussing and it probably is. There's always going to be the why not thing going on here and like give it a month, right? If they haven't crawled within three games of 500, if they don't start making up some ground, you don't have to go on a 12 game winning streak to metal for the 12 game losing streak. You just have to do the opposite of the slow drip of what happened last year. If they don't do that in a month, then the season is over. It probably already is over. But look, I'm not, I'm not bailing. I'm here. I'm interested to see how Mauricio plays. I'm not going to give up hope. It's just, it's just so. Dispiriting because the season is so long and there are so many games. And all you want is to have some stakes in the games and where it's already feels like, okay, there's no loss. I have bailed on many a Nick season. I've bailed on the occasional jet season. I've never bailed on a met season. I always stick it out. I'm always interested because the failure tends to inform what will happen in the off season. And I'm, the meds have only had off seasons for the most part. In the last 35 years to think about. And so this was an off season that I was so fascinated by. I was so interested to see. I knew the, the breakup of the core was going to happen. And I was preparing myself for it. And I wasn't surprised by it. It's a little hard to look at the Nemo thing. And I, when we did talk three weeks ago, I did say this semi-entrained might end up looking terrible. And it does look terrible so far. Now also Brandon Nemo is injury prone and tends to break down over a season. If he finishes the year above an 850 OPS, I think automatically that trade is not a good deal. Even though Nemo's still has four more years and semi-ent has two more years, you basically punted on a valuable season and you picked up a deeply declined player. But the one thing I just want to say really quickly, 'cause I think our instincts are to say, okay, well, we lost Pete, we lost Nemo, we lost McNeill, we lost Diaz, and we replaced them with these guys, these guys and these guys. This is not a binary. The choice was not only Jorge Polanco or Pete Alonzo. Look in Chicago at Minnetac Amaracami, who's playing third base and hitting the ball 480 feet every night. Minnetac Amaracami went to the worst team in baseball or what was the worst team in baseball on a cheap deal. Where were the meds on? - 'Cause he strikes out too much, right? That was the thing, he strikes out. - He was like, how's that going to translate? - But they were afraid he couldn't hit fastballs. They were afraid he couldn't hit American Major League fastballs. And you know who candidate American Major League fastballs? - That's. - I will conclude. It's, do you talk about the offseason and failure informing? I am, again, not knowing much about the mechanics of baseball in terms of front office machinations and trade advance, I'll learn all that. I did text you like, if this were the NBA, and I understand everyone good has a no trade clause on the meds, I get it. If this were the NBA, there would already be rumors of like teams calling about Soto and teams color. The meds. Is that just not a thing in baseball? Why would a team not try to, or why would the meds not be like, hey, maybe it's time to pull the rip cord and trade this guy for like eight amazing prospects? Is that just not a thing that happens? - The Soto thing is unusual 'cause I think he has an opt out after five seasons. So he's in the second season with the team. And I believe you could get a ton for him, but not as much as you might think because of the size of his contract. And there's not very many teams that are willing to carry $75 million per year or whatever his annual salary is. Lendor, the time to trade Lendor was last off season, you know, that was the time. And I didn't want to do it. I wasn't advocating for it, but his value was incredibly high. And he has effectively I think an eight or nine year contract left. And if you look at some of the contracts that were given out to players who are far less gifted or with a far weaker resume than Lendor, you could see people just picking up the remainder of his deal happily and trading prospects for it. Now. You know, he got off to another slow start. He broke his hand-made bone and now he's got some sort of calf injury. And he's a 32 year old shortstop who is not in the prime of his career anymore. I love the guy. I love that he's brought to the team. I was baffled by his mistakes earlier this season, but I'm hopeful that it was just like he was going through something personal and it was leading to some brainfarts. Like, I have to hope that that's what it was because he's actually one of the savviest and smartest meds I've seen in the last 20 years. So him doing those things was bizarre. Those two guys, to me, obviously have the most value beyond the stud pitching. They're, if they continue in this way and they're like 10 games under 500 in the middle of June, they should be selling everything they can. They should be selling off, they should be touring this team into a flea market, man. Well, everything's going great. Sean Fantasy, it's wonderful to see you. You know Sean from the big picture, of course, and associated other ringer appearances. He also just started a sub-stack. Things we think but do not say, which I'm going to subscribe to right after we get off this. I can't wait to read it. And maybe it will inspire me. Who knows? But you're a beautiful writer and it's nice to see the writing coming back and we'll be convened at some point and maybe we'll maybe we'll be just eight games under 500 still would be 500 between now and the next one. Who the hell knows? Zach, thank you very much and let me tell you this. Let's go meds. Yeah. Let's go. Why not? What's the opposite? Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Why not? Sean fantasy. Thank you, sir. Isaac. All right. That's it for today's Zach Lowe show. Enjoy the games tonight. Enjoy the weekend. I will be back Sunday night with Bill to recap whatever madness happens in the NBA over the playoff weekend. Thank you to Steve Jones Jr. for his incomparable insight. Thank you to the great Chase Serrano for coming on and tell them some fun stories. Thanks. I guess to Sean Fantasy for some met therapy. Thanks as always to Mike Billy and Jonathan on production and thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe show. See you next week. 21 or over in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas, Starkisino or 18 and over in president DC Kentucky, Wyoming, gambling problem, call one in 100 gambler or 1 800 my reset call 1 888 789 77777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or is it mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. 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