Part 2: Cleveland Survives, Knicks-Sixers, and Whaddya Do for Denver, Houston,  and Atlanta With Zach Lowe

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We're doing there's something about Mary, which is also available on Netflix, along with a whole bunch of comedy movies that I covered in part one. Zach Lowe is a podcast. Tuesday morning, Thursday morning. And I really hope we have better games to discuss than the two we had today. Two, two duds, two game seven duds, unless you were fans of Cleveland and Detroit. This game felt like it had potential. This Cavs Raptors game heading into halftime. There were some great storylines that were playing, including LeBron. Next year, Cleveland. Okay, we're going right there. Mitchell trades. Mobley honest. Like, let's go. And then Cleveland's like hold on, hold your horses and took care of business. I mean, you can revisit all the storylines next round if that doesn't go badly for the Cavaliers. But you should see how the Cavs and the pistons coming off. Just like gnarly series where they just couldn't get untracked offensively against, you know. And particularly I think the Cavs against the Raptors seem that just weird and big and super switchy. If they both those teams get to the next round, they're like, all right. This feels a little bit like more conventional basketball to us. We feel a little bit of like a sigh of relief, even though Detroit is a gnarly team themselves. But it's just Toronto is just a different kind of team. They're built differently. They're a weird team to play against. Missing multiple players that they're paying lots of money to. This is my first question for you. Is it kind of embarrassing for Cleveland that this went seven games? I don't, I don't think so. Cleveland in seven was my pick. So I'm not surprised at a one seven. Yeah, but did you know quickly and Ingram were basically going to be scratched from the series? Quickly scratched the whole series. You knew going into the series that it, I mean, I, I remember saying like it's probably bad for their offense and good for their defense. The Ingram won as he was not exactly letting the world on fire in this series. But there's just a certain critical massive talent you need to be to team like Cleveland four times in seven games. And as critical as you want to maybe be of the way Ingram and played. It's just you're just asking too much of guys like Jamison battle and Mamu and, you know, Jamal shed. God bless him at an unbelievable series. And then the jumper deserted him in the second half of the game today. It's just, it's just like these guys were marginal NBA players going into the season. And you're asking them to get you over the finish line on the road in game seven against the team that has four guys who have made all start teams pretty recently. It's just a tall, it's a tall order. So is it embarrassing AJ loss and is furious that you didn't mention him. Well, he's furious at everybody because he looked like he wanted to start a fight from the moment he got into the game. I thought I found the whole thing delightful. But, you know, he, he, who did he flagor? Really? If you wrapped up Jared Allen and threw him to the floor, got called for a flagor or one. I don't think it's embarrassing. Toronto is a pain in the ass to play against. And, you know, Cleveland could have won game six easily. They could have won game four easily. They ran away with it tonight. In a way, by the way, for, for, look, I don't want to like damn them with faint praise. But it was nice to see Cleveland come up against the team that basically looked them in the eye and said, you guys have wilted under physicality and the playoffs before. We don't really have a lot of other ways to beat you given our talent deficit other than beating the hell out of you and seeing how you responded. And like Jared Allen in particular came for the fight today and took the fight to Toronto. And like, good sign for the, for the caps, I think. I thought Struce was incredibly important. Yeah. The two, the two guys I had written down. Max Struce had a shout out to he culture throwback game. And Jared Allen had a shout out to please stop throwing me in trade rumors. I'm happy here. I don't want to be the fall guy this summer kind of game. He was especially in third quarter. I thought he swung it. And you know, if you're a Toronto and you're looking at a big picture and you just did that crazy extension for Pertle. That made kind of no sense when it happened hasn't even really kicked in yet. And seemed either unplayable, semi-playable or sort of playable depending on where you caught him in the series. But Jared Allen was just running a mock. And then the other thing hard and wasn't bad. No, we were headed toward maybe sort of an old school throwback terrible James hard and playoff game. And then actually he got going and then once they had a bigger lead than he looks very comfortable. He got going in a way that. Look, we're predisposed to be nervous about James Harden and big playoff games. He was three of nine from the floor. He controlled his turnovers and only had two turnovers, which is big. He's had some high turnover games. But he got like, you know, Jacobi Walter, Jacobi Walter stuck his arm in the cookie jar. Got a three shot foul. There was that one drive that I think it was the third foul on Scotty Barnes where they were kind of running parallel. On a hard and drive into lane and hard and kind of veered sideways into him and Scotty Barnes. So kind of I was it was, but it just seemed like hard and hit to reach the stage where he was saying to himself. I just got to junk my way to 10 free throws. That's the only way I'm going to have a productive game. And that makes me that makes me a little nervous, just a little nervous. He was active defensively for James Harden. He was. He was bad. And then Mitchell who finished with 22 nine for 20. He was another one that kind of came and went. It was that first half definitely had the makings and like the say of makings of a collapse. The crowd was really nervous to reconred you were on it. They could feel it. And they finished a half strong. Like I think it was seven points with, I don't know, 90 seconds after something. Then Cleveland made a couple shots and a couple plays the time we got to half time was like, OK, let's take a breath. Then top of the third quarter blew him out for so for from a Cleveland standpoint. I don't know what I learned. They're going to be going into this Detroit series, which is, you know, and even more physical athletic version of what we just saw with Toronto. With the bonus that they actually have a guy who can create good shots and good shots for other people Toronto had this weird mix of. Barrens who's not quite ready yet as a creator. And then RJ Barrett who I thought. I don't know. I thought he increased whatever his trade value was is heading into the last year of his deal. I actually liked his competitiveness at the big shot in game six. But that was really a Kade's another animal from those two guys, I think, as a crunch type guy at the same time. I mean Detroit was a better defense than Toronto this year. There are two of the top five defenses in the league. I think Detroit was second. Toronto was fifth. They're a little, they're just a little bit more conventional than the Raptors are, particularly when they put sand be at the five and just switch everything and mock your whole life up. Yeah. And it's just going to be interesting to see if like the cabs offense, even, even today, take away the offense of rebounds. They just didn't look very in sync. Like Harden and Mitchell don't look in sync with each other. There's just been a lot of dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble. Their assist rate is way down. They're taking way more pull up threes in this series. I think a lot of that has to do with Toronto just sort of drags you into that style with their switchiness and the way they play. I bet they feel a little bit looser against Detroit, which sounds paradoxical because Detroit is a nasty physical great defense. I just think they play a little more conventionally. But I think it should be, I think it should be a good, a good series. Two teams that should be super hungry to get to the next round. All these teams should be super hungry. I mean, the NBA didn't the sixers have never made it out of this round in his tenure there. The nicks have all the pressure on them to duplicate last year's run and get better than that. So it's going to be a fun second round in the East. I think Cleveland, I read that in them 60 to 33. Both teams shot 28% from three. As you mentioned, it was a rock fight that took forever. And we had multiple stoppages and reviews. And I thought the refs were really, really bad from a one side at standpoint. And I had no dog in the race. I didn't really care who won, but I thought I just felt like Toronto didn't get a call for two and a half hours other than. A couple on struts, but I did a bad mobility wasn't felt trouble for a lot of the game. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't love the whistles, but it was a classic road team game seven. You're not going to probably not get in those calls unless you're Philadelphia and Boston. Okay. All right. Were you watching Jalen Brown's Twitch stream during the game? Is that what you were doing when this game guy went to reviews? Were you watching Jalen on? I think it was Twitch. I'm not on Twitch. I'm not really, I don't really know what's going on there. Some clips on Twitter and he was not happy with the flopping and the officiating. I was told there was some directors cut Jalen stuff going on. Definitely one of those start. get in tax. Oh, no. Oh, boy. Here we go. He even, I think hinted that in the last three games, there was refs in each game that we're not on the level, which I don't know if that how well that's going to go over. Yeah. Does that count? Does Twitch count for NBA, like monitoring purposes? Does the league office get to do everything counts? Everything counts. Okay. Yeah. They're pretty, they, they care every time the refs are insulted by players or coaches. So that was going on. And then the other thing that happened was inside the NBA ended it. They did the gone fishing for the Celtics. I was proud that I made the boat. So did Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and John Krasinski. And then at the front, reenacting the Titanic, Mike Freibull and Diana Rossini. And they did not acknowledge it, but they were laughing. And then now it's a big thing on social media. So those two events were more, those two social media events were more exciting than this game, I think. So I didn't see the clip on Twitter of them talking about the boat and Ernie Seniors, our friend Bill Simmons on the boat and John Krasinski. And then they were just like, and there's other people on the boat. So many people are on there. I don't know. All right. Say it. It was really funny. Here's the word from, here's the word from Kia. I would love to have been like who, when they created it, there had to have been a meeting. It was like, are we, are we doing this? Is we like, we're putting them on and we're doing the Titanic clothes. We're good with that. There had to be someone who was like, guys, I don't know. And then someone else who was like screw that. That's funny. We're doing it. And then it got greenlit. Well, nothing would be more fun than inside the NBA being in fuck it mode with the SPN over the next couple of rounds. Just feel like, yeah, we're still pushing the envelope guys. Can you handle it? Big, big, big picture. You mentioned Cleveland versus Detroit, which is our round two matchup now. These teams have played entertaining games during the regular season. I probably have slightly higher hopes for this series than most because I think there's animosity on both sides. You have the shooter piece where he used to play for the pistons. I mean, we have to stuff that's every series with. No, he's played it. Yeah. I know he's been on every team in the league, but I was into that. He was on Toronto too, right? Yeah, he was. Yeah, he's I just figured he's played for every team. But we have that. We have, you know, Max Truce, no stranger to the physicality. We have the beef stew, Jalen Durham combo, battling the two soft spoken calves guys. But I thought, I remember watching one of these games, and Cleveland seemed really comfortable going against Detroit. And I think my lean, even though I don't really like this Cleveland team that much at all, and I think they give up a lot of open shots. I'm just not sure Detroit's going to be the team to exploit that. So I got to look at this more, but my lean would be Cleveland in six, and I don't feel good about it. I don't feel good about either of these teams coming off the series. I'm going to take a lot of tomorrow and go back and watch some of the games that they played and get a sense of food guards who and what the matchups are going to be in strengths and weaknesses and all that. I think it should be a long series. I would probably slightly lean Cleveland, but awesome performance by Detroit today. We already talked about that. Yeah, there. And you made like Struce the Struce Dunkin Robertson heat culture cast off battle is happening throughout about that. That's a good one. I think it would be a funny subplot if like mild mannered Jared Allen. Like if beef stew did something and he just like snaps just Jared Allen just snaps and like nose and nose karate or something and just we just we did know about Jared Allen and it just who knows anything's possible with beef stew. We have a we have some open for a reason guys on both teams. A lot of I assume I assume the Cavs will probably just put hard on Thompson. Right. Maybe I mean, you could you could put you could put Evan Mobley there if you want to have him as a help defender. I mean, it's one of the reasons why Sugs was guarding us our Thompson is to have your best help defender, you know, be the help guys. So they can do some people put their centers on Thompson and sort of risk it. They can put Jared Allen there and put Mobley on Stewart. There's a lot of different things they can do. Was that a Kenny Avkinson? I say by job game tonight. It would have been interesting off season in Cleveland. I mean, you remember we did our draft of all the playoff guys. And one of them was hot seat sneaky hot seat category coach. And I said Kenny Ackett center Chris Finch and Chris Finch has answered all the questions. And I said, by the way, I don't think either of them should be, but I do think this is a very pressurized season for Cleveland, which is why that second quarter felt so fraught because you know everything that's at stake, particularly when you make a trade like Garland for hearted. Like you're messaging to your team is pretty clear. Like, hey, guys, it's kind of now. Like let's do it. What do you think LeBron was doing watching that game? Like deep down reading for Toronto to open up Cleveland possibility because we still don't have a LeBron team next year. Don't you think it might be the Lakers at this point? Don't you? Well, I mean, why wouldn't it be the Lakers that like what? Again, a lot of it comes down to money, right? Like what kind of deal is he going to be willing to take? But the LeBron that played the last two months of the season with Reeves and Luca, those it worked perfectly fine. Don't you think LeBron is relaxing and or I don't know if you've heard this, but he spends a million dollars a year on his body. So he might be, he might be trying to get ready for the freaking Oklahoma City Thunder. I'm that's what I'm going to assume was happening. You know, I think I was ground zero. He's 41 Bill. I don't I don't like I don't know if you've looked that up recently. He's 41 years old. Oh, LeBron James. Oh, this player ever to do name 130 things. I was ground zero for the LeBron spends a million dollars a year in his body story. Really? Yeah, because I did it in 2016. I did on a pod because I spent time with somebody in his circle who was telling me that. So I talked about it. And for some reason, we got aggregated and became a story. But I'd like to like to feel like I was Dr. Oppenheimer for that one. Just kept going for next nine years. I always like to throw Oppenheimer. I don't know if you want to keep comparing yourself or other people to Dr. Oppenheimer. You know, he's now they're making movies about him. Maybe my favorite Christopher Nolan movie, by the way, Oppenheimer. Really? Yeah. I like being over the dark day. Yeah. I loved Oppenheimer. I thought it was a masterpiece. I mean, nowhere to go after that. By the way, you just made me think of something that I absolutely loved. No, it's just just a totally random thing I was going to do later. But somebody. So this guy, a Chester 99 on Twitter. Sure. He somehow went through and found the record holder for points for every point total between zero and a hundred. So for instance, Greg Kite has the most zero point games in NBA history at 295. 295 zero point games. This was the one that broke my brain. It might be the greatest that I've ever heard of. One point games. Okay. Somebody had 61 one point games. And it's somebody that played in the last 25 years. And you won't guess it because this is impossible. Reggie Evans had 61 one point games. You know, I was actually going to say it would have to have been like an inferior version of Dennis Rodman, like someone who's just just like that. And that's because Rodman was too good. It was scrounges way to six or five or eight or whatever, but they would have to be a player like that. You're league leader with at for six point games, Michael Cage at 151. Similar. He's on the board. Similar guy. My guy, Robert Parrish, three different holders at 14, 16 and 18. Our guy Tim Duncan, 19 points games. He had the most of 88. And then, and then our guy, Dirk Lewitsky to bring this up next time we're on the Amazon show. He's the career leader in 21 point games with 82 82. What's the biggest number? Like who it like so? It's 253 the greatest single number of any kind of games on the list. Harvey Ketchings at 193 and Greg cut that he had 193 two point games. Harvey Ketchings. Okay. Great kite. 295 for zero. So Carl Malone is there for 23 and 24. What's weird is Karim was an on here, which I was surprised. And then it gets to 25. And LeBron has the record for 25 26 27 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37. And he's tied at 38. And Jordan only has 38 39 and 40. And then we move into like Jordan Wilter. What a crap. I got you got to send me this. I read I'll send this to you. I was reading it for for literally 45 minutes. I've been more riveted by anything Twitter. I mean, it's just it's a it's a it's a high class high intellect version of name some guys like all that kind. Harvey Ketchings. Michael Cage is just like let's name some guys, but it has math attached to it. So I like it. Dirk Fisher has two different ones. Five and seven point games. He has the records for both, but T are done as the four point game. I really love this. I need more content like this in my life. So so Cleveland barely beats a team that had settled in crunch time in game six. CMB a rookie. Jamal Shed, RJ Barrett, Scotty Barnes, and Walter. That was their crime. That was basically their Money line up in game six. and then they tried to keep it coding and today probably spent, I'm gonna say 75 million combined on those five guys this year and the girl that gets Cleveland that has Mitchell, Harden, Mobley, Allen, even Max Truce makes like 17 million a year. No boy effort for Toronto. Yeah, absolutely. What happens, let's play, what do you do with Toronto? What do you do? Oh boy. Well, I have a lot of different things I could do because I've got all my picks. My roster is too expensive. Let me bring them up their cap sheet here. Yes, sadly, they're paying Ingram 40 and 41 next two years and quickly 32.5 each of the next three. Yeah, I think not to mention the hurdle extension we talked about before that gets ugly. I think all of those guys have now reached the territory of I have to attach something to get off of them if we're doing, including Ingram. I mean, I'll start bringing Ingram. I don't think that player option is, maybe he's neutral and you could put him in it. He picked it up. I heard it. He just picked it up. The player up, nobody likes no teams like player options. I mean, the quickly deal, which I didn't mind when it happened has not worked out. He just has been healthy enough. I liked it. You know, Barrett is extension eligible and you know he's walking in the door being like, hey, most successful Raptor season a little bit here and that was a big part of it. Can we, can we work something out? I kind of like his game. The more you watch him, does that crafty lefty stuff? I thought he matched the intensity athleticism of some of the playoff moments. They're just in a tricky spot because, you know, if they wanted to reach for the stars, right, they've been linked to you on us before or what's the trade or like is there a trade like everyone's going to ask for Scotty Barnes. He's obviously untouchable. Is there a trade that they can even do that would satisfy the other team and leave them with enough stuff in the cupboard to actually win? I think the right move might just be like, look, we know this team probably is a little better than we thought based on our playoff performance. They're a pretty good team. We know what they are. Let's not get too crazy here and just see who can rehab their trade value a little bit. Maybe there is some sort of get out of jail free car with one of these contracts. We've got all our picks. CMB is over here with Scotty Barnes, like that dude is awesome and I'm not doing anything foolish with him. I want him on my team for a long time. I like Walter too. I think he's a keeper. Yeah, they learned some good stuff about some of their young players in this series. Like, Walter was totally up for this, made some big shots. He had to have a little slump in the middle of the series. CMB is those nine-man rotation guy. Yeah, so they have a couple. The problem is that pertal extension kills them for a honest thing because if that wasn't attached to the end, and when you talked about go crazy, like that was crazy when it happened and now it seems even crazier. But you could have had expirings and RJ expiring in two years or one year that would have been expiring for pertal. So basically that would have been your expiring package and they have all their picks. They have everything. So they can do every combination of picks and swaps. So that, if you honest that said, send me to Toronto, they at least could have had something semi-respectable. I'm not sure they're going to be able to get there the way it is now. Grady Dick just not being able to play is a pretty big disappointment. Yeah, what happened that you liked him for a split second, didn't you? He can do some stuff. He just hasn't made enough shots and he's not good enough defensively and he's got some, it just, Walter just passed him and there was only room for one of them in the rotation and that's where we are. Did he do enough that he can get a Grady Dick was a problem Twitter video in like 10 years or not? Easily. We can make it this week if you want. It could be at least three and a half minutes long. All right, good. I just wanted to make sure he at least had that. Only the half of the video would be Jersey swaps. The other half would be his actual plays. True. The big thing for them was Barnes had a great season. He went up a level. I am not sure he could be the best guy on a championship game, but he can definitely be the second best guy. And he might even be able to be the Jalen Brown with his version of Tatum. I thought physically, athletically, competitively, he has everything. It's really hard for him to create his own offense. He could do it. It never feels great. It's very similar to where Agudala was in those Philly years and even that one Denver year where it's like he can do it. It's probably not a great sign for your team if he's the one doing it and he's so much better if he's kind of over here. So they got to figure that out and I don't know how they figured out with the rest of them. I think the mid-ranger has come in a long. I felt more confident in it in the series than I had before. And I really think he is the guy that would have benefited most from the idea of what a manual quickly was supposed to be for this team. Sort of a good shooting, like half point guard, half spot-up guy doesn't need the ball, but can work with it, can run pick and rolls both ways with Scotty and just sort of loosen the defense up in ways that a guy like Shed can't do. We just like haven't seen quite enough of that combination over the last two seasons to really see what it could be. Scotty leapt a lot of guys this year. He left a lot of guys behind him in the NBA player rankings, like Ben Carroll. It's not close right now. Well, maybe it's close, but he leapt a guy. He leapt guys like that and he might make all NBA and it wouldn't be like illegitimate. He had a great year. Tough as shit in the playoffs. He was ready for all of it, played super hard. I'm going to thought bubble or trade that I would love them to do and you're probably going to jerk backwards and then be upset and maybe go deep into thought for like five seconds. Brandon Ingram for Kevin Durant. Okay, so if I'm the rockets, why am I doing that? I'm getting off of Kevin Durant. Wow. Just, just, I'm just moving on. Just a lot of baggage. I'm just going to get out of that one. Money's about the same and Durant gets to probably wouldn't be psyched about going to the team that their fans cheered when he when he tours Achilles during the finals. I don't know if he'd be super pumped about that one, but you could you could work with them. I don't love the Ingram fit in Houston with the other pieces that they have. I'd rather try to trade Durant in aim a little differently. But how many teams that are actually really think going to talk themselves into being the latest team that potentially could become unhappy? Just by sheer coincidence that Kevin Durant showed up and then things became unhappy. Teams will talk, he's still Kevin Durant. He's going to make an all NBA team this year. Did you vote him all NBA? I sure did. So, I mean, there you go. He will, he's got just next year and then a player option, which is interesting. I think I think some good teams would would kick the tires and give Houston stuff that makes more sense. Dean Brenner, but I will say I don't know if you read the athletic what now they tell us story about the rockets yesterday. Did you catch that? I love that. Well, I mean, but it wasn't there was nothing in it. There was particularly a revelatory. I just love when they happened because I think we've all sort of made the calls and made the rounds and had the meetings of like, okay, so no one is really denying that this was actually Kevin Durant on the texts and burners and like it and they had some lines and they're like sources say it was a big issue within the organization and but yeah, it was and yeah, no one on the record off the record privately publicly has come out and said, no, no, it was actually wasn't Kevin Durant, which I don't know what else to conclude from that other than it seems like it was Kevin Durant. See bad. We'll save the rest of it for our deep dive this summer. I mean, do you disagree? Nobody has come out and denied it. All evidence suggests that it is. It seemed to have had a before and after impact on the team and it seems like it was him. And they had also there was also lines in the story that were like the whole team came together and agreed to just like squash it, keep it in house. We're not talking about it. Like the whole thing in the in the athletic story, which I've also heard similar like meetings took place was just like it was what it was a huge issue. Whatever it was, it was a big issue. Taking a break for the pod, continuing to go here on Netflix. Three, so we know all the series and Lakers, Oklahoma City, you basically can't even bet on Oklahoma City for the series. It's like you have to risk $3,000 to win a dollar. The odds for the series though, a sweep is +125 on Fandall. And okay, C4 to 1 is +175 and then the odds get progressively walkier. We just had two massive upsets last round with the Lakers upside in the Rockets and the Sixers upside in the Celtics that from a money line standpoint were two of the biggest upsets we've had in the last 15 years. I do not think this will be the case. Is there any sort of case you could make that doesn't involve? Luca comes back and immediately goes nuts and I don't even know how they would win two games. I mean, Luca comes back plus Jill and Williams remains out. It would have been a road map towards an interesting series. It doesn't seem like I mean the latest updates on Luca is he's still a bit away and I just don't know that even with even if J-Dub, I mean once the last time they play it, at this point a week ago, if they had a week off now. Well, I mean, their practices are probably more competitive than first round was. You know, I just don't see a roadmap for the Lakers without Luca to really make it a competitive series. There'll be some competitive games, a little slow it down and play their old man basketball and like whatever, but you know, it's still, you're still asking a lot of Marcus Martin, Rui Hachemura and Jake Luravia and guys that are just like the thunder have just better guys than that. Tough series for LeBron coming off a really fun series for him and, you know, being the best guy in a playoff series at age 41, all that stuff. And now you have the OKC pit bulls being at least on you. Well, it's like, it's like the father time, father time is like the whole metaphor is just this series father time versus LeBron. Here's team father time, like a bunch of guys who are 25 and younger and awesome at basketball that you are 41 and just have had it. Yeah. You're laughing at father time LeBron. Enjoy it for the next two weeks. Biggest playoff series upsets. The biggest one in the last 30 plus years was that Nuggets Sonic's one, the Nuggets were plus 1400. But then we had Cavs Pacers last year Pacers were plus 425 and then that's number two. Well, that that recently. Okay. No, number two was, we believe, 1212. Oh, sure. Yeah. And then 2012 bulls sixers, sixers were 9 to 1, but Rose got hurt at the end of the game one that they were winning. And then there's a, there's a bubble one in here and South Sixers 8 to 1. Oxy from 23. Six Nix is on here from 25 and Nix or plus 550 for some reason. So yeah, I don't think there's a lot to discuss with this one. It does with that we talked about it briefly in part one about Edwards coming back from Minnesota. Anything intrigue you about Minnesota other than the obvious, which is that they're a bunch of bad asses who are unafraid of everybody. There's some Go Bear, Wembee, Edwards, maybe convincing himself he's the best player in the series. Some of those spurs, young guys, maybe getting a little tight, say, what's the road map here? The road map is just underestimate the term, but what was that you're on peril? Like they've proven it over and over again, this is like whatever happens in the regular season, cool. They go up, they go down, they play up to the competition and down to it. They're a really good playoff team. They're down one key guy. And we got to see how IO looks and how Ant looks like they were down a lot of guys by the end of that series. But they bring a lot to the table in any matchup. They're big. They're strong. They're tough. They're going to defend. And there's a lot of interesting subplots to this series starting with Ant. And like the Ants, Steph Castle matchup is just going to be, oh my God, holaceous from style step. We'll get the assignment on him presumably for a lot of the series. You know, I'm going to say nobody under 12 courtside for the series. Just to be safe. Somebody brought a baby to one of the Laker games. There's like a four month old baby, courtside. I just feel like that's, you know, you have to, you should have to really answer to some sort of parent court for that. And I was, I did spend some time last week watching some spurs. Wolves, just a little matchups just to see like who guards Wembee. How do they do that? And there was just guys have been injured off and on the entire. We've barely gotten to see the real teams play against each other. But Go Bear did guard Wembee for the most part when Go Bear was healthy and Wembee was healthy. And Steph did guardians for the most part and it's, there's just a lot of, look, spurs are better. Spurs have come court, they're healthier. They'll probably win. But I think Minnesota can make it a long series and I think they could win the series. Wembee shooting threes and actually making them versus what Joker did last round would be one way to mess with Go Bear a little bit. Yeah. Always. Zombie Mike Conley, can it keep going? Sure. The zombie that beat him, how long are the effects? I mean, he's, he, just give me 12 minutes, 12 good minutes, Mike, 12 good minutes. That was unbelievable. I thought he was washed up two years ago. Minnesota to win in seven is 15 to one, Minnesota to win in six is 13 to one. Spurs, sweep, two to one, spurs, sweep and then spurs in five plus 195, which I think would be the smart pick. So general, gentlemen, sweep is the, is the favorite. Yeah, maybe Minnesota wins three, I'm going to, I'm going to give Minnesota at least another game. I'm going to dig in a little bit more tomorrow, watch a little more, do a little more research. But I, my inclination is to not underestimate the wolves. If certainly proven it and they've certainly proven that they've taken the nobody believes in us NFL mentality, Chris Finch after the, after the win was not shy about saying, hey, they wanted us to that whole thing. I loved it. I loved it. I mean, those two teams legitimately hate each other and it's awesome. I just want one, it needs to happen once or Ants got a bit over one way and Wembe is the last line of defense and Ant says, I'm going for it. And I don't know. I don't know what will happen. Like, there could be just the rim could break the backboard could break. Fans could be injured. I don't know, but I want to see it. It's Superman 2 Superman's flying into one of those guys in the air and there's, yeah, it's a puff of smoke. Do you want to guess what the Fando align is for Pistons Cavs for the series because it's out? Who do you think's favorite? I think it's, I think the Cavs are favored by a very small amount. The Pistons are favored by a very small amount. Okay. By a few small beers minus 122. A few small beers. Caves in seven is six to one. Pistons in seven is four to one. Cavs in six is plus three 40. I would probably go exact games over the series betting in this. Really tough one. Honestly, this probably a stay away as a series bet, but we can't stay away tomorrow. I know. I think we're both leaning slightly toward the Cavs, but I certainly would have bet my life on either one of these. I'm going to do, I'm going to do more of my homework tomorrow. I didn't do my homework yet because I wasn't going to do double the homework in the series. Cavs Raptors just took forever. Pistons magic took forever. So I got to do my homework tomorrow. And then Philly Knicks, Knicks minus 260 over Philly, Philly's plus two 15 as underdogs. And then if you want Knicks in seven, which would be great. Six plus three 80, sixers in seven is eight to one, and sixers in six is plus five 50. And if you wanted to go nuts, you could bet the sixers sweep at 25 to one. That's the ball sweep at plus five 50, yeah. That's going to be the best of the four series, unless we get really looking like Ann again. But I think Knicks, all the storylines with this Knicks sixers series, real animosity with the Knicks and the fans toward Embed for multiple incidents from previous years. The Maxi versus Brunson, kind of each side, not being able to stop the other, and now they're probably not going to regard each other. The Towns Embed, which that rekindled this weekend, I'd forgotten about the tweets from 2019. What else? And then OG and Nobie being the best player in the world. There's a lot of different storylines we have going. What else do you like about it? I had forgotten about the cat Embed stuff from all those years ago, so that's very exciting. And I'm glad that everyone has done their job and dredging it back up for added animosity. Mitchell Robinson Embed stuff is well known. I think it's a big Micheal Bridges series, like, you know, good finish to the Hawke series in the last game, found his equilibrium a little bit on offense. He's going to get, I would guess he'll get the Maxi assignment from the jump. He's been their primary guy. It's a really tough assignment for the Knicks. They don't have a great option. I mean, not that many people do, but, you know, and an OB's tried it, hard to try it, they tend to trend bigger defensively and not smaller and quicker. And Bridges, it's like, you know, everyone's going to laugh at that trade forever as Brian Winhorse, our friend always says, if you win a championship, every trades good, every trades in a plus, every trades fine. And so like, here's a series that's kind of tailor made for you to, you don't have to score 22 points. And I have to run as many picking roles as you did in Brooklyn. That guy, fine. Be Phoenix. Be Phoenix McHale Bridges and play the best defense you played as a Knick and get us 14 points of game. And like, we're all going to be happy. My guess is they use Bridges to do the 94 feet thing on Maxi and then bring some Josh Hardin for that and then Alvarado for five minutes and a half. And just, just putting bodies on him, the entire court at all times, it's not always going to work. He's going to be faster than everybody. He's going to get to the basket. But I think that's what you're going to have to do. You've to approach it as we got to cut the head off on this one on this team. He's the head. We got to cut it off. Alvarado and Embed are going to have a moment at some point of the season where Alvarado is just going to be like annoying him or anything like it. Embed's going to be like, what is this thing down here that's annoying me? I don't like it. And Jose Alvarado is going to get all offended by it's good. That's going to happen. The Embed flopping at MSG is going to be a point of viewing. They've already conditioned and really hated it. I know the Celtics fans who are not big fans. And then you have the town's piece of it, too, where you could see a couple of double flops. You could see towns recording. and horror, as it beat his flop in the other way, and it's like a flop off almost like an eight mile and we had the rap battles. Every team's got a flopper. Okay. There's flopters. Floppers everywhere. Jaila Brunson has not been averse to the occasional head snap flop either like there. There's another one. You're right. He coming around a screen could go fly. That could be another flop off. Yeah. I mean, it's in the crowd reactions will be awesome. And every player will act as if they definitely didn't flop. And I just want people to start using the flop sign more often because I think it's really fun. Let's bust it out. I love, I, I, I loved him be talking shit to the fans in Boston during the game telling them to be quiet. Yeah. It was like a kind of, I was a new level of bravado for him because it was like, could it go on badly? If you blow the game that ends up looking badly and he was fine with it. And I like him. I gotta say he's always done it though. Like even in 2018, he was, he was doing it. We were like, dude, you just got the league. What are you doing? And I like it. He loves it. It gets him going. Don't build filly fans. Don't sell your tickets. Get all the tickets. We can't have these nix fans coming down on Amtrak over paying for our tickets. We don't want it to sound like Madison Square Garden. He laid down the gauntlet for the Sixers fans who have been waiting, waiting for this team. So let's do it. Who is this a more painful series loss for? I would say the nix, like for the fan bases. This is like, if I'm the nix right now, if I'm a nix fan, the C's have parted over the last week. The Celtics are out. You had this whole Tatum revenge thing lurking and that's gone. You have this filly team that you've already had a lot of success with. And there's just a clear roadmap now. Like this is the year, right? This is the best chance I think they're ever going to have in these to win this year right now next four weeks. It's amazing how it's turned from Hawks series is not going well. We got a fire. The coach. We were like, we're the honest trade to some are what's to move to now, like, oh, the east is broken. I for us. The more painful series losses, definitely the nix. As painful as it would be for filly and their fans to get a taste of this and then have the rug pulled out in the same round where the rug is always pulled out for them. I think to get that, those three games against that team, the Celtics and to vanquish them the way they did and to just get a glimpse of what this team could be. If they continue to play well and lose to the next, I still think it feels like a fun season with some hope for next season for the sixers. Yeah, we got to see and be played meaningful basketball again. Back to became a guy. We clearly have something pretty special in Edgecomb. We'll see how far it goes and we resuscitated Paul George and we and we eliminated the number two seed Boston Celtics are ancient ancient rival for the first time in a long, long time in the first time pretty 82 and pretty heartbreaking fashion for them. Like you got to take some joy in that for your filly filly's plus 650 to win the conference. The nix or plus one 45 was interesting about that is I kind of think whoever wins the series goes to the finals because I think if the sixers win the series, that will mean that what we just saw for two and a half games was actually real for real. And then they ran through the nix and from a talent standpoint, they're top four. If everybody's healthy and Paul George is playing like that and B is fine, you'd probably put that against any other top four. I still think the nix are going to win. I would pick the nix. But listen, man, the sixers, if they're going to play like they played the last two and a half games, it's a hard team to play. No question. I will also pick the nix. I would lean nix and seven right now, I'm going to do more work on it tomorrow. But I think Cleveland to Detroit should feel exactly the same way. They should have the same attitude of like, oh, this is open for us. I know that they haven't, you know, an eight seed took Detroit to distance, an underband Raptor team took Cleveland to distance, but every matchup is different. Every matchup is going to feel different. And whoever wins that series should not be afraid of the sixers, like, can they stay healthy this all time? The nix. I mean, Detroit played the nix to the hill last year in the first round. I think both of those teams should feel that way too. I don't know. Detroit going to the death store, basically, that Orlando series and having to take every single ounce of everything just to win and seven. I don't think it was an awesome sign for them. And then Cleveland against Toronto, losing two guys, like, even just not finishing Toronto in six, not a great sign for them either. We I got to do a couple more. What do you do as quick? Okay. What do you do if you're Atlanta? And you have Jalen Johnson at 120 for four. Daniels at 100 for four. Acongo at 16 and 17. Alexander Walker at 14 and 15. You're stuck with Kispert at 13 and 13. You got Risha Shay at 13 next year coming as a free agent, CJ as a free agent. And you have that New Orleans first rounder that might be in the top four. You'll be at the lottery away from now. You could create up to 29 million in cap space. You get creative. So you could do something like we discussed in part one where you could trade Daniels in the pick and try to get a franchise guy or, you know, an all NBA guy or an all star. Whether it's Jalen, Yannis, whoever, or you could just say I like what we have. Let's resign McCollum. Let's try to lowball Caminga and maybe bring him back for one more year to see we have. And let's try to nail this pick and look at the late 2020s for when we make a run. What would you do? Yeah. The first thing I got to do is see what happens in the lottery and who I can get and where I'm picking. My inclination is almost regardless of that. Given the state of the East in general, like, I mean, we'll see what the Pacers are just sort of sitting over here is the forgotten man in the East that's going to come back. You know, we'll hopefully full health, not a thing at a top four pick. They will not be forgotten. Well, that's true, too. They'll be adding Haliburton, Zubat's and one of the four picks in a generational draft or trading it for who God knows what, but probably knowing Indiana and the way they generally operate, just making the pick and saying we're thrilled to do this. Yeah. My inclination if I were the Hawks would be, let me let this marinate a little bit before I do anything too aggressive, depending on where I pick. And I like a Kongoo, I like Alexander Walker. I think Daniels is an interesting player. I'm obviously not trading Jill and Johnson. Researches is the one we just got to figure out how do we revive this and if not, what do we do? But let's see where the lottery balls fall first. I don't, I mean, what's the aggressive move for them? What's the other? What's the big move? I mean, I would poke around on things like just, you know, it's, it's not just Yannis or Stan Pat, right? Like, there's a bunch of middle ground stuff like are there, I'd have to go through the rosters or the guys we could pick off, you know, that are a little bit better than one of the guys we have now. Did there like a Durant, like, is that interesting to us at all? We mentioned Jill and Brown before that's a little high price, but just these are their smaller moves I can do around the fringes because I don't, you know, in McCollum, I think would like to go back there and there's got to be a number of that works. He was so good for them. Yeah, I would say they probably need some size and a point guard who could learn under the tutelage of returning free agency, Jay McCollum. And there's a ton of point guards in this draft and they're going to end up with somebody good. So we agree. Let's say Portland's a little more interesting. Denny is at 13 million in next season and 12 million the year after that, which is just probably the best contract in the entire lake, right? I would even have that over the preacher who's making like seven million year. They have holiday at 34 and 37, they've green at 34 and 36, they have sharp 90 for four and Camara 81 for four. And they have Dame 13 and 14 and they have scoot and cling and still on rookie deals. So they don't, they're going to be a tax team next year and maybe even like bumping toward the second tax that they spend, they have all their picks from 27 to 30. They have a Milwaukee first swap. They get the best one out of Boston, Milwaukee in 29 and another Milwaukee swap at 30. So they have stopped the trade and they have an owner who is already getting stories written about him every day for outchiefious. So I don't know what to make of this. And he doesn't like it. I don't know. What? At first I heard he doesn't care. Who likes being called sheep? But the first wave of news was he doesn't care. He reads it on. He doesn't care. And then he, then he's being defended by the GM Joe Kronin style, but it's just not accurate at what, what, what, what he's portrayed in my look, the stories have not been refuted. Like the guys were in the freaking lobby because they couldn't get laid checkouts. Like, that's the thing that happened. He does care. He paid for subs the other day for everybody. Everybody got a roast beef sub. I don't like roast beef. I'll take a turkey, turkey over roast beef, these roast beef and turkey and even add a couple tunas. Yeah. I don't, you know, there's this Yannis noise that's out there. I started the noise a month ago and then, then found out that Yannis didn't want to go to the West Coast. I don't. Yannis wants to go to the East Coast. I don't really know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm struggling to wrap my brain around that one. Yeah, I don't like, they're a weird team because does anyone want Jeremy Grant's contract? Even Drew Holiday was spectacular when he was healthy this year. The player option in 2728 is pretty pricey. I got to figure out Scoots, Scoots extension eligible. It feels, I mean, every team like Portland is just facing the same dilemmas. Like, yeah, we're pretty good. we were a young rising team with a lot of assets. We don't have anyone on our team nearly as good as anyone that Oklahoma City in San Antonio has at the top of their roster. How are we going to ever compete with those two teams and how do we get there? And I don't know, I don't know what the answer is for Portland, other than I do like that they're building around this defense defense defense identity and like we're at least going to make things hard for everybody we play. So I like where they are. I don't really understand the game contract at all. Why they did it, why they paid him for a year and not to play. That was weird. But for the most part, I'm fine with the Drew contract. It's two years. Yeah, he's good. Next year and then the final year is an expire and that's fine. Grants a little tougher. So we don't think this is like let's go nuts and get somebody awesome team. This could be another Durant destination by the way. I mean, I think the Durant price point might not be that high if he does get traded. And I don't know if that he is going to get traded like what does Houston have to trade him. Well, let's they were next on my, what do you do? KD at 44 and 46. Shenguin at 35, 37, 39 and Jabara is at 23, 22, 24. They have FVV for 25 next year. Finish mid 39 for the next three. Adams for two more and double figures and compet. Adams and Capella are basically 20 and 18 the next two years. Then they have a Thompson extension and they've reached Shepard. But the thing with them, they have some really nice picks. They're going to have that swap with Brooklyn next year. They're going to have the Phoenix first. They have their own first and they have a Phoenix style of swap in 29. The Brooklyn one, I think we have to start really thinking about Brooklyn as a team that might do some dramatic stuff this summer. Because anytime we've seen a team with cap space in the position of this pick could come back to Hanna's, they usually get a little more aggressive heading into that season, right? Which may be wonder, like, could they be a destination for pick somebody who had had an ugly playoff exit? I think absolutely they could. I mean, they've been rumored in the honest, like on the fringes of the honest thing. And everyone has been like, well, I'd be including me. I've said, why would you honest go there? Who is he playing with? And I don't know the answer to that question other than I then that's probably think if we get you honest, we can get somebody else. We have infinite flexibility, tons of picks. You know, when Sean Marx first got there and they were just in the so deep in the hole of picks owed to Boston and other places, they didn't do the thing where they got aggressive because they didn't control their pick. And we have to save face a little bit. They did the opposite and just ate it as a sunk cost. And I wonder if they have the appetite to do that again. I suspect that you will be right and they'll try to be a little bit more aggressive than that because at that pick, it's a big asset and they've got the Phoenix stuff coming as well. Yeah, the rockets, you know, there's an argument to be made that they should just sit tight and see what van Lee looks like, see what the team looks like with van Lee, Durant, Steven Adams, keep the picks, base what it is and just take take another shot at it next year. Or you can even go further and maybe go, you know what, we aren't contenders and we're not going to really have a chance here with San Antonio, Oklahoma City and even Minnesota. Maybe we should zag the other way with these picks coming. We got a bunch of young players, reduce the expectations. Hey, does anybody want van Lee and unexpiring? Does anybody want, you know, this pretty decent Adams contract, even though it gets hurt every year, is anyone interested in Durant? You just zag. I think that's a, I mean, the three paths they have to me are stampat, trade Durant and or van Lee in a in a in deals that sort of just reset your timeline a little bit about around the young guys or find the home run superstar. We're all in now. We trade Shen Goon plus picks plus whatever for Yannis or whoever else becomes available. And I think that whoever else becomes available thing is a big wild card in that because other people, depending on what happens in the playoffs, will become, I mean, we've already seen, we talked about it in part one, Denver, basically letting the world know everybody but Yokech, like our phones are open. So that means Jamal Murray, who else would be, I mean, not, I don't think Denver wants to trade Jamal Murray, but the fact that his name is omitted from the do not ask list according to shams is interesting. And but to be clear, shams and say Jamal Murray's name, he just said anybody but Yokech, which obviously includes Jamal Murray. So there'll be other guys like that, depending on how the playoffs go. Yeah, there's, you could get like a Durant, Van Vley, it's expiring and some draft stuff for Murray on paper makes sense. I don't know why either team would want to trade with each other west. And if I'm, if I'm trading Murray, I probably want two pieces back. I can't remember if I said this in part one, but I was meaning to say this to you. If I'm, if I'm Denver, I'm doing nothing. You didn't say that. Oh, I didn't. No. All right. I'll say it more emphatically. I'm doing nothing. I just had bad luck in a playoffs area at a weird year. I had Joker playing the best basketball of his entire career getting hurt and then Gordon getting hurt twice. And this Minnesota thing just was one of those weird things that happens in the playoffs every once in a while. Only one team can win the title. A lot of teams panic after they don't win the title. I just wouldn't panic with, with what I have. So I'd want to be a little more careful. I'd really want to resign Peyton Watson. And even if I have to trade Cam Johnson to make that, I don't know why they can't just resign Peyton Watson actually spend some fucking money. This crockys are wealthier than just about anybody. Just spend the fucking money of jute, joked on your team. But I'm bringing back Watson. I'm bringing back all my guys. I got Cam Johnson as an expiring and I have a little flexibility and let's play it out and see where we are in January. That's got to be the move. I wouldn't panic. Well, that was good. My counter was going to be number one. I don't, I just, we talked about this already. I just think you have to assume Aaron Gordon is going to be hit or miss availability wise for the rest of his career. 13th year of his career. This is who he is though. And so I don't, I've got to build my team with that in mind. And counter number two is Peyton Watson. I think they have to bring him back. And that's going to cost you. It's going to cost you money, which we agree. It would be great if they just paid and they've ducked the apron and stuff before. I don't think that's likely. And so they're going to have to pay something to get off of Christian Brown or Cam Johnson. And they already owe some significant draft assets out the door to Oklahoma City of all teams and two separate drafts. So it'll be another reason why they're going to be trying to stay really good. Christian Brown, I don't really understand. I thought the extension was too pricey, but it was also in the range of all these other guys that he was at least in the ballpark of that we're getting between low 20s and 2526. I don't understand why he was so bad. Like, how did he just lose the ability to play offense? And also, why did he stop being a shutdown guy and defense? I don't know that he was ever a shutdown guy defense. Well, he was there shutdown guy, though. You know what I mean? Like he was the guy they would put on the other team's best perimeter guy. And it wasn't glaringly bad like it was this year. He couldn't guard anybody in that series. He's, I think he's just because of the way their team is built and how Gordon has aged and been injured. I think he's just tasked with a role that he's not quite up to. He's a good defensive player, not a great one. And it all comes down 30% on three. Like 30% on three is any missed half the season. Like that's, and I do think the Watson thing, although he shot it really well from three this year, especially from the corners, the two of them playing together, is that how viable is that going to be? Because that's your best defensive lineup is the two of them plus Gordon. Is that it? They barely played those three together all season. But to me, Watson, if there's a, if there's a, if there's a number that makes sense for all parties, and I don't know if Peyton Watson is like actually itching to go to a place where you would have a bigger role, like, you know, the Lakers are going to be rumored until the end of time. But I want, I want that guy back on my team. And they still are in the driver's seat with it. Yeah, you can imagine you offer. And we, I don't remember the last time somebody just stole a restricted for agent with some crazy offer. You have to go back to like the German and Omer Asuch era to, to, to, for the creativity. I just, Peyton Watson and Gordon together as injuries, not as impactful from a talent standpoint as Edwards and the sumo. And you could just, you could just, you could just stop it Edwards. But yeah, including the other guys too. Obviously not as, but what was interesting about the series was Denver couldn't replace what Gordon gave them at all. Minnesota was somehow able to patch together, you know, they, they lost the three-point shooting completely by losing all those guys. But they were somehow able to patch together the defense and the rim attack with all the backups for those guys. Denver couldn't replace anything Gordon did. And that was what sunk them, you know. So, so to your point, like, yeah, you can't count on them anymore. But I also don't know who else they could bring in that could do 75% of what he does. You just have to hope that Watson, although a much different player stylistically on both ends of the floor just gives you enough pop and enough size to mimic it. And that Gordon still has enough in the tank for a big playoff run here and there. But yeah, the Minnesota thing, man, you can't give them enough credit. They got the big I/O game. And I was reading it was really good. Conley, Conley was good. Shannon massive in the, in the elimination game. They just, you know, got contributions from everyone. There was almost a, there was a jail in Clark, Yokech near fight in that game, which is, you know, it is interesting that the hockey mentality, start a fight with the other team's best player. Well, it'll be fights back like it's part that, but it is every time it's going bad for Denver, there seems to be a yoke itch event in which he's a participant in sometimes not the initiator, but I'll sometimes yes, the initiator. But I don't really know what to make of that. What did you think of the 48 hour celebration that Yoke itch got bounced in round one? Was there was that who was celebrating? A lot of people. A lot of people were psyched that all of the yoke and stuff just had a giant forks slammed into it. I thought it was. I mean, he had a bad series. He just, like, go bear eight is lunch for a lot of the series. His jumper wasn't there. His defense wasn't good enough. It was a bad series for him. It was his first real postseason clunker against the team that has their number at this point. The three point shading was bad. I went back and I looked at his, I went back and I looked at his, his, his stats in 23 when they won when they went 16 and four and, uh, and basically rolled through everybody. His stats were unbelievable that year. That was like when he was like 31, 14 and 10 and he shot like 47% from three and, you know, it's, you look at that and you're like, Oh, his stats are still pretty good this year, but compared to where he was, they weren't. So the question for me is at age 31, he, has he moved into a slightly different echelon of himself as a playoff guy. If the three point shooting is just not going to be reliable anymore, I'm not, I'm not going there. I think he still has plenty of time left in his prime and the three point, I mean, that's how I feel, but it's a question now. The three pointer is a fickle animal, right? And so you, let's say they sneak out that round, maybe he has a hot round the next round. I don't worry too much about that. I, it, it was eye opening that he didn't have the same level of answers for go bear that he's had previously in any, in any, like in the post on the pick and roll and anything. He just didn't have rhythm to his game against go bear and that we had just not seen him run into a matchup like that before when teams don't think he could make the three pointer. I think it changes how they play him, what they want him to do. And I just think Minnesota was super comfortable with it. One thing did happen from that series forgot to tell you, I had to drop Joker or my pyramid spots, two spots. Okay. Yeah. What does that mean? Where is he? So there's the center right at the end of level, the top level, the pantheon. There's four centers clustered together and I've been moving them around. I'm the only one who sees the list. That's not like I'm announcing it, but it's Akim and Shaq and Joker and Moses. I think he's right there with Moses and I think you could, I have him, I have Joker 14 and Moses 15. You could talk me into flipping it, but I think Akim and Shaq have to be above him at this point, unless he can rally back with, with some sort of other playoff thing like the only one finals appearance, one title, even Moses got to two finals. It's hard. It's hard. It's too tight. Back to back for Akim. When you're in the top 15, you start to be measured by different crazy, highest possible level things, Akim and 95 wins the back to back title and just beats every, every team he beats is awesome. Every center he goes against is awesome. He just destroys everybody and Joker probably needs one of those, I think, to move up. Well, there's a lot of time, a lot of time left, but I'll tell you, we're all winners. I'll tell you, those top two teams in the West are just like, there's always injuries and things go sideways and things are windows and ever open as long as you think they're going to be open and finances and all that, but it's hard to see a world where the thunder and the spurs are not pretty continuously awesome for, let's just say five years, like we don't have to go too crazy. We don't have to say 10 years, 15 years, whatever, but like barring a catastrophic injury, which could happen if we don't want it to, but it just seems unlikely that they are going to be anything, but like 58 plus win teams for the next five years. Well, that's why for the nuggets, the question is, I'm just studying that 22 warriors title run. Okay, that was a team that seemed like their window closed and then it didn't and they had this transcendent player. A lot of weird shit happened in the late that year. There are a couple injuries, there's a couple of upsets and all of a sudden they just swooped in and took it. Could we keep this nucleus together and hang around and hope for a similar situation, the answer would be us. So that's why I don't, I don't think you can panic. I think you got to keep it together. Before we go, you want to tell us about your cameo on an Apple TV show? Sure, I was on your friends and neighbors as season two episode five show. I watch. I'll talk about a little more this week, but if, but it was delightful and so it's up now. People can watch you in a scene. People can watch me and OGN and OB together in a scene at a party to house party scene. One of the people people who watch show know one of the characters is a retired NBA star. Yeah. And so he's hosting a party and they decided to populate it with a random NBA people. And one of the producer shout out Jamie is just a longtime fan listener and was like, let's write Zach Lowell a role and get him in here and I spent a day in a mansion in Long Island last year. Could you sure have been like somebody who got murdered at the beginning of the episode? Like just you could have been a dead body lying in your own blood. It was like, there was a, there were a lot of, we had a little viewing party at our house on Friday. And I don't know if you saw the episode. There's even even by even by the standards of the show. There's a lot of racing material in this and they're like, you couldn't have, you couldn't have been like the random Amanda Pete love interest for one that was like, no, I could not. That was not, that was not going to be my role on this one. Not to go shade that one with the wife. All right. Well, the whole cast was awesome. They were so fun. It was super fun. They made it easy because you know, when you're a fish out of water like that, it's just a little like, do I belong here or is anyone like, what do I do? And they were all super nice. Well, congratulations. Now I can introduce you as your friends and neighbors co-stars, Zach Low. Yeah. I'm an actor now. I'm an actor acting. You sign up for SAG and I guess I could, I, you get fees. Oh, that's it. All right. Zach Low. Thanks for hanging out for the double pod. We're probably not always going to do this, but with two games sevens that we thought would be pretty good. Neither of them were. It's fine. This round two should be fun. I'm looking forward to next six years. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well. Thanks to everybody behind the scenes at the ringer. Thanks to Netflix. There's something about Mary coming tomorrow on the rewatchables and then Zach's back on Tuesday on his podcast, breaking down a whole bunch of stuff. Good to see you, buddy. It was fun. It was fun. All right. It was fun. It must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star Casino or 18 plus and president DC Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem call one hundred gambler or 1 800 by reset call 888 7977777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800 327 50 50 for 24 seven sport Massachusetts or call 877 8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call 877 770 7867. [BLANK_AUDIO]