After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

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Visit Max.com. We now have both the Stanley Cup final and the NBA final match-up set. If you missed it, the Vegas Golden Knights steamrolled the Dallas Stars in Big D in their own building, even with the return of Captain Jamie Ben. We will talk about that clincher for the Golden Knights as they get to their second Stanley Cup final in their short franchise history, and we continue to talk about the Miami Heat blowing out the Celtics in Boston in Game 7, returning the favor from a year ago. In fact, a year to the day that the Celtics beat the Heat in Miami in a Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Miami has the last laugh, this time as an eight seed. And so the Miami Heat kick in the teeth of history. They stab a fork in the eye of history. You want your history? Here's what we think about your history. Still, 151 teams have fallen into an 0-3 hole in an NBA playoff series.

151 teams have failed to recover and advance. Nuggets, by the way, have been sitting around, maxing and relaxing since May 22nd, a week ago. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. I hope that you enjoyed your Memorial Day. We are still willing to share the names and the photos. Some of you sent photos of those loved ones that you honor on Memorial Day, Memorial Day weekend, so you can find us on Twitter, After Hours CBS.

Also on our Facebook page, we have a post pinned at the top of our page there. A lot to do on this edition of the show. Liam Hendrix returns to pitch an inning after his battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. And Michael Soroka, he also returns and is able to pitch for the first time after a couple of Achilles tears.

Pretty incredible stories. Both of those guys with their comebacks. The French Open is underway. Novak Djokovic, Sloane Stephens among the winners.

The Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day as well. But Game 7 in Boston. We continue there and actually head to Boston now because it was not what the Celtics and their fans were expecting.

It's Heywood Highsmith who will dribble it into the front court. For a year, the narrative has been about a team haunted by a championship celebration that took place in the visiting locker room of their own building and how they could finally have vengeance. And that's exactly what happened, except the team was the Miami Heat. A year ago, the Celtics took the Eastern Conference title from the number one seed by beating them three times on their own floor. Tonight, a team that was three minutes from missing the playoffs has kept its promise to avenge that defeat and done the exact same thing.

The clock hits triple zeros. The Miami Heat are back in the NBA Finals. And for the Celtics, a season of what-ifs fueled by a dominant start, a dominant finish, an unforgettable comeback in Game 7 to reach the Final Four and a six-day march towards history, making everyone believe the impossible was in reach that season of what-ifs.

Now becomes the summer of what's next. That is the voice of Sean Grandy, Celtics radio and TV actually, and always with a flair for the dramatic and the big picture perspective. We're pleased to welcome him now from Boston in the wake of Game 7 and a convincing Miami Heat win.

Sean, we'll start with the question that is on everyone's mind. What happened? What was the difference in Game 7? I think it went off the rails 20 seconds into the game when Jason Tatum landed the way he landed and was, what, 30%, 40% of himself.

And it's more than, you know, there were 200 possessions after that. But something that's happened over the last few weeks for the Celtics is that Jason Tatum, whether he would say this or not, or whether he even truly realizes it, he is the unquestioned leader of this team in this way. That team takes their cue from him and him making shots and making plays, his energy, and he had nothing to give.

And I think that carried over. And obviously you take that, you take your number one weapon away and the emotion that comes with it. Add to that the disastrous Molotov cocktail recipe for the Celtics when they lose games at home is poor three-point shooting and bad turnovers.

And you dig yourself a hole. You have the biggest advantage you have on your side is that crowd, which they went from, as I said, in the second half. It went from the loudest I've ever heard that building to the quietest. And it happened because the Celtics just kept missing shots and turned the ball over. And Miami is a team that, well, they played to the maximum of their capability throughout the series. And they were going to force the Celtics to play well to beat them. And the Celtics played well in three games, but not four. The Celtics do have guys who can score at the rim. They have the ability to go to the rim. Why do they settle for threes the way that they do when they're not dropping?

It's a great, it's a fair question. I think particularly, it's almost, you know, there are design plays. You go in the paint to Al, and then he makes, Al Horf makes a decision to kick out to somebody for a three. And there are times that that happens when there's nobody between him and the basket.

And, you know, that's what you need to get. But mathematically, you are going to need some of those shots to fall at some point. And I can't, I don't think Miami did a great job running the Celtics off the three-point line early. I thought some of those were good. Marcus Smart had great looks in the first quarter. Some of those were really good looks.

But, and you can survive long stretches. I mean, in game six, Miami made seven more threes and committed seven fewer turnovers. That should have been enough in the series. That you can't win a game with numbers like that, mathematically, and yet the Celtics somehow did. It just, you can't keep pushing your luck.

You can't do it over and over and over again. What if Miami wins the first play-in game and this had been the first round series? What would have happened then? You know, I mean, could the Celtics have lost if the exact same series happened? Can you imagine if the Celtics and Bruins had both lost in the first round?

Which is possible. And I know Heat fans were kind of playing the disrespect card. Well, respect the regular season.

Miami would redefine mediocre in the regular season. They are the first team, maybe. Everyone's talked about Austin attempting to become the first team ever to come from 3-0 down, because 150 teams before them hadn't. 629 teams have been outscored in an 82-game season.

629. None had made the conference finals, let alone the finals, and that's what Miami just did. They got outscored for 82 games and they were two and a half minutes away from losing and losing the play-in. And here they are flying to Denver.

They always do it the hard way. We'll talk about the Heat coming up, but I gotta ask about Jalen Brown. My goodness, what happened to him tonight? Every game 7 has its hero and its legends, right?

And everyone is going to have its goat in the way that you and I refer to goats and not how the kids have repurposed goat to mean something else. But, you know, it was just that nightmare game. You know, somebody's going to have a nightmare in game 7, and this is Jalen's turn, the basketball gods, whatever it was, but it was a really rough night, and he was a second-team All-NBA player. Second-team All-NBA player out of the hundreds of players in the league.

He was one of the 10 players that can say that, that he was first or second team. And yet, he missed shots, and the turnovers were just, they were killers. And they come from a place of, the Celtics didn't play, their effort wasn't the problem tonight.

They just played poorly, and sometimes you can try too much and Jalen just determined to drive and expose him to the ball. And it just, they were flashbacks to Golden State to the finals a year ago. And here's the biggest irony of all, Amy, is that this year in Boston was about redemption for another team celebrating in their building. They were driven by the Golden State celebration of the championship. And the irony is, one year to the day, it was Miami who listened to the Celtics celebrate across the hall last year and vowed to get back to that spot, and a year later win game 7 on the road, and how about 5 out of 7 games in both this year and last year won by the road team. Goodness.

Certainly speaks to a different type of tenacity. The Celtics seemed to have more of that when they were in Miami. Sean Grandy is joining us from Boston.

He's the voice of the Celtics, called game 7 on the radio, and is with us here after hours, CBS Sports Radio. So what will stand out about the formula that Miami has used to reach another NBA Finals? Well, the big picture, and this isn't Miami specific, but I think one of the concerns I would have going into the offseason for the league is that in 25 years in the league, this was the one where the regular season meant the least, with the Lakers' run, with Miami getting to the finals. You know, how does that tie into load management and the value of the regular season, which I think you can't have that go into more jeopardy. You know, the NHL is the NHL when the regular season is all about just getting in place for the tournament, and when Florida beats Boston in the first round.

It's a little stunning, but it's not the most shocking thing in the world, because hockey is like that. The NBA has never been like that, and it makes the playoffs more exciting, but I do think it cheapens the regular season a little bit. I think from a formula standpoint, what they've done consistently and why they're playing for a championship again is finding players that, for whatever reason, have been let go by other teams. And obviously, you know, the steal of Jimmy Butler and how they pulled that off when it seemed impossible where they were with the roster and finding someone to take us on the white side and all that. Caleb Martin, who should have been the MVP of the Eastern Conference Finals, they didn't steal him from another team. He was discarded by other teams. Max Struce was the final cut in Celtics training camp. In 2019, Gervonta Green got the last roster spot. Struce gets cut by the Celtics.

He goes to his hometown Bulls and they let him go also. And the ability of, obviously, a Hall of Fame coach and a group that finds places for players who all seem to have one thing in common, which is they will fight to the death to do the little things, to win games, to win on those margins and get extra possessions and force turnovers. And that, to me, that's Miami Heat culture. And we can laugh. You can roll your eyes at that when people say it. Oh, Miami Heat culture.

Yeah, well, who's laughing now? Because they're flying to Denver. Caleb Martin had, what, 22 triples in this series. He finishes with his best game.

I'm with you. I thought he should have been the MVP because he kept bailing out the Heat. Every single time the Celtics would inch closer or seemingly get their claws into the Heat to drag them backward, Caleb Martin would come up with another big shot. And he goes four of six tonight.

But, again, that's just indicative of what he did in this series. So why Jimmy Butler for MVP? I couldn't believe it. I stopped in the middle of my postgame when we were trying to wrap up the Celtics season because I was just stunned by it.

I don't know why. Again, I don't think I'll be losing the Celtics fans or a lot of people will be losing a ton of sleep over it. But what's the point of having an MVP if you're going to give it to the guy who clearly was not the MVP of the series?

And it comes down to, this is unfortunate, but it's the way it is. Was Jason Tatum great in the conference finals? He wasn't great, but he was really, really good. I think he ended up with better than 10 rebounds a game. He probably had close to six assists a game.

He was making plays, I think. Jason Tatum probably ended up as a plus player in a series in which the Celtics were outscored. If Philadelphia comes to Boston and wins Game 7, they steal the series because the Celtics had dominated that series. Miami had outscored and outshot the Celtics coming into tonight through six games. And the Celtics were fortunate in several ways to be there. Miami didn't win the series tonight, they won it in Game 2. Maybe Game 1, but obviously by winning Game 2, that's the one that, to me, when you look back, that's the difference. The Celtics were going to have a couple of bad games and so was Miami in the series.

But, yeah, I don't, you can sit here and adjudicate. I'll tell you this about the Miami Heat, they could care less who won, you know, got the MVP on their team. But it was really, to me, the difference in the series.

There's a lot of ways to look at it. But the Caleb Martin, Jalen Brown, you want to call it a match-up, whatever you want to call it. I think Jimmy Butler and Jason Tatum were both really good, and they were good, but they weren't great. Jimmy Butler tonight was exactly what, he gave you everything he could. He scored 28 points, but he took 28 shots. And those numbers aren't enough that the Celtics couldn't have overcome.

It was always going to be who else could do it. And, you know, early in the series, they had big games from not just Caleb Martin, but Vincent was really good, especially early in the series. Duncan Robinson was good early in the series. And their role players outplayed the Celtic role players. And here's the great irony, this is the Boston season, Amy fell short last year, because they couldn't, they weren't deep enough offensively. And so Brad Stevens added Danilo Gallinari and Malcolm Brogdon to make the Celtics a favorite to win the championship. And when it came down to the end of the season, with the final two games that you had to win in the Eastern Conference Finals, you didn't have Brogdon and you didn't have Gallinari. There are people that would say that there was a coaching disadvantage for the Celtics in this series.

What's your reaction to that? I would start by saying this, if you follow the NBA closely, Eric Spoelstra, let's go back to 2011 when Miami struggled in the finals and it was the first year, right, of their big three with LeBron and how many championships they were going to win. Let's go back in time and remember that they were trying to run Eric Spoelstra out of town.

He's too young, he's not ready. All the stuff they said about Joe Missoula this year, they said about Eric that year, and that was his third year as a head coach. Joe Missoula was not only in his first year as head coach, the reality of what happened and how it happened. And the Celtic ownership like to call it a battlefield promotion for Joe Missoula, who finds out he didn't get to go through staff.

He didn't plan the summer out. 72 hours before training camp, guess what, you're the head coach with a team that had been to the finals. And I think it's more the remarkable job he did throughout the course of the season, learning on the fly. Was there a coaching disadvantage? Was Joe Missoula a better coach towards the end than he was?

It's learning on the fly. I don't think you could ask for any more from anybody thrown into the spot that Joe Missoula was thrown into than what he did. That said, of course it was by definition a huge disadvantage when you have a Hall of Fame coach who's had his entire group together and who's been down. How many playoff games had Eric Spoelstra coached going into the series when Joe Missoula was brand new? I don't think that's the reason we're sitting here talking about Miami going to the finals. I don't think the difference in coaching to whatever it's worth is why Miami was a bad three-point shooting team during the year. The Celtics were not only a high-volume three-point shooting team, they were elite at their spacing in their offense and creating shots, and in the series they were calamitous shooting threes, and Miami out of nowhere was unbelievably good. And in this NBA now, you can't make up that kind of margin difference when the Celtics suddenly go from a 40% three-point shooting team to a 30 and Miami goes the other way.

You can't make it up. All year long, the Heat were one of the worst offensive teams in the NBA by multiple metrics, and yet look where they are now into the NBA Finals. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. Sean Grandy from Boston after calling Game 7 on the Celtics radio network. I can't believe the Celtics only managed 84 points in their own building in a Game 7.

That is actually pretty stunning. I've seen it before, because it happened in 2005, it happened in 2009. They had very low score. It was a different game five years ago, but they lost. In Jason Tatum's rookie year, they lost Game 7 at home to Cleveland in that memorable game when LeBron went all 48.

So how does the game change? If Tatum doesn't get hurt on the first play of the game, you can't sit here and say that's a 20-point difference. That's the same way Bucs fans can't say, well, if they had Chris Middleton last year when the Celtics won all four games in that series, that they won easily. Was Middleton going to make a difference? But what you would have hoped for, even a Miami fan would say, we'd rather beat the Celtics if Jason Tatum was completely healthy for 48 minutes and had a great game. But how the injured Tatum, how much that led to the Celtics' opponents being inefficient, who knows? And does the crowd get involved? Because you look at the margin and it was 20 at the end, if the Celtics are down 1 instead of 11 at halftime, because Tatum is healthier and the ball's moving, is the crowd different?

Is the environment different? We'll never get a chance to know. And the one thing at least you're not sitting here saying, man, this Heat stole the Heat with a better team over seven games and the Celtics had dug themselves hole after hole after hole and finally found one that it seemed like they were going to get out of that nobody ever had before.

And maybe you should know better when you tempt fate like that. So big picture, not just based on this series, because they are in the Eastern Conference Finals again. What questions do they have this offseason? Well, as I said, Jalen Brown and Grant Williams are at the top of the list.

That's the first two things you have to address. I think Joe Mozilla comes back as the head coach and you get a full, not only a full year, for all his inexperience, how much experience, you can't cram more experience for better or worse into an eight month period than, you know, give him a chance to soak all that in. And approach his second year. And then I think there are some Celtics staff questions. A lot of people point to, this is, you know, conspiracy theorists, but the Celtics had a really good start in the first round. They won the first two games of the playoffs and after that they were never really the same again.

That was the same time. And a real big story for Boston this year was how the coaching staff stayed together when there were a lot of guys that could have been promoted to head coach. Ben Sullivan, certainly Damon Stoudemire, and yet they all stayed together. After game two of the Atlanta series, Emay Adoka got the Houston job. And it seems probable that maybe multiple members of the staff that Emay brought to Boston could go to Houston. And I think that's going to give the Celtics a chance. And by the way, losing Damon Stoudemire, that was a blow too. You know, you lost the veteran voice on the coaching staff. And as young and impressive as the Celtics coaching staff is, it didn't have that veteran guy after you lost Damon Stoudemire, and that hurt too.

But a full year to figure out what kind of staff, if Joe Missoula is the head coach of the Celtics, what should the staff look like around him? That's a big thing that the Celtics actually do get to address. But contractually, other than figuring out the long term with Jalen and then the Grant Williams thing, there isn't as much upending stuff here as other teams are sort of facing. And their best player and a top five player in the league is 25 years old.

And there's that too. So Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum don't get excuses for inexperience in the playoffs because they've been here year after year after year. But athletically, NBA wise, in terms of their prime, they're just getting there. They are, when Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen started together, Amy, they were 30, 31, and 32.

When they started the new big three era. Jalen is 26 and Jason's 25. Don't count out what Gallinari would have been this year too. And in theory, you only have a healthy Gallinari next year too added to this group. Health is always a question with Brogdon and it really killed the Celtics not having him healthy in the last couple of rounds of the playoffs. But you hope for full health and the Celtics will start as one of the teams in the conversation at the start of the year. So I was asking my son tonight, would you rather be a middle of the pack team and be happy to make the playoffs or would you rather be a top five team every year but not win? Because it comes with a certain sort of pain combined with the expectations you have here in Boston from the last 20 years. But the Celtics now for seven years in a row, and you have that weird pandemic year in 2021, but for certainly six of the last seven, they were a legitimate top five, top three, top two team, but a lot of people in Boston will say, hey, it's not top one.

So it doesn't matter, but you need to be in the conversation. And I guess the reason I bring that up is that it's very, well, there are changes, you've got to make changes, especially when the Celtics were in trouble earlier in the series and people want to make dramatic changes. Well, when you're the, say the third best team in the league, yeah, you want to be number one, but there's 27 behind you.

And that's a lot of, it's very easy to fall if you make a mistake. Try to make changes when there's 27 teams behind you trying to get where you are. And you think about the Sacramento's of the world and the Minnesota's of the world who would kill to get to a conference.

Right. And the Celtics have been there five times in seven years and it's not, there's no championship, there's no banner to raise for that. And you know, after Buffalo bills, right?

You have to put yourself in the conversation and that's the hardest thing to do. And the Celtics have been there and there's no reason, no logical reason to believe that they aren't one of the teams that will be in the conversation on opening night. The Denver Nuggets are into their first ever NBA finals, so that fan base knows how it feels. Just before I let you go, Sean, how do you think Miami and Denver match up? I'm really more interested in what LeBron is up to. Can we talk more about LeBron instead of the Denver Nuggets?

No, we cannot. I think that there are some people pushing back in Denver and I get it, like, hey, we won, you know, we were in the ABA final. Like, okay, on the one hand, the resume isn't much, so you can understand why people haven't really bought in yet, but the world is about to find out. Not only how good the Nuggets are, but the world is about to see on the world stage, on the big stage, on the number one platform with the bright lights that the best player in the world plays for the Denver Nuggets. And he's at the height of his power. Listen, everybody just underrates Miami and they'll count them out again, but I'm going to start it by suggesting what I suggested at the end of our game tonight is I'm not convinced that Miami just didn't win their last game of the year. That's how good I think Denver is. And it's just been a bad, that's been a brutal matchup. It's been, it's been three years, I think, since he's even beaten Denver in a game.

I'm really happy that Nicole Yocha is just going to get that stage. And by the way, Jamal Murray is killing it right now. They're the best one-two combination in the league in years. It's going to be great for the NBA and for the city of Denver and for all of it, for him to be center stage because he deserves it. We will see what happens next, but that series starts on Thursday. Celtics have work to do. We'll see.

I hope there are no knee-jerk reactions though. You can find Sean on Twitter at seongrandypbp. He does TV. He does radio.

He's the voice of the Boston Celtics and one of our faves here on the show. Thanks so much for a couple of minutes, despite your poor sobbing son. Yeah, at least he's finally asleep.

So all's right with the sun will come up tomorrow and it'll be all about next year. I remember those days when I was a kid who would sob over my teams. Not so much.

Not anymore. But I certainly understand 12-year-olds getting so wrapped up in it. And if you think about it, today's 12-year-olds in Boston have only known winning, right?

And so losing is not a concept that they're familiar with. Our appreciation for Sean Grandy and his time. It was a long day, a lot of talking, a lot of adrenaline, a lot of energy in the building. Until there wasn't. There at the Garden, the Miami Heat are into the NBA Finals yet again. First time since that 2020 pandemic year in Orlando.

But they do have a history. Eric Spolstra already has two rings as a head coach and will have a chance to lead the Heat back to the Promised Land. Could Jimmy Butler finally win a championship ring? On Twitter, ALawRadio. Glad to have you with us. Also on our Facebook page.

After hours with Amy Lawrence. We'll leave basketball to the side for a second because we've got another championship matchup. The Stanley Cup Final is set. Finally. The Golden Knights, they were waiting.

They were just biding their time. I'm sure of it. It's after hours. CBS Sports Radio. Visit our website at betQL.com slash hoops to take advantage of these exclusive offers. That's betQL.com slash hoops. The amazing help save lives.

Donate today at your local CSL Plasma Center and be rewarded for your generosity. The After Hours podcast. Barbashev breaks in, joined by Marcia So. Tucks it to him. Shooting. He scores. Jonathan Marcia So. Backhand goal. A two on one set up by Barbashev. Four nothing Golden Knights.

Mike Amadeo works in. Right circle. Tap back. Score. Carlson. The steal and the strike. Amadeo to Carlson. He's got two today.

Five nothing Golden Knights. Two minutes into the third period. Out in front of chance.

Amadeo. He scores. Set up by William Carlson. Six nothing Golden Knights. In game six. Seven thirty five left in regulation. This is definitely our best game of the playoffs and it came at the right time.

You never know when it's going to happen. You always want to keep building. So, boy, if we can bottle that going forward, it would be a tough team to beat. But guys responded well. It's a little adversity to get down and great start. We just kept going from there. And I think they knew the importance of it.

That's why you can sustain it. You don't want to let a team off the mat. We were up three nothing. There was some chatter about that. So we wanted to make sure we took care of business. Once we did get the lead, I thought we did a great job staying focused on what was in front of us.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Bruce Cassidy. You wouldn't know from his tone or his pace as he speaks postgame that the Vegas Golden Knights just reached the Stanley Cup final, but they did. He calls it their best game of the postseason as they pour in six goals in Dallas, including three in the first period. They waited for Jamie Benn, the star's captain, to return from his two-game suspension so they could greet him oh so rudely. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio, on Knights Radio Dan Duva, and it's their second appearance in a Stanley Cup final in their very short franchise history.

How about this? We will have a first-time winner of the Stanley Cup. Neither the Knights nor the Panthers have won the Cup. The Panthers go back a little further. They made the final in the late 90s, the Knights in 2018, their first year as a franchise. But yeah, they don't have a Cup.

Either one of these teams. So it will be a first-timer. And in basketball, we could also have a first-timer. The Denver Nuggets only ever made the NBA finals this one year. They do not have a championship to their name either, so I'm pretty excited with the fresh blood.

Let's see. Let's hear from some of the players. William Carlson ends up getting to play in a second Stanley Cup final, but even though it's only been five years, six seasons, five years, there's only a half dozen guys left from that first season.

So that's how much their roster has turned over, but he is one of the guys, one of the six Knights who are remaining from that first year. Just happiness, of course. It's a great feeling to finally clinch the final spot.

So, yeah, a lot of smiles and just happiness all around. Grew up dreaming of making the Stanley Cup finals as a kid, and I think it still hasn't quite set in yet. But, you know, a little fun tonight, and then, you know, it will refocus, get ready for that next series and four wins away. Aidan Hill points out there's still four wins away, but yeah, it's a childhood dream come true. 23 saves for him in the Game 6 win, and obviously this is one that was fairly lopsided.

Mark Stone, he's the guy who took that stick to the neck from Jamie Penn that earned the Stars captain the two-game suspension. He's already focused on the next goal, even as they win the West. We're right where we want to be, but the job's far from complete. We've got some guys who have been with this organization since 2017.

We've been through this. On the other side of things, we've got guys who have won the Stanley Cup with other organizations, so we know there's a lot of work to be done, but we're ready for the challenge. So the Knights captain was uninjured in that nasty hit, dirty hit, dirty stick, shall we call it, from Jamie Benn. Benn and Stone had to interact in the handshake line. Oh good, let's hear from Jamie Benn. What did you say to Mark Stone when you encountered him on the ice?

Good series, good luck. I don't hear an apology in there. Nah. Remember he was asked after he received the two-game suspension from the NHL whether he'd reached out to Mark Stone. He said, yeah generally you don't talk to your opponents during a playoff series.

Oh, is that why? He also tried to tell us it was an accident. He was just falling and his stick happened to land on the neck of Mark Stone. Kind of a jerk move. He returns for game six only to see his team blown out in their own building.

Good luck. I don't believe in karma, generally, but I do believe the Vegas Golden Knights saved their best for the return of Jamie Benn and clearly the Stars did not have the same energy level as the Knights. They came out hard. I found a way to get some early ones and I couldn't find a way to get one by their guy and try and get some momentum. Maybe one too many nights of us going to the well in an elimination game. I think that was our fourth. I don't think Vegas has played one yet. Every time you go to an elimination game, it takes a toll physically, mentally. I actually thought that was an interesting point from Peter DeBoer, the head coach of the Dallas Stars, that maybe it was just one too many nights where you have to dig as deep as you can.

You have to empty the well and they didn't have a lot left. Now, think about that compared to the Celtics. In this game seven, and I don't think their energy level was an issue, but enough elimination games, no matter how good you are, eventually you're going to lose one. And the Celtics had put themselves in a position where they had played five elimination games already this postseason.

Two against Philly and then four against the Heat. They had been 5-0 until tonight and finally it caught up with them. You could only live on the edge for so long. That's just mathematics.

And it's what Peter DeBoer is saying. We'd put ourselves in this position one too many times. We just didn't have a whole lot left. We'd emptied the tank multiple times. We just didn't have much left. And honestly, you give up three goals in the first period and it's really difficult to climb out of that hole too. We wanted to come out with a better start. We go down early. There's still a lot of belief.

We have a lot of understanding. There's a lot of game left. You come into this game and you want to give a little bit more for the crowd, get them into it. There will be momentum coming. We just weren't able to get that going. Yeah, I can imagine that the Knights were pretty peeved at themselves for even allowing the Stars back into the series, right?

So maybe there's that factor. We're done messing around. We're done.

Enough is enough. We can't keep screwing around. We cannot go into a Game 7 where all bets are off. And as it turns out, they had a meeting after Game 5, both players and coaches.

So not players only, but players and coaches. And the theme was killer instinct. We've got to be able to close them out. We don't want to go to a Game 7. And they were able to talk about how they dig down deep and find more tenacity, a little extra edge, and come out with an incredible start that helps to keep that crowd at bay in Dallas.

And Bruce Cassidy says, to a man, they all brought their A Games. So those are our matchups. I actually don't know what day. I would imagine that the Stanley Cup Final, I don't know.

You know, I'm going to look first before I speak. The Stanley Cup Final begins on Saturday. Vegas will host. Florida Panthers will be in town. So not messing with the NBA Finals Game 1. Actually, that'd be kind of interesting too.

Let's just look for fun. I know that Saturday would be two days after they opened, right? But the NBA doesn't typically follow that pattern. Let's see, they're going Thursday, Sunday.

Okay. So Thursday, that would explain why the NHL is starting on Saturday. Thursday, Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Saturday, the opener of the Stanley Cup Final. And then Sunday, Game 2 of the NBA Finals. So wow, we're going to have Tuesday, Wednesday, no games. Whatever will I do with my time?

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Do the amazing. Help save lives.

Donate today at your local CSL Plasma Center and be rewarded for your generosity. And it's quite a story. Liam probably had it last year. He may have had it two years ago. He had trouble recovering.

And thank goodness, they found it. He got treated by the best doctors around. He's got great support from his family and friends. His wife, Christy. And Matt Thiess backs out. And listen to this crowd as he looks around the ballpark. What a moment.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Welcome back, Liam. He made it. He made it back on the White Sox Radio Network.

I have chills. There were standing ovations as Liam Hendrix entered the game in the top of the eighth inning and pitched through the eighth. And this is, as you hear on the radio call, his return. His first outing since beating Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Before the game, actually, he and his wife were out on the field. And they presented the Lymphoma Research Foundation with a check for over $104,000. And they were selling these Closeout Cancer T-shirts that had his number kind of highlighted in green as part of the wordplay.

So if you haven't seen them, the Closeout Cancer shirts are really cool. And there were tons and tons of people wearing them in the stands there in Chicago. And then he takes the field. And, well, it wasn't a lockdown outing. This wasn't about balls and strikes. It wasn't about his performance.

Nah. It was about a triumphant return. It was about surviving. It was about returning to the game he loves and the fans showing him and letting him hear how much they support him.

The camera zombie would have seen a very animated Liam in the dugout. And it was, yeah, obviously frustrating. First off, I want to thank everyone who stood up and clapped and did all that. It definitely meant a lot both times when I was walking out to the bullpen and coming into the game. I want to thank Matt Thys for stepping out and giving me time to go about doing that. I really appreciate that. That was a huge sign of respect.

I really, really appreciate that. Not so much the one with 4.8 off the bat, but other than that, it's fine. He's referring to exit velo. Again, he didn't have an outing that he wanted. And he's referring to how upset he was, how animated he was because he pitched that one inning. And, yeah, he wasn't able to get the two strike pitch where he wanted it. He talked about that after the fact as well.

But was able to get 27 pitches out of his hand and was able to make his first appearance since October 3rd. And, yeah, a lot of emotions running high. I did take a minute and step and look around the crowd and just like soak it all in a little bit better than I had in Gwinnett that time. So getting out there and doing it that way was great. But, yeah, it was a little bit easy to get those competitive juices flowing a little bit more. I kept the first ball that I threw.

A little bit of a keepsake. I prefer to have it and not need it than need it and want it and not have it. Yeah, other than that, it was a little bit easy to get out there and then got a little mad once I gave up a runner and then kind of didn't make the pitches where I needed to. But, unfortunately, it is what it is. And I look at it from a point of like if I didn't give up two runs, that's a tight game and we're looking at continuing playing and having a chance to win. And that's unfortunately where we're at right now. He was breaking down his performance even though he just beat lymphoma and his goal was to come back without being placed on the White Sox 60-day injured list.

He did accomplish that. He was nervous, but he was back out there. There was a lot going on. It was nerve-wracking going out, being kind of available today and having that go on. It was humbling going out there and walking out there and seeing the amount of people wearing my shirts, the amount of people having signs or flags or anything like that, the amount of people that were chanting when I came into the game. It was a very humbling and sobering moment for me because just realizing the impact my wife and I have had around the city with what we've been able to do, it's extremely an emotional time. What would Eric Spolstra tell us?

Every failure is an opportunity or every challenge. When you face adversity, it's an opportunity and Liam Hendricks and his wife Christy have made the most of it and he's back. If you haven't seen the video, I just retweeted it from the Chicago White Sox. They labeled it Welcome Back Liam and when I shared it with the hashtag cancer survivor, the White Sox sent me back a green heart. Green is the color that they're using to welcome back Liam.

So yes, a true triumphant return. It's after hours, CBS Sports Radio. Do the amazing help save lives. Donate today at your local CSL plasma center and be rewarded for your generosity.