11-9-23 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

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For all terms and limitations, visit FelixCatInsurance.com slash terms. I've decided there's never enough coffee. Just not enough. Ooh, and especially right now with the time change. Now, it doesn't really affect me as much, except that it's a lot earlier in the morning when we're leaving the building. It's actually bright out again, or light out again.

That hasn't happened in quite a while. But, I run into my neighbors and walk in their dogs, and it's 4.30 in the afternoon, and it's about to be completely dark. Well, not quite that drastic, but you're a half hour away from it being dark, and we're all out walking our dogs before it gets to that point.

And neighbors are talking about how they sleep differently, and man, it's so, yeah, it's affecting me in such drastic ways. I just know coffee is, I don't think there's enough coffee in the world. If there were ever a coffee bean shortage, like there was a shortage of, say, computer chips during the pandemic. If there was ever a shipping issue, and coffee was unavailable, oh dear, I would be a disaster. I'd have to take sick days. I'd be unable to work here on this edition of After Hours, or any edition of After Hours. And my radio career would come to a grinding halt.

Thankfully, there's still plenty of coffee to go around. And I needed it on Wednesday, because all at once I had a tree trimming crew in my backyard, and I had my friend, Billy, who's a plumber, come help me figure out the washer situation. There is now a brand new washer in my house, but he had to go to the hardware store to be able to finagle an adapter. He soldered it in his truck, well, at his truck out in front of my house. He soldered a couple pieces together like he was soldering pipe, and it was just some dumb drain hose attachment from my washer. Thankfully, though, when he started it and drained it, we didn't have water spraying everywhere, and we're pretty sure it worked. He said, just don't leave the house while you're doing laundry. Oh, okay. No, it's a brand new washer. It's pretty, it's just, gosh, it's going to be in use, because there are mountains of laundry in my house after a couple of weeks. So that was my day, up most of the afternoon and the evening, and whew, back to the original point, there's never enough coffee.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. I hope that your hump day was not nearly as humpy. I don't even know what that means.

I'm a weirdo, but that is actually part of my charm, I think, or maybe you think, and I actually don't agree with you. Who knows? It's going to be one of those nights where I can't be responsible for what comes out of my mouth.

On Twitter, ALawRadio, also on our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence. As always, thanks for reconvening with us as we get together for another four hours of scintillating, highly entertaining, and no accountability radio. No, no, no, that's not true. I won't go that crazy.

I won't, I promise, but I may need you all to help me out. How about that? Since we're sitting at the midway point of the NFL season, it won't be all NFL tonight, because there are some really entertaining basketball games. And no, Clippers Nets was not one of them, but James Harden did return to Brooklyn. The thing is now, everywhere he goes, he's returning to some place that he played, or he's got some tie to where he played. I'm over it pretty quickly, but since he is back in Brooklyn, or was back in Brooklyn a few hours ago, fine. We'll talk about how he had a team high in turnovers.

Anyway, I digress. There's plenty of good basketball. The Nuggets and the Warriors went toe to toe, the Sixers and the Celtics.

They battled to the finish, not quite to the death, but to the finish. But we will talk about NFL and getting set for week number 10. Really excited about Babe Laufenberg. Haven't had him on the show in a few years, actually. It goes back to, it might be five years now that we've had him on the show, but at the very least, it's pre-pandemic. So a lot of times, we change producers here on the show, or any show, really. Each producer then has to build up his own list of contacts and phone numbers, and Babe somehow got lost in the shuffle a couple of producers ago.

It might not even have been producer Dave before producer Jay, but definitely excited to have him on the show again. Since I spent Sunday afternoon listening to Brad, Sham and Babe Laufenberg on Cowboys Radio, I didn't have the game in my neighborhood. What?

That's just wrong. Now the NFL network was airing large chunks of it, so I was able to see it almost immediately after it was on TV. But it's the worst sometimes to be in the New York City TV market, because in New Jersey, I had Giants and Raiders. No one wanted to watch that game. Okay, a few people wanted to watch that game, but not very many. Not even Giants fans wanted to watch that game.

Unless, of course, they were rooting for Antonio Pierce in his coaching debut. But yeah, it was a godsend. It is a godsend to have Sirius XM NFL Radio, and to have access to every single radio broadcast, as well as some of the national games, too. So that's how I followed Cowboys and Eagles in radio from the very beginning, and then was able to see a bunch of it with NFL Plus, as well as on NFL Network.

And so Babe gives Brad a lot of crap. Sometimes when it comes to pop culture, Taylor Swift, that kind of thing. So yeah, it was fun. You've got a variety of really cool NFL voices out there. For those of you who are in your local markets and sometimes you listen to NFL games on radio, you've got such a cool, eclectic mix of voices. And some of them have been established and been in place for so long, they almost feel like your companions. So it's good to connect with them every now and then.

So Babe Lofenberg, Next Hour, he's told producer Jay that this will be the latest he ever does a radio show. Of course, of course it is. We'll take that as a compliment. And then because we're at the midway point, I want to ask you about some of these midseason awards.

This is a challenging one. Who's your NFL MVP right now? Because the reigning NFL MVP, he would tell you himself, he's kind of scuffled. I mean, Patrick Mahomes is still Patrick Mahomes, but his numbers are nowhere near the best in the league. What about offensive defensive player of the year?

Defensive player of the year is a fun one, considering we've had some really impressive defensive performances. But gosh, it's kind of hard to think about MVP when you've got 10 coming up this weekend, 10 rookie quarterbacks who will have made starts in the NFL. You know, I've been saying to you 999. That's the number.

Well, it's about to be 10. Because undrafted rookie Tommy DeVito will be starting this weekend for the Giants against the Cowboys, incidentally. Oh, do you remember the first week of the season? Jay, do you remember the first week of the season? A little bit.

A little bit. I remember. The Cowboys shut out the Giants, 40 to nothing.

That was with Daniel Jones on the field. Oh, Cowboys, Giants with Tommy DeVito starting. I fear for his life. He might just want to give himself up to Micah Parsons. Just, I'm nervous for him. And nervous for the Giants offensive line. This could be really bad.

But this is why you play the games. The Cowboys also lost to the Cardinals, so there's that. So at this point, let's do MVP, Offensive Defensive Players of the Year. If you want to do rookies, that'd be fun.

There's some good rookies out there, to be sure. How, at this point, does CJ Stroud not win Offensive Rookie of the Year? Is it offensive and defensive rookies of the year? I forgot. Is that how they do it?

Gosh. They have to get all cutesy in the NFL. You can't just do Offensive Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year. Nope, can't do it that way.

It's not that simple. So let's go mid-season awards in the NFL. Because I'm honestly racking my brain about MVP. I'm trying to decide if I think Tyreek Hill could be an MVP. Well, he's a candidate, but could he be the first wide receiver ever to win MVP? Or is there a defensive player that you might put out there for MVP?

And then if you think about Tyreek Hill, well, don't you have to go Tua? I don't know. It's a fun debate. So you can find all of our poll questions and all of our show questions on our show Twitter, After Hours, CBS, as well as on our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence. I love the reaction to our conversation with former pro soccer goalie Jesse Bradley. He has a new book out called The Power of the Second Thought. I didn't know what that was, but it was good to ask him. What is it?

How can we use it to find hope? So he joined us on last night's show. The link to the podcast conversation is up on both Twitter and Facebook as well. So plenty to check out while you're on our different social media sites. And I've saved the best for last, at least for last in terms of our program and show announcements. Some of you are already jumping in with both feet.

We talked about it on last night's show, but I think it wasn't until our second hour. We've got a brand new contest. Look for the look for the police car lights to indicate that it's contest time.

The bright lights on social media. And this is a chance to be part of the second ever After Hours Zoom room. I've selected a number, a random number between one and a thousand. And I swear to you that I'm not going to change it. I wrote it down the second I thought of it. I sent a photo to producer Jay. I still have the photo on my phone.

So to prove to you that the number has not changed, I dated it as well. We'll even put that out there, but not until the contest is over. How long are we going, by the way, Jay? We didn't really talk about that. No, I was thinking a week. A week or Thanksgiving, something along those lines.

Jay's already blanching at the fact that we've got so many numbers and he's going to have to do the math. He volunteered, though, and that's what he gets for keeping my jar with the colored M&Ms in it. I want my jar back. It looks nice. I said it's a display piece now.

No, it's not, though. It's my jar and I want it back. That wasn't a gift. You know, that was my jar.

No, the jar was fun. It had a red top. It was very festive. And I need it back to do another Guess the Number of M&Ms contest in there. That's how we're going to do the After Hours swag.

Another Guess the M&Ms? Yeah, it worked pretty well. It was fun because it was red and green. It was very festive. I'm going to have to break it out after Thanksgiving again, though, to put in to display around the house. No, get your own jar. Give me my jar back. It wasn't a gift.

But I like it a lot. Well, that's great, but I need it back because I don't have another jar that's so festive. And again, are the M&Ms still in the jar? Yeah, the M&Ms are in the jar. Did you check it out today? No, but I know it's there.

Confident. I need my jar back. Take the M&Ms. I'll take the jar. I don't really need the M&Ms. I want the jar. Like, I don't really need the M&Ms.

It's more like I need them combined. It's my jar! Get your own jar! I guess I could, but... Jay, it wasn't a gift.

The pasta sauce I can do nothing about. That was a gift. You refuse to eat it. It's going to remain a wall ornament or a closet paperweight. So fine, that's your gift. You can do with it what you want, though I wish you would re-gift it back to me. But the M&Ms jar?

That's my jar. Alright, I'll see what I can do. That's about the best I can do. Now. Ugh.

You're hopeless. I thought you were cleaning your room. I cleaned it.

It looks great. Well then bring my jar back. The jar makes it pop.

Really brightens the closet. No, we're done having this conversation. I'm never bringing you baked goods again until... And it's a good season for baked goods.

It is definitely. I'll be making wedding cookies. I'm actually cooking, or baking cookies for my own wedding.

How about that? Well now, this is... Three different varieties. Three different varieties. What are you going with? I'm going with oatmeal butterscotch, because that is Bob's favorite. I'm going with island cookies, which are one of your favorites. And then, I'm either going to try something new, or I'm going to go with raspberry thumbprints, which I made before that were really popular. I might try the double chocolate brownie cookies.

I haven't decided yet. So at least two of them I know. And it's funny, my fourth and fifth graders at church have said to me, you can't bake at your own wedding because it's a contest. Who has the best cookies? Anonymous.

No, it's anonymous. They're not going to know my cookies are the ones that I just mentioned. But cookie bar is what we're doing at the wedding. And we're going to have hundreds of cookies. 300 plus cookies. People are going to have little bags where they can take the cookies home.

But we want people to vote for their favorite, so they get to... There will be a piece of, I'm assuming a piece of paper there, something that they can write down their favorites, or they can vote for their particular favorites. Oh gosh, I guess we're going to have to name all the cookies, aren't we? Yeah, now. People are going to have to know what the cookies are.

Fun. Anyway, I will be baking and then taking them with me on the road trip to Houston. So you get none of those until I get my jar back. That might make me bring it back.

Are you stuttering? A little bit, because I'm thinking about not getting the cookies. No holiday cookies for you. No holiday cookies for you, unless I get my jar back. Really just jarred me there. I did. Jar jar. You're jar jar jarred. Yes, absolutely. Someone asked me about my favorite character on Star Wars as part of Ask Amy Anything, and I did not answer jar jar.

Definitely not. I did not. You'll have to go back to the post. By the way, I did spend a bit of time, I would say a chunk of time, on Wednesday afternoon responding to your Ask Amy questions. Still have a few more to get to on Twitter.

But all kinds of fun stuff. The contest is up. Pinned to the top of our show Twitter account or on my Twitter, ALawRadio. In fact, I'm going to retweet it right now so it's top of your feed. All of this stuff is on Facebook as well.

Easy peasy to find. Thanks for having a sense of humor and for competing in some of our goofier contests. We haven't done one in a while. Football, it's a lot for the two of us.

We haven't done one of these in a while. So send your guesses. Make Jay work for it. Because the more guesses at the number between one and a thousand, the more work he has to do. He actually said something about how he's going to have to do the math on his fingers.

Oh, for heaven's sakes. Get a calculator. Your phone has a calculator.

It does. I haven't used a calculator in a while, though. Why would you ever do math? It's not like we work in sports where math is a major part of what we do.

I don't do it often. Speaking of math and scores and stats, well, we'll pull on the high tops and run full court coming up next. But yeah, all kinds of fun stuff. So we want your mid-season awards in the NFL. Just pick some awards. Pick whatever awards you want.

But definitely include MVP. And then join us for the after-hours Zoom room, if you dare, by sending your number between one and a thousand. And what else did I say? What else were we doing on our show? Was that it? Is that all we have?

We have Babe. Oh, Jesse Bradley, if you want to find the link. Oh, my goodness. I feel like my head is spinning already and it's only been one segment. You might want to go listen to the podcast from yesterday instead of actually listening to this show. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. They're going to feed Jokic against Looney. Jokic one-on-one against Looney.

Bounce pass Jackson. What a good, what a pass for Marcello Jokic. They're going to feed Jokic against Looney. They're going to feed Jokic against Looney. Jokic one-on-one against Looney. Bounce pass, Jackson. What a pass for Nicole Jokic. They came over for the double team and Jokic burned them with the pass. Denver leads it by three.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Jason Kosmicki heard his voice a few times over the last couple of weeks and that's how you know it's basketball season because he is already in mid-season throat. He spoke full throat mid-season and why not? The Denver Nuggets the defending champions 7-1. Still perfect at home hosting the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night after the NBA took off election night. It was a full slate of games on Wednesday.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Funny because not a great performance for Nicole Jokic and yet the big man can pass. He has got some it's just some great court vision and the the uncanny ability to kind of see a play develop before it does. And that's a big deal for a big man because you're not positioned most of the time in the same places where a point guard or a guard is bringing up the ball. Now he certainly can handle the ball but because of how deep he is on the court a lot of the times he's not seeing what's happening from the top if that makes sense.

Instead he's constantly moving around he's constantly in motion. Didn't have his best shooting night especially from deep but what he did have was 35 points 13 rebounds and that fantastic assist to make five of them. Also three steals and a blocked shot. Yeah I don't know if you could if you could right now put odds down or I don't even know how I'm just not great at the betting thing.

If you could put money down or you could pick up some odds on him being an MVP again I wouldn't bet against it because he's terrific. So Nuggets and Warriors have one well there's a one point difference between the two of them right and there there's about how many seconds to go Jay when I walked in the building. I was listening to it when I was on my way into work and I walked in and a lot of times there's a delay on the radio broadcast so I walked in and I wasn't sure whether or not the game was going to be over.

And it was it was really good I didn't want to miss the end so I had a TV positioned into the studio where I was just so that I could see it. Yeah it was it was a great early season test for both these games or for both these teams excuse me and and with a couple of seconds to go three to three seconds to go Reggie Jackson was on the free throw line and he made the first of the free throws. And then we'll pick it up with Jason Kosmicki there Reggie Jackson to win the game for Denver with three and a half seconds to go at ball arena needs this free throw to do just that. Mr. Rebounds they could tie it up with the three of Paul over to Thompson got to shoot it all fell out of his hands at the horn and the Denver Nuggets sweep the five game home stand and remain undefeated at home.

Yeah pretty impressive right. And if you haven't seen it it's fairly uncharacteristic. Thompson was there on the right elbow he gets down court the ball gets to him he throws it up but it kind of awkwardly rolls off his fingertips and it I'm sure it goes down as an actual shot but it went nowhere. It barely got inside the circle and he was he was so bummed he kind of went down to the underneath the backboard and and put his head against the backboard support like no because he actually thought he had a clean look.

And he certainly had a trajectory to the basket but the ball just from the way that he had to catch up with it so the pass was leading him not really sure he ever had a grip on it. But take nothing away from the Denver Nuggets who are protecting their home court remember how good they were in the postseason in Denver last year. And even on a we'll call it a quote unquote off night for Nicola Jokic you get 20 points from Reggie Jackson who has a couple of big buckets down the stretch and now here they are they're eight and one to start the year. That national TV game though the timeouts are forever. I mean so you have a lot of time during the timeouts you can use to your advantage couldn't be more proud of our group. I mean I think eight and one is our record and we've played with a few other teams the most games in the NBA to this point to be undefeated at home and to get off to the start that we've gotten off to is I couldn't be more proud of that group in there. They've haven't used anything as an excuse or a crutch. We found a way to fight through it and you know not every win is going to be pretty but you know we got to this one out tonight against a very good team.

Well it is certainly gutty. One of the things that would stand out or did stand out is that the Warriors bench really outscored the Nuggets bench without a whole lot of trouble. And so for that reason Nicole Jokic was out there the entire third quarter because the bench just needed a lift. They needed a pick me up and so he was pretty tired by the end of the game. And Kevon Looney's a load so the two of them were going toe to toe. He actually missed a couple of free throws in the final few seconds the final 30 seconds which would have put it away instead it was on Reggie Jackson.

Now here's the other wrinkle for the Nuggets. Jamal Murray is out and so Reggie Jackson is going to get the yeoman share of the minutes for him now while he's out. And it really does stink to have him out but there's a chance he could be out for a month or more.

He's one of my favorite players to watch in the NBA just because of how dynamic his game and the fact that he can create for himself and he can obviously shoot the lights out too. But yeah he could be out the rest of the month because of a hamstring issue and sometimes those can take even longer to heal so three to four weeks is what they're looking at now. And that means some significant time for Reggie Jackson but also means that Nicole Jokic will have to carry more of the load. But what a start for them. Now as for the Warriors do you guys remember how bad they were on the road last year and I mean abysmal. If I remember correctly and if it's not this exact number I'm within one or two. Eight road wins last year. Eight road wins.

It was either seven or eight. They were awful on the road and that was in large part a reason why their playoff seating was so low and the fact that they were able to beat the Kings in a game seven in the playoffs was pretty impressive because they'd been so terrible on the road all season. Here they are and it's almost like the NBA is punishing them or saying hey you screwed it up last year let's see if you can start out on a high note. Seven of their first nine games have been on the road and even though they lost tonight in Denver they're five and two away from home so they're already about to match the number of wins of all of last season away from their own building. I think we're off to a great start. We start off the season with that many road games and it can go bad quick if you lose a few in a row especially with the back to back stuff you didn't have. I think we've been doing a good job playing on the road and we haven't had a lot of practice so early on we need those type of practices to be able to execute the end of the games and be able to add in different stuff defensively that we need to add.

So going back home is going to be great for us. We had a lot of learning experience on this road trip and I think it's going to make us better. Down a couple key guys and playing the defending champs on the road at the end of a long trip was a hell of a fight. Our guys really competed and gave themselves a chance to win. Tough way to finish but couldn't be more proud of them and more excited about our team.

Yeah so a lot of fun to see these two. It's early season. I can't get too fired up about games this early in the year for either hockey or hoops.

It's such a long way to go and the seasons they seem to stretch on interminably. But yeah this is I think an indication with the Warriors of how much better their chemistry is one of those words that's so ethereal but how much better the makeup of this group. And it's not just because Jordan Poole's gone and he and Draymond Green didn't get along last year.

We know that whole story. But it's also because you've got a Chris Paul in the mix now. You've got new people in terms of their bench. A lot of times that just changes the dynamic.

Now it's still the same core. It's still Steph and Clay and Dray and we'll see how it plays out. But these early season road games give them a chance to get to know each other. Give them a chance to do not a whole lot except play basketball.

And I'm sure they were tired too after a relatively long road trip to finish up in Denver. And yet you can see this team is different. Something that people have pointed out which I think is kind of true and I want to see how it is going farther into the season. But they're a tougher team.

A little grittier. If the Warriors have to win ugly they probably can do it. It's just a different type of character and maybe more depth to this team than just the core group. And yeah it just kind of feels like it's this veteran first unit that's setting the tone and then Chris Paul comes off the bench with the second unit.

And right now anyway I like what I see from them. They're tenacious early which is not something you can always say about the Warriors. Do you feel as good as you could after a loss just knowing the steps we need to take and the defending champs at home and the schedule that we've had. We have a competitive spirit and a togetherness that is nice to see develop this early in the season.

I like it. That means watch out for the rest of the NBA. Though again very early and you'll have a lot of ebbs and flows over the course of an 82 game season. From the fact checking department producer Jay went and looked at the Warriors road record a year ago. They actually won 11 games on the road but I am confident that a few of those were right at the end of the regular season too.

Because for the longest time they were stuck at like seven and eight wins on the road. The entire season. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. Marco Belletti is back and feeling better. We missed you. Thank you.

Missed you too. Love to have you weigh in and you can wait until next hour if you want but we're doing some way too early mid-season NFL awards. Right now a couple of names for MVP. Or do you need to wait and think about it. I feel like you're pretty quick on your feet.

You can name the Giants offensive line from 1986. I probably have to look at some of the numbers though because as much as you have the names in the top of your head and what I feel. Sometimes that doesn't always equal out to everything. So I would want to double check the numbers without missing someone.

Do you think the numbers are the number one indicator? Absolutely not. But like last year when you had all this. I think it was last year. Wasn't Jana. Oh no. Nicole Jokic was left off an MVP vote. NFL MVP. I understand that.

Remember last year that there was that big conversation because he was left off one of the MVP voting. And it was like how did you. And it was like oh man it was just a brain cramp I was going through and I forgot him. I'd prefer not to forget someone. We're going through this list. So I'd like to look at the numbers.

I don't believe. Just to look at the names for five seconds. Just to look at the excuse for a second. There is no way if you have an NBA MVP vote that you can forget Nicole Jokic. That was the conversation.

Was it last year or the year before? It's wrong. It's just wrong.

Hey. That was the excuse that was given. I don't like that excuse either because if you're going to give a vote you could spend five minutes to look up all the different names and look everybody up. How do you not know about Nicole Jokic?

You're asking me just for an opinion and I'd like to look at my names first before I. Not you but how. It's ridiculous that you do not know. I do remember it and I'm saying I don't believe it. I believe that's a cop out. It could be. I feel like it's actually the right answer but this is the problem that when you're voting for it it's not just hey let me jot down a couple of names and here's the ballot. You got to actually take some time and do your homework and study this thing because it actually does mean something. And unfortunately I do think a lot of voters in a lot of situations don't take that time. It's almost like the test five minutes before which hey I was guilty of and you just kind of hand it in and that's not what this is supposed to be about.

So I do believe it was forgotten because I don't think that they actually took it seriously. Would you like to guess the number between one and a thousand? Thirteen. I don't know. Wow. Thirteen. That's going low low low low low. I don't even know what this is for.

You know it's for a contest. It's called the After Hours Zoom Room. You can Zoom with producer Jay because that's what people love. And I suppose I'll jump into but people love Jay.

He's their favorite. So yes we're going to do the second ever After Hours Zoom Room. Okay.

Would you like to be part of it? And it's probably good that I don't win this thing. Yeah. I mean.

You might. Maybe it's fourteen. I've already given the number.

Jay has it. It's written down. We can't change it now. It's locked in. Okay. It might be fourteen. There you go.

Could you imagine if Marco won the After Hours Zoom Room? I mean isn't that? There's got to be rules.

Hey if your number's right, your number's right. No there's got to be rules. There's got to be rules. Who wants to...

I'm a rule breaker. Being botched, Zooming each other. What are we doing? I tease Bob all the time. We talk for hours before we walk in the studio. What's the point?

No wonder nothing's getting done out there. I tease Bob all the time because he's a rule follower and I'm a rule breaker. And I try to make him feel bad for following all the rules. Are you the rule follower or the rule breaker in your family?

I never really thought of that. If I had anything I'd probably be a rule breaker more than a... I don't really listen to people.

I'll be fair. I'm not really concerned with other people's opinions. So I don't know if I'm following or breaking. I just do what I think is right and I leave it at that. We ain't taking no s*** from nobody. It's like you're a millennial.

Do what makes you happy. Uh...that's a little different from what I kind of said. Although I'm not far from being a millennial.

It's not that long. I am. I'm old. Oh you're not. We're not that far away from it. Love that he says we.

Like ropes me into it. Yeah because we're roughly the same age. You're not that far away from it.

If I'm not that far you're not that far. We're in such different places in our lives which is kind of interesting. In everybody?

In different spots? I mean not everybody. I would say it's fairly standard that people get married much earlier in life than I am. And so you already have three kids. And I would say most people have their children much earlier in life than I have. No I think it's awesome.

People don't have a five month old at 45. I think it's awesome what you're doing. I love it. So anyway maybe we've taken atypical paths but radio careers are fairly atypical. That's for sure.

No one's got the same story. So Babe Lofenberg top of the hour for now and I don't know if you can see it on Facebook or not. But we did put the post up. Send us your NFL awards. Lots of you already sending in your numbers, your guesses.

Between one and a thousand. It's random. I'm telling you there's no rhyme or reason to it. It's just random. So guess your number and the closest five will be part of the next After Hours Zoom Room.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Giselle. Giselle now on the Celtics bench. Take that Sammy. Sixers take a lead of six with 38 seconds to go.

Derek White looking, looking, looking. He throws it to Porzingis who faked a three. And now shoots a three. It's in the air. Short. And the Sixers get the rebound.

The beat is almost stacked up three seconds ago. He's going to hold it. He throws it to Batu. And the game is over. The Sixers win. Porzingis for three. And he left it way short.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. We talked about the best record in the NBA overall. But Western Conference, the defending champions are eight and one. Well in the Eastern Conference only the Sixers are still standing with just a single loss.

They are six and one. Those are your top two teams. It's so early. In fact it's too early to be sharing records.

So just forget I said that. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. So we had Tom McGinnis on Sixers radio.

I've got to remember my NBA announcers now because it's been a while since I've been dropping their names on the regular. There was a furious late rally by the Celtics. Maybe a little reminiscent of what happened in the playoffs last year. But instead the Sixers hold off the Celtics and now they've won six in a row.

So they dropped their season opener but they've won six in a row since then. And Nick Nurse still getting his feet wet there in Philadelphia. We did some really good things that we wanted to do. We had a lot of things we didn't want to do happen as well. But it's kind of that time of year where we got to continue to clean up some of that. James Harden was in Brooklyn.

Not that far up the road. And yes Brooklyn and Philadelphia pulling off that trade a couple years ago. Maybe it's weird to hear Nick Nurse talk about it because he never really had the roster with James Harden.

But maybe it's addition by subtraction. And yeah he's got some good young talent. And right now they still feel like a formidable foe.

And like I said maybe even better because you don't have the drama. We've got an interesting team. So we've got an emerging young star in Tyrese. We've got an unbelievable, unbelievable player in Joel.

And we've got a lot of athletes that are pretty talented around them that give us some depth. As for the Celtics, they've seen much greater turnover on their roster since the playoff matchup a year ago. And the biggest change, and I do mean that literally as well as figuratively, the tallest change is Kristaps Porzingis who had 29 for Boston in the loss.

Though he did misfire on the late shot that would have changed the outcome. We're on the road against Philly who's playing incredible. And we still found a way how to get back in the game and had the chance to tie it and go into overtime possibly. So we fought hard. We believed all the way through the end that we can win this game.

Even when they went up 10, 13, I don't know what it was. Still, I always felt like we'll find a way how to get back in this. And we did.

And it just fell a bit short. I should have said they could have changed the outcome because, yes, it would have been a tying three from KP. Yeah, there's a lot of getting to know each other, a lot of new rotations. And with teams that have really changed their entire look and almost their entire rosters. Yes, Jaitlyn Brown and Jason Tatum left over from the Celtics. But even guys like Al Horford now coming off the bench. They've got a new point guard, which means a new quarterback essentially. So think about all the quarterback changes in the NFL. Well, it's essentially the same when you change your point guard in the NBA.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. The Nets were so pleased to welcome James Harden back to Brooklyn. He ends up with a dozen points, eight rebounds, five assists.

But also a game-high five turnovers in the loss in the building where he barely played. As much as it's a process and we want to figure it out as soon as possible. We want to assume we're trying to win games as we're doing it. But individually, for me, I had to just be a little bit better, stronger with the basketball. And other than that, we had opportunities. The last two games came out in the fourth quarter.

It was a top-level position game. Tonight it was going to be as far as letting the ball get away. Can't get frustrated with the process. Like I said, we knew it was going to take some time. You can't put a team like this together and be good overnight. So just figuring out the balance of these four guys of when they're supposed to shoot, when they're supposed to handle, making the right play and making the right pass. And so I thought our guys passed with a lot of open shots tonight, which we got to take.

And then we just kind of go from there. The Brooklyn fans were so pleased to welcome James Harden back to the Barclays Center. Roundly booing Harden every time he got anywhere near the ball.

It was fantastic. It was one of those games that you show up for just so you can boo an opponent. I mean, we barely knew ye. The Brooklyn Nets fans can say that to James Harden. We barely knew ye and good riddance.

And he says he's still getting acclimated. And yeah, that's true. But Tyloo defending the process. Although Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, they were there last year.

And I don't know how much process there is with them. But yeah, you put another point guard slash shooting guard slash guy who doesn't play defense in the mix. A veteran who's used to having the ball in his hands all the time.

And okay, I guess there is a learning curve. That's all the patience I have for James Harden. We're done with that. Babe Lofenberg of the Dallas Cowboys Radio Network, former NFL QB himself.

He's next here on CBS Sports Radio. Selling a little or a lot. Shopify helps you do your thing.

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