After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

Okay, picture this. It's Friday afternoon when a thought hits you. I can waste another weekend doing the same old whatever, or I can conquer it. I can hop into my all-new Hyundai Santa Fe and hit the road. Any road.

The steeper the better. Because my all-new Santa Fe is available with H-TRAC all-wheel drive, so I can hit the trail without a worry in the world. Heck, with three rows and best-in-class rear cargo space, I can pack the whole family in with all our gear.

We've got available dual wireless charging for our phones so we'll never lose touch with civilization, and we won't lose touch with the primordial power of Mother Earth. So which is it? Waste the weekend or do something a little more epic? And conquer it in the all-new Hyundai Santa Fe. Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for more details. Hyundai.

There's joy in every journey. Call from Mom. Answer it.

Call silenced. Instacart knows nothing gets between you and the game. That's why they make ordering from your couch easy. Stock up today and get all your groceries for the week delivered in as fast as 30 minutes without missing a minute of the game. You have 47 new voicemails. Download the app to get free delivery on your first three orders while supplies last.

Minimum $10 per order. Additional terms apply. Man, that sunset is gorgeous. Grill, patio, sunset?

Hard to get better than that. Unless you're browsing Carvana's inventory while you soak it all in. Oh, burger time. So sit back, get comfortable. Carvana's got thousands of cars under $20,000 just waiting for you.

I can stay here forever. Carvana. Where car buying meets comfort meets convenience.

Download the app or visit Carvana.com today. Hola. Oh, how was your weekend? Mine was good. It was productive. And not often that I can say that.

All right, maybe that's not true, but it's probably not more than half the time. So I'm really grateful for a productive weekend. I swear the closer our trip gets, the closer we get to the honeymoon, the more productive we become.

Because now we have the incentive. Single digits. We are just days away from our honeymoon, which means we got to cram a lot into the next eight days.

But I'm all about it. I guess nine days. Next nine days.

Except for I'm going to Syracuse on four of those days. So we really have to be productive when we're home. But yard work and a couple more boxes unpacked, a closet organized. Oh my gosh, we finally gave away a bed that we'd been trying to find a home for for a few months.

Actually, probably six months for me. So good productive weekend. And then basketball and hockey. Oh, and oh, and a movie. Oh my goodness. Not that I'm into giving movie reviews, but I just saw the new M.I. movie.

Terrific. If you have not seen it, it is fantastic. I highly recommend it. Sometimes the Mission Impossible movies can be a little convoluted, but this one was, it was great. It was easy to follow. The action was wonderful. Knowing, well, and just heart pounding, knowing that Tom Cruise did all of his own stunts because he's crazy makes it even better. So yeah, it was really good.

I highly recommend. We had a lot of fun watching it. So that was a full weekend again because of basketball and hockey. Mom wanted to do a video call. Sorry, Mom, can we wait until Tuesday?

Because there's a lot of basketball. Friends wanted to go out to lunch on Sunday. Oh, sorry. After church, we're heading right home because I have to start working. So yeah, it's kind of a taste of an NFL Sunday or maybe a playoff weekend in the NFL where you're kind of attached to your TV from start to finish. But right.

We can't blame you anymore, can we? It was still a good weekend, good weekend, productive weekend. And something that I found out about being married, I love sharing yard work. And I don't just mean someone else doing half because I actually did mow the lawn this weekend, but I enjoy making the lawn look beautiful and tackling some of the tasks that I couldn't get to really on my own. So it's great to be able to share that with my husband.

No idea that would give me so much joy, but it certainly does. I hope you found joy on your weekend as well, whether yard work makes you giddy or whether it's something else, a trip. I know a bunch of my students are just coming back from spring break, meeting my fourth and fifth graders at church. So a couple of them were all excited to share about their trips to Florida or this activity or this museum or that zoo. So I think most of the kids in my area have gone through their spring break, but it was good to see them again too.

So whatever you need out of your weekend, I hope that it was exactly what you needed. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. We're on the Infinity Sports Network. Let's hope that doesn't change again anytime soon because it still sounds awkward to me.

You can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio, and then also on our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence. I think we've finally settled on the photo and header combination that we want for our Facebook page. So you have to tell us whether or not you like it. We only changed it seven times, but whatever. It was fun.

It was worthwhile. So yeah, we finally got that done. We'll probably add a few more photos or tweak a few more things at some of our other places as well. But hopefully we're set now and no one needs more changes. It's also a good weekend or a good week, I should say, to check out our YouTube channel.

New post up on YouTube. And that is our conversation with Todd Walsh of the Arizona Coyotes, who are now defunct, which is interesting, right? It's all too familiar now.

The pain of losing a team when it relocates to a new city with a new name, almost like it's in witness protection. And the longtime broadcaster, Todd Walsh, he went viral for the tribute, emotional farewell, that he paid to the Yotes after their last game in Arizona. And after, gosh, two plus million views, he had done interviews all over the place. He was exhausted.

He'd been up more than 24 hours. And yet he joined us here on the show late last week and was really candid in sharing the emotion with us and also why it didn't work. After 30 years of trying, why now did the Coyotes close up shop? And we'll obviously be moving to Salt Lake City.

And this was right in the wake of that news. And with so many different teams and fan bases dealing with this, the Oakland A's fan base, such as it is, going first to Sacramento and then potentially to Vegas, probably to Vegas. We've seen teams move from San Diego to L.A. and St. Louis to L.A. Those are just some of the more recent ones. The Raiders, obviously, to Vegas as well.

But there have been moves even going back now 20 and 30 years that are still so painful to people. Sonics to Oklahoma City. So Seattle losing its team to OKC, who by the way is the number one seed in the Western Conference in the NBA playoffs.

And so it doesn't really go away, I think. People are still telling me that the most painful relocation ever was the Houston Oilers to Nashville to become the Tennessee Titans. And then many of you pointing back to Cleveland's loss of a team to Baltimore, where Art Modell moved that team. And to add insult to injury, they end up winning two Super Bowls after moving to Baltimore. Of course, Baltimore went through it itself with its own loss of a team.

Winnipeg also lost the team that went to Arizona. And it's tough on fans. I know many of you are still carrying it because we saw a lot of traffic on our social media about it. So we appreciate you weighing in and letting us know how you feel about it.

And we would encourage you to check out that interview on our YouTube channel if you missed it. Because as I say, it's familiar and a lot of Todd's insight I think applies to fans who feel like they're left in the lurch after something like this happens. Not to mention, unless you're like the Cleveland Browns and you take your history with you, you're kind of starting over. I should say you keep your history in the case of the Browns. A lot of these franchises take their history with them. And then even if Arizona gets another team, they're starting fresh. And it's something new as opposed to having any type of history or tradition. Although some of the traditions established in the desert for the Coyotes were not great, like playing in an auditorium that was more suited for college and actually was shared with Arizona State. So there are always mistakes that you can look back to and point to and say, gosh, if only or what if.

That's not real life though and it's certainly not helpful now for teams who've moved and fans who've been left behind. So please check that out on our YouTube channel. Maybe, maybe, just maybe, we'll throw up some other kind of video before I'm gone for two weeks and that way you all will have that. I don't know, I thought about potentially doing something from Syracuse and kind of showing you what it looks like in the control room at Syracuse or maybe Jay and I doing another video of some sort. I know you'll want to hear about the honeymoon when we get back.

Not because it's a honeymoon but because it's a trip to Hawaii and I've never been and I can't wait. So yeah, that we'll try to figure out. But some sort of video between now and when I leave. We've got a lot to get to this weekend as you can imagine. So again, please find me on Twitter, ALawRadio and then our Facebook page and YouTube. We will dot the landscape, if you will. Tree topping is one of the terms I've heard in the business before as both the NBA and the NHL start their playoff seasons and I don't really count the play-in like many of you don't count Dayton as part of the college basketball tournament but Jay do you want to know something really funny?

This cracked me up. Is the play-in tournament, what is it, three years old now? Yeah, I think three years. They kind of did it in 2020 but that was the Orlando bubble iteration. So the play-in tournament, 21, 22, so I guess we're in. Well no, because the 2020 season, well it finished in the fall of 2020 right?

And then the next season didn't start out until like late late 21 in Christmas. So anyway, I think this is the fourth year of the play-in tournament, I think. And I saw this stat that was promoted by one of the networks. Highest rated play-in game of all time, like of all time. There's been a dozen games because there are, I guess you have four and then six. So six games each year, right?

And then they're split up between networks. So you're talking about, I don't know, a dozen games on each one. Highest rated play-in game of all time! Just seems so goofy. It's really something. Yeah really, really exciting.

That long history. Anyway, I don't generally count those because, I don't know if you're gonna call them play-in, that means you're not actually in. So we'll start with this weekend. Stanley Cup playoffs are generally delicious. And early on we had some teams flexing their muscles. Gosh a major back and forth between, well I really like the Florida win on Sunday, but also a good back and forth between Colorado and Winnipeg on Sunday as well. So we'll talk about the major series and kind of get to some of the big storylines, like Damian Lillard. Like the Celtics playing their first game in 10 days and not showing any bit of rust.

Also interesting coaching move by Joe Mazzulla that I'll bring up. James Harden, well he starts out like a house on fire, but that follows a pattern for Harden in the playoffs. The New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers do battle on Saturday afternoon and that was really interesting. I love to watch the back and forth. And the fans at Madison Square Garden were electric. And consider, not the same fans of course, unless you, well I suppose you do have some people who can afford to do both, but these are pretty expensive tickets. So you've got Knicks and Sixers on Saturday starting at 6 o'clock local time. And then they turn around and they've got the Rangers and the Capitals, not even 24 hours later on Sunday afternoon. And again, the Garden really shows up in the playoffs like many arenas do. But as bad as the Knicks are, you can barely ever find a ticket to the New York Knicks.

It's tough to get in there. And there were celebrities and star power everywhere because the city of New York is desperate for a Knicks winner. And it's been a slow burn under Tom Thibodeau. Really slow burn.

And I'm not sure they're all there yet. If they had Julius Randle, maybe they could battle Boston or maybe they would be a championship contender. But the addition of OG and Inobi, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, they know each other so well and they've been terrific together. So it's kind of fun to see that game against the Sixers. Now, if Joel Embiid is completely healthy, he looks so tired to me at the end. He could barely jump.

He really couldn't get off the ground. You could tell the Sixers actually themselves might have been tired having to go through the play-in tournament. But yeah, Joel Embiid is the key to what they do as much as they've got some other good young talent like Tyrese Maxey. But they ran out of gas at the end.

I appreciate the fight. They gave it absolutely everything they had. But the Knicks, I mean, the Knicks with that crowd behind them, it was kind of fun to see them in a playoff game, in a playoff atmosphere as it was for Oklahoma City. Really enjoyed seeing the thunder, the game that went down to the wire against the Pelicans with Zion Williamson on the bench.

So we'll get to that one right after the break. And then the Minnesota Timberwolves. Could this finally be their year where they're actually relevant in the postseason? So not the regular season. We've seen that part before. But in the postseason, can they be a team that keeps up what they did during the regular season, carries it over and finally would give us the idea or give us this impression that they've advanced past the infancy stage or the toddler stage as a franchise? And the crazy part is they've been around for decades. But just the way that they have handled their roster and the way that they've had a bunch of coaching changes and front office changes, they really haven't ever found enough consistency, I feel like, to get a group that has enough playoff experience and that is ready to contend.

But maybe this is the group. And of course to have anything at all from Karl-Anthony Towns, especially because of the amount of time that he spent on the bench. And then knowing that all that pressure would rest on the shoulders of Anthony Edwards after he went out. And yet Edwards, we saw probably the best stretch of his career in that he not only took over, but enjoyed taking over. He had blocks in which his head hit the rim and he broke a finger on a dunk. So he's another guy that I feel like we've seen the best of these last couple weeks.

That was sick! But for them to get to a point where they not only maintained their position, but they're able to wait for Karl-Anthony Towns and get him back and not feel like they were desperate for him to come back. Now he only played 27 minutes in their opener, but really they crushed Phoenix. And the second quarter was kind of a catalyst, a turning point. They also outscored him by 10 in the third quarter, and so they didn't need him to play deep into the game. Still, I think working it back into basketball shape.

But good for them to be able to insert him and his physical, aggressive, certainly the size, he's a space eater too, his skills back into the lineup is amazing. So a lot to talk about in the NBA and in the NHL. Also, many of you have said to me, we should talk more women's sports.

Now, I'm not going to up and change the format of my show. All of a sudden, 12 years in here and 25 years of my career, I don't generally set the talking points. I react to what other people are talking about. Though there are times that I introduce topics or introduce athletes to you or even bring up stories that maybe you haven't heard. But in this case, it's really neat that there's this groundswell of support now for women's sports. So we'll see whether or not it carries over to other sports. We've got the Olympics coming up later this year. Will sports fans care as much about, I think Olympics are maybe a little bit different because of the red, white and blue, but will sports fans care about the WNBA games or will sports fans care about women's golf? Not that I'm going to break down some tournament.

I didn't even do that for the Masters because I wasn't here and it wasn't all that dramatic. But there's a really cool story that is percolating in women's golf that I would love to share with you, especially for those of you who love the game of golf. The ladies that play, are they amazing? Yes. Are they more relatable, I think, to golfers that aren't pro?

Probably because they don't generally bomb their drives 380 yards down the field. So anyway, it's just kind of fun to maybe work in some news stories and see whether or not you're serious about wanting to talk more women's sports. But again, I react to what people are talking about so I look forward to seeing if we do have changes when it comes to sports media and sports radio specifically. Alright, so we're going to start with the later games first. Damian Lillard puts on a show, we'll get to that following the update. But the Thunder win Game 1 of a playoff series for the first time since 2018.

Bless you, Producer J. And so, taking on the Pelicans without Zion Williamson. I mean, the Pelicans pulled back into this game, actually took the lead in the fourth quarter, despite multiple times trailing by double digits. I like how game they are. They've got some playoff experience.

CJ McCollum, interestingly enough, right after the years of seeing him with Dame, he and Dame are now in different conferences doing different things and yet both of them trying to lead their teams back to the NBA Finals or even the Conference Finals. I think the Pelicans would be thrilled by that. So we'll start there and we'll work our way through a playoff weekend. I'm going to try not to be snarky about James Harden much. So find me on Twitter, a law radio and on our Facebook page too.

And we will get started soon. It's after a call from mom. Answer it.

Call silenced. Instacart knows nothing gets between you and the game. That's why they make ordering from your couch easy. Stock up today and get all your groceries for the week delivered in as fast as 30 minutes without missing a minute of the game. You have 47 new voicemails.

Download the app to get free delivery on your first three orders while supplies last minimum $10 per order. Additional terms apply. Doors take us to summers away. Or winter adventures. And afternoon getaways. Your dedicated Fidelity Advisor can help you open those doors by working with you on a comprehensive plan to help you reach your wealth's full potential.

Because doors were meant to be opened. Visit fidelity.com slash wealth investment minimum supply Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC member NYSE SIPC 1234. Those are numbers.

But you already knew that. If you want to know what number you're going to pay each month for your car. Use Kelly blue book my wallet on auto trader. They're really good at numbers. Auto trader hours with Amy Lawrence.

You are listening to the after hours podcast. This is after hours with Amy Lawrence impressive defense by the Thunder down the stretch though there were a couple of big threes for both teams. But there were some big defensive plays in the paint like Chet Holmgren with a big block in the final couple minutes. That was huge and then also the defense of Jaylen Williams on was Oh, no, it's Jason Williams.

I'm sorry, there's two of them. There's a Jaylen and there's a Jason. So it was the defense of Jason. Wait a minute, Jaylen and okay.

Thinking Oklahoma City. I feel like I just heard this not that long ago from Sean Grandy, where he was talking about all the different guys in the league that were Jason or Jaylen or Yeah, okay, so the defense, the defense, late in the game to along the perimeter was Jaylen Williams, which was huge. So to get that those two combos and to have a playoff game, which was under 95 points for each team, also a big deal. Alright, so the Thunder only get 20 points in that final quarter. The two teams only managed 17 in the first quarter, 17 each in the first quarter. And yet they shot really well. Pelicans started poorly, found their stroke, found their rhythm later, certainly missing Zion Williamson. But it's not like the two teams shot 29%.

Those days are past. And it was just a slower pace, a little more methodical. The Thunder are a really strong defensive team. The Pelicans are willing to play you physical.

So I like what I saw from this series. Initially, I can imagine we'll get games where there are a lot more points, but at least initially to see Shay Gildress Alexander and the young Oklahoma City Thunder. He's actually a finalist, as we've talked about in the past for the MVP award. And had some big go ahead, the big go ahead bucket in that last minute, but also of course with 28 points, major moments where the Thunder kind of testing it out, test driving this playoff vehicle, if you will.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on Infinity Sports Network, the calls there on the Thunder radio network. And yeah, the Thunder led by as many as 10, but each time the Pelicans reeled them back in, reeled them back in. Series are long and we have to just improve through the series, win, lose, draw, regardless of how we play. I thought we showed great grit down the stretch. Obviously that was a tight game. It was a bit of a brawl for both teams offensively. And we made plays defensively down the stretch, big time plays and had the resolve to go and win the game. A lot of positives throughout the course of the game. Like I said, our game plan discipline was at a high level. Our defense was extremely solid and offensively, we got quality looks, but we didn't knock them down. A couple of key plays down the stretch, a couple of turnovers that we wanted back.

But other than that, that's what you want. It's a game that comes down to the final few possessions. Mark Dagnold and as well as Willie Green for the Pelicans. This is, I just think one of those early games where the two teams kind of have to figure out what they've got. Not that they don't know each other, but playoff basketball is different.

You got a lot of guys who are into it for the first time or either don't have a ton of experience. And like I said, really love the way that we saw the defense of the Thunder down the stretch between the Williams and also Kason Wallace, who is the rookie, who is really instrumental on the last couple of possessions as he was chasing C.J. McCollum around and making life difficult for the veteran C.J.

So that was the latest game and the lowest scoring game of the opening weekend. But the top seed in the West and the fans that are crazy. I have lots of friends that live in Oklahoma, but a few of them came to the wedding and I know they're big Thunder fans.

The pastor and his wife who did the ceremony, they are friends of mine that I met when I lived and worked there. And she texted me on Sunday afternoon and said, I really need a nap. I'm going to have to get a good nap because I've got to be at my best for the Thunder game.

You have to be at your best. I mean, I don't mind sitting around in sweatpants watching basketball when I have the opportunity, but she said I have to be at my best for the big Thunder game. And then when she was texting me after the Thunder won, she was using we in her text messages.

We did it, I think was the last text I got from her. Well, so I lived in Oklahoma when they did not have a pro team and they desperately wanted one. They had Bricktown, the arena in Bricktown, though they've certainly renovated and built up the area around the arena, but they got the new arena in Bricktown and they would use it for college or high school basketball tournaments and other things. And they also had a minor league hockey team, but what they really wanted was a pro team. And you've got Oklahoma, you've got Oklahoma State and their football and basketball rivalries and playing in the Big 12 at the time, legendary, but they really wanted a pro team and felt like that fan base could support it.

And so finally when the Thunder arrived in town, they were over the moon. And I know that it was really hard for the Seattle economy, the Seattle fans, just Seattle in general to lose their team. But I hope it makes you feel a little bit better that it probably doesn't, that the Thunder fans cherish this team.

I mean they love this team, they pour all of their support into this pro team. And it's this love affair with a team that has gone through a lot of changes. I mean think about it, they had at the time Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant when the franchise moved and then KD leaves to go to Golden State after the Thunder run into Golden State a couple of times in the playoffs, get close to getting to an NBA Finals but can't quite break through. Russell decides to stay, they love Russell Westbrook, would have pledged their eternal dying devotion to him. Brings in Paul George, but then Paul leaves and Russ leaves, they're left with Chris Paul.

Paul doesn't stay very long either. I mean it's been a lot of changes. Certainly the coaching staff as well, though Billy Donovan was there for a while. And they always kind of run into a glass ceiling, not a grass ceiling, but now starting kind of at the bottom, but starting over again and drafting and bringing in some really good quality young talent and a great coach in Dagnall. And so now they feel like they're on the right trajectory as opposed to kind of that fool's gold where it felt like they could bring in some veteran pieces and maybe take advantage of that combination with Russell Westbrook and there were various combinations there of course, but they really never were a team that could push the Warriors, even at times get by the Rockets. They didn't ever quite have enough in the Western Conference and a lot of teams can say that, that were trying to knock the Warriors off the throne over those five straight years where the Warriors went to the NBA Finals.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on the Infinity Sports Network. Yeah, good for Shay Gildas-Alexander to have not just a productive game, but also showing some leadership and some aggressiveness down the stretch. Anyone that came in kind of played their role, gave good minutes.

Yeah, all 11 guys did their part and the reason why we won tonight. It'd be really cool if he ended up winning the MVP award. I know there's a couple of other guys that are in the running, Nikola Jokic, of course, as well as Luka Doncic, but the Mavericks, not that the award is a playoff award, it's not, it's almost, well a lot of the votes are due right there at the end of the regular season. You're supposed to get your votes in based on end of regular season and so you've got them kind of going in in that last week there where the votes are being collected and tabulated. Now they already know, presumably the NBA or whoever does their tabulations, already know who is won the MVP, but we won't find out until a little bit later down the road, but he averaged 30 points this year, six assists per game, another five and a half rebounds, and was for a guard, especially one who's also handling the rock as much as he is, to have a lower assist to turnover ratio as well as a high shooting percentage. He was top 25 in the league in that category as well, so I love what we've seen from him and it's kind of fun to think about a different MVP candidate who is outside the big man realm, outside the paint if you will, from Jokic to Embiid and Giannis obviously, it's been those three big men who've dominated and we haven't seen the guards going back to James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Steph Curry of course, so neat for Shea Gildas Alexander, not that he's a brand new or a newbie, but the group around him, you know they're putting pieces around him like Chet, we talked about Kason, so some of the younger guys who are kind of rounding that group out, and once Steven Adams was gone too, it kind of changed the tenor of the locker room, so yet another change there that they had to weather.

Alright, coming up, well the Pelicans end up falling in that game, CJ McCollum used to be back court mates with Dame Lillard and not just inhabited that same back court, but they used to be the most prolific back court in the NBA, even in the age of the Warriors, they just never had enough around them to be able to compete at the highest level and to push the Warriors, but now you've got Dame on a different team and CJ McCollum, I wonder if he watched any of the first half between the Bucks and the Pacers and thought, oh yeah that looks familiar, got a little deja vu, it's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. You are listening to the After Hours. That's not just the sound of that first sip of Morning Joe, it's the sound of someone shopping for a car on Carvana from the comfort of home.

That's a good blend. It's time to take it easy, like answering some easy questions to get pre-qualified for a car in minutes. Talk about starting the morning right. Just like customizing your terms so your car fits your budget. Visit Carvana.com or download the app to experience car shopping the way it should be, convenient, comfortable. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue and guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance too with the name your price tool from Progressive.

It works just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.

Price and coverage match limited by state law. Here's why April chose to vaccinate her child. I think actually meeting someone who was not vaccinated and now has a lifelong struggle with a childhood disease really cemented for me that it's super important that we as parents continue to vaccinate our children.

Talk to your pediatrician or visit YVaccines.com. Brought to you by Merck. Box the other way. Lillard's into the front court around a Lopez screen now explodes to the cup. He shot off the window and good with the foul coming. He comes away flexing, looking at the fans in that Indiana bench. Pacers 0 of 9 from 3.

That's been a big story life. Box have a chance for the final shot. Five seconds to go. Lillard top of the arc.

He's defended by McConnell. Steps back, fires up a long foul and he splashes it through. A fine first quarter of basketball here in this playoff. Damian Lillard, another three ball.

And the fans on their feet waving those towels. Dame time arriving early tonight here in downtown Milwaukee. Lillard 19 points in the first quarter of the box with a nine point lead.

This is after hours with Amy Lawrence. Damian Lillard wasn't done after that first quarter. Nah, he was busy. But just for the first half after that, he was able to take a break because the Bucks were up 27 on the Pacers. 27 at halftime. The game is re airing right now on NBA TV, I believe it's either that or TNT.

Anyway, it's re airing and I'm not even sure why. I suppose you could give the Pacers credit for cutting it to 15 at one point, but Dame didn't even score in the second half. That's how crazy this was. No Giannis either.

But Chris Middleton with some big moments. Brooke Lopez with a dunk and a couple of blocks and it was it was good to see the crowd in Milwaukee lose its minds again over Damian Lillard. And at one point, you know, you get the motion to the Dame time and the rest, but you also get that.

That's why you brought me here. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on Infinity Sports Network. You've got not just the crowd behind all of these Dame individual feats of strength, but I love the dramatic calls to on the Bucks radio network. So 35 points and six rebounds for Lillard in the first half. Didn't have to score. By the way, he sat out the first five minutes of the second quarter as well.

Maybe catching his breath, but didn't have to worry about no Giannis. I felt great. It was.

I knew coming in that they would give me a lot of attention. You know, other times we played him. I remember them face guarding me on the inbound. Just trying to turn me a few times on the inbound so I I didn't want to fight it too much early.

And I just, you know, I was patient. How we start games are huge. You know, in any playoff series you want to get off to a good start. You know, games are hard enough so you don't want to come out slow and you don't want to wait. You want to, you know, have your pace.

You want to be sharp, be connected and and be aggressive. So that was that was my mentality. He carried us. He was unbelievable. I thought he had just played under control. Very aggressive, which which is the way we wanted him. I thought we are pick setting in the first half especially was phenomenal. He's got that prize fighter like mentality is almost like he was training for the fight. And then when the bell rings, he seems to be ready. That's that's his mentality.

And that's how he plays the last two years not being in the playoffs. It was, you know, it sucked. I was early vacations last year. I was I went to Coachella like I never been able to go to Coachella like this is playing in the playoffs every year. So just having that that long summer, it was like, man, I was I was over that. But being able to be in a playoff series on a, you know, a championship team and a championship organization, knowing that we got an opportunity for, you know, I think that was the thing that I was looking forward to most. He drops the Coachella reference there.

I've never been able to go to Coachella. And so yeah, after being in the playoffs all those years in Portland and similar to the Oklahoma City story, never quite getting over the hump. And part of that is the other teams that were dominating at the time like the Thunder. Well, the Thunder Rockets and then Warriors ultimately got different teams that had star power and we're kind of running, running interference.

But to then miss two years and wonder whether or not you're ever going to get back and all the fallout and the criticism when he demanded a trade and how he wanted to go to Miami. Sometimes I think about the Heat and if the Heat had Damian Lillard, how dangerous they would be. Instead, it's been a really inconsistent year with the Bucks, but we certainly know what Damian Lillard is capable of. 35 points all in the first half. Six boards and he was terrific even without Giannis, who by the way does not have a timetable for returning.

So that's a, that's a, I would say that's scary. That's a eyebrow raising note that I saw over the weekend from these Milwaukee Bucks. Now as for the Pacers, part of it was on them. Part of it was the defense. You've got some big physical dudes on this Bucks roster, even without Giannis.

Brooke Lopez, Chris Middleton, I mean these are guys who have been through the ringer in the postseason and know what it takes to win. But the Pacers only have 94 points. In fact, this is the first time all season that Indiana does not score at least 99 points. First half was, it was embarrassing. No excuses. We simply have got to come out better and it was, it was ugly and, and we all own it. More than anything, you know, like I said, it did need to happen. It did need to be like a little, you know, you got punched first, little smack across the face, like, all right, come on, we're here now. We're in this moment now, as opposed to, you know, waiting a week for the moment to get here.

So, you know, I think that that experience we know was good, but now, like I said, it is no excuses. You know, this time of the year, you can't, you know, hang your hat on, you know, stuff like that. Miles Turner actually says maybe the Pacers needed this. Like, hey, we can't play. We can't start out that slowly. We can't play the way that we hurt ourselves. It's hard enough to win in the playoffs without pooping on yourself.

But to then allow the Bucks to build this nicely, the beginning, you put yourself in an even more difficult and challenging position. It's after hours on CBS. Oh, whoopsie. Don't have to dump it. I think everybody knows we used to be something else. Jay just had a heart attack. He's worried we're going to get fired. Or like there might be some type of a lightning bolt that comes out. Like Star Wars and the Emperor, you get zapped with electric current if you say the wrong words or the wrong letters.

I mean, it just comes out. I'll be honest, when I hear infinity still, it sounds, CBS sounds normal kind of still, but I know it's not the right thing. When I hear it, I'm like, oh, that's normal.

When I hear infinity, it's like, oh, that's not right. But it's right now. Yeah.

Well, that wasn't even on purpose. Earlier in the day, and we'll start with the top seed best record in the NBA after the top of the hour. Earlier in the day, as I'm watching basketball, I'm thinking 53 pointers by one team in one game is too many. I appreciate the skills of the guys who can shoot and the females who can shoot. But basketball with nonstop three pointers is boring.

It's boring. I actually preferred, now Damian Lillard did have a bunch of threes, six of them, but that's not, I mean, that's only half of what he scored. He had a couple of really nice drives to the hoop.

He can shoot from anywhere on the court. And as much as I recognize that the Celtics are a team that is built now to finally find some redemption for the most recent playoff disappointment, I can't help but think about the fact that they're so reliant on the three again. That's what killed them last year. When they finally bowed out against the heat, that's what killed them.

Fifty three pointers by one team in a single game. It just, it's boring. It's a shoot around.

Thank you. Anyway, I put that out there on Twitter and some of you agree with me. Some of you don't though. Some of you think like, I don't want to go back to the late eighties, early nineties when the scores were 85 to 86.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Here's why April chose to vaccinate her child. I think actually meeting someone who was not vaccinated and now has a lifelong struggle with a childhood disease really cemented for me that it's super important that we as parents continue to vaccinate our children.

Talk to your pediatrician or visit YVaccines.com. Brought to you by Merck. After the end of a good fight, you deserve an ice cold reward. Medela, the mark of a fighter. You've earned this rich golden lager with a crisp, refreshing taste because you know the bigger the fight, the better the reward. You put in the hours, the energy, the power. You are a fighter and Medela is your reward. Medela, the mark of a fighter.

Trick responsibly. Beer imported by Crown and Port Chicago, Illinois. You could spend the weekend doing the same old whatever or you could conquer the weekend in the all new Hyundai Santa Fe. Visit HyundaiUSA.com for more details. Hyundai, there's joy in every journey.