It is the JR Sport Brief Show on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you to everybody tuned in all over North America.
Highways, byways, rivers, ponds, backrooms, kitchens, hospitals, patrol cars, Amazon cars, Uber drivers, Lyft drivers. Shout out to everybody serving in the middle. Shout out to people who have served in the military.
Shout out to people holding it down. Wherever you might be, whatever you might be doing, I appreciate you. If nobody told you thank you today, I thank you for being tuned in. I'm in Atlanta, super producer and host Ryan Hickey. He's in New York City. This is where we'll be for the next three hours. This show gets started every weekday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific. So look, if you haven't been here for the first hour, it's okay. You got the free Odyssey app?
A U D A C Y? Go ahead and hit rewind. Thank you to everybody listening live on their local Infinity Sports Network affiliate. You have Sirius XM, it's channel 375.
If you have a smart speaker that's hands free, no hands, you can go ahead, talk to the machine and ask it to play the Infinity Sports Network. Wednesday, every Wednesday, I bring you a new top six list. In an hour from now, I'm going to give you a top six list of the most annoying athletes today. We're going to take a look at six active athletes who are just unbearable. That top six list is coming your way in an hour and 20 minutes as the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets attempt to stay alive in a postseason. Tonight, Lakers season could be done, Rockets season could be done. We're going to have a chat with Jared Dubin from the Double Dribble podcast. He will be here with us in 20 minutes.
We've already talked about family affairs. Giannis Atteracumpo has Tyrese Halliburton's dad all up in his face after a loss. Who wants that? I don't even know if I've seen that in high school. Could you imagine? The winning dad, one of the winning fathers comes over to one of the losing kids at the game and taunts the kid afterwards?
I get it, these are all grown men. That's that's beyond petty. Everybody on the Halliburton side apologized. I mean, Tyrese Halliburton said his dad was wrong. John Halliburton apologized for what he did. He embarrassed his son.
Giannis pretty much said that that was just ridiculous for it to even happen. And then we also learned, speaking of family affairs, that the Atlanta Falcons were fined $250,000 for Jeff Olbrich's son making that prank phone call because he got access from Jeff Olbrich's company iPad. And Jeff Olbrich also feeling the pain.
He got fined $100,000. At least Jeff Olbrich said the Sanders family, they were OK. He said they were gracious.
I mean, let's be real. They could have they could have rejected the apology. They could have not accepted the phone call. But why is that big a deal? Life is too short. People make mistakes. You make mistakes. They apologize.
You got an option to accept it or you can keep it moving. They did not care. They had no problem with it.
I got no problem with it. I got no problem with the NFL coming down with the fine. And if I were Jeff Olbrich, I would be letting my son know, hey, listen, that $100,000 is coming back into my pocket somehow. I don't care how long it takes you to pay it off.
You are going to pay it off. He had to feel the pain from the mistake. Jeff Olbrich taking responsibility. But damn it, his son needs to take some as well. I guess everybody in Colorado has a good attitude. Maybe the Sanders family, whether they're in Colorado or they're in Texas right now, maybe they're just feeling good. I know a lot of people in Colorado feel good. Hickey, they some of them people on that. They smoking that stuff in Colorado. They were ahead of the curve that they were.
Yeah, they are the OGs. People in Colorado, very happy, very happy. People in Colorado, very happy last night as well. Man, we got to probably nine minutes left to go in this game.
I said, OK, I've I've seen enough. Congratulations to the Denver Nuggets. They beat the Clippers last night, 131 to 115. The Nuggets now have a three to two series lead against Kauai and company Kauai and James Harden, Norman Powell.
And they're one more game away from advancing. Jamal Murray lost his mind last night. Forty three points, eight threes, seven assists. The last time he was this damn hot. Well, the Denver Nuggets were on their way to winning a championship.
And let's be real. Jamal Murray has stunk. OK, I know his career numbers and averages, they all pretty much look the same, but he looked uninspired last year. He was slumping during the Olympics while he was playing for Team Canada. He sucked to start this year. And at times, Jamal Murray can just look unmotivated. Maybe he's on that Jimmy Butler. If it's not the postseason, I'm not going out here and I'm not playing hard. Jokic had 13 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists. If you would have told me he had those numbers, albeit a triple double and they won, I'd have been like, you're kidding.
But Jamal Murray had forty three points this big time. Nuggets one victory away from throwing the Clippers. I was going to say off the boat, but Hickey, the Clippers are the boat, right? They are. That's the new logo.
Yeah, they are the boat. Throwing them off, throwing them out of the playoffs, giving them that makes more sense, giving them the boot. Jamal Murray, sometimes motivated, sometimes not.
Last night, he explained how he was able to explode for 43 points. Just glad we got a win, man, to be honest with you. You know, shots are going to miss. They're going to make. I'm still going to play my game. Still going to be aggressive.
I'm still going to shoot the shots that I shoot. But like I said, it was a big team win. You know, guys are setting good screens. Guys are running the floor. Guys are being a selfish, passing the ball and vice versa. So I just thought everybody was in a really good rhythm tonight.
And and, you know, that was a big reason why we got the win. Everybody's playing with confidence. OK, whoever wins this series has the Denver Nuggets up next. Hickey, who do we say would be a tougher matchup? The Nuggets, right? No, the Clippers. Clippers.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The Thunder would have it worse. Against. The Nuggets, or is it the Clippers, the Nuggets, the Nuggets? I said yesterday they would have it worse against the Clippers. I think we both said it's because because who wants to see the wings? Basically right. Deeper team, better coach.
Yeah. And that's the one thing about the Nuggets. I mean, when you look at the production that they get off the bench like everybody in the starting lineup has to show up and show out because the only guy that they're really going to pull is just is Russell Westbrook.
And how reliable is he? Like Russell Westbrook could have a game one day where he's like, here's seven points. He could have another game where he's just giving you a full twenty one to twenty five. Like, for instance, last night, just from the Clippers starting lineup, Murray had forty three. Brown had eleven.
Jokic had the triple double with thirteen points. Michael Porter had fourteen. Aaron Gordon had twenty three. Russell Westbrook was the only guy off the bench who had more than two points.
He had twenty one. And granted, the bench didn't play a lot. Westbrook played twenty one minutes. DeAndre Jordan played ten. Everybody else played like two minutes. Peyton Watson played eight and scored two points. I don't know if the Nuggets can sustain this.
And it's one thing when you got to play every other day. This starting lineup, I think, can play with anybody. I think they're starting lineup outside of having a veteran point guard.
Sorry, Russell Westbrook. I think that this starting lineup can can kind of match up with anybody. But if everybody on that starting lineup is not clicking. I worry about the Denver Nuggets in their depth. You think about their new head coach, David Adelman, that's still crazy to think about. He's just got rid of Michael Malone and brought this guy in. David Adelman says we're coming together at the right time.
Not every season is supposed to be this pretty, I don't know, Disney movie or something, man. Like this is the NBA. We had ups and downs. We had injuries.
Guys in and out. And I don't know what's going to happen the rest of the series, but I've seen guys be very impactful mentally with each other. Tonight was the reason why we won this game. Jamal will be the star tonight. But that was a great playoff team win. OK.
If he says so. Hickey, I'm not confident. I love this starting lineup.
I'm cool. Hickey, I'm cool with their top six guys after that. And that includes Westbrook. I almost called in Westbrook. I almost made the accident, almost made the mistake.
I didn't do it. The rest of the team sucks. And I would even say, even within that six guys that you're talking about, Russell Westbrook has been good, but is very streaky.
And we've seen them have some stinkers and lose games single-handedly for Denver in the regular season. And Michael Porter Jr. is one-armed. He struggles doing anything well outside of just shooting the three in general.
And now he's a one-armed man who can really only shoot threes. Doesn't give you defense, doesn't rebound nearly as well as he should, given his size. Yeah, he's what, 6'10"? Is he 6'9"? 6'10"?
That's all his guys. Right in that range, 6'8"? Hickey, he's huge. He's 6'10".
Yeah, wow. It's actually bigger than I thought. He's huge. But does not rebound. He just stays on the outside. And the threes aren't going down.
He doesn't give you much. Porzingis, I get it. He's shooting threes, too. Porzingis is 7'3".
That guy is like, I got four rebounds for you tonight. Leave me alone. Like, what? How?
I don't know. Whatever. Hickey, I still think the Clippers are going to win the next game. We're going 7, OK? I agree.
I'm with you. I think they defend home court. And I would not be surprised for the second year in a row to see Denver at home lose at Game 7. Yeah, we'll get a little bit of a bounce back here.
Let's see what these Nuggets do. The starting lineup, good. Team and hole depth, not so good at all. Meanwhile, we got a couple of teams that handled business last night. Celtics got the Orlando Magic the hell up one out of here. Celtics now await the winner between the New York Knicks and the Pistons. That has to feel terrible for whoever wins that series.
They're going to get smoked by the Celtics. Jason Tatum had 35 points last night. Remember this guy, he got hurt as well. Contavious Caldwell-Pulp pulled him out of the air.
He ended up missing the game with a bum wrist. They're doing well. Joe Missoula says, man, I love Tatum.
He's dropping 30 every single game. He did a good job of understanding how they were defending. Every team has different strengths and weaknesses. Every team guards us differently. I thought the regular season gave us tremendous data on the different ways that we were going to be defended and what that looks like. He did a great job of staying patient, going through his progressions, whether it was him screening in the first couple games, him handling the last few games, and then this game in the third quarter, his play there. So at the end of the day, every game is different. Every team is different. You have to be ready to answer the call, you know, play solution-oriented basketball.
And I thought he did that. Okay. All right. Good.
How about this? This is news. Dyson Daniels, NBA Most Improved of the Year, Most Improved Player, 14.6 rebounds, 4 assists, led the NBA in steals, and 3 again. Yeah, Hickey, Dyson Daniels is good. He just can't help Trey Young score enough.
What else is new? So the Hawks had, they have Trey Young. They have the Most Improved Player. Rookie of the Year, second place. Right.
Yep. I mean, there's reason for optimism, but at the same time, it feels like the Hawks are kind of going nowhere. Well, they got Jalen Johnson, who's a great player who can never play. He's been hurt since high school. Now he's in the NBA. Yeah, we got George Niang. We got him too, Hickey.
Don't forget him. What's his nickname? It's like Minivan or Caravan, something like that? I don't know.
His belly is hanging over his shorts and he has a jersey on. How's that possible? I don't know. I don't know. How's that possible? I think it's Minivan.
I think that's exactly why. It's a big dude lumbering up and down the court. You got a basketball jersey on. It's tucked into your basketball shorts and you got a little belly that is still hanging over you.
How? The jersey is, basketball players don't have waist except for him. Well, he's got to follow the Luca fashion statement, get a little extra, you know, extra large jersey. I don't even think Luca has that.
Maybe Zion has it? He used to. He's slimmed down now. Did he? You seen him recently?
At the end of the season, he's slimmed down. Remember, he was hurt. Why was he? Oh, his back hurt.
Okay, that's right. His back hurt. Allegedly. His back hurt. That damn back pain, it gets you.
I'm sure. Hey, listen, when you're overweight, it gets you, Hickey, okay? Next thing you know, he'll be complaining about his knees.
He can't dunk anymore. When your back is always leaning forward because that damn belly is dragging down the whole upper part of your torso, yeah. It's a lot of stress on the back. Hickey, if you carry too much weight in the front of your body, your back will pay for it, okay?
You're 100 percent right about that? I've heard some things, Hickey. I've heard some things. Anyway, it's the JR Sportbree Show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. 888-710-4ISN.
That's 888-710-4ISN. Hey, we're going to talk about the Los Angeles Lakers. They're trying to stay alive tonight against the Minnesota Timberwolves. We got the Houston Rockets.
They're trying to stay alive in a few minutes, actually. About 15 minutes, they tip off against the Golden State Warriors who are trying to eliminate them. So we're going to get into some more basketball talk. We're going to have a chat on the other side of the break with Jared Dubin from the Double Dribble Podcast.
This guy is, he's doing double duty for everything. He also writes for CBSSports.com. We'll have some chat with him. We'll chat with him about some basketball. We'll talk about Bill Belichick as he defends his new girlfriend.
Yeah, it's like a soap opera. And of course, at the top of the hour, we'll talk about a few things that took place this day in sports history. A chat with Jared Dubin on the other side on the Infinity Sports Network, the JR Sportbree Show. You are listening to the JR Sportbree. It is the JR Sportbree Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. The NBA playoffs are still going on.
It's going strong. We got a couple of teams that could be eliminated tonight. The Lakers, the Rockets. We got a team that got eliminated last night in the Milwaukee Bucks. We don't know the future of Giannis. He certainly had to deal with somebody's crazy dad after the game.
To talk about what we've seen, what we might see, what we can expect. Joining us right now is someone who does it all. You can catch some of his writing on CBS.com for the NFL.
You can catch him talking hoops on the Double Dribble Podcast and more. Joining us right now is Jared Dubin. Jared, how are you, man? I'm doing fine. How are you?
I'm excellent. I guess the biggest story outside of actually having an elimination last night was obviously that interaction between Giannis Atteracumpo and John Halliburton. So far, the NBA hasn't punished anybody. Do you think this is kind of a, hey, just make sure it doesn't happen again? Or do you think we're going to see a little punishment coming down for the Pacers?
I wish I knew. The NBA tends to be pretty inconsistent with this kind of thing. Although it does try to at least come down hard on fans who have interactions with players like this. I'm not sure I've seen them go so far as actually punishing a player's spot. I'm trying to remember what happened when T. Morant got into it with the Lakers last year.
I can't remember off the top of my head. But I would imagine that whatever happened there, you might see something similar here. Well, Jadwin, you talk about the future outside of Giannis having to fend off people's fathers.
Do you think Giannis' time in Milwaukee is done? If it was me and it was guiding my career, I'd probably be like, hey, you know what? It's time to try to explore something different.
It's hard to say. You spend so long in one place. You win a championship there. You stuck it out through what other people might have described as situations where you might want to move on. It's hard to begrudge him either choice here. If he decides, hey, you know what? I want to stick it out.
I want to see if we can rebuild another championship level team around me. He has obviously earned the right to do that and anything more. If he says, you know what?
I put in 11, 12, 13, whatever it is at this point, years here and we won a title. He's obviously earned the right to do that as well. It's hard to try to get inside the mind of this guy. Obviously, it's only even been a couple of days since they lost and a couple more since being toward his achilles.
I would imagine he's going to take a little while to sit down and figure it out. But the Bucks, they've got a decision to make too. You obviously don't want to move on from a player who is probably the best player in the history of the franchise. But it's also tough to see a way for them to rebuild the team around him over the next couple of years that doesn't take a multi-year period. It's hard to see the move out there that has them come anywhere close to contention next season.
Jared Dubin is here with us from the Double Dribble Podcast. If Giannis is to move on, do you think there's an existing team where he could kind of fit in or start a new that would make the most sense? I mean, nobody's got more assets than Oklahoma City, right? It's hard to imagine anybody out there copying whatever offer that team could put together. You look at other teams with a lot of draft capital and young players like Houston, obviously, which has had a lot of struggles during this series against the Warriors creating offense. You put Giannis on that team, all of a sudden the struggles creating offense aren't quite so difficult. I'm trying to think off the top of my head of teams that have a whole lot of assets.
Those are the two that come to mind at the forefront. Jared, you talk about the Oklahoma City Thunder, all of the assets that they have. They're currently awaiting the winner between the Denver Nuggets and the Clippers, the Clippers losing last night. And so now Denver has a 3-2 series lead. Who do you think is going to ultimately escape that series and take on the Oklahoma City Thunder?
At this point, I would probably roll with Denver. I took the Nuggets in seven before the series and I cowardly switched to the Clippers even after game four. I felt the same way about the series the whole time, which is that the Clippers have these matchup advantages and they have the better team. But the Nuggets have Nikola Jokic and they have home court advantage. And now they only have to win one of the next two games, one of which will be at home, and they have the best player in the series. It feels like the Nuggets at this point should find a way to advance and trusting the Clippers is never really something that you want to do either.
Jared, you talk about the Nuggets potentially advancing. Tonight, both the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Golden State Warriors, actually the Warriors are going to get started in a few minutes. The Warriors have a chance to eliminate the Rockets and the T-Wolves got a chance to get rid of the Lakers. Which team do you think has the best chance of actually turning things around from a 3-1? In terms of the series as a whole, I'd probably take the Lakers just because they have Luka Dosic and Lebron James. But I also don't feel quite as good about their chances of winning tonight, if that makes sense. I would put my trust in those two guys more to stage a 3-1 comeback than I would in the young guys and the Rockets just because they've been having so much trouble scoring in their series. But I do feel better about Minnesota on a game-to-game basis right now than I do about Golden State. We've seen these Warriors-Rockets games, each one of them has been extremely close. Whereas with the Timberwolves and the Lakers, it's felt like Minnesota has sort of taken control of the series and sort of controlled the pace of play and the style of play throughout the entire series and just happened to have come out on the wrong side of one of the four games so far.
Jared Dubin is here with us from the Double Dribble Podcast. When you take a look at whoever the Thunder might face next, who's their biggest challenger amongst the teams that are left? I mean it's hard to say anybody is a bigger challenger than Jokic.
He's the best player in the world and he is a problem that nobody can solve and he is the ultimate problem solver himself. That him going up against the best events in the league is I think what everybody wants to see. Going up against the best team in the league is what everybody wants to see. That would be obviously as much must-see TV as this Clippers-Nugget series has been. And then beyond that on the other side of the bracket, I kind of think it's Minnesota just because of the size and the length and the athleticism.
That seems like the one team that might have a chance to match Oklahoma City and those departments. Jared, all of that is going down in the Western Conference. Here at the East we know that the Pacers knocking off the Bucs. They're going to take on the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavaliers haven't necessarily been able to just fully handle the Pacers. The Knicks and Pistons are beating the hell up on out of each other while the Celtics wait. Are we pretty much bound for a Cavaliers-Celtics matchup in the East? I think so. It feels a little dismissive of the Pacers, but the Cavs have been just as much of a machine this season as Oklahoma City has.
Or pretty close to it at least. The way that offense works, it's unbelievable just watching them continuously make the right decision and make the extra pass every trip down the floor. You saw it even against the Heat team that has a pretty good defense. There was just no stopping Cleveland, even in two games with Darius Garland out. Indiana's defense over the second half of the year has been significantly better than it was early on in the season. We saw last year that the Pacers were able to turn up a little bit defensively in the playoffs. Throughout this series against the Bucs, basically they were able to play pretty good defense except against Giannis. But it's a different animal when you come up against that Cleveland offense. I just feel better about that unit than any other unit in that series.
That's what sort of leads me to take them on. And then on the other side of the bracket, I mean, Boston is going to be the Knicks if that's the matchup. We've seen it throughout this season. Four games, three blowouts, and those games weren't even close. And even the one close game, it didn't really feel like the Knicks ever had it fully in control. And just to get to the next round, Detroit's got to win two in a row, including another one at the Garden. And it doesn't feel like they have what it takes in terms of the actual talent on the court to put up with the Celtics either.
Jared Dubin here with us on the JR Support Brief Show. Who do you favor ultimately for the championship? Would it be the defending champs, the Celtics? I took the thunder over the Celtics before the start of the season.
And given what's happened over the course of 82 games and then another six or seven throughout these last couple of weeks, I feel like I should just stick with what I have before the start of the season. So I'll go with the thunder. OK. Well, Jared, one team that we are no longer going to see this season, the Miami Heat, we saw them get the boot from the Cleveland Cavaliers. What changes could they make to stay in contention or do the Miami Heat have to rip things down? They'll never rip things down as long as Pat Riley is in charge there. You know, him and Andy Ellsberg, they're always going to try to stay a move or two away from contention at worst.
And it's really difficult to see what their moves are. Like a lot of it hinges on whether they pick up these non-guaranteed contracts for Terry Rozier and Duncan Robinson, because if they don't, all of a sudden they're only real tradable pieces or Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, who I would imagine are not going to be moved. And then Andrew Wiggins, and that seems more just like salary ballast. And all of a sudden they don't have a ton of assets that are super enticing for teams. They're trying to make that big move that leaves them back into contention. So I feel like they've got to pick up these salaries that are not great and sort of use those plus some smaller assets to get players that are a little bit better and try to slowly level their way up rather than making the one big move. Because I don't think they're going to have the best offer for whoever's out there. Somebody's going to be able to top what they can put on the table.
Jared, final question for you. Tonight we talked about it. This could be the final game that we see this season for LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers. We saw them bring in Luka Doncic in February. At one point in time for a stretch they were the best defense in the NBA following that trade. They brought in Mark Williams and then said no thank you with the physical. What could the Lakers do this offseason to continue to build off of what they did by bringing in Luka? I think that the Mark Williams direction was headed in the right direction at least. They got to get at least one or two pick and roll dive threats to play with Luka and to play with LeBron really. You've seen throughout their respective careers that the best way to build around them is essentially the same. Give them a big time dive threat on the pick and roll and then spot the rest of the court with shooters.
That's the best way to go. They're sort of halfway there right now. They have the guys that can play on the wing and the guys that can shoot. But they don't have the big man that can roll to the rim or protect the rim on the opposite side. And that's kind of what's holding them back in this series.
So for me that would be the top thing to go get. Alright Jared we got plenty to get into. We got two games that are coming up. We're minutes away from the start of the Rockets and Warriors.
We got the Timberwolves and Lakers. Is there anything else going on in the league that we should wait on or is it just all on the court? Man I mean I hope it's all on the court. That's what's interesting to me.
And we've seen throughout this playoffs so far like that's interesting enough to captivate at just about anybody's attention. Ain't no doubt about it. Hopefully no more dads jumping on the court as well Jared.
Hopefully we're done with that too. Hey Jared tell everybody where we can follow all of your work man. Yeah thank you for having me.
First of all I appreciate it. It's a double dribble podcast. Me and Mo Docchio is a former video coordinator for the Spurs, the Clippers and the Australian Men's National Team.
We're doing that twice a week. And then I got my own website last night in basketball.com. newsletter three times a week and a bunch of interesting stuff on video coming up there as well. Awesome Jared thank you so much for the insight. Enjoy all of the games. We'll catch you down the line okay?
Sounds great. Thanks for having me. Enjoy the games.
No doubt about it. It's the JR Sport Brief Show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network okay? I need you to think O'Reilly Auto Parts for all of your car care needs.
Get guaranteed low prices and excellent customer service from the professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts. It is the JR Sport Brief Show on the Infinity Sports Network. We're going to take a break. When we come back you know what? Let's hear from some of those players that are going to be playing tonight. What their futures might look like. Let's hear from LeBron.
Let's hear from Luca. I mean we got the Golden State Warriors that are getting ready to jump into action any minute now as well. We got more basketball to discuss at the top of the hour. We're going to talk about a well I'm going to give you a top six list. The most annoying athletes playing in sports right now.
I'm going to tell you which athletes are just a complete pain in the ass. We'll do that. We'll talk some ball. Talk more NFL. Bill Belichick is still in the news following that interview. Oh my goodness this is Bill Belichick is in a teenage soap opera and he doesn't even realize it. We'll get into all of that and more. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief. It is the JR Sport Brief Show on the Infinity Sports Network. Man these guys know how to put up points fast.
Damn. We got the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors. Houston leads 13 to 8.
They're not even four full minutes have gone by here in the first quarter. They're just going to go up and down and up and down the basketball court. You know I wouldn't be surprised if the Houston Rockets got a win to extend this series. I wouldn't be surprised if Golden State finished them off tonight in Houston, Texas. We saw Jimmy Butler come back and put up 27 points in that last game.
Despite running around with that bruised tailbone and missed the game prior to that. Steph Curry only with 17 points in that last game. You can expect Steph Curry to probably put up more points than 17. Let's see what the Golden State Warriors do. If there's one concern with the Warriors it's also their depth or their lack of experience.
And then also their lack of size. So let's see if the Houston Rockets, the young Houston Rockets can give us a little bit of a bounce back tonight against the Golden State Warriors. Thank you so much to Jared Dubin for joining us in the last break. This guy does a little bit of everything including his own podcast, the Double Dribble podcast.
He's also a writer on CBS Sports. He feels strongly that, well not strongly, he believes that the Oklahoma City Thunder will end up on top. Ultimately winning the NBA Finals over the Boston Celtics.
We got to wait and see on that one. When it comes to the matchup that's going on right now between Houston and the Golden State Warriors. Ime Udonka, he spoke earlier today and he said, listen, I don't care if we're down 3-1. We all believe, or at least he's saying it. He says we believe we can still win a series.
Okay. Guys are down but they understand that the game we played well, the one game out of the four, we had a blowout win. In other games it's been a one possession game a lot of times. Or we had a fourth quarter lead and haven't really played that well. So consistency wins in the series. We've talked about that from day one and we have to be way more consistent across the board.
So the plan is to obviously go home and get one and come back. I don't think this says a whole hell of a lot about right now, this moment, this second. The Golden State Warriors are down in this series 3-1. It doesn't matter what you did in each individual game.
You haven't been able to close it out. And if I have to take a look at both of the games that we have tonight. This game, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Timberwolves later on. Both the Lakers and the Rockets, they're both down three games to one.
Like if I got to pick one team to bounce back and I ask the same question to Jared, I'm going to ask it to Hickey in a second. Like I'm picking the Lakers to come back in a 3-1. Not the Houston Rockets. I think the Rockets at this point, they're pretty much cooked. Like better luck next year when, I don't know, maybe the young players have more experience. Maybe Jalen Green can be a little bit more consistent than the what, seven points he put up in the last game. Or maybe they bring on a veteran like a Kevin Durant to help pretty much get them over the top.
Meanwhile for the game tonight, LeBron James says, man I'm old, been there, done that, seen it all. We just got to be ready for whatever. The game can be different because what we was able to find in today's game doesn't mean it's going to be available on Wednesday. They're going to make adjustments. We're going to make some adjustments.
So you play the game and not predetermine the game. So we'll see what happens. And Luca, he's like we're down 3-1. Luca doesn't care.
Give him some hookah. It's definitely disappointing, but nothing has lost. We haven't lost nothing yet.
First win, four wins, and we just got to still believe. Okay. Hickey, he's having a beer and who can amend it the season ends, right? Couple?
Oh, I think a couple. Absolutely. With the mid-season change-up, yeah, he's going to need to decompress big time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You think he has beer on tap at his house?
I mean, with that contract he's getting, he absolutely should. He probably has a brewery in his house, too, huh? I'm sure he doesn't have a Luca beer out yet. Oh, man.
Could you imagine? Hey, you know what? That's, well, I was going to say, why don't we have an athlete, an active athlete who has his own brand of alcohol and not have to go, wait a minute, that's not true. LeBron is selling Lobos. Isn't that his, what is that, tequila or something like that? I did not know he's in the tequila game.
Yeah, look it up, Hickey. It's like Lobos and it's like a wolf or something on the front. And that's like, but is he a partner or is that like his, his? Nah, bro, it's his. Lobos 1707 is a premium tequila and mezcal brand co-founded by NBA star LeBron James.
Yeah, it looks nice. Come on. I mean, it's expensive as hell. He's the only athlete that could get away with selling alcohol while he plays, right? Has to be. There's no, Jimmy Butler sells coffee.
Okay. He's got his own coffee shop. He has his own, what is it? Big, well, I got to watch it here. It's called Big Something Coffee.
What is it? Big Face or Big Smile? Yeah, Big Face Coffee or something. Okay, whatever.
It's like he wears a hat all the time. Big Face Coffee. Big Face Coffee. Okay. I still don't get it, but okay. Nobody else, there's no other NBA player actively hawking alcohol. There's, is that Beyonce? It is Beyonce. What?
Nothing. I was like, is that Beyonce? It is. He's on tour now. That's why she's doing commercials, I guess, to get her, you know, face back out in the news more often. Beyonce needs a couple million dollars more. Couple, a whole lot more millions. Maybe a couple hundred million dollars more. Why not?
She got to catch up to Taylor Swift? Yeah, I guess right. Hmm. Ain't nobody in, there's no baseball player selling alcohol. That's not happening. Nobody in the NFL is selling alcohol. And if it was, it'd have to be, what, Patrick Mahomes, but he ain't selling no alcohol. He sells sunglasses.
Yeah, how about that? LeBron is the only active athlete hawking liquor. It does feel like an untapped market when you think about how easy it is.
Yeah, but you got, you got to be, you got to be his age to do it. Let's put it this way. Could you imagine if Anthony Edwards or Zion Williamson came out with their own alcohol brand right now? Could you imagine? I could definitely see Ant. Yeah, Zion would be tough.
No, no, they'd be ripped to shreds. You haven't won anything. How are you selling alcohol? You're so young.
You need to focus on the game. Why are you selling liquor to kids? You see, but when you're LeBron, I mean, you already got one foot into Social Security. It's OK for you to sell.
All right. It's OK. Like LeBron James couldn't turn, Hickey, when did he turn 21? 2020, I don't know.
I mean, what, he got drafted at 18 in 03, so 2006, almost 20 years ago? He couldn't celebrate his 21st birthday in 2006 and go, hey, guys, I'm launching a tequila brand. People go, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing?
You can't do that. How backwards is this? But it's different when you're 40 years old and you're selling tequila. It's just like, LeBron James out here dyeing his beard anyway.
His beard is white. He's 40 years old. Guy got two kids, a wife. He got another little girl at home. He could sell whatever liquor he wants.
So, yeah, what a wild world. Good for LeBron. Luka. Yeah, he could have his own beard brand, but, you know, he'd probably be selling off better hookah internationally, too.
Why doesn't Luka just take over hookah? He could do that, I guess. I don't know. Well, you're talking about getting ripped to shreds. What you mean? If he sells?
Yeah. It doesn't have to. It could be discreet, right? You don't have to.
How are people going to know? It's hookah. Maybe he could sell the coals for the hookah. Everybody needs the coals. The slow burning coals.
I don't know. I just like Luka doing a commercial. Can't enjoy the hookah without the coals. Right. Yeah. Luka. It's your Luka coals. I don't know. Slow and burn, just like I do to opponents on the court. There you go.
Look at you. You should write the copy for the commercial. James Harden could open up a strip club. Luka Doncic could do the hookah. LeBron James could sell the booze. John Moran can open his own gun store.
Yeah, open his gun store. Doesn't Russell Westbrook, does he do stuff? He doesn't. Does he sell liquor? No.
I don't think so. I don't think he drinks. Fashion guy. No, he drinks. He does drink. Probably wine.
Like LeBron. LeBron drinks wine and tequila. I wonder what else he drinks. Water? Gatorade? Kawhi Leonard. He doesn't like Gatorade. He says it's not healthy, but he won't tell you what he drinks. Gasoline probably.
I don't know what Kawhi Leonard drinks. Here we are. Houston out to a 25-13 lead here. Yep, 25-13 in the first quarter.
Now, Hickey, I did say I was going to ask you this question. Rockets are done, right? They're cooked. I think both are cooked, but if you ask who has the better chance of a 3-1 comeback, is it the Rockets or is it the Lakers, I actually think it's Houston. Wow.
Oh, you think, yeah, wow. Why so? Because that series, I think Imea Doka's right, that series has been close. I got to argue the Rockets have lost a few games and the other day, I know it's, make your free throws, JR. I mean, you miss 11 free throws and yet you still have a chance at the end there, Sangoon, one shot to win the game, possibly. So, like, the Warriors have not exactly blown them out or put them away. Every game's been close. You've been hanging there.
You've beaten yourself. When you look at the Lakers-Wolf series, I just think the Wolves are a bad matchup for LA. Like, I just don't know where they get the size from. They clearly have no depth. I mean, they're playing all five guys in the entirety of the second half.
They start to look gas. Like, I think there's some real problems that where the Lakers are more talented, obviously, it makes it tougher for a comeback versus what right now Houston's trying to do. Maybe I just don't like Julius Randle.
Maybe that's the problem. Well. Ant-Go-Bear. He's there too, right? I don't like him either. Nobody likes him. The Wolves are not exactly the most likable team player-wise and cat leaving makes feeling a little bit easier. But outside of Ant, I guess Dante DiVincenzo is a likable-ish player. People don't care about him. And Anthony Edwards sometimes with his words, man, he's I don't know if he's trending in the right direction with some of the things he says. I don't know. Maybe for younger people, but some of the things he says, I'm like, man, just take it easy.
It's the JR Sportbreeze show on the Infinity Sports Network. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we're not taking it easy. I'm going to give you a top six list. We're going to take a look at some of the most annoying athletes in sports right now. These guys? Oh yeah, they could all play for the Timberwolves. I'm going to tell you the most annoying athletes on the other side of the break. It's the JR Sportbreeze show, a new top six.
