It is the JR Sportbrief show on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you to everybody for being tuned in all over North America.
I appreciate you. The show gets started every weekday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific. We've had a busy show already.
Thank you so much to Chris Hine. Covers all things Minnesota Timberwolves for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He came through to talk about the matchup that will get started in about 90 minutes from now between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Golden State Warriors. That should be a fun one.
We've got old school versus new school. Man, we've got a matchup going on right now between the Cleveland Cavaliers, the injured Cavaliers, and the Indiana Pacers. I'll give you a score update momentarily. If you missed any portion of the show, you can go ahead and hit rewind on the free Odyssey app. If you're listening live on your local Infinity Sports Network radio affiliate, thank you.
You can tune in on Sirius XM channel 375. If you've got yourself a smart speaker, ask the speaker. Talk to the machine. Communicate with the computer.
Be a part of technology or the revolution. Ask the computer to play the Infinity Sports Network. From one guest to another. We had Chris Hine last hour. Covers all things Timberwolves. Gary Washburn is going to join us. He covers all things Boston Celtics for the Boston Globe.
He'll be here with us in about 20 minutes from now. A lot of interesting things going on. And then, of course, we got the release of Bill Belichick's book. I know everybody is just itching to get their hands on Belichick's book. I'm sure it'll be a New York Times bestseller. I'm not not reading his book. You know what? This is, you know, Nico, now that I think about it. There was a point he had another book.
I think somebody gifted it to me, man. Really? So now he's he's going on book number two. Yeah. No, he had a book. And so I feel like I'm full of crap. You can you can turn the intro music down a little bit.
We had. Yes, I didn't buy it. You know what?
This sounds sounds I sound like an ass. You know, some of these books, when the athletes send them out, I don't I don't buy the books. Sometimes a publisher will send it to me, you know, because they want me to talk about it and people on the air to talk about it, whatnot.
And so that was the case. Somebody sent me Bill Belichick's book. And whereas this book, I think, is more about his direct career winning and there's references to Patrick Mahomes in the book and Brady and whatnot. The book that I read was more about his background and his relationship with his dad and the military. And I can't remember.
This book has to be about 10 years old. You don't know what I'm talking about. Right. So I actually just looked it up.
We have Belichick, the making of the greatest football coach of all time. It was a biography written by Ian O'Connor. I don't know if that's what you're referring to. I don't think so.
Oh, now you're going to make me. And by the way, this book I had it. I didn't have the I don't know. Maybe I got rid of it.
Maybe somebody got rid of it in my house. It I didn't have the cover. I read it, but I didn't have the cover.
I'm looking at the art here. It might be this Ian O'Connor book, but that isn't isn't that the book? He had a fit like there was a book written about him and he wasn't happy about. I don't know.
I do not recall, if I'm being honest, Belichick book about his dad. Let's see what comes up. This is the great stuff about Google.
I have no idea. Oh, people are calling. OK. Somebody called Bill Belichick a sugar daddy. Wow.
Oh, that's not the nicest thing. Yeah. Man, there's been a lot of books written about this guy. But this book, I feel like Belichick wrote it himself. I'm going to have to look this up. There's none of these books.
One of these books are doing it. Maybe it is, you know, kind of thought. No, Belichick wrote the book. I got to I got to see what the hell he wrote, because this just doesn't make sense to me. It's been a while for a guy that's as boring as he is. I can't believe he brings this much attention to books like books. No offense to book readers, but they're already boring enough. But then if you're reading about a boring guy, I mean, what are we doing here?
Well, he's he's interesting, right? I mean, people want to know how to win. He knows how to win. I guess he needed Tom Brady to do so.
But you need the players. He'll tell you that. You think he might be a pain in the ass. He might have been just a curmudgeon and grouchy and grumpy. Do you think all things considered, Bill Belichick is boring, like who he is as a person? When you when you have that type of personality, wouldn't people naturally be more inquisitive as to how he ticks? I mean, I guess.
Yeah. And listen, I've never met the guy, so I can't, you know, confirm that he actually is boring. I just every time I the only time I ever see him is during, like, interviews with the media. And he doesn't really say a lot. So that gave me the idea that he was pretty boring. Yeah, yeah.
And that's part of the job. He just took it to another level. He's like, listen, I'm I'm going to give you as the media absolutely nothing. Like, I'm not leaning into nothing. I'm not giving you a story.
You ain't getting squat for me. A matter of fact, let's listen to that clip again. This is Bill Belichick. He was on CBS last week. Morning news on Sunday.
Good show, by the way. And he was asked about how his tenure ended in New England with the Patriots. And he was like he was asked Robert Kraft fire you and Bill Belichick is like, no, I wasn't fired.
Listen to this. Do you feel like you were treated with dignity and respect when you were let go by Robert Kraft? Yeah, well, it was a mutual decision for that for us to part ways. He said fired. It was a mutual decision. Isn't that what we all want to say?
Or maybe not. Maybe if getting fired is going to work out for you financially in the long run, then maybe that is something that you you want out of the situation. Bill Belichick is like, no, no mutual decision. Well, I didn't get fired. It was mutual.
But let's also be real. They probably he probably ultimately agreed that it's time to go. And Robert Kraft said, I don't want you anymore. I find that to be more likely to what happened. If Bill Belichick still wanted to coach New England and they still wanted him there, I still think he'd be there.
I don't think he'd have a year off from the NFL. I don't think Bill Belichick would be in North Carolina hanging out with a. Twenty three year old girlfriend. But hey, whatever makes you happy. And speaking of happy, Cleveland Cavaliers are fans.
They're currently happy. It's about 90 seconds to go here in the first half. Cleveland leads a 57 to 45. Indiana Pacers are playing catch up, trying to go on a run, putting some points here up on the board.
If you're just tuning in. Cleveland Cavaliers are without several important players. There's no Evan Mobley, reigning defensive player of the year for the Cavs. He is out.
There is no Darius Garland. He's been out with a hyper extended toe. And then DeAndre Hunter.
There's the prized acquisition that they got from the Atlanta Hawks. He is dealing with a thumb issue. But we've had some guys step up off the bench. Max Struce in the starting lineup. He has 14 points. He is four seven from deep. That's what he gets paid for shooting him threes today.
He's doing it. And Sam Merrill off the bench. He has nine points all on threes. And then Donovan Mitchell leading the way. He has 19 points here in the first half. He is all four from three. He's five or six from the free throw line. So Donovan Mitchell, even though he's not knocking down the threes. And he just missed one, as I said, that Donovan Mitchell is still leading the way. This is where you want to be if you're the Pacers. A 10 11 ish point.
Down or being down that much is not the worst thing in the world. And they're getting ready to pull up on halftime. And it's now 57 to 49. Cavaliers to Pacers. So we'll keep you up to date on this game as it continues on.
It'll probably conclude maybe by the time that we conclude or maybe maybe sooner. We'll keep you up to date on that one. And then speaking of Donovan Mitchell missing all these threes or four. Certainly going to ask Gary Washburn when he joins us in about 12 minutes about all these damn threes that the Boston Celtics took last night and missed.
And it doesn't seem to be a care in the world. So we'll talk to Gary Washburn about that. And then also you talk about threes. This was a three that actually worked last night for the Denver Nuggets. Took on the Oklahoma City Thunder.
They just had to get the Los Angeles Clippers the hell up on out of here. And then in Oklahoma City, it took Aaron Gordon knocking down a game winning three to give them the victory. It was just last series. Aaron Gordon against the Clippers. I think it was game six, five or six. This man had that that that game winning dunk to ultimately win the game. So Aaron Gordon has been on a heater right now outside of the game winning three, 22 points and 14 rebounds. This is a three last night that made sense.
Take a listen. This is courtesy of the Nuggets radio network rebound down to Christian Brown. You got to hurry.
Eight, seven seconds. Front court over to Westbrook. Left side Gordon for the win.
Yeah! 2.8 seconds left. Coming back the other way. Williams from half court.
Baked it no good at the horn. And the Denver Nuggets shock the Oklahoma City Thunder in game number one. Final tonight.
121 to 119. Oh, baby. Oh, wow. That's a lot of excitement.
Wow. Anyway, before I say something inappropriate, the Nuggets were down 115 to 106 with three minutes left. OK. Chet Holmgren. He ended up with 12 points and six rebounds in the game. He missed two free throws with about 10 seconds left, allowing Denver to obviously win the game with that three point shot.
Aaron Gordon knocking that down with a little less than three seconds to go. We got to wait until game two tomorrow night. The Oklahoma City Thunder. You finished as the number one seed.
You're not trying to lose, but let's be real. Denver Nuggets got some depth. I mean, Jokic last night, he didn't knock down the game winning three. This man had 42 points, 22 rebounds and five assists.
Yeah, he had another one of these ridiculous games. Nico, do you remember? I forgot.
It was a Friday night. I think. What did Jokic go like?
40 points, 30 rebounds, 20 assists. Do you remember that? Yeah, it was something something absurd, like video game type numbers. What? Yeah, it's like a video game where Jokic is he was playing the game on easy. Like, how do you how do you do that in real life?
How did I get it? You don't want to be a dirty, you know what? How did nobody elbow him in the chest?
I don't know. That's not very nice. Oh, I mean, the NBA players are soft now. Come on. You never know. Someone gets elbowed in the chest.
They might be out for the whole season. I'm not trying to give nobody a heart attack. But NBA is in such a place where if you you hit Jokic with a hard foul, his brothers might come after you. You've seen his brothers, right? I actually have not. Are they? I assume they're just as big as him. Oh, my God.
A kind of sort of yes. And also a wider and more muscular than him. Let's put it that way. Oh, boy. His brothers look like. Let's just put it this way.
Jokic's brothers are not dudes that you want to bump up against in an alley. OK, you may not live. No, let's not me.
You will not live. OK, let's just put it that way. Google his brothers.
Google him. You don't remember his brothers got into a beef with the Morris. The more they wanted to go on a court and beat up the Morris brothers. Remember that? Yeah, that is starting to come back to me and I'm picturing them as I as I Google the picture of them now.
Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Intimidating fellows, right? Yeah.
I do not want to go anywhere near them unless they're on my good side. Is it the photo or one of them has the mohawk? Yes, that's the exact one I'm looking at right now. He's grumpy looking with him. He looks like a video game character, doesn't he? Like a bad guy in a video game.
Yeah, that is that is one scary sight. He looks like the final boss that Super Mario has to beat up if he was a human and not a turtle. Yeah, I guess he looks like Bowser, right? That's a that's a pretty good comparison.
Yeah, except for Bowser's a cartoon. This looks like a real angry, angry fellow. Hey, yo, it's another big game.
It sucks in comparison to a 40 30 20 game. Come on, yo, get you can do better than that. But he spoke last night as well on the Altitude Sports Network. And he talked about, you know, that three get knocked down from Gordon.
Listen to another enthusiastic human being. I mean, I think our goal in the defense, you know, I'm just not sure you get the ball. And they did a good job on that time, too. And we got the rebound a little bit questionable because the ball bounced the floor and nobody wanted to grab it. And Ross said we have to advance it for us. Ross attacked the paint pick out for a G and a major shooting amazing for three this year. And, you know, a big one.
That's the thing about your kids. You got to appreciate. The guy passes. He can take every shot that he wants. And he has that fade away from the top of his head that he's shooting that thing over Anthony Davis. He can shoot and get a shot off, even though he's not the most athletically gifted guy. He ain't jumping out the gym.
Can't jump over a stack of papers. You see, he passes the ball. He's one of the best passes the league has seen. He ain't no John Stockton.
He's not Magic Johnson. He's he's a center and he's one of the best passes that we've ever seen in the NBA. He is so much fun to watch.
I'm hoping for more of Jokic. Watching him is he's just great. And he's like the ultimate YMCA player. This guy walks into the gym.
You look, it was this fat guy over here going to do work. And he's giving everybody the business. Those are the best ballers, the ones who utilize skill in their brain and not their athleticism, because you never expect it. When they start kicking your ass, you start going, OK, like I'm faster than this guy.
I'm stronger than this dude. And he's still giving me the business. Well, some great players. Jokic, the ultimate YMCA player. And that three that went down last night. Well, at least it worked for the work for the Nuggets.
Some threes were not working for the Celtics. It's the JR sport re-show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Hey, the Cavaliers and Pacers at halftime, the Cavs lead 61 to 50. When we come back on the other side of the break, we'll we'll talk some more Eastern Conference basketball.
What the Celtics did last night blowing that lead against the New York Knicks. We're going to be joined by Gary Washburn, who covers all things Celtics for the Boston Globe. It's the JR sport re-show coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network.
It is the JR sport re-show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Man, we got some good basketball going on here in this second round. We got the Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves starting in about an hour from now. We got the Cavaliers fighting back against the Pacers. We got things kicking yesterday. Game winner with the Nuggets. And then the game that got us all started. The Boston Celtics, they had a victory and then they laid an egg. They got all the talent in the world. They took their foot off the wheel. Maybe they took too many threes. To talk about the Celtics, what we can expect the rest of the way. What we saw last night.
Joining us is someone who covers them extensively for the Boston Globe. It's Gary Washburn. Gary, good to have you back, man. How are you? Good to be here. Good.
Thank you. Now, this is well, maybe not exactly 63 and 45 misses is is something that you've seen a lot. But we know the Celtics team over the years. They take a lot of threes. Were you surprised at what we saw last night or you just chalk this up as to, hey, they do this every now and then? I was surprised at the misses because they had a lot of open looks. Usually the quality three point shooter that they have just missed them. So they basically built a 20 point lead and still were shooting porous from the three point line. It wasn't like they were they got the seventy five fifty five lead because they were knocking down threes.
They really weren't. But as the game progressed and, you know, New York started to make a run, the Celtics just could not knock down open shots. And usually they're a team that even if they don't begin, you know, they don't begin strong, they they'll finish strong. They'll have a stretch where they hit five in a row or something like that. So for me, it was it was just the fact that like nobody on the roster besides maybe Richard, who was two for five, had a good night shooting the ball. And that's going to lead to a loss because your offense sputters and your defense slips. And then the Knicks, they got that guy in Brunson who can close the game and make big plays and big shots.
And that's exactly what happened. Gary, you've seen a lot of this team. What do you think they're going to do tomorrow? Are they going to be more aggressive going to the basket or are they going to double down on, hey, that was an aberration. We still going to shoot. I think they're going to stick their philosophy to three. I don't know if they'll shoot as many as 60, but I don't I definitely don't think they'll miss forty five.
I think it will be a combination of both. I think they'll feel they have to play with some desperation. This is the first time that they've trailed in the series since two thousand twenty three in the Easter conference finals when they trailed Miami up to up to three, three, two, three, nothing and three one. So they trailed in that entire series almost until game six and then lost in game seven. So this team has.
Right. Cleveland tonight playing short handed, but playing with the desperation of not wanting to go back on the road down to oh, so the Celtics are going to have to play with desperation. And this is not a situation that they had been under for a long time. So we'll see how they respond. I mean, this is a team that doesn't usually lose more than two in a row or doesn't usually lose consecutive games like that. They usually bounce back from losses pretty positively. But this is the game that they're going to have to there.
They have really no choice. Gary Washburn is joining us covers the Celtics for the Boston Globe. Jason Tatum, whether it's right or wrong, he is he's highly criticized.
It didn't help last year not getting off the bench a whole hell of a lot during the Olympics. I've seen him in person a bunch. And some days he looks like he's absolutely the best guy, best player in the league. And there's times where he kind of you just go, well, what is he doing?
What's going on? What is your interpretation of Jason as a player? Well, I think Jason has grown exponentially as a player over the last several years, especially that 22 finals where he was really held down there by Andrew Wiggins. And he's his game has grown. I mean, he's become a better passer, a better rebounder, a better distributor, a better floor leader, a real consistent point forward. The only thing that has not clicked in with his game is a three point shot. And I think as the fans saw in game one, you know, it looks good. It comes great off his arm, off his hand.
It just doesn't go in all the time. And he was four for 15 in game one. And Jason at times can fall in love with a three point shot. And he's taken a career high 10 this year, but he only made 34 percent of those. So the only thing, the last thing that keeps him from being a flawless, you know, a player with very little weaknesses is that three point shot. So Tatum has got to put the team on his back, I think, during this series.
And he's got to be Superman. He averaged 34 a game in the four games during the regular season against the Knicks. They could not stop him. But I think he was a little tentative yesterday. He settled a lot. And I know he had some good looks.
He had some open looks. But if you're a 34 percent three point shooter, sometimes teams want you to shoot the open three. Sometimes they'll bury you.
Sometimes they'll maybe adjust when you start making some. But if you're not making them, well, we're going to have to prove it to us. And I think that's what the Knicks did with him and with Jalen Brown. They're going to they're going to make those guys hit threes. Neither of those guys had great seasons from shooting the three. So Jason's going to have to prove that he's a top two or three player. He's going to have to prove that he's a better player in this series than Jalen Brunson. Gary, when you think about the New York Knicks roster, you look at the depth on the Boston Celtics, you would think that, OK, they lose one game tomorrow.
But the Knicks, do you think they have enough to go blow for blow with them and maybe up to seven games? Well, I think a lot of things have to happen, but one of them did and they they stole the game one and they did not have a great game from Karl Anthony Towns. He was not superb offensively. You know, he helped out. He had 13 rebounds. But, you know, he was not good. He had 14 points, you know, six or 13. You know, he missed his only three point attempt. So he didn't have one of those 30, 20 games. You know, they got a real contribution from O.G.
Ananoby who struggled mightily in the season series against the Celtics. And I think people are looking back to that. And I think people are going to have to forget about those in season, you know, during the regular season games. They're going to have to you know, this is a new new season and the Knicks are feeling good about themselves. They knocked off the pistons of the physical series and now they just wanted the garden for the first time in a long time. And now they're feeling like, shoot, why not?
Why can't we go up to it? Why are we the underdogs? You know, we got to put them on their back. So I think the Knicks have to have a lot of things happen. But I think some of them have already happened and they're capable of playing better. And so the Celtics. So we'll see kind of how it all goes down in game two.
Gary Washburn is here with us from the Boston Globe. You talked about the growth of Jason Tatum, Joe Missoula. We certainly see now he got kind of thrown into this position as head coach of the Boston Celtics.
And what we've seen over the past year and a half now moving into second year in championship. Is he still kind of the same guy or is he have you seen changes in him as well, especially as he interacts with the media? I think he's more confident in himself and not to say he lacked confidence, but I think that there was some uncertainty because he had never done this before. He had never been obviously an NBA head coach. He's a guy who kind of came out of nowhere.
Division three and joined the Celtics staff is kind of a, you know, second, you know, row guy, the guy who sits behind the coach, the coaching staff and just kind of, you know, helps out and, you know, works guys out and makes sure that, you know, he's got his his role on the staff is taken care of. And then he obviously gets thrust into the head coaching job with the incident, the issues that he made at Doka. And I think when he first started, he felt strongly, but he also was unsure. And now he's sure he's obviously got a championship under his belt. And he's been very successful in his three years leading the team to a 64 and 61 win season is the first time I think that's happened since the 80s. So, you know, he's sure of himself, but but obviously, you know, he's an orthodox coach with some orthodox philosophies.
And sometimes, like last night, when your team misses forty five threes and takes a record number three pointers in a playoff game, you're going to get criticism. I think he's he's a big boy and he accepts that. Well, Gary, I remember last week, two weeks ago, we saw Tatum go down.
He's he's robbing in pain on the ground. The other missing the game with that wrist injury is telling the trainer not to go out there to help him. He's yelling at Tatum to get up. How is his personal relationship inside the locker room?
I mean, Tatum's already criticized from the outside and now his coach is publicly screaming at him like he's faking it out there. Well, I think he wanted Jason not to ask for any assistance. I think he wanted him to kind of toughen up. And I, you know, I think his players are kind of used to that style. They're used to sometimes the love and they're used to sometimes a tough love. And I just think that that's why they've grown to love him and really want to play for him because they know that he has their best interests at heart.
Although obviously his style might be a little bizarre at times. And, you know, and we all don't know what goes on behind the scenes in terms of in the locker room for one on one or through text messages. Hey, you know, Jason, I didn't mean to you know, I you know, you were more injured than I thought. Didn't mean to you know, you don't know what happens in those conversations. In many cases, they're not going to tell the media, hey, I talked with Jason.
I told him I was wrong or I shouldn't have said that. You know, they're just going to, you know, sum it up as part of their relationship and keep it moving because both have the same goals winning the championship. You know, Missoula wants to be a great coach and he wants and he knows that Tatum can lead him to being a great coach. So they have a mutual interest in both succeeding. And I think that the players understand how badly he wants to win.
And they're willing to follow his lead because he knows that he has they have that he has their best interest at heart is as unusual as some of his methods may be. Gary Washburn here with us from the Boston Globe is the JR sport we show on the Infinity Sports Network. Well, win, lose, draw another championship. We know that the Boston Celtics will ultimately be changing hands from an ownership perspective.
What is that looking like? Is there a particular timeline? Where are things at right that right now with that? Well, the ownership situation is currently I mean, they found, you know, the owner and all that's going to take weeks if not months to go through officially. But Bill Chisholm is the new owner and, you know, they've got to figure out, you know, all the all the paperwork and all that.
But that's pretty much solved. The question now is, what is the ownership's philosophy on keeping this team together? You know, if they were to advance and make the finals and win a championship, do you still do you bring everybody back, even though you're in the second apron? It's going to cost a couple of, you know, maybe over 100 million dollars in luxury taxes.
How do you approach the future? Because this is a franchise that's proud, that does not want to go into any rebuild. They have two players in their absolute prime right now. And if you argue, you know, with both, I mean, Brown might be entering his prime right now and Tatum might be a year or two from his prime.
He's only 27. So they're entering their prime year. So you don't want to waste that. So how do you approach winning? How do you build a team with these new NBA salary cap, you know, constraints where, you know, you can't spend too much. You can't go Warriors. I think what happened was the Warriors success and them being able to keep Clay Draymond and Steph so long and then add KD, you know, got the other owners into saying, listen, we've got to we've got to cut the hands off of some of these teams that have no problems spending hundreds of millions of dollars. And so it's even things up. But it's also made it more difficult to keep together a championship caliber team as it was that it was 10 or 15 years ago. So the ownership is going to have to figure out which direction it wants to go in.
And this is a proud franchise. So it's not going to go into a, you know, cost thrifty money saving situation. But there might have to cut the cost somewhere. Man, before they even won a championship, Gary, it was are we keeping Tatum or Brown? Does one of these guys have to go? Even with success, do you think over the next couple of years that one of these dudes will ultimately be moved?
I mean, that's the worst case scenario. I mean, they can move some of the pieces around on Porzingis, perhaps Drew Holliday, you know, but all those guys are signed. They you know, they're going to have to figure out, you know, Porzingis will be the first player up.
Does he come back on maybe a discount because he's comfortable and he's won a championship? You know, that's how you kind of have to start getting talking players and maybe taking less money, your hometown discounts or, you know, sacrificing salary to keep the team together to have the prolonged success because that's what is going to have to happen. You're not going to be able to have these, you know, teams where three or four guys are making over all, making over 40 million unless, you know, you put a bunch of minimum guys around them.
You know, it's just not going to work out that way. The days of having, you know, Lebron, Bosch and Wade all making tax money or just a little less is just not the way it is anymore. Because even if you're okay being in that second apron, the longer you're in that second apron, I think three consecutive years in that second apron, now your draft picks get frozen so where you can't, you know, it limits your draft capital, limits your, you know, ability to build your team in the future when you have frozen draft picks. Where they stay the same, you'll have the pick regardless of where you finish. Your pick could be at the end of the first round. So that's the issue that teams are going to have facing in the future.
Well, Gary, last question for you. You mentioned Chris Staps Porzingis. He had to exit the game yesterday with an illness. I feel like throughout the course of the season, a couple months ago, he was sick. Like, is no injury, he's just, is he all right?
Is he good? Well, he's probable for game two, and that's a big deal. They need him. But, you know, he's a guy that throughout his career, injuries and things like that have happened. And I think the Celtics have understood that when you acquire a guy like him, you know, you understand that he's not going to give you 82 games.
He might give you 50 or 60. You understand that there's going to be times where he's had soreness here or, you know, a pulled hamstring here or even illness here. So I think that the Celtics are accustomed to playing without him, but they'd rather play with him. And, you know, it would be a big help if he's in the lineup in game two healthy, and I think he will be.
Yeah, I'd take a 7-foot-3, 7-4 guy shooting threes and blocking shots. Sign me up, Gary. Hey, where can people follow you and all your work with the Boston Globe?
Well, gwatchburnglobe on X and thebostonglobe.com for, you know, great coverage of the Celtics by me and a colleague, Adam Hilsbach. Hey, Gary, always appreciate having you on. I think you got a couple more rounds left in you, Gary, OK?
I hope so. All right, thank you, Gary. Stay well, OK? Be cool.
All right, thank you. No doubt about it that Gary, excuse me, Gary Washburn covers all things Celtics for the Boston Globe. I said what I said, despite what we saw last night. I still got the Celtics coming out on top.
What will be interesting, and this has been rumored now really for a couple of weeks. And it's like, hey, with the new ownership group coming in from Boston Celtics, are they going to keep the team together? Because the last thing you want to do is acquire an asset and you start looking at the books going, hey, why are we doing this? And we've seen a lot of NBA owners come in and try to either add salary, keep salary or make some rash decisions. Look at what we got with Ishbia with the Phoenix Suns. Now he's trying to figure out a move Duran and move Beal.
And he just wanted to go shopping for everything that he did not need. The J.R. sport re-show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. You know, speaking of moving on and or keeping things together, we saw the Nuggets eliminate the Los Angeles Clippers.
And apparently the Clippers want to keep James Harden, huh? Well, we'll talk about that on the other side of the break. It is the J.R. sport re-show on the Infinity Sports Network, 888-710-4ISN.
That's 888-710-4ISN. And thank you to Gary Washburn for joining us in the last break. Covers all things Celtics for years with the Boston Globe. And right now, thinking of the other Eastern Conference matchup, the Cavaliers, they are still handling business out here against the Pacers. They lead 84-71.
And every time the Pacers seem to cut the lead down to 10, the Cavaliers just extend it just a little bit more. Donovan Mitchell just sat down on the bench. He has 29 points tonight. He's 11-21 from the field. He's 1-5 from downtown. And even though 1-5 is not good, the 1-3 pointer he did make a few minutes ago in the corner. A big corner 3 to extend the lead, forcing the Pacers to call a timeout was certainly well needed. And now he is on the bench getting a rest.
Nico, one thing that I did see that caught my attention, I saw online. Obviously can't listen to the game while I'm on the radio. I did see Donovan Mitchell at one point in time. The Cavalier fans were chanting at Halliburton tonight, who by the way is not having the best of nights, 8 points and 2 assists. The fans were chanting overrated at him.
A loud overrated chance. And Donovan Mitchell kind of stood at half court and told everybody. He kind of motioned for the fans. You know, typically you'll see a quarterback in a stadium quieting down the fans.
Shut up, I'm trying to run the offense. Donovan Mitchell was trying to get the fans in Cleveland to shut the hell up and stop calling him that. I've never heard of something like that in basketball. I guess in football when you're on offense, you want to make sure things are quiet. So if you have to make audibles or anything. I mean I guess in the NBA it's similar if they're calling out plays or doing something different. But I thought in the NBA you always just want the crowd to be as loud as possible.
Well you want the crowd to be loud, but you don't want the crowd to, let's just say, you don't want to rile. You're already beating the living hell out of the Pacers, right? You're beating them, you have a sizable league. You don't want to, you don't want him to be antagonized, right? You don't want Halliburton to go, do I really need to turn it up and show, who's overrated?
And so sometimes you just want to keep things status quo. Like hey, we're already beating him. He's having a crap game.
Like he can't be any worse than what he is right now. Is chanting overrated going to do anything for us to help win the game? Or is it going to poke the bear? Is it going to antagonize him to the fact that he turns it on?
So I get it. People are like, oh Donovan Mitchell respects Halliburton. It's like, I'm sure he does as an athlete, as a competitor. He ain't thinking about that. He's just like shut up, we're winning the game.
Don't give him a reason to all of a sudden say, I need to turn it up, I need to turn it on. Could you imagine, not that it would ever happen, there was no reason, he was so respected. Could you imagine Michael Jordan just playing basketball and people chanting at him, anything? Like he would just, he would turn it up to him, he would have now another reason to be like, oh really? Like the players knew enough not to bother him.
The fans respected him so much in every arena, he was like a god. But there's a reason why nobody ever talked trash. It's like, why poke a bear? Because he's going to bite you. Why poke a dog? He's going to bite you.
A bear will kill you. It's simple as that, Nico. Yeah, and especially in Game 2 of a series, right? I mean, if the Cavs were up 2-0 already and this was Game 3 and they're going to go on to a 3-0 series lead it seems as though, no matter what, you kind of look like you're in a good spot. There is a long way to go in this series.
So even if the Cavs do hang on here, they are in a deadlocked 1-1 series with it going back to Indiana all tied up. Maybe a little bit too soon, I get where you're coming from there. I know myself though, I'm usually in favor of trying to rattle the player as much as I can and get in their head.
I hear that. Well, and you know, on the other hand, however this game ends up, we don't know. Right now, and we saw what took place last night, the New York Knicks come back from a 20-point deficit. We saw the Nuggets down. They were able to hit a game-winning 3. And so at this point, they're down 14 points. It's 90, or now they've hit a 3.
So now it's 90-79. They're within 11. And so it's not all gone and finished, but the other element is we don't know the status of the other 3 players.
I don't want to call them stars, but Evan Mobley, Defensive Player of the Year, Hunter and Garland, who has been an All-Star. We don't know their status. And if you think about this, if, not if, but when they go to Indianapolis, are we expecting Max Struce and Sam Merrill to go ahead and light it up in the opposing team's arena?
Hell no. Like in a lot of cases, you got the bench guys. You know, they get hot at home. They ain't hot on the road. They're the guys who you tell them they're suck. They're all hyped out and out of sorts. But Donovan Mitchell, he's just like, we winning.
Let's just keep things a status quo. I'm trying to think of, has there been an athlete that's been rattled by fans? I know John Rocker, you know, pitching for the Braves and going to New York after some of the nasty things he said people got in his head. I'm trying to think, have there been any, is there anybody that stands out to you?
Like a guy that gets rattled? Yeah, the first one that I thought of was Johnny Cueto. I don't know if you remember the playoff game with Reds Pirates. Yes.
Oh my God. And they were chanting his name and then the next batter, I think it was Russell Martin, hit a home run and the place went crazy in Pittsburgh. Yeah, I remember that. And Cueto, is he in San Francisco? Is he still playing? I think he just recently got there. Yeah, this would be his first year because I think last year he was, I can't remember now where he was last year. I think the Giants did just sign him.
You might be right. No, he's been gone for a while. He's with the Giants from 16 to 21.
Oh, he must have been thinking of someone different then. White Sox 22, Marlins 23, Angels last year. Johnny Cueto, he is with no team. Damn, he's 39 years old already. Yeah, he's done.
He was too small. It's the JR Sportbree Show on the Infinity Sports Network. We'll give you an update on this Cavs and Pacers game. We'll talk about the game coming up between Minnesota and the Warriors. We've got a lot to do with the JR Sportbree.
