JR SportBrief Hour 1

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The number one pediatrician recommended brand. It is the JR Sportbree show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Much love and many thanks to people who tuned in all over North America. On the free Odyssey app, on your local Infinity Sports Network affiliate, SiriusXM channel 158. And if you got a smart speaker, all you got to do is ask it to play the Infinity Sports Network and boom, we pop right on up. This is when the show gets started every single weekday at 6pm Eastern, 3 Pacific.

So whether you're out West, you're here East, you're in the middle, you're in Canada, you're in Mexico, you're somewhere else. Thank you for tuning in. Okay, we're going to be rolling for the next four hours and it's been, it's been a busy weekend right? We had another NBA game last night.

We had an NHL game on Saturday night. We have a head coach in the NFL who just got an extension in Mike Tomlin. You might have heard about this one. There's another coach from college who just said no to the Los Angeles Lakers. There's a lot to get into. Oh yeah, by the way, you might have heard that Caitlin Clark didn't make a specific basketball team, but there's still a chance.

We'll get into Caitlin Clark and her Olympic opportunity if it even still exists. And oh yeah, a guy in the NFL decided to retire and it might be best for him. That guy's name is Darren Waller. If you want to participate in the show, it's real simple. We got a phone number.

It works. That's 855-212-4227. That's 855-212-4227. You can find me online. I'm on the internet.

All that good stuff. I am at JR Sport Brief. If you follow me at JR Sport Brief, you will already know what we're going to go ahead and discuss over these next four hours.

Thank you so much to super producer and host Ryan Hickey holding it down for us in New York City. Ryan, how you doing, man? You good? You have a good weekend?

I did. Weekend was fun, enjoyable, you know, always as always goes by too fast. But nonetheless, Monday's a little bit easier when there's a lot going on like today.

So happy to be back. Yeah, there's a lot going on. I mean, the Florida Panthers are going to try to go up 2-0 against the Oilers.

You know, Hickey, I got to be honest, man. I saw a little bit, a lot of everything over the weekend in regards to sports. I'm a little disappointed. I mean, between the NBA Finals, I mean, even watching last night's game didn't feel all that competitive.

It's just like the Mavericks were chasing him down. Game one of the Stanley Cup Finals, the Oilers got blank 3-0 by the Panthers. I got to tell you, I even had an opportunity yesterday. I sat down and watched a few minutes of F1. And that was, to me, a little bit more interesting than anything that I watched over the weekend, man. I'm like, can we get some competitive games here?

I'm still waiting, you know? You weren't watching Mets, Phillies on Sunday morning live from London? Oh, no. Hell no. Hell no.

No, I didn't. There's a compelling finish for you. I know, right? I listened to some of the players complain about what they need to do next time they go to London. But just, just disappointing. And I guess the cherry on top of the disappointment last night was the Celtics beating the Mavs again 105-98. I told you that the score, to me, wasn't all that indicative of what actually took place. Drew Holliday decided to erupt last night. He had 26 points. And it seems that all anybody wanted to talk about was Jason Kidd trying to divide the Celtics with some of his comments in the media. Luca had a triple-double, 30-11-11. He also had eight turnovers. Kyrie Irving is still missing in action here in this series. Last night Kyrie Irving had 16 points. You go back to Game 1, he had 12 points. So whoop-de-freakin'-doo, a four-point increase for Kyrie Irving. And then at the end of the game, Kristaps Porzingis went out with a leg injury.

Kristaps Porzingis says his leg is fine. And so I thought that the Celtics would win this series. I would still expect for the Dallas Mavericks to pick up a victory, maybe two victories.

But as an overall, I look at this and I'm just like, can we get the bleeding over with? Like, Jason Tatum hasn't even had an explosive game yet. 18 points last night. And Tatum spoke and he said, listen, man, it's not just about me scoring 50 million points. I do whatever it takes for us to win. Listen to this.

It has a lot to do with that. You know, I've been here before and we didn't win. And it's just like, you know, we're so close to what we're trying to accomplish. Why would I let my ego or my need to score all the points get in the way of that?

We always talk about do whatever it takes for however long it takes. And if I need to have 16 potential assists every single night and that's what puts us in the best position to win. And it doesn't mean I'm the leading scorer by all means. And, you know, if that gives us the best chance to win, sign me up.

OK, I think it does give them the best chance to win. The team is stacked. Jalen Brown had 21. OK. Porzingis had 12.

White had 18. They're getting points and buckets from everybody. I mean, you would think Joe Missoula sounds happy.

Probably not. But Joe Missoula said, yeah, everybody from the team, everybody chipped in. I'm really tired of hearing about one guy or this guy or that guy and everybody trying to make it out to be anything other than Celtic basketball. And everybody that stepped on that court tonight made winning plays on both ends of the floor.

That's the most important thing. And then to answer your question, Jason makes greatness look easy. He does it in a lot of different ways. He does it in defense. He does it on rebounding, does it on passing, does it on screening. He's a tremendous player and hard to coach him. And he has the ability to affect the game in different ways for a different team. But it takes everybody to do it.

It took everybody. I'll tell you about Derek White. He had 18 points. He also had a block at the end of the game against P.J. Washington.

P.J. Washington got a steal. He streak into the basket, trying to close the gap. This might have been the Dallas Mavericks last chance. And it looked like there was a little bit of a foul. OK, it looks like maybe Jalen Brown, who was also in the vicinity, may have given him a little shove in the back or at least had his hand on his back. And there was no call. And so Derek White came up big and Jason Kidd has his own thoughts about it. He said, hey, they didn't call a foul. It's no foul. But Derek White said, listen, people, I'm trying to win a championship. I don't care about nothing.

I'm going all the hell out. Listen to this. Yeah, that's why I got dunked on earlier. But it's part of the game. I think just that not afraid to get dunked on allows me to get some that maybe some people wouldn't have gotten. So I'm just trying to make a play. Just believe in my abilities and what I can do. Hickey, you ever been dunked on in a game? No, right? No, thankful I stopped playing basketball long before the kids I was playing against were dunking.

Yeah, I'm in the I'm in the same boat. If anybody was dunking out on the basketball court, I was I was nowhere to be seen. You know, I think I think maybe one time I almost threw an alley-oop. I don't know if it was me or the guy. He didn't catch it. Not not not good. We're smart. You know, we get out before we can really get embarrassed. Oh, touche.

Oh, please believe. Listen, in high school, I played well, I didn't play my high school girls team. They were always winning state championships in New York, Murrayburg from high school. Shannon Bobbitt, she played with Candace Parker. She played at Tennessee, played for the Los Angeles Sparks.

Another woman by the name of Carmen Guzman. She went and she played overseas in Europe. And every now and then after school, you know, I guess when they were done with practice, they would just scrimmage and play with everybody. And Hickey, it took me one time, one time to get crossed over and just say, OK, I'm not doing this again. All right. Nothing wrong with with playing against women. It's another thing when you're in high school to get annihilated on a basketball court by women. I said, no, thank you. This wasn't even men. But I wanted no part of it, man.

None. You're a quick learner. All it takes is one time and you're out of there.

You touch the stove once you're out. You get dunked on or owned one time and you're done playing basketball. Yeah, I'm not stupid. You're damn right. Like the Celtics, the Celtics, they handle in business all up and down a roster. Drew Holliday, he says, yeah, it's all about the team.

He's smart. I don't think I'm shredding the defense. I think it's more so J.T. and J.B., especially tonight.

J.T. was getting into the pain and being double teamed and making the right plays out of it and just finding me. You know, just either being at the dunker or being in the corner.

He has that vision as a playmaker, so I would give that to them. See, Hickey, this is what I'm saying. All this is boring. Like the NBA finals are boring. There's no beef. Kyrie Irving isn't doing anything. Nobody's angry. You know, Jason Kidd tried saying that Brown is better than Tatum. He's the best player.

And Drew Holliday, we'll talk about that later. He kind of took the bait on it. But this is boring. I mean, everybody is all about teamwork. There's no excitement. Like, what is exciting about this?

Or am I alone? You had Luka yelling at the Celtics owner yesterday for a little bit. Now you know Matt Ishbia and Nikola Jokic, you know, flop pushing situation, but. And then he said he didn't know who it was. Right. And maybe he did it. Why would he know Wick Rosebeck? Why would he know who that is? Could you pick him out of a lineup?

If he walked by me now, probably not. OK. Same. Yeah. I'm with Luka here. Yeah. Just some arbitrary guys screaming and yelling on the sidelines.

It could be anybody. That's like half the crowd in Boston at TD Garden or whatever the hell they call it now. And Luka, who I told you had 30 points, had 11 rebounds, had 11 assists, eight turnovers in a loss. Luka said, you can blame me. I think my turnovers and my missed free throws cost us a game.

So I got to do way better in those two categories. But at the end of the day, we've got to make shots to win them. To win the game. How about Luka just needs better teammates? That's what I'm saying. Like Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic have to generate all of the offense themselves. Do me a favor. How the hell is that going to win them anything?

I think it's not. They may win a game when they get back to Dallas for game three on Wednesday. But as an overall, let's be real, the Celtics are just they're firing away at every single player in every single position has something to offer. And the Dallas Mavericks are just struggling to catch up.

And so with Kyrie Irving only dropping 16 points, Kyrie Irving agrees. It's not just on Luka Doncic, but we, the Dallas Mavericks, we're beating ourselves. We beat ourselves a little bit tonight just on our turnovers and just some of our defensive rotations. They got a lot of opportunity, second chance opportunities where they got an opportunity to go to a fast break and just create just mismatches in transition. So look at some of the positives for sure, where we won the first and fourth.

But at the end of the day, we got to win all four quarters if we want a great chance against this team. Oh, man, even even a loser sound OK. They're like, nobody is angry. Nobody's upset. If you reverse some of the words, I wouldn't know whether or not Kyrie Irving won, whether he lost.

This is just stasis. By the way, it's been said that the ratings so far here for the NBA Finals between these Boston Celtics and the Mavs, the ratings haven't been all that great. I don't know why. I mean, you got an amazing star in Luka Doncic. You have two amazing stars in Boston with Tatum and Brown. You got the intrigue of Kyrie. But this is in regards to storylines. This is kind of falling flat.

I don't know. Maybe there's no no gigantic star. Maybe the finals is missing Steph Curry or Durant or LeBron or the same damn guys that we've been watching for the past, I don't know, 10, 15 years.

I like new blood, but I want to see some interesting games. Not what we got. We heard from Kyrie. We heard from Luka. What about the head coach? What about this all star, 10 time all star Hall of Famer Jason Kidd? Why the hell did y'all lose? The small things we we don't you know, we have to do the small things and that's part of the game.

You know, those are points that we left on the board and we didn't shoot free throws well tonight and we have to be better. They play basketball in the library. It is very quiet. You can't really even sense a lot of frustration in all three players and coaches right now. Nobody. Nothing. They need somebody to break something in the locker.

I don't know. Jason Kidd went ahead. He sounds like he was getting ready to take the guys to church. He said, listen, people, we got faith. Yeah, we're not down. We're positive.

This is a group that believes we didn't get an opportunity to get a split or went to here on the road. So now Boston held serve. Now we've got to go home and hold serve. Oh, my goodness. There's no there's nobody angry on either team.

Nobody. I mean, Luka is angry, but I mean, at the end of the game, she's just like, whatever. We lost and I got to go to the next one. I need some excitement. I need some fireworks. I'm not looking for MMA.

I'm not looking for boxing. I need somebody to push somebody. We did. Did I miss it? Did we see like a flagrant?

Did somebody get pushed to shove? Nothing, right? Nothing. Nothing.

Yeah, we haven't even had a hard foul or even just like a questionable call really so far. Oh, man. It won't be Al Horford. I know he's not. He's such a nice guy. Oh, it's sad.

Maybe. But this guy won't even do it either. The Boston Celtics are so focused in and laser focused. Jalen Brown said, listen, folks, he spoke to NBA TV and Jalen Brown said, we just get ready for Wednesday night. Listen to this. Just stay in the moment. You know, it's almost short term memory. We've got to play this series like we're down to. We've got to go in on the road and take care of business. But it's easy to stay in the moment. Just talk to the guys, talk to them through adversity, you know, to stay together.

To handle resilience and adversity. That's the most important thing. So I think we'll be ready. Oh, man. If the Celtics end up sweeping this series, folks. I may fall asleep by the time we get to the end.

Like this is this is sad. OK. Give me some juice. Give me some energy. Give me something.

I don't know. Even on the NHL side, maybe maybe the Florida Panthers won't wipe out the Oilers tonight and blank them again. Friday or excuse me, Saturday night.

They won three to nothing. I could tell you something. I'm going to bring some juice. I'm going to bring some energy. Like I told you, I'm going to be here hanging out with you for the next four hours.

How about this? We got Antonio Daniels, former NBA player and current broadcaster down in New Orleans. He's going to come through and join us in a couple of hours to talk about these finals and where we can actually get some of the excitement. We're going to talk about Darren Waller. We're going to talk about Dan Hurley deciding to stay at UConn and saying no to the Los Angeles Lakers. We're going to get into Mike Tomlin and his contract extension. I know for all those Steeler fans who want to fire him after every loss. He's going to be around until twenty twenty seven.

Get over it. So we got a lot to do. Eight five five two one two forty two twenty seven.

That's eight five five two one two forty two twenty seven. You can find me online. I am at JR Sport Brief when we come back from break. You know what? We'll talk a little bit about Dan Hurley. And then how about this? Speaking of the Lakers not being here in the finals. Well, their former head coach, he found somewhere else to coach. I'm going to tell you where he's going. We got a lot to do.

The JR Sport Reshow here on the Infinity Sports Network. Have you ever covered a carpet stain with a rug, ignored a leaky faucet, pretended your half painted living room is supposed to look that way? Well, you're not alone. We've all got unfinished home projects, whether it's a door that sticks or a disorganized closet or an AC unit that only works half the time.

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For more details, request your appointment at Midas dot com. You're listening to the J.R. Sport Brief strike. The number is eight five five two one two forty two twenty seven. That's eight five five two one two forty two twenty seven. Listen, people, if you agree with somebody every single time. Then I challenge you to some critical thinking, like think outside the box. It's one thing to agree with someone most of the time. You shared beliefs, thoughts, ideas and what have you.

But nobody should believe or agree with somebody 100 percent of the time. And so, yeah, I appreciate you for listening. OK, I'm still trying to find a little bit of beef here in the NBA Finals. I'm trying to find some adversity.

I'm trying to find something interesting. You know, maybe tonight in the Stanley Cup Finals between the Oilers and Panthers will have something a little bit different. But even outside of all of this that's taken place today, off the heels of Game two in the finals, we also had some coaches that pretty much populated the news feeds. OK, we heard Mike Tomlin is getting himself a three year extension with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He's going to be around through the twenty twenty seven season.

We also heard and this is kind of crazy. I guess Darvin Ham wants to be busy. Darvin Ham is going back to the Milwaukee Bucks. This is where Darvin Ham had coached for about four years as an assistant under Budenholzer. And now he's going back to Milwaukee to be an assistant under Doc Rivers.

I get it. I guess this is the same Darvin Ham who just got booted from the Los Angeles Lakers. The Los Angeles Lakers can't keep a coach longer than two or three years.

And they lost to the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the postseason. And Darvin Ham is the one who, quote unquote, paid the price because who the hell else are you going to fire? You're not firing Anthony Davis. You're not firing LeBron James. I'm sure if they could get rid of D'Angelo Russell today, they would go out there and do so. But Darvin Ham, upon getting fired from the Lakers, he had two years and ten million dollars left on his contract. We don't know how much he's going to make as an assistant on Doc Rivers staff.

We know it ain't going to be that much damn money. But, Hickey, are you surprised that he jumped right back into work so fast? Not really. Just because I feel like most coaches, it's in their blood. They're not used to taking down time. They want to be out there on the basketball court focusing on, in this case, basketball and coaching guys and being back in the swing of things. And I think there is a little bit of a fear in coaches overall. Like, if you're out of the game, the game passes you by.

So even if you take a year or two off, maybe time passes you by. Maybe now there's questions about, oh, is he still connected to the game? Should we hire him as another head coach?

So I would say no. Not that surprising that Darvin Ham kind of jumped feet first right back into the coaching realm. Yeah, you're right. Out of sight, out of mind.

And it's one hell of a grind. I don't know what that situation is going to look like with Doc Rivers. Doc Rivers certainly. And that team, by the way, the Milwaukee Bucks, you know, a lot of hope for what they were going to do. But they ended up just looking old.

Everybody looked old. Giannis had to deal with his injuries. Damian Lillard, just everything was just bad. Despite the fact that when they fired Adrian Griffin, you know, they were actually above 500 and they finished pretty bad to end the season. I'd be more interested to see what the Milwaukee Bucks do with the roster as opposed to the coaching staff. So good for Darvin Ham. He'll keep busy.

He'll keep active. And in the wildest thing that took place today, speaking of the Lakers, is that you had a college coach in Dan Hurley say no. He said, no, I'm not going to go ahead and coach the Los Angeles Lakers. And we're going to talk more about this at the top of the hour. But to be the Los Angeles Lakers and get rejected, this is like the prettiest girl at the prom looking for a date.

And, you know, she's being told no. Like the Lakers offered this man a gig. I don't know if you feel the Lakers were being cheap or if Dan Hurley loves UConn so much and wants to go for three. I think if you were to up the money, there'd have been a good chance that he would have showed up. The Lakers reportedly offered him a six year deal. Seventy million dollars. And Dan Hurley said no.

I think it's pretty clear that he feels that he can get that or something close to it in Connecticut without having to jump across the country from Connecticut out to California. And so a lot of news here. Hickey, I got to say, I'm not too surprised that he said no, because the Lakers, let's be real, they they look like a bleep show, you know?

They do. And there are real reasons for concern. I thought he would say yes on the fact at this point, just like the timeline of he's taking the interview, he's thinking about it. Like, I feel like we've seen so many times, like the longer this drags out, the more likely than not, the person making this big time decision decides to jump and leave and take what you would think would be a promotion.

Like going to the Lakers, the biggest brand in the NBA, even, you know, forget just the money for a second. It is, you know, that's a big time job with a lot of notoriety. I'm surprised he said no, I truly am.

Really? I think the opposite. When you when you got to drag a decision like that out for so long and they said he met with them, I think it was Friday or over the weekend, y'all are having the chat, they're whining you, they're dining you, you're going through everything. I don't think that he didn't even seem like he really wanted to use UConn and or leave UConn. And it was like he was using the Los Angeles Lakers for a little bit of leverage and letting UConn know that, hey, you're not the only game in town.

And I got an opportunity to go elsewhere, you know, if I choose. I mean, as you said, with Darvin hand like and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what league when it comes to the pros, coaching is is ruthless. I know a lot of the coaches have now started to make, you know, 10 million dollars plus said, you know, Darvin hand was told he's getting five million dollars a year from the Los Angeles Lakers. But coaches are brought in to babysit, to figure things out. And if things don't work out, the coach is the first person to go.

The coach is the first person to get the boot. And so, I mean, when you got guys so hickey, Frank Vogel, he ain't you think he coming back next year? He ain't doing a damn thing. I wouldn't if I was him. Frank Vogel, this man. And I think I still think he's getting paid by both the Lakers and the Suns. OK, so he's he's able to double dip and go on vacation. But it's ruthless.

In a lot of cases, it's not fair. But what are you going to do when you think about the money that that professional athletes have started to make quarterbacks making fifty five million? We got NBA players.

I mean, damn it. Give it another five or six years. We're going to have a one hundred million dollar basketball player and then you got to pay the coach 10.

You know, so who do you think is getting the boot first? And so Darvin Ham is going back to work for Milwaukee, didn't even take a month or a couple months off, is right back into it. Going back where he coached as an assistant.

Frank Vogel is minding his business. Dan Hurley says no to the Los Angeles Lakers, which is nuts. It's like saying no to the Dallas Cowboys. It's like saying no to the Yankees. And Dan Hurley just says, well, damn it, I'm just going to be my own New York Yankees. I'm just going to be UConn up here in Storrs, Connecticut. It's a wild world when it comes down to coaching.

They're the first ones to get the boot. It's the J.R. sport ratio here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. Eight five five two one two forty two twenty seven.

That's eight five five two one two forty two twenty seven. We're going to talk more about Dan Hurley and get into some more of the deals as to why he potentially just spurned the Los Angeles Lakers to stay at UConn, which is just almost unimaginable to a certain degree. We're going to get into Kaitlyn Clark. We'll talk about Darren Waller. We'll talk about Mike Tomlin and his contract extension. But, you know, speaking of coaches, we come back from break. I told you that Jason Kidd is trying to or he tried to kind of create a little bit of a wedge for the Boston Celtics as they try to spice things up here in this this series is kind of boring up until now.

We'll talk about Jason Kidd on the other side of the break is the J.R. sport ratio here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. You could spend the weekend doing the same old whatever, or you could conquer the weekend in the all new Hyundai Santa Fe. Visit Hyundai USA dot com for more details. Hyundai.

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It is the J.R. Sport Brief show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. Thank you for the update from Chris LaPresti. That was nice of him. He'll be back next hour to do it again. Anyway, we talked about a lot of the news that has taken place today. We're going to take a deeper dive. We'll get back into Dan Hurley at the top of the hour. We'll get into Mike Tomlin and his extension with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So we have a lot to do. And we've done a lot of talk about coaches. So Dan Hurley saying no to the Lakers. Mike Tomlin's extension. Darvin Ham got fired by the Los Angeles Lakers. He's not going back to the Milwaukee Bucks to be an assistant.

And so that's all good and fine. I also made it very clear to you that the finals, in all honesty, they've been a little boring. We haven't gotten the spice. We haven't gotten the fights.

We haven't got the back and forth. I mean, even Kyrie's drama, going back to Boston, that seemingly has fallen a little flat. And this is good for the Boston Celtics because this means that they're just waking up and they're handling business. There's no drama. They're going to take care of business on the court.

And it looks like championship number 18 is only two more victories away. Now, despite that, Jason Kidd, God bless him. Jason Kidd is the one trying to start a little bit of drama. And I would say he was slightly successful, not successful. Like, I guess it doesn't matter because Jason Kidd can't go onto the court and help his guys out.

And ultimately, here it is. Over the weekend, everybody knows that there's so much about Tatum and Brown and who's better. And can these guys coexist? Are they a good team? Are they going to win a championship? For years, even I thought that years ago, it's like, hey, you can't keep both of them. I don't want to say they do the same exact thing, but Tatum is a better player, a better scorer. But then Brown has done more scoring here.

So you never know. The Celtics have both of them. It looks like they're going to win a championship. But Jason Kidd was being slick the other day. Jason Kidd, while talking to the media, pretty much said that Jalen Brown is the Celtics' best player.

Which I think if you were to take a poll, most people would say that Tatum is slightly better than Brown. But take a listen to what Jason Kidd had to say. Well, Jalen's the best player, so just looking at what he does defensively. He picked up Luca full court. He got to the free throw line. He did everything. And that's what, you know, your best player does. You know, he plays both sides, defense and offense at a high rate. And he's been doing that the whole playoffs.

Okay. Now, Hickey, was Jason Kidd just being honest, or did Jason Kidd intentionally try to create a little bit of a chasm in the rift here with the Celtics? I think both. Like, I think he's right in the sense of, like, if you say who do the Celtics need to play better in order to win the finals, Brown or Tatum?

I think the answer is Brown. He does more to contribute to winning, and he also does more because he's not only offensively gifted, but defensively gifted. Especially, we saw him in Game 1.

Like, that really changed the game, and he was a lockdown defender, causing so many turnovers for Dallas. So I think, like, I think the Celtics need Brown to play better more than they need Tatum to play better in order to win the finals. I think you're kind of seeing that right now up 2-0. But I think also, I think you're right in the sense, I think part of it was trying to maybe kind of throw a little bit of a grenade in the locker room.

See how guys react. Maybe try to get Tatum off his game. Maybe try to inflate Brown's head a little bit, think he's better than he is, and try to just cause any sort of friction to right now slow down this machine that is the Celtics. Man, it stinks when the biggest action in the finals so far is Jason Kidd trying to cause a rift.

And I agree with you. Brown is the most important guy that you need to step up. I think if you needed Tatum to go out there and just go get buckets and points, I think he's more than capable of doing so. Even though people kind of beat him up a little bit for not scoring more. Look at the team.

It's not necessary. But when Jason Kidd's case, look, Jason Kidd has been in the NBA since 1994. He's been around the block. He's been a player. He knows where the locker room is. He won a championship with these Mavericks back in 2011.

He knows how this goes. Jason Kidd is also shrewd. Hickey, remember when, I think it was his first year with the Nets, and he needed a timeout.

And so he told one of his players to bump him so he could drop some ice on the court. Remember that? Oh yeah. Classic. Yeah, Jason Kidd is, he's slick.

Okay? He's not dumb. And so he said what he said. It went out into the media. And of course, it got back to the Boston Celtics. And the Celtics, for the most part, you know, Al Harford was asked about this.

He's like, man, I'm not answering this. Jason Kidd thinks he's slick. Well, Drew Holliday was on Sirius XM NBA radio. And Drew Holliday, who scored a team high of 26 points last night for the Celtics, you could say that Drew Holliday took the bait because he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, Jason Kidd is right. Jalen Brown is the best player.

I mean, I don't think he's lying. I think JB has been, he's been aggressive in every single way. He's going to get into the paint, get into the free throw line, also making plays for other people. And then he's guarding Luca. He's guarding the best player. I've been on teams where, just any team, where does your best player have such a heavy load on the offensive end and then a heavy, just as equal heavy load on the defensive end? That's hard to do. That's hard to do, especially against somebody like Luca.

Okay. So Drew Holliday, he agrees with Jason Kidd, right? That Brown is better than Tatum and Brown is out there playing defense on Luca. Brown is out there scoring the points. I don't know what happened with Drew Holliday.

Did he bump his head? I mean, he's been around the NBA for a long time, too. He's a former All-Star.

How the hell did he go ahead and take the bait? And so after last night's victory, where Drew Holliday dropped 26 points, before the man could even open up his mouth and ask for a question, he sat down and he wanted to make things very clear about where he stands on who's the best. Listen to what Drew Holliday said in trying to clean this mess up. I feel like people kind of took that out of context and I've been hearing that I prefer JB over JT.

That's not what that was. I like to praise my teammates. I like to praise my teammates when they're playing well and I feel like that's what I did my best to do.

When I got here, JT was the first person to text me. I already know that and both of them know how I feel about them, how I feel about them as players, but to compare them is something that I would never do because they're two completely different players. I feel like how they play together and how they work together is something that is sacred and something that can't be broken. Just to address the comment yesterday, I do not prefer one or the other. I prefer both.

Both of them are superstars. Oh boy. Much to do about nothing. Much to do about nothing. Like this is what Jason Kidd has to do because Jason Kidd can't go on the basketball court and help. This is what Jason Kidd has to do because some of his own players on his own team, they can't generate offense. Outside of Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic, Hickey, am I being a disrespectful jerk by saying Jason Kidd might be their next best offensive weapon?

No. You'd be, unfortunately for Dallas' perspective, very accurate on that. Jason Kidd is 51 years old.

A little old on the basketball side to go out there and compete. But this is my point from earlier on. The finals is Lacking Juice and Drew Holiday. If and when they win a championship, is anybody going to care about this? Is this going to leak over into next season? I highly doubt it. Are they discussing this today?

Hickey, what are they doing? They're sitting around making jokes about it, right? Yeah, up 2-0? I would think so. And with how poorly they played in Game 2 and still won, yeah, I think they're more laughing it off than having it cause real tension.

Yeah, it's nothing. They're on their way to Dallas. Homer, Rashee Rice. Oh, no, Rashee Rice is actually in a... What happened, Hickey? You laughed? I liked that.

No, Homer, Rashee Rice, you're not wrong. Yeah, well, typically they have a motor... Well, is it a motorcade or is that just for the president? They have police escort. There you go. Motorcade is for the president.

Yes. And maybe the Pope too, right? The Pope? The Pope has his own... What's that fancy golf cart they gave him? The Pope Mobile. The Pope Mobile.

All right. Well, it's bulletproof, right? Isn't that what he has it for?

Oh, yeah. The Pope. You don't see him riding around in that too much now. Does he go outside? Does the Pope go outside? Good question. Maybe not too often. Maybe when I go next month, I'll try to investigate for you and see if he goes outside.

Yeah, I know he does mass, but I feel like the Pope used to be all over the world. I don't know. He's older.

Tough to travel, maybe. You're right. You're right. Well, I mean, there's a lot of older people in positions of... Power? There you go. And fame and power and influence.

And they still travel, right? Fair. Fair point.

I can't argue that. Yeah, the Pope needs to just be all over the place. I hear the Pope always saying sorry for things more recently than not. But anyway, how the hell did I go from Jason Kidd to the Pope? Well, we're talking about the police escort that the Celtics will get going down in Dallas for game three. Oh, yeah, there you go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Homer Rashid Rice. And my God, we'll talk about him later on in the show. Rashid Rice actually had some of his first public words since he decided to drive through Dallas like an idiot, almost killing people.

And so we'll talk about Rashid Rice later on. But the Celtics, they're going to go to Dallas. They're probably in Dallas already and kick their feet up.

I don't know. Maybe they'll have a steak or something like that. Maybe they don't eat steak.

I don't know what the hell they eat. This is so crazy for the Celtics right now. They don't even have a concern. And Kristaps Porzingis had to leave the game. He had to leave the game in the fourth quarter. And the Celtics don't have another care in the world. And Kristaps Porzingis is running around telling everybody, I'm not worried about my leg.

Listen to what Kristaps had to say. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good.

Yeah, I don't think it's anything serious. But we'll look at it tomorrow and go from there. But all good. I'll be good. Well, Kristaps Porzingis' leg is good.

OK. This man, a 7'2", missed about 40 days with a calf injury. We know the calf is connected to the Achilles. He has a history of knee and leg problems. And Kristaps Porzingis is telling everybody, yeah, my leg is good.

And then he went as far to say, yeah, well, if something happens, something happens because I'm willing to die on the court. Whoa, Kristaps. Whoa.

Not difficult at all. I'll die out there, you know, if we need. OK. Hickey, that's a little much, man. That's a little much by Kristaps. Isn't that what every fan wants to hear, though, right? Hey, I'll die.

I'll give whatever it takes to be out there to win a championship. Kristaps, he's been sitting down watching Rocky movies. Like, what is his point? If I die or was it if he dies, he dies.

If he dies, he dies. Yeah. Here we go. That's too much.

That's too much by Kristaps. And so here we are facing Game three on Wednesday night of the NBA Finals. You got the Boston Celtics up 2-0 against the Dallas Mavericks in the biggest stories that have come out of it, at least leading up to the finals. You got to worry about Kyrie Irving, right?

Is he going to get booed? And nothing crazy happened. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

All right. At the end of the game, Kyrie Irving is sitting around telling the media, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I expected the boos to be louder. Kyrie Irving has scored 12 and 16 points. That's a big whomp, whomp, whomp, whomp, whomp. Luka Doncic. OK, Luka Doncic is just out here getting points.

Doesn't have too much help. 32 points, 30 points. It doesn't matter if they're walking away and they're taking an L. OK, the biggest issue last night was was Luka yelling at the Celtics owner. Didn't even know who the hell a guy was, according to Luka Doncic. You got Jason Kidd trying to put a rift or cause a rift between Tatum and Brown and Drew Holliday takes the bait. And the big story is Kristaps Porzingis leaving with a leg injury. He says he's fine. I don't know about that. And nobody's even talking about Kristaps and his leg.

Nobody. This is like old news because the Boston Celtics have a 2-0 series lead ahead of this game three. I need some beef. And I mean, even before yesterday's game, it's like Luka Doncic has been downgraded. Like he's not going to play.

You really think so. You'd have to wheel him out onto the basketball court. And I still think that that Luka Doncic would go ahead and give it a go. And we'll see what happens this upcoming Wednesday as Game three is in Dallas.

And man, if we got a sweep in the finals, man, I may fall asleep in the last game. Hickey, they might as well get ready for the championship parade. They might as well get those duck boats fired up. Yeah. Get the duck boats ready in in Boston.

They haven't seen one of those since, what, the Red Sox? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, the Patriots. 2018? Yeah. Yeah. That'd be the Sox. Yeah. It's been the Patriots.

Well, it seems like they're getting further and further away from them. Tom Brady is. But anyway, congratulations, Tom Brady. They're going to have a whole retirement celebration for him on Wednesday up in Boston. Big time stuff. It's the JR Sport Brief Show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. We're going to take a break when we come back on the other side. We'll talk about Dan Hurley saying no to the Los Angeles Lakers and Mike Tomlin.

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