The fights... the brink... the shove... the classic... the throwback

Good for Mage. Was that Dale Earnhardt Jr. picking the winner of 15 to one shot the horse that had raced three times previously in his entire existence? Yeah, I guess that's why there's this superhero music in the background. Incredible, absolutely incredible. Look, if you watch the derby over the weekend, look there's a lot of other stories about that are like surrounding the race and the horses that weren't in the race and what has happened at Churchill Downs over the previous I think six or seven days with seven horses ultimately destroyed. We'll talk about that with Pat Forte of Sports Illustrated a little bit later on. But in terms of the race itself, the Kentucky Derby always delivers and this is a horse that basically came out of nowhere and I think had won. I think it was I got a win in a second and I forget what the other finish was. So in a short sample with a small sample size had proven to be obviously very good but then when they brought that horse around the final turn and he went like six, six wide but at that point it doesn't matter there's no more turns he was in great shape and you could tell. You can tell at the top of the stretch, oh we know who the winner's gonna be. I mean unless they move the finish line out further.

Right. Well suddenly but yeah that was a super finish and you can see the horse coming. So good for him, good for the jockey who I forget his name had 15 mounts prior in the Kentucky Derby without a win. Great jockey 15 mounts prior in the Derby had never won finally got his first win. Good for him. Yeah and he's from Venezuela and the trainer and part owner of the horse who actually was the biggest investor in the horse both from Venezuela.

So I think I think I have the country right. I might not. I'm not a derby. I was more into the Triple Crown races really into it when I was younger before I became like even went to college. I was thoroughly into horse racing as a kid. I can still read a daily racing form a lot of people look at it and go I have no idea what these numbers mean. Not to mention they're too small.

Now I need a magnifying glass. Right. But it was a great race and coverage on NBC which locally here in Raleigh WRAL TV 5.

Shouts to the company. So the but the coverage is always great and I said this last week it's kind of more about the hats and the outfits than it is the race and that's okay. Oh gosh. Yeah well we did we did talk to Jake Durardi last week about the mid julep. Yeah I know.

He thinks it's a trash drink too. So anyway fun and we'll talk about it all with with Pat Forti later. But there's a lot to talk about today so let's get right to it. Can I tell you the best thing about hockey?

Please do. Best thing about hockey. The owners don't sit on the ice.

Yeah. The best thing about hockey. So we don't have to have any stupid discussions about well did Sebastian Aho attack the owner of the New Jersey Devils? We don't have to have that conversation.

Nope not having them. Because we have to have that in the NBA. We'll get to that in a minute. Let's talk about the Carolina Hurricanes first because there was hockey played. It was sort of a gong show of a game. Yeah. And real quick did anybody really expect this series to end four games?

Of course not. Yeah. So I hope I hope Hurricanes fans are not bent out of shape over yesterday. I said this after game two. This is why when everybody was feeling so good about themselves I'm like you know the Devils can still win this series.

Absolutely. The Devils there was nothing separating the Devils from the Hurricanes over the course of the regular season was one point. Devils actually got one more point from the season series than Carolina five to four. And the Devils roster today is better than the Hurricanes roster today. That doesn't mean that Carolina won't win the series but if you looked at it roster for roster like the Canes have an advantage it's not glaring. Yeah. But the Devils have a better roster today than the Hurricanes do. And by the way as Luke I'm sorry as Tripp Tracy mentioned to us yesterday or actually it was before game two he said I hope Luke Hughes doesn't play. Yeah.

It's a heck of a player. Well I mean the Devils did this the last round. They were down two came back. Down two after losing two games at home. Yeah.

Then won the next two at Madison Square Garden. Yeah this we are going to be here for a while. Was never going to be a short series as much as some of us need the rest. Yeah this is in Toronto. Sorry Toronto.

We're gonna get to that in a minute. Look it could have been different all right. Early in the first period there couldn't have been had to be like three and a half four minutes in. Brent Burns makes a pass off the from the deep in his own zone on the right all the way through center ice using the wall to bank a pass to Martine Natchez on the left and this happened. I mean that was you know that's that's Rod. Oh no it's Rod talking about Natchez.

I'm sorry my fault. I was just like in the middle of two minutes of hockey than I do for the afternoon show. Here's Natchez. Is Rod Brindamore talking about Natchez going off the crossbar which could have given Carolina a one nothing lead. Yeah I mean that was I think he had a breakaway too right after that. So that was about our only opportunities.

You know maybe if you score there things are a little different but you know got to give the other you know I give the other really the credit is they they came and they took it to us and that's what happened. So we were horrible. I mean that's probably being putting a mile but because of what they were doing and they they were the better team. Oh no. Yeah the Devils were the better team.

It's okay. At some point that was going to happen and I would just point out in game two for the first 10 minutes Carolina was fortunate to not be behind in the game also and then when the Devils didn't get anything out of it Carolina really turned the tables in the second half of the first period and Carolina was the better team throughout but the Devils took advantage of their opportunities. They took advantage of the fact that Brady Shea and Brett Pesci really didn't have a good game at all. They were on the ice for four of the first five goals for New Jersey and I mean they weren't the only culprits right. I guess Perry Kotekaniemi was a minus four was not a good game for him but I mean Carolina wasn't on top of their game with the little details. So on the first goal I mean Brady Shea was the only defender behind the net with two Devils. I mean Brett's got to go back.

You got to take one of them. Yeah. You can't leave Brady with both and that was that was the mistake on Carolina's part and I mean there was just the little details that they did not do well and of course the Devils got some breaks. First goal wasn't a break. Second goal was Stefan Nason could have easily knocked that puck away but I don't think he realized it was there.

Really don't and then Jack Hughes with a great shot makes it two nothing. The third goal was a I think a little bit of a bad play by Brent Burns on the Carolina's on the power play at the blue line. He kind of nonchalance keeping the puck in didn't and then he left Seth Jarvis to clean it up and Jarvis got worked by Michael McLeod and Freddie Anderson a lot of bad goal. A lot of bad things had to happen for Carolina to be down three nothing and then they probably should have called a penalty on Jesper Brott on the fourth goal for knocking the stick out of Brady Shea's hands because that basically created the play that made it four nothing Devils and to me but like there were effort plays that Carolina just wasn't on top of. Here's Rod Brind'Amour about not only the first period which was bad but I think he mentions the the fourth goal. Well we were no good.

I don't even want else to tell you I've never seen us play like that so hey but I give the credit to the others. I mean they were on it they were they were down then and then like I said gave up a couple and one you know we'd like to have back for sure and the shorthand one that was kind of a backbreaker there like that that can't happen but you know there's some weird things the rest of the game where you know at the end of the day you just weren't good enough. Actually it's this it's this clip here uh the he was asked about penalties in this particular clip. There was a couple listen I didn't like a lot of the things that happened with the calls started the game well we just you know we get it was clearly cut and then so they missed that said it was our stick so that's kind of where you get mad but the slaving one I don't know that's how you teach it especially down five on three you're not expecting that he's a puck battle he just wins it fires down you know there's a three goal game at that point I mean but we were starting a little getting a little something going it was a good kill up to that point um the other one I just I don't understand is it's that nice maybe someone can help me on this but do the stick thing where you knock it out of the guy's hand or just you just have to break I don't know nobody seems to know because that led to one goal too where shades was going back got his stick taken out of his hands and then they scored you know that's not why we lost the game right it isn't why they lost the game the devils are the better team um but there probably should have been a penalty I think on Jesper Brod on that play either way whatever they miss calls all the time right by the way Thomas Datar who swung his stick at Sebastian Aho at the head of Sebastian Aho not even not even joking uh swung his stick at the back of Sebastian Aho's head got fined five thousand dollars by the NHL today which is nothing yeah absolutely like not even having a penalty um to find somebody five grand uh that's the but that's the most the NHL can do um and finding great candidates to hire can be like well trying to find a needle in a haystack sure you can post your job to some job board but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along which is why you should try zip recruiter for free at zip recruiter.com slash post zip recruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you it finds them for you it's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job you get qualified candidates fast so while other companies might deliver a lot of hay zip recruiter finds you what you're looking for the needle in the haystack see why four out of five employers who post the job on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day zip recruiter the smartest way to hire and right now you can try zip recruiter for free that's right free at zip recruiter.com slash post that's zip recruiter.com slash post zip recruiter.com slash post for Devils fans complaining about well they're going to let Aho cross check all game like did you watch the game yeah I mean it ain't like Aho's out here uh endangering the lower back of players in the league especially since he's getting the same treatment from everybody these are little nudges these are not major cross checks and that's what hockey is anyway man I wonder sometimes if people get playoff hockey. Thomas Tatar swung his stick at the back of the head of Sebastian Aho. Is this baseball? I mean anything could have happened there everybody's fortunate that it didn't uh all right anyway we did have feistiness Aho and Jack Hughes went at it uh Stefan Nason and Eric Holla went at it we're gonna play the the Nason Hall about uh when we talk to Mike Matiscalco coming up in about oh uh 15 minutes or so so anyway it's fine one not two one hurricanes in the series at the very least it was entertaining it was it was a fun watch it was riveting so I had a good time watching it I would obviously would have wished that the hurricanes won the game but maybe they'll go and win game four and as I said on the Canes Corner podcast available wherever you get your podcast and live after every game on YouTube that was a plug like and subscribe yeah absolutely uh as I keep telling people caress the like button yes we don't need to smash it be gentle don't be like the people trying to hurt Aho out there you don't exactly you don't you don't need to uh endanger your own machine just uh just tap it lightly um it should be fun there I think the hurricanes are in a pretty good spot I I like their chances in game four in New Jersey all right uh to the other eastern conference series I am sure they are being very rational today in Toronto very rational oh my gosh I am sure they are fine they think oh we got this you score the maple leaves were down two nothing in the series they scored two and a half minutes in to make it one nothing they had a two one lead and ultimately the game goes to overtime and uh they were a mess they were a mess in their own zone they had opportunities to deny entry on the game winning gold nobody cared the goaltender wasn't good goaltender was still standing up as the rap chance from Sam Reinhardt was like what are you doing yeah the it wasn't a five hole it was a 555 hole I know there literally there was like three feet of goal along the ice to shoot at soccer ball could have went oh he would have he would have scored with a medicine with like a giant earth ball yeah would have gone in are you I mean that was just brutal and now the Leafs after finally winning a playoff series apparently apparently left it all in Tampa they left every ounce of it in Tampa and am I gonna am I saying that they're done they're too good if they can win game four drag it back to Toronto and win game five yeah they still have a chance right they're gonna need a lot of puck luck what is unbelievable and they are it's unfortunate that they are I think it's going is it goalie number no it's not goalie number three it's goalie number two but I'll be surprised if we don't see Matt Murray yeah as bad as Matt Murray has been I'll be surprised we don't see Murray in game game number four I don't think they can trust ball I really don't I don't think they can trust him uh Seattle leads Dallas 2-1 in that series there was a lot of goals there by the Kraken uh and the uh the power play will take on the Vegas Golden Knights today in Edmonton for gay I mean the power play is operating at 60% efficiency yeah just don't even I can't fathom that number yeah more than half of the time on the power play I guess when you have McDavid and dry side all right to the shove first there were two playoff games yesterday Sixers evened up their series with the Celtics in overtime James Harden uh he uh he was key down the stretch we'll talk to not to describe in our second hour about this uh Suns pulled even in their series with Denver Devin Booker has been amazing I mean one of if not the best player in the entire playoffs I think you can make cases for others but he has been dynamite Nikola Jokic was amazed at 53 points 11 assists he's the center yeah right okay but the only thing people are talking about here is the fact that Suns owner Matt Ishbia I think that's how you pronounce his name who played for Tom Izzo who's a walk-on for Tom Izzo at Michigan State after uh there was a play where Phoenix is chasing a loose ball out of bounds uh and that's where the owner is sitting in the corner and he's the owner has the ball and he's clutching it like the ball belongs to him like it's a souvenir like I don't know Tom Chambers Suns great signed a ball to him it's like here's my autograph son and he's holding it like it's like it's his like it belongs to him and Jokic is trying to get it and he has to rip it out of the owner's hands just give the ball first of all why are you even holding it yeah what are we doing throw it back on the court and then because Jokic kind of chicken wings out a little bit so mild he gets in a he gets a technical foul that's insanity to me all right here's Jokic on the back and forth with the Suns owner this is after the game he told me he told me I was elbowing the the fan so but the fan put the hand on me first so I thought the league supposed to protect us or whatever so but maybe maybe I'm wrong so we will see did you happen to know who the fan was he's a fan of he's a no no no no I know who is about here he's a fan isn't he it is a setting city Phoenix Suns owner sitting on the court and he's a fan isn't it yeah that doesn't mean that he's a so whoever it is and he's a fan he cannot influence the game by holding the ball do you worry that this may lead to a fine or suspension or why uh just if the NBA official said that he thought you shoved him so but his hands on me so I'm they're not gonna protect me they're gonna protect the fan I mean no not me not me as a person but I'm talking about as a player I mean they can do whatever of course they don't care but I think they're supposed to protect players were you surprised that he didn't just send you to the wall I mean that's what I expected maybe what happened the fan even if he didn't I was I was trying to rip the ball and suddenly he didn't let go so he's influencing the game I think I think he's supposed to get kicked out if he's influencing the game I saw it as Jokic saw it sorry I mean not only did he have the ball but what an absolute flop yeah I mean Jokic barely did anything and he fell back like he was shot from the from the third deck of whatever Phoenix's stadium is called it's terrible what an awful look what an embarrassment but he is the owner so he can do what he wants I thought it was I didn't understand the technical foul there I thought especially with the score of the game like really I mean this game that one point matters that one point matters I thought at the time as it turned out it was a five-point game so maybe it didn't but maybe it did I don't know things will always play out differently but that was a terrible call uh all right as for the basketball Devin Booker took the game over and Kevin Durant wanted him to at least that was the view of Kendrick Perkins from ESPN well I tell you this the addition of Kevin Durant this is the luxury of having Kevin Durant on the floor because now all of a sudden you're able to get those one on one matchups that you've been waiting for you're able to capitalize on going against sometimes the secondary defender and being able to capitalize without getting double majority of the game but I'm gonna say this about Devin Booker when it comes down to scoring in the postseason and being efficient I don't know if I've ever seen a player have this type of run on the offensive end it has been unbelievable and it's just been pure leadership and let's not even talk about the 12 dimes he had making the right passes taking on the leadership role this man is on a different level right now and he's arguably the best player in this postseason yeah it is I mean Kendrick Perkins is right on all that um and the series is 2-2 and the Denver Nuggets have a better roster than the Phoenix Suns so we'll uh we'll see game game five in Denver should be fun Denver's played much better at home but with all of the heroics of Booker and Durant that game was still tight deep into the fourth quarter um all right real quick on the other series in the west you know the one between two of the 10 best players in the history of the game LeBron James and Steph Curry the Lakers can take a stranglehold on that series make it 3-1 heading back to San Francisco for game five if they can win today and the Lakers defensively in the second and the third completely dominated the game uh Steph Curry was not happy with his own team last night was a lot of self-inflicted wounds um across the board and um you hate that you have to keep learning that lesson at this stage of the season but we did and now it's about how we uh how to respond it's been our mo for a very long time like I said so there's a lot of confidence in that no matter how frustrated we are let it slip yesterday two things have to happen for the Warriors to even up this series um somebody other than Steph has to be a I mean an offensive machine uh in game two it was Clay Thompson maybe it can be Jordan Poole but ultimately Steph's going to be uh you know varying levels of great to superhuman and somebody else has to join him finding great candidates to hire can be like well trying to find a needle in a haystack sure you can post your job to some job board but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along which is why you should try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com post ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you it finds them for you it's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job you get qualified candidates fast so while other companies might deliver a lot of hay ZipRecruiter finds you what you're looking for the needle in the haystack see why four out of five employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire and right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free that's right free at ziprecruiter.com slash post that's ziprecruiter.com slash post ziprecruiter.com slash post the Lakers were I thought relatively disinterested in game two or at least played like it and the Warriors level of desperation had to be there for them to win game two and Clay Thompson not only had 30 but I think he was he made he made eight threes and a lot of them were early as they basically just ran away from LA so we'll see how this game plays but the Warriors need something extra from somebody not named Steph really to have a chance um all right let me get to one one other thing this is not it's not the NFL silly season uh but it is a time where everybody is optimistic about everything we haven't seen any of your draft picks stink just yet I mean I'm not I'm not sure I mean it could happen to any team we haven't seen Aaron Rogers uh go out in a game and not have it yeah we haven't seen any of that yet so right now everybody is man best case scenario is this uh Mike Tenenbaum from ESPN actually said he thinks the Packers this year will be better than the Packers last year I'm gonna say better I'm a big fan of Jordan Love I think he's actually gotten better and then you look at the draft you know they got a number of weapons you know from Musgrave to Jaden Reed Tucker Craft another tight end and now they have those two young receivers Christian Watson who is a second round pick a year ago and Robio Dobbs a fourth round pick they're gonna be better so that nucleus of skilled players with two really good running backs I think this offense actually will be better and overall if this team can stay healthy on defense I think they can make the playoffs and actually be better than they were a year ago all right here's the he Mike Tenenbaum might be right but he's only going to be right if Jordan Love is very good because even through a thumb injury Aaron Rogers was pretty good last year yeah and he had a thumb injury so there were there were obviously games where he wasn't very effective but it's a tall ask for Jordan Love but I agree in that at least in the preseason last year it looked like Jordan Love had made a lot of progress which is right which is what I think gave Green Bay the the confidence to like yeah we can move on from that from the headache and soap opera that is Aaron Rogers I I totally understand why they did that finding great candidates to hire can be like well trying to find a needle in a haystack sure you can post your job to some job board but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along which is why you should try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com slash ziprecruiter slash post ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you it finds them for you it's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job you get qualified candidates fast so while other companies might deliver a lot of hay ZipRecruiter finds you what you're looking for the needle in the haystack see why four out of five employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day 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