Hey, what's up, everybody? We're back.
It's the Rich Eisen Show Basketball Podcast. We are here. It is Thursday.
There were four games last night. TJ is here. Adam's going to the airport. He's going somewhere, but we got a special guest.
Yes, we do. Kirk Morrison in the house. What up, Kirk? Hey, what up, playboy? What's up? What up?
What up? Welcome to the podcast. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
We'll get right to it. Our first ever guest, by the way. Our first ever podcast. Yeah. First ever.
Even Rich hasn't been on because he would just talk about how he won fantasy. All right, Kirk, let's just start with Golden State. Yeah. Down 2-0 to Sacramento. They go home.
Draymond gets suspended. They win. They win game three.
Four at home. They hold home court. Then they go on the road and they pick up a road win. They only had a handful of those this season. They won a road game in the playoffs. We are like the 27th or 28 straight 20 areas.
Yeah, that is absolutely bananas. Do you expect them to close out in game six? I do expect them to close out. I think playing at home, Chase Center, they're comfortable.
Everyone knows where their spots are. I think the experience takes over. This series has been one in which the first two games a little bit surprised, not necessarily game one because the energy at the Golden One Center in Sacramento, their first playoff game in how many years. I mean, the excitement was there.
The building was electric. And then the confidence that De'Aaron Fox and Damonis Sabonis and Malik Monk, those guys are playing with. So when they stole game two as well, you're like, okay, this is a series, but I've always was taught, right? I've always been taught in the NBA. It's not a series until the visiting team wins.
Right. And so both teams held court and we got to game five and this was like the game, right? Whoever wins game five usually goes on to win the series. Pivotal game five. The Warriors won game five in a hostile environment.
And to me, it was a pivotal game because this is the third game in the row where they had to change up their lineup, right? Game three, they changed it obviously because of Draymond Green being out due to suspension. But Draymond Green coming off the bench in games four and five has given the Warriors an initial spurt offensively because they're able to spread the floor out. And when Draymond Green comes in, he's another point guard. He's handling that second unit where you're all, where you're able to keep one star on the court. That's what it is with the Warriors. How many times this series is really been about how do they minimize the minutes for Steph Curry?
The plus minus you'd like to talk about all the time, Brock. Plus minus when, when Steph Curry has been on the floor, it's been plus when he's off the floor has been minus Draymond Green coming off the bench has definitely helped mitigate that in games four and five. Yeah. And, and he mentioned it, uh, Draymond Green was plus 13 last night. He had 21 points. I think they said in the post game, it was first 20 point game since 29, like Christmas, 2019.
Yeah. When the dream, when the wars got to Draymond, he was like, yeah, we were awful that year. We beat the rockets. Like he remembered everything about that, which I thought was pretty interesting, but man, Oh man, Sacramento, it does feel like it. This feel good story of the year, the most surprised team in the NBA, Mike Brown wins coach of the year has been an awesome story.
It does feel like Cinderella's coming at midnight is striking, uh, for them, TJ, which is, which is too bad. You don't want to see them limp out losing four in a row like this. Uh, is that the sense that you get watching this series is that it's over.
I really don't man. Look, they lost by what? Seven points, seven points, seven points. And here's the deal. You're not going to get 21 points out of Draymond Green every night. Obviously it's just not happening. I feel like this is going to go seven. I feel like, you know, this, if you watch that last game, the Kings man, they, they had their opportunities to, to take this win.
They could have won the game for Harrison Barnes at a wider, which would have been just so poetic for him to be the guy to make that game winning shot. I just feel like the way this, this series is going, I feel like this is destined to go to seven. Um, I'm gonna, I think I'm going to just stick with this. I feel like the Kings are going to win this series.
Yeah, I'm going differently. I just said the experience of the warriors. Um, I think they take care of business at home, but I think more importantly, what I've seen is everything has been fun in the shallow end. And then all of a sudden now the warriors start dragging the young, the young swimmers to the deep end.
And now can you, can you keep the float? Can you sustain these crucial games, these crucial minutes and last in, and you know, the warriors in game five, they found a way in that crucial crunch time. They made the more, they made better plays, more plays and the young inexperienced team act like that.
They, you know, they couldn't, they hadn't been there before. But I know, let's also look back to the point where like, of course his resume is so great that even had they lost, it would be overlooked. But Steph calling that time out, uh, and what was that game for? That was a major, major, major goat moment that ended up really not mattering at all because they won the game, but that could have, it could have hurt, right? It could have really hurt them in the end. The, uh, the Harrison Barnes play may not have ever happened had Steph not called the time.
Let's put that in perspective. So, but you know, Harrison Barnes hits that shot and then they come out suddenly they're up a three one in the series and we know three one. I mean, that's usually pretty much a lock that's on his resume and that's on his resume forever.
Suddenly that's a, suddenly a little bit of a black eye. But guess what? I feel like Steph is at such, we put them on such a pedestal that if you notice, no one's even bringing up the fact that it happened even though it didn't cost in the game. And after they lost immediately, that's what I thought about buried in his resume anyway. Well, if J. R. Smith does it, we are crucifying that guy, but it's like, oh, he just had a blunder. Yeah, because guess what? He doesn't have like, oh, my, that dude drinking Hennessy before the game.
Like, how could you? This is how we move the needle for certain players. Steph just doesn't have those blemishes on his on his record.
So that's why I had to even lost the game. I feel like that would have been lost somewhere on like page five or six of his resume. But it was just very interesting that someone like that, a goat player, someone so experienced would have that kind of moment. And that just goes to show you like when 19 year old Chris Webber did it and everyone to this day got on him like this kind of I hope this kind of obviously you can't take the heat off of Chris because it's been so long, but just makes people kind of look at it and go sometimes in the heat of the moment, even the very best players in the NBA in the world can like lose where they're at. So but I feel like Fox here and Fox is showing that he's got that dog in him.
You know, that that that meme that always goes around now with a chest X-ray is where the heart is. I think that's Darren Fox. And I just feel like watching this kid grow up, kind of turn into the player that people thought he was going to be out of Kentucky, seeing how Malik Monk has played, getting reunited and watching some bonus. And I just feel like this team, they're they're getting this this experience that they didn't have obviously in game one.
And maybe it's just a fan of me wanting more, but I truly believe we're going to see seven others. I'll leave it at this. This is what happens when you're on national TV. We can watch you. Let's just be honest. I don't have to look through NBA league pass and find a Kings game. Yeah.
When you're on national TV, you're the only game on we're watching and say, oh, wow, to minus a bonus. Oh, my God, who's that? He's good. Oh, Malik Monk. Oh, he's not on the lake. He's doing. Oh, my God, Darren Fox. He went to Kentucky.
Yes. This is a good basketball team. Trailhouse all nation never got to see just never got to see it because the same thing with the Detroit Pistons, right? I mean, just some teams are bad until you start winning games.
Then we'll put you on that. You got to kind of change the narrative. You know, after two games, we were kind of burying the end of the end of the Warriors dynasty. What a great run and this out of the other. And now, you know, the one game away from from moving on. And who knows who they're playing in the next round? It looks like it could be L.A., but I love it because it looks like the Kings are going to be players for the next couple of seasons.
I agree. That's just why we get the Lakers and Grizzlies. Let's just we got we got to talk about the biggest story really in the NBA, the Miami Heat. They did it. They were a play in game. They had in the play in terms. They looked downright awful, losing at home to Atlanta. Then they play Chicago and they're going to lose to the Bulls. And then suddenly they're just out like they made the they almost made the finals last year. So they go from the play in to knocking out the number one seed Milwaukee Bucks. Granted, Giannis didn't play a couple of games. They won one of the games that he didn't play.
But. What Jimmy Butler has done in this playoff series has kind of taken. He was already kind of an enigma like, yeah, just a weird guy. We know what happened in Minnesota. And then Philly doesn't bring him back. And then he goes to Miami. They go to the finals in the bubble. One shot away from making the finals again last year against Boston and now knocking out the one seed, the NBA title favorites. What did you think about Jimmy Butler, guys?
Should they build a statue of him? I am just like right now, like for never winning a title, just what he's been able to do. It's been really remarkable. I believe he surpassed Dwayne Wade for most 30 point games or 40 point games, 40 point playoff games. And I can't believe that.
I think that's one. The other thing I always think about with Jimmy Butler now is you're not surprised because you see that meme of him in the bubble, right? The meme of him leaning over on the score or the exhausted Jimmy because when they always say, hey, athletes leave it on the court, leave it on the field, that he should be, his picture should be in the dictionary of leaving it on the court, leaving it on the field.
He gives you everything he has. And I think Eric Spolstra, who still doesn't get enough credit for what he does as a head coach, one of the longest tenured coaches in the NBA right now. Currently, when you think about what Jimmy Butler provides, he provides energy. He provides that point where, and I see this when I watch Aaron Donald too with the Los Angeles Rams, we talk about football, when your best player is your hardest worker and expands, I mean, he wants the most out of you. Remember there were fights and bickering for this Miami Heat team earlier in the year when they had that bad stretch of games and they almost had to sit Jimmy down because it's a guy who wants to win, who wants to do it the right way. And it's not afraid to call out other guys. And some guys aren't afraid to call him out.
But that's what brothers do. They found a way. And what I saw was pretty cool in the game, the closeout game against the Milwaukee Bucks is when you have Lopez and when you have Giannis Antetokounmpo, you're not going to get shots at the basket, at the rim. Those two dudes are rim protectors. So what Eric Spulcher decides to do is, let's make Bam Adebayo our primary ball handler.
They put Bam Adebayo at the top of the key. That drew. Yeah, triple-double last night. That drew Lopez out. Now all of a sudden you're getting Giannis in the pick and roll on the outside.
And what does that do? It now opened up the rim. And so it was a lot of, they didn't get back by shooting threes. They got back by getting close, easy, close perimeter shots.
Again, Eric Spulcher doesn't get enough credit for what he was able to do. To me, it's mind boggling how Miami is now moving on. And this was a team that was dead in the water before the playoffs even started.
Dead in the water two weeks ago. T.J. looks so bad against the Hawks in the playing game. And now here they are in the second round taking on a Knicks team throwback to the 90s. It's going to be a remarkable, tough, hard-nosed, all your cliches, that series coming up. What did you see? Are you shocked as we are?
Of course. I think everyone's shocked, especially when you consider that the Heat are doing this without Tyler Harrow losing Victor Oladipo. And that's just, you know, another in the long lines of injuries. And you hope that that guy can come back and make it back to the court.
Because Oladipo at one point looked like he was destined for greatness, right? And then to have him hurt his knee again, Harrow breaking his hand. And you're thinking, all right, that's a wrap for the Heat, right?
And then for them to win this series, I'm still a little bit in disbelief. But another thing that someone's getting away with and we're not talking about was the fact that Jimmy Butler did his best Michael Irvin impression on that play to tie the game where he literally took two hands. He shoves off Pat Coddington. But you've got to give props for the fallaway catch, like he's falling backwards, catching it and throws it up like, yeah, it was amazing. It's only a penalty. Yeah, it's only a penalty or foul when it's called. But like, no one even mentioned the fact and Shaq's like, well, that's not a foul. And Chuck was like, Well, yeah, that was a foul.
He pushed them. But it was it was remarkable. And I didn't give him that call. Jimmy Butler, you know, big face coffee stock is definitely through the roof. You know, this guy just shows up in the big moment. And it just as a Sixers fan, it just goes on another of my long I gotta CBS receipt list long of just dumb moves that the Sixers have done since 1983 and letting Jimmy Butler get out. And I understand, man, I've been to Miami.
I've seen what goes on down there, Kirk. I've been to Philly so I can understand how hard it might be to get a guy to go. You know what? Instead of going to Miami, we're gonna make you stay in Philly.
But I'm telling you what? I would lock my man's up. I would have handcuffed him to something like there is no way I'm letting Jimmy Butler get out of Philadelphia from the Sixers. And they did, man. And it's just it's frustrating because that guy on the Sixers team as it is now, like that's championship hopes. But big ups to Butler, you know what I mean? Big ups to that whole Miami Heat team, bro. They they Kevin Love.
He was washed, right? My man had 15 and 12 last night. That's about right. You know what I mean? You're asking him to come in. That's asking him to come in and give you some good minutes. Rebound the basketball, assist the basketball, be a positive and bring your play championship experience.
That's all you want. And the thing is now, guys, we look at the Milwaukee side of it. What now? I mean, does Mike Budenholzer finally get the exit?
He was he was fired a couple years ago, and then they end up winning the title. Also, you know, remember yesterday, the five tenths of a second left after Jimmy makes a shot. Don't call a time. Now, look, what's the percentage that they're going to get a game winning shot off of five?
Very low, I'm sure. But the fact is, you didn't even put yourself into position to just throw a lob and have be honest, take a go-go gadget arm and just tap the ball in anything. Yeah.
Like so you didn't even know. I don't know if that's the fact that they got the ball real quick and just inbound it. But like someone, they have enough vets on that team to look at that clock. And now we got a time out. There's five tenths left.
Let's see if we can get and said they just throw the ball in and let the time run. It also just seemed like they were shell shocked. Yeah. And that's understandable. A little bit. The shot clock violation was was to me.
That's that's the one. It's just it was either Giannis is going to take the shot or somebody else like somebody has to be. How does Grayson Allen end up with the ball at the end of the game? He's like, this ain't my role.
What are you doing? Yeah. But the bottom line is you simply you simply cannot lose a 16 point advantage and expect to win the game. That game should have been over close out game at home.
You know, like you can't believe. So look, props to the heat. They did the thing. They deserve to get that win, man.
For sure. You like them to move on and they can upset the Knicks. One is that an upset, though? Yeah. Knicks are favored. I know. But I mean, it's at home court advantage. I mean, obviously didn't matter except no championship experience in the heat do. So I look at it like that. I like the Knicks. Yeah, I like the Knicks.
Only thing that scares me is the availability of a random Angeles. Randall's not seeing him walk off and finished. Watch the game in street clothes that he looks so despondent when he came back out to. Yeah. So hopefully that's not an issue where he's out for too long. But if he's able to play, I just think the defensive team is going to be a defensive battle, right? These games are going to be in the 80s. It's going to be, you know, Thibodeau ugly basketball. Masterful if you're in the defense, I guess.
Yeah, I think so. But it's not going to be the scoring barrage that we expect. No, we're not going to see, you know, 138 135 or anything, you know, game be in the first 200.
Even first of 90 to your point, the first of 95. You know, the Knicks are just like, what a story, man. The NBA is better when the Knicks are good, man, without question. And, you know, just for the fact that, you know, L.A. used to have like the celebrity role locked up when it came to fans, you know, but the other day I'm watching like a Laker game and the second person they showed was, you know, the woman from the show that everyone wants to keep up with.
And I don't even mention because I don't care about anything to do with that. And then you get to the Knicks and it's like, yo, here's some real celebs that love basketball like Leo. Leo was at the game.
Prince Harry was at the game. I didn't say didn't show Leo. They showed.
Yeah, they did. Denzel in this segment. I'm telling you, Meghan Markle. They showed Harry Markle. They showed Kim and they showed one other person. We had Anthony Kiedis.
Yes. Well, Will Ferrell. They're all the only thing that I'm excited about. I get another series of Hey, Donovan Mitchell. Don't you wish you came to the Knicks?
I love that part. And I think he really wanted to go the Knicks to it. Don't you wish that was the word I think.
So for him not to get there and to lose to them. Yeah. You know, I'm kind of surprised at how easy the Knicks dispatched of Cleveland.
I thought that was going to be easy work, right? It felt like they were the most evenly matched teams. It felt like that was going to be a seven games of all the series called that one series that we're going to go seven. It felt like that was the easiest pick to go seven games. And I thought I thought Cleveland was going to win.
I thought they were better. Garland, Evan Mobley taking big steps. Yeah.
Carousel vert. Man, I just thought Donovan Mitchell Baller 71 point game this year. Knicks just had an extra said more is that more is that more quickly talking, you know, coming off the bench. R.J. Barrett doing this thing, you know, but it's learning. It's learning for Cleveland. I mean, no doubt this is a situation where Tim's a great coach. Correct.
Around a long time. The good coaching is starting to show up, right? So we already know that's the narrative that the 76ers are going to have in this next round. Whoever they play, if they get out coached, we already know what's going on. Missoula outcoaches him. If the Celtics win.
Boston has a rookie head coach. Correct. So doesn't like to call timeouts when things are going things are going badly. So, you know, you can use those to end the run. Right. Right. And I'm a timeout guy.
I don't know why. If I was a coach, you know, I coach, you know, Youth League basketball. Timeout. Timeout. Timeout.
NFL. Same thing. Timeout.
Just take a deep breath. Understand the moment. Right. And I know you value your players, but sometimes players need a timeout too.
True. But a timeout in the NFL is a lot different, right? Because you can't go on a 14 0 run in the NFL, you know, just like that. I mean, you go to touchdown, but I'm saying the basketball with the speed of the game. Like the Bucks call timeouts. Hey, fellas, we know who the ball needs to get to. Let's make sure we're boxing now.
Just one more refresher, right? You know how it is before you leave the house. Timeout. Keys. Phone. By the way, I've got a post-it note on my front door that I look at every day.
Wallet, keys, charger, you know, just to make sure you got it all. So is that a 20 second timeout? Let me get the blow. All right, let's go to the let's go to the other fun series Lakers. Grizz. Grizz take care of business at home. They make this what?
What is it? 3-2 now. It's coming back to Los Angeles on Friday night. What's going to happen in this series, guys? Because Memphis looks really good.
We saw we saw what they can do. We saw the potential of this team job looking a little bit more healthy. He's still playing like a crazy man. I mean, he knows he doesn't have to play like this, right? Just trying to dunk over everybody. But man, is he still fun to watch.
So much fun. And this is the potential. This is what we've seen. This is why they were the two seed all year. This has been building for a few years now. You're right.
Exactly. It's been building. And Lakers are starting to look a little gas guys over time that they pulled out the other night. They looked a little tired. And last night you could see it.
It's almost like they're like, all right, we're not going to win this. Let's just go back. Let's just go home. Maybe maybe try to finish this out in game six. Do they finish it in game six? TJ, do we get another game seven? What do you think? You know me, I'm always rooting for the game seven and I'm always rooting against the Lakers. So that's where you go. But no, I'm going to try to be impartial. I just feel you're right, man.
I feel like the grids are there. We've seen this coming for the last few post seasons with them and I feel like their confidence level is high. But you know, the guy who had, you know, the biggest kind of mouth, the most swagger it appeared. Dylan Brooks is now kind of like, I don't want to say he's shrinking in the moment, but like you, you put yourself in this villain spot.
Don't, you know, exhale now you got to keep saying it with your chest, my guy. Like, you know, you wanted to be this dude. You wanted to be in this spot. You wanted LeBron.
You wanted this big time stage. So don't shrivel up now, dude. Like not when Jaws doing this thing and Desmond Bain. And by the way, the thing about Desmond Bain, my man is like six four, but he got like the arms of like a five, seven person. It's very weird how short his arms are. You guys ever paid attention to that. Now I'm going to know you're going to you're going to. But let me tell you about Desmond Bain assessment.
Please do. Every time I look at it, he looks like he plays, plays football for Navy. I can never, I can never look at him thinking that he looks like he plays for like Navy. He joked, he joked up, but it's like he's a little he's like poor his picture, like his frame is like he plays fullback or like now go and look and look at his arms. It's like some guy's arms are so long. Looks like they could tie the shoes without bending over. Desmond Bain's arms are so short. Looks like he has a hard time getting into his pocket.
But this guy was he bawled out. They don't. And Jaron Jackson, they don't have the experience. So they don't have the experience.
They've gotten the guy for Zubrin skirt. But that's the that's the part. They're young. And this is what they do to get themselves up like young players.
They like the style of basketball that they play and they like the trash talk. They like to talk when they're up. And young players don't know how to talk when they're down.
Right. That's what Michael Jordan, you know, he's always say, are you want to talk to talk? Yeah, it's easier to talk when you up. But what happens when you down?
And so that's it's imperative for them to get out to a fast start. I'll keep saying this. The Lakers don't win on Friday night at home. The series is over. And you could tell me, hey, LeBron James in a game seven. But I've also seen him in a game seven. I seen him walk off the floor pretty quickly when it didn't go his way.
That's a good point. But I'm saying I won't put it past LeBron, but I just feel like this series, if they don't win Friday night at home against the Grizzlies, this series is over. This series is over because Ja and everybody is starting to feel themselves a little bit. I think Ja is realizing his ability with the wrist injury. They know who they are.
Their backs are against the wall. I'm just saying they they should have won the previous game. You know, they should have won game three and doing this without the guy Steven Adams in right to is another, you know, and Xavier Tillman. We brought him up. I got to be honest with you, man.
I know I'd say my basketball knowledge, especially of players, is pretty pretty high, right? Xavier Tillman, when he came in the other day, I had to, like, really go, wait, who is that? And then he had, I think, twenty one that game where he just broke out. He's, you know, playing positive minutes in. But if they did have Steven Adams out there, this series might. That's what the playoffs do overall. That's what the playoffs do. Yeah.
Next mentality, man. Curious. Curious to see how the Lakers second unit, because if you just look at the plus minus, like we've been talking about, Rui Atchamora minus 18, Dennis Shooter minus 20, Beasley minus 23, Brown Junior minus 26. They really just couldn't get it done. They had no answer. They had no answer, no energy boost. No, not the LeBron had a kind of an off night.
He said it himself. He stunk by 17, one and nine from three. Another double double. But you kind of waste a really good Anthony Davis game.
He was awesome. Looking for 31 and 19, if they would have had that the game before. Maybe that game doesn't go to overtime and they don't have to sweat that out. Interesting to see, like, which AD shows up tomorrow night, because you're going to know right away if he's got it or not.
Also, I think, like, let's be honest, the Lakers can't win if they're not going to put Obama in the game. You know, you get most of minutes. What's going on? What do we got? So you say must win tomorrow. I say I say must win, must win.
They go seven in the grindhouse. I don't feel like, oh, no, they're not going to win on the road. Any chance we get game seven in Boston, Atlanta?
Anyway, Atlanta wins tonight. Look, for the sake of Joel Embiid's knee, I'm praying we get a game seven, you know, but I don't know, Trey Young. He's just he's one of those dudes.
Don't let that kid catch fire, which he did. The confidence level is through the roof. And so funny. They're in a weird way. They're a better team without DeJounte Murray, which doesn't make sense. They had that graphic during the game with this. They're averaging six more points a game.
Yeah, right. Better shooting percentages without DeJounte. But I got to be honest, when he he got suspended and rightfully so, I thought, OK, this is kind of a rat. They can't go without him. But now him coming back you as a C's fan, that's got to worry.
You know, I'm just worried in general. It's been a weird, weird season. We've lost a lot of games with teams we shouldn't have. You lose to Houston.
You lose to some of these teams that have no business being on the court with you. And it goes back to the issues that plagued them last year against the Warriors. It was a turnover turnover. You know, two days ago in the fourth quarter, key turnovers in bad spots. Marcus Smart, not not making heads up play, looking at calls.
You can't put the hands. Don't put the game in the hands of the officials. Take care of business. Jason Tatum. Yo, you're the best player on the floor. Go to the basket. Get yourself fouled. Go to the line. Get easy points.
Get easy looks. So hopefully these guys have had a day to think about it. Realize it was just one bad game and take care of business because. It gave seven anything goes anything and everything and everything out and it's, you know, do or die for your season finish when now Milwaukee's out, you're the NBA title favorite right now.
Like take that mantle and run with it. And now I think, you know, just we should quickly just touch on, you know, the two teams that moved on the Nuggets and the Suns and just waiting, just waiting. You know, this Snuggles team, you know, they're deep. They play smart basketball Joker, you know, of course, is going to do his thing. But the return and I'm really happy to see this Kirk, the return of Bubble Jamal, Bubble Jamal Murray, where he was just a monster in a bubble. Then, unfortunately, you know, he got the knee up. He was basically lost two years of his career.
But this this man is he's found it again. And if Jamal Murray's going to go out and hit for 30 a game, this is especially considering that the Suns Chris is you and I always say, yeah, the Suns, you know, top five or six, but that's not a very deep team. No, the Nuggets are a little deeper. So it's just going to be interesting to see. But Devin Booker, you know, I'll speak on this real quick as a Clippers fan, just another weird season that went down because of injuries guys want to play. They don't want to play at this point. I don't know what to believe.
You know, I read a thread on Twitter of that Chris showed me about a beat writer who had a burner account who started listing some of the kind of wild things going on behind the scenes that no one knows about. You know, Kawhi, can he play? Can he not play? I'm really tired of people sitting behind their laptops calling these athletes soft, though.
That kind of bothers me. But the fact of the matter is another disappointing end of the season for the Clippers. And Devin Booker has just I mean, that kid is he's I guess he was already a star. Is he now a superstar level?
Because never Booker is hot right now. That's going to be a good series. You may want to do a Clippers postmortem.
How do we feel? Is it time to blow this team up? I don't know how you don't know if you blow it all the way up. You invested way too much to blow it up will mean costly. And then where do you go from here?
How do you change it around quickly? Running a new stadium in another year? But it does you arena rather. It's about injuries. So I do go about my offseason about how do I add another star? And that's what they wanted to do around the trade deadline.
How do we add another player that can keep Kawhi from having to exert so much think about I think the series of indifferent had Paul George been healthy. Absolutely. They're victims of health. And that's the hard part. We've seen what that has done to a lot of series where a guy gets hurt is like, oh, man, what that's that's the NBA. That's life.
But you need to find ways to overcome. That's that's all it is. They got to find another star. They got to find I mean, and that's that's just around the NBA in general. And how good has Devin Booker been ever since? You know, obviously, he's no longer with one of those keeping up people. So that also helps up to him breaking the curse like that, that he's playing better basketball. So I want to throw that out with him. I don't keep up with that stuff. It's over.
But you know, I you know, as you say, if ifs were Swift's, we'd all be high. You know, if the Clippers one did have that whole Kawhi and Paul were healthy. I would truly do believe they win that series, but they weren't. You said they look for another star. Russ came in.
I was very happy with the job Russell Westbrook did once he got acquired. You know, he the effort to me, I'm big on effort, right? As long as you can go three for 18 and that stinks shooting wise. But when I know you're out there, man, and you're diving for loose balls and you're going at a hundred, like you're giving it your all. I can't give you 82.
I can't, I can't look down. This is going to give you 82. That means he's not taking days off. He's working 82 and when the playoffs come is when he tends to rise even more. He just needed a little, you know, the other guys around him. I mean, I've seen a different Russell Westbrook when he took over with with with the Los Angeles with the Clippers, you know, he I felt that he was trying to shield too much trying to give too much, you know, he would have an open lane and he's passing off to the Kawhi because he wants to make the right play where he took away from who he is a little bit and he's got to regain that. But if he's playing within the offense and Kawhi and Paul George are back. I can see him being that third player that can they can rely on. Hey, this is Russ's quarter. This is Russ's five minutes go be Russ. Yeah, and plus he wouldn't like if those guys were healthy getting back to that.
He wouldn't have that, you know, 18 shot because it wouldn't be necessary for him to shoot that much. It's just, you know, as a Clippers fan, it's just very despondent. I love basketball and I was telling Brockman today like I like football. I love football, but I love basketball and it's almost like the good Lord told me, you know, what since this is your favorite sport and you love it so much. I'm going to give you two teams.
But because of that every weird thing that could possibly go wrong with those two franchises is going to happen. Yeah, and then you sit here, you know, we talked about, you know, who's the Jets guy that we talked about for the Jets fan Chris? Fireman fireman. I'm sorry. Talk about him leaving the Jets. That guy was the space of Jets fandom for years and he's got to a point where I can't take this anymore.
I completely understand this man. I've been going to Clippers games since 1999. I've had season tickets. I've walked out of there with migraines from screaming at bad play and it's just like every year you've you think you got something and then a Chris Paul finger or a Chris Paul hamstring or a Blake Griffin quad or now Kawhi's knee and Paul's knee. It's very hard to be a Clippers fan, especially here in Los Angeles where we legitimately are treated like the Redhead stepchild and I just don't know going forward.
You know, I said this yesterday the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Like do I go into the season next year and think hey, this is the year or do I just go hey, I like basketball. I'm just going to go watch some games.
I don't know. It's very it's kind of depressing though to be completely honest with you. All right, TJ. Glad you got that off your chest. Thank you. Thank you. We got to wrap it up real quick finals preview. Who do you got real quick right now as of right now?
Who makes it who wins? Oh, man. I'm going warrior Celtics to rematch rematch. Hey, TJ, and I really don't know.
We've been doing this every couple weeks. I know what my heart says. That's okay. You can go with your heart. I'm just gonna you know, I'm gonna be a rhythmic someone listen to my heart.
I'm just I'm just gonna say this. I'm gonna go Sixers. Warriors six in the in the Wilt Chamberlain in the Wilt Chamberlain Bowl.
I think last last week. I think I would have said we're heading for Celtics Lakers. It just felt like an old school ladies vibe. Lakers old man Lakers are old and the Suns don't have the depth. I think it's going to be Celtics and Nuggets. I think those are the two best teams.
Nuggets depth is going to take out Phoenix. Dylan Brooks wasn't wrong in his assessment. By the way, he just he was just we don't like the messenger. Yeah, right. That's gonna do it.
Yeah. Thanks Kurt. Thanks for sitting there.
That was awesome. Adam safe travels. Good weekend. Thanks you guys for listening. Enjoy all the games. We'll be back next week. Peace out. Take my meniscus please.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-04-28 00:16:49 / 2023-04-28 00:32:56 / 16
