Oh my God, people! We're back!
It's the Rich Eyes and Joe Baskerville Podcast. Adam and TJ are here, but I don't care about them because let's talk about me. Let's talk about the Boston Celtics. Oh, hi.
Adam, you're wearing a green shirt! You're down. You know what's going down. You know what's happening in the next two games, right? You get it.
You get it. No, you know what's happening. History's being made.
Oh, and 50, guess what? History made to be broken. Records made to be broken. Smells like 04 in here, TJ. I mean, 04, you have to be more specific because I think you feel like everyone understands what that means. Everyone knows what it means.
I don't know what it means. You know what 04 means. The greatest comeback in sports history. The greatest choke job in sports history. Those D-bag Yankee fans have to wear that for the rest of their lives.
They just don't feel like that's something that everyone knows, man. And we get to celebrate that like the revolution. Like it's 1776.
Wow, really? That's the year we're going to throw out there? We get to celebrate that for the rest of the lot. Why?
Well, not all of us celebrate 1776 that way, bro, but okay. Alright, well, it's just so weird. Alright, so it's happening. We've all accepted it, right? You've accepted it.
You've accepted it. Do you want me to placate you or tell me the truth? Or tell you the truth? Tell me the truth.
Man, we don't lie here. The truth is the Miami Heat are going to win in game six. Absolutely not.
They're not. They're not a better team. The only advantage they have is that they're better coach, but well, that kind of means a lot.
It means a lot. The coach isn't on the court. Is the coach playing the game? Is there a player coach? Last time there was a player coach. His name was Bill Russell.
They won the championship. I mean, he's got about your coach nonstop saying that he doesn't know how he was terrible. Now he knows what he's doing. How did he do that in a week?
How did he turn the page from not knowing what he was doing? You know what it was? TJ, you're familiar with the Christmas Carol.
Yes. Tiny Tim and all that. Tiny Tim with the leg and with the leg and the ghost and Ebenezer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The ghost of Ren Auerbach came down and touched Joe Mazzola in the middle of the night. That sounds inappropriate. And said, you are now you are the chosen one.
Oh, is that what happened? You are now an official head coach of the Boston Celtics. And I'm giving you all of my knowledge. I'm giving you a box of cigars because when you win the title, you're going to light it up indoors. That's a fine.
Indoors. Who cares? I'll pay the fine and read our back. My name's on the court. Game seven. Oh, I'm just assuming we're winning game six. We're favorite of the game. Why are they favorite in the game, Adam? If you think they're going to lose?
Because people are drinking the Kool-Aid right now. Listen, there's been two bad games for the Heat. The Heat didn't have Gabe Vincent last game. You conveniently forgot about that. I don't even know who that is. You can't even pick Gabe Vincent out of a lineup and suddenly him not being on the team is like they're playing without Jokic and Jamal Murray and like everybody just is gone.
Listen, Vincent, that's your argument. Yeah, he's made a huge difference. He scored like 30 points and he's like 30 plus points in the game three.
I'm pretty sure he did check these stats. Come on. Keep talking. I'm just keep talking. No, just keep talking about this cockamamie heat argument. I think you are getting way too overconfident. I understand that you're you're psyched.
You're having these dreams of 2004 all over again. But at the same time, let's let's pump the brakes for a second. No brake pumping. This is a little fast X.
Just go. We're this is fast X right now. That's six back seven. Boom, boom. I feel like you're so manic right now with what's happening and you're being super. We need to talk about this. Also, your superstition.
This is so insane to me. I don't know if you know this, TJ, but the last two games game for Brockman decides I'm not watching the game. Guess what? The Celtics win game five. I'm not watching the game.
Guess what? The Celtics win. Brockman thinks that from him not watching the game from across the country in California.
Yes, that is going to make the difference between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics series. Look, that's what so insane to me. Fan is short for fanatic. We all know that. So, yeah, that maybe that does have something to do with it.
I don't know. But the thing is, are you going to continue with that pattern? Yeah, not watching, not watching. Listen, I'm not I have my own, you know, craziness about me, but the thought that you have that you realistically think that you not watching the game has any actor. I'm a factor.
Honestly, I'm going to send my ring size to wick Gross back for when they win the championship just so I can get one. Look, I'm a factor, right? I'm not look.
And the thing is, I'm not going to argue that point with you. I know I've done things that have resulted directly. What million percent directly with the Cowboys when the football games like you can't tell me differently. Like, you know why the Sixers lost? Because I did something that I didn't do in Game six. What did you do? I put on a T-shirt that I never wore before to watch the Sixers game and what happened? We lost.
I wore the same shirt the three times that we won games. Can't do it. So I can understand where you're coming from. I just don't think that the tie is going to turn completely. I'll be super rational. Vincent had twenty nine points.
Great. He can. He's never had twenty nine points a day in his life. Seventeen the game after.
So not even in high school, he never had twenty nine points. I'll be super rational here. The way Boston played the last two games is more indicative as to who they are as a team. They were the reason why they were the best team in the NBA for three quarters of the season. There is a reason why they're in quarters. They were pretty much the best team all year except for maybe the last month or so.
Interesting. I would say Denver was probably the best team. Well, they had a better record than Denver. So Denver pretty much gave up the last six weeks of the year.
Probably cause Joker the MVP. But they were so far ahead. That's why they were able to give up.
It doesn't really matter for the one seed. Boston was what a game a game behind Milwaukee for the best record in the league. Like there's a reason why they were this good all season long. They're a better team. They're more talented. They have more depth. They got a first team All-NBA guy and a second team All-NBA guy. Look, they have a rookie head coach and you really saw that kind of rear its head in some tough times against Philadelphia.
Even against Atlanta way back in the first round. And like I said all year they do dumb things and they just got kind of caught in a hole. Now I thought they would kind of give up. It looked like they pretty much quit in game three and I thought that was a wrap.
And I actually kind of wanted that as a fan because it would make the offseason that much cleaner to kind of tighten things up a little bit. If you if you feel me, but now that they're back in it, they played like the team that they play that they were for most of the regular season. They're just better than Miami. They just are. Let me ask you this Brockman.
If the Celtics come out in game six and are just horrible and they lose by 25 points. Do you want Missoula to be fired? Because I feel like you're going back and forth with him. I do I do.
You know what? I totally agree with that and that's totally fine. I've been really irrational in the last like 10 days when it comes to this dude. He's definitely been overwhelmed and he's definitely been out coached by Spoe. But some of this I guess I was putting too much of the blame on him. The blame has to a good amount of the blame goes to be solely on the players.
Well me for putting them under pressure. But it got to be on Tatum and Brown like you guys are who you are your first team all NBA your second team all NBA. Derek White has been awesome. You got the sixth man of the year.
I know Brogdon is injured right now, which is kind of a bummer because he's been great this season. If they go down to Miami and lay an absolute egg like that, I will be kind of shocked. They are favorite of the game. A little crazy. Probably should be Miami should be probably should be flipped. I think the Celtics are two point favorites like that.
Somebody like that do two and a half should be the other way around just because of the home court. But if you're telling me all the pressure isn't on the heat right now, you're crazy. The pressure is all on Miami right now. They have to close this out.
Oh for sure. If they don't win game six, you tell me they're going to win a game seven. Now if they lose game six, it's over.
No chance. Well, didn't we say in the big show earlier? I think it was Mannix that came and say the Celtics are better on the road than this. They have been a better road team so far with this group. I mean, look, they won last night. I think they're what, nine, 10 and 11 or something like that in home games in the last couple of years, home playoff games. So they haven't done that well at home. However, you could definitely feel the momentum has shifted in this series. And where's Jimmy Butler been?
Where was he yesterday? I mean, I don't know. Four Celtics starters with 20 plus points. That's going to be really tough to beat. Obviously, you make 40% of your threes in this whole series. The team that shoots better from three has won all five games.
So it's which Miami is going to show up, which Boston is going to show up. Is Tatum going to get off to a hot start? Is Jalen Brown going to make plays? Can they get the production from smart and Derek White again that they got?
We'll see. But watching the game yesterday, I noticed trending in that direction. I noticed that the Heat were just giving up wide open looks to the Celtics. Yeah, the Heat were not playing their usual good defense. The Celtics ball moving yesterday was also very impressive there. They were shooting a lot of threes, but they are getting it from one side to the other. And that was really great to see if you're a Celtics fan and like you said, the four guys scoring 20 points. All score all shooting more than 50% from the field.
Yeah. So if you get the effort from a guy like Derek White who has played out of his mind yesterday, I was watching the game with the Miami Heat fan and he was so angry. He's like, I don't care about Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum. Stop Derek White right now. It's that type of guy that will win the Celtics the series.
So funny. Derek White was awesome against Atlanta, terrible against Philadelphia. And now he's playing better than Jalen Brown.
It's kind of hard to understand this. It's Derek White roller coaster, but eight of 11 from the field in the last game. Twenty four points. I mean, it's not that Miami shot poorly. Miami shot 51%, but they only made nine threes. Celtics made 16. You're outscored by 21 and you lose by 13.
That's the difference in the game. Yeah. So you really believe that? Game six, the Celtics are just going to come out and just take it. You don't think Jimmy Butler? I don't know. Did he essentially he's guaranteeing pretty much a game six victory.
I think I saw that quote earlier. My question, like, I guess my question with Jimmy Butler is I know this dude's a freak, right? How much does he have left? How much energy has he just spent, you know, spent in the 50 point game against the blocks? Willing his team to victory there.
The second round win the first three games of this series. That was like a month ago, though. Is this guy tired or what? No, he ain't tired. I mean, everyone's tired a little bit. Let's be honest.
If you're making it this far and you're not healthy and you're a little tired. Whole team. It's not like he has another superstar to rely on.
Yeah, but look, man, it's a team effort, right? BAM's a very good player. BAM's been playing all right. BAM didn't look that good yesterday.
Yeah, well, no one on her team really did last game. I just. Well, you know, first of all, our boy Duncan Robinson put some respect on this name.
He is making 90 million dollars. We should do something. Yeah, he should do something. You know, you got to give a little bit of props to the C team when you consider they're playing without Tyler Harrow. They're playing without Oladipo. They really probably shouldn't even be in this position right now.
They should have been fishing a couple weeks ago. So it's because of that that I just kind of feel that like maybe it's their time. Maybe. I don't necessarily also think that if they lose game six, they can't win game seven.
I don't know if I subscribe to that theory, but I'm going to be interested to find out. It's going to be fun to watch. And I'm going to see if Butler, because, you know, when they went up three. Oh, you start getting all these people, the comps start coming, you know, Jimmy Butler.
He's the closest to Kobe all of a sudden and blah, blah, and woo. You know, I want to see it. I love it when it's kind of like a five on one, like it's a gang fight. Not one guy is just pulling up everybody else.
But, you know, and saying, you know, follow me to freedom like he was Charlie Steiner. Hey, I'm down. I'm down.
I want to see Big Face Coffee become a national brand. And the way for that to happen is for Jimmy Butler to make it to the finals again. So I think the Miami Heat are going to win this series. I don't know if it's in six. I don't know if it's in seven, but I think they are going to win. And I think they're going to have to take more than 10 shots. You have to catch the line more than six times. I know he didn't play much in the fourth quarter, but it feels like they just kind of like held him out for the fourth.
They're like, all right, we'll get them next game or something. Yeah, he most definitely that was his worst game in the playoffs. I mean, when Jimmy Jimmy Butler needs double digit free throws, you know, 20 shots.
I'm not saying he can't do it. Obviously, he's been amazing in this play. He's been the playoff MVP other than Jokic.
So, yeah, that was that was by far his worst playoff game of the year. So we'll see if we're going to get game one. Jimmy Butler, are we going to get game, you know, four or five? That's the thing is like, who do you believe kind of this Boston team is?
Are they the team from games one through three or are they the team of the last two games? Listen, we all were questioning Jason Tatum's heart, his ability to be clutch. Well, not all of us. I'm not all of us. There's a certain person who's a guy.
Am I right? Really bad. But then he showed with with an incredible fifty one point performance against the 76ers in game seven that he can be clutch. He's got it in him.
Got a dog in him. So you have him and then you have Jimmy Butler. And to me, it's just who is going to step up more in game six. And I'm just personally going to roll with Jimmy Butler on that and the adjustments that Coach Spoe will make. And I just trust him as a coach. And to me with Greg Popovich, he's the best coach in the league. So I just trust those two more than I do the Celtics. So you're going with the coaching intangible over the kind of the talent coaching intangible. And I trust Jimmy Butler in a clutch game over any other player in the series home game.
It certainly helps for Miami. I mean, Tatum was awesome. Twenty one, eight and eleven. Last game, man.
Oh, man. Al Horford at eleven rebounds. I mean, you're not going to get smart four of six from three. Derek White, six of eight from three. Jalen Brown, three of five and three. I mean, that's pretty lights out. That's another reason maybe to go with the heat that you don't expect those shooting percentages from those guys. But the thing about Miami, too, in the first three games, I mean, they were 50 percent or better from three the first three games.
They were lights out. I don't know. Look, I'm I'm obviously I've been all over the place with my emotions. In this series, they really need their guy, Nicola Jovik, to think that he's Nicola joking. And then maybe something can happen because there's so many times I look down and go, wait a minute. What?
No, that's Jovik. Never mind. But yeah, I mean, this is it's going to be fun, you know, and I'm looking forward.
You're not going to be like so nervous. Like I said, I can't watch. I checked in on the score.
I know you think it's psychotic behavior, Adam, but I I didn't watch. I checked in on a score like midway through the second quarter. Celtics are up 13. OK, up 13.
OK, OK. Must be shooting well. Check check back in at halftime. It was 17. OK, OK. And then I checked back in early, like early fourth quarter. They were up 18. The heat immediately hit a three and I would shut it off. I can't watch.
I'm bad. What are you doing during this time of the game? I'm just doing like dad stuff. We're playing baseball in the backyard. We're just like in the pool, kind of like getting dinner ready. I got to be honest, man. These clubs have been far more enjoyable when both of my teams are out because I was not enjoy.
Like I was physically I was feeling ill. As you know, I went through a period of two weeks of migraines, as you know, and I haven't had one in like two and a half weeks. So that goes to tell you. So for me personally, this has been a pleasure to just be able to sit back and watch basketball without having to feel that anxiety that I know you are going through. The heat fans are going through. Shout out to my friend Jenny, who's a massive heat fan, you know, and the Nuggets fans. One thing, though, is kind of bugging me, man. And that's these these Nuggets fans who are all of a sudden just walking around saying with their chest like the rich eyes in Ohio after a wolverine over Buckeye victory.
Like all of a sudden these Nuggets fans are talking like they're the cock of the walk all of a sudden. You haven't won anything yet, buddy. So relax. I didn't know any of you existed.
Where have you come from? They were hiding. So I kind of disagree with that, though. Really? You think you think Nuggets fans are out there? I think Nuggets fans aren't a huge fan base.
But what I've noticed throughout the years is at their home games, they have great crowds. Sure. In Denver. Absolutely. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like they have a loyal fan base. It's not like a huge fan base.
And they live in Colorado, Adam. That's true. But that's that's like whatever. It's like that doesn't make them worse fans just because there aren't more of them now.
I know. But all of a sudden they're just they're getting real they're getting real mouthy. Yeah. Like yesterday. Yesterday, they're like like Mannix was on the show. Was he? When was he here? Was it yesterday ago?
So Mannix was here on the big show on Wednesday. And, you know, he said, you know, look, people would talk about them more if they were a little bit more interesting. And now all of a sudden, everyone's so offended from from Colorado that your team isn't that interesting, right?
Yes, you're awesome. Jokic is amazing. Jamal Murray's amazing. I mean, what about your team is compelling?
I can't front. They're a fun team to watch. Oh, I love watching them. It's like I think they're going to win the championship.
I'm definitely rooting for them if they're playing the heat. But I don't know why Mannix was taking so much heat yesterday. I was also like Lisa Salters catching strains because she's like she hadn't seen Joker play. Well, guess what?
And everyone thought it was like, oh, she'd never won. No, this is specifically in person. Yeah. She didn't say what she meant. It's like sometimes a sideline reporter. Of course, she's watching games. Sometimes we know the second baseman doesn't always tag second, but they still get a double play. Like you kind of knew what she was getting at. And she doesn't get to decide, hey, I want to go to this game. I want to go to that game.
It's like, no, it's wherever your bosses tell you to go. But we know we don't want to get aggregated either. We are Nuggets fans.
We love Joker. No, but I could I could understand why Nuggets fans and the coach were upset when the Nuggets were just thoroughly dominating the Lakers. And the story is always about the Lakers. It wasn't about how good the Nuggets were playing.
And they had one of the best Western Conference series. Let me explain to you why that is, Adam, because every time during football season, when I started on the show and I would get upset that we would start the show talking about the Dallas Cowboys. And I'm like, why?
Why? I'm a Cowboys fan. Why are we doing this? Why are we why is every other show, you know, the Cowboys? It's because some teams just move the needle, unfortunately, whether you like it or whether you don't like it. And if you're writing a story and you want someone to read it, are you going to write it about the Nuggets?
Are you going to write about LeBron and the Lakers? Unfortunately, that's just the world we live in. Yeah. And when a guy hijacks getting swept by saying, oh, I might retire.
So no one will say, hey, you just got swept. Like, come on. Well, Bron, we know what you're doing. We know you're not retired. We know we know you're not retiring. You're just so you're just throwing this out there.
So the story now switches from you got absolutely worked to, oh, you're going to retire. Come on. But again, put this lack of respect on the bronze name to 20 years, 38 years old. What's not respecting that? Do you not like go on Twitter?
Do you not listen to what people say? Like, there's always this huge contingent of LeBron hate that's out there. And I just it's just ridiculous because there's never in the history of life been a 38 year old basketball player doing the things that LeBron James has done. The excessive hate is weird for LeBron and the excessive love is also weird for LeBron. I can understand why people sometimes get annoying, annoyed with him with certain stunts he pulled like after game. I mean, he knows what he's doing.
Mad respect to that. Totally switch the narrative. You don't like the conversation.
Change the conversation. Yeah, LeBron's not dumb. He's incredibly intelligent. He knows what he's doing, how to switch the narrative.
And I'm not LeBron hater per se. Like I've said before, he annoys me of some of the stuff he does, but I don't in general the flopping. I mean, some of the flopping he did against the Nuggets was pretty ridiculous. Like that one move where he just flops into the guy. The guy had the drink spilled on him.
It's like, dude, you you were like 15 feet away when that happened. Like there's no way he doesn't have to do some of the things that he does, but whatever. Yeah. So I don't even know where we're going with that.
I don't need that. I just want to like I mean, it was an impressive performance by Denver. They deserve all the all the props for sweeping the Lakers, a Lakers team that, you know, a lot of people thought we're going to win that series and go to the finals. And I know we've been kind of on Denver this whole playoffs.
So, you know, props to us for predicting that. But it's great to see Jamal Murray back at the 2020 bubble level. Jamal Murray, because he was so special to watch that bubble. I remember sitting at home middle of COVID.
We were so bored. And then you see Jamal Murray night after night, have these incredible games seemingly out of nowhere that nobody was seeing in person during the bubble. He was there and everybody was watching, though. And then, of course, he has a terrible ACL injury.
He's out pretty much the last two seasons. And then you finally see him emerge is what I believe is the superstar. He really is in the series. He was unbelievable in the series as much as Jokic was good. Murray might have been just as good as him in this series.
Thing is, we know we know Jokic is awesome when you don't want back to back MVPs without being a special player, you know, a top tier in the league. But to see Murray do this, we almost have to take away the bubble label from, you know, it's not bubble Murray anymore. It's just Murray.
It's like coming out party for him. Great to see MPJ too. And KCP, I guess, are the king of the three letter monochromes there, but they're awesome, man. They're so impressive. I really think they're winning the title. It doesn't really matter who comes out of the east. I think at this point, they're going to have about 10 days rest before game one.
I know, TJ, sometimes the rust is a real thing when you've had that much time off. It could go either way, but it's impressive. They're a really impressive team. And I think either way we get a really fun finals.
Oh, yeah. Whether it's Nuggets Heat, they match up really well with each other. Nuggets Celtics is awesome.
You got a bunch of superstars in that game. So. I don't know. We'll see.
We'll see. It was funny on Instagram, I saw these beams where they were showing Michael Porter Jr. making the extra open pass. And they're like, OK, the Lakers are cooked if he's passing because you never see that guy really pass.
They're making some really good passes. There was something like eighty seven career games. He had zero assists. Oh, really? Yeah.
There was some ridiculous stat. Maybe the Joker's rubbing off on these guys. Joker always makes the right pass. He makes the right play. It feels like every single time he has the ball. It's super impressive.
It's super impressive. TJ, who do you want to be your head coach? Man, that's a good question, man. I imagine some of that will get ironed out maybe over the weekend. You know, Monty seems like he could be a good fit. You know, maybe Nick Nurse.
I just want someone who understands how to coach a big man and to put the big man in the proper position. But, you know, we got a lot to decide what to do with James Harden. Are they going to sign him? I don't think that the Sixers are going to pay him the 200 million. I think that would be a mistake at thirty four, because like I said, not everybody's thirty eight year old LeBron James. He is an anomaly. He is one of one. And I just don't feel like you're going to get that production out of James Harden.
That would warrant paying him that type of money. So a lot of questions need to be answered right now, man. And my fandom is being held up right now by this. So I want you to go to the Spurs. Hey, man, the Spurs nation is knocking. They've been welcoming me.
They've been offered me to come down, have me go to lunch and dinner with them. So the moves that the Sixers make coming up, man, it's really going to because it does, man. You spend your whole life as a fan. And I know sometimes we go, well, how could you quit being a fan? But after a while, consistently watching this team make bad decision after bad decision after bad decision, it just it gets frustrating. And it makes you feel like, why am I devoting all of this time and this effort and this emotional currency into this?
You know, so someone doesn't love you back when they don't love you back. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. But we'll see. We'll we'll see. I'm not really sure who the right fit is for coach, because I don't know what the roster is going to look like. But like I said, money, I feel could be a good fit because he was going, excuse me, he was going to be the guy.
Right. Until the Suns offered him the deal and then Doc came in, you know, nurses out there. Could it be Sam Cassell?
Like, look what Missoula is doing. He didn't know he was the coach until two weeks before the season started. He didn't have a chance to prepare, didn't get to pick a staff. And now he's two games away from the final. So is it the Sam Cassell situation? Is it something like that where you're going to give a brand new guy with a fresh voice who hasn't had a chance to be a coach again?
Do you put him in that slot? So I'm going to be interested, man. And I know me and the rest of the six or fans are watching this and waiting.
Yeah, Adam, it's just so crazy. You got three really, really, really good teams. Don't have a head coach right now. Phoenix, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, all these teams that we thought, you know, were legit title contenders this year.
Yeah. If you're Nick Nurse or Monty Williams, you're ecstatic right now because you're going to go from coaching in the NBA finals at one point to potentially getting a new job. And the next year, coaching in the NBA finals if things go right. So, yeah, I like Nick Nurse a lot.
Me too. This guy has proven himself. He won a championship. His teams were still pretty competitive after Kawhi left. And if I'm the 76ers, that's the guy I'm looking at. Number one, I just trust that guy.
I think he knows what he's doing. And I think Monty Williams kind of got the shaft with with the Suns, unfortunately. Yeah. You know, they made the finals and maybe they underperformed this year, but the team was essentially a new team this year once they got the rants. They weren't the same team.
There are the struggles with eight. And so I think Monty Williams is a really good head coach and he deserves another chance. It feels like he might be Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Milwaukee or Philadelphia. Yeah. Think about that as the new coaches. You get to either coach a superstar in Giannis, a superstar in Embiid or you get Booker and Durant's. It's like pick your choice. It's unreal. I've never seen that happen. It's really, really crazy.
It's got to be unprecedented and kind of the kind of the history of the NBA. All right. We've got to wrap this up.
What happens? You guys are both taking the heat. I think so. All right. Heat and six. Heat and six.
T.J., seven or six games. Let's make it interesting. Let's go with the seven. All right. Obviously, I'm going to say Celtics and seven.
We'll be back next week to preview the NBA finals. Why be happy or sad? I have no idea.
I'm going to be happy, though, because I get to talk to these guys. All right. That's it.
NBA. It's been awesome this year. We knew it was going to be awesome this year.
And it's totally lived up to the hype. All right. We'll see you guys next week. Bye Tyler.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-05-26 20:43:04 / 2023-05-26 20:56:29 / 13
