Turning Up The Heat on Erik Spoelstra? (Hour 3)

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All right, what do you got for me? Zach, the Arizona Cardinals today announced they have cut five-time Pro Bowl wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. Now, Hopkins earlier this week told the I Am Athlete Podcast that the five quarterbacks he would love to play with in the league are Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, and Justin Herbert. Now, according to points bet, the Chiefs and Bills are tied for the best odds to land D-Hop.

Onsides or offsides, DeAndre Hopkins will sign with the Kansas City Chiefs. I think the most pressure to land him out of those quarterbacks that we just mentioned, in terms of their teams, Bills, Ravens, Chiefs, Eagles, and Chargers is on the Buffalo Bills. Because right now, you look at the AFC, you look at Kansas City and then also Cincinnati, they're above Buffalo. And last year, Buffalo was supposed to be the team. Super Bowl or bus, whether Brandon Beam would say it or not, and not only did they not get to the Super Bowl, they didn't get to AFC title game.

They were at home in the second round and got punched in the mouth and were never able to stand back up. So now, some people are starting to jump off the Bills bandwagon. Now, don't get me wrong, the Bills will still be a really, really good team this year. They could get to the Super Bowl with the team that they have right now. But if you want to really improve the image, bring back some life, bring back where people are going to start picking you by the thousands to go to a Super Bowl, go get DeAndre Hopkins.

Like, you don't need to do this, but it would be a move that would benefit you significantly. Because if you can line up with Josh Allen as your quarterback and you have Staphon Diggs, DeAndre Hopkins, Gabe Davis as your wide receivers, and your tight ends are Dawson Knox, and Dalton Gincato, I think, was the best tight end in this past draft class out of Utah, that's a pretty damn lethal force. And that's a heck of a, how do you stop that team in the red zone? You know what that would be? That'd be a PFF tweet, Hickey.

How do you stop these Buffalo Bills? But with all that being said, you asked me, will DeAndre Hopkins sign with the Kansas City Chiefs? I actually think that's the team he's going to go to, because it has the best of both worlds, where you go to a team that is a winner, and you're also the number one wide receiving option. Like, don't get me wrong, Kelsey's still the number one option for Patrick Mahomes, but he's a tight end. And I know he kind of blend tight ends and wide receivers together, but in his mind, he could look at it and say, I'm playing with the best quarterback in the league. I am also going out there, and I'll be the number one wide receiver, and I'll have a great opportunity to go win a Super Bowl. Check, check, check.

It checks all the boxes. So it makes a lot of sense for DeAndre Hopkins to sign with the Kansas City Chiefs, and it would be one of those moves where the rich get richer. That's what it would be. It would feel like when the Patriots, when they had Brady, would go get like a Randy Moss or someone. You've already won so much. People want to go there.

People want to be a part of that environment. And for DeAndre Hopkins, he's a crappy Texans organization with a crappy Cardinals organization. Go to Kansas City, go to Kansas City where right now you'd be living in the penthouse. That's what I would do if I'm DeAndre Hopkins. And that's what I think he will do. So I'll go on sides.

He signs in Kansas City. All right, let's turn our attention to basketball. Last night, these Celtics have made the Eastern Conference Finals interesting, winning to force a game six in Miami tomorrow night. Now, in the last two games, Boston has won. They've been on fire from a three while the Heat have been plagued by turnovers. Now, game six is in Miami. Celtics are a really good road team. The last two post seasons, their combined record on the road is 13 and seven. On sides or off sides, the Heat will close out the series tomorrow night in game six.

I'm going on sides on this one. I think the series is decided tomorrow night. If the Celtics win game six, I'm going to have a very tough time picking against them in game seven. And obviously, if Miami wins tomorrow night, then they're off to the NBA Finals because that would be their fourth win of the series. So that's how you work, how it works in a seven game series. You got to get to four wins.

Right? My math is good on that. Math checks out and look at me. That's what my Temple University education. I'm not trust me. I was not a scholar. Some people were very surprised.

I even got the degree from Temple as well. I just feel like Miami will close it out tomorrow night at home. Boston, the key is just you can't have them shoot 40 percent from three. Butler was terrible last night.

Bam out of bio was terrible last night as well. I think they'll have a big effort at home and they will go close the series and advance to the NBA Finals will be my Andrew Perloff's favorite NBA Finals, by the way, Miami and Denver. But I love Perloff. But how many times are we going to get him tweeting about how the Denver Nuggets are boring?

And that's what he was basically doing to both of us in the last 24 hours, getting annoyed that we were talking about how exciting the the Denver Nuggets are. I think him and Chris Mannix would be best friends. I think so. I think I think Perloff has a height thing. He hates tall people. He's tall. It's ironic, but he talks about Nicole Jokic. He's boring. I think I think it's I think Nicole Jokic is too tall.

No, you're misdiagnosing this. He is jealous of the Nuggets. He's a Philadelphia fan. He's a Sixers fan. He loves Joel He loves Joel Embiid.

Joel Embiid is like 7'2". It is because everything the Nuggets are is what he wants the Sixers to be. And that's why he will never publicly praise the Denver Nuggets, because he is jealous of Denver. That's the truth of it.

Man, I hope not. Jealousy is a disease. That was deep. But everyone has everyone has jealousy. Oh, I get it. But to head to that level to hate the Nuggets because you're not them.

That's usually how it works. They haven't won a championship. Just hate the Patriots. They won six Super Bowls.

It's easy to do. But you were jealous of them. Yeah, because they won so much. Exactly. The Nuggets have not won anything.

So it's like that that's it's just weird. Like they're off to the NBA Finals. That would be a massive win for the Sixers. It's not like they are such a likable team that I think it's so hard to hate them.

And they have not had a lot of success. Granted, injuries last two years, but it's like they've been like a knock on the door every single year and fallen short. By the way, I love Mike Malone. We will play you some Mike Malone audio coming up in the news brief later on in this hour. Mike Malone, who was already like all the way up here for me, he's just keeps on exponentially going up in terms of people that I love in the NBA, because he is just going after anyone that's been critical of of the Denver Nuggets. You know, I actually I think we should send some audio of Perloff ripping the Nuggets and send it to Denver. And then after one of those games and yet Andrew Perloff on CBS Sports, tell him to shut up. I feel like Mike Malone, he's got some time until these NBA Finals start till Thursday. Plenty of time. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Perloff. I think I just added to the list. So I'm going heat. I don't even know how we got here, but the heat will close out the series tomorrow night.

Are you worried? Because you were Mr. Miami in six before the start of series. Give your credit.

But then you did that shower no cap video where you were like, it's over heat and five. It's over. It's done. Here we are in a game six. Are you worried yet? See my hand? It's straight out. It's shaking. It is not.

So what are you talking about? As can be not worried. You're moving your head. There's no trembling in the hands. This is as flat as could be.

There is no movement, which means not though you're shaking, not worried. Heat in six. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.

Next question. Speaking of basketball earlier this week, as we know, LeBron James mentioned that it's a contemplate his future and that retirement is a possibility this off season, but it does not look like the king will be hanging him up just yet. As ESPN is reporting that according to a source, LeBron will return to a for his 21st season next year. You had Shams Sharani report this week as well, that James could get surgery on his foot and miss the next two months on sides or offsides.

LeBron James will be on the Lakers next season. Are you ready to admit that you got this one wrong? That you were premature in the moment saying that he was going to be on the Dallas Mavericks next year. Yes or no? No. Oh, stop it.

No. If he's going to be on any team besides Los Angeles, it would be the Golden State Warriors. It wouldn't be Denver.

LeBron is 1000% going to be on the Los Angeles Lakers next season. I've never felt more confident about something in my life on sides. That's easy peasy.

All right, let's crank it up a notch then in terms of difficulty of the questions. As we know, Memorial Day weekend is officially here. It's the official kickoff of the summer, which means summer eats are back, baby. Fire up those grills.

Fresh food is everywhere. Do you grill all throughout the year? Just wondering? No.

Okay. Just the summer. I mean, I don't have a grill. When I go home, my dad grills, but we only really grill in the summer. Well, yeah, you don't have a grill in New York City, obviously. Grill is tarped up from September, October through May. Growing up as a kid, my dad would be the dad who's like walking outside in the snow in his boxers, because that's what dads do, and putting burgers on the grill. He would grill all year round.

So I give credit to my dad. Wow, lucky you. Yeah. Lucky you. Grilled burgers all year round. For others, grilled burgers only in the summertime, which is officially here. So onsides or offsides, with it being Memorial Day weekend, the best food item for this weekend is burgers on the grill. So I was on with Hochman and Crowder today on 560 WQAM, and they do a really great show.

I'm a big fan of those guys. And they asked me, what's at my barbecue coming up tomorrow? And I started off by saying pasta pesto salad, which I love a little pasta pesto. It's not a salad, but it's just pasta with pesto on it, cold pasta with pesto on it, which is delicious. And I think that's like a big time item to have at a barbecue.

But they kind of went after me. Oh, that can't be the first thing that you're saying. I'm like, guys, calm down. You're gonna have your tomato and mozzarella. You're gonna have, obviously, your charcuterie board.

And then we'll get the stuff on the grill. You'll get the lamb chops. You'll get the burgers. You'll get the dogs. You'll get the sausage. You'll get chicken. We'll have all the stuff. You know, buddy of mine, I'm going out to Hampton's tomorrow. He has a brick oven pizza. So we'll get some pizzas as well.

This is the toughest question I think you've ever asked me, because I think this is so controversial as well. Burgers on the grill are the best food item for Memorial Day weekend. Now, first and foremost, when you're enjoying yourself this weekend, whether you're at the beach, whether you're at your backyard, pool, wherever you are, let's remember why we have Memorial Day weekend.

And it's to remember the real heroes that made the ultimate sacrifice and unfortunately passing away so we could have the freedom to live in this country. So let's just remember that first. But back to the barbecue question, Hickey.

I don't even know how, you know me, I never say I don't know how to answer something. I really don't know how to answer this because I'm going to do it in this line of thinking. Let's say I'm at a pool, having a few drinks. You get right out of that pool. You go right to the grill. What's the first thing you want? Man, I could go for some lamb chops. I could go for a hot dog. I'm going to say though, a burger. You put some cheese on that too. Get a bunch of toppings as well. I'll go, yeah, I'll actually go on sides on this one.

It's a, it could be a little boring. You may want some other stuff, but it is a classic having a great hamburger, but a lot of people mess up when they, when they cook hamburgers. So that's like, I got to make sure I have the right cook man in the grill because there's some people that have been to their place and they go and cook a burger and they end up messing it up. So I think it's important in terms of who the chef is. If I get to pick who the chef is and who's cooking that man in that grill, then yeah, I would go burger on sides.

What's your answer on this one? Oh, definitely burgers. Definitely burgers. But you're simple.

That's for sure. You're simple. Burgers with some roasted corn, like on top of the grill as well and some tinfoil. I don't need the corn. I think the corn is overrated.

Oh, fresh corn on the grill. It's good. That's good. That's not like a must have for me.

That is good. That's the way you complete a meal. You a lamb chop guy?

No. Oh, that does not sound summery. It's a thousand percent summery. That sounds very wintery. Like lamb chops. I'm picturing myself right now eating them in like in a dark restaurant in December wearing a turtleneck cause it's cold out.

Turtleneck? Oh, you want some lamb chops? Sure. Okay.

I guess it's December and it's cold. Sure. I just, I just put something on your, on your grill that's just out of your league.

That's just the bottom line right there. You a sausage guy? Yeah. I like it more on breakfast sandwiches than just like, you know, a link on a grill. Oh, it's delicious with some, some peppers and some onions too. Delicious. You can't go wrong. You really, you really can't go wrong. Open up the grill. It's hard to mess up.

Yeah. You got, you got to have the right burger too. I need, I need a nice thick burger. Undercooked.

Ooh. I'm like a medium rare guy. Undercooked. That's, I would say it's in the, you know, don't want any hockey pucks.

No. Well that's the thing. Sometimes you go to barbecue and people just destroy the burger. I don't like a well done burger. People get nervous. They don't want to underserve it.

So they overserve it or overcook it. And terrible. Then it's just terrible. Tough meat. Oh yeah.

Awful. All right. Last question.

Go ahead. Let's finish up with this. Going back to the Cardinals.

Now that Deidre Hopkins is a free agent. I still can't believe, by the way, that you said you're going to Arizona in August. That's your party. Scott's out, baby.

We're gonna try to golf. I don't know how. I feel like you burn very easily.

No, not at all. Really? I've seen you in some photos really, really red. I guess I do get, yes, I do get red, but it turns to tan very fast and also use sun tan lotion.

So I take care of my skin. You're going to be as red as a tomato when you go to Arizona in August. It's going to be hot.

Whose stupid idea was that? Well, when's the wedding? October. I guess you have no choice if you really want to go to Arizona, if that's the great bachelor party destination, but not in August.

We might be opening and closing the town. You guys should have done something in like May. Well, it's not my call. You should have been a pain in the ass. It's your weekend for the groom.

You do as you want. How do you know this person? It is my girlfriend's friend from college.

Girlfriend's friend from college. Yes. Are you going to be in the wedding party? Yes.

So you're going to be walking down the aisle, all that stuff? Yes, sir. Actually, really he's my friend first.

I don't know why I said it that way, but we're in a big group where most of them are from college, but I knew him from Long Island, from back home. Gotcha. So you'll be a groomsman? Yes. Yes.

Best man? No, no, no. You think you'd be good at giving speeches at a wedding?

Yes and no. I think I would be good. I feel like you'd be a little nervous. But I think I would try to make it as funny as I can. And then some people would not be, you know, I'll bring up some war stories, some good old stories.

Yeah. And I've heard you go into your good old stories. I don't know if they make the whole entire room laugh. I feel like they're inside jokes that aren't actually that funny.

No, no. I feel like the job as someone giving a speech is to embarrass whoever's getting married as much as possible. That would be my attitude, which is why I would not be a good speechkeeper.

There's a fine line. Like I just gave a speech at a wedding. You make a few jokes, but it's their night. Like you don't want to be remembered as a guy that just absolutely torched the groom. No, but in a funny way. Because you embarrass him.

It's not a roast, but it's just more of like, I don't know, jokes and fun. Like, Oh, you love him. He's a great guy. Obviously he's a great guy. Everyone knows that he doesn't need three hours of everyone just sucking up and saying, Oh, what a great person you are. Like, wow, you are just, I'm so lucky to have you in my life. Like we get it. He, when you are there, the bride and the groom are great people. So I don't, to me, I view that as, that's kind of like already a given.

Why then spend five minutes talking about how great this person is. Let's just go to the fun stuff. You know what I think you would be like giving a speech at a wedding.

You'd be like the Atlanta Falcons. You start off strong. And then by the end of it, everyone's like, all right, let's go wrap it up. No, no, I would keep it quick again. Let's keep it. Let's get back on the dance floor. Let's get the DJ going here.

Let's get the drinks flowing. You would be like Russell Wilson in Denver last year. Everyone thought it was going to be good. And then it was just a disaster.

It was catastrophe. Wow. I would just, I think I'd be good, but we'll see one day.

Maybe I'll get to call up to the majors for this wedding. No, that is for sure. All right. Smart group. Well, you can say that I can't disagree.

Can I disagree with that? Deandra Hopkins free agent. Now the attention turns to Kyler Murray and his future of the Cardinals Murray last year, if you recall, signed a $230.5 million contract extension.

He will though miss the start of this year. Still rehabbing from that torn ACL and Vegas right now does have Arizona as he favorites to lend the number one pick in next year's draft, which you will have Caleb Williams sitting there as well. So on sides or off sides, Kyler Murray will be a Cardinal in 2024. Off side. Caleb Williams is going to be the number one overall pick.

The Cardinals are going to have the number one overall pick, and then they're going to look to move Kyler Murray. Do you agree with that hickey? Yes, I do. I think he's done this year. He's done a 180 on this. You've done a 180. Nice job out of you. Well, you think about the Cardinals.

They don't mind spending a lot of money stupidly, which they've done a lot now. Cause when we did the draft for, for Caleb Williams next team, I took the Cardinals first and you were, you're pretty mean to me. You weren't nice to me. I was surprised. I didn't really think about it too much. I saw the contract and thought, Oh, no way anyone would do that. But there was a team that would do it. It would be a team that just moved on from a head coach, a GM that they just extended and move on from a head coach and quarterback that they drafted slash hired for one year or a few years before that.

Now I like your idea that you put out there. You said Arizona is going to stink in 2023. Have the first and second overall picks in 2024 draft have the Texans pick you draft Caleb Williams and Marvin Harrison. Again, how stupid are the Texans? I mean, I don't, I don't crush the Texans. The Texans have had these picks.

They're trying to finally move. They got a guy that I liked a lot and will Anderson Jr. And they got CJ shot. I don't crush the Texans for doing that. I don't have a problem with the Texans finally being aggressive and finally using some of the capital they have and just waiting and waiting and waiting. I don't have, I don't crush the Texans for that, but I'll take it one step further.

It doesn't have to be one and two. You just have to get the first pick. Then you get Kayla Williams. Whoever's picking second is going to take Drake may. If they get one in three, then you could still get Kayla Williams and Marvin Harrison Jr. And that's a good chance of that happening because we'll see what the Texans end up being this year.

The most likely we'll probably be picking in the top five. And this is Zach Gelb Show on CBS Sports Radio. You're listening to the Zach Gelb Show. You can think around the auto parts for all your car care needs.

Get guaranteed low prices and excellent customer service from the professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts. It is Zach Gelb Show on CBS Sports Radio coming up in about an hour and 10 minutes. You will hear from Antoine Walker, who started his career with the Boston Celtics and won an NBA championship with the Miami Heat.

So you got to hear that conversation coming up at about 9.40 PM Eastern, 6.40 PM Pacific. I was thinking about something earlier today, Hickey, on my flight back from Colorado when I was mapping out the show. And a very popular opinion right now is how great Eric Spoelstra is as a head coach. And I feel as if the Eric Spoelstra career has just been so fascinating in terms of giving him credit because when the Heat were winning championships, I know he's been at an organization for a long time, like well before LeBron, and he was a coach even before LeBron got there. But really, a lot of people started to find out nationally about Eric Spoelstra when he was coaching LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh as a trifecta, as a super team, as a big three. And immediately, LeBron wasn't receptive to Eric Spoelstra.

He wanted Pat Riley to come down from his luxury box or from behind the bench and join them on the bench and coach the team. Now Spoelstra won two championships, but he never had that moment where people praised Spoelstra during those championships. Because when you have LeBron in your team, usually LeBron gets all the praise or he gets all the criticism. Now, life after LeBron for the Heat has been successful. They haven't won another championship, but they've been to an NBA finals. And people are now talking about Eric Spoelstra and giving that title of the best coach in the sport and also a guy that will be a Hall of Famer. I just want to throw this out to you with how long it took for people to finally warm up and say that Eric Spoelstra is a great coach. If he blows this 3-0 lead and we've seen them lose two games, this series is far from being a Boston win where they're advancing to the NBA finals. But with four chances to close out the Boston Celtics, if they can't find a way to win any of those games, and they've already lost two, do people start to go back and question?

I'm talking about nationally. Eric Spoelstra maybe say he's not as great as the way that people have been talking about him, really the last few seasons where a lot of people have started to warm up to that. I hope people don't, because he's made a finals appearance at LeBron James. He's gotten now to three out of the last four Eastern Conference Finals. They were the one seed last year. So he's had a lot of success post LeBron, where you can look back and say, or just now look back at history and say, well, that was just LeBron James.

Eric Spoelstra just overrated or got too much credit because he's had now, minus the championship, a lot of consistency and a lot of success without LeBron James, without Chris Bosh, without Dwayne Wade. So I brought that up to WQAM today when I was on with Hochman and Crowder. And I was just curious how they were going to respond, because I think it's a fascinating conversation. We have some idiots that after LeBron James gets swept out of the Western Conference Finals that go, he can't be the greatest player of all time.

And this impacts his legacy, right? Everyone could have an opinion now. And there's a lot of times with how everyone has a platform, there's a lot of stupid things that get said. And we live in a society where we're so reactionary, and Mark Hochman, who's been doing radio for a long time, longer than both of us have been alive, he said he thought I was onto something. Now, I'm not telling you that if they don't find a way to win this series, that this means Eric Spoelstra is a bad coach.

That would be stupid. But that word great is reserved for a few people. And everyone's saying how great he is. I just would not be surprised if a lot of people, or I would say a lot, if there's a decent amount of people that start to question really how great is Eric Spoelstra and is he maybe just a very, very, very, very, very good coach.

Now, you could just equally argue it. I think if you're a sane person here, well, they exceeded expectations. I know that they regressed from where they were last year where they were one seed to then this year being in the playing tournament. But who thought when Miami was going up against Milwaukee in the first round that they were going to get out of that series, let alone be in the Easter Conference Finals. But when you have the 3-0 lead, it's never happened before where someone's come back from down 0-3 in the NBA.

It would be a really bad look, though, for Spoelstra. And I also wonder, then, how we talk about Jimmy Butler. Now, Jimmy Butler's the only star in that team. Like, Bam Adebayo is a really, really, really, really good player.

But I wouldn't call him a star. And we've given those guys so much praise for this run so far. When they're up 3-0, I do think that they're going to face a ton of backlash, not only for blowing the lead, if they do. And I think they're winning in Game 6. But then when you talk about their legacies, I do think it knocks them down a few pegs because it's almost as if we just assumed, a lot of us did, because it was the only way of thinking when they went up 3-0 that this series was over. Now if they blow this lead and they don't win this series, from a legacy standpoint, it's going to be a rough few weeks in conversation for those guys.

Let me ask you this. Do you look at Steve Kerr and Steph Curry any differently when they blow their 3-1 lead? It's one last game, but 3-1 in the finals for the NBA's greatest regular season team ever.

But not apples to apples. That core has won four championships before KD, then two with KD, and then one after KD. Butler's never won a championship. Spolstra's never won a championship without LeBron James. Well, Kerr's never won a championship without Steph Curry.

Sure, absolutely. But Steph didn't win a championship until Steve Kerr got there. I'm not saying that Kerr deserves more credit than Steph Curry, but it's just the praise all came together for the Warriors when they won that championship. For Eric Spolstra, he didn't really get the praise until after those guys left. And I'm just saying, with the way that we all quickly jumped to Jimmy Butler and Eric Spolstra being the greatest thing ever in the last month, I do think the backlash is going to be pretty extreme if they don't win one more game in this series. Now, I'm not telling you that this means, oh, now you look at Jimmy Butler as a bum or you look at Eric Spolstra as a bum. But everyone's saying great, great, great, great, great. I just wonder what the conversation is going to be.

And it's going to be ugly. And it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people that gave Spolstra, and I gave Spolstra credit when LeBron won those titles. Like, I have the tweets to back it up. But with a lot of people not giving him credit because of the construction of the team, I just wonder if all like this immortal kind of feelings and ways that we've talked about Spolstra in the last month, I wonder then what the conversation becomes.

And I do think it would get ugly. You pull a 3-0 lead. And that's never been done before in the NBA. That's a brutal, brutal off season of talk.

And I do think there will be a percentage of people that will go, I can't call Spolstra great until he finds a way to win a championship without LeBron James. It is Zach Gelb's show on CBS Sports Radio. Take a break. When we come on back, we'll teach you some of the biggest stories in the world of sports with some audio.

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Joe Mazzulla, the coach of the Celtics, on the difference between Boston in the first three games compared to the last two games. One of our assistants put it in great perspective. The season's nine months long and we just had a bad week. Sometimes you have a bad week at work. And we obviously didn't pick the best time to have a bad week, but we did. And we're sticking together and fighting like hell to keep it alive.

And the guys are really coming together. Hickey, I actually feel bad for Joe Mazzulla because he's never going to get the credit. But I don't think he is deserving of the percentage of blame that a lot of people give him. Now, you could say he's not ready for the opportunity. You could say he shouldn't be coaching the team.

And I can't really crush you for that. But it seems as if whenever the Celtics aren't playing to the standard that they should be, he's the one that gets the scapegoat, right? He's the scapegoat. And I don't think that's right. I really don't. Like, I'm not telling you this guy's a wonderful coach, but they did have a phenomenal regular season record, right? They were the two seed. You know, is it really that bad?

Is what people make it out to be? And you look at this team, they bury themselves in a deep hole. They're trying to get the hole.

They're trying to climb out of it. And they're two wins away from doing so. This to me is more of the players.

It's very simple what happened. In the first three games, they could hit three-point shots. The last two games, they hit the three-point shots. Now, Jason Tatum, I know some people put this on Mazzulla. The first three games, he didn't make a field goal in the fourth quarter. People say that's on the coach.

How? Jason Tatum's a star. He should be able to score in the fourth quarter.

I didn't play in the fourth quarter of game three, but the first two, my oh my. Like, I'm not telling you he's perfect, but I don't think the blame that he gets is warranted. This year, it's tough on the players, without a doubt. I mean, again, do you have the talent? You are a better team than the Heat. Sure, is there stylistical changes that happen because Mazzulla's a coach?

Yes. Like, they should not be a three-point or bust team. They were not last year. They are this year. But we're seeing a lot of the same inconsistencies last year and this year, which shows you it's not just the coach.

It's the players. Let's go to Eric Spolstra. His team is up 3-0. Now it's 3-2. Humongous game tomorrow night. Eric Spolstra says the team is not panicking.

Who cares about mood? Like, we have a gnarly group, so I think so much of that is overrated. It's a competitive series.

You always expect, you know, things to be challenging in the conference finals. That's awesome. Play that again. Just the beginning of that clip. Who cares about mood? Like, we have a gnarly group, so... You can stop it.

That's awesome. We have a gnarly group. Who cares about the mood?

I like Spolstra a lot. I know what I just said in the last segment. I asked the question, but that's a great answer that he just gave. And if I'm a player where it's just natural right now, doubt's gonna start to creep in, everyone's starting to question you, it feels like momentum is starting to shift, and your coach goes pretty much bleep all that, I think that does something for that locker room too, which is a pretty tough group in Miami. Now it didn't work out in their favor yesterday, but I love in the pregame he was asked, how do you feel about being 8.0 dogs? Ah, we don't give a blank.

Well, that's a lie, because whenever someone says they don't give a blank, you know they actually do give a blank. Well, like how you said, I liked how we cursed. Most coaches say, oh, you know, we're not worried about what other people are saying, we're not worried about Vegas, we're worried about the guys in the locker room. Ah, we don't give a you know what.

So you're a bit cursing guys, what you're telling me? Yes. For the dramatics, for the theatrics? Yeah, just to kind of drive the point home a little bit of, we don't care.

Gotcha. You're gonna give a speech tomorrow to your alma mater? They're asking you to go into locker room before the final four lacrosse game for Penn State up against Duke? I mean, if they want, I'm in. I think I would have those boys ready to play. I think maybe better be halftime if they're losing like, I don't know, let's say 8.5.

I'm sorry. Pick me up at halftime, oh boy. I will have those guys running out of there playing harder than they ever played in their life. Can we sample? Now, you can't curse, but could we get a little sampling? Pretend Penn State's down a few goals, they need a big speech. What does that sound like at halftime?

Well, I gotta, a lot of it's emotion in the moment. Oh, come on. Stop being so lame. I'm gonna be like a, I'll be Jerry Armstrong, be a method actor.

I'm envisioning right now they're down 8.5. Okay, I'm walking into locker room. Give me three seconds, stall here for three seconds. Oh my God.

This is ridiculous. Like, Hickey is shaking right now if you're looking at him. He has his hands together, he's shaking right away. I'm walking out of locker room. Are you boys serious?

Are you boys serious? You were 30 minutes away from the championship game and you played the first half like that? Don't even come out for the second half. Let me play. You guys are terrible.

This is the biggest weekend of your life. You will look back on this in 50 years and say, man, coach, I wish I played harder. That was, you are going to regret this the rest of your life, but how terrible that was in the first half. Get out there and play with no regrets. He just threw a pen.

Oh, definitely throwing something is going to be without a doubt. Punch on a locker. Why don't I have my JV high school football coach punch a locker?

I don't think we've ever played harder in the first half in my life than after that. Can I give you my genuine reaction if I was a player in that locker room? Just also imagine it cranked up by 10 in the moment the juices flow.

Just want to throw that out. Yeah, it'd be worse because your voice would be even higher. It'd be like, who's this prepubescent boy giving us a speech at halftime? That's the way that I would interpret that speech.

That would not move the needle for me whatsoever. Let's go to Jimmy Butler and what he'd have to do in game six. We just got to play better, start the games off better on the starters, make it make it more difficult for them. They're in the rhythm since the beginning of the game, but we're always going to stay positive knowing that we can and we will win this series and we'll just have to close it out at home. Jimmy Butler reiterates why he's confident the Heat will win this series. Because the last two games are not who we are. It just happened to be that way and we stopped playing defense halfway because we didn't make shots that we want to make. But that's easy.

Correct. We just got to come out and play harder from jump. So like I always say, it's going to be all smiles. We're going to keep it very, very, very consistent knowing that we are going to win the next game.

When he says that in two different cuts that they're going to win the next game. You know how everyone makes that a big deal. Oh, it's a guarantee. Bulletin board material.

I kind of think the guarantee is overrated, Hickey. Where we all make a big deal. Like what else is Jimmy Butler supposed to say? You know, we can only we can win the game.

He went to the well part. What I was supposed to say, get up there. Yeah, we're cooked. We just got to win one more game. We got two chances to potentially do it. Yeah, we're going to lose both. Send Boston the NBA Finals. The guarantee to me is overrated.

What else is supposed to say? I totally agree. Also too, he's made like 10 guarantees this postseason. So I think after a while. Has he really?

Oh yeah. He guaranteed after game four when the Heat won that they're going to go up to New York and end the series. Guaranteed after game four of this series that they were going to go up to Boston and win. He just guaranteed right there that they're going to go and win this series at home. Like I think honestly after every game if you like.

If you parse every word he says and listen to the entire press conference, I bet you every game he's made some sort of. Low key guarantee of oh yeah, we're going to win the next game. I think in the newspaper era. When newspapers actually a big deal, the guarantee was huge because you didn't have social media where you could just be so up to date on everything and you like wake up in the morning.

You go right to newspapers like oh so and so guaranteed a victory to get sensationalized. Now I feel like when we hear so much from these players and sometimes common sense prevails. I feel as if a lot of times when a quote like that goes viral on Twitter, a lot of a lot of the comments are like what else is he supposed to say?

People look at that. People have finally kind of got smarter about it, realized. Mike Malone says the Lakers aren't the story of the NBA anymore this season. Well, if anybody's still talking about the Lakers in the NBA finals, that's on them. I mean, they've gone fishing. We're still playing and you know the narrative should be on whatever two teams are still alive.

They've gone fishing. We're still playing. I love that. I love that for Mike Malone. Mike Malone right now is my favorite coach in the NBA. Because there's some coaches that they try to say oh yeah we don't see all the noise. This and the criticism, this team was the number one overall seed and they're able to play the underdog card. Usually when a number one overall seed plays the underdog card we all roll our eyes but here there's a lot of people that just don't like Denver. They think they're boring and they don't want to give them their respect and I love how Mike Malone's not only winning but he's kind of throwing it back at everyone else's face and trying to say that hey you should be giving us more attention. Stop talking about a team that we just swept in four games.

I know he was asked the question so it's not like he's going out of his way. The only thing I'll say is this. You better win the NBA finals. He has done a lot of talk in this postseason.

To his credit he has backed it up. You don't think they're gonna win the NBA finals? Can't be like I think they're gonna win but I'm saying you can't be pounding the table talk about us talk about us talk about us and then not win the NBA finals.

That's my opinion. So what is he supposed to do? Not protect his team in the moment? Not fight for his team in the moment just because it feels like every single press conference he's making it like his goal is to talk about how they're not being talked about how they got to get the respect they deserve.

Well if I'm him I kind of understand it because you have this long layoff. The finals aren't until Thursday. They don't start till Thursday and you win a a western conference finals in four games everyone's talking about the Lakers. Like no one's talking about Denver and when they do talk about Denver all they say is all that team's boring.

So I'd be fed up too if I was Mike Malone. This is Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. We'll break when we come on back we'll play you some DeAndre Hopkins sound.

Where is DeAndre Hopkins going to be playing football this year and we'll delve into the future of Kyler Murray out in the desert with the Arizona Cardinals. Surgeons keep our hearts beating. They do the amazing. Help save lives and so can you. Your CSL plasma donation can help create 24 critical life-saving medicines that can give grandpa the chance for his heart to swell when he meets his new grandson or give a bride the chance for her heart to skip a beat on her wedding day. Every plasma donation helps more than you know. Do the amazing. Help save lives. Donate today at your local CSL plasma center and be rewarded for your generosity.