Grading the Timberwolves Season (Hour 2)

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Price and coverage match limited by state law. Alrighty, away we go. Hour number two of our radio program.

That's right. It is the Infinity Sports Network. I guess the Kansas City Chiefs are at the White House today. We'll get you some of this audio later when we talk about the chief special teams coordinator on potentially using Justin Reed to kick off instead of Harrison Buckner. Justin Reed did talk about this today at the White House. Also, Rashee Rice is making the trip to the White House today after what's been a very eventful off-season, to say the least, for Rashee Rice.

Where, isn't he facing like eight felony charges or something like that? With all that has transpired with Rashee Rice over this off-season. So we'll get some of that audio coming up later. So Minnesota, I think it's a difficult time to discuss them because I can't say their season was a disappointment because it definitely was successful. But I do leave with what we saw in the Western Conference Finals with a taste of disappointment. And that's one thing in sports.

Something that makes me cringe is when a team early on in the playoffs gets called a team of destiny or people think once you get this win, it means you're going to win the rest. You know, it's why Herb Brooks after, you know, the late great Herb Brooks, 1980 coach, all that, gold-winning, winning medal coach for USA Hockey, after they beat the Soviets, like everyone remembers that. But they did go on to have to win one more game against Finland.

And he said to his team, you better win this one because if you don't, you'll take it to your grace. But everyone remembers the Soviet victory. Like there's moments and runs that may not be the gold medal or may not be the championship win, but those moments get remembered more than the actual championship. Like, for example, in my lifetime, you look at all the Patriots' Super Bowl runs, the last one that they had the second time up against the Rams, that actual Super Bowl was not a memorable Super Bowl.

It was low scoring. It was 13 to 3 was the final score, which actually ended up being the largest margin of victory for the Patriots in their six Super Bowl championships, which is crazy. But most fans remember that Super Bowl run where it starts in the AFC Championship game with the epic back and forth overtime thriller between Mahomes and Tom Brady. So there are moments where you win a title and it's not the most memorable moment. But for Minnesota, they start off the postseason, they quickly sweep the Phoenix Suns, and then they started to get a wild amount and a fair amount of respect and praise and an assumption that they were going to be in the NBA championship. Even before, like, forget about winning the Western Conference, which they didn't do, but even before they took care of business against the Denver Nuggets, like when they walked into Denver and made Jamal Murray so mad that he threw a heating pad and a towel on the court. When that was 2-0 in favor of Minnesota, when they walked into Denver and beat them up on Denver's home court, the defending champ, most of us thought that series was over. And then, boom, Denver wins three straight, they take a commanding 3-2 lead, and we went from, oh, it was all premature, our praise to Minnesota, to now everyone then was on the line of thinking that Denver was going to win that series.

And you know what happened? Denver didn't show up in Game 6, and then Minnesota walked into their building and destroyed them in that second half of Game 7. So once that happened, and once they advanced to the next round, like, we all knew Dallas had the best 1-2 punch in the league with a locked in Kyrie Irving and a top five player in the league in Luka Doncic, but the takes from where we were at 2-0 started to pop back up.

And I'm guilty of this, like, I'm not going to just say that other people were saying it, like I was someone that was saying this, where it was like, okay, Denver was the best team, Minnesota beats Denver, Anthony Edwards is the future face of the league, and not only that, they're going to most likely be in the championship and be the favorite to win the championship. But then, they lose this series to Dallas. And not only did they lose this series to Dallas, they were down 3-0. And then they win Game 4, and then they no-showed last night in Game 5.

So I'll ask this question around the room, because even I'm struggling to put it into words. How do we look back at the Minnesota Timberwolves season? Because the way I feel about them is, yes, you say if it was pass-fail, like everyone's taking a pass-fail class in college, where it doesn't matter if you get an A or a B, whatever, just as long as you pass the class, you're with everybody else.

And if you're not at a certain threshold, then you fail. So this is a pass season, in a successful way, for the Minnesota Timberwolves. But I walk away feeling what could have been. And I don't think today is the day, if you are a Timberwolves fan, that you go, oh, let's applaud the effort of this squad, it's a bright future, and there's many more great years to come.

Because you missed an opportunity. You had an opportunity where you beat the champs, and then I don't know if they just exhaled, I don't know if they were hung over, like in the sports term, from the euphoria of that win, and maybe they were reading and listening to everything that was positive that was said about them, and they let their guard down. But that's kind of crazy to me, even with how good Dallas is, that this series was over and it was finished in five games, and quite frankly, it was over when it was 3-0.

Once that gets to 3-0, no team in NBA history has ever come back from down 3-0 to win the series. So, I'm curious, and I'll ask Stu and Sam to this, how should we feel about Minnesota? Because it does feel like it was a successful season, and it feels like there's a bright future, but today, I am disappointed because you beat Denver, and if they would have lost to the NBA Finals in the six or seven game series, I think the conversation is different. But the fact that you didn't get to the NBA Finals, or check that, the fact that you couldn't even make this a competitive Western Conference Finals, it's tough for me to praise right now, today, Minnesota, even though probably the entirety of their season is more successful than it being a failure.

To me, it's 100% a success. I mean, I understand they kind of fell flat in this series, but they're a really, really young team with some really, really young rising stars. They're going to be really good for a really long time, as long as they can keep these players around. But will they be great?

Yeah. I legitimately think that this could be a great team that can win not just one, but maybe even two or multiple championships. If they can keep this core together, and if Kat can show up consistently, that's the problem. Kat's one of those guys who he's either first team all NBA or he's disappeared.

There's nothing in between. He's either great or he's terrible. He's really like Anthony Davis.

Anthony Davis is a better player than Karl Anthony Towns, but how we have discussed Anthony Davis with the Lakers the last few years, it seems similar to Karl Anthony Towns, where for Anthony Davis, hey look, he showed up, they won a title, but in other years he's either hurt or he's not playing consistently to that elite level ability. I can't go there with Minnesota that they're going to win multiple championships. You want to tell me, if you said right now, gun to your head, do they win one?

I would say yes, because I believe in Anthony Edwards. I can't go to the realm yet of the possibilities that they're going to win multiple championships, especially in a sports city, that they're one of those sports cities, fair or not, it feels like they're cursed. Like any time the Vikings are really damn good and you start to believe not only do they lose, but they have a miserable loss. And for Minnesota, the excitement with that franchise came back. People thought they were going to get to an NBA finals after beating Denver, and they couldn't even go out with a admirable defeat.

Like you could lose and people could understand, okay, something special is brewing, and something I think is special brewing here, but you never know if you're going to get back. Like I look at my sports fandom and I go back to the 2015 New York Mets. They had a pitching staff that was young, that was dominant, they unexpectedly found themselves in a World Series, and when the Mets lost that World Series to the Royals in what was a crazy back and forth World Series that only resulted in five games, I remember leaving the stadium that night. And don't get me wrong, I was sad, but I said, you know what, I'm proud of this team. And I'm adamant that this team is going to be back, right? When you had a pitching staff of Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard, like you just thought that that was going to be a group that eventually they'd make a return.

They'd find a way. But then everyone got hurt and the Mets were the Mets, and they never got back to that World Series. That group made one more playoff appearance. It was the following season where it was an epic wildcard game.

Syndergaard was sensational, the Mets were completely banged up, and it was Madison Bumgarner when he was playoff Bumgarner. And I was at that game. What was the guy's name? Was it Connor Gillespie? I think it was Gillespie. I almost called him Colin Gillespie, but I think that was the kid that was at Villanova. But that guy Gillespie had a home run. I want to say it was Connor Stu.

Thank you. And after that, they were never able to recover. And look, Harvey is out of the league.

Syndergaard, I think, is out of the league. Like, that team just imploded. So that's the thing, which I think as sports fans, because a lot of people, they look at sports fans as very negative. I do think we try, even when teams don't succeed, to try to find the positives to make us think that they're going to continue. And sometimes that's a detriment because I don't want to say you left your foot off the pedal, but you just assume you're going to be back because everyone was positive about you for a while, even though the ending was not positive. And for Minnesota's case, you have a player to believe in, in Anthony Edwards.

He brings hope. But just because they were ahead of the curve this year doesn't mean that they're going to win a championship one day. And this year, you look at the four teams that were remaining at the time, like the Pacers know everyone knew they weren't winning. People don't trust Boston.

We'll get into that later. And Dallas, they knew they had a great one-two punch in Luca and Kyrie, but no one would have ever thought that was going to be the Western Conference Finals when the postseason did start, that it was going to be Minnesota and Dallas. So it does seem like, yes, there's hope, there's future, but it is a little bit of a missed opportunity.

It's a big missed opportunity. Because A, you don't know if you're going to get back and B, you don't know if the road, I don't want to say it's easy, but from what appears to be as easy as maybe the one was this year, once you take care of the dragon and slay the dragon that was the Denver Nuggets. So how do you look back? I know you're a big hoops guy. How do you look back at this Timberwolves run?

I hear what you're saying, but I am more on the side of Mike. Like you look, going into the season, they were maybe what, the fifth, sixth, seventh best team in the West? Yeah, no one thought they'd be the third best team.

Nobody thought they did. They beat the Suns, who many people thought were one of the two or three best teams in the West. The Suns were frauds this year. They were, but they beat the Nuggets.

You know who the Suns were? The Suns are, like you go to a garage sale and you see like a TV that's a little bit older, but it's at a great price. And you're like, oh wow, that flat screen TV would look great on my wall. And then you buy the flat screen TV.

You think it's going to bring it like a great viewing experience. And you turn the TV and there's like two or three rings on it or something like that. And I may have that issue right now in my apartment. When I got my apartment, they donated a TV to me. The previous tenant left the TV in there. I guess he didn't want to take it off the wall because it was on, what are those things called? A mount. A mount. Thank you.

I couldn't think of that word. It was on a mount that I guess if he took the mount off the wall, he would have had to fix the wall. So he just said, hey, you can keep the TV.

So I get the TV. And for whatever reason, it only was evident early on when you're watching hockey. I'm like, oh, there's some like white rings on the TV.

I couldn't figure it out. But you'd only notice it when it's on hockey because the ice is white. And throughout the years, the rings have just grown and gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. So in the next two weeks, I'm going to take that TV off the mount and I'm going to get a new TV. But that TV is like the Phoenix Suns. I thought, oh, nice TV looks great. Oh, it's free.

I don't got to pay for it. It's wonderful. You put in Durant and Bradley Beal and Devin Booker on the same team and then you realize that there was a problem.

But anyway, sorry to bitch about my TV. No, I just think where they got this season is more than anyone expected. And I know expectations change throughout the season. So, you know, that that is true. But the fact they got as far as they did and they're so young and I think Anthony Edwards only has room to grow.

I think he's going to develop into one of the two or three best players in the league, maybe even the best player in the league. So I think the fact they made this jump this early, I think it can only be viewed as a success now. Yeah. Maybe they never get this far again.

You never know. And this is an opportunity, but I think it's definitely a success. So here's how I look at it. I'll go back to the pass fail analogy.

They get a pass, but there's different sectors in the past. Like people know when you get the A plus in the pass fail. People know when you get the A minus. So you get a B, you get a B plus.

Or if you just survive by the skin of your teeth, then you got like a C. C plus. They're a team that they're B plus. That's the way that I look at them. The Minnesota Timberwolves this year are B plus. And they would have been in A if they got to the NBA finals and they didn't get to the NBA finals. But this was a group that we thought after they beat Denver, they were going to be at A plus. So some people, they take the season and you look back at it and you go, OK, I got to be plus. I did the assignment. I passed the assignment.

But there was a different level that they could have got to. All right. It is the Zach Gelb show on the Infinity Sports Network. Come on back. We'll date you.

Some of the biggest stories in the world of sports with some audio. We will get to a news brief next. Worried about letting someone else pick out the perfect avocado for your perfect impressed them on the third date guacamole? Well, good thing instacart shoppers are as picky as you are. They find ripe avocados like it's their guac on the line. They are milk expiration date detectives. They bag eggs like the 12 precious pieces of cargo they are. So let instacart shoppers overthink your groceries so that you can overthink what you'll wear on that third date.

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They're punching it into overdrive. Chris, Courtney, Kim, Chloe, Kendall and Kylie are back and continue to defy expectations in all their endeavors. So get ready to go behind the glitz and glamour of the most iconic family on television.

The all new season of the Kardashians is now streaming on Hulu. Time for your daily news brief. We get you caught up on the rumors, reports and reconnaissance from the day in sports.

Let's get to that Gelb show and the infinity sports network news brief time. Let's get to Drew Brees. He revealed this was the Evan Cohen at some point this past year that he like doesn't have like not have like a range of motion in his shoulder or something. He can't throw a football anymore. So Drew Brees said that didn't happen. He could have played a lot longer. There was a little bit of a lack of closure, you know. But honestly, man, if my right arm was still working, I probably would have played another three years.

My body feels great. So that's the difficult part. Because when I first hear Drew Brees say, oh, he could have played longer if it wasn't for this, I was like, well, at the end of your career, I don't care what the stats were. There were many times your team was there and you couldn't get the job done. Especially that last playoff game up against Tampa Bay, like that was a bad performance.

And even the playoff loss up against the Minnesota Vikings two in their own building, that was a bad performance. But how much of this injury, this right arm injury play a factor into that performance? So could you have maybe played a few more years and even if it wasn't the Saints go to another team?

I guess so. But there's a certain standard for Drew Brees, and Drew Brees got out of the league in 2020. Drew Brees right now is 45 years old, so he got away right when he was 40. Yeah, I don't think Drew Brees had that much longer left in the tank. Even if he didn't have this injury, I don't think it's realistic to expect quarterbacks to play into their 40s now just because Brady did it.

Let's go to Albert Breer. Here were his comments about Drake May. This was on NBC Sports Boston. Well, so they've been working through that. He hasn't done a lot under center, so a lot of his work has been under center and trying to get him to learn to do that. But, you know, when he ties it all together, you see the talent and what they're seeing is elite downfield accuracy. So you see that like where you can throw it to the third level at a really high level.

You're seeing an ability to go through progressions, and then there's not panic. And I think that's another thing that can help him get on the field. So, again, it doesn't mean he's ready to start, but what they're seeing is a kid who is learning and who is applying what he's learning onto the field, which is the first step towards becoming a better quarterback.

So a lot of times in sports there's what should happen and what will happen. And I've been very clear that because the Patriots don't have a number of wide receiver and their offensive line is very questionable entering this season, I don't think Drake May should see the field in the first half of the season. But, Stu, the more and more you already start to hear and read things from OTAs and you hear those comments by Albert Beard, don't you kind of think that he will see the field earlier than what we both kind of expect?

I do. I'd be surprised if we don't see him very early in the season. Very early?

What do you mean by very early? Before week six? Yeah, like first quarter of the season, yeah. So their schedule has to play an impact on this, right?

Because it shouldn't be, but I think it does. They got kind of a tough schedule out of the gate. They're at Cincinnati to open up the season, then they play Seattle, then they're at the Jets, then they're at San Francisco, they have Miami, they have Houston, they have Jacksonville, they have the Jets, and that takes you through October. There's no game, and I know the Patriots suck right now, so there's really no easy game, but there's no easy game on that schedule. Then you get in a back-to-back run where it's at Tennessee and at Chicago, and I think Chicago's going to be pretty damn good, and Tennessee has talent, but they'll still probably be the fourth team in that division. I don't know how long they're going to be able to hold off the call for Drake May, especially if this team, like through the first four weeks of the season. If you're being the most optimistic person in the world, 1-3?

Stu, can you give me an argument? It's even tougher. I'm expecting them to be 0-4 out of the gate. I expect them to lose to Cincinnati, lose to Seattle, lose to the Jets, and lose to San Francisco. So if you want to be optimistic about it, wouldn't it be like 1-3?

Is 1-3 going to make people go, oh yeah, Jacoby Percet's doing a fine job, I don't need to see Drake May. Yeah, Seahawks at home in that early window, that 1 o'clock Eastern Time window, so maybe that's the one you get. I don't know, though. You're right. Bengals, Jets, Niners, those are three of the seven or eight best teams in the league.

That's really hard. And I guess divisional games can go everywhere anyway, so short week Thursday night in New York, maybe they have a chance against the Jets, but the Jets are a much better team than the Patriots heading into this season. Let's go to Kyrie Irving. How about facing the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals? You may have noticed that the Finals will start in a place where you used to play, in Boston.

Looking forward to that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Boston's in the way in between our goals, so that's it, man. That's a good answer by Kyrie, though. Because Kyrie could have made it about him in that moment. I do believe that's going to be something to monitor, are the emotions between the back and forth, and the fans have every right to boo the crap out of Kyrie for the way that he handled that situation in Boston. But are the Celtics fans going to get under his skin and make him do something that he shouldn't do where he loses his cool?

I think that's going to be a big storyline. Here is Luka Doncic on shutting up the opposing fans. This is TNT once again with Ernie Johnson. It's a good feeling, man. I can't lie.

Just go out there. It's us against them. Just stay together.

But that feeling, that feeling is great. Was there one fan in particular that you kept going at early on? What was that about? I can't tell you. If I tell you, I can sue him. But you know, that gets me going.

Everybody knows that by now, so just got to do it. Did I mishear him there? He said, if I told you, I can sue him. Is that what he said?

I'm assuming the fan said something. I think he meant if I told you, you can't sue him. Because if you're going to sue someone, I don't know if you want that information out there and then you just have it go through the lawsuit and you keep that from being prevented from being said, right?

That's the way that I logically think about it. Like, if I was going to sue you, Santer, because you said something that I thought was offensive, am I going to get on the radio and go, oh, this is what Santer said? I think I'm going to keep that privacy.

You don't really know what's coming. That's why he's saying, I'm not going to tell you because if I tell you, then I'm going to have to sue this guy. Okay, gotcha. So I'm not going to tell you what he told me. I'm just going to say that. Oh, so I can sue him. Okay, gotcha. So whatever it was that he said was actionable.

I thought that was tongue in cheek, to be clear. Anthony Edwards, what did you learn from this series? What do you think you can take from what they did to stop you personally in the series and apply it to next year and beyond? Nothing.

I know you're frustrated that you lost. That's like an easy question. That was like a JJ Reddick type of response.

All right, let's now I'm intrigued by Anthony Edwards. What went wrong for the Timberwolves? We never clicked all together as a team in this series.

Not even one game. I think that was the main thing. Like the last two series, we was all clicking at one time, making shots and stuff. We wasn't clicking that one time. All right, so at least he gave an answer.

He's not wrong. They weren't clicking. I really do believe that they exhaled after beating Denver. And that to them was like a win that is, in their mind, you could kind of think it's like a championship type of win because they were the defending champs.

And then they weren't able to regroup from one round to the next against a very good team. Here is Charles Barkley inside the NBA done for this season. Next season expected to be their last. Would he go to ESPN?

This is the SI Media podcast with Jimmy Tranio. They're not going to work me like a dog. I was going to say, you're going to be on First Take, Get Up, Scott Van Pelt every day. It's going to be Charles 24-7.

ESPN Radio, ESPN 2, ESPN Desportes. I mean, like, hell no. So as much as I love ESPN, you know, dude, I just turned 61. The notion that I'm going to be working like a dog into my mid-60s, that's definitely not going to happen. Yeah, that would be terrible. Four little words, knucklehead.

Absolutely would be terrible if you had to do all those jobs. He's going to NBC. I was reading an article the other day. NBC is going to try to go court. Charles Barkley, they're going to try to go court.

Shaquille O'Neal, Kenny the Jetsmith may be the odd man out. Maybe Maria Taylor is doing the studio. I saw Andrew Marchand said that NBC is probably going to have Mike Tirico be their number one play-by-play voice. If I'm Tirico, so you're now the voice of Sunday Night Football, wouldn't you rather do the studio show? I think it's a bigger deal for the NBA to be doing the studio show rather than be the lead play-by-play guy for NBC, where they're still not going to get the NBA Finals from my understanding. It would be like a conference final. I think being on that studio show, which Tirico has done studio shows before, you know, Football Night in America, I think it's a bigger deal than calling the games. Because the studio show is always entertaining. Like if you could put Tirico together with Shaq, Charles, and then whoever else they throw in there.

You know, is it Draymond, whoever? I'd rather do that personally than be doing the play-by-play. Here is Sarc, Steve Sarkisian, the head coach of the Texas Longhorns, and how to get college football coaches to adhere to injury reporting rules.

Find us. That's what they do in the NFL. I'm a big believer in this. The NFL has figured a lot of this stuff out already.

They've already had to live through all of these things that have occurred. So we don't have to try to recreate the wheel so much, right? If I try to game the system and I don't report a guy and so on and so forth, find us. We all like the money that we make. And so that's a really simple way to get us to adhere to the rules. I think it's 100 percent right. And I also believe the college football coach used to be untouchable. Now with NIL and the transfer portal and people actually caring about the health and safety of these youngsters, I do believe the college football coach isn't as vulnerable or is vulnerable now. Like, you could be held accountable. Usually, like, the college football coach is basically the dictator. It's do what I say and only what I say, and then they don't adhere to the rules.

They do need to be held accountable, and that would be something that would be intelligent to go about. Last one. Is this really worth it? NBC Sports California with the A's announcer had a bad timing dissing Jose Siri. I'm assuming the Siri goes off on the phone. Is that my is that a fair assumption?

No, it's all on the diamond. Really? So it's that it's that like it's something cringe worthy? No, no, I mean, it's not necessarily cringe worthy, but it's certainly bad timing and it makes the announcer look very stupid.

OK, go ahead. Hey, Siri, it's not your night feeling. Mason Miller, I have some payback in his back pocket for what Siri did to the A's yesterday. One towards left field and the payback comes with the bat of Jose Siri. Next pitch.

Play it again. Siri, it's not your night feeling. Mason Miller, I have some payback in his back pocket for what Siri did to the A's yesterday.

One towards left field and the payback comes with the bat of Jose Siri. That's amazing. Now, there's some times and I thought it was because of obviously the last day being Siri that the series going to go off. They were talking about the phone, then would start saying things like there's been times I've been close to saying the word Siri. When I've been ranting like on the show, it didn't happen to my Rangers ran earlier. I lost my mind and I think I blacked out on the air. But there's been times where I've said something in the Siri starts popping up like there's once I was doing an interview on Zoom and I said something in the audio clicked out because right away it picked up the series. So that's what I thought it was going to be.

But you're throwing that line in there. Hey, Siri, it's not your night of them. Boom.

The big play happens. Hey, Siri. That's like the perfect material for for freezing cold takes.

All takes exposed. I will say this. Everyone in their car right now is freaking out because their phones are going off. Oh, Siri, Siri, Siri, Siri, Siri. Hey, Siri. Hey, Siri. This has been working on my phone like you would have thought that the fact that I just said, hey, Siri, my phone would recognize it. I don't know what it is. Siri's being stupid on my phone.

I just said yours did. Hey, Siri, it went off of my computer, not on my phone. Hey, Siri, you moron.

You there? Nothing. I guess my Siri doesn't like me anymore.

Maybe who's the moron now? It's maybe my series of Panthers fan and maybe it just won't talk to me until after the Rangers get eliminated. Maybe the series in protest. I didn't notice there's one cut on this sheet that you decided not to play. Which was that? Number 12, right before the A's. I don't see a cut 12.

That temple education that went from. Twelve, eleven to thirteen. I only count to eleven.

Yeah, it goes. Number ten, Charles Barkley. Number eleven, Steve Sarkeesian. Number thirteen was the A's announcer. Number twelve here says something like Anton Lundell.

Not sure. Anton Lundell. I believe he plays for the Florida Panthers. Maybe he did something last night.

I know we have Randy Moeller coming on from the Panthers at five twenty. Speaking of 1994. Oh, jeez. Stop.

Stop with the 1994 bowl bleep. Stop. All right, play the call. Play the call. See me. Be very upset. And you ruin my Friday, Samter, because you're a curmudgeon. Play the call.

Go ahead. Get out of your system. He whips it on. And a right-hand save made by Bobrovsky. And the rebound is taken out of harm's way. And then on for Lundell.

Left side of the circle. Lundell a shot. And he scores! Anton Lundell gives the Panthers their first lead of the night.

He lets it rip out of the left circle. It's 2-1 with 9.38 to play here in the third. You happy now?

You good? No, I mean, listen, you know, I'm a Rangers fan, sort of, too. You're not a Rangers fan. I mean, I grew up a Ranger. Remember that 94 that you were always talking about? I was actually alive for that.

I was 14 during the 94 run. I have not heard you utter one sentence about the Rangers all season. You claiming the Rangers now is a bit fugazi. I'm not claiming the Rangers. I'm just saying that my hockey fandom is the Rangers. I was a Rangers fan my whole life. I just don't follow hockey that much anymore. You're a Ranger fan your whole life, but you don't follow hockey. You know what, you die?

You're still alive, right? I'm talking to someone with the rules. Yeah, listen, I don't want to claim to be a Rangers honk because I just don't... I can't name more than five players on the team, so I'm not claiming the Rangers. I'm just saying that, like, if I were to pick a team, that's the Rangers.

That would be a fun segment. Back in 94, that was my team. How many hockey players can Samp their name? Period or on the Rangers?

No, on the Rangers. I can do a couple last names. Okay, go ahead. I know Shisterkin, I know Chris Kreider. Mm-hmm.

Panarin or Untemi? Mm-hmm. Okay. Is McDonough still on the team? Oh my God. He's been traded from Tampa Bay, then back to Tampa Bay. How about Joe Girardi? Is he still on the team?

Joe Girardi. He's intentionally being a jackass, Zach. I know. Yeah. Just had to point it out, though. Anyone else? Oh, no, no.

How about the guy that's been a big zero in this series? No, it's a Z. Is it Benajed? Yes, very good.

Okay. How about the big fella? I don't know who the big fella is, but I know LaFreniere. I don't know his first name, though. LaFreniere. Alexey LaFreniere.

There you go, that guy. You don't know Matt Rempe? Who?

No. That's honestly a name I've never heard in my entire life. Matt Rempe, if we stacked three of you together, you would be one Matt Rempe. Give me three other names. I'll see if I know them from you saying them. How about Adam Fox? The name sounds familiar, but I had no idea he'd be a Ranger.

Capo Caco. Now you're just making things up. Clearly made up. Now you're just looking up random letters and you're just throwing out words.

Filipino. Like, you're lying to me. You're just making stuff up. These aren't real people. Okay.

These aren't real people. Jimmy Vesey. Jimmy Vee? I mean, I love Jimmy Vee.

Okay. He was great. Big Ranger fan, though. You know, claims him. Here's the Zach Gelb show on the Infinity Sports Network.

Are the Celtics disrespectful? We'll talk about them next. Here is the back man.

What city is this one? Am I on? What show am I doing tonight?

Is it WIP? All right. Jody Mack with you. Jody Mack with you with your horse tickets and your cigarettes right here. Here he is, the act man. Rich actor man.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law. It's the most anticipated WNBA season in history. And you know what that means. Court is back in session. Welcome to Queens of the Court and Odyssey Original podcast. I'm your girl, Cheryl Swoop.

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He's just the head of Martin Truex Jr. with 487 points and Kyle Larson with 486. Real quickly before we get to the Celtics, because once you throw food in front of me, my mind just goes into the direction of what the heck I'm going to have for dinner. So I'm not doing anything tonight. This is an off night on a Friday for your boy Zach Gelb. I am chilling. I am laying low tonight. So that means to get this Rangers loss out of my system.

I kind of need like trying to use the appropriate term here. A pick me up. You know, something that you just eat your sorrows away. What is the perfect eat your sorrow away type of food tonight? You go dinner, you go dessert.

There's going to be a rotation here. I'm going to get dinner. I'm going to go get a dessert. So what do you want to go with?

There are two items, but I think they go perfectly together. Wings and pizza. Greasy, delicious, flavorful, do love wings, wings and pizza. You get like six or eight wings as an appetizer and a couple of pieces of pizza. The problem is this. It's tough to find good wings now in the city. The overall that's like the biggest thing I've noticed since the pandemic in my personal life. The subways have become a mess here in New York.

We're like there's actually violent things done in the subways and then finding good wings is is extremely tough to do. Still, what's the pick me up meal tonight? It's going to say pizza to lay in the couch type of night. Yeah, I was going to say pizza to buy the couch. I'll go with the dessert. How about some ice cream, like a nice ice cream sundae or something after you have the pizza in the wings? OK, I like that.

Well, see, that's a thing. Am I really going to go pizza, wings and ice cream? I got a suit fitting tomorrow.

I have to get up and do two hours at the gym instead of one. I could go a little soft served ice cream tonight, I think. I don't know what I'm going to do for dinner, though.

That's the problem. But I love soft serve ice cream and it is hot now in New York. So that kind of flows perfectly, I would say. So maybe I end up going soft serve ice cream. I could see myself doing like actually like a fat burger tonight where it's not healthy, but it's not like fully unhealthy. Like if I do like a hamburger with cheese, I could have a lot more gluttonous, disgusting things than that. Anywho, maybe I'll get a Wendy's burger. Maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll go to Wendy's.

Be a good company guy. Anyway, the Celtics. Do we feel like the Celtics are getting disrespected right now? That's my question, because I don't know what the the odds are for this series, but I'm just going off the feel of the commentary that I listen to.

And I think a lot of people are going to pick the Mavericks. I think we did this yesterday. Stu, you're on the Mavericks and Santer's on the Mavericks, right? No? We did this when Mike wasn't here.

We did this, I guess, Tuesday. Yeah, I'm anti-Mavericks in any possible way. I want a sweep.

I want a 30-point blowout. You just don't like Kyrie, I'm assuming? I can't stand Kyrie. I just, in general, just don't like the Mavericks.

Really? Yeah, I don't like the Mavericks even before. Even though I like Dirk, I never liked the Mavericks back in the day. Why?

I don't know. I've never liked the Mavericks. They're just one of the teams I've never liked. And having Kyrie on the team, who's one of my least favorite athletes in all the sports, definitely helps make me hate them more. And there's no reason for that animosity with the Mavericks outside that you've always not liked them? Dirk Nowitzki's one of my favorite players of all time.

I'm trying to remember if there was an impetus to it, but I can't think back and find anything. I've just never liked the Mavericks. I've never heard anyone have that take that as an East Coast guy that they can't stand the Dallas Mavericks. In football, if you said, let's say if Santer was a Giants fan, and he said, I don't like the Cowboys.

Okay, I can get that. But who was your bet? You're a Knicks fan, technically? Sonics. The Sonics from my team back in the day. Sean Kemp, Gary Payton, Detlef Schrempf, little Derek McKee, Sam, Sleepy Perkins, Nate McMillan.

Oh, yeah. So you are a Chiefs, Sonics. I trust me, I'm bizarre in my teams. Chiefs, Sonics, Yankee, Sun Devils.

Sun Devils, man. If you got dressed up in all those colors at once, you would look like you just went to a Grateful Dead show. I'm repping all four corners of the country.

I got Washington, I got Arizona, I got New York, and I got Kansas City. You would kind of look like the late, great, weird that we have to say it that way, Bill Walton when he would go to a Dead show. Where he dressed up in all the tie dye. You are the tie dye sports man.

That's what you are. I always liked the man. I love Cuban. I do like Cuban. I was a huge fan of Dirk. I love Luca. I'm not a fan. I used to be a fan of Kyrie. I had an Uncle Jucher, but I'm not a fan of Kyrie anymore.

I will say that I've rooted against Luca, even though I like him as a player, because somebody that I go to battle with about sports is a huge Luca hunk. Maybe. You might. Who? Well, I'm not going to say it. Why? Someone you go to battle with in sports is a huge Luca hunk. Why won't you say who the name is?

Why so protective on that? I'm not going to out my... Your friends? Do they work in this building? They may or may not have worked in this building. Oh, so is it Gottlieb? I'm not going to tell you who... It's Gottlieb. You used to produce Gottlieb. It had to be Gottlieb. I don't know if... I haven't talked to Gottlieb outside of the final four years. Is it Klug? I'm not telling you who it is.

So weird. I don't know what's weirder, him being a Mavericks hater, him not telling us who the name is. Anyway, though, to tie this together, I do think the Celtics are getting disrespected going into this. And I think the Celtics, right now, they're my pick to win the NBA Finals. I'm going to say they're going to win this in six games. But because the Celtics haven't given us a reason to have to praise them yet, because it's championship robust, and the first three series are really ho-hum and you knew that they were going to win, I don't think people are appreciating the Celtics and respecting the Celtics going in, because they're not like Minnesota, where it's pass-fail. The way to pass is to win the championship this year for Boston. And until they win that championship, I think people are going to disrespect them. I don't think that's necessarily unfair, but there are ways to acknowledge how great of a team they are, and still maybe have some skepticism that they may not get the job done, but I think they'll get the job done.

So I do believe Boston is getting disrespected. Well, take a break. I feel very weird after this segment. Samter's a Mavericks hater. Was not expecting that.

That was not in my bingo card. And then Samter goes back and forth with someone in sports, but he won't tell us who it is. Hmm. I got to know who Samter's talking to, because it's probably perceived to be someone that could maybe stab us in the back. Is it like an enemy? Is it a rival?

I don't know. Coming on back with Onside, Offside, it is Zach Gelb's show. All Star Closer, Kenley Jansen, we have a question. What's the best podcast of all time? Baseball isn't boring, baby. I'm Rob Bradford, and every single day I'm sitting down with the biggest names to show you this great game is the greatest game. It's my podcast. It's my passion. It's a cause I started more than two years ago. It is now the most prolific national daily baseball pod there is. Another fact, so jump aboard the BIB Express, follow and listen to Baseball Isn't Boring presented by Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.