A Celtics-OKC Panic Check, Plus the Towns/Porzingis Careers With Zach Lowe

27:36And it's just gotten super weird. So that's this other variable of this, but Boston, New York, amazing. All right. We were in full swing with the NBA playoffs and there is no better place to be part of the action than Fandle, America's number one sports book. If you think you know how everything's going to go down in these playoffs, you can do the Hump Day Parlay Profit Boosts weekly parlay specials tied to top point scorers, double doubles and more every Wednesday, it is your shot at a bigger payout at no extra cost. And don't forget about my Taylor fade on Wednesdays where I think we're doing SGA 30 plus points.

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29:26The original degree, cool rushes back, and it smells like victory for all of us. I think OKC should be more nervous than the Celtics, and here's why. That game yesterday, it reminded me a little of, I know we're not supposed to care, what's it called now, the Commissioner Cup? The Emirates, it's the Emirates, the Emirates Cup? Emirates Cup. And Milwaukee kind of kicked their ass in the last game. And it's like, this means nothing, but just something to file it away. I'm sure, by the way, I'm sure Milwaukee fans can look back at that and say to themselves today, we had a great, you know what? Great season.

30:04Great season. We won the Emirates Cup. Awesome season. Everything after that didn't matter. Put the banner up. But that game, there was a big bully on the other side. And then OKC fell behind. And it just became Shea. And is anybody else going to help me? and then nobody was helping him. And the game yesterday, which it felt like OKC was going to win for 44 minutes, and then Denver just hung around, they hung around, they hung around. And Jokic was, I mean, that was an all-timer from him. But as it got closer and closer, and it just became, Shea, anybody else? Is anybody else going to do anything?

30:40And they just seemed young. They got out-rebounded by 20. They got a really good Shea game. they got an unexpectedly good Caruso game. I mean, statistically. They got 20 points from Caruso, but they just gave up a monster Denver game. And Denver's down to five guys. And they're a little like the Knicks. They're like, here are five, and maybe we'll get 15 minutes out of Peyton Watson. Wait, are you counting Russ as the fifth or Porter Jr. I am, because I think Porter's legitimately hurt. People have been kind of talking about it and whispering about it. But I think Porter... I think his shoulder's fucked up.

31:17That he's wearing a football shoulder pad during games? Is that what gave it away? He's asking people after the games to help him take off his jersey. He's legitimately hurt, and I don't know what they can count on from him. So they're down to five, plus injured Porter, plus a whiff of Peyton Watson and a whiff of DeAndre Jordan, and that's their team, and they don't care. Julian Strother cameo last night. I got really excited. I was like, oh, they're going to give him a shot. Big three at the end. We didn't see him in the second. We didn't see him in the second half. Can I give you a crazy stat?

31:48What? The lineup, the Denver starting lineup with Russ in Michael Porter Jr.'s place is now plus 42 in 75 minutes in the playoffs and has attempted 31 more free throws than the opponent in those 75 minutes. That is like an insane free throw differential. And it has a 40 % offensive rebounding rate and like an 85 % defensive rebounding rate. So it's just pounding the crap out of other teams, getting to the line, winning on the boards. It's a monster number, that lineup, which is really shooting challenged. They found ways around it. I thought Russ was awesome as a cutter yesterday, which they're going to have to be on point on their cuts.

32:31But we got to talk. We got this discussion has to start with Mark Dagnall. It has to start with OKC blowing that game at the end, blowing a challenge, which I didn't mind so much. and screwing up the fouling up three strategy. They did it too early. And then when Jokic was out of the game and they could not bring him back into the game to bail Denver out with a foul up three with 10 seconds left. Took 0.1 seconds off the clock. And Jokic off the floor and give David Adelman a chance to bring Jokic back into the game. I wonder if Adelman with no timeouts takes Jokic out for defense. They screw up the out of bounds play anyway and Shea gets a dunk out of it to put Oklahoma City back up by three.

33:12I wonder if he thought, even if they score here, they're going to foul and I'm going to be able to bring Jokic back into the game. But I don't know if he was playing chess or if he made a mistake and the Thunder made an even worse mistake to bail him out of it. I hated that. I'm a foul up three guy, but not that early. Is there a support group for this? Do you have a club? Is there a Facebook group? I like it like eight seconds is about my marker where I'm like, I'm cool foul up three or if the offense just gives you a chance. They're dribbling around with their back to the basket and there's someone convenient to foul too early and not when the best player on the floor is out of the game.

33:50Like effectively played out of the game. I couldn't believe they fouled in that situation. I think Dagnall after the game said, that's my fault. I told him to foul. I took the blame for it. You left out one piece. They fouled the guy 70 feet from the basket. Why not let him dribble 40 feet, kill three seconds and then foul. So even as you're saying, no one came along for the ride with Shea. Chet misses two free throws, a putback dunk and a fast break dunk. J-Dub is five of 20 or whatever he ends up as. Was it five of 20? Even as you're saying that, they still had the game and they still blew the game with bad clock management.

34:27And like rare, you and I both think he's a top three coach in the NBA. Rare bad coaching game from Mark Dagnall. I was one of only two people out of 100 that voted him for best coach of the year. Have you found the other one yet? I'm not going to be bullied into group think votes. I thought the team won 68 games and was missing one of their two centers for half of the season. You got to find who the other one was and have a little... Why did we just decide it was Kenny Atkinson? I still don't understand that part. I thought there were cases for both sides. Because they won 64 games or whatever it was?

35:05His team was awesome. looked like a completely different. I think he looked like a completely different team stylistically. Because Darius Garland's face wasn't broken because Mobley's a year older because Mitchell re-signed and knew he was going to be there because Ty Jerome was awesome. Like, I don't know. Man, do you have a photo of Dagnall hanging up in that background somewhere? I do. I used to do this with Popovich too. I don't like for some reason, if you're too successful from a team standpoint, then you somehow get penalized as a coach. Like the sweet spot is there has to be a jump in wins from a year before to the year after.

35:41Like Imei Adoka got more votes than Dagbjell. Dagbjell won 68 games. They beat everybody. Anyway. And yet, what are we going to talk about now? Well, he screwed up. But it was a two-part screw-up. It's whether you foul with Jokic on the floor as one piece, but then the other piece is when you fouled. And that you didn't rip off. Foul him with six seconds left or seven seconds left. There were so many great things about that stretch down the, uh, the last three. Jokic, the bully ball jump hook on Caruso was just like, there's just nobody, nobody does that. There's nobody who's like, oh, you have this.

36:20I'm at the top of the key. I'm just going to work you down 15 feet and then scoring you. But then the other one, that three he hit over Hartenstein, um, the, where he was like doing the pump fake, faint, pump fake, faint. and Hardenstein's like, you know, he's what, 6 '11"? He didn't have like a huge margin of error and he just fucking drained it right in his face. Tough shot. And then the next play, they do the right thing. They triple team him. He finds Russ. Russ is open by 12 feet, misses. Gordon gets the rebound and somehow didn't score. And then it felt like OKC had the game and then of course they didn't.

36:59Well, Jokic has the same superpower as Brunson, just differently sized players, which is all these teams want to help. When you get deep into the paint, they want to save their help for late. And they are elite shooters from 11 to 13 feet, 11 to 15 feet, which is a very awkward spot on the floor. And that, that basket you mentioned over Caruso after they switched. I, one adjustment for the thunder, I think is you just got to help more aggressively and sooner. Just force him to force him to make that pass to Russ or Christian Brown or whoever, because he's going to make 60 % of those 12-foot shots.

37:33He doesn't see Alex Caruso. He feels him because you feel Alex Caruso, but he doesn't see him. But that's their superpower. They make those baskets one-on-one from a range where teams are not ready to just swarm yet. I think you've got to swarm. Swarm. That was Game 4 Clippers series Jokic in that game, too. He was an absolute animal. And that clip that went viral today of him just screaming at the entire huddle and everyone's just like staring at him like they're watching a UFO. Like he has complete command of the entire bench. I mean, 42 and 22 and six assists in a game. They put that list up of the guys who've done that.

38:14It was not a long list. It was all some of the best players in the history of the league. I felt like I've watched him do a, have a game like that 12 times this year. It wasn't like, it was like, whoa, this is a career game from Jokic. I was watching it going, I wonder what OKC's move is here because Chet, who I think is awesome, I think he's a top 20 trade asset, didn't seem big enough against him. And then Hartenstein. Well, he's not. I mean, we all knew that going in. No, he's not. He really felt it watching. I was very surprised that they started with Chet on Jokic and Hartenstein on Gordon.

38:51I thought they would go the other way around, obviously, like the true sort of what the Wolves did with Rudy Gobert, Hartenstein on Jokic and Chet kind of roving around. And they switched to that at various points during the game. I thought that would be their base defense. And that's one of the reasons I'm like a little, I'm not worried so far about either of the favorites, either of these two teams. But I felt like this series is more of an unknown because we've barely really seen the Oklahoma City two bigs against Jokic, Gordon, Nuggets. And this was much more of a not feel-out game, because the stakes are too high for a feel-out game, but there are too many levers left for everybody to pull in this series.

39:31But I thought that was interesting and surprising to me that that's the way they chose to match up. I get the theory of it. I would just rather have Holmgren's shot blocking lurking around, and he's too skinny for Jokic. Jokic is going to eat him up. What do you think about, do you think we'll see Dort mess around with Jokic and hoping to get the Jokic turnaround, elbow in the face, flagrant foul every game? he got elbowed in the face I am always sympathetic to big guys who get called for those fouls even just regular offensive because they're just they're just penalized for being tall yeah um I did not think this was going to be a series yeah you were adamant you were adamant I have text messages to prove it I just didn't think with five guys or five and a half or six whatever the depth that OKC has, it just seemed like a tall task.

40:26And then you watch OKC looking a little wide-eyed and young. And, you know, it's the mistake we always make with this stuff is forgetting the playoff experience piece. And they just don't have a lot of it. Like, who was the guy that showed up for OKC yesterday other than SJ? It was Caruso, who played in a bunch of big games, you know? So maybe this becomes a longer war because there's no way that Denver wins the first one. They'll win at least one in Denver, right? This is probably 2-2 after four. And this is going to keep going. And we'll see. We'll see, you know. A young OKC team. What do you got?

41:08Because we are now in real sphincter tightening time. Let's go. I picked Oklahoma City in six. Howard Beck picked Oklahoma City in seven oh I had five and well I mean both of us said Oklahoma City should win I just can't go shorter than six with Jokic like the Nuggets don't lose playoff series by wide margins if the team is healthy around Jokic if Murray and Porter are healthy around Jokic and so I went six out of sort of deference to Jokic because I do think Oklahoma City I'm talking to an empty chair what's up chair Oklahoma City is the better team the deeper team they have home court they're rested although not a good week for the team rest in rest versus rest but Jokic is Jokic like he's the best player he's going to be the best player and he was awesome last night he had enough help and just like look everyone's going to focus on the buzzer beater second buzzer not buzzer beater but almost buzzer beater Aaron Gordon has just become one of my favorite players in the NBA.

42:13This is like, we all talked for years about how miscast he was in Orlando, both by his own fault and the magic's fault and the supporting everything. This is one of those trades where like, he was born to play with Jokic. He was born to play this role. He should never leave. I think he knows he should never leave. It's just absolutely perfect. He's so goddamn I'm tough. Like he gets down inside and just beats the hell out of people. And he's patient and he pump fakes and he'll jump through you. And he's gotten so good at finishing tough shots around the rim. Seven offensive rebounds. Deke to Jalen Williams on a free throw offensive rebound, which is one of my favorite things that he does every once in a while.

42:56Just an awesome, awesome player. Awesome player. And I think somebody who takes real pride in being a champ and being part of something special. Because I could feel it in those Clipper games I went to where, especially game four, where him, Jokic, and Murray all had that attitude of we are not fucking going down. We are not losing this team. And you know who's becoming like that? Christian Brown. Just like, talk about a guy I all of a sudden trust in any big spot, even on threes. Only one of four from three last night. I don't mind when he shoots them. 13 rebounds, a couple big putbacks. He's just awesome.

43:36He's ready for all of it. I think this is an amazing story because they fired their coach with like a week to go in the season and their GM. And they basically, you're basically announcing, we don't like how this team was coached and we don't like how the roster was put together, which is usually insulting to about half of the roster, right? But somehow, I think during the course of that Clippers series, they found something, you know, but I look back at that series, like the Clippers should have won game one. They just threw it away in a bunch of ways. And then game four, they had it. They had it in the last minute.

44:12And it really felt like that series should have been at least three, won Clippers. And then the Nuggets flipped it. And by the end of it, then James Harden decided to become James Harden again. And that was that. But I feel like the Nuggets have found whatever identity. I also feel like watching Jokic last night, it really showed how well the Clippers were able to defend him those last couple games. Like Zubats has to be like, see, see how well I did? Like, look at all the stuff he's doing in this game. I was trying to hold him down. Same for Batum. But anyway, that was a nice little prepping for this OKC.

44:50That was a war. And by the end of it, they had really conquered that Clippers team. The OKC is minus 320 to win this series right now in FanDuel. and the Celtics are minus 370, which I think is notable. So they think, Fando and the betting community think Denver has a slightly better chance. There's more of a recipe, in my opinion, for them. The Celtics-Knicks thing seems to hinge more on injury stuff, health, can the five Knicks guys keep playing big minutes like this and seem as athletic and competent as they did last night. and the Denver one, this is more of a look in the mirror for OKC, it feels like.

45:33All right, you guys ready for this? Because this is a team that won the title two years ago that has the best player in the league and they are up for this. So what do you got? You don't see a lot of Thunder losses when they double up the other team in forced turnovers. Nuggets had 18 turnovers, Oklahoma City had nine. That's usually like Oklahoma City wins by 20. That's their formula. That's how they win. There are a couple of things I think they could do better. I don't think they punish Jokic enough defensively. And they let Michael Porter Jr. off the hook. If that dude's going to play, I'm going at him every single possession one way or another.

46:07And I don't think they did nearly enough. There's other things they can do. But, you know, I can't wait for... This was the series. I guess the common denominator is Denver. Denver's, like, always in the series that I'm most excited about. I think part of it is Jokic. Part of it is that they're sort of the basketball nerds team. and the Thunder are, you know, in a lot of ways a basketball nerds team as well. I cannot wait for game two of this series. It still feels like an unwrapped present. Like there's a lot of mystery to it. I can't wait for it. Well, we didn't even talk about the Westbrook piece yet.

46:37There's this great video. The Nuggets studio announcer is watching the Gordon three and they inbound the paw. They get the rebound. They throw it to Russ and Russ is dribbling over midcourt and all three guys are like, no, no, no, no, no. And then he passed it to Gordon and Gordon hit the three. But that's that Russ rollercoaster ride, especially like he is now prominently involved in this game and he's been really good for them. I got to hand it to him the last couple of games. The right amount of energy he hasn't done. A lot of I got this, it's like, okay, I guess I've got this shots, but not a lot of clear out.

47:14Guys, I figured it out. Even him passing to Gordon I thought was a win because two years ago I think he just tries to go to the basket. Well, Brown gets the rebound. and he has an immediate choice of, do I bring this up myself or do I kick it ahead to Russ on the wing? And I'm watching him like, I wonder what he's going to do here. And he kicks it ahead. Look, I talked a lot about Russ on my pod yesterday. I don't want to repeat it. The one thing I didn't say that has been different about him this playoffs versus last playoffs, and this is to your point about his steadiness. Defensively, he's not playing wild defense.

47:46And again, like last year, he was just gambling, doing crazy stuff flying all over the place. He's been doing his role, sticking to his guy, getting rebounds, but he's just been playing within himself on both ends of the floor, which for Russ is not an easy thing to do by his own admission. He's a force of nature, quote unquote, liable to do anything at any time, but he's been steady on defense. And I think that's all like a lot of it with Russ is eliminate the loudest mistakes, eliminate the loud gambles on defense that go bad, eliminate the loud misses at the rim when you fall over. And he's like kind of done that.

48:20he, Gordon hit the three and I don't know if you noticed in the video Russ like just screams like an absolute maniac, he wanted it so bad because you forget about the OKC piece where he's I would say the most popular popular player in franchise history even now, SGA is probably in the process of taking it but, and then he goes back against his whole team, like he's been on so many teams now, you forget that he kind of belongs to OKC. What's your favorite memory of him with the Wizards? Joe House, talking himself into him, I think was probably my favorite. It's more like a friend memory of Joe House being like, look, the guy plays hard every day and he's inspired Beal.

49:05I mean, what else do you want from me? So if you had to pick one team to lose and be upset between Boston and OKC, I'm telling you right now, I came from the future. I'm like, one of these two teams is going to lose. Who do you think it would be? I'm still going Boston just for the health uncertainty I would say OKC but maybe maybe I'm too optimistic on young Jason Tatum who I thought was awesome this year and I fully expect but man if OJ and Anobi is going to play like that alright taking one more break for the podcast and then we're going to do our Towns Porzingis thing I asked you because we've been doing deep dives on Tuesdays which was the original plan today before those two games were awesome and Towns is kind of unlike any other player in the history of basketball for what the perception of him is, what his career achievements are from an All-NBA, hasn't made the finals, two 13 All-NBAs, that's it.

50:02Seems like he's going to be second team this year. Pretty frustrating. I would say he's probably the Knicks fans probably have a love-hate relationship, just being kind. But then you see stuff like, all right, how many players in NBA history have averaged 24 and 11? And it's like Kareem, Wilt, Bob Pettit, George Mike, and Elgin Bauer, Towns, Embiid. And that's the entire list. What is this career? We've seen 10 years of it. What is it? It's a very strange career. It's been a different career in the playoffs than it is in the regular season. His playoff points per game is still only 19 points per game on average.

50:39It's a big drop. 19 and 10 in the playoffs. Yes. And but I will say he last season, I wrote a piece for ESPN about him after that Denver series about how he finally had sort of chilled out in the playoffs. And I think a lot of that has has somewhat persisted beyond that Denver series. And even in the first round last year of the Crush Phoenix with Minnesota Crush Phoenix, the crazy like hook pass turnovers to nobody are kind of gone from his game. his fouling got under control it's back a little out of control this playoffs he's just a really interesting player because the Timberwolves made a gigantic bet that we can't win big with Towns as a center defensively it's just never going to work and we're going to bet everything on it and we're going to get Rudy Gobert and then the Knicks bet not that much but a lot of salary cap space at least on actually we can win big with Carl Anthony Towns as a center.

51:40Now, maybe they planned on playing Mitchell Robinson with him much more than they have because of Mitchell Robinson's health injury. And so we've seen these, like, is cat a four? Is he a five? Do we still not even know what he is? If he is going to be your five, do you have to have the perfect ecosystem around it where teams can't do this thing where they guard him with a wing? Do you have to have just all incredible shooters around him? So they have to put their five on him and they, the Knicks can't get to that place as often as I think they would like. He's just a really, and the defensive limitations are still kind of as stark as ever, I think, for him.

52:11But offensively, the shooting is just incredible. He does have a case as the greatest long-range shooting big man of all time. He probably is. It's just the Knicks haven't been able to leverage that skill as much as I think they would have liked to. Tries really hard. He can get in little funks sometimes if he's not getting the ball. It's the one thing you could ding him on. If it's a game where he's a stretch five afterthought, he can get a little sulky. The fouls are still really bad. He, especially at the end of games, you know he's going to have one. You're just kind of waiting on it. I was looking up his playoff game log.

52:51In the last 18 playoff games he's played that finished in single figures, so we're assuming they're close or relatively close, he's had five or six fouls in 11 of the 18 games. So you know if it's a close series with a lot of up and down stuff, he's either going to foul out or be in foul trouble or be lingering around that... Is he going to be able to stay in this game for the last three minutes? His first few series, I remember writing about this, he had an alarming number of games, and even more if you include play-in games, which drives me nuts how the play-in games just vanish from basketball.

53:29I don't understand it. Let's make this our mission. Can you get off the... I look at his playoff Facebook group and we could start this instead. I can't find them, but he had like a lot of 11 points or under games. And part of it was foul trouble, just always getting taken on to the game. Part of it was there would just be these games where you could, it was this sort of push and pull of, are they not calling enough plays for him to get the ball? Or is he just like kind of passively accepting not getting the ball in a way we don't want our superstars to be. and he just doesn't get the ball. And you're like, why is he not getting the ball?

54:04It was a very strange and like that's gotten a little better, particularly last season. And I remember the Denver series, the Minnesota Denver series that Denver won in the first round going up 3-0. I thought in the middle of that series, he kind of figured out some stuff. And that's why you, even when a series is 3-0 and kind of boring, you still got to keep an eye on it because you never know. And like, I thought he kind of turned a little bit of a page in that series. Was that when he said afterwards that other than losing, what was his quote about other than we lost, I still thought we had the best team?

54:37I think he had some crazy. Remember that crazy quote? I feel like that wasn't him. What? I feel like that wasn't him. And I don't remember who it was, but that's the year that Jaden McDaniels punched a wall and Nas Reed was hurt. And they were kind of a mash unit. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you this. I probably gave up on him as somebody who could be part of a possible finals team two years ago after that five game Denver series. And then last year, clearly there was more there. And the fact that Edwards was so high on him and really seems invested in building him up and trying to turn him into somebody special and a running mate like that, that wasn't nothing.

55:17I do think the Knicks traded for him partly because they didn't have a center and they had this window after the Bridges trade and they had no idea when Robinson was coming back and they had no idea if Randall could play with those two wings. And it was a little bit of a fuck it trade combined with, we know this guy because Wes was with them in Kentucky and, you know, it was a little bit of a roll of the dice. I think it's, I think it's turned out about as well as you can, you could have guessed, right? For, for what their options were in September, not knowing if Mitchell Robinson was even going to play 40 games and who else was out there.

55:52We just saw Phoenix, like got completely submarine by the fact that it's hard to find a center among many other reasons. So I think the trade was a success. I still wonder, is there another level for him or is this it? It feels like this is it. Year 10. I don't like, do you see him becoming all of a sudden the most imposing guy in the Celtics series? I don't. I think we are where we are. yeah I don't you know I mean defensively it I I don't think much of a leap is ever going to come I think he just is what he is defensively which is a liability on the pick and roll and someone that you've got to kind of scheme around offensively it just sort of like if the team context were ever perfect around him I I could see him becoming like a a like a oh my god what am I supposed to do here kind of force but it just yeah so what kind of team is that it's never going to if like Josh Hart could shoot threes and to a point where people guarded him like but no one that that context is never going to exist if he were Porzingis on Boston surrounded by Derek White Drew Holiday Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown he would be unguardable because you would have no choice but to put your five on him which is why Porzingis lives such a great life when he plays in Boston, but that's a very hard needle to thread and neither Minnesota nor New York have been able to thread it quite yet.

57:15Can you remember another player since you've been covering the league that people seem to be more out on, but in on at the same time where people he's frustrating, but everybody seems to think he's a good guy. Usually you'll get like when somebody is polarizing or up and down, or maybe I can't trust this guy in a playoff series. There's some character stuff you hear about. I don't really hear, like everybody seems to like Towns and be rooting for him, but at the same time, they don't really trust him to come through in a series. I just can't think of other guys like that. I'm racking my brain.

57:53It's unusual, right? He occupies this, he was the number one pick in the draft. And I went, we're going to talk about the draft quickly. Like if you did the draft over again, either he or Booker would be the number one pick, right? Yeah. The, uh, the two to 13 span of that draft is rough. Unbelievable. So that draft for people who don't remember it, Towns is one. If you're, if you're going tears for the redraft, Towns and Booker, who would you have Booker Towns? If you, if you could go back in a time machine and pick I'm like, I'm a big Booker guy. Yeah. I think it's probably Booker. I would take Booker.

58:31It's So 1A, 1B though, at least. Yeah, I'm happy with either, but I like Booker. Then the next two picks are Porzingis and Myles Turner. Porzingis went fourth, Turner went 11th. And then if you're thinking next four picks just for what the career success was, Norman Powell, number 46, Bobby Portis, 22, D 'Angelo Russell, number two, and Terry Rozier, number 16. So we've just immediately gotten walkier than wonky. And then after that, guys who played were Oubre at 15, Richardson at 40. Looney at 30. Nance, 27. Lyle's 12. And campaign, 14. And then there was a Justice Winslow at 10 that I want to talk about.

59:10But the bus you mentioned. Of course you want to talk about Justice Winslow. That's a big one for you. That's the sliding doors of the last 10 years of the Celtics. The bus. Jaleel Okafor, third. Marazonia, fifth. Colley Stein, sixth. Moody, seventh. Stanley Johnson, eight. Frank Kaminsky, nine. Wow. Five through nine are out of the NBA. And have been... Five through ten. I mean, you have six, I would say, busts and seven picks. And you also have Danny Ainge frantically offering all his picks because he loves Justice Winslow. To Miami at eight, they hang up on him. And then Charlotte at nine. And I think it was like three or four picks.

59:56And I think at least one of the Brooklyn picks was in that. So that's basically Brown or Tatum. It's just not on the team. If Michael Jordan says, wait, you're giving me four picks? I guess I don't have to take Frank Kaminsky, right? Not Stanley Johnson, it was Detroit, not Miami. And then Miami's at 10 and they're like, fuck you, we're taking Justice Winslow. This is one of the weirdest drafts of the last 20 years. Looking back. Well, in Detroit, the debate for Detroit was, and this is one of those things that I learned afterwards, I actually believe it's true. It's not just spin. because it's actually more embarrassing for them.

1:00:29It was Stanley Johnson or Devin Booker was their draft room debate. And they chose Stanley Johnson. And it was either the year before or the year after. It was Luke Kennard versus Donovan Mitchell. And they chose Luke Kennard. Remember Denver traded the Donovan Mitchell pick to trade down? And it's one of many... You go back and look at Denver's management of first round picks from like 2013 until now. Because it was Gobert too, right? Yeah, it was Gobert's out. But took Jokic. they dumped a pick to get rid of Farid they dumped a pick to get rid of Nurkic it's not awesome but when you get Jokic when you get Jokic at number 42 or wherever that was so yeah so Porzingis was fourth and he was the third best guy in this draft and he's another one like for his career he's 20 and 8 he's 46, 37, 83 for the percentages which is fairly close to Towns he's missed 218 games and played 501 last four years he's missed 31 17 25 and 42 and he's hurt again and he turns 30 in august and next year he's a 30.7 million dollar expiring and a lot of people have been talking about how this celtics team is not going to look the same next year because i liked how that became a big story this week was like i thought we've already been talking about this for like 18 months six story yeah this is part of the sale the whole thing um i would say poor zingas would be if this is the final run for him and he gets traded in the off season.

1:01:55Um, and he'll be a cult hero in Boston forever. Um, I also think it might be hard to trade him because this first second apron and nobody has cap space. And when people say like, Oh yeah, they'll just trade one of those guys. It's like, where nobody has cap space. You're just getting back a salary that then makes as much money as the guy you're trading. But you got a window, you got a window when the off season starts where the apron situation at least becomes more palatable for a lot of different teams. Right. But there's still, if the goal is to save luxury tax money, there's no like Chris Paul, his contract expires on June 30th and you can trade it, trade for it and then waive it.

1:02:32I don't think there's a guy like that this year. So they're looking at stuff like John Collins on Utah for Porzingis. Utah wanted to get Porzingis two summers ago and they weren't able to get him. well that would save the Celtics 4 million plus all the tax stuff that comes with the 4 million so that's God only knows and now you have John Collins instead of Porzingis and you're not the same team there'd be no cookies and cream cookies and cream you're looking at what the Lakers want to do ruining Maxi Klebo's expiring I'm just saying this is way harder than I think people realize not to mention he's been hurt and I think he's probably be on the team.

1:03:13When you think of him though, because we were doing the whole unicorn, that was a whole narrative with him and Giannis and some others in 2017. Is his career slightly better than you thought, slightly more disappointing than you thought, or right around the same? It's way more disappointing, but mostly just because he's injured so often. I mean, I think back to, I remember vividly when he got traded to Dallas, how most of the reaction, and part of it was Knicks fans had grown so attached to him. Finally, we have a homegrown player, a homegrown star that we can build around. We nailed this pick.

1:03:45He does all these crazy stuff. Durant calls him the unicorn. Then he gets injured. Then he gets traded. But the reaction was fury, fury from Knicks fans that they gave up on him so early and got what looked like so little in return. And of course, Dallas has to go and trade him for Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans a couple of years later. But there's always these windows, right? There was the bubble playoffs where for a little bit, he and Luka look legitimately like, oh, I get this. This is dangerous. This is a really dangerous point forward-center combination. And then injuries undo that, and you get straighted.

1:04:19Then Boston, perfect complement. Team raises to another level when he's out there. He was the superpower. He's just not out there enough. And even the finals last year, he plays game one. When you say cold hero, it's about game one and game five of the finals. Game one, he comes out like a house of fire. Post up, post up, three, block, chase down, block, post up. Then he gets injured. Then he comes back for the clincher and plays like, okay, the emotional lift. He comes out of the tunnel. A couple of big plays. And now we don't, I mean, I don't know. Do you know? I don't know. Did they say anything after the game?

1:04:55I don't even know what the illness is. It's been tight-lipped. I've never gotten an answer on it. So it seems like the legs were covered, although I don't love the way he's moving. I thought there was that one play when Josh Hart was under the basket around him and Porzingis just like misread it and he stumbled in a way that I was like, it's usually he's not stumbling like that. Yeah, I think his rim protection has been largely consistent even when his shot is not there. Yeah, that was weird. Because in the Orlando series, I think it was game two, even though he didn't make a shot for three games.

1:05:27he still really impacted one of the first two games i think it was game two and he looked like poor zingas defensively and it's like all right the shot's gonna come this guy's a 40 percent three-point shooter the guy yesterday uh i guess we'll find out but you know it just has this dramatic effect on everything because now horford has to play more now your rotation shorter now you're really relying on sam hauser who of course sprains his ankle um but it messes you next who's your next guy in line if they have to go deeper into their rotation beyond the regular rotation who's the guy you trust the most out of the next group of guys well there's going to be more cornet i'll tell you man luke cornet's good the guy's a good basketball player i think it's i think it's as simple as that i think it's he played 17 minutes yesterday nobody else but that's i'm asking you if forced and you've got to go beyond the cornet pritchard hauser horford like i just got to steal minutes.

1:06:22Are we dusting off Torrey Craig? Who do you actually trust? Shireman? No, I don't trust Shireman. Torrey Craig? I mean, played a little and then we haven't seen him. And I'm not really sure why. Maybe he just didn't crack. We only had five playoff games, six playoff games, but I guess it would be Torrey Craig? It's whoever you don't want the Knicks to just be like, oh, this guy's in. Like, Shireman comes in, the Knicks are going to be like, let's just get him in a pick and rolls and get Brunson on him and let's go. Kata? Kata time? Maybe a Kata versus Mitchell Robinson. I'll tell you. Mitchell Robinson's out there.

1:07:01Maybe you Kata it up. I swear to God, this is true. In my notes, I have a whole sheet of notes previewing Nick Celtics. I had a little thing in the margins and I looked at it while I was podcasting with Howard. I was like, you know what? We're running out of time. This is too crazy to say. I didn't mind the precious Achua minutes in that. I game, if we're talking about guys who don't play and I think could have a role to play in this series, if you're going to switch, that's one thing he can do. I know he was only in because they had foul emergencies and Mitchell Robinson can only play so many minutes.

1:07:35I actually liked his minutes and it's in my notes like, hey, maybe he's a guy who can play in this series. I wonder if Tibbs goes back to him at any point to try to steal some minutes. What do you think the Knicks' ultimate goal is in this series? I think it would be can we just get the Celtics to play one-on-one basketball and have as many people as possible playing many minutes as possible where we're not just getting torched playing one-on-one defense. So if that's the case, then that means Precious would play more, I would think. Maybe. I mean, I think their goal, their goal is not what happened yesterday.

1:08:10They are not going to be able to win if Boston takes 63s, even if I think that's too many and you probably think that's too many. Although ironically, when they finally went to the rim late in the game, instead of kicking out for an open three, Jalen Brown missed at the rim. It's like, this is why they don't go to the rim, I guess, because the kickout was there. I think every team's goal is try to sucker Boston into Tatum and Brown taking a bunch of 18-footers and just bog down the offense. Don't let them run. Don't let them get the blender going. It's just much easier said than done. Orlando did a pretty good job of it.

1:08:44They have better personnel for it than the Knicks do. But I think that's every team's goal. Well, it's weird to me that the Celtics don't look at the metrics of when they walk it up like that, when you can feel the pace go away from the game and how it just seems like it's bad for them. I mean, I'm sure they do. Joe Mazzula is a very smart coach. Their staff is very smart. But he's not on the sidelines going, push it, push it, stop walking it up. You want him to do the Spoh arm wave? Spoh is the best arm wave in the NBA. So it starts and ends with Spoh. Who is the worst arm wave?

1:09:17I was going to say Doc but Doc will get out of his crouch and throw an arm wave in there every once in a while I don't see Ty Lue do a lot of arm waving Ty Lue poor Ty Lue how many times do you think he's just been staring out at the ocean or wherever he lives just thinking of I can't believe James Harden tricked me I can't believe I bought in I can't believe I believed Why didn't I listen to all the people in my life who have coached him or played with him? Why? Why did I trust this? I can't. It's just, I don't know. It was not good. It was not good. Well, you talked about, you always talk about the Doc face.

1:09:57Yeah. In some of the playoff games where it'll cut to Doc and Doc just has that frozen look like, oh God. I always say his face looks so tight that it looks like his skin is going to crack open into pieces. Harden, it's tougher because he's got the beard. It's more of like a Harden demeanor where he's just like, look, man, I'm just, I am not going to shoot. I'm not going to look toward the rim. We don't need to do it. I know. It's over. It's over. There's no debating left anymore. Just keep waiting. We've closed it. Last take. That'd be a good new show. Last take. Just everyone looking at each other like, uh-huh, yeah.

1:10:41Last take.

1:11:11So Porzingis, a lot less to discuss, but how long do you think he's, is he playing when he's 35? I would, I mean, I would, what is he now? He's going to be 30 this season. I would say no, but I mean, I would generally. I worry about these tall dudes, man. It's not, the history's not great. Like the people like Kareem, you know, are real outliers when you compare them to some of the other people we've had. The Ralph Sampson. I mean, even somebody like Embiid. It's just that you see them in person. It's just a lot of legs. You mentioned Embiid. I've listened to part of you and Ryan from Sunday. When did you?

1:11:54It must be toward the end when you bring up Embiid to the Lakers. You're going to have to take me through this one. You got aggregated. There was really an Embiid to the Lakers? You know what I was doing? I was aggregating, aggregation hunting. I was trying to get aggregators in a switch so I could go one-on-one. What was the trade? We were just talking about if the Lakers, obviously they need to find a center, right? There's not a lot of centers. So you could talk yourself into the Quinn Capella type of guy or you could be like, well, fuck it. LeBron's 41. Let's take a swing. Could we talk Philly into, here's a bunch of expirings and here's a first round pick and maybe a conditional one more first round pick and we'll take your Embiid problem and we'll be the ones that has our fingers crossed that he's ever going to play again.

1:12:41And you guys can just get out of this. You'll draft. You know, you're hopefully have a top five pick if the lottery works out your way. And by the way, the Bruins yesterday in the NHL lottery, Zach, fifth pick, supposed to be, they were in the fifth spot. Worst case scenario, they could move back two spots. Two teams jumped up and finished seventh. It was the Phillies' Sixers scenario. I thought the Bruins were good. Are they not good anymore? They were bad last year. Yeah. Okay. So they had the, you know, the worst case scenario happen. And it just made me think of Philly. Like, this is it. Two teams jumping Philly and they dropped to seven and OKC gets that pick.

1:13:17Is Cam Neely still involved? He's a little involved, yeah. I, man, you throw me on Sega Genesis 1993-94. Oh, that was your guy? Cam Neely and Ray Bork. I was smoking people. Very fun teams, the 93-94. I would always trade for Peter Klima just to give them one more wing. In the NHL 94, yeah, I'd always try to cheat. Craig Janney taking face-offs. So you think Embiid has zero trade value? It was just the thought bubble for the Lakers. No, it's interesting. So I was thinking if Daryl Morey made that trade, like if they got expirings and an asset, you said a first-round pick, right? Like they're not getting Reeves.

1:13:55They're not getting Reeves, right? Like just a pick. Um, what would the reaction be in Philly? And would, would Daryl, Daryl would have to have the courage to say, if he gets healthy, I'm going to look like an idiot. Yeah. My basketball hoop just fell back there. Uh, but I'm looking like 51, 55, 59, 64,$69 million player option in 2029. I think you'd have to do that trade if you were Philly and it were offered to you. Yeah. But what about the Lakers? You know, I shouldn't say that so flippantly. Oh, I'm going to say it flippantly. You do that trade. You get out of that contract. Because we all know how great he is, but the evidence just is what he is, and it's so long.

1:14:38It just goes on forever now. I think you'd probably have to do it. And would the fans riot? Or are the fans at this point like whatever? We've seen enough of the whole thing. I think the fans would be okay. That would be my guess. Don't you think? Yeah, it's just like I guess we're going Maxie McCain and you know, you got to keep, you better, better do well in the lottery this year. Better do, better not have the scenario you just laid out. By the way, I can't wait for the lottery. That's going to be an exciting lottery. Every lottery is exciting. This is a good one. Well, we had, it's an insane group of guys in the lottery.

1:15:10And then there's a couple of teams that have been completely irrelevant forever. Right. And Charlotte or Washington gets flagged and it's like that. Nobody's thought about those teams for a hundred years. I can't, I can't, I got to say, I got to admit it. I spent my daughter's swim practice last night. I was the carpool guy last night. And when I'm the carpool guy, there's a little conference room. Solid carpool guy. I've heard that about you. I'm a great carpool guy. Snacks. It's like a party back there. But I spend the practice, and there's a conference room with Wi-Fi. I watched a solid 30 minutes of Ace Bailey tape.

1:15:44I was like, I got to see what everyone's talking about with Ace Bailey. It's a very exciting lottery with the Philly subplot, with Houston getting Phoenix's pick. Lots of stuff going on in the lottery. Ace Bailey is a little unicorn-y with just how unusual of a prospect he is, where he's like 6 '9", 100 pounds, and is just this crazy one-on-one player. I've just started getting the lottery. I'm trying to figure out how Rutgers was an NIT team with two of the top three players in a loaded draft. That gives me the little Ben Simmons retro, like, huh, why are we so sure Ben Simmons is this good when LSU didn't make the tournament?

1:16:23How about Markel Fultz? it's another one what was he like 10 and they went like 12 and 20 when he was there i mean i don't know like you have two of those guys and you can't you can't be like a 500 team so that that part makes me nervous flag's gonna be unbelievable um the okc part's the biggest in a weird way the biggest part of the lottery though if they get just the seventh pick with all the other assets they have what they steal it from philly what's the what's the uh i watched some film on Malawatch and Knipple? Is it Knipple? What's the... Those guys, like, I don't watch any college basketball.

1:17:02What's the book on Knipple? What are we thinking? Oh, I'm already locked in. He's going to go five spots too late and he's going to be a good rotation guy. He's a pretty good athlete with the ball. Russo's been on him from the get-go. He's a pretty good athlete with the ball. I guess the concern is just laterally, can he slide his feet on defense? But he's got a little shit to him. People are going to talk themselves out of him and then he's going to be just... He's one of those guys. You're going to put him in NBA games and be like, oh yeah, this guy belongs. So Duke started how many lottery picks?

1:17:33At least three lottery picks? Well, the seven foot two kid... Malawaj. He's gigantic. I don't know if anyone knows what to make of him as a prospect. You could tell me he could go in the top seven. I wouldn't be shocked. That's the thing. I think when we get closer to the draft, I do think there's going to be some moves. But yeah, they had a bunch of... That's why it was so devastating when they couldn't pull it off because it seemed like they had by far the most talented team. And sometimes that doesn't matter in college basketball. But yeah, this lottery... I'm glad this is rare for you to study draft tape.

1:18:06Well, because I'm going to the lottery next week in Chicago. And... For some reason, you've always loved the lottery. Because it's ridiculous. It's completely ridiculous that I can't, it's intoxicating that all these brainiacs come in this room. They've devoted their entire lives to getting an edge in this competitive business. And they're at the mercy of this stupid freaking machine that's spitting balls around like it's the local news lottery. It's the stupidest thing slash most awesome thing in sports. But I just was like, I got to get a little familiar with who's going to be on the board. That's all.

1:18:41I thought you were going to miss the lottery with your sprained MCL. So you're going to play. I'm good. I'm going to gut through it. That was a LeBron joke. He missed the Met Gala yesterday because he's sprained MCL. Yeah. I was also wondering if he was going to be at the Met Gala. You know what the NHL did yesterday? They did the lottery like it wasn't done and then they announced the cards. They just did it live, almost like mid-80s David Stern style. I was wondering if the NBA would ever want to do that. just make it a longer show like actually bring the fucking ping pong balls out just do it that way why wouldn't they do it that way so they broadcast the actual lottery afterwards like right when the show ends they do I think I don't know why I think it's out of I think the TV partners prefer the show it's I don't know why I don't know why I think I would want to see the ping pong balls and the guys reacting there is something about a guy being on stage on national television having his heart ripped out that is just pretty good television.

1:19:49It's pretty great. Unless it's ML Carr in 1997 with the frozen face smile. Jerry, was it Jerry West in 2003 for the Grizzlies? I mean, a top seven what if in the history of the league because they lost the pick completely and then it went to Detroit who then screwed the pickup regardless. But yeah, that could have and LeBron and Memphis. I don't know what happens to Cleveland at that point. I guess maybe they take Carmelo. Yeah, that's, that's a, there's sliding doors all over. Yeah, now we're going. Now, your next podcast is going to be Thursday. Thursday morning. So we come off these two games on Wednesday night.

1:20:28Oh yeah. We'll see what happens. Zach Lowe, thanks for joining us. Thanks to everybody who joined in on the YouTube live feed. And thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. all right that's it for the podcast thanks to zach and gahau and eduardo thanks to everybody at the rewatchables crew who put up our uh three and a half hour star wars podcast go check that out on the spotify video feed or on ringer movies where you can watch all both parts all at once on on youtube but don't forget celtic city we did not have a new episode this week because the series concluded but um now you can binge all of them so go check out max for celtic city i will be back on this podcast on Thursday.

1:21:12Hopefully the Celtics show up on Wednesday. We will see until Thursday.

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