Shedeur’s Slide, NFL Draft Takes, a Nuggets Code Red and Brunson Goes Villain

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons reacts to the NFL Draft before being joined by Steve Ceruti and Van Lathan (2:08). Then, Chris Ryan and Rob Mahoney hops on to talk Thunder-Grizzlies, Nuggets-Clippers, and other NBA playoffs matchups (48:55). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Chris Ryan, Rob Mahoney and Van Lathan Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Steve Ceruti #ULTRACourtside could get you closer to the game! michelobultra.com/courtside ENJOY RESPONSIBLY ©️ 2025 ANHEUSER-BUSCH, MICHELOB ULTRA®️ LIGHT BEER, ST. LOUIS, MO. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  You're listening to the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by Fanduel. Fanduel has made it easier than ever to see how your bets are doing without even opening the app. Now you can get the latest updates, follow along in real time directly from your phone's lock screen. Yeah, or Apple Watch, no login required. Just head to your My Bets page to turn it on. If you don't already have it, download the Fanduel Sportsbook app today to get in on the action. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. And listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem? Call 880-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com.

• 0:43Bill Simmons?

  Coming up, NFL Draft, NBA Playoffs. Yeah, what a night. It's all next. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. Uber Eats is delivering deals every game day. This week, get 10 free boneless wings from Wingstop on qualifying orders. Game on, flavor on, Wingstop is here. So if your fantasy league is coming over for some in-person smack talk, order Wingstop on Uber Eats and get 10 boneless wings free. It's the perfect way to keep everyone fed tonight so you can focus on the game. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score a great deal. Order now and get 10 boneless wings free from Wingstop, only on Uber Eats. Offer valid from September 14th to September 27th and from November 2nd to November 16th. Order minimum before taxes and fees is required.

• 1:28Bill Simmons?

  See retailer storefront for details. Taxes, fees, and terms apply. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. Also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. We put up a ton of NFL coverage podcasts. We did a live show with McShay. McShay's got the newsletter. We got theringer.com. We have our final draft guide with all the grades. Everything's, everything's happening in The Ringer NFL Draft Show. McShay's show, Russillo's tomorrow.

• 1:59Bill Simmons?

  Go check out all of it. I did some NFL draft here at the top. I gave my thoughts and just randomly, Sarudy and Van joined and we talked about Sanders and Dart. So we talked a lot of NFL draft at the top. And then Mahoney, Rob Mahoney and Chris Ryan came on to talk about all the basketball that happened today, too. It was an incredible, incredible sports night trying to follow everything. The games could have been better, but just in general, Thursday, the last Thursday in April. Always a winner. We're gonna talk about all of it next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

• 2:59Bill Simmons?

  All right. So we just watched the NFL draft and three basketball playoff games all at the same time. It was really great. And I wrote down a bunch of notes for the NFL draft because anyone I wanted to have with me in this first segment is all doing another pod for the Ringer. So you know what? I'm in a solo. I'm a pro. I can do it. But I did have some thoughts. First of all, the Jaguars trading the second pick to pick Travis Hunter, which was somehow another devastating Patriots moment. I had already mourned the fact that we screwed up week 18. We screwed up our chance to have a top pick and to trade down and get all this stuff. And then the Browns had the second pick. They get number five, a second, a fourth and a 2026 for Hunter. And I just, I almost started drinking, but I knew I had a podcast.

• 3:45Bill Simmons?

  It's always disorienting when the Browns do something smart. That was one of my first takeaways from this because it's just that usually the Browns lose a trade like this. I thought this was insane by the Jaguars. I know everyone thinks Travis Hunter is a one on one, all that stuff. But I just don't think you trade huge packages like this unless you're getting a quarterback. I think the Browns were thinking the same thing any of us would think if we were in this situation. When in doubt, trade with the Khan family. I think they've become like Vivek and the Kings in the NBA. I think the Khan and the Jaguars, I think that whole family is the same way. It's like, cool, they're gonna overpay for second pick. We can move down three spots, take Mason Graham, get a first round pick, get a second, get a fourth. Sure, let's do that.

• 4:30Bill Simmons?

  One of the cool things, though, ESPN covered this in the moment. Like, Cam Ward was getting picked. I think he was even going up to the podium and Schefter came right in and was like, we had a trade. Blah, blah, blah. I think with the NBA, they, they always like kind of wait. You find out the trade happened on Twitter before anything happens. And then I liked how it felt like it was part of the action. They announced the trade when they did the pick. This isn't hard, NBA. Just get this shit together. I guess the, the positive for Jacksonville, if there is a positive for overpaying for Travis Hunter, when we've never seen anybody be able to play both sides of the ball anymore. And I can't wait to watch because this can be super fun. They're probably like a top seven or top eight.

• 5:13Bill Simmons?

  I'm at least intrigued to see what's going on on the multi-view with them for the first four weeks of the season with Hunter and with Brian Thomas Jr., who I loved watching last year. But the big thing I was thinking with is those London games, which they always suck when the Jaguars are involved. And now it's like Travis Hunter is in the London games for the next couple of years. That's a bonus. That's, that's worth getting up at 6:30 in the morning in the Pacific Coast. Be like, all right, let's watch Travis Hunter. Maybe he'll play D back and receiver the whole game.

• 5:45Bill Simmons?

  The big thing for me, though, once again, they've overpaid to get Trevor Lawrence some toys. So they've spent money on Christian Kirk, Calvin Ridley, Evan Ingram, right? Big money on Christian Kirk. That was a much maligned signing back in the day. They drafted Michael Thomas with a first round pick. That was smart. They drafted Travis Etienne.

• 6:08Bill Simmons?

  25th in the first round, I think the same year they picked Lawrence. And then they paid Lawrence huge money. It just seems like they're constantly trying to throw assets at him, hoping he's good. And the thing is, he might not be good. So we'll see, but at least, uh, at least the London games will be fun. But I thought that was a good trade for the Browns. Uh, next thing, so Shador Sanders, it, you know, this just kept going. For weeks and weeks, I'm, I'm not, I'm not throwing darts because I certainly talked about it on my podcast a couple of times. It was weird to think that he wasn't going to go in the first round in a league where it feels like

• 6:49Bill Simmons?

  a third of the teams always need a quarterback when teams who were drafting in this first round needed a quarterback. The Giants passed on him twice. They haven't had a quarterback since Eli retired.

• 7:00Bill Simmons?

  Mel Kiper just felt, he just had, I'm going down with the, the ship energy. Most of the mock draft guys just, they didn't think Sanders should be a top 20 pick, including, um, Todd McShay, the Ringer draft guys that we have. And, uh, and Kuiper was just, I, I guess like if Sanders turns out to be an awesome pro, this would be great for Kuiper. But, you know, I was going nuts the year Lamar fell because the Pats had a chance to get him and, um, you know, and, and it just, with, with Brady's advancing age, it just seemed like a no brainer. But in that case, it seemed really crazy that Lamar was falling with how talented he was in college and how he was clearly something.

• 7:41Bill Simmons?

  Everybody has picked apart Sanders to the point that I don't even know what to think anymore. So maybe he ends up in Cleveland tomorrow by the time you hear this. And if that happens in Cleveland, we thought maybe we could take him at two and they get him at 33. They desperately need a quarterback. That's a really fun outcome. He got, this is great for, I was thinking, this is great for us. This is just great content, right? I root for content sometimes. Sanders chip on his shoulder now. Everyone pass me. This becomes Aaron Rodgers 2.0 if he can ever be even half as good as Aaron Rodgers. We get to argue about the Giants trade back in and they take Jackson Dart. Right. They pass on Sanders. That's going to be fun to monitor.

• 8:25Bill Simmons?

  I feel like there's going to be some incredible sports media stuff that happens over the next two weeks. You can kind of read between the lines on what some of the angles will be. I think people will disgrace themselves. I can't wait. And it's going to be hilarious if Sanders actually ends up being much better than the Jackson Dart. But I don't, I think the thing, the legacy today was neither of those guys are even that good that people were able to get that wound up about it. But maybe, um, maybe tomorrow. But look, this is like, I root for, I root for as many good movies as possible. I root for as many good TV shows as possible. I root for as many good point guards as possible.

• 9:05Bill Simmons?

  And I root for as many good quarterbacks as possible because I like watching football for 11 hours a day on Sunday. And over and over again, we have too many shitty quarterbacks. And I hope Shador Sanders is good because we need more quarterbacks, but we'll see. Hopefully he goes to Cleveland or a team that needs him and he gets to play. And we'll find out why he dropped to 33. Another angle, Kim Ward. Poor guy goes number one. Usually that's like, I can't, we're talking about him constantly. Oh my God, what do you think? How good can you be? What's the ceiling? Can he turn Tennessee around right now? Nobody, there were no Kim Ward conversations. I think I did multiple draft podcasts. I don't even remember talking about him. He goes number one, gets immediately overshadowed by this Travis Hunter trade.

• 9:50Bill Simmons?

  Then there's the Sanders is falling drama that just over overtakes everything. And then the Giants take Abdul Carter, but then they trade back for Jackson Dart. So once again, we're not talking about Kim Ward and plus he's on Tennessee. A team that's not very good.

• 10:07Bill Simmons?

  And a weird start to your career, but hey, good for you, Kim Ward. I have no idea if you're going to be good. It's see there, I was reading some stuff where people thought maybe he would have been the fifth or sixth quarterback last year. And instead he goes one this year. We'll see. My guy, Will Campbell, who I talked myself into officially today, I did a YouTube short. Look, the passing to your left tackle, this was the case I made in the YouTube short. If you, if they're picking eighth, I would have been delighted to get them. And if you look at how the draft broke down, we had tackles taken four, Membau to the Jets at seven, Banks went to the Saints at nine, nobody thought Banks was gonna go in the top 10. Well, he did because everybody wants fucking left tackle. And that was why Will Campbell had to be four.

• 10:49Bill Simmons?

  And the analogy I made was in 2016, the Celtics took Jalen Brown because Danny Ainge felt like the league was moving toward wings who could shoot and defend and guard multiple positions. Jalen Brown, if you remember, was supposed to be the seventh, thirtieth pick on every mock draft. They took him third. The crowd thought they were to trade that pick for Paul George in Boston or taking Chris Dunn, who was a local Providence guy. And there were some boos when they took Jalen Brown and then he turned out to be Jalen Brown. My point is just because you got a guy who probably should have gone six, seven, eight with the fourth pick, what are they gonna do? There were two drafts. There were the first three guys, then there was everybody else.

• 11:33Bill Simmons?

  And if you look at the way the guys four through 12, it became one of those beauties is the eye of the beholder drafts, right? Campbell goes to New England, Graham goes to Cleveland, Gentey goes to Vegas six, Membau goes to the Jets seven, Ted McMillan goes to Carolina at eight, Banks goes ninth and Loveland goes over Tyler Warren at 10. And it's just like, you could have done this draft two weeks ago and that order might have been completely different. So I just think with, with Campbell, they need a left tackle. They have nobody who can block and the most important guy on the team plays quarterback. And if he could be the 12th best left tackle in the league, you gotta do it.

• 12:19Bill Simmons?

  Now, a couple of other Will Campbell things that have gotten me really excited. He talked about, I talked about this with Shiger the other day. Vrabel did put on the pads and he did go at Campbell to kind of feel what his body was. And I'd been hearing about this for a week or so. And Campbell, I guess knocked him over and Vrabel was really impressed by that. But Vrabel, I've got to confirm multiple ways now. He loves putting the pads on, hitting the guys, feeling their body mass, feeling how sturdy they are. So love Will Campbell. Grew up in Monroe, Louisiana. Home of Bill Russell, not nothing. He cried for 25 seconds on stage today after he got drafted. I got a little choked up. He said, I'm gonna fight and die to protect them with everything I got.

• 13:03Bill Simmons?

  When it was asked about, how are you gonna protect Drake May? I repeat, I'm gonna fight and die to protect them with everything I got. I'm all in on this guy. There's, there's been a lot of jokes in the Boston area. It's been a pretty polarizing pick. There was a tweet, I forget who did it, it was one of the, I think, WEA guys that it was showed a picture of him crying. And it was like, Will Campbell's arms are too short to wipe away the tears. We're gonna get a lot of that, Will Campbell. I think it's an inch difference. It doesn't faze me. I think we get in trouble with drafts when people don't fit the boxes we have for the types of bodies.

• 13:42Bill Simmons?

  And the reason I mention this with a basketball analogy is because we watched Jalen Brunson on the Knicks tonight. As Will Campbell is getting drafted, who has now become one of the, I think, 10 best players in the league, 10 or 12 best players. He fell in the second round in the NBA draft because he was too short, wasn't fast enough. Like, I, I, you know, I'm, I'm in my 50s now. We've been doing this with drafts my whole life. What the centers, an inch too much. Draymond Green falls to 37 in the draft because what is he? Is he center, can he shoot? These guys don't fit in boxes. And if Will Campbell has been awesome his whole career and the one catch on him is his arms might be an inch too short. Like, guess what? We need a left tackle.

• 14:27Bill Simmons?

  Hopefully his arms start too short. So I'm in on this pick. I'm gonna defend it. I sign off on it. I think they did the right thing. I also think nobody wanted to trade up. So that was it. So Loveland went over Ty Warren to the Bears at 10 because Ben Johnson, he always needs a tight end. Meanwhile, anyone who spent $30 on Sam Laporta in their draft last year wanted to, wanted to punch themselves in the face. So we'll see how Loveland does. I don't know, is that, are the Bears fallen victim to, we have Caleb Williams. Let's just keep drafting offensive weapons and not building a right team around him. We'll see. They spent a lot of money on the offensive line. I didn't love that pick. But the picks that I did love.

• 15:10Bill Simmons?

  And granted, I parachuted into this, but I did really get into the draft this year because of the pass situation. I really thought they were going to trade back. So I was kind of looking at 20 guys and doing the deep dives on them. So the picks that I did like, Jalen Walker fell to Atlanta at 15, and he was one of the ones that seemed like he was a fast riser down the stretch. And he was even getting rumored for a second at four. And Peter Schrager was doing his whole, "To a man, people will tell you that this guy just wows the room." He's one of those, like, great character, wows the room guy. Fell to 15 to a team that never seems to have a pass rush. So I really liked that pick for them. And it just felt like they got good value. I loved

• 15:53Bill Simmons?

  Hampton to the Chargers at 22, who everyone thought was the second best running back in this draft. And maybe, some people felt like the distance between him and Gentey wasn't really even that significant. This guy just seems like a kick ass, bang, bang the line, keep, keep the chains moving guy. And they needed somebody like this. And I just thought at 22, that's where you want to take a running back. And then Matthew Golden went 23 to the Packers. I'm just going to say this. I'm going to make a prediction. I think he's going to be better than McMillan. And I'll get to McMillan in a second. And then I like that, I like that Houston was able to trade

• 16:34Bill Simmons?

  25 for 3499 and a third round pick because the Giants got excited about Jackson Dart, who might be a career backup. But I thought that was smart, that they were loading up on picks because they need stuff. My favorite dumb trade was Atlanta traded number 46, number 242, and a 2026 first round pick to the Rams for number 26. And

• 17:02Bill Simmons?

  I just, I love having the Falcons with this current administration in the draft. It's like in my, in my vote out draft with Sal and those guys, we have our crazy friend Brad's in there and you just never know where you're getting every year with Brad. This year he took like nine or 10 running backs and it was just like, of course he did. He's Brad. That's basically become the Falcons. Nobody moves up 20 spots from 46 to 26 and gives a first round pick in a draft where, where by the time we got to mid twenties, I don't think anyone was doing backflips. I thought that was hilarious. I thought it was a very fun draft for glass half empty stereotypes. Will Campbell has short arms. Gentey runs with his pads too high, apparently.

• 17:44Bill Simmons?

  Heard that one a couple of times. Membo, you can see this in the Ringer Draft Guide. Was called a, a leaner and a lunger, which I think are bad traits for, for a tackle, apparently. But my number one, and this is why I didn't like the Ted McMillan pick was, and I thought that was the worst pick. I thought him going to the Panthers at eight was the worst pick in the draft. We'll see if I'm right or wrong. But Ted McMillan can't get enough separation was the thing that people were hanging on. There was also the, he loves volleyball more than football. I'm not going to acknowledge that. They can't get enough separation. I think is a real thing because the Patriots over and over again have drafted receivers

• 18:25Bill Simmons?

  or, or signed receivers like Devante Parker, who the guys are never open because they can't get any separation. And then the quarterback has to make like perfect throws just to get in the ball. You see these highlights of these guys in college making one-handed catches, jumping over five, nine defensive backs. And I just, I want guys who are wide open. If I'm drafting a receiver, I want somebody like Golden where you see the clips and he's just like wide open in all the clips. I want guys like that. I don't care about the guys who can make the catches in traffic. It seems like those guys are more likely to bust than anything. So that I would say out of all the half glass half empty stereotypes, that's the one I might, I might believe in most, mainly because I've been burned by 20 plus

• 19:08Bill Simmons?

  years of terrible Patriots picks. Another big takeaway from this draft, which I think people say any, every year, but I was really thinking about it this year. Why do people go to the NFL draft?

• 19:22Bill Simmons?

  I feel like I get 99.9% of the sports fan experience, which is a reason that I think I've had some success over the years.

• 19:33Bill Simmons?

  This I don't get.

• 19:35Bill Simmons?

  And I was thinking like,

• 19:38Bill Simmons?

  during the darkest, most interesting, most bored stretches of my entire life, which is probably my mid twenties. When I was broke and barely employed or unemployed sometimes, or semi-employed and then employed again.

• 19:57Bill Simmons?

  My mom was paying my mobile gas card. Was charging soda and food on it. Hoping she wouldn't notice.

• 20:06Bill Simmons?

  Even then, my darkest moments, I never would have wanted to go to the NFL draft. I wouldn't have wanted to go if it was in Boston, much less driving to Foxborough to go. I just don't get it. And I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. I just don't personally understand it. I don't get it. And maybe if Van pops on here in a second, I'll ask him. But everybody seems like they have a great time. But this year specifically, to go to Green Bay, which is a really hard place to go to, to find a hotel. It's hard, the airport situation's a disaster. I just, I don't get it. I also didn't get why Roger Goodell came out on a bike.

• 20:48Bill Simmons?

  And I don't get in general why he tries so hard to pretend he's like this great, awesome guy when we all know he's, he's, you know, he's, he's a business assassin. That's the reason he's stayed the commissioner this long. But you're not going to fool us, riding a bike and bear hugging teammates or draft picks. One other note.

• 21:13Bill Simmons?

  The Giants triple downed on their defensive line and it's fun. I have a lot of Giants fans in my life to make fun of them about this because they immediately default to the first Super Bowl win over the Pats. Well, it worked out for us in 2007.

• 21:28Bill Simmons?

  It's not going to work out this time because the rest of your team really sucks and your quarterbacks are Jackson Dart and Tommy DeVito and Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston. And I wish you all a lot of luck and I still hate you for 2007 and 2011. So I just want to get that in. But this is the Mike Lombardi theory with if you have a strength, double down on the strength. This is one of my favorite Lombardi theories that we'll see. This Giants thing can be a good example. Can we be really awesome at one part of football and can we be so awesome at it that will actually transfer to the rest of football? Those are all my notes. The only, the only thing about people going to the draft, I did enjoy when, when the Packer fans booed the Bears. Steve McMichael came

• 22:13Bill Simmons?

  on, they had the memorial, the moment of silence or whatever happened there and the crowd got respectful for a second and then went back to busting the Bears again. That whole Packers Bear thing is really funny and, and I enjoy that. I still don't know why you would stand there as people got picked. I just don't get it. I'm not, I'm not trying to sound superior to people. I, I just don't personally understand it. So if anyone can explain it to me, I'd love to, I'd love to know more. All right. So Rudy, you have, do you have a take on this?

• 22:43Speaker 01

  I have no idea why people are there. I don't, I don't get it at all. I don't get it.

• 22:48Bill Simmons?

  What did they do between the picks?

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause they, they, you know, it's like, I guess the whole point would be like, can you get on TV to be the one Giants fan like holding up your jersey and just yelling like Jackson Dart? I don't know. I don't know. I don't get it. And like, you know, maybe we're just really out of touch and like losers. I don't, I don't know. Like, I mean, I'm trying not to be like the anti fun guy, but I don't get how, I literally asked my wife. I was like, would you rather be in Times Square for New Year's Eve or at the NFL draft? And she was like, I honestly don't know.

• 23:19Bill Simmons?

  New Year's Eve is a good example because I don't get that either, but at least I get it a little bit because it's something to do on New Year's. It's like, what's your New Year's?

• 23:26Speaker 01

  But it also seems terrible.

• 23:27Bill Simmons?

  We went to Times Square, we had to do it. Yeah, it seems awful.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:31Bill Simmons?

  But NFL Draft seems, can you drink at this? Like, do they sell food that they must, right?

• 23:36Speaker 01

  And I mean, you're so far away from the state, like they were doing the aerial shots and you're not even close to the stage. I mean, the people close to the stage, I don't even think, you know, like I would say 95% of the audience was not even remotely near the stage area. You're just like in this parking lot behind it. I don't know.

• 23:53Bill Simmons?

  It looks like you're like at a concert at Wembley Stadium.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 23:57Bill Simmons?

  And you're way in the back, like watching, you know, whoever.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, do you feel the same way about the NBA draft?

• 24:05Bill Simmons?

  No, because it's a little more confined. This just seems like this massive sporting event that I just don't get it. Do you agree with me on McMillan?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Party, get hammered and, you know, maybe that's just the sell, which, you know, bro's trip and you just get there and everybody's kind of, you're running Airbnb for a weekend and you just kind of do your thing. Maybe that's a, maybe that's fun.

• 24:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's the thing is I don't, I'm not saying, I'm leaving the door open that I'm completely wrong and I'm just not seeing it correctly. But I don't see it in any way. Uh, do you think Sanders should have fallen in the second round?

• 24:40Speaker 01

  I, I feel like I like him more than the consensus does. Like all these GMs and anonymous, I love the anonymous thing too. It was like there was people trying to out anonymous everyone else with anonymous quotes. Uh, I don't know. I mean, I obviously wasn't in any of the meetings with the guy, but I, I kind of respected him. Like he seems like he's got a decent head on his shoulders, given who he is, who his dad is. And he got his ass kicked at Colorado almost every single week and really never complained. It was just a baller. So. I don't know, I'm not a talent evaluator, but I, I, I respect his game, but clearly there's just, I think, you know, the, the, it was weird on the broadcast because they, they just kind of refused to ever say like, hey, maybe he's just not that talented. And that's why he's

• 25:22Speaker 01

  not, they kept, you know, Kuiper kept bringing it up. They kept talking about how, you know, about his dad showing him and it was kind of awkward. And maybe it's just, hey, he's not that good of an arm strength guy. And, you know, why are we taking that guy in the first round? Maybe it's as simple as that.

• 25:35Bill Simmons?

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• 26:15Bill Simmons?

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• 26:59Bill Simmons?

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• 27:43Bill Simmons?

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• 28:29Bill Simmons?

  And I had to give you the floor because I know you watched him. Not just at Colorado, but even before that. Were you surprised that he fell in the second round? In a league where half the teams seem like they're not happy with who their quarterback is?

• 28:43Speaker 02

  I was as surprised with his fall as I was with Anthony Richardson's rise when he was going through the process. Because I'd watched so much of him. I watched so much of him and I'd seen him like never really play competent quarterback at Florida. Outside of some moments and a couple of games. With Shador, it's completely the opposite. I expected that the measurables wouldn't be crazy because when you watch him, you think sometimes is he a noodle arm? He obviously isn't hyper twitchy as far as his movement when he decides to run. However, just watching him as a football player, as a football player.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  He won games and he changed programs when he got to, you know, the destinations that, that, that he ended up in college football. Now, a lot of people might say, hey, his record at Colorado was mediocre and it was. But if you look at what Colorado was before he got there. A lot of that offense is on his shoulders and he always made plays and he seemed like the kind of guy that you would want at quarterback in terms of the toughness, the ability to make throws in big moments, the ability to make big game winning drives. He's getting his ass kicked. But when it was time to, to, to, to measure out and I get, get in front of people, I guess they didn't like what they saw.

• 30:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the, the two things that don't make sense to me. Big games on the road with crowds, right? Making plays, making, making clutch plays every once in a while, like what she definitely did, like he seemed like he had a knack for the moment. And then you mentioned the key thing, how freaking tough he was. Which I think when you're at the next level, you're just gonna, either you're gonna stand in the pocket and take hits or you're not. We've seen so many quarterbacks who seem like they're afraid to get hit. I'm not saying he should have gone 10th or 12th, but it's hard for me to believe once we get in the twenties with how hard it is to find a quarterback. That he wouldn't have gone in the twenties. Which makes me think they thought he was like Andy Dalton, basically, like a poor man's Andy Dalton.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Well, Van, you watched Jackson Dart. And, and especially the Florida game was not, not a pretty watch.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  But. You know, he's got the arm strength and I guess more of the ideal athleticism. He runs a little bit better than Shador does. I don't know, like it's one of those things where, cause you're right, like he like Colorado's defense was terrible. Both years he was there and he carried them to, you know, ranked, you know, Colorado being a ranked team for most of the time. He's, he's an impressive dude to me, but clearly, you know, if you don't have a good arm, like the, like the Anthony Richardson thing, like dudes get tricked in that all the time. You know, right? The guy's, he's six foot five, he's built like an Adonis, he runs well. The one throw, the one throw he had last year off his back foot, you know, they'll show that highlight for years to come. It's like, all right, we'll bank on that guy. It's hard to bank on a guy who, all right, what's his main trait?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Like he's tough and he's, he's kind of accurate or he's pretty accurate, but he doesn't have a great arm.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  Well, see, this is what I would say about that. I understand what you're saying.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Just, I want to, you know, Richardson in the NFL now, he's just was the example that popped in my head. But like, I watched him like legitimately struggle to grasp his offense and to be consistently productive in it. And all year long, there were narratives about whether or not the guy was hurt or, or what was the reason that he couldn't play? You know, I can't really say that about Jackson Dart. What I could say about Jackson Dart is that there are times in big moments and big games where Jackson Dart wasn't there. And there are, there were weird off games where it seemed like teams kind of had ganged out.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Kiffin's scheme a little bit and they were able to shut down Jackson Dart and, and render him ineffective. But when you look at the team, Ole Miss's team from, from last year, they spent a lot of money. Trey Harris was hurt most of the year. That was a guy who probably would have been a, a first round pick at receiver. And then Juice Wells, the big transfer that came in from South Carolina, he didn't work out. He had a disappointing season. So it wasn't like they had explosion all over the office. They had Ulysses Bentley, they had some other guys in the backfield that were running the ball pretty well. But the team was a little bit off kilter. Dart was shouldering a lot, a lot.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  Of the load for them offensively because they weren't really getting separation from their wide receivers. And a lot of stuff was going on there. Two things I'll say differently, though. He had a multi, multi million dollar squad. There were dudes or supposed dudes everywhere. The reason why you would say that Shador Sanders, you have to call him clutch is because Colorado was incapable of dominating anyone. If they were going to win a game, it was normally going to be by six. It was going to be by three. And Shador was going to have to make plays for them to win.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  And it was fifty to forty. Yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was going to have to make plays for them to win. And I'm just surprised that no one saw, when you talk about the intangibles, a lot of people are talking about, well, he's bad in the interview, he's cocky, he's this, he's that. The intangibles that I saw was a guy who was able to rally his team and get them to really play for him. A guy who stood in there, get behind one of the worst offensive lines I've ever seen in college football history. Like, one of the worst lines I've ever seen and make plays and deliver throws. And there was a throw in that, not to filibuster or belaborate, there was a throw I specifically remember

• 34:37Speaker 02

  in the North Dakota State game where he gets drilled and the ball comes out and I'm thinking that's a pick. I'm like, oh, my God, that's a pick. No, he floated it to Horn, Horn ran under it, and I think that he scored. So I just thought that somebody would say, that's a guy that I could build an offense around, particularly one of these obviously dumb teams. But I guess it didn't, they didn't feel that way, you know?

• 35:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, I talked about this earlier, but wouldn't it be amazing if he ended up in Cleveland? When we thought there was a chance he could have gone to Cleveland before people realized it was in top three? But now he could go to Cleveland, a team that has been in hell with their quarterbacks since Baker Mayfield left. And now he goes there, could have a wide open. Runway to be good right away. He'd have a better offensive line than he had at Colorado.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  But that's

• 35:29Bill Simmons?

  I don't know.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Thing I was, Ben, where would you want to see him? Cause I was thinking during the draft and like, does he, does he fit well in New York or Cleveland in a cold weather city where like, he's got to drive the ball in what could be bad weather? Like I, he's, you know, the Saints in a dome. Like that feels just way, way bad. I don't know what the exact fit is, but I didn't know if he's

• 35:46Bill Simmons?

  Saints. Yeah. What about your Saints?

• 35:49Speaker 02

  I would have been into it. I mean, look, at this point, you know, I take Lucifer at quarterback rather than Derek Carr. Like there are all kinds of people like OJ Simpson could quarterback us. You know what I mean? Kanye West. But there are a lot of people that I would, that they could put in their quarterback right now that I, I'd take over Derek Carr pretty much like anybody. Um, but look, there's no doubt that in the right situation, Shador Sanders has what it takes to be successful. What I am not, I'm a guy who watches a lot of college football. Like I watched every snap that Dart took this year. I watched every snap that Sanders took this year. Right?

• 36:29Speaker 02

  I just watched every game possible and especially the teams in the, in the SCC. I have to watch them. What I can't do is get granular as far as the breakdown of what NFL guys see that makes them go, oh my God, this guy is undraftable. I can only tell you the tape that I saw, like when they were playing games, actual games on a football field. And on a football field, it seems like Shador Sanders is a winning player. Jackson Dart is a great, big, strong guy. Who's incredibly tough, incredibly tough. But I don't know, man, that offense is, is, it's, it's designed to manufacture

• 37:08Speaker 02

  statistics. Um, it's a simple offense because they go so fast. So there's just a lot of things that Jackson Dart might be asked to do on the next level that I don't think he was asked to do at Ole Miss.

• 37:20Bill Simmons?

  Handsome guy. Um, maybe that'll be his legacy. Handsome guy. Go, you come in and interview him. Seems, seems like he's like Brad Pitt's coming in. Um, Cleveland has 33 and 36. The two teams between them are Houston, who already have a quarterback. And Tennessee who just drafted a quarterback. And if they passed on him twice when their quarterbacks are Kenny Pickett and Deshaun Watson, who's out for the year and who everybody in Cleveland hates, that is just damning. And then you go to the Raiders are sitting there at 37.

• 37:56Bill Simmons?

  And could they try to move up? Like, I can't imagine him getting by at 37. Then it's like, all right, what the fuck's going on? Van, when does this become one of the most reprehensible sports media? People yelling at each other stories we've had in a while? What, what needs to happen? Jokic versus Embiid for the MVP was the last time it got really dark.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  That bad. I gotta draw into that. Yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  I don't know. The, the cultural story of this one is, is pretty big as well. Like I saw Dion get at Dan Orlovsky on Twitter. And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody said that Dan Orlovsky is, is a hater now because he gave a somewhat negative opinion about Shador Sanders. And it wasn't really a negative opinion. He said, if Shador Sanders doesn't go in the first round or if a couple of teams pass on him, this will be why these are the things that he needs to work on. And someone comes and says, I didn't know he was a hater. And Dion goes, oh my God, he's a hater. The Dion part of this just cannot be overlooked.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  The fact that Dion is such a gigantic personality that maybe there are some people that have been rubbed the wrong way by the entire Colorado apparatus. And that is the thing that's going to be gnawing at the talking heads for the next couple of days. Because, you know, quarterbacks fall all the time, but this one's going to be seen as a gigantic injustice, where it could be just a guy that the NFL scouts don't like, or it could be more.

• 39:38Bill Simmons?

  The injustice to me is that we don't have enough good quarterbacks. So you have to really think this guy doesn't have it. If you're like, we still don't know who the Steelers quarterback is. Surti, is it like Kirk Cousins now? Like, what, I, is it like, like, really? They're going to do the Aaron Rodgers roller coaster? Kind of keep their fingers crossed for a guy who seemed like he was washed last year?

• 40:01Speaker 01

  But I would say the counterpoint would be every, every draft expert has basically told us that like Cam Ward in last year's draft is going, what, like fifth or sixth of all the quarterbacks? So if you think Cam Ward is better than Shador Sanders, which I think we all probably do, at least as a prospect, that's, that means he's at least seventh, the seventh best quarterback in, you know? And how many, how many times do you see seven quarterbacks go in round one? So is he just being, was he just kind of being propped up because, hey, we need to latch on to somebody? Quarterbacks are sexy. Usually two to three go in the first round, like maybe he's up there. When like, you know, I guess the statistics would tell you that this draft is just not a great quarterback draft. So I, I don't know. Like, it seems, I really don't know what to believe.

• 40:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's what happens with these clusters with the draft where you're the best looking person in your cluster, but it's not a good cluster. And you can fool people into thinking you're better than you are. I thought that was really interesting that people, I saw the same stuff that people thought like Bo Nix would have gone ahead of Cam Ward if they were in the same draft. That's crazy.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Jesus. Um, I guess, yeah, I get what you're saying, but I looked at that certainly from a different perspective to where it's a weak quarterback draft, like a weak one, right? And he still fell out of the top, out of the first round. Like, we watched the, a draft where Michael Pennix with a really questionable medical, like that guy's a stud quarterback. Don't get me wrong. And he ran four or five when he was at the combine. So obviously, uh, his legs worked, but we watched him get taken. We watched. The J.J. McCarthy thing still blows my mind, right? It, it, and it's not, I'm not saying that the guy's not good.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  I'm saying that we're talking about someone that was in a hand the ball off, make a couple of plays a game offense, right?

• 41:53Bill Simmons?

  Game manager.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  A game manager. It, it, he is about to be handed the keys to the kingdom up in Minnesota. All of that stuff together, I know that the team won a lot and that's got to mean something. But I'm saying now, it just seems like it wasn't that Shador Sanders didn't find the right fit in the first round. It seemed like he was radioactive, which it wasn't a-

• 42:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, it does seem like the interviews were a real thing.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  Right, so it-

• 42:21Bill Simmons?

  People were being anonymous because they didn't want people coming at them, but it didn't seem like a fake story. It did seem like something that turned some teams off.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  But can I ask you a question? Let's say that it's not a fake story. The question is, why is it a story? Why would an anonymous source, you, you have a bad interview with Shador Sanders?

• 42:42Bill Simmons?

  Right, why are they saying anything?

• 42:44Speaker 02

  I'm just asking, yeah, I'm, I'm, by the way, I'm not, I'm not casting any type of expression. I'm saying, I'm asking why, like, you have a bad interview with-

• 42:51Bill Simmons?

  Or you look it out because you want to get him the second round and you're like, yeah, that guy's a fucking asshole. And meanwhile, you're like, I hope he falls to 33.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  But it, it, it, it gets, it got to a point to where every single fucking thing was so negative. Like, did you hear that we watched him tie his shoes? And it took him fucking five seconds to do the loop-de-loop. Something's wrong with this guy, he's undraftable.

• 43:16Bill Simmons?

  It was like the draft day movie, it was the, the birthday party, it was Bo Calhoun.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  The, the whole thing, so I'm, I'm just, you know, I'm, by the way, I'm not, I'm just saying that this was pretty remarkable for, from a guy. There's that other tweet from Deion where Deion is saying, hey, my son's gonna go top five, it's really, like, everyone was saying that he was going to be like a top five draft pick.

• 43:38Bill Simmons?

  Right, it was him versus Ward for three months.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  But that cooled off the last couple of days.

• 43:43Bill Simmons?

  It did.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  You know, that, it, it almost-

• 43:45Bill Simmons?

  No, last couple of weeks.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but it, it, it almost feels like, did, did we just kind of like talk ourselves into something that was never actually going to be real? You know? And-

• 43:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, I, I know as a Patriots fan, hoping that two quarterbacks were going top three, you could feel it shifting in fucking February. That once the first wave of analysis came in on him, it wasn't, it was pretty bleak.

• 44:10Bill Simmons?

  So I don't get it.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  There's, there's one other thing that um, that I looked back at it and I was like, these things didn't help, at least to me. So Kim Ward and Shador Sanders trained together. And so uh, all throughout the last couple of months, there were all of these training videos of them, uh, and they were throwing together. And you know, Ward would step up and he would throw a couple of reps. And then Shador would step up and he would throw a couple of reps. And I remember watching both of those guys throw and be like, uh oh.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? Like, like, uh, like, don't get me wrong. Shador throws a pretty football. I think he's a first round quarterback. I think he's gonna have a successful NFL career. But the physical difference between the guys was, was, was, was pretty remarkable when you watch both of them throw.

• 45:01Bill Simmons?

  Dan, can we go rapid fire really quick? Will Campbell, number four Patriots. His arms are apparently an inch too short. I've talked myself into the pick, but you loved him. Can you make the Will Campbell face, uh, case for my Patriot fan friends?

• 45:16Speaker 02

  All I can say is that the guy faced some of the best, most talented pass rushers in the entire country. And he didn't hold up. He fucking dominated. He dominated. He didn't, he wasn't a, this is a guy who can hold up at tackle for you. This was a dominating pass blocker. And I'm sorry, man. Actual game shit has to matter. He is a dog. You guys got a good one.

• 45:45Bill Simmons?

  Did it make you cry when he cried?

• 45:48Speaker 02

  No, I thought, I thought it was actually more interesting that when he was walking up to the podium to go talk to Goodell, that he completely ignored Brian. Like that, that freaked me out as an LSU fan. I'm wondering, do they fuck with this guy? Like, he completely ignored Brian Kelly. Brian Kelly actually went, did, gave one of these to him. He just, he didn't have any time for coach.

• 46:11Bill Simmons?

  Uh, what was your favorite pick of the first 15 rounds? For value slash, you think the guy's gonna absolutely kick ass for the team?

• 46:20Speaker 02

  For value slash kick ass for the team? I mean, the value picks are pretty obvious here. Um, you know,

• 46:29Bill Simmons?

  Notice how he's not saying Kelvin Banks to the Saints at nine? That didn't jump out of the tongue.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  I think the entire, I think the entire time was surprised that, the entire state was surprised that, um, that they, that they took a tackle. This is not a value pick, but my favorite pick of the entire draft was, was one that was scripted exactly where it was supposed to go. It was Ash and Gentey to the Raiders. Because of all of the excellent players that we've talked about all year long, he is such a fucking dominant football player. He's such a dominant football player and he's going to a team that has some pieces, uh, where he's gonna really be, get a chance to produce. I think he's gonna have like a, a flat out awesome rookie year. I'm excited to use him on Madden too.

• 47:14Bill Simmons?

  So Rudy, what was your favorite, uh, value slash, I love this fit. I love everything about this pick.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  I love Hampton to the Chargers. What do you think his, because what do you, what do you think he's gonna go in an auction draft? Like dudes are gonna lose that.

• 47:29Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  All the Chargers wanna do is run the ball. Yeah, like he's gonna be a top guy. And, you know, there's a lot of people that said, you know, Gentey's like, well, you're physically just a freak and special, but that Hampton's not that far behind him. Uh, and I, I, that's like a perfect, cause, cause all those Chargers running backs too were just like ticking time bombs. Like, you know, with all, Dobbins is, you know, just another injury waiting to happen unfortunately. And Gus Edwards is like a thousand years old. Uh, or at least seems like it. Like it, it just seems like a plug and play guy that's gonna be like an all pro potentially like in a couple of seasons.

• 47:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was one of those, if you took him at 12, it's like, eh, it's high, but that's a nice pick. But when you get him at 22, you're like, ah. No brainer. That I agree with you. That one, the Falcons getting, um, getting Walker and then, I really let Golden to the Packers. They just over and over again, just keep getting these receivers. The Pats haven't, haven't been able to draft one in 20 years and the Packers over and over again are just grabbing these dudes, but I thought that was a good one.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  The Eagles kind of did it again too with Jahad Campbell, right? Fans like, yeah, like they just get another SEC stud who somehow falls and there's the injury concern, but man.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was, he had the injury, but it's a great pick. A terrorizing player when he's healthy, man.

• 48:43Bill Simmons?

  Who would you, would you have taken Travis Hunter or Abdul Carter if you had the second pick?

• 48:48Speaker 02

  Travis Hunter.

• 48:49Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Would you have traded all that stuff Jacksonville traded to get him?

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Probably not, but if, if, if you're there, I take him in, in front of Carter. Cause I mean, like if you, what's the best case scenario for Carter? That he turns into like a Michael Parsons type of player? He's not quite as good as Michael Parsons, right?

• 49:09Bill Simmons?

  Parsons, slightly poor man's Parsons, I think.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Slightly poor man's Parsons, right? Hunter though, to me, um, has the opportunity, particularly if he just decides on one side of the ball. Uh, to me, the defensive side of the ball is where I think he needs to be. He could be everything. He could be the next Deion Sanders, uh, Darrel Rivas type of player that like locks up a side of the field for a team for X amount of years.

• 49:37Bill Simmons?

  That was a very fun pick. All right. Thanks for staying up with us, man. Uh, thanks to Rudy. Always good to see your face as well. Uh, we're going to take a break, come back with CR Mahoney. This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails. So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24 seven and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new workday. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected? Sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead?

• 50:21Bill Simmons?

  But what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save, savings vary. All right, we're recording this 9:33 PM. No Wi-Fi in my house for some reason, so I'm using my iPhone. I think it looks fine. The dream team is here, Rob Mahoney, Chris Ryan. Just watched OKC come back from at least 55 points. Mahoney, was that the Ja Morant got injured game? Or the Alex Caruso? Not quite the Alex Caruso game, but if it was a bigger game, it would be the Alex Caruso game. Game.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  Why not both? But the, I think the dark clouds of Ja Morant falling that hard in the fashion that he did and the way that the game just completely flipped on its head the moment that he left? It's hard not for that, for that not to be the top line takeaway. It's just such a bummer.

• 51:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, he's, he's always somebody you worried was going to get injured in every game because of the way he played, but that was not his fault. That was a pretty fluky. CR, was that dirty to you at all or not really?

• 51:33Speaker 04

  I actually did do a little bit of research. I did some Zapruder on this. It does feel like Dort slipping before he even realizes that Ja is there. But I'm sure other people have differing opinions.

• 51:45Bill Simmons?

  Tough, tough week for guys slipping and then undercutting famous stars in the playoffs.

• 51:50Speaker 04

  Do you want to get it off your chest early or do you want to save it for later?

• 51:53Bill Simmons?

  Not great, not great. I'll tell you what OKC did show me, though.

• 51:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 51:59Bill Simmons?

  It's never good to lose by 30 when you're, you're the favorites to win the title in a game three, when it looked like the series was over after the first two games. And then Ja gets hurt, momentum shifts, but it was still like a 24-point game in the third quarter, you know? And then OKC did the thing. That, you know, I really appreciate if you're gonna have some championship pedigree. Can you really crack down? Can you go on a run? Can you crack the defense up another level? And then all of a sudden, it started to feel like the first two games. So Rob, weirdly, I think that game was like a, a, a win and something that maybe OKC needed for those last two rounds that they're gonna get to would be my takeaway, no?

• 52:39Speaker 03

  I mean, it's certainly better context than winning by 50 plus, right? Like, these are the kinds of, these are the kinds of runs you would have to make. I think the Caruso point you laid up top is, is really important. This idea that he is a crucial part of their closing groups. And I think showed in this case, you gotta play that dude off the floor because he will fuck you up and he will end your season. Like, the number of just completely disruptive defensive plays he had down the stretch against bigs, against wings, against guards. He's just like, his defensive range is so incredible. And the only thing you can really do is try to challenge him to hit some shots. Try to, try to, you know, space. I think push him on the other end to the point that OKC has to make some hard calls. And they just never reached that point because Caruso was that good. And ultimately, I think because Chet and JDub were that good, too.

• 53:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's pretty rare to go into a closing stretch of a game, especially with a comeback that significant. It was like, I think they were down 29 at the most, right?

• 53:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:31Speaker 04

  And then to have the defensive possessions be the thing you're gonna walk away remembering.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  I know.

• 53:37Speaker 04

  It's not like, uh, it's, it's not like Corey Brewer and Josh Smith like bombing away. It's like, no, Alex Caruso literally just like stopped the Grizzlies from scoring like 10 times. And that swings the game.

• 53:47Bill Simmons?

  CR, as, as a scrappy former little basketball player, did you, is there kinship watching him take on Jaren Jackson?

• 53:56Bill Simmons?

  Is there anything more fun if we're just gonna rank things that don't quite get enough credit?

• 54:00Speaker 04

  As a, as a guy with a receding hairline.

• 54:03Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I didn't even think of that.

• 54:04Speaker 03

  There are many end roads to this metaphor, it turns out.

• 54:07Bill Simmons?

  But it's one of those things that's so secretly fun about basketball that we all enjoy, but we don't talk about nearly enough is when the much smaller guy is guarding the bigger guy who's just being completely exposed. We're seeing it a little bit in the Golden State Houston series, too, with Draymond and Fred VanVliet, where they're just like, Fred VanVliet's like 5'11". We're gonna put him on Draymond. What are you guys gonna do? And he can't do anything. But for Jaren Jackson, who I did not vote for all NBA. And I think is a frustrating player to watch sometimes, but I, I don't, I did not think that was a good look for him, CR.

• 54:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, I thought he had that one nice shot that went high off the glass towards the end of the game. Like every once in a while, he pulls something out of his bag. His handle does not really, he doesn't have the handle of somebody that you can trust in a fourth quarter in a big game like that right now. I will say that for Memphis, it's probably incredibly difficult to navigate the Jaws here, Jaws not here. Yeah. Cause they feel like such a different roster. When he goes out, it automatically makes, you know, your canards like that much more important. Your contras important. Like whereas those guys should be additive and not essential. And so I just, I really feel for Memphis, they're probably not, they're probably never going to win this series and they were probably going to get, maybe not swept, but it was probably going to be a gentleman's sweep. And now it just seems like this might be a franchise altering night for them.

• 55:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, that was like a best case shooting half for Memphis overall. They were hitting everything. It was just, everything was clicking into place, starting with Scottie Pippen Jr. having such an amazing game. For them to have to give it all back like this is so dispiriting, is so crushing. And I think the Jaren Jackson piece of this is, is interesting to talk about because OKC has a horrible matchup for him. Like I think his handle is good enough to beat bigs. It's not good enough to beat the Alex Carusos and certainly to drive into the teeth of a defense like Oklahoma City. It's just, that's where you really strain even the more developed part of his skillset from this year.

• 55:59Bill Simmons?

  So it seems like Ja might be seriously hurt. We have no idea as we're taping this, but he came back out in crutches. Crutch is never good. Maybe it's a hip thing. Maybe they think it might be, who knows? I don't want to speculate, but.

• 56:11Speaker 03

  Honestly, when he took his jersey off, coming off the court, I, he was, he was not responding as if he was going to be coming back out there. You could see it. He was in a lot of pain. You could say he was in a lot of anguish over that fall. It was, it was a tough scene all around.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  I hated it, man. It was just like, it's the, the, the Ja experience in such a sick nutshell where he was about to do something incredibly sick. Yep. And you're like, this is why I watch basketball. This is incredible. And then just the freaky fluky stuff, but I want, I want like guys to try to do stuff like that. That's why you watch hoops.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  The audacity to hurdle Lou Dort is what makes Ja Ja, but it's also what leads to these plays, unfortunately.

• 56:50Speaker 04

  So I went back a couple of minutes because when I flipped over, I flipped over when I saw Verno tweet like, oh no. And I was like, this could only be one of three or four things. So I went back. And when I established it wasn't a Cowboys draft pick situation, I was like, oh, let me find when the jaw injury must happen. And I went too far back and you can watch him and you can see like all the life in his eyes. And he's just such the heartbeat of the franchise while he's out there and like the crowd is feeding off of him. So it was really eerie to go back like even a minute before the injury and then it all changes.

• 57:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. When Verno tweets, oh no, the most likely scenario is a jaw injury. Like given that the NFL draft tonight, it was probably like, I have over two and a half quarterbacks in the first round. Oh no. I mean, there was all kinds of gambling possibilities too. This OKC piece, you know, there's not a lot to learn from this series. It's a, I think, pretty much of a mismatch. And if Memphis was going to win a game, it was going to be tonight. But for the most part, this was either going to be four or five. But it did get interesting down there. Five minutes left. Memphis is playing really hard. Pippen's doing some interesting stuff against SGA. It's like a smaller guy trying to like, kind of dive down on his dribble. And, you know, they're throwing like some flash double teams at them. They're bouncing off them.

• 58:06Bill Simmons?

  And just trying to watch them execute. And the, the big guy was, was Holmgren. Where you really felt the, the stretch five-ness of him. And he was not, not shy about taking shots. He made one big one. But, uh, but I was watching that. Did you notice anything down the stretch there? Because that's going to happen to them. They're going to play the Clippers probably in, in round two, right? They're, they might play Golden State or the Lakers. Who, who knows in round three? And then the Celtics are waiting for them and there's going to be these little pockets at the end of games. These real crunch time moments when teams are going to be throwing everything they have at them. They try to knock them out of their offense. It's like, all right, Jalen Williams, let's see it.

• 58:50Bill Simmons?

  Hey, check, can you make that? Alex Cruz, are you afraid of the corner? How about you, Lou Dort? Uh, what did you notice from the last five minutes?

• 58:59Speaker 03

  I mean, I think just a lot of optimism from the chat piece of this game, just a monster second half overall that is heartening as far as his piece in that, right? They're always gonna have the questions about this sort of secondary offense. They're also gonna have those questions, as you say, about what, what is the best optimal defense to throw at SGA in a playoff setting? And I think Scottie Pippen Jr. Does a good job against pretty much every star he's asked to guard, like real, real like yeoman's work, considering like what he's asked to do. You could say the same of a Chris Dunn matchup. Derek Jones Jr. Is one of the few defenders in the league who actually seemed to have an effect on SGA in the regular season during some of their matchups. And so the, the challenge of a team like the Clippers, as Denver is finding out, is the sheer variety of shit that they can throw at you and the way that they can mix up their coverages and their assignments

• 59:42Speaker 03

  and keep you guessing at all times. And if something is gonna throw the Thunder off their game, and I'm not sure it will in a way that they're gonna lose a series, but it would have to be disruptive in that way.

• 59:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's really hard. I, I said this last Thursday, it's hard for me to imagine them not winning the title. I thought that this was like a real, like, cool gut check win despite the fact that the headline will be Ja. The chat thing that I noticed down the stretch, Bill, with the threes was just like how he rendered Edie kind of unplayable. I mean, he was still out there, but like watching Edie try to like get out to the perimeter, I was just like.

• 1:00:19Speaker 04

  Just gotta grab it.

• 1:00:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's, it's the perfect OKC box score if you're saying, what's the blueprint for what their championship clinching box score would look like, right? SGA 31, 8. Holmgren, 24, 8 rebounds. Williams, 26, 6 and 5. And then Caruso, how many steals did he have? 10, 6 with 4, with 4 steals.

• 1:00:47Speaker 04

  But how many deflections?

• 1:00:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:49Bill Simmons?

  And just, and had a couple of those Kawhi Leonard, I'm just gonna take the ball from you now.

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:00:55Bill Simmons?

  Moments.

• 1:00:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Bill Simmons?

  That are always fun.

• 1:00:57Speaker 04

  He was MFing the crowd as a defender. It's, I've not seen that recently.

• 1:01:02Bill Simmons?

  I remember the first year he started playing for the Lakers. And it became a big thing because his hair was so weird. He hadn't shaved his hair yet. And he just had one of those like super duper, almost like one of those sports writers at a Super Bowl haircuts where you're like, what is going on with that guy's head? And it became a huge talking point on social media where they're like, look at this fucking guy, this white guy the Lakers have. What's going on with this dude? And he had a couple, I remember LeBron broke some sort of record and Caruso was one of the first people that high fived him. And it was like, wow, it's so awkward, this Caruso guy. And then we all kind of realized watching them.

• 1:01:44Bill Simmons?

  Hey, this guy's pretty good. Am I crazy or is Caruso like decent? And then it just kind of kept going. He's a decently big part of that 2020 title team. And it's gone and gone. And now I find it hard to believe, Rob, that he's not a crunch time guy for them, right? He's just gonna probably be out there in big games. Yeah, right?

• 1:02:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's gonna, it is gonna come down to whether you can push him and push them in that way where he has to be more of an offensive presence. If you can leverage it, but he's such a good playmaker in a facilitating capacity and he's such a smart cutter. I feel like he always has stuff he can do. And of course, if you're creating enough havoc on defense to create fast breaks, you're gonna win those trade offs. The issue with Caruso has honestly not even really been his offense historically. It's been like, can he be healthy enough to play a lot over the course of entire seasons? And with the way everything is shortened up now, it really doesn't matter. You can just put him out there for 25 to 30 minutes a night if the matchup allows it. And he's gonna do you a lot of good.

• 1:02:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, we thought we were gonna be leading this podcast with Clippers Nuggets.

• 1:02:47Bill Simmons?

  I talked about this on a pod earlier this week when I went, I had Zach on and we talked about Kawhi for a while. And then at the end, we were talking about this series. And I felt deep in my gut that there was a chance the Nuggets might really go sideways. Like I bet the Clippers tonight. I, I just, I don't know if the Nuggets think they're good. I mean, the Nuggets, I don't know if they believe in whatever they're doing. And you can kind of feel it. That game got away from them fast. The Clippers made a bunch of threes. I thought Jokic was spectacular in the first quarter. It was, it felt like he was on pace for 30 assists, but defensively, they're just really limited. Their bench today, at one point, I don't know what they finished with, at one point.

• 1:03:34Speaker 04

  Russ was out, right?

• 1:03:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, a foot injury apparently going on.

• 1:03:39Bill Simmons?

  They finished with six points from the bench.

• 1:03:41Speaker 04

  You're not going to win a playoff game.

• 1:03:43Bill Simmons?

  Not ideal. And they were down 20 points for basically two hours. And now weird schedule clerk, this quirk, this doesn't usually happen in the first round, but they're playing again 3pm PT on Saturday. So it's 40 hours after this game ended?

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:01Bill Simmons?

  And that is a

• 1:04:02Speaker 03

  They have five and a half playable guys right now, maybe? Hayden Watson's been like kind of a disaster in some of his minutes so far. If Russ can't play, like this is the thing about all of the hand wringing about the highs and lows of Russell Westbrook, like they just straight up need his minutes more than anything. Like they can't afford this much Julian Strather as they're going to have to throw out there if Russ can't go. And overall, the construction of the team, to your point, Bill, does not feel like one that would give you a lot of confidence if you're Nikola Jokic, if you're Jamal Murray, if you're Aaron Gordon with one functional calf. Like, I don't know how you watch the team around you not close out to shooter after shooter after shooter and think, oh, we're just a couple of effort plays away or we're a couple of strategic tweaks away.

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  This feels like a chasm in the series that's developing.

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Speaker 03

  I think in part because the Nuggets, they just looked shook by the end of this game.

• 1:04:54Speaker 04

  They look like a team that fired their coach and GM a week before the season ended.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Sure do.

• 1:04:58Speaker 04

  You know?

• 1:04:58Bill Simmons?

  Oh shit, I forgot they did that.

• 1:05:00Speaker 04

  And there's three guys on the team who have been the sort of core of this, of this like run. And it just feels like the end of a cycle. And these guys are looking around for reinforcements and the only place they can look is to Westbrook who's bounced around the NBA for a couple of seasons now. And the, the bridge to nowhere, like, like the, the young kids that they were supposed to develop just are obviously not ready or capable. And Porter, on any given night, you're like, are you on planet Earth or not, man? So it's just,

• 1:05:29Speaker 03

  He's got one arm now too. Like it's, it's just not a good recipe for him.

• 1:05:32Speaker 04

  After watching these three games, I'm surprised they won one. That's what I'll say.

• 1:05:36Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:05:36Bill Simmons?

  Chris, do you think they should have hired Vincent Hanna as their interim coach?

• 1:05:44Speaker 04

  Just I mean, Edelman is like doing his best, I guess. I don't even know what you would do with a week's prep to become the head coach of a championship hopeful. But I think if we were wondering whether or not Cronkite was like, Josh Cronkite was like, oh, I think we actually have the pedigree to win the title. We just need different voices in the room versus I want to get this stuff, these guys out of here. So we can get ready for the draft and the offseason now. I think it might be the latter.

• 1:06:08Bill Simmons?

  Westbrook saying, Westbrook saying, my foot's hurt is like, you fucking get hurt walking your doggy.

• 1:06:15Speaker 04

  Be there.

• 1:06:17Bill Simmons?

  BJ's an Alvarado.

• 1:06:19Speaker 04

  Do you just have me here to do heat? Don't you want my basketball insight?

• 1:06:22Speaker 03

  Just pulled the string on his back.

• 1:06:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, I feel bad for poor Edelman. I just think at this point, they might've been better off just hiring actors to play to play the coach. Just bring somebody in, bring in Ben Affleck and just tell him to be the wayback guy.

• 1:06:35Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:06:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just to tell him to look like he had a few the night before and he's just gonna yell at the refs and stuff. Um, I, I have to ask the king of narratives, Chris Ryan.

• 1:06:46Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:47Bill Simmons?

  If the Nuggets lose badly again Saturday, I think, and combined with OKC sweeping Memphis, the narratives are gonna come shooting left and right like a T-shirt gun. One of which will be, you voted for Jokic for MVP and he just, he just lost in five and shouldn't have won game one?

• 1:07:07Speaker 04

  Who's you? We're trying to figure out who did this.

• 1:07:10Bill Simmons?

  Me and Russillo and probably about 20 other people I think voted for Jokic.

• 1:07:15Speaker 03

  And, and me, to be fair.

• 1:07:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Speaker 04

  How are you guys feeling about that?

• 1:07:18Speaker 03

  I feel fine. I feel like it's a regular season award and I will sleep soundly at night with that knowledge.

• 1:07:23Bill Simmons?

  I actually feel better about it because Denver has been so exposed in this series that it kind of, it kind of cements why I voted for him in the first place. I couldn't believe how mediocre his team was.

• 1:07:34Speaker 04

  That's right. Bill never surrender.

• 1:07:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Speaker 03

  Just spin it forward.

• 1:07:40Bill Simmons?

  Now, so what else do we have for King of Narratives CR for this one?

• 1:07:44Speaker 04

  Um, just how taxing title runs are. I mean, even I think your beloved Celtics are experiencing this a little bit physically. Uh, obviously that has something to do with the sort of the elbows and the dives going on in that series, but it's amazing to watch, uh, just even Jokic and how like the tank is kind of like, I mean, it's not empty, but it is certainly half full and maybe has like a little bit of like accidental diesel in there at this point. And maybe he's looking around and he's saying, I don't have any help, but how do you rebuild this team? If you're, I mean, you, I'm asking you because I'm like, what are their moves here? What are their options? Is there like, is you have to take two steps back to take a step forward? I hate to like be writing their obituary already, but he's too amazing.

• 1:08:27Bill Simmons?

  It's tough to do the down 2-1. What do they do in this offseason? But it was hard not to think of that during the entire game.

• 1:08:33Speaker 04

  They squeak out a game one win in overtime.

• 1:08:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they shouldn't have won game one.

• 1:08:36Speaker 04

  And didn't really look that in it tonight. Game two was a little closer, but like, I just feel like the Clippers are attacking them from all over the court, like Rob said earlier. So I, the narrative here is like, man, like winning a title and being competitive over the course of a three-year stretch will really take a lot out of a franchise.

• 1:08:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, Rob, you're looking at a Michael Porter, my problem for your problem trade, right? That's probably where it starts. Do you have somebody you're not happy with? Cause we have Michael Porter Jr. What about a swaparoo? I would say that would be the first thing they try to do.

• 1:09:10Speaker 03

  Or to get two functional rotation players for Michael Porter Jr., right? Like Denver does need depth in such a bad way. They do need shooting. They need the stuff that at his best, MPJ is able to provide. Right now, he's clearly not at his best. Maybe he's not at his best consistently enough for, you know, the, the salary slot he takes and the role you're asking him to fill on the team. But I don't know, their problems cut so much deeper. Like they're just not going to go on any long runs if this is how they're going to defend. And functionally, the core of the team is not going to get dramatically better in that regard unless you start making some pretty dramatic moves.

• 1:09:43Speaker 04

  And it's so hard, right? Cause if you look back in, in retrospect, it's like, we've talked, I think you, everybody's talked about this on their pods and stuff, but like, KCP obviously would have been a valuable person for this team to have within the logic of the team's construction. It would have worked, but it's not like KCP set the world on fire as a member of the Magic. So it's like, I can see why they were like, we need to get off these guys. We can't pay like guys a little bit out of their prime for past performance. I understand all that, but Jesus, when you're watching what they put out there, it's like, it's unbelievable that they won a title a couple of years ago.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  It was incredible too, Bill. You were saying Jokic's passing in the first quarter really was awesome. Like high level Jokic stuff, what you would expect from a player of his pedigree. You watch them go on a run, you're seeing him set up these guys with all these no look passes. You're like, okay, Denver's really got something. You look at the scoreboard, they're up four points. I just think the Clippers have done such an amazing job of just chipping away at all of these Nuggets runs. It's a lot of that is James Harden in particular, who played amazing basketball today. Kawhi Leonard wasn't even that good and it just did not matter as far as like the Clippers consistency of scoring went. So they've just been able to mitigate every little bit of something that the Nuggets have put together. And it's, it's when you're in that position for Denver, it just takes all of the wind out of you.

• 1:10:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. When you, you basically have five and a half, six guys and Russ is one of the six and he's not even playing.

• 1:11:05Speaker 04

  The flip side, the flip side with the Clippers is like, they can beat you with just their two best guys, or they can beat you from the margins with Powell. And like, if Batum's gonna hit four threes.

• 1:11:14Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 1:11:15Speaker 04

  I don't know what the Magic Nick Batum three number is for a victory, but it looked a lot like tonight.

• 1:11:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, this is what I've been saying all year and I don't, I get it. America's probably not focused on the Clippers home regular season games, but they have a legitimately good home court advantage now. And you could feel it in that first half when they hit a couple of threes. The crowd was delirious and you know, they got hot. When a team's gonna make that many threes at home, they're probably winning a playoff game. But man, when Kawhi is as good as he's been, you know, he was 21 and 11, six assists today and Harden was probably their best player in the game, but Kawhi was still seemingly Kawhi and just seems so athletic. He had that one play in the first half when he went coast to coast on a steal, did those two long Kawhi steps with Jokic next to him and got it in there.

• 1:12:05Bill Simmons?

  And I, I just think the Clippers are really good. I'm just gonna keep saying it. I, I think people have to take them seriously as a contender. I think with the Nuggets.

• 1:12:15Bill Simmons?

  You know, Doc was on, when Doc was doing my pod, when um, Doc did my pod after Denver won, he was talking about how much he loves Porter and how uh, just how happy he was for that guy and how people don't realize how big he is and he can rebound. I remember him raving about him. I remember filing it away. Like, I wonder if Doc ever runs a team, would Porter be somebody he targets? And then you're thinking about Milwaukee in this other series, and that's another team that's gonna be, we're stuck, what do we do? I feel like, Rob, we're, we're at peak. We have an awesome player, but we're stuck. What do we do? I think, I feel like we've hit the peak in recent NBA history. You look around, these teams like, we have Giannis and we have no chance.

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:57Bill Simmons?

  We have Jokic and there's no way we're winning three straight rounds with the team we have. I don't remember um, teams with players this good, just really not being in the mix. And I, I think it speaks to how deep the league is now.

• 1:13:12Speaker 03

  It's, it's how deep the league is. It's also some of these teams, especially in more of the mid and small markets, running scared of what the apron is gonna mean for them and preemptively trying to get ahead of some of these problems in the way that Chris was talking about. Like, that's, it wouldn't have fully saved the Nuggets. And, and there's some parallel versions of that for the Bucks, where like, if anything, maybe they've been a little too aggressive in steering into the skid of their finances. Maybe they've been too aggressive in steering into the skid, certainly of the age curve, right? Of like, leaning on someone like Dame Lillard to be Giannis' primary running mate. You couldn't have anticipated the blood clot, but you could have anticipated some of the gradual decline year over year that a small guard is gonna have naturally. Uh, and so then you end up with Giannis Antetokounmpo, you end up with Nikola Jokic, surrounded by teams that are

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

  like, fine, you know, pretty good, and because they are so amazing, will at some points trick you into thinking that they're probably a little bit better than they are. And that's a really dangerous place to be at a team. To take, like, it's hard to take an honest assessment of who your sixth and seventh and eighth guys are, when every time they're shooting an open three from Giannis, or they're getting a backdoor cut from Jokic, like, it's hard to take stock of your team in those circumstances.

• 1:14:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it's a, it seems like the, the theme of all of these teams seems to be um, losing out on their core role players or veterans that are looking for a new contract. They miss those guys, like, whether it's the Warriors, the Bucks, whether it's Denver, and then they wind up regretting it because it's so impossible to like, find that exact guy, the exact KCP, the exact. Name, warrior, role player. I mean, I guess Iggy, Bunce, Bodie retired. I mean, like, it's the person that holds everything together and does all this little stuff. And I just, I don't even, I, as a, I, somebody who cheers for somebody who's not contending, I can't even imagine how difficult it must be.

• 1:14:56Bill Simmons?

  Who's your team? I forgot.

• 1:14:59Speaker 03

  You weren't cheering for Toby tonight?

• 1:15:00Speaker 04

  I'm cheering for basketball. I'm cheering for the Pistons.

• 1:15:03Speaker 03

  Hmm. B-ball Paul?

• 1:15:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:05Bill Simmons?

  To- Toby was 0 for 6 in that Knicks game today and CR was like, burn in hell!

• 1:15:11Speaker 03

  He's had a good series.

• 1:15:12Bill Simmons?

  0 for 20!

• 1:15:13Speaker 04

  He's been good.

• 1:15:14Bill Simmons?

  Uh, speaking of him, uh, Ben Simmons had a couple of moments in the Clips game too.

• 1:15:18Speaker 03

  Ben Simmons is plus 9.

• 1:15:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:20Bill Simmons?

  Broke out a headband, um, made a stop on somebody and did a little like stare to the crowd, kind of yell to the crowd stuff, um, continued his streak of dribbling hard right to the logo and, and then skidding to a stop and handing the ball off to a guard.

• 1:15:35Speaker 04

  I have a suggestion for you for the last act of your career. You've done a lot with your career, but I want you to lose all your hair.

• 1:15:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:42Speaker 04

  Then grow out a crazy sports writer receding hairline and become the poet of the Intuit Dome and just write about Ben Simmons' connection to the wall, you know?

• 1:15:53Speaker 04

  This was the day Ben Simmons became a Clipper.

• 1:15:56Bill Simmons?

  That would be, what if we started just assigning pieces like that and telling people to just sell the hell out of them? Like, somebody goes in and writes like a really heartfelt, Ben Simmons has finally found a home here. Today, he exploded for zero points and three rebounds, but his defensive stop in the first half really made it. Um, yeah, I mean, Derek Jones and Batum coming off the bench is 100 times better than anything Denver has. They have seven guys, plus the, the Simmons thing.

• 1:16:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you joke about the Simmons part. The Clippers winning his minutes so decisively is, is damning a piece of evidence. Like, that, that is really where you are if you're the Denver Nuggets, is you're straight up getting embarrassed by the Ben Simmons zone defense minutes. And Jokic was on the floor for a lot of those, right? And you're still trying to figure it out. You could see them trying to cut behind it, trying to like work some angles. None of it felt sustainable. None of it felt like they ever got into an actual rhythm, breaking down, I repeat, a Ben Zim- Ben Simmons zone defense. You're, that, that's the series, right there.

• 1:17:00Bill Simmons?

  I, uh, do not see a path for them. I'm going to game four. I think the only way they win, well, two things. One, the Clippers could just have a game where they go like six for 45 from three. It's 3pm. Yeah, I mean, anybody can just suck in a game and not make any threes. And if you don't make any threes, you could lose to anybody. The only other guy I can see is Murray. Like, they need like a 38-point Murray game, but when you watch how the Clippers, all these guys, they can throw at him. It's just, I think it's a tall ass. They just have too many dudes. So I think, I thought, Russel and I said on Sunday, the Nuggets were up 1-0. And both of us were like, haven't changed my opinion at all.

• 1:17:43Bill Simmons?

  I still feel exactly the same and I think it's going to be really hard for Nuggets to win now. I don't think they can win. Let's take a, let's take a break and talk about the malice at the palace, part two, Knicks-Pistons. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865, is a registered

• 1:18:27Bill Simmons?

  mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association, Member, FDIC. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat, or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what, you're going to want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season, whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're going to want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. Pistons-Nicks. I thought this was a potential Steve Kerr game, which is what, he gave me this theory years ago and I always monitor it.

• 1:19:07Bill Simmons?

  The young were so psyched to be in the playoffs again, playoff team hosting the game three, and the energy's through the roof. Yeah. And everybody's like, oh my God, they're going to go ape shit in this game. The crowd's going to be amazing. And then they come out and they lay an egg. They did not lay an egg. The Knicks were really good. And I think that the thing that jumps out to me, CR.

• 1:19:31Bill Simmons?

  The shot distribution, which was a big topic the last couple of days because you have all these really good offensive players and you have Jalen Brunson in game two, shooting 27 times and taking 12 free throws. I went on Termina and Eddie's show yesterday and we were talking about like, "Hey Brunson, you had 37. That's not necessarily a good thing for your team if Towns looks like he, you know, wants to go listen to Morrissey after the game and, and, you know, OG Ananobe has 10 points. Like maybe get, maybe a little more distribution." And it's basically the Isaiah Thomas mid 80s Pistons rule of, "Yeah, I could have scored 35, but I scored 23 and three other

• 1:20:13Bill Simmons?

  guys on my team had an awesome game." So the shot distribution this time, 20 Brunson, 18 Towns, 17 Ananobe, 13 Bridges. All four guys had 20 points and up. And that to me feels like the balance. So my question, you see our intentional or unintentional?

• 1:20:31Speaker 04

  I think it was probably intentional. I don't think you can have a roster so overly committed to this starting five and this core and just be like, but it's still a one man show and you guys just stand in the corners. And also, I mean, like Brunson missing time over the course of the season. I think tellingly when he missed some time in this last bit of the regular season, that's when Bridges kind of blossomed a little bit. I mean, I know that Knicks fans have a love hate relationship with him, but he needed to be a little bit more featured and a little bit more set up to be, to be a feature player. I, I gotta admit, can we talk a little bit about the Brunson experience?

• 1:21:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, let's go. I'm so excited to do so.

• 1:21:10Speaker 04

  Don't dislike Jalen Brunson.

• 1:21:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. You are coming to this with trauma, I will say, given last year's playoffs.

• 1:21:16Speaker 04

  If I was a Pistons fan, I would hate Jalen Brunson.

• 1:21:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:20Speaker 04

  And I want to like him. It's hard right now. I'm not enjoying this. Are you guys enjoying this?

• 1:21:28Bill Simmons?

  How much of this has to do with the Knicks Sixers series last year almost torpedoing your friendship with fantasy?

• 1:21:35Speaker 04

  We're fine. We're good.

• 1:21:37Speaker 03

  Patched it up.

• 1:21:38Speaker 04

  26%.

• 1:21:41Bill Simmons?

  What's your take, Rob, on Jalen Brunson? The, one of the league's most unlikely underdog stories ever. Then now, now getting the backlash.

• 1:21:54Speaker 03

  I'm becoming a little radicalized, I gotta say. I have a quite high tolerance for James Harden-esque theatrics. I'm mostly fine with it.

• 1:22:02Speaker 04

  He makes Harden look like Bronco Nagurski.

• 1:22:05Speaker 03

  This is the thing, and I think, I think the juxtaposition of him specifically against Asar Thompson in the series, who's just playing good wholesome defense, but with a hyper athletic frame. And you're just seeing him get baited into sometimes dumb young player shit. And sometimes inexplicable non-calls that Jalen Brunson gets the benefit of. I will say, I thought the first half in this game, he, Jalen Brunson was participating in every version of that possible and trying to sell every one of these calls. I thought he cleaned it up a lot in the second half. And I thought that some of what we were talking about in terms of the shot distribution paid off too. Like, he just looked really fresh and was such a huge part of them rebuffing all of these Pistons runs. In part because he wasn't trying to sell all these dumb fouls every single possession and hitting the floor every single time.

• 1:22:48Speaker 03

  At some point, you can, you are allowed to just play basketball. And I like when Jalen Brunson just plays basketball. I like when he draws some fouls too, but we need a little bit of shame, just a modicum of shame.

• 1:23:00Speaker 04

  The Pistons fans were trying to, trying to show him some shame. They were chanting FJ Jalen Brunson or FU Brunson. And it wasn't really, it obviously kind of fired him up a little bit. He closed really well. I think it's probably his size throws me off a lot because he goes in there like a bowling, like a pinball, really. And he just starts flying around the lane. The head snap thing is like jarring, I think, is to watch visually. I think it's the stuff on the perimeter that bothers me the most, the diving in, like, you know, diving into guys when there's like, there, he's being defended outside the three point line and just shoulder dropping, going into them. Or, you know, flopping down after he's coming down from a shot because he thinks somebody is in his landing zone. But, uh, yeah, I think that, go ahead.

• 1:23:44Bill Simmons?

  Well, I, I went to a Celtics Knicks game, like maybe January or February, I can't remember. And was talking about how I just, I hadn't realized that he'd become the best, you know, flopper extraordinaire in the entire league. And, and a lot of the Knicks fans got mad about it. They're like, fuck you. How dare you? He's worse than James Harden. It's like, yeah, cuz it's not just him like driving to the basket and flailing to get a call. It's all the stuff he's doing off the ball. It's when somebody sets him a pick and it's just a lot of him throwing his arms up in the air, but it's gamesmanship and it works cuz he gets the crowd fired up, especially in a playoff series.

• 1:24:25Bill Simmons?

  I thought the crowd was awesome and there was this great moment, the first of many altercations in this game, when it got heated and you could hear the crowd, the, the, the decibels of the crowd. Everyone was so excited, there might be a fight. It was like, I was trying to think, is there an arena that is more ready to see a battle on the court than Detroit? Ironically, they had the biggest one of the, of the century, but they were just like, let's fucking go. Let's drop the gloves. They thought it was like a Red Wings game. We're not allowed to fight in basketball.

• 1:24:57Speaker 04

  When Towns got into it with, who's the Pistons he got into it with?

• 1:25:02Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was Paul Reed, wasn't it? It was Paul Reed.

• 1:25:03Speaker 04

  He bought Paul and then they, they benched Isaiah Stewart on the bench.

• 1:25:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:25:09Speaker 04

  And he's wearing like a full suit and he's just like, shit. I wish I was out there.

• 1:25:14Bill Simmons?

  Isaiah Stewart's like, I should have just worn my jersey cuz then I could have. I know, he could be on the corner at least.

• 1:25:19Speaker 04

  The funniest part about this game to me was that there were more dads in the crowd than like a California youth soccer match. It was like Bridges was fighting with Tim Hardaway senior. Rick Brunson was fighting with Cade Cunningham and with Jalen Rose. I was just like, this is an amazing testament to like, to like what's going on with the amount of kids in the, in the NBA of like, you know?

• 1:25:42Bill Simmons?

  So if I'm the, if I'm Detroit, I, I thought the Knicks were gonna win this in four or five. If I'm Detroit, I feel like I'm in the vicinity of this series. It's the opposite of the Denver game. Even if you look at the box score, they got a really good Hardaway game. They got a, a solid Cunningham game, typical for him, some turnovers. They had a really good Schroder game and I continue to wonder why Miami didn't want Schroder. I'm just gonna ask that in every podcast. Miami's like, we're good. Now they don't have Terry Rozier, they don't really have a point guard, but Tobias was the one, he had five points, two for nine. He was the one that had a bad one. They're in these games. I think all of these games are going to be close. I don't see a

• 1:26:26Bill Simmons?

  blowout either way. I like the matchup of the two, but it feels like Detroit's, what do you think, Rob? Like two hairs below, three hairs below?

• 1:26:37Speaker 03

  They are close, but I came away from this game, which is a two-point game, feeling pretty confident about the Knicks' margin for error because everything you laid out is true. Like, those are all elements of the game. Some went well for Detroit, some didn't. They kind of all came out in the wash for them. For the Knicks' part of it, I thought the Knicks just straight up botched their pick and roll defense for a huge portion of this game. Just were not on the same page at all. They got nothing from their bench through the entirety of this game. They got outshot from three. They got out-offensive rebounded. And they still win, squeaking it out. But down the stretch, it really did feel like I trust Jalen Brunson to make these plays. I trust even like Karl-Anthony Towns to make these plays, who he had a tremendous game overall. And to the idea of whether, you

• 1:27:18Speaker 03

  know, the shot distribution was intentional or not, cat coming out super aggro. You can usually tell really quickly kind of what's in his head. He kind of has it all out on his sleeve. And his intention to make his presence felt on this game, I think, changed a lot of it early. And that then opened up for Jalen Brunson to do a lot of the closing lay. Clutch Player of the Year, Jalen Brunson.

• 1:27:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:27:37Speaker 03

  I forgot. A real award that exists.

• 1:27:40Bill Simmons?

  I did not vote for him. You know, I voted for Jokic because he's the best offensive player of the week and has the ball all the time.

• 1:27:46Speaker 03

  I did see, I did see, we discussed previously, Bill, that you had Jason Tatum third on your ballot for Clutch Player of the Year.

• 1:27:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's been a bunch of late game shots. You didn't like that pick?

• 1:27:57Speaker 03

  He's only 19. He's only 19. I'm not disputing it. I'm just saying, I saw the full voting, and there was exactly one third place vote for Jason Tatum for Clutch Player of the Year. So congratulations for working your way into voting history.

• 1:28:10Bill Simmons?

  The Boston fans are mad because I didn't vote for Pritchard for sixth Man of the Year. So I don't, am I a homer? Am I an anti-homer? I don't know. I'm all over the map.

• 1:28:21Bill Simmons?

  The Schroder PCR.

• 1:28:25Bill Simmons?

  When can this guy just find a home? I love having him in playoff series. Is he just like, he's like automatic QB in Thanksgiving? He's just gonna bounce around every playoffs?

• 1:28:34Speaker 04

  He's like Woody Guthrie riding the rails. He's just, yeah, you know, he's just a vagabond of the NBA. I mean, I think that the problem for the Pistons is that they're relying on Schroder, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Beasley, although Beasley had an awesome season. Those guys can't be your second options, third options. You know, like the Cade needs one more guy. I think they're hoping or hope to was Jaden Ivey. I love Jaden Ivey, even though like he hasn't quite realized his potential tough injury. I have to ask you guys, when you watch-

• 1:29:03Bill Simmons?

  Durant? Oh, I thought you were going Durant right there.

• 1:29:05Speaker 04

  Oh, no. No.

• 1:29:06Speaker 03

  No, don't do that. Don't do that.

• 1:29:08Speaker 04

  No, come on, man.

• 1:29:10Bill Simmons?

  Why couldn't we go Durant? Why not?

• 1:29:11Speaker 04

  Yeah. I wanted to know whether or not when you watch the Knicks, Rob, does this look like a team that can go very far with the style of basketball? And with this, like, this just feels very much like we have now pushed this to the limit of what this team can do under Tibbs and with this roster construction. That's what it looks like.

• 1:29:32Bill Simmons?

  The Tibbs part is the key part. Is it the roster is the roster plus Tibbs, Rob?

• 1:29:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, even what we were talking about as far as Jalen Brunson overextending in the previous games, some of that is a Tibbs style of offense as well. Some of it is Jalen Brunson. Some of it is a guy like Cat who can sort of ebb and flow in these games. It doesn't always like claim his spot as far as his role in the offense goes if he's not really, really focusing and thinking about it. I think Tibbs is such a weird coach because he cleans up so many things for you, but he also so clearly leaves all of this other low hanging fruit that some other coach could come in and do and make your team a little bit better in these particular ways. For example, I'm just like, I remain stunned by how little 1-5 pick and roll the Knicks run. Like Jalen Brunson and Karl Towns are your best players. It almost doesn't matter who is guarding them.

• 1:30:21Speaker 03

  You can do that anytime you want. And certainly every second that Jalen Duren is guarding Karl Towns, which was a lot of the second half after they, you know, the Pistons kind of switched that matchup. Why are you not running pick and roll at Jalen Duren every second he's on the court?

• 1:30:34Bill Simmons?

  Also, why aren't you doing it with Bridges and Towns? Like, it doesn't just have to be Brunson. Bridges is good at that, too.

• 1:30:40Speaker 03

  Lots of options. So, yeah, so I like, I respect Tibbs a lot. I think he brings a lot to this team, but there is something to the idea of the formula maxing out at a certain point.

• 1:30:50Bill Simmons?

  See, our who is when Towns does the thing where he intentionally starts some sort of altercation? And then does the evil laughing thing. Is that Garcia in Internal Affairs? What movie character is that for you? Cobra Kai person? Who is that? What movie villain?

• 1:31:07Speaker 04

  It's just more like, it is the guy, it's like the guy in Trainspotting who throws the pint glass over his shoulder and doesn't see where it's going. Like, he's not quite Begbie, but he has like a little bit of like, who started the fight? Wow, this is weird.

• 1:31:21Bill Simmons?

  I do enjoy it. I don't know if he's ever actually been in an NBA fight, but he's always like in the, around it in the mix of some of these. It's pretty funny.

• 1:31:28Speaker 03

  I thought B-ball Paul was trying to get ejected. Like, what was that?

• 1:31:32Speaker 04

  But he was pissed. I mean, like, do you think, I think, I think the thing is that Brunson's, whether or not you like watching it, it clearly works. Because it drives other players nuts.

• 1:31:42Speaker 03

  Completely.

• 1:31:43Speaker 04

  And, you know, like, I don't really have like the rulebook in front of me to judge whether or not that was a backcourt violation in the last second there. But he was doing a lot of stuff to just get Durin. Durin was going nuts after, for a while there.

• 1:31:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I've, I've liked Durin in this series. Yeah, Towns, it was the full Towns experience. I thought he had a really good game. But then, of course, he couldn't resist having the terrible foul at the worst possible time with like two minutes left.

• 1:32:09Speaker 03

  Who he is.

• 1:32:09Bill Simmons?

  Don't, don't forget, I, I have to, it's almost like when, uh, when my dog jumps in this little fountain thing we have every once in a while. He gets super excited and he jumps in and then he looks at us like, I had to, guys, I'm sorry. I just, it was sitting there, it was cold, I had to do it. Towns has to like, he just can't help it. He has to have the one foul in the last three minutes and he has to almost get it out of his system. I think this series goes six.

• 1:32:36Speaker 04

  Six? So you think Detroit gets one more here?

• 1:32:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think I'm gonna lose, one of my bets was Knicks in four or five, and I think, uh, I think Detroit gets one more, right? They, they get a game where they shoot really well. Um, Towns gets into foul trouble. We haven't had a foul trouble game. That's the other thing with these game fours. The league can get a little, uh, creative.

• 1:32:59Bill Simmons?

  With some of this stuff.

• 1:33:00Speaker 04

  All Lakers Wolves game three.

• 1:33:03Bill Simmons?

  CR, can I have your animosity rankings for round one?

• 1:33:06Speaker 04

  Um, certainly Luca and Rudy are are pretty high up there. I was trying to, I was asking a couple of people last day. I was like, what is the Rudy original sin against Luca? And I guess he did punch him in the stomach or hit him in the stomach like a long time ago.

• 1:33:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:22Speaker 04

  But I always laugh. I was at the game, game one. He is shit talking Rudy the entire game like with like true hatred in his eyes. And nobody from the T Wolves stands up for Rudy. It is one of those things where it's just like, you know what, man? Go ahead. You know, if you want to waste energy telling this guy to go fuck himself, that's fine. So I would definitely put Luca and Rudy up there pretty high. Team wise, um.

• 1:33:47Bill Simmons?

  Oh, can we wait? Can I have a couple of other candidates for the?

• 1:33:50Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, please.

• 1:33:52Bill Simmons?

  I think Dame Halliburton has to be.

• 1:33:54Speaker 04

  I was gonna say Bucks Pacers just straight up is.

• 1:33:57Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you're going straight up team versus team.

• 1:33:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:59Bill Simmons?

  I would go, I would go Dame Halliburton, but also team versus team. And then you know, it's bad when they just cut to James Johnson randomly. When he's not even really playing like he's over there.

• 1:34:12Speaker 04

  Just lurking in the corner.

• 1:34:13Bill Simmons?

  Fucking maniac.

• 1:34:15Speaker 04

  Shoot him.

• 1:34:15Bill Simmons?

  James Johnson. He'll kill you. Um, yeah, Bucks Pacers is way up there. I think Celts Magic is starting to, uh, like they've made Al Horford badge, which is almost impossible.

• 1:34:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. KCP versus Al Horford.

• 1:34:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they made Al Horford mad.

• 1:34:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:32Bill Simmons?

  Which happens like three times a year. I was kind of shocked by that. Um, I don't know. One of the most popular nights of Celtics, probably the most popular Celtics teammate of the last 15 years. And he was ready to hit KCP with a two by four. His sister's going at Magic fans on Twitter. Pretty amazing stuff.

• 1:34:52Speaker 03

  What about Draymond with each and every rocket?

• 1:34:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:55Speaker 03

  Completely separate arguments and frustrations with all of them somehow. And I appreciate his ability to compartmentalize personally.

• 1:35:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, don't you feel like that has a chance to go up a notch? Cause

• 1:35:08Speaker 03

  Clearly.

• 1:35:09Bill Simmons?

  The way they're guarding him with Van Vliet. Well, Van Vliet, we haven't really seen him have a moment with Dillon Brooks yet. There's gonna be no Butler in game three, so Draymond's gonna be in that mode like I've gotta do more. Yeah, that's a good one.

• 1:35:22Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:35:23Bill Simmons?

  I think Bucks Pacers is the most inexplicable one, though. I don't, it's just a bunch of nice guys on both teams and yet they hate each other. And it feels like it's gonna be the Anchorman brawl every time, every time it gets heated.

• 1:35:36Bill Simmons?

  I'm trying to think of anything else. Maybe some Lou Dort Memphis game four.

• 1:35:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, they were getting in his ass a little bit. And I saw Draymond like put up an Instagram story that was like, that's a dirty play. But I think when you go back and watch it, it's really hard to see Dort like, oh, I'm gonna tackle Ja midair here. You know, he's like slipping as Pippen turns around.

• 1:35:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, I told

• 1:35:57Speaker 03

  I would challenge any human being.

• 1:36:00Bill Simmons?

  Oh, go ahead, Rob.

• 1:36:01Speaker 03

  I would challenge any human being to try to move fast enough while rotating their body to beat Ja Morant to a quick twitch spot in order to even try to undercut it. Like, it's just not a realistic human thing to do even for Lou Dort.

• 1:36:16Bill Simmons?

  I told Sarudy and Kevin Clark that I had worked up a proper amount of hatred. But like basically the halftime of game two for the Magic and for KCP. And they said, don't worry, we also hate KCP. Cause he's been, I think he was like one for a hundred at that point in the series.

• 1:36:32Speaker 04

  That's the funniest thing is you getting really cranky because you're worried one of the Celtics is gonna get, you know, mortally injured during this.

• 1:36:38Bill Simmons?

  They, they

• 1:36:39Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:36:40Bill Simmons?

  They hurt Tatum and

• 1:36:42Speaker 04

  It's a contact sport, Bill.

• 1:36:43Bill Simmons?

  Porzingis got split open like it was a fucking steel cage match against Roman Reigns. It's like, oh my God, he's busted wide open.

• 1:36:50Speaker 03

  Well, they tagged in Goga Bitacek. That's what happens after he comes into the game.

• 1:36:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, my dad was so upset. He, he sent me some of the funniest texts, uh, just about Batzey. He was like, who is this guy? He just comes in and fouls people. And I don't think he's been logging a lot of, uh, Orlando Magic.

• 1:37:07Speaker 03

  It would be funny if after the Pacers get eliminated, you give James Johnson your dad's tickets so that it just pans up to James Johnson anytime a Celtics player gets targeted.

• 1:37:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, I mean, we always talk about movie coolers, right? Like, like Swayze and Roadhouse was the best one ever. And then we've seen people try to rip off that gimmick over and over again in movies. And James Johnson's the real life cooler, it seems like.

• 1:37:27Speaker 03

  Well, he's the same Elliot at this point. He's aged out of Swayze. Yeah.

• 1:37:31Bill Simmons?

  But he's still wearing a uniform, right? I guess. Or did he become an assistant coach and do it that way?

• 1:37:39Speaker 03

  It's practically what Rick Brunson did tonight.

• 1:37:41Bill Simmons?

  That's true. So tomorrow we have Boston, Orlando, Indiana, Milwaukee, Lakers, Minnesota. Which one are you more excited about out of those three CR?

• 1:37:53Speaker 03

  Me? Lakers, Minnesota. That's been one of my favorite series so far.

• 1:37:56Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Same for your rep?

• 1:37:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. I don't, like, I would like to think that Pacers Bucks is going to be fun and competitive and maybe have a spin on that series. I just don't really see what levers the Bucks can pull to really change things there. They kind of are what they are and Giannis is going to be amazing, but how do they really make anything happen versus we clearly know how the Wolves make things happen and it's hit a fuck ton of threes, make really sharp decisions with the ball and, and counteract at least some of what the Lakers have going on on the other end.

• 1:38:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So I, when I was talking to Eddie in Termini yesterday, Eddie seen, Eddie was thinking, thought Giannis and Milwaukee can come back and they're going to win the next two and this is going to be a long series.

• 1:38:37Bill Simmons?

  And I just don't see it. I just think Indiana is just significantly better than them. And the way that, the way that, uh, Milwaukee wins game three, Giannis has a big game, but you could almost spot him the big game. And I still think Indiana wins. But the game that's looming that hasn't happened yet is the Indiana fucks up the game in the last four minutes game. We have not had that yet.

• 1:38:58Speaker 03

  Oh, this is your Pacers.

• 1:39:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, combined with. You know, Milwaukee home for game three, the refs, that's, that's a game where you're probably going to get some calls. And I could just see this one being like, man, I can't believe we're not up 3-0 right now. How did we lose that? It feels like it could be one of those.

• 1:39:17Speaker 03

  It's possible. They're not that bad in crunch time for the record. They get by.

• 1:39:20Bill Simmons?

  I know, I just, I just, I don't trust them.

• 1:39:22Speaker 03

  They're probably about average.

• 1:39:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, so game two, what are they up 17? And then all of a sudden it's a two-point game? Like, they just have a lot of those.

• 1:39:29Speaker 03

  They will do that, yeah.

• 1:39:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, where it's just like, how did you let this team back in there? Lakers, Minnesota, what I'm watching for after going to game two is just, is Edwards going to get involved earlier than he did? There was some interesting Gobert, it didn't feel this way at the game, but there was some interesting Gobert actually defending one-on-one against LeBron, Luka, and I think it was LeBron, maybe it was LeBron and Luka, but they were like basically four and 13, when, four for 13 when they went at him. Reeves had, I think, a little more success. I felt like Minnesota did not ever want that to happen. And they were in complete panic every time Gobert was, you know, in isolation with those guys. But I,

• 1:40:13Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to be interested to see if they just keep doing that, or if there's an extra wrinkle. I didn't like what I saw from Conley at all in game two. So what, is that just hard for him to play two games in three days? What do we have with that? There was some interesting Shannon minutes in that game that I wonder, like, you know, home game, could he swing it from an energy standpoint? I still, Rob, I just still feel like the Lakers are really limited, man. That's like a team, that's a team that has five and a half guys. They have no rim protection at all. And they're just putting this incredible burden on LeBron and Rui to basically protect the rim and rebound.

• 1:40:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:49Bill Simmons?

  That I don't know if it's sustainable, but what, are you seeing anything else?

• 1:40:52Speaker 03

  I mean, their defense was pretty incredible with that group. But yeah, the more times you have to do that repetitively, and the more times you're doing it and giving Ann a chance to look at it and see how to break it down, and they're going to have film sessions in between, it's going to get harder and harder. And, and there's no alternative, right? There's not the option to just play Jackson Hayes 35 minutes. You can't do it. So all they have to do is stretch out Dorian and Rui and LeBron as much as you possibly can. And I thought LeBron was awesome on defense in particular in that game.

• 1:41:18Bill Simmons?

  He was great.

• 1:41:19Speaker 03

  Ultimately, the Lakers, I mean, they didn't light the world on fire with their own scoring. They won that game because they locked the Wolves up and they forced a team that's a little shaky in its decision-making to make some characteristically Wolves mistakes.

• 1:41:31Speaker 04

  Bill, did you notice it was the loading up on Ant? Cause he said after the game that it felt like a zone and that he has to go watch the tape. But in game one, they were loading up on Ant and I, I didn't necessarily think it was zone, but they were definitely cheating onto him. And he was, they were, I thought they were moving the ball really well in game one. The Wolves were, obviously they had threes coming out at like their ears that game, but it didn't feel significantly different on TV watching it. Like, so I was kind of surprised that Ant was like, well, that was a new wrinkle. I hadn't seen that yet, you know?

• 1:42:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I didn't see it at all and I thought he was just too tentative. And I talked to somebody involved with the team at halftime and I was like, what's up with Ant? Said his shoulders bothering him and seemed like he was tentative. So I think he had-

• 1:42:13Speaker 04

  Cause he was swinging a lot, like he was, he was kind of like moving his arm around.

• 1:42:17Bill Simmons?

  There was one time he came to the table to go back in the game and he had one of those giant Normatec kind of straitjacket things on. And it almost seemed like demonstrative, like my shoulder hurts. Look, I'm wearing this giant contraption. It was just weird. I thought it was a weird game for him, but I don't see him doing that in Minnesota. I could see him, uh, coming back hard. So if you, is there any O and two team you think could come back, Rob?

• 1:42:43Speaker 03

  I don't think so. Is there, is there any, yeah, is there anyone you believe in?

• 1:42:46Speaker 04

  I don't think the Heat are coming back. Like, I mean, who else would we be talking about?

• 1:42:52Bill Simmons?

  But the Heat-

• 1:42:53Speaker 03

  Doesn't look very promising.

• 1:42:54Bill Simmons?

  Is Rozier, is he just like, we're never going to see him again? Like what's, what's, what was Rozier's injury?

• 1:43:02Speaker 03

  I mean-

• 1:43:02Bill Simmons?

  He's, he's out for the year, right?

• 1:43:04Speaker 03

  Even if you had him, would you play him over Davion Mitchell? Who's I think is just a better player at this point than Rozier is?

• 1:43:11Bill Simmons?

  I, I like, this feels like it should be a bigger story. This whole Rozier thing, like how, I don't have to talk about some of the stuff he was involved with.

• 1:43:19Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:43:19Bill Simmons?

  This guy went from, they traded a first round pick. He was averaging 25 a game on Charlotte to now he's, he just has disappeared and nobody even talks about him during the games. It's just-

• 1:43:29Speaker 03

  I mean, I think he's in a, I think he's in a, like, he's still pretty injured, I believe.

• 1:43:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's hurt. I think he might be out for at least a round or two, but-

• 1:43:37Speaker 04

  But meanwhile, home prices on the Davion Peninsula are just, they're shooting up, man. I mean, it's a really competitive market.

• 1:43:45Bill Simmons?

  Sarudy told me two nights ago that if Orlando paid $100 million this summer for Ty Jerome, he wouldn't blink. That was what he said. He said if it got that high, fine. At least we got our guy. Kind of how I felt about Milton Williams Patriots here. It's like 26 a year, whatever. We needed a nose tackle. But Ty Jerome and Suggs, Sarudy's already moved mentally to the Ty Jerome Suggs era for the Magic.

• 1:44:13Speaker 03

  Honestly, pretty sick.

• 1:44:14Speaker 04

  You drafted a guy with dinosaur arms. Are you excited? Little T-Rex arms?

• 1:44:20Bill Simmons?

  You know, I've, I've heard, I've heard the jokes and, uh, you know, he's, we root for underdogs in New England and Boston.

• 1:44:28Speaker 04

  Number four picks right where you want to get an underdog. Yeah.

• 1:44:31Bill Simmons?

  I just want to know how an inch became so important for the left tackle. So if he's 33 inch arms, he's fine, but 32 and, and three eighths, he's not fine.

• 1:44:40Speaker 04

  We'll find out.

• 1:44:40Bill Simmons?

  That's how we're gonna go. I remember a guy, when a guy named Jalen Brunson dropped to the second round because he wasn't tall enough. If you remember that one. All right. Any last things or what's the thing you're most excited about this weekend, Rob?

• 1:44:53Speaker 03

  I'm trying to think of like, which of these series can get, I'm, I feel a little disoriented because the series that we were loving are now also stilted. If Jimmy Butler doesn't play, if the Clippers keep like really accelerating into this series. Is there anything else in this first round that we're like really psyched about other than I, I, we've already talked about a little bit, but I do want to see the Wolves counter punch. I do want to see what they've got. I think that's probably the most interesting next step for me.

• 1:45:17Speaker 04

  I, yeah, I thought like, I agree with Rob. Like I think Wolves Lakers is the best remaining series and the one that I feel like has the most chapters. I don't know how many games it's going to go, but after game one, I was like, holy shit. These guys have more athleticism than the Lakers. Like this is crazy. And, and now I'm a little bit more measured about it.

• 1:45:36Bill Simmons?

  I would not count out Milwaukee in game three. No, I don't think they're very good.

• 1:45:42Bill Simmons?

  New York, Detroit feels like it might have some legs.

• 1:45:46Speaker 03

  Or some fists.

• 1:45:47Bill Simmons?

  Orlando do pulling a rock fight routine against Boston, maybe stealing a game. But yeah, this, we might be, the Clippers Denver seems like it might headed to, had, might be headed to being a bust.

• 1:46:00Speaker 04

  Flip it. After a week, what's the team you're most impressed by?

• 1:46:04Speaker 03

  It's gotta be the Clippers, I think, right?

• 1:46:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think the Clippers because they should probably be up 3-0.

• 1:46:09Speaker 04

  Thunder were impressive tonight.

• 1:46:11Speaker 03

  I mean, the thing is, they were already so impressive. You know, the Clippers, we wanted to see how they stacked up against a team like Denver so much. And they've had all the answers, right? The fact that they're dictating all the terms of this series so far is really demonstrative at this stage in the playoffs.

• 1:46:25Bill Simmons?

  I would say out of the eight series, the only one I don't have a handle on, and part of it is the Butler injury, but just the matchup is just, I don't think either team is happy with how they're playing. The Golden State Houston, it's just, it's a weird one. I don't like Houston's offense. I don't like anything Golden State's doing if Butler's not out there. I just don't think, I don't think they're good enough.

• 1:46:47Bill Simmons?

  And a lot of it seems to hinge on how each game is being officiated, which I never really like.

• 1:46:54Bill Simmons?

  And then the Rockets just have these wild cards where it's like, all right, Jalen Green made a couple of threes. So is he good now? Cause I think he could go one for 11 tomorrow night. You know, I don't trust basically anyone on their team.

• 1:47:06Bill Simmons?

  And then what they're getting away with defending Curry, not to be a Curry defender, but the league's in a weird space right now because they've been really good about, you know, letting defenders be able to, letting defenders be able to, uh,

• 1:47:23Speaker 04

  Make contact, yeah.

• 1:47:24Bill Simmons?

  Make contact when somebody's driving to the basket or whatever. I don't think they've done a good job of cleaning up the stuff way off the ball and some of the holds and just, and conversely, I don't think they've done a good job with the moving screens either. But it just seems like all the stuff off the ball is worse than ever. And then the, the physicality of guys going to the basket has actually been handled really well. But I just think the Rockets are getting away with crazy shitting at Steph. I don't like it.

• 1:47:49Speaker 03

  I don't know that I've seen a minute go by in the series where someone's arm isn't around Steph's hip, just like locked in, holding him in place as he tries to cut around the court. It's just, he's always had some of that where defenders are allowed to get away with things with Steph that they wouldn't be in any other context. Or if he had the ball in his hands, as you're saying, it would be officiated completely differently. Somehow he still busts loose as long as they have enough bodies to make their lineups work. And without Jimmy Butler. If that's going to be more than game three, I just don't think they have the bodies to make the lineups work.

• 1:48:19Speaker 04

  You'll be happy to know that folks on Warriors Twitter are doing collages of Ime Udoka coached teams diving at other guys' legs and making dirty plays. So there are, there are watchers on the wall making sure our refs are accountable.

• 1:48:31Speaker 03

  Wow, we're the very healthy place. I'll say too, the Pistons Knicks game today, it was refreshing to see the game end and both teams are just furious with the officiating, right? The backcourt violation for Brunson, as you said, Chris, was cited chapter and verse.

• 1:48:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, what about the rebound where no time went off the clock?

• 1:48:47Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:48:48Bill Simmons?

  And then the guy ran the baseline on the, next to the Knicks bench and fouled the ball, which I haven't seen in 20 years.

• 1:48:54Speaker 03

  Just something for everybody to be pissed about. It really warms the heart.

• 1:48:57Bill Simmons?

  All right. Well, Rob, I know you're going to be excited. What, what do you have for TV this weekend, other than the basketball?

• 1:49:04Speaker 03

  We got The Last of Us going on. We got Your Friends and Neighbors going on. There's some pretty solid TV happening right now.

• 1:49:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. CR, have you still stole from your neighbors at all? Or you haven't crossed that line yet?

• 1:49:15Speaker 03

  You're a Birkin guy?

• 1:49:18Speaker 04

  I'm worried a little bit about some of their security systems that they got here.

• 1:49:21Bill Simmons?

  No cameras in any of these houses in Your Friends and Neighbors? Nobody has any nanny cams?

• 1:49:26Speaker 04

  He's got a device that turns off the wifi. We gotta address this pretty soon.

• 1:49:31Bill Simmons?

  All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks for staying up with me.

• 1:49:34Speaker 03

  Thanks.

• 1:49:35Speaker 04

  You got it, Bill.

• 1:49:36Bill Simmons?

  All right. Thanks to Sarudy and Gahow. Thanks to Van and CR and Mahoney. Don't forget about Celtic City. Eight episodes on Max right now. Ninth episode is coming on Monday night, 9:00 PM. HBO, it is the final episode of a series that I am really proud of. So please go check it out. New rewatch was coming Monday as well. We're still and I are going live on Sunday again on this podcast on YouTube. So you can subscribe to the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. By the way, FanDuel's Ringer Player Performance Double Profit Boost Token has moved to Sundays during the playoffs where you can claim a 30% boost on one of my favorite betting markets. I'll do a tweet that day. And if you don't know about those, you gotta check them out. Two leg parlays.

• 1:50:21Bill Simmons?

  You can take an NBA player pop, combine it with a bet on that player's team to win and go nuts. So potentially like Minnesota Lakers, you could take Edwards for threes, points, take Minnesota to win. And there you go. This Sunday, be sure to claim your profit boost on FanDuel Sportsbook. Before you watch the action, I will see you on Sunday with Priscilla. Enjoy the weekend.

• 1:50:58Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller

• 1:51:41Bill Simmons?

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