Embiid’s Return, Houston’s Weird Weekend, Joker’s Swoon, and a Knicks Gut Check With Zach Lowe

Join The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe LIVE on Netflix to break down the Rockets keeping their playoff hopes alive against the Lakers, and the Celtics taking a commanding 3-1 lead against the 76ers (0:31). Then, they recap the rest of the weekend's NBA playoff matchups, take a look at Donovan Mitchell’s playoff history, discuss Nikola Jokic’s struggles, and much more! (45:00). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Zach Lowe Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers Give No Quits. Shop at your Local Duluth Trading Company Store or Online 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?

  This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Tortore gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Tortore stars as an aging master pickpocket, whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Now playing in theaters nationwide.

• 1:07Bill Simmons?

  Bill Simmons Podcast, we are live on Netflix. Zach Lowe is here. Zach Lowe's podcast is coming Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have a new rewatchables coming tomorrow. We are doing Ghostbusters, a really famous gigantic movie. Don't forget about Legata, our new scripted narrative series as well, from The Ringer. We're coming, the Lakers Rockets game isn't even over yet, Zach Lowe. The Rockets laid one on the depleted Lakers today, and I'm gonna start here. No NBA team has ever come back from 3-0.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  It's true, it's true. And even, you're right that the game is still going on. I don't even think the 2026 Rockets can blow this one. I think we're safe, I think we're safe going live right now. A 25-point lead with three minutes left. I don't think any catastrophe can befall them at this point. But you remember the last time a team got close to coming back from a 3-0 deficit? You probably remember it very, very well, and it didn't happen.

• 2:08Bill Simmons?

  Derek White put back?

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it almost happened. Then Jason sprained his ankle, and then that was it.

• 2:14Bill Simmons?

  I went to game seven, and Tatum sprained his ankle right in front of us.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Oh, that's the meme, that's sad Bill, that's that game.

• 2:21Bill Simmons?

  Think that was sad bill.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Oh, what a.

• 2:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was the that started sad bill. Um, all right, the Kevin Miller theory. Don't let us get one. Don't let us get two from the 2004.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  I'm familiar.

• 2:35Bill Simmons?

  Yankees. So the Rockets, they've got one. Now they're coming LA. I think it's they spread it out. So I think it's a Wednesday night. Game. So I assume we'll have Reeves.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Next Wednesday, two Wednesdays from now.

• 2:48Bill Simmons?

  No, this Wednesday, three day. I assume we'll have Reeves. No Luca. I've heard Luca is not even that are not even close yet. Did you the Rockets show you anything in this game today that made you think A. They're starting to incorporate strategy into the series.

• 3:09Bill Simmons?

  And and and maybe some things that might work against an old weird Lakers team. Cause I felt like they had a couple of things going tonight.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  I mean, thing number one was they actually made Luke Kennard play defense and didn't let him just.

• 3:22Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  I I know it took four games.

• 3:25Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  They didn't let him hang out off the ball all the time. Amen Thompson attacked him and they just like he was on Tariq. And Tariq even just blew by him at one point, just gave Tariq the ball. Jabari Smith hunted him in a switch and this has kind of been fun. Without KD, it's been fun to watch guys like Jabari Smith Jr. Get to do a little bit more and really stretch their wings. And that that was one and just there they have this kind of defensive gear in them when they have their best defenders on the floor. They can get a lot of steals, even Reed Shepard, who's getting hunted. I mean, LeBron is just being so mean to Reed Shepard just constantly. But he had a couple of steals today. They picked LeBron. They had a couple. They they picked them at half court a couple of times. They can create a lot of turnovers. Lakers had 20 something turnovers the last time I checked and. Yeah. So that strategically, that would be the main one.

• 4:10Bill Simmons?

  I noticed those two things. I also noticed they were a little more physical and relentless with LeBron. Trying to put some miles on him. Reed Shepard came into the game.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Was it wasn't going well.

• 4:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, but he he stayed with it, which I cause I felt I really felt like his. There was a fork in the road moment potentially for him where it was like, wow, could this series be so damaging? That it might actually be hard for him to recover, but I thought he gained momentum. As this game went along and then. You know, last but not least, the leadership of Kevin Durant on the bench.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Would you care to elaborate on that?

• 4:49Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know, he wasn't there for game three because he was getting round the clock treatment on his sprained ankle and couldn't come out because it's 20 24 hour. I don't know. They were talking about he was running on a treadmill underwater. I I'll believe any sort of Durant treatment story, but I don't know why we still don't have an answer why he wasn't out there for game three. There was some weird stuff about how he was actually, they did the walk into the arena before game three that was on social, I think for the Rockets and for the NBA. And then that clip was taken down the next day. Just a lot of weirdness.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Okay, I didn't. I was not aware. Okay.

• 5:30Bill Simmons?

  There was some, some people saying that teammates saying, well, we had it. We don't know what's going on with him. And then apparently it's all fine now. And it was always fine. And we weren't supposed to doubt it at all that he didn't sit on the bench.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  I mean, it struck me as odd that he wasn't out there on the bench. That's that normally an injured player is is there of that status. It did strike me as odd. And yeah, I mean,

• 5:58Bill Simmons?

  Odds are good words. There are other words.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  I still don't know when this injury happened. Like when in game two, I guess, what did it happen? But I will say this, like, for all the weirdness you want to ascribe to Kevin Durant, and there's been quite a lot. The one constant of this guy's career is he's a gamer. He plays. He loves to play. He played a ton of games this year. He played in the finals.

• 6:18Bill Simmons?

  Tons of minutes. Second in minutes.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  He played in the finals against the Raptors when maybe he shouldn't have, and it cost him a year of his career. Like, like, the guy plays. And so I don't, I don't know when this injury happened. And maybe like, to your point, if they're actually going to make a run at this, and we're like, a long way from there, given how bad they looked in the first three games, they're going to need Kevin Durant. They can't win three more games without Kevin Durant.

• 6:43Bill Simmons?

  It was weird. You and I know a lot of NBA people and it was hard to get a straight answer for what happened on Friday night. And we still don't totally know.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  It was, it was a little strange. Yeah, I expect, I expected it. It was funny. I was watching a game. And only sometime in the second or third quarter did it jog in my brain like, oh, it's weird that I haven't seen any shots of Kevin Durant on the bench. Like normally that's a thing that just happens when a star player is out. They just cut to them. What are they wearing? What's their reaction? Fred Van Vliet is all over the television and, and, you know, just, but they won tonight and they're still winning. They are still ahead, Bill. They have not, it's down to 19 with a minute and 14 seconds left.

• 7:23Bill Simmons?

  Oh, well, on FanDuel right now, and this might change, the Lakers are minus 850 to win the series.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Safe, safe bet. Again, no one's ever done it.

• 7:34Bill Simmons?

  Seems, seems fair. A couple Houston things. Oh, so the Lakers today, after three, they're down 25 points and they were two for 13 from three. Game three, they're 12 for 29 from three. In game three, they were also down by six points with 30 seconds left and somehow forced overtime, which was like one of the only times in the history of the NBA that's happened. Do you think this series should be 2-2? Or do you think 3-1 is the right score for the series?

• 8:03Speaker 01

  I think, I think 3-1 is, is pretty representative. The first two games, I mean, they were close, they were close-ish, but the Lakers felt like the more prepared and the better team the whole time. And by the way, considering that, yeah, Durant has missed, what, three or the four games, Luca and Reeves have missed all of them. And it just, this feels like a correct score of the series to me. And I realized like KD's missed three, Fred Van Vliet's out for the season, Steven Adams, like the Rockets are missing lots of guys. It's totally fair, but I just expected better in those, in those first two games and particularly the one Durant played.

• 8:36Bill Simmons?

  You know who they're also missing? Io Dusunmu.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and.

• 8:39Bill Simmons?

  I went on, I did a Google because I had a vague memory of, of the Rockets kicking the tires with him and went down a Tyrese and rabbit hole. Do you remember this?

• 8:50Speaker 01

  No, inform me.

• 8:52Bill Simmons?

  Joe Calley reported on it, who I think he covers them for the Sun Times, the Bulls.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a Bulls guy, Bulls, Bulls reporter.

• 8:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Rockets would refuse to discuss Tyrese for Io. Now, Io's gonna be a UFA at the end of the year and Tyrese is an RFA at the end of the year. So I could, I could see like. You can make the case he had more value. It's just an interesting what if? Because I would say Io, even before what we've seen in this series, was probably more what the Rockets needed than Tar Heeson, who's been really up and down and has been incredibly erratic as a shooter and is a little redundant with some of the other guys they have. Interesting trade.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  I mean, or non-trade. I mean, I don't know that that's true, but it would not surprise me at all if that were true, that the Rockets shut down that talk because they do value their own guys very highly. They value two-way guys very highly. I mean, Io is a two-way guy, but Tar Heeson has obviously much more size, the restricted versus the unrestricted thing. I also just wonder if,

• 9:56Speaker 01

  you know, the Rockets, once the injuries started to mount up and the teams above them look so good, just kind of were like, it's, it's gonna be, I mean, Rafael Stone said something like this and has since walked it back, but just like the idea that this is not the year for us to make like big splashy, and not that that's a big splashy move, but we're not rocking the boat because it's just, it's not gonna happen for us this year.

• 10:17Bill Simmons?

  I understand that logic, but then at the same time, you're giving Durant a two-year extension for $90 million when he's gonna be 38 next year. That would be the, it'd be the counter.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, that's, it's been, it's been the weird dissonance of their team. Like, it was why I never got the, oh, it's a, if this, the phrase blessing in disguise was thrown around much too cavalierly when Fred VanVliet got hurt. Like, oh, we'll learn about Reed Shepard and Amen Thompson and what they can do. Like, that's awesome. You're trying to win the championship this year. That's why you get Kevin Durant, who has next year and then a player option in '27, '28.

• 10:53Bill Simmons?

  I'd like to report he's picking that up.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Well, if they lose this series in five games, let's just say game five goes badly and they lose. Is he on the Rockets next year?

• 11:04Bill Simmons?

  Had it in my notes, you know.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  I would lean no. I'm just gonna come out and say, I would say, I would lean no.

• 11:09Bill Simmons?

  So I was a hard no, because I think whatever happened Friday, we won't fully find out until, as Brian Curtis calls it, the now they tell us story that happens after the year. That's probably gonna happen with the Red Sox tomorrow. Because the Red Sox, who have a robot GM who's put together a terrible roster and has made bad trades, decided it was everybody else's fault and they fired Alex Cora, who won the 2018 title with us and five of his coaches.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Hey.

• 11:36Bill Simmons?

  It was his fault.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  At least you didn't get swept in a doubleheader by the Colorado Rockies by a combined score of six to one today.

• 11:43Bill Simmons?

  Why am I complaining about my baseball team to you? But.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  It's been, it's been a great season. I'm having a lot of fun.

• 11:51Bill Simmons?

  So I'm Friday. So I was in the mindset of, obviously, Katie's out now. This is, there's too much smoke here. I don't trust this. Plus the whatever happened All-Star Weekend with the burner. It seems like he'll be moving on, which by the way, will be the fourth time he'd be moving on when you count 2019 Warriors. Not, not the happiest last season there. Nets, can't say that was a good ship lollipop. Suns. Can't, can't say that was a barrel of laughs.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  First good ship lollipop reference I've heard in quite a long time.

• 12:27Bill Simmons?

  Thank you. And now this one. The problem is, where does it go? I always say this exercise when I have friends in my life who are like, well, they obviously have traded him. I'm like, all right, go on SpotTrack. Go on whatever that fan trade site is and try to find me the team. Be like, oh, maybe he'll go home to Washington. Okay, for who? They have two giant contracts and a bunch of small ones. Who are they getting? Like, just go through all the rosters. And I did find a team, Zach.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  First of all, I feel bad for your friends if you're just lecturing them about trade machine mechanics. They're just trying to have fun. And then you're like, you know, SpotTrack? Get on SpotTrack. You know what the second apron is? Like, okay.

• 13:08Bill Simmons?

  Is it SpotTrack or SpotTrack?

• 13:09Speaker 01

  I was just, I don't know. I was just trying to have a little fun.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Can I say two, the names of two teams and I'll bet one of them is your team?

• 13:17Bill Simmons?

  Okay, go.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Heat Knicks.

• 13:20Bill Simmons?

  No, I had neither. He can't, he can't go to the Knicks. I'm gonna veto that.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, no, I just, I just think that's a bad idea for everybody involved.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Well, here's all I'm, all I'm saying is this. This is, this playoffs already has been a great reminder that the postseason stress tests your roster like no other environment, like nothing compared to the regular season. If you have a weakness, if you have any chemistry issues, if you have anything, it's naked in the playoffs. They expose you naked and that's what's happening to the Nuggets in a lot of ways right now, which we talk about later. So like, whatever happens in the playoffs to a bunch of these teams, there's gonna be realizations that they learn and moves that they make because of how the playoffs exposes them a little bit. So those, that's the only thing I'll say about that.

• 14:06Bill Simmons?

  That's fair. I like the Miami idea.

• 14:10Bill Simmons?

  As you know, I am all in on LeBron going to Golden State next year.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:15Bill Simmons?

  Can I, can I have Kevin Durant?

• 14:21Bill Simmons?

  And Klay Thompson join him? Let's go full expendables. Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson to Golden State, Butler's expiring to Houston. We'll throw Clint Capella and whatever else makes the small salaries make it work to Dallas. Maybe they get a second round pick.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:38Bill Simmons?

  Maybe Houston gets something and we end up with.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  You get something, yeah, something.

• 14:42Bill Simmons?

  Houston get something, they'll get a future pick or swap, whatever. And Golden State ends up with LeBron, Curry, Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Al Horford. Let's fucking go. The expendables are here. You, USA, dream team 2024, run it back. Even I would be rooting for this team. Who's not, first of all, every game they play, every game they play sell out. Couldn't be harder to get tickets. Half the fans rooting for the Warriors wherever we go. Steve Kerr comes back now, two more years for him and we're off, we're ready to go.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Is, we, we already had the Warriors tried to trade for Kevin Durant a couple of seasons, last season and him being like, nah.

• 15:25Bill Simmons?

  That was two teams ago. Now, now he's, now he's ready to reconsider. He should have gone. Maybe, maybe his mistake was he shouldn't have done it.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  For entertainment purposes, it sounds great. Um, I, I like that. Like Wemby and the Thunder just demand, everyone's coming together. All the old guys go like, we, we just, we can't beat them apart. We don't like these young guys. They're not ready, blah, blah, blah. Let's, but let's all come together.

• 15:49Bill Simmons?

  Kevin Durant, he's been unhappy in a lot of places. You know where he was never unhappy? Defending our country with his American stars with LeBron James and Steph Curry. He fit right in with those guys.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  He did.

• 16:02Bill Simmons?

  Let's put him in Golden State. I'm down with it. Let's bring Klay back. Klay's having a rough week. I know you don't follow this stuff, but had a breakup.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Oh, I got a.

• 16:10Bill Simmons?

  Okay, you're following that?

• 16:11Speaker 01

  I, well, first, I, I, I have a lot of friends whose consumption of the NBA is entirely through that lens. So I got a lot of Megan the Stallion, Megan the Stallion.

• 16:23Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  A lot of Klay Thompson texts from those people. And I was like, I, I don't have time. There's eight games this weekend. I don't have time to really dive into it, but she seemed to put them on blast, as the kids say. I don't know what happened. I have no comment.

• 16:35Bill Simmons?

  There was some blasting.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  I hope everybody's happy. I hope everyone is happy and that's it. I hope Rocco the Dog, if he's still alive, is happy. I just hope everyone's doing okay.

• 16:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, we talk about San Antonio in the next segment and they were jaw dropping in the second half of that Portland game. OKC has been jaw dropping for two straight years. There's no way to solve putting together a super team to beat either of those teams unless you do the expendables.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 17:04Bill Simmons?

  And Curry's like, Curry can, I think, be really good once a week at this point. We're talking about during the course of a season, he can, he can't do what he did five years ago anymore. But I think once a week, and if he's at, and if you play him 60 games and kind of pace him for the playoffs, I think LeBron's the same way. Durant loves playing big minutes. Klay Thompson back home. I don't know.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Damian Lillard.

• 17:27Bill Simmons?

  I'd like everybody to think about it.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Oak, Bay Area Oakland legend Damian Lillard has a pretty tradable salary. You want to get, find a way to get him involved in this?

• 17:34Bill Simmons?

  Didn't even think of him. Do we have room in the expendables for him? I don't know.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 17:39Bill Simmons?

  I actually thought we'd see Dame Lillard this weekend. They got, they kind of whet my appetite with that one.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Can we have a, can we have a moratorium on the eyes emoji tweets teams? Just, you just can't tweet like Damian Lillard doing stuff and eyes emoji and then be like, well, no, it's just a tweet. Just a cool video of our guy Dame.

• 17:58Bill Simmons?

  So what would you get rid of first? The eyes emoji or anytime I foul anyone and I'm any player in the league? I want my team to review it.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  No, I like, I like that because it's again, like I like when players are exposed for, I like when anyone is exposed for ridiculous behavior. So I like that. And I will say my favorite motion though is the flopping motion. I like how dramatic and, and broad it is. And I love when entire benches make it. Sometimes you make it with two hands. I like that one too.

• 18:27Bill Simmons?

  Quick on Durant.

• 18:31Bill Simmons?

  Might have to save this for.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  It's early. We're not there yet.

• 18:35Bill Simmons?

  Well.

• 18:38Bill Simmons?

  You know, he, he, he was pretty high in my pyramid at one point. And he's been going backwards over the last couple of years. Basically based on how this decade has gone and some of the things that have happened with this team. Cause sometimes with the pyramid, you're projecting, oh, it's going to keep going a certain way. And then you kind of go underneath where you thought, and then you have to reevaluate.

• 19:03Bill Simmons?

  He has definitely dropped backward. Do you think that's fair?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  I mean, and also a couple of like, other players like Jokic have, have soared upwards. So naturally someone has to drop backwards. Steph keeps, you know, putting up Steph numbers every year. And by the way, you mentioned like, the only reason I mentioned Nixon Heat, not the only reason is just because you mentioned Oklahoma City and San Antonio and how can we possibly compete with these teams?

• 19:26Bill Simmons?

  So get out of the conference.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Step one to do it is get me the hell over to the East and at least I only got to be one of them.

• 19:32Bill Simmons?

  Right. The thing with the, it's funny how people talk about KD because his career's been so long. They just kind of forget stuff like how good he was on OKC and those OKC teams were really successful. They made the finals, they had three conference finals losses. He was an MVP. He finished second in MVP three times.

• 19:53Bill Simmons?

  They, you know, they unfortunately blew the last two against the 2014 Spurs and they blew the last three to the Warriors in 2016. And I thought those teams were good enough to win the title and they didn't get it done. But you go to the Warriors where everybody says that, you know, he was carried by those guys and he was fucking awesome those three years. I mean, in the playoffs, 48 games. Including with the year he got hurt, 30 a game in 48 playoff games, 37 and 5. He was the best guy on those teams and those teams had Steph Curry.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't, I don't think you need to do, even do this. He's, we all.

• 20:29Bill Simmons?

  No, I actually feel like I need to do it because I think people are forgetting now that how good he was on the Warriors.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  He won finals MVP both years. There was like, in, in the first one.

• 20:39Bill Simmons?

  This is why I want to bring this up.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  In the first one where he makes the dagger from the left wing over LeBron, there was a whole conversation of like, has he taken the best player in the world belt from LeBron? And that was like a whole thing that happened.

• 20:51Bill Simmons?

  And I think he was taking it in 2019 when he got hurt. And then in 21 with the foot on the line against Milwaukee, what he did, that series was great. The problem is this decade swept by Boston in 22, um, lost to Denver in six and 23, lost the last two, swept in 24, didn't make the playoffs last year. Almost swept this year, but they won tonight. And you know, that's, that's put a little bit of a black cloud over everything. It's a really tough career. I think out of all the careers, like in the top 30, the toughest ones to really evaluate are him and Wilt.

• 21:27Bill Simmons?

  Wilt, you can go all over the place with it. You could, you could make a real case. He was one of the five best guys ever. And you can use all these stats and all these things that he did. And then Durant is gonna, what is he gonna be second in points by the time he retires? All these playoff games, all these minutes, the fact that he's gonna play for 20 years, so finals MVP twice. All these really strong cases for him.

• 21:50Bill Simmons?

  And yet it really only peaked when he was on this unbelievable Warriors team. So I see both sides of the argument. I do not think he has helped his cause the last couple of years. I will say that.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  And also pretty underrated, or depending on how you consume the NBA, properly rated, like very good defender for most of his career.

• 22:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Like just, just like a pretty like made in a lab, all around superstar player, could play with anybody, could play with any kind of other co-star, just like, nothing, nothing bad to say about, about his game at all.

• 22:20Bill Simmons?

  Maybe this summer, we should just do like an hour and a half KD pod.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 22:24Bill Simmons?

  We might have to just completely deep dive it because I, I think there's really not been a career like this.

• 22:31Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Celtics, Sixers.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:35Bill Simmons?

  Celtics were unbelievable. When Paton Pritchard scores 28 plus points the last two years, they're 15 and 0.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  It felt like he had 65 points tonight at one point. I was just like, has he just made 12 baskets in a row? Is this ever gonna stop?

• 22:48Bill Simmons?

  It was Kobe's 81 point game, but he only had 32 points. They're 24 and 1 when he scores 25 plus points. That's not where I'm gonna start. We finished, we taped a big chunk of this pod before, right before the Celtics Sixers game, because there was a window. We wanted to get stuff done so we can get it up faster. We came out of the room and the game had started and I saw Embiid on the court. And as a Celtic fan, I was like, oh my God, this is great. I was excited that he was playing.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 23:22Bill Simmons?

  No reflection on Embiid as a player. I just think to introduce him into the series halfway through, when he hasn't played, when he's rusty, combined with how good I thought the Sixers played on Friday night, and I really thought they found something with the smaller lineups and the defensive identity they had. I thought the Celtics like really pulled it out of their ass in that game. They had to make a couple of huge shots. Philly easily could have won it. I thought Maxey was really comfortable attacking them. And you could just feel it today. I thought Embiid, by no fault of his own, completely discombobulated them. And he was minus 25 and it felt that way.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I honestly, I'm surprised he came back. I did, I just, I mean, it's appendicitis or whatever it is. It's a, it's a big deal. And he came back pretty, pretty early from it. I thought he looked pretty good, all things considered. Like, like, you know, earlier this season, he wasn't dunking at all. And he had an explosive dunk. He had a couple explosive defensive rotations. All of his pet shots seemed to just roll around and go out or rattle in and out, like just so close, but not going in. And yeah, you're right that they had, you know, I thought, it's funny, I watched game three and then I checked the box score the next morning. Maxey was 12 for 31, I think, and it did not, it felt much more efficient than that to me because I just felt like the Celtics toggled between a bunch of different pick and roll

• 24:43Speaker 01

  coverages over the courses of game two and three, and he figured out a way to kind of solve all of them and in different ways, getting to the rim, pulling up for three, passing, and it felt like an even better game than 12 for 31 to me, and that because that game three felt scary for Boston, it felt very winnable for Philly, and Pritchard made a huge three, Tatum made a tough three, like it was a tough, tough game. This was never a tough game, and when the Celtics make threes like this, they're very hard to beat.

• 25:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the problem, and this is almost like a basketball IQ test, because yeah, he had points, he had good stats, but defensively, he really hurts them against Boston, because it's just, you can always pull him into screens and stuff and get threes that you want. He does, the offensive rebounding, I think, is a problem when he's out there, and I just think they seem way slower and more kind of lumbering versus the team Friday night. I thought the Celtics were really lucky to win Friday night, and if Embiid didn't play today, I genuinely felt like the Celtics might lose tonight unless they had like a Pritchard game or something like that. The thing is, Pritchard hadn't done that yet, and he's usually good for that once or twice a series, but I don't know, I just thought,

• 25:57Bill Simmons?

  I thought it screwed them up a little bit. Like, Oubre, I don't think made a field goal. I thought Maxey, it took him, it felt like it took him an hour just to be like, hey, is it okay if I can run some of the offense too? And they were just constantly trying to work him in. I also thought Bona, I thought the Bona Drummond combo was fairly effective, and I thought Paul George has been really good for him all series. I think he's gone toe to toe with Brown and Tatum in a lot of ways, and if there's a bright spot for the Sixers in this series, it's that I think they've resuscitated him as like, I don't think he's untradeable.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  I mean, he had a huge second half of game three and tonight he was, you know, 16 points on 613, but made all his threes. He had a couple takes against Jalen Brown. Like he had an ISO against Jalen Brown where he kind of bullied him and shoved it for the basket. I was like, ooh, he's been settling for tough fadeaways a lot and the Celtics will live with that even if it's over Derrick White or like on a switch against Peyton Pritchard. They're fine with that. They're not going to double him. But that one was like, whoa, that's, that looked like Paul George right there. Can I, like, here's.

• 27:04Bill Simmons?

  And I thought his defense was good too, for, for the most part, especially in the first half. I think he's been resuscitated as it's not inconceivable that you could get rid of him now.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  That's a great feeling, right? Whether the Sixers like, he's playing well, now we can trade him. This is like, we can't even enjoy him playing well. It's already, we're just like, oh, he's playing well. Great. Call somebody.

• 27:27Bill Simmons?

  That's, that's kind of how you have to think though, when you have him and Embiid, right? You have $100 million, $110 million of guys that you don't know how reliable they're going to be.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  So would you have sat Embiid? Would you have just said, you know what, we're yours out for the series?

• 27:42Bill Simmons?

  I wouldn't have played him tonight. I would have waited for him for game five and I wanted to, I would have, I personally would have waited for game four because I would have been really, really encouraged by how my team looked in game three, especially because like Edgecombe, his threes now and the three losses, he's 0 for 16 from three, right? He couldn't hit a three on Friday and they were still in that game. I don't know. I just, I thought going smaller against the Celtics was really working in their favor because the Celtics were in this, they played Vooch like 30 plus minutes in game three.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  A lot of Vooch.

• 28:17Bill Simmons?

  I didn't, I didn't really love 15 minutes of Vooch, much less 30 in that game. And I, I thought over and over again, they were using and abusing him in the screens and getting threes over him and just figuring out ways to take advantage of him being out there. He's just too slow coming out on the screens. But with Embiid out there, all of a sudden now the Celtics could just play all their centers, get a lot of, you know, they have 18 fouls with those three guys. Even when Garza was out there, it's like Garza's going to shoot over Embiid every time he gets it, which I think he did once.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Made one three.

• 28:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I know. They're not going to say, Embiid, don't play, but I, I, I wonder if you gave Nick Nurse true serum, would he have been happy with it?

• 28:55Speaker 01

  So like your, your game plan would have been, let's wait till our backs are against the wall. If we lose and it's three, one, then all bets are off. Wild card, bring them out, but let's give this current team tonight to try to even up this series after their perform. I get, I get that. I just think the, the, the, uh, the mileage on the maxi do everything offense is, is just going to expire against a really good team and they just need another, another layer of offense, but integrating that other layer was, was a little, you know, slip shot for parts, a little like, little wonky for parts of today.

• 29:32Bill Simmons?

  So in the Friday game, the Celtics were 44% shooting and 43% from three. It's pretty good.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:45Bill Simmons?

  Today they made 24 threes.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  It's a lot.

• 29:49Bill Simmons?

  Forty-five percent. And I actually thought, I thought they got great shots the entire game. It was actually one of those games, they scored 128. They easily could add 150, like they missed a bunch of free throws in the first half. The Jays were terrible in the first half and then the third quarter just became the Jays. And I thought really compliment each other well. And then, you know, Pritchard, who's in the running for weirdest career of the decade, where he plays four solid years, where I, I don't even think he averaged eight points a game, maybe like eight and a half.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  He wanted to be traded, remember?

• 30:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And I gotta say, a lot of the Celtic fans were like, this guy's good. When this guy plays, he's going to be good if he can ever get a chance. He just, he's always buried behind guards. Last year, six man of the year, this year averaging 17 a game and is just perfect for the team they have because they do so much of this one-on-one attacks, one-on-one attack stuff. And he's really great at it. He's, he's really like, you saw the whole tricks and everything today, plus Reggie Miller's there. They're going to have to redo his contract this summer, I think. And I think, I actually think they're allowed to extend it, but he's, I think, one of the best contracts in the league, if not the best. Seven million a year, right?

• 31:09Speaker 01

  He is, it looks like according to Spohtrack or Spottrack or whoever you said, he is extension eligible this summer. Yeah, he's got two more guaranteed years after this. It's 7.7 and 8.3. I'd have to look back and refamiliarize myself with how much they're allowed to add on the extension. What the percentage is, it's probably one of those ones where it's like, it might not even be worth it for him to do it.

• 31:32Bill Simmons?

  Austin Reeves style, better off like to wait. But I also think he wants to stay in Boston. They're gonna have, they're gonna have an interesting offseason, no matter what happens. They've got money to spend, you know, they have trade exceptions.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  He's just a really good player. Like, I remember I, I picked him as six man of the year last year. There was like a Malik Beasley, Peyton Pritchard kind of debate, and I was just like, he's just a better basketball player than Malik Beasley. He's, he defends, he passes, he's tough, he's physical, he can score in different kind. He's just a really good player. Offensive rebounding, he'll sneak innings. Wow, Peyton Pritchard has four offensive rebounds today?

• 32:08Bill Simmons?

  I sadly took Beasley.

• 32:11Bill Simmons?

  I think I was trying too hard not to be a homer and, and swung too far there with Beasley. So the other thing, I don't want to talk about Tatum every podcast, even though I secretly do.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, yeah, you do.

• 32:24Bill Simmons?

  He's just, I just can't believe how good he looks on some of these drives. First of all, he played 42 minutes on Friday, which is nuts. If you had told me two months ago, hey, in game three, Jason Tatum will play 42 minutes in a regular playoff game, like, well, that sounds insane. We're gonna do that? Definitely did it.

• 32:44Bill Simmons?

  He, he was explosive. His three point looks great now, like he's got a nice snap on it. And it's interesting, he's getting better. Jalen seems like he's having a harder time getting to his spots than he's had all season. And I don't know if it's because Philly has him scouted really well, but this is a guy who was scoring on, like, pretty easily on people like Lou Dort during the season. In this Philly series, there's just a lot of like, Feels like he's like a battering ram trying to just like get to his spots and bang into people and swing his arms like he got, I think he had two offensive fouls today, but it just, either they're scouting him great or he's starting to wear down. But I, that was, that worried me a little bit.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm not worried.

• 33:28Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm just, I mean, it's, they're clearly a better basketball team with the two of them. It's gonna go up and down a little bit about who scores the most points, who has the ball the most, and all that kind of stuff. There's been games like where Jalen, I, I thought, I can't remember which game it was, but there was one game where they started hunting, they're hunting Maxey all the time, but they, down the stretch, they made it clear like, Jalen, you're gonna be the guy to hunt Maxey because you're just having a better night. I, I'm not worried about it, but I, I mean, the stat that jumps out today is the 11 assists that Tatum had. I thought his playmaking was awesome and they're just making, Boston's offense is both beautiful and simple at the same time and sometimes within the same possession. They're just, those guys just get the matchup, they draw help and they're just making the bait, the

• 34:13Speaker 01

  simple reads and Tatum was just spraying it out and, you know, just really, I mean, again, 11 dimes, that's a lot.

• 34:22Bill Simmons?

  Dream situation is they clinch game five Tuesday. Knicks, Atlanta goes seven and they just get to put their feet up and relax and do their thing. I, I really wish Baylor Shireman would play a little bit more would be my one critique. I think he's been lights out when he's coming into these games and really additive and I wish he would get more minutes. Quick mailbag stuff before we take a break. Adam writes in, "The Iad Dusumu 43-point game feels eerily similar to Jalen Brunson's coming out party post-Luke injury in the 2022 Utah series." Are there some parallels for, is he starting to bump his

• 35:05Bill Simmons?

  free agent salary up? He isn't like an unrestricted free agent this year. No, Minnesota can go over whatever to try to get him, but could you see a Jalen Brunson Knicks, somebody going big on him and giving him like 110 million for four years or something?

• 35:23Speaker 01

  I could, I mean, it, I'm not sure any of the cap room teams fit, but that doesn't necessarily prevent things like that from happening. I mean, I could, because that's, we're in a world where that's not like max money. It's not, it's not, it's, it's a lot, but he's probably worth like 20 plus. I mean, that, that's probably his value for sure. I think for sure his value is above that. The Brunson thing is like, well, he, like, could he be the number one option on an elite NBA offense? I'm not, I'm not sure I'm ready to go there because Brunson has the kind of physicality. But he's a really good player. I was really good. It's again, like, we talk about it later, but just, I don't know what the Bulls were, like, what's the rush?

• 36:05Bill Simmons?

  We did dive into that.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  We have a good player. We don't want him. Okay.

• 36:10Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking the market's between 20 and 25, but then you put the free agent craziness tax on it. And maybe it does get to like 110 for four years. Maybe somebody's like, this is Derrick White. This is like the mid 2020s version of Derrick White, Nikhil Alexander Walker, one of these guys that like, let's, let's invest in this dude. And we think he could be the third best guy on a really good team. And by the way, if they thought that, I can't really disagree. I think he could be the lead guard on a really good team.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  The lead guard?

• 36:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like the best guard you have, not necessarily your number one scorer, not your number one playmaker, but like-

• 36:50Speaker 01

  You need a real apex playmaker then.

• 36:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but I think he could be your best two-way guard on a good team.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  That's, that, I don't disagree. He's really good.

• 37:01Bill Simmons?

  Rob from Philly wants to know if the Ewing Theory Committee was dispatched to Atlanta to figure out whether Trey Young and the Hawks, the eligibility to that. We did send some people down to Atlanta and they rejected Trey's application. They decided he was not good enough.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 37:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It's, it's a rare situation because four years ago, you might've said so, but nobody was like, wow, what are the Hawks going to do now without Trey Young? And that's-

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Like it was, it was too predictable.

• 37:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Can I, can I just like, the Ewing Theory-

• 37:37Speaker 01

  I just, it's, it's, I'm a little angry lately about it because it's now so pervasive that when Francisco Lindor, my daughter's favorite player, got hurt earlier this week, I got multiple texts from people because he's been struggling this season.

• 37:50Bill Simmons?

  It costs sports.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Is the Ewing theory in play for Francisco Lindor? No, screw you, people. Don't bombard me with that kind of stuff.

• 38:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, Dave, do you want it? Did you win a World Series with Francisco Lindor? Then he's eligible.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  We did not.

• 38:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there you go. Somebody named Durant once had a long Durant email that ends with the question, is Kevin Durant the Michael Jordan of good stats, bad team guys? This is my point of bringing up the Durant stuff earlier. Like, I'm telling you, people are losing their mind with this Durant thing. These are the emails I'm getting.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 38:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm the, the answer is no.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  No, the answer is no. Most of his teams have been not bad. There's, he's been on the bad teams.

• 38:36Bill Simmons?

  Kyle wants to know, Kyle wants to know, is CJ just Dame with worse PR?

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 38:44Bill Simmons?

  Or is Dame CJ with better PR?

• 38:51Speaker 01

  They're both excellent basketball players. Damian Lillard's had a better career. Is his PR good? I don't know. Is his PR very good? I mean, this thing is cool. The, the watch thing is cool. He's made a bunch of big shots. CJ is awesome.

• 39:03Bill Simmons?

  If CJ can beat the Knicks, these two of the next three, and, and parade into the next round and try to go toe to toe with the Celtics, it's not a closed discussion.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  I just can't, I mean, you have to sit back for a second. I mean, he is like murdering the Knicks in crunch time. It's like, like he's Michael Jordan. It's like every play, CJ and get out of the way. And you have to sit back and remember, like, he was on the Wizards for like most of the season. He was just over in Washington.

• 39:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Doing stuff and now he's like the biggest clutch force in the playoffs so far.

• 39:41Bill Simmons?

  It's almost like a actor that was on, I don't know, one of those fire shows on NBC. New York Fire. Is that a show?

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 39:52Bill Simmons?

  Chicago Fire?

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Chicago Fire is definitely.

• 39:54Bill Simmons?

  He's like a famous movie actor, but now it's like, ah, he's the number three guy on Chicago Fire. This is too bad. And now all of a sudden he's in, you know, a Christopher Nolan movie and you're like, oh, this, wow, CJ, he's back. Last question. You and, you and Zach, this is from Ryan from Milwaukee. You and Zach both gush over Jokic all season long.

• 40:14Bill Simmons?

  While he might be one of the best offensive players of all time, he's a Conan on defense, forgets to shoot, how to shoot threes in the playoffs and he only has one ring. Give me Duncan over him and it's not close.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Did, did any, did any of us put him above Tim Duncan? I mean, you and I are like president of the Tim Duncan is.

• 40:30Bill Simmons?

  That's, that's another one that as the years pass.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Like.

• 40:34Bill Simmons?

  People are starting to forget about Tim Duncan too. There was this great clip. He turned 50, by the way. Happy birthday, Tim Duncan.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Looks great.

• 40:41Bill Simmons?

  And there's this Twitter account called NBA History and they ran this clip of Duncan congrat, Duncan and LeBron congratulated Duncan after the 07 finals. And LeBron's like a baby. He's like 22 and there's like, hey, great series. And, and Duncan says to him, yo, I love, I love what a good teammate you are. Keep it up. Keep doing what you're doing. Like he doesn't praise him about how well he's playing. He's specifically praises him on being a teammate and his connection with everybody else. And to me, that's Tim Duncan in a nutshell. And that's why I always ride for the guy.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Like he.

• 41:11Bill Simmons?

  Wasn't about the stats. He could have averaged 25 and 12 if he wanted to. He was very happy 20 and 10 and being an awesome teammate.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Like he sounds like a mentally healthy youth sports parent, basically like.

• 41:24Bill Simmons?

  I'm so proud of you. Here's this little mini trophy. Um, all right. So we think Celtics win in five?

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:32Bill Simmons?

  What about Lakers?

• 41:34Speaker 01

  I'm gonna give the Rockets another game and say it gets a little frisky and Lakers win in six.

• 41:40Bill Simmons?

  Okay. I I not only agree. I actually.

• 41:48Bill Simmons?

  I think it's six or seven. I thought LeBron looked a little, uh, little gamey. You forget he's, I don't know if you know this, but he's 41 years old.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  You are, I, I mean.

• 41:57Bill Simmons?

  He looked a little gamey tonight.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  We do have to have every, and I, I, he deserves it. He deserves it. Absolutely deserves it, but we do, it's like, I think it's in the broadcast partners contract that there needs to be a two minutes soliloquy about LeBron's fitness and how much attention he pays to his body. Every, every game. It's just like, it doesn't matter if you do it every game. It's just, all right, it's, it's the eight minute mark of the second quarter. Grant, Grant Hill, you take, the floor is yours.

• 42:25Bill Simmons?

  I want people to start doing that about me. It's like, Bill Simmons, 25 years now, columns and podcasts, you know, he walks every day, saunas, eats really healthy. Like this guy, it's amazing how he takes care of himself.

• 42:40Bill Simmons?

  Tell people out there to do that for me.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll, I'll give it a shot.

• 42:44Bill Simmons?

  So you're more depressed about the Mets than I'm depressed about the Red Sox, it sounds like.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Uh, it's a devastating turn of events.

• 42:52Bill Simmons?

  Fantasy had like multiple tweets today.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  He's, he's.

• 42:55Bill Simmons?

  Like he turns into the Unabomber every once in a while and there's these long missives about the Mets.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  He's having a rough, I mean, it's been, it's a disaster. It's an absolute, like this has, the Mets have been, have like the Vince Coleman firework season, the Bobby Bonilla contract. There's like a lot of just embarrassing Mets stuff. This has the potential to just be, they, they have, they, I think I saw stat, they've scored two or fewer runs in half their games this season. They have the highest payroll in Major League Baseball.

• 43:28Bill Simmons?

  Baseball's different than basketball because in basketball, if you spend money on guys, it usually works out.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:35Bill Simmons?

  It's like, it's like, oh, we've signed Giannis. He's 32. This is probably going to work out. In baseball, you sign somebody and their career is over like the next day. And you're like, we still owe you $280 million.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  By the way.

• 43:48Bill Simmons?

  You can't hit anymore?

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Longest, longest into any podcast we've ever done before Giannis was mentioned and mentioned as a baseball related aside, no less.

• 43:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, true. Giannis, lot of time to talk about him this summer. All right, we're going to take a break. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about an incredible Spurs comeback. What's going on with the Nuggets? The Knicks game four, all the other basketball storylines is next. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA postseason is here and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players and plays during their playoff run. Build a same game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip off. Don't forget with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC, Kentucky or Wyoming.

• 44:42Bill Simmons?

  Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Duluth Trading Company. Whether it's the 19th inning, the 12th quarter, or the fifth and a half shift overtime, not going anywhere, which is why Duluth builds hardworking gear for folks who work their butts off. Their surefire Arsenal work shirts are built for function and comfort, giving a big foam middle finger to all that is futile. And the new no quit utility shirt is equipped with cooling and wicking tech, oh boy, to keep you comfortable, all while being tough enough to take down your most daunting tasks.

• 45:27Bill Simmons?

  When it's marathon work session versus you, give no quits. Shop at a Duluth store near you or at duluthtrading.com. All right, we just hopped in a time machine and went backwards to six o'clock Eastern Time to talk about the other six games in round one. Coming off Spurs Blazers, a terrifying San Antonio Spurs performance. Zach Lowe, this is the one that you're watching the second half. And if you're every other playoff team, the hairs on your arms are going up.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, as we're recording this, the Blazers have 32 points in the second half of an NBA basketball game, which by Cavs Raptors standards earlier in the day is actually not so bad.

• 46:09Bill Simmons?

  Lavish.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  But, but an absolutely terrifying Wemby defensive performance in the second half. And then you throw in like, oh, De'Aaron Fox, hey, I remember that guy, All-Star De'Aaron Fox, just making step back threes over everybody. Spurs are figuring out counters to all the weird defensive schemes the Blazers are using, but Wemby, Wemby was just everywhere and the Blazers, like, like the Blazers are not a good offensive team. They're not a good shooting team. They're a horrendous turnover team. So like, it's not as if they did this to the, you know, number one or two offense of the NBA, but it was legitimately like, oh my God.

• 46:43Bill Simmons?

  Throwing the road, that counts for something.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:46Bill Simmons?

  Also, game three, when Scoot, I was, I was really having a moment on Friday night with Scoot, taking it to Dylan Harper, and then we learned a valuable lesson. You don't talk shit to Dylan Harper. And then he put in a facsimile 2000 game four finals Kobe kind of arrival performance. Kobe's a 10 out of 10 on that scale. Dylan Harper was like a seven, but it was like, hey, here's what the future is going to look like when I'm putting this all together and I look like this all the time. So that was game three. That was scary. No Wemby in that game. Game four, Wemby and the Spurs just, I, the only other team that can do this is OKC, right? That could do a 60 to 30 second half of a playoff game on the road.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  And they've been, yeah, I mean, Oklahoma City has a gear of frenzy that almost nobody can reach. The Spurs, it just looks different because they don't quite have the perimeter frenzy and all the crazy wing. They've got some great defensive wings and guards, but they have the one guy in the middle who is just everywhere and impacting every play and in four places at once. And you just see everybody looking around like, where am I? So I can't shoot this. I gotta shoot. It's crazy.

• 47:52Bill Simmons?

  So this is a sweep if he doesn't get hurt in game two, I think.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  I mean, they were winning when he got hurt, but yeah, they were winning in the first half. They didn't win. So yeah, I think, I mean, I picked Spurs in five. I gave the Blazers a game one way or another. They're a tenacious defensive team that can cause some problems. But yeah, this feels like, it feels like we're heading toward an appropriate Spurs in five.

• 48:14Bill Simmons?

  I think this, that series was a win for the Blazers. They, you know, we know what the limitations are, but when you think about,

• 48:22Bill Simmons?

  it was a good Drew Holiday series, like it kind of validating a pretty weird trade, at least for the short term. They wanted to bring in a veteran guy. Then he was okay. I think so. This is, I wouldn't say the greatest matchup for him. And, you know, they're feisty. There's some pieces here and I can't wait until they have a coach that makes $425,000 next year. We'll see what happens.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Is he gonna be you?

• 48:44Bill Simmons?

  When Gabe Kaplan is the head coach of the, of the Trail Blazers. Yeah, the Fox thing, the big things for the weekend, other than Wemby coming back and looking healthy was Harper in game three, and then Fox kind of reminding people like, yeah, this is in here. I've been, been scaling it back, just been, just kind of here to help out, facilitate, get some shots out. But for the most part, that's, that's lurking in there somewhere. We'll see if it lurks in an OKC series. Can we talk about Dylan Harper really fast for game three? Cause we haven't done a, neither of us have done a podcast since then.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  I would love to. That was a, I texted some people I know at the Spurs after that game. I said, that was, that was a real effing playoff, playoff win, game three. That was like a big boy playoff win without Wemby.

• 49:28Bill Simmons?

  It was an awesome game. Scoot going at him and then Harper basically from that moment on, just taking his soul out of his body. Still a win for the series for Scoot, but Harper was so good and you could just see all the pieces where, where we're going to go. And I'm not, I'm not really positive where we're going to go with him because when he hits the three pointer, he basically has every single offensive weapon you, you need. He can, he can do stutter step, get in the lane Brunson style. He can just get to the rim. He can play with somebody on his body. He can step back and hit threes and, and then he could also kick back out to people with really like precise passes already. Like he's a really, really, really advanced, advanced,

• 50:10Bill Simmons?

  advanced guard. One of the best, I think rookie guards that we've seen come into the league. That I can remember the last 10, 15 years, right? Who else jumps to mind like who at 19 and 20 where you could really see like some special shit?

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Not very many people and yeah, special like that was a game without Wemby that they needed other people to step up and he and Castle were both unbelievable. Yeah, first of all, it helps to move up in the lottery three years in a row. Second of all, it's been one of the pleasures of this series. Like the Blazers have a lot of kind of power perimeter players, including one of the all time great like power hybrid point guards in Drew Holiday. And it's been so fun to watch Castle and Harper be like, oh, we're just kind of babies in this league compared to you, but we're gonna, we have that too. We're gonna take it right at you over and over. It's been so fun.

• 50:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and Castle, who was the unsung hero on, on game three at 33, but Harper, Harper was just such, such a dramatic second half entrance by Harper into that game that it kind of overshadowed everything else. But Castle's been great, pretty omnipresent. Even that play that led to the double technical with Denny started because Denny was really physical with him dribbling up the ball and Castle finally got tired of it, took him to the basket, did the whole thing. Blazers home game, no T-shirts. They were shooting used T-shirts during timeouts into the stands. I don't know if you knew about that. They've gone to some Goodwill, grabbed some stuff, but.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Any worn armpit stains? Like, what are we talking about?

• 51:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, just, you know, not, not holes in them or anything, but definitely had been worn. I'd still think win for the Blazers. They've rekindled some trade value for some guys and I'm interested to see what they do this summer. Okay.

• 51:51Bill Simmons?

  Cavs Raptors. That also happened today.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  It did.

• 51:57Bill Simmons?

  This was an homage to what, what year? 2006, 2005, 2003?

• 52:04Speaker 01

  I, I mean, I looked at the score multiple times in the second quarter and had to remind myself that it was the second quarter. So you pick, pick a year from a long, long time ago in an NBA far, far away.

• 52:15Bill Simmons?

  Oh, four. Raptors shoot 32% and win. They had 21 offensive rebounds and they had 36 free throw attempts and it seemed like they blew the game. And then the Cavs had a very strange stretch. They're up five. They give up two free throws. They missed five straight shots in the last two minutes and all of a sudden the Raptors are winning and all of a sudden the game's over. And it was a, it was kind of your worst fears for a Mitchell Harden game, right?

• 52:43Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't even want to put the blame on Mitchell Harden. Nobody covered themselves in glory in this game, but Jared Allen and Evan Mobley to combine for 11 points on 5 of 16 shooting. When you're being guarded, at least at the start of the game by a combination of RJ Barrett, who they've cross matched onto a big guy, and Jakob Pertle, who can kind of sometimes stay on the floor, had a couple of nice takes in this game. Like, I understand that the Raptors, they bring in Murray Boils off the bench, and when he's the only quote unquote big man on the floor with Scotty Barnes, they're very switchable, they're very hard to play against. But like, that's not the entire game. And remember, the third quarter started, and Cleveland very clearly came out, was like, hey Evan, face up against Jakob Pertle if he's guarding you and score some baskets. And he got two.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  And I was like, alright, great. Then they switched the matchup, they put Pertle on to, or they put Pertle on to, I don't know, they switched the matchup one way or another. They put Pertle somewhere else, and they put RJ Barrett on Mobley, I think. Yeah. And then, we just never heard from either of those guys. Again, Jared Allen had a great defensive game, had some blocks, had some rim protection, but like, we can clown Mitchell and Harden for shooting 12 of 38 combined, but the big guys deserve a little, a little bit of criticism too.

• 53:55Bill Simmons?

  Mitchell, 6 for 24, Kobe Omasch. Harden had 6 turnovers in the first half. And I tweeted this, I was so disappointed Barkley didn't make a joke about the Cavs being in Toronto all weekend, Friday night, Saturday night, and then playing a 1pm game. And Harden just looked like he had woken up a half hour before. I had the same question marks next to Mobley. He, he had 8 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 assists. And you just forget he's out there for stretches. I'm starting to wonder if this is just who he is. We kept like factoring in this bump, and the ceiling for him, and all the potential of what he could be. And, oh wait, maybe he's really a 5, maybe he shouldn't play next to Allen. Well, what happens if he starts

• 54:40Bill Simmons?

  making 3's? That's gonna change him. What we don't see from him is the, guys, get out of my ways, I'm just gonna wreak havoc here for an hour. Right? We need this game. We're up 2-1. Nobody can get anything going. Just, I'm kicking in a fifth gear and I'm gonna destroy everybody for about a half hour here. And he just doesn't do it, ever.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  And this is the game you win if you're a serious NBA contender on the road. Tough game, tough atmosphere, tough, but like limited Toronto team, not a, not a great team. You win this game and go up 3-1 and set yourself up for the 4-1 win, which should be, which, which, you know, I picked Cavs in seven, but like it was sitting there for them. Toronto did not come out like a blaze of glory and this is a game you win. And yeah, I mean, to your point, Cleveland, all of a sudden, like they'll go, they'll put Allen and Mobley together at the start of each, each half, and then we'll never see them play together again. And we didn't see Mobley for like most of the fourth quarter.

• 55:35Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Jared Allen was playing so well.

• 55:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  And I think they're caught in this existential dilemma of like, all right, well, do we want to play them together more? Well, that means we have to increase their minutes. We don't love the spacing. It's getting a little funky. I've been Mobley's three kind of disappears for a week at a time. Then, okay, if we want to go small, who, who do we play when we're small? Do we want to play more guards? Do we want to play more of our forwards like Tyson and Struce and Wade, all of whom were okay today? And then Sam Merrill, who had been a zero for the entire series, came in and damn near swung the entire game, the entire series for Cleveland with his gravity. And he actually held up okay defensively, even against Ingram. But it's like, they all of a sudden feel like they're torn between identities in some ways. And it's not, this should, I mean, like credit

• 56:21Speaker 01

  the Raptors, their defense was sensational. Murray Boils is one of these stories of the last month and a half of the NBA season and the playoffs so far. And they made it really hard on the Cavs and the Cavs did not have a lot of answers.

• 56:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Murray Boils gets three stars for his game today. And the fact that they can play small with him, with a rookie and be okay. But it may, like even big picture, let's say the Cavs get through this series and they play Boston down the road. Boston's just going to go small with better players than Toronto has, you know, because I think this is a blueprint now. The, you mentioned that they were split between two teams, basically. I would almost say they're split between two teams, but then they're also split between a second version of those two teams where the Mitchell and Harden stuff at the end of games, where it just feels like they're both 30 feet from the basket, looking at each other. And then one of them has the ball and the other one just kind of stands there

• 57:17Bill Simmons?

  and watches. It's, it's a little weird. There's some Mitchell stuff I want to get into in a second, but.

• 57:24Bill Simmons?

  I just, they leave me cold. I don't think their defense is good enough either. And in this, you know, the Raptors shoot 32% today. But with the shots that we're getting at the end of games, basically they're playing shed out there. As a fifth guy. So Scotty Barnes just trying to beat people up the dribble. He's doing these spin things, then trying to kick out. They didn't really have anybody who could create a good shot. I didn't feel like, and they still won. I didn't like any of the shots Toronto got.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  I mean, their best offense for a good portion of the fourth quarter was Scotty Barnes, just bring the ball up as fast as you can and see what happens. And what happened was like, people kind of got out of his way sometimes, or they got in his way and he went through them. I thought he was awesome. I think Toronto's defense is just taking away so much of the paint. And leaving Mitchell and Harden to be like, all right, we're just going to kind of run pick and roll out here with our guards to see if we can get RJ Barrett switched on to us and then see what happens. And then we'll hoist a step back three because the paint is like a no fly zone, but you know, we're recording this before Sixers Celtics. So we'll see what happens in that game. But I, depending on how that game goes, like that was kind of an underwhelming game three win on the road for the Celtics.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  I guess no playoff win on the road against a guy like Maxey, who's busting every scheme you throw at him is like ho hum. But the East is like Detroit's down 2-1, you know, Cleveland 2-2. Boston is where they are. The Knicks are 2-2. Like, is Orlando going to win the East? Like, what's happening in the East?

• 58:53Bill Simmons?

  I know. It is like an unprepared for anything moment. So Darko said this about Scotty after the game. I expect more from Scotty. The way he's playing, he's 60% of a player that he's going to be in two to three years. Scotty's going to be one of the best players in the league and he's already one of the best players in the league. So he saved it at the end. But I don't think he's one of the best players in the league. I think he's a really interesting player. And you could see today, like the last piece that's for him to become like the number one guy on an awesome team that has a chance to win the title. I think he's gonna have to have the ball. And like, what is his, what's his finishing move gonna be? And he might not have one. He might just be almost like what Iggy Dalla was and some other guys

• 59:38Bill Simmons?

  we've seen, like, guys who are way better off being your second best guy or your third best guy. For them, he has to be the, the best guy. But I don't, I don't, I don't see it offensively. I don't know how he jumps up. What's in there in your opinion for him?

• 59:51Speaker 01

  I think it's the bully ball and the playmaking. And look, we could, we could debate like, what's the best, one of the best players in the league? Like, I had him, I had him third team all NBA and then bumped him off when Luca and K became eligible. So that puts you somewhere around the 20th best player in the NBA, something like that. And it has been interesting in this series, um, to see how willing the Cavs are. You know, they'll start with Mobley on him, and then they'll go with Tyson, or Struce, or Wade, or whatever. And I keep waiting for him to just dominate those matchups. And, and the Raptors spacing makes it hard for anybody to do that. And he has stretches where he does, but I, I keep waiting for the moment where he's gonna force Cleveland to put their

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  centers or whatever, the only Mobley or Allen on him and, and put their, put those other guys somewhere else. And that hasn't really happened yet. And it's just because of the jump shot, right? I mean, we all know they're gonna try to go under every screen, force him to shoot jumpers. But, I mean, I'm not gonna sit here, dude played 42 minutes, had 23, 9, and 6. I'm, I'm, I'm all right, Ben. 4 stocks, I'm good with that.

• 1:00:53Bill Simmons?

  Here's the other thing I would say. They play really fucking hard and they're really competitive. And I, I like that. I like them a little more than maybe I did a week ago. I still can't imagine they would win a round or even two rounds. I still think Cleveland should win this series. But if I'm Cleveland, if I'm a coach on the team, or I own the team, or I'm in the front office. I'm a little nervous now that we're playing this team that exposes a lot of warts that we have, right? Oh, you're going small. Well, here's Moby to punish that. Well, Moby's not doing that. Oh, you're super competitive and going after every 50-50 ball and pounding us like, we're gonna fight back with our version of that. Well, maybe we don't have that.

• 1:01:39Bill Simmons?

  And they haven't, the Raptors haven't even had the game yet where they just got lucky and hit a bunch of threes. You know, so if I

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  I don't know if, I don't know if the Raptors have that.

• 1:01:47Bill Simmons?

  But every team has that game once in a playoff series. There's always a game where somebody goes like 14 for 35 or something.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Could you go be a Walter hit one, just a shot of some kind?

• 1:01:58Bill Simmons?

  We better get see Grady Dick at some point. But yeah, if I'm the, if I'm on the Cavs side, I'm a little nervous because I have some fears. There's some guys on my team that have wilted in big situations. We don't have to name them.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  No, really?

• 1:02:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we have some really bad playoff losses in our recent past.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  I gotta do some Googling.

• 1:02:18Bill Simmons?

  I would just start to get, I would be getting a tiny bit nervous here. Can we do the Donovan Mitchell playoff history really fast?

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  I love the Donovan Mitchell playoff history. Go ahead.

• 1:02:26Bill Simmons?

  Lost to Houston, round two as a rookie, then lost to them round one the second year. Blew a 3-1 lead to 2020 Denver in the bubble.

• 1:02:35Bill Simmons?

  Beat a really young Memphis team, then lost to the Clippers in 21 and six after Kawhi left, the famous Terrence Mann game. Just an inexplicable loss. One of the most inexplicable losses of the decade. Lost to Dallas in six in 22. No Luca the first, I think, three games. That was Brunson's arrival. And they just kinda cratered as it went along and it became clear somebody was gonna get traded. Turned out both guys got traded. Mitch, uh, Mitchell goes to the Cavs. They lose to the Knicks in five. The next year, they beat Orlando in seven in a series that it seemed like they were gonna blow and then they showed up for game seven. Got smoked by Boston in five. The next year, last year, swept Miami.

• 1:03:17Bill Simmons?

  And then lost to Indy in five in a game where they had more excuses than games one after the series ended. Well, Mobley missed a game. Garland was hurt and Indiana just took their lunch in that series.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  They, they, in that series, just to, just to add on to it, like, remember Deandre Hunter got hurt? I think he gained one of that series on a Matherin chase down block and they were like, I mean, like, they were mad about that. He didn't get called for a flagrant, I think, if I remember correctly, or they wanted a, I can't remember what exactly what it was. And then they're like, oh, man, what a big loss for Deandre Hunter. I'm like, really? Cause it seems like you guys can't wait to get rid of Deandre Hunter. Now that he's hurt, it's like the biggest loss in the history of playoff basketball. And like, I didn't like the way they handled adversity in that Indiana series when it hit them.

• 1:04:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, if they lose this series, I, every guy in the team, the coach, everybody is, I think, on the table. I'm prepared for every single outcome. Right? Is there one keeper that you would say, wow, they won't trade him? I'm prepared for anything.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  I would say, I would say Mitchell, but you know, Mitchell has a little agency in that, in that whole discussion as well with just the one guaranteed year left on his, his deal. I'm not going there yet. They should win the series. They should win the series. They should be, they, but credit Toronto, man. I, I thought this would be a tough series for Cleveland and it's going to be a tough series for Cleveland.

• 1:04:39Bill Simmons?

  This is officially a, who are, who are the tough guys on our team? Let's go. Like, who wants this? Who's ready to bang bodies? Who's ready to? I think Struce. I liked how he's been playing. I think Jared Allen has it in him. We'll see with Mobley. Harden, you never know. Mitchell, we've seen it and he's his playoff, what is he, 28 a game for his career in the playoffs?

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  That's what I was going to say when you went through the team results. I mean, there's been, he's got a couple of dud playoff series individually. There's also been some series, particularly with Cleveland, where it's been like Donovan Mitchell. It is any, is anyone else coming with me? Am I just going to have to do this all by myself, including that Orlando one? They gunned it out in seven. Like I, he's, is postseason individual play? Is pretty unimpeachable. Like, everyone's gonna have a dud now and then, even the very greatest players in the world like Jokic is having now. But it's been pretty, by and large, very good.

• 1:05:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the only thing you could ding him is the, well, the results, but also 31% from three the last five postseason. And a lot of, a lot of stuff like today where he just couldn't ever really get it going. And I thought what the, the kind of team the Raptors have is actually like the kind of team you would want to throw at the Cavs. And I think the Celtics have a version of that, too. Just long wings to put on those guys and really bother them. And, and the ability to play small or big, depending on what you do. Well, we'll see. I already think this series is a win for the Raptors, just even. I had Cavs in six. I bet the Cavs win game five. My prediction would still be that the Cavs would go and win in Toronto, but it's, I just didn't like how the Cavs looked today.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Can I, can I say a couple of other things about this game?

• 1:06:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  How about Scotty Barnes just going to the foul line and knocking them all down late in the game? And eight second violation gets thrown in there? Like, if we're gonna just gonna have a complete offensive disappearance, we might as well throw an eight second violation. I'm not sure I've ever seen that exact kind of eight second violation where Jamal Shad seemed to know that it was coming and is like, what if I just jump in front of this guy right now and he jumped in front of Donovan Mitchell? And sure enough, eight second violation.

• 1:06:45Bill Simmons?

  That's not the first time Mitchell's had one of those either. Okay. I'm gonna save, I'll save the Nuggets. Want to do some Magic, Magic Pistons?

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  Sure, let's go.

• 1:06:59Bill Simmons?

  This is, I've said this to you-

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  I got notes. I got notes on every series ready to go.

• 1:07:03Bill Simmons?

  I've said this to you before. This is a great one seed case for my 2-2-3 idea. Yet again, Detroit just on the ropes, really, after being awesome all season. Orlando couldn't have been more disappointing this season, and then ended the season in like a borderline disgraceful way. And now they're in the driver's seat at 2-1. But the, the number one thing I wrote down and I bolded it, I felt this way after game one. I felt this way halfway through game two and then the Pistons played one awesome quarter in game two. Other than that, these teams look dead even to me. And even the net ratings are 105 and 104, offense, defense for Orlando and the opposite for Detroit. All their stats are

• 1:07:46Bill Simmons?

  near the same. It just feels like if they play 20 games, I feel like 18 of them are going to be close. And I honestly don't know who's going to win this series. I would not bet on it. I would not make a prediction for it. I do not know what's going to happen.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  I think it's also a reminder that sometimes the conventional wisdom about the playoffs being different than the regular season is actually spot on. It turns out everything that we were worried about, about the Pistons and Detroit fans yelled and screamed about how they had 60 wins and all this. It turns out your lack of shooting is a problem. It turns out the lack of secondary creation around Kate is a problem. And it turns out that Jalen Durin is just getting flat outplayed by Wendell Carter Jr. And it looks just frazzled on both ends of the floor, which is fine. He's 22 or 23, whatever he is.

• 1:08:35Bill Simmons?

  It's not fine. It's not fine. I voted for him second team NBA. I shouldn't have this many voter regrets already. And I have like five.

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  Well, okay, fine is, I guess fine. By fine, I would mean it's not entirely shocking to me that the playoffs have proven much harder for him than the regular season. But

• 1:08:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but it's worrisome that Orlando has pretty easily figured out how to nullify him in this series.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, his face up game just isn't working. I mean, Wendell Carter hit him with the, with the shade like this guy, this guy.

• 1:09:04Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't believe that. The whole thing with Durin is he carries himself like he's the biggest, baddest guy in the bar. And Wendell Carter's like, let's go outside and fight right now. I'm right here. Wendell Carter's been a big winner, I think, of the playoffs so far.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  The inevitable Stu Goga conflagration already happened. And it was interesting to see JB Vickers have kind of get fed up with both Stu's antics and he yanked Durin early in either the third or I think the third quarter of that game after a couple of defensive mistakes and just like sat him for a long time like there. They took that game obviously seriously and Orlando took it from them and Palo and Franz made a couple dagger threes. You don't expect those guys to dagger threes. That was kind of fun.

• 1:09:42Bill Simmons?

  Did not expect that. Well, the trade deadline, which we were concerned that they didn't do anything major. It feels like it's continuing to haunt them. Kobe White, DeSoomu, who

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 1:09:53Bill Simmons?

  I mean, out of all the teams that could have trumped Minnesota's measly offer of four second round picks and our bust lottery pick for DeSoomu, I'm pretty sure Detroit could have topped that one in about five seconds, right?

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  Maybe though.

• 1:10:07Bill Simmons?

  Four seconds, three seconds, like Jenkins crashed back to earth.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's another one. He played seven minutes in game three.

• 1:10:16Bill Simmons?

  Thompson, his stats are okay, but especially in the last six minutes of these games, and I would say the same for his brother. He's on the court dribbling around and it almost seems like he doesn't know where the basket is. He'll be just going this way and the basket's over here or backwards and just has wants no part of shooting ever. And Cade's been awesome. I mean, if you said before the series, Cade's gonna have a 31, 5 and 8 through, through three games, you, you would think, oh, Detroit, then Detroit, are they going for a sweep? What's gonna happen? They just don't, they don't have any other crunch time offense. It's every fear we had about the Pistons all regular season when we were doing the yeah buts.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  And, and look, let's just be clear. Like, the Magic are good. It's a tough matchup for Detroit. It's not, it's not like they're, I don't think they're like choking or this is a sort of like condemnation of their entire team construction. They're a young team with some obvious offensive warts, playing a team that probably had a higher over under number than they did before the season. And so like, it's not entirely shocking that this has proven a tough series for them. Everything you said about a star Thompson is true and they just, you know, I thought our land, Detroit went at Duncan Robinson with a little bit more precision and intent in that game, and they need Duncan Robinson's offense on the floor to sort of loosen everything up. And they just need Dern to play better. Like,

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  Dern being a 10.5 rebound, like, okay, defensive player, they're, they're gonna lose this round if that's, if that is what he ends up averaging.

• 1:11:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you need the wild card guy too. You know, like, for the Lakers, and we're taping this before game four, but Kennard has been something of a wild card guy for them, right? You need that, oh, I did, like, Io last night, wow, 27 in the second half, we weren't expecting that. I don't know who Detroit's, wow, we weren't expecting that guy is. It's probably Duncan Robinson, but they just never got the heat checking thing. I, I mean, it's a really interesting point you made about regular season versus playoffs because. It's funny, you have in the East Orlando, a team that we were all disgusted by multiple points this year and really frustrated by. And then you have Minnesota, who was the

• 1:12:23Bill Simmons?

  classic, kept roping us in, then making us feel stupid. And then be like, I'm out of Minnesota. Then they look awesome again. They'd rope you back in. And we just did the zigzag with them for six months. And then if you just watched them in the playoffs, you would think, was Jaden McDaniels the runner up to Wemby for Defensive Player of the Year? Or was it Gobert? Were the, did those guys finish two and three? And you see their bench and you just see the, the, the physicality and the intensity that they have. And I promise you, they did not look like that very often during the season, but they do now.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  They absolutely do. And I don't know if you want to talk about that series now, but that's

• 1:13:02Bill Simmons?

  Let's go to a break. We'll, we'll do a break. We'll come back and uh,

• 1:13:08Bill Simmons?

  it's gonna be a hard one for us. Nuggets, Timberwolves.

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  It's not going great.

• 1:13:13Bill Simmons?

  We'll talk about that next.

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• 1:15:15Bill Simmons?

  All right, Zach. Game four. Nuggets-Wolves, which gave us a terrible Di Francesco Achilles injury that I didn't even see because I was watching the other game within a minute of the start. A really scary ant injury that seemed like it was the ACL because he was holding the side of his knee.

• 1:15:34Bill Simmons?

  Turns out, hyperextension, but he's out for the round. Io has 43 in the game and 27 in the second half. And if you only watched this game, you would think he was one of the best 10 players in the league. We had a near brawl involving Jokic.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  Very entertaining.

• 1:15:48Bill Simmons?

  Involving the Joker, which is always all bets are off. And Julius Randall came in with a little like Stephen Jackson and the Artest melee kind of energy. I thought he was really going to escalate it.

• 1:16:00Bill Simmons?

  Huge fight in the stands. Lots of video from that.

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't see that. There was a fight in the stands between Nuggets fans and Timberwolves fans?

• 1:16:07Bill Simmons?

  Big fight in the stands. You can go look that up.

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  Wow, what a rivalry. It's even spilling into fandom. That's great.

• 1:16:12Bill Simmons?

  We had-

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  Well, maybe not great. I don't know if it was- I didn't see the fight. I should-

• 1:16:16Bill Simmons?

  Who knew that was a rivalry?

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Were there children involved? I hope not. I hope everyone's okay.

• 1:16:20Bill Simmons?

  Hopefully everyone was all right. We had ABC breaking into the game and forcing us to move to ESPN because they had to do an update about the White House dinner, the shooting there. And then after the game, someone stole Joker's underwear and he was really mad about it. Probably more mad than the loss.

• 1:16:39Bill Simmons?

  I don't know where you want to start, but this was probably the drunkest game of the year, replacing whatever the previous drunkest game of the year was.

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  I want to start with the injuries to Minnesota because they're up 3-1 in this series. And if even just Ant were healthy, they would probably win the series, even though they only have the one home game left and be a dangerous team in the next round. And now Ant availability is in question for an unknown period of time. And DiVincenzo, the dude is just a winner and a gamer, played every game. He wins everywhere he goes. He's just such an awesome role player and has done so well there. That's, that's a heartbreaker. And you knew it right away. You feared it right away. He knew it right away. It seemed like when he was on the floor. So I want to start there because as appealing as it

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  is to start with, like, is Jokic having the worst playoff series of his career? Is Denver, is their window already closed or closing right now for this, for this core? What does that mean for the offseason? Those are the big questions.

• 1:17:43Bill Simmons?

  I might, I might have to open a Michelob Ultra for this. I'm getting upset.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  I want to sit with, I want to sit with the Timberwolves injuries for just a second because DiVincenzo is like just classic central casting, beloved like glue guy role player. And Ant is Ant, one of the faces of the league, one of the most explosive players in the league, a guy who plays both ends of the floor and is risen up in the playoffs every year that he's been there. And this team is like, has a legit awesome top seven. Like they're starting five plus Io and Nas Reed, and then you go down below that and it's Bones has been playing Gwell and whatever. But like, they are legitimately really good. And if they're harmed going into the second round, assuming they win the series, which I don't think is a done deal, by the way, that just, it just sucks. And all these injuries sucks. And when Castle

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  went out in that game earlier today with the hand injury, I'm like, I'm, I just don't want to, I can't watch this anymore.

• 1:18:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And DiVincenzo is out next year. The timing of these, when you, when you get March, April, May range, you're also out for the next season, I would assume, unless he's on some crazy Tatum timeline that would put him back. I guess, I don't know, he would have to get lucky. I know he flew to New York today and got the surgery, but the thing with him, other than your top seven point, he would swing two halves of the series just by getting hot, it felt like. And I thought he was a great wild card, like, oh my God, Dante's heating up. He's not afraid of this moment. And so, somebody's gonna have to fill that spot.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I should have clarified by top seven, I'm including DiVincenzo, and now he's gone. And so, we're gonna see more Mike Conley. I was very happy, by the way, that Mike Conley threw this all.

• 1:19:20Bill Simmons?

  Competent.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  Had a moment.

• 1:19:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  Had a moment in a big, big game. And, and Shannon got in. I think they're gonna need, they're just gonna need other guys to just fill time now.

• 1:19:30Bill Simmons?

  The Ant thing was the least surprising injury of the first round because he did not, except for Aaron Gordon, because Ant did not look healthy. You could tell something was wrong with his knee. And he was also playing 100%, not favoring it at all. And then afterwards, kind of be like, ow, that still hurts. And it was just scary to watch play by play because he was clearly not healthy, but playing like he was healthy.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  Well, and, but that's the crazy thing about these two wins from Minnesota is Ant was in foul trouble and, and not great in game three. Ant was doing like, pretty much nothing. Like, he wasn't even that involved in the offense before he got hurt in game four. And they still win both games. And I'm glad you brought up Aaron Gordon because, you know, he deserves credit for trying to gut out that game, but it, he just.

• 1:20:17Bill Simmons?

  It was scary.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  It was, he was just jogging lightly on his feet. And he summoned a couple of big jumps for a rebound and for a challenge at the rim. And both times I was, I was like, oh no, is this, like, it was not. And without him and Watson, they're just too small. They're too small for the Timberwolves. They don't have enough force. They don't have enough oomph. And like, that's not an excuse. It just is, it is what it is. And now there's just injuries scattered across this series. And one of these teams is gonna win four games and go on to the next round and face the Spurs. By the way.

• 1:20:45Bill Simmons?

  Be, be a show of themselves.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  But by the way, I mean, you go back to that Spurs Nuggets regular season finale. Like the Nuggets shouldn't even be playing the Timberwolves. Like both of those teams had it lined up for them and they, I don't, I don't know what happened. I mean, it's not like the Nuggets played all their best guys.

• 1:21:01Bill Simmons?

  David Roddy and all those guys happened. They just start, they just played their worst guys played really well for about a half an hour.

• 1:21:07Speaker 01

  That's when you start being like, hey, David Roddy, if you ever wanted to take 12 left-handed threes and a half, like have, have at it, man. Go watch some Mark Madsen film at halftime from game eight. Like you gotta lose that game and the Spurs should have been like, well, we'll help.

• 1:21:22Bill Simmons?

  I talked about that a couple of pods ago, how that not only swung this series, but it swung that Lakers Rockets whole situation in a crazy way where the Lakers just would have gotten, I think dusted by somebody. And instead we have this next chapter in LeBron's legacy and Marcus Smart's rejuvenated. Luke Kennard is back. The Rockets are a complete mess. Darren Gordon thing, regardless, he looks like he's done and it completely changes whatever the ceiling was for Denver. I thought they were going to make the finals. I don't think they're going to make the finals with how he looks. There's some, some other stuff though.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  There's a lot, there is a lot to unpack.

• 1:22:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, the IO thing, how long were we on the trade deadline pod? We did talking about how fucking stupid that trade was and trying to get, we weren't the only ones. I'm not, I'm not claiming the territory by ourselves. Joining us were probably everybody else who has a podcast and watches basketball. Everyone who watched the Chicago Bulls fairly regularly to regularly. This guy was a good basketball player and he was on a cheap contract and these guys should be the hardest people to trade for. And they got him for four second rounders. And it was just immediately clear he was the perfect guy to add for them. And I don't know where a bunch of teams were with this. I don't understand how you get this guy for four second rounders. With that said.

• 1:22:41Bill Simmons?

  The stuff he's doing offensively, I did not know. I did not know he had this. Like he was unstoppable, unstoppable. Denver was like gearing their defense to try to stop him and couldn't stop him. I did not know he could do this.

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  I mean, if, I don't know when the first timestamp is of me saying the Timberwolves should trade for Io Disu, but it's like in the fall. It was that obvious. And I, and I do feel like, imagine being a Bulls fan where almost everything that happens in the NBA playoffs ends up being a joke at your expense. Like, oh, this guy was just on the Bulls. Like you had him on your team. You don't have a lot going for you. You had him and you're like, yeah, you know what? Yeah, we're gonna have to pay him. And Minnesota just gets him. And yeah. I mean, he's, he's just a very good player and he fits them well and he shot 45% on threes this year. But I did not, I mean, it was the Io show from, from start to finish in the second half.

• 1:23:36Bill Simmons?

  Also another guy, and this is a recurring theme in all these series, like just an incredibly competitive guy who really seems to respect and treasure being on the big stage. You know, like you, you've seen a bunch of these guys talk about this. Barnes is another one. Like I've really, I've really grown to admire Barnes. Barnes is like, I'll, I'll fucking die to win this series. I'll do anything it takes. I'm so happy to be here in the playoffs. And Io is another one. I think Io is this guy who probably watched the playoffs in April, May and June every year and was like, fuck, I really want to be in the playoffs.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  I'm on the Bulls. Why am I on the Bulls? They're my hometown team. I know, but.

• 1:24:14Bill Simmons?

  So anyway, I'm happy for him and he really fits in with the kind of mentality and energy of this team. And Jaden McDaniels, I watched something on the social media today of all the people he's like kind of battled with and gone at. He has no respect for anybody. Like this would have been the guy who went at Kobe and Jordan if he was, you know, in those eras. He would have been like, fuck these guys. I'm not afraid of these guys. And this is the best he's ever played. So to, to do all of this when you have a compromised aunt who then goes out of the game in game four and still feel like they're probably going to beat Denver is pretty crazy.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Uh, just a total gutsy performance by the Wolves. Gobert has been sensational the entire series. I will say, there, there are a few other things that need to be remarked on in this game.

• 1:25:01Bill Simmons?

  That Gobert, that Gobert took a three?

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  Well, okay, I was gonna go, we, we need to deep dive the end of the game, but at some point, but Gobert takes that three. I mean, they're all, they're up 13 with six minutes left. That is such an insulting shot. That's like a shot you, you would take if you're up 30 with two and a half minutes left. They're up, that's like a very like winnable game for Denver in most circumstances. And Gobert taking that, there was like 17 on the shot clock. He took it. That was so disrespectful. And I mean this in a good, in a good and fun way. That was just like, we have you. We know we have you. I'm just going to give myself a 15% chance to have the, the target center just combust if I make this shot. That was so disrespectful. I loved it.

• 1:25:45Bill Simmons?

  You know, it wasn't even a heat check three. It was like a, somebody driving home and they just decided to drive the car with their feet on the steering wheel and stick their head through the sunroof. It was one of those moves. It's like, watch this, guys. Like, that's how confident he was. They were winning the game.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  It was like a, to put it in your language, it was like a seven-way parlay. It was like Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems betting on like KG winning the jump ball and five, five other things happening at once. And he was like, fuck it, I'm doing it. We're only up 13. Imagine if they lost. Imagine if they lost, we would look back at that and be like, why did you, what happened?

• 1:26:18Bill Simmons?

  You know what the funniest thing about that shot was? I thought it was going in.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  It looked good.

• 1:26:22Bill Simmons?

  It had this kind of energy for the Timberwolves where it's like, ah, that's probably fucking going in the way this is going for Minnesota. But yeah, that, the, what McDaniel has done in this series and how, how many miles he's put on Murray, combined with what Gobert has done to Joker. You know, I was on a lot of texts today. I have a lot of people in my life, they know who they are, who get really mad when I compare Joker to Bird and Magic and that I voted for him for MVP again and all that. So there's a lot of people I heard from today. I don't have to name them. And, uh,

• 1:26:55Bill Simmons?

  You want to do this now or did you have more from this game?

• 1:26:58Speaker 01

  No, let's do it now. You're you feel I feel like you're on the therapist couch and you're ready to go. So let's go.

• 1:27:06Bill Simmons?

  It's we're four games in the series. I'm not ready to say that this is one of the big disasters of all time. I will say if they get knocked out of this series and he's looked the way he's looked.

• 1:27:18Bill Simmons?

  It does feel like the best player alive. Room, the door is going to open and somebody's going to be able to walk into that room now and be declared the new person.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  I mean, I have voted Shay, I voted, I didn't vote, but I didn't have a vote. I had Shay MVP and Shay's been number one in the Ringer 100 the last two or three times. Like, isn't that already happened?

• 1:27:40Bill Simmons?

  Deep in the recesses of recesses of your soul.

• 1:27:45Bill Simmons?

  You thought Joker was the best player in the league.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  That, no, I mean, like Shay took the belt, I think, this season after the injury. The injury is like a line of demarcation. The injury on December 30th, when Jokic got hurt, he has not been the same guy since. And I think Shay has been the best player since then, period. No, no caveats, no like, well, if I had to win a game, blah, blah, blah. I think he's just been the best guy. By the way, we're probably not going to talk about it because it's a boring series. What he did to Phoenix in game three yesterday was like

• 1:28:13Bill Simmons?

  How did I my notes 15 15 for 18? And shit talking?

• 1:28:18Speaker 01

  Straight up majestic and like they couldn't do anything with him and defensively, he's a game changing. He makes some game changing plays here and there. It just, but okay, I'm sorry. I interrupted the Jokic

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  cope.

• 1:28:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, this is a six year run. Six started in 20, they come back and they beat Utah, right? They come back from in the bubble. That was kind of the arrival playoffs. So seven years, really six, they lose two because of the Murray injury. He wins three MVPs. They win one title. That's going to start to, oh, they won one title, but look who they played. People are going to do that.

• 1:28:57Bill Simmons?

  He's 31 years old.

• 1:29:00Bill Simmons?

  I wouldn't say he's gonna have a LeBron type of physical arc of staying in shape until his late 30s and being incredible. God only knows what he's gonna look like at age 35, 36. The bigger thing for me is the team around him. I really worry like this is like really it for him as a contender. If they can't get out of the first round this year, Gordon's year 13 next year. God only knows what he's gonna be like physically. Whatever we saw from Cam Johnson this year, can't say I was impressed. I went from thinking that was a steal of a trade to wondering like would Michael Porter Jr. Have actually maybe helped them in this series?

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  People, I said it from jump.

• 1:29:39Bill Simmons?

  I know you did. I know.

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  People disrespected Michael Porter Jr. In the analysis of that trade.

• 1:29:44Bill Simmons?

  And then, and then Tim Hardaway, like the biggest part of this game, Denver was like, felt like they were gonna come back multiple times in that fourth quarter. Hardaway's in the corner, takes a three, it hits the side of the backboard. Like I think it would have cut the game to like four or six. Next play, Cam Johnson, or that next time they have it, Cam Johnson's wide open on the side, same thing, missed the three. Like Murray was the only guy that hit a three in the second half for them yesterday. He had two, everybody else was 0 for 11. So the supporting cast has been bad. Here's what I don't understand, Zach. For the season, they were first in offense, 121.3 by possessions, 100 possessions. Their offense is 105.3 in the

• 1:30:26Bill Simmons?

  playoffs. They're last in three-point shooting in the playoffs. They're 16th shooting 28.5. They're 40% field goal, 15th. They're not really turning it all over. They're second best in turnovers and they're first to get in the line. They're 33 free throw attempts a game.

• 1:30:45Bill Simmons?

  And the offense just looks awful. Like there was one stat I saw on Reddit, Denver on open shots is eight for 36 in the playoffs and on wide open shots, they're 20 for 57. I don't understand what happened to their offense and I can't think it's just Gordon. And I can't think Obera McDaniels as good as they've been are this good. Like they've completely shut down an offense that was humming the entire season. I don't really get it.

• 1:31:10Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, a lot of the open shots are Christian Brown and Spencer Jones and Jokic threes, which they're giving them.

• 1:31:16Bill Simmons?

  Which don't go in anymore for some reason.

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  And Aaron Gordon on one leg jump shots. So they're open, but they're like not, it's not like Steph Curry's out there shooting catch and shoot.

• 1:31:26Bill Simmons?

  True.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Threes. I'm glad you brought this up though, because when the Nuggets fail, everybody wants to clown on Jokic's defense, which is hit or miss, obviously. Their, their, their defense has actually been fine in this series for the most part. They're losing because they have absolutely no answers for Minnesota's defense. And it's shocking to see Denver out of answers because they were the number one offense in the NBA this season. There were nights where it looked so easy for them and the Wolves have just taken them completely out of their game. And they've taken Jokic, Gobert with a great team of defenders around him, has taken Jokic totally out of the, out of his rhythm, totally out of his usual game. And the way I was looking at the tracking data over the weekend, oh, this is before game four.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  And I, cause I was curious, having watched game three, his post ups are down, like he just doesn't want to post up against Gobert. They like every minute that he's out there with Nas Reed or Julius Randall on him, they should be going to him in the post and yet they weren't. In the third quarter, the Gobert was out of the game for a while and I kept waiting for Jokic to take over and he was just getting the ball 30 feet from the hoop and they were running split cuts and all this stuff that looks nice, but it's like, dude, you have Julius Randall and Nas Reed on you, you should, you should be like, this is your time. And then he's also not rolling to the rim nearly as often. Uh, and I don't know if it's, I don't know what it is, but I, I think he knows that they're trying to take that away and he's just not doing it. And when he's not doing it, he's not compromising their defense at all.

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  And I don't know if there's, there was one play in game three. That's he finally rolled hard to the rim and he got the ball in the spot where we've seen him make a floater 5,000 times and he went up for it and Gobert was in the neighborhood rotating around and in midair Jokic dumped it down to Christian Brown who was kind of like right under the rim but couldn't go up because Gobert was there and that the possession died out after that and that play and combined with him if you look at the tracking data him rolling to the rim a lot or rolling into the paint rolling it all like just he's just popping and staying put doing that less often has me wondering like they're just in his head Gobert is in his head he's out of rhythm he's not playing the way he usually does and all

• 1:33:34Speaker 01

  those pet paint shots are gone vaporized and the Timberwolves have completely taken him out of his game.

• 1:33:42Bill Simmons?

  I agree with everything you just said and I would add this and this goes to the taking him out of his game they figured out a way to speed him up to just like almost like a podcast where Jokic is like I like when I like when my podcasts are at 1-2 I'm a 1.2 guy that's what I am I like to play at that speed and the Timberwolves have sped him up to 1-5 and where I've really noticed it is on defensive rebounds when he's like trying to he had a couple of the crazy turnovers that he hasn't had since like the 2010s in the second half of that game where it's like he's afraid McDaniels is gonna come from behind or Io or somebody and they're gonna swipe the ball from him so he's getting these

• 1:34:24Bill Simmons?

  balls and he's like like a badass hell going up the thing or trying to do these quick passes and he's not he doesn't have that same calm pace that he always had like they've they've they've just discombobulated him and the thing I was telling to the people that were making fun of me today in my life like people have had bad series right and every single great player we've ever had has had a lousy series yeah tragic Johnson Kobe had the 04 against the Pistons was a classic Bird had a couple stinkers like the 88 Piston series is bad every Jordan against Orlando in 95 everybody has them I'm just surprised it happened.

• 1:35:06Bill Simmons?

  Right now for Jokic with what we had seen this year because I really felt like he in a lot of ways, I you know, I know he got injured. He came back. We were worried about him, but I really felt like he had his mojo back. And I thought this team knew what it was. Now you look at him, it's like Valanciunas doesn't play anymore. They don't really have a backup point guard. It's just a bad matchup for them. And sometimes that happens in basketball. So they're favored on FanDuel for game five. They're favored by 10 and a half in game five.

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  Oh, with the injuries. Sure. Yeah. I think that's still too. I think the way they're playing.

• 1:35:39Bill Simmons?

  I thought it would be like minus six.

• 1:35:42Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen with Aaron Gordon. Just eye test like and if I didn't even come back in the game in the second half after he went out, like I would just plan on him. I'm mentally planning on him not playing. And that that seems like too many points. But you brought up a very important point, though. Whereas as much as you want to make this about Jokic, and that's he deserves all the criticism, like Gobert has eaten his lunch and taken him out of the game. Jokic and Murray scored 54 points in game four. The rest of the team scored 32. I'm sorry, 42. And Cam Johnson has been nothing. Christian Brown has been nothing. That's two of your starters giving you giving you zero. Watson's obviously not playing. And I think there's a real discussion to be had.

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  I don't know if now is the time to do it because we haven't got to the end of the game, which I found delightful.

• 1:36:30Bill Simmons?

  Are you doing this?

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  No, there's just a real discussion to be had about Oklahoma and San Antonio are who they are. And did Denver just flat out miss its chance at a second ring? Is the window closed for them? Because Murray and Jokic are getting older. Gordon, it just, I think you just have to assume that he's just not going to be healthy for six straight weeks in the playoffs ever again. I mean, the evidence suggests it. They're and the rest of their team is just not performing up to the level it needs to perform. And it just, you do, like, things happen fast in the NBA. You mentioned 21, Murray hurt, 22, Murray hurt, 23, they win the title, 24, they'll always regret blowing that lead in game seven at home against Minnesota, because I think they'd have been favorites over Dallas in the next

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  round and favorites over Boston in the finals, perhaps. Although that, you know, that would have been a good matchup, obviously. That would have been, but Boston probably would have been favored. But that was, there are three rings sitting there. Two of them, Rob, not their chance was eliminated by injuries. One, I think they would have had a real good shot at it, and they didn't get out of game seven. And now it's like. Is this it? Like, are we, are we done? And if, if we, if we do think we're done, what the hell are we supposed to do?

• 1:37:41Bill Simmons?

  You know, it's hilarious. I was a step ahead of you for where you were going. And I thought you were going where I'm starting.

• 1:37:47Speaker 01

  Jokic trades? Jokic, should Detroit trade everything for Jokic? Should Charlotte trade everything for Jokic? You want to do it?

• 1:37:53Bill Simmons?

  No, I thought that's where you were going to go, though. That's why I jerked up. Cause I do think like this, if you're them, like we had the window and now we're kind of stuck with this team. That's the real issue with them.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Shengun, five first round picks, six, I mean, you do, you're not ready yet.

• 1:38:12Bill Simmons?

  I don't think Jokic, I think he's a little like Curry, where he's like, I like Denver and I'm happy and I'm just happy to compete every year. But the San Antonio OKC point has been lurking all year. And this is why I really thought this was last stand for Denver. Like this is it. You might be able to catch OKC in a back to back with Jalen wins. They've had some injuries. You know, you can play them pretty well. And San Antonio is a year away from being ready. This is like your window and.

• 1:38:40Speaker 01

  I don't know about, I don't know about San Antonio being a year away.

• 1:38:42Bill Simmons?

  Well, after this weekend, but I'm just saying like youth.

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  They played them well in the regular season. The Nuggets played the Spurs well in the.

• 1:38:48Bill Simmons?

  My point is next year, San Antonio is going to be better than this year. So.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:38:53Bill Simmons?

  Teams that are up 3-1 in a series, there's been 298 NBA examples.

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:39:01Bill Simmons?

  How many do you think have come back?

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  17.

• 1:39:03Bill Simmons?

  13.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:39:05Bill Simmons?

  Teams with 285 and 13.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  How many were coached by Doc Rivers?

• 1:39:11Bill Simmons?

  At least a couple. Minnesota's defensive rating with Rudy is 98.5 in the series? That's like out of the 1940s. Christian Brown, his extension kicks in next year for 125 million for five years?

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  It does. It does.

• 1:39:32Bill Simmons?

  That is gonna, I think it made the worst contracts with me and Waz and House. I think Waz drafted that one. It's now, there's been some, him and Pertle, I think are going to be high first round picks in that draft next year. But the Brown thing's tough because if you can't guard Io or anybody else, you can't shut down anyone on, on Minnesota, any of their perimeter guys, and you're not making threes and you're not finishing around the rim and you can't hit free throws.

• 1:40:02Bill Simmons?

  I'm really not sure what you're bringing to the table because that's kind of the four reasons you're playing.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  I think that contract was a bet on him improving his three-point shot, which he's done intermittently. And then it always seems to disappear for two weeks, three weeks here and there. And yeah, I mean, that was a very clear choice of, you know, there's obviously a lot of variables and variables involved in these choices, including what salaries the players want and all that. But that was a very clear, like, we're choosing you over Peyton Watson. Or if we have to choose one and whatever variables line up, we're choosing you. And Peyton Watson flat out outplayed him when he was healthy this year. And now he becomes a free agent and they are already like apron troubled and I don't know what they're going to do.

• 1:40:45Bill Simmons?

  This really makes me sad.

• 1:40:48Bill Simmons?

  I do respect, like, if Jokic is going to go down, my favorite non-Celtic to watch, other than maybe Curry. If he's going to go down this way, I want it to go down this way, like Terminator 2 style with the falling into the pit, putting his hand up, down 3-1, just like one last 37, 15 and 17, and just doing everything. Murray is playing well in this series, I think.

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  He is.

• 1:41:15Bill Simmons?

  They just, I just need, unfortunately against Minnesota, you're going to need more than that. Wow, so you're already, you've already poured dirt on.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no, listen.

• 1:41:23Bill Simmons?

  He's the best guy in the league. No, it's fine.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  I said that they could still win the series.

• 1:41:27Bill Simmons?

  No, you have SGA now, you're an SGA guy.

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  Will you stop?

• 1:41:30Bill Simmons?

  You left fouling. You're a foul batter now.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  All right, well.

• 1:41:34Bill Simmons?

  That's who you are. It's fine.

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  Look, if I could bait fouls, I would bait fouls. I can't though. I'm also, I'm just at flat, I'm just an injury risk at this point for any, any running sporting event.

• 1:41:46Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to get you an OK, OK, OKFC hat.

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  Is that a thing?

• 1:41:52Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm trying to make it a thing. No, OKC, they're clearly, it's Shay's time now. And if they win back to back, I think whoever emerges from that OKC San Antonio series will be the best player in the league. That's who we will feel has the belt. And that's just how it's going to go.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  Can we do three minutes on the end of the game?

• 1:42:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  McDaniel's Jokic.

• 1:42:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  First of all, I hope nobody gets suspended. I hate when this stuff happens when they do the film about did someone leave the bench? As you pointed out over text, I think the players thought the game had ended. And so like

• 1:42:22Bill Simmons?

  I thought the game had ended.

• 1:42:23Speaker 01

  Everyone thought the game had ended, but I there's one person that's not getting any credit here that I would like to give a little credit to. Mike Conley threw that pass ahead to Jaden McDaniel's when he absolutely did not have to. He could have just dribbled out the clock or dribbled up to half court. And I think Mike Conley has a little bit of shit disturber in him. It was like, let's see what happens. If I throw this pass up to Jaden McDaniel's and you could see Jokic watching like as soon as that pass went. Jokic turned his back to the hoop that he was shooting at and just watched Jaden McDaniel's. It was like waiting like, are you gonna do it, motherfucker? You actually gonna do it? And then he did it. But I want to give Mike Conley a lot of credit for starting the whole thing, maybe inadvertently, maybe slightly overtly. I don't know. But that's a great pass by Mike Conley. He had another assist in an illustrious career.

• 1:43:07Bill Simmons?

  Great Mike Conley comeback.

• 1:43:09Speaker 01

  Guard Mike Conley.

• 1:43:11Bill Simmons?

  Joker running at you full speed angry.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  It's not what I want to see.

• 1:43:15Bill Simmons?

  First team all NBA with, I'm trying to think of other ones. Isaiah Stewart.

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  Oh, Isaiah Stewart is, Isaiah Stewart is in a league of his own.

• 1:43:23Bill Simmons?

  Jalen Durin, it's probably a top three. Two of them are on Detroit.

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  I did enjoy McDaniel's, McDaniel's when he was asked about it was like, I didn't know what was happening. I just know someone big as hell was coming at me. I'm like, yep, that's, that's right.

• 1:43:35Bill Simmons?

  McDaniel's energy has, I think, really spoken for this Timberwolves team who was clearly knew they were playing with Edwards, not at 100% and they're still carrying themselves.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  The, the other take I just want to have on this, if you will allow me.

• 1:43:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  Is Denver Nuggets, Nikola Jokic, David Adelman, all of you, stop whining. The guy scored a layup against you in garbage time. You're that upset about it? Like, how about just don't go to garbage time? How about try to play better during the run of the game? The unwritten rules, like, it's not like he did a windmill dunk 360, just put the ball in the hoop.

• 1:44:08Bill Simmons?

  I think it was that it was him of all the people that did it.

• 1:44:10Speaker 01

  Well, then just take the L because the guy talked shit about your entire roster, backed it up and made a layup in garbage time or you're good. Then you like get all mad about it. It's come on, the game's going on. He made a layup, big deal. He doesn't get to see scores. He's not like a, you know, wants an extra two points.

• 1:44:25Bill Simmons?

  You'll be surprised to know, I completely agree. And I thought Adelman seemed like a loser in the press conference. And by the way, him talking about wondering where, when the, when the, all the Nuggets fans, everybody who watches this team is like, where the, where's the fight? Why are you guys rolling over like this? What are we watching? Where is like the pride that we've watched the last six years? And Adam is like, what do you mean? I thought we were competitive.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  I had it in my notes in the game. In the last like, from like minute four to minute two of the fourth quarter, the like, not, not the very end, but they're a little stretched there before the very end. They seem to start playing harder than they had played. Particularly on offense, like they started executing with a lot more zip and a lot more force. And to the point that I put it in my notes is like, where, it's too late. It's too late now.

• 1:45:13Bill Simmons?

  Well, do you think Adam is coaching this team next year? If they get bounced in five or six, because I do not.

• 1:45:20Speaker 01

  Who the hell knows with these coaching changes? I mean, Tiago Splitter can't get a job. These guys are all getting, who the hell knows with these coaching decisions anymore?

• 1:45:27Bill Simmons?

  Billy Donovan's like, hey, guys. Do you have a top six or seven player in the league? Cause I would love to have that opportunity to coach somebody really good.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  You know, who did it right? Monty Williams took all the money, got fired and was like, you know what I'm going to do? Just nothing. How about I just coach high school, coach my sons? You can keep paying me eight figures a year for as many years as the contract goes on. That's what Billy Donovan, I don't know. I mean, I think he only is one more year left.

• 1:45:55Bill Simmons?

  I don't think, I don't think people are knocking on Monty's door. There's been a couple of people that have just like, will Adrian Griffin ever coach again? There's a couple of these guys that just come and go and we'll never see them again, I guess.

• 1:46:07Speaker 01

  That was a bad ending, Adrian Griffin. Anyway, that's Nuggets Wolves. I think there's.

• 1:46:11Bill Simmons?

  My only thing to add from your last, from that brawl was, uh, I just really want to encourage people to go back and look at Randall. Going to another level. I don't, I actually really thought he was going to take a swing at somebody and get ejected. So we'll see if they have suspensions.

• 1:46:26Speaker 01

  I watched it again today, uh, many times. He seemed under control, under control to me and just incredibly strong. My takeaway from that was Julius Randall is just so fucking strong that if he gets into these scrums, the whole scrum is moving and whatever Julius ran into, whatever direction he's pushing, that's where it's going.

• 1:46:47Speaker 02

  Fox News coverage of Democracy 26 is streaming live on Fox One. Stream your midterm election coverage from the Fox News voices you trust in the days leading up to November 3rd, live on Election Day and in the days after. Don't miss breaking election news as it happens. Expert analysis of every pivotal race, crucial conversations and more. When America decides the balance of power, turn to the voices you trust.

• 1:47:17Speaker 03

  Having uncontrolled eosinophilic esophagitis, or E O E, can mean you're stuck in many ways, like cutting your food into tiny pieces.

• 1:47:27Speaker 03

  Or stuck chewing food for a long time.

• 1:47:31Speaker 03

  Dupixent Dupilumab, a prescription medicine for patients one year and older weighing at least 33 pounds can help with that. It's a breakthrough treatment that can reduce inflammation in the esophagus and improve swallowing.

• 1:47:44Speaker 03

  How about this? Dupixent is not a steroid. It proactively treats E O E so you can get ahead of it.

• 1:47:50Speaker 04

  Severe allergic reactions, including skin reactions, can occur. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing, or wheezing, or swelling of your face, mouth, tongue, or throat. Tell your doctor of new or worsening joint aches and pain, or a parasitic infection, or asthma. Don't change or stop other treatments without talking to your doctor.

• 1:48:05Speaker 03

  Feeling stuck with E O E? Start treating with Dupixent. Talk to your gastroenterologist or allergist today about Dupixent. Learn more at dupixent.com or call 1-844-DUPIXENT.

• 1:48:17Bill Simmons?

  All right, Knicks Hawks really quickly. It was absolute panic time after game three for the Knicks fans. I know you know a lot of them. I know a lot of them too. I was just shocked by the angst.

• 1:48:31Bill Simmons?

  Knicks come out, guess what? When the Knicks have the lead for most of the game, pretty fun ride. They took the lead early, kept, they were up by 10, 11, 12, 15, 8, 12, and never gave it up. The only things that I noticed other than that they weren't playing from behind was they won more 50-50 balls. They played through Towns a little bit more. You know, it wasn't like he took 40 shots. And they gave us a whiff of Alvarado. Yep.

• 1:49:01Bill Simmons?

  The big thing was that Atlanta just sucked. I thought they were just awful. It was a Butterfingers game. I watched with your old Grantland teammate, Rember Brown.

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  Oh, poor Rem.

• 1:49:12Bill Simmons?

  Every time he's come over, I think he's come over for an Atlanta loss regardless of the sport. And we were just saying is this is a Butterfingers game. Every 50-50, you could just tell they're gonna lose it. Guys in traffic, they're just gonna lose it. Rebounds, bouncing off hands, going to the Knicks, and they just really sucked. 10 for 41 from three for Atlanta. And I thought the Knicks were leaving Daniels and Jalen Johnson and Akongwu. Basically, if you want to shoot that, you're open for a reason. Good luck.

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  Well, they should. I mean, that should be, you know, the Hawks want to get into the paint and knife around in there and get to the rim. And they should go under on screens when they can for all those guys. And it's on the Hawks to make it hard through disguise and creativity and all that for them to do that. But I think the Knicks' two wins in this series have been two of their very best defensive games of the whole season. And Towns has been pretty sound defensively throughout the whole series and including in those two games. And I understand the angst if you're a Knicks fan, because this is just on paper, they should be up 3-1. This should just be a run-of-the-mill favorite over underdog, has a chance to close it out in five first-round series. And in the middle of their two pretty emphatic wins are two one-point losses, both of which they could have,

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  should have had multiple chances to win and didn't, partly thanks to CJ McCollum being unbelievable, partly thanks to some puzzling coaching decisions, partly thanks to the Hawks being good. But this, doesn't this feel like it should be 3-1 Knicks and just we're barely thinking about this series because it goes the way these series tend to go? And now...

• 1:50:43Bill Simmons?

  Can I say two and a half to one and a half?

• 1:50:45Speaker 01

  That's fine. They better win game five because you think it was angsty going into game, game four. If they're down 3-2 going to Atlanta, look out.

• 1:50:53Bill Simmons?

  Bench karma is great.

• 1:50:56Bill Simmons?

  For the series, Atlanta is 32% from three. Daniels is, I'm sorry, Jalen Johnson's 28%, Daniels is 14%, Kaminga is 18%. Kaminga, I want to single out for being singularly horrific in game four. That was just really just, it was like throwing a grenade on the court. He just couldn't have been worse. We've also seen the flip side of that when he comes in and he's awesome. That's just who he is. He's trick or treat. It was a trick in that game. But I just wrote down in bold, I do think the Hawks blew their window for this series. I think they could have, if they had come out and thrown a couple punches and made some threes and gotten the crowd into it and gotten the Knicks a little nervous.

• 1:51:39Bill Simmons?

  I would have been really interested to see what happened in the second half, but they did not do any of that.

• 1:51:44Speaker 01

  Here's the only, I mean, I, I don't, the Knicks are an endlessly fascinating puzzle to me. They look great for one game, great for two games, crappy for one game. You never know what is going to happen with them. The one thing I would say about the Hawks and their chances is I still didn't love the way the Knicks half court offense looked in that game. Despite the fact that the same simple play of Jalen Brunson setting a back screen for OG and an Obie in the corner worked like 17 times as if the Hawks were just like, I guess we just can't adjust to this. We're just going to let OG dunk eight more times. And then I looked up the numbers because it seemed to be like the Knicks were just, just every transition chance they had to your point about 50 50 balls. And if you go to cleaning the glass, their half court points per possession in that game was like average ish and transition.

• 1:52:29Speaker 01

  It like breaks my laptop when I bring up their transition points per possession. That's like, that's, that's the Josh Hart stuff, right? I mean, that's the stuff that he brings and I mean,

• 1:52:40Speaker 01

  I mean, the other thing is it's not like the McIlbridge's question was really answered. He played 19 minutes in that game, even though Mike Brown started him. And didn't you think it was weird when Mike Brown was like, I'm not going to tell you who's starting, but whatever decision is made is my decision. I'm like, did anyone think like, did anyone think it was not going to be your decision? What question are you answering right now?

• 1:53:00Bill Simmons?

  Rick Brunson was in play.

• 1:53:03Bill Simmons?

  Maybe that was, speaking of Rick,

• 1:53:07Bill Simmons?

  Bridges has reached the, it's a bonus if he does anything in these games, part of his contribution through this season, it feels like. But the flip side is OG has been so good.

• 1:53:18Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:53:18Bill Simmons?

  And so awesome that the seesaw, the OG Bridges seesaw is now like this. But OG has been so good, they're almost okay with it because they're getting what they're getting from heart. I was, I never understood why they gave up on Alvarado. I know that he wasn't hitting threes for weeks on end and had become unplayable. But I just think in a playoff series, he's annoying and he's the kind of guy who can come in in the second quarter and somebody like CJ McCollum is like, God damn it. I hate going against this guy. This is not going to be a fun five minutes. And I think I really value those guys in a series.

• 1:53:52Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, he had a, just an all time great grand theft Alvarado in the game.

• 1:53:58Bill Simmons?

  He did.

• 1:53:58Speaker 01

  Second of all, you just have to add him to your list of when you act, when you go through it, guards the Houston Rockets could have and didn't trade for, that might have helped right now list.

• 1:54:11Bill Simmons?

  I mean, that's, that list is 100 deep.

• 1:54:14Speaker 01

  It's pretty deep. Collin Sexton is like, I mean, watching these games like, I mean, I couldn't really.

• 1:54:21Bill Simmons?

  Collin Sexton is like, I was right here.

• 1:54:23Speaker 01

  Like, I won't, I won't throw the ball away if we're up by six.

• 1:54:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think what's funny and maybe not funny about the Rockets is keeping Van Vliet because he was so important as a locker room guy and he wanted to be there and you didn't want to put him in a trade. Which I get, that's, that's great, but who has a worse locker room and chemistry than the Rockets? Maybe they could have afforded to trade Van Vliet for somebody who could dribble the ball and protect a six point lead with 30 seconds left. Bridges for the series is 7.3 points a game. OG is averaging a 21 and 9 and he's shooting 52% from three.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  It feels like he's hit nine huge threes with the shot clock expiring and the Knicks have, having nothing going on.

• 1:55:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:05Speaker 01

  Just bailing them out.

• 1:55:06Bill Simmons?

  So. We talked before game four and you were talking about,

• 1:55:13Bill Simmons?

  we were talking about emergency pods, all kinds of stuff. If the Knicks were down 3-1 in a game five, you, it was conceivable that the Knicks were going to be down 3-1 heading into a game five to the, to our earlier points.

• 1:55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:24Bill Simmons?

  It was in the air. You could feel it. I think game five is going to be an awesome game. If we're talking about what's going to be the most compelling game fives, and we're taping this before these last two games that happened today.

• 1:55:36Speaker 01

  But these are game, these are game fours. So.

• 1:55:38Bill Simmons?

  Right. Um, Minnesota, Minnesota, Denver game five is obviously a must watch with a lot of like big picture, Jokic legacy stuff at stake. And I think Knicks Hawks would be the other kind of must watch for me. Orlando, Detroit, they don't even have a, we have a game four coming up because that series has been a little staggered, but Knicks Hawks, like I still feel like the Hawks could just shoot better and hang around with them and then just try to get it to the last three minutes. And I felt the same way with you about the Knicks half court offense.

• 1:56:11Speaker 01

  I mean, it's going to be a fascinating game. I'm hoping to be there and.

• 1:56:16Bill Simmons?

  You gotta go to that one. I would, I would demand you go.

• 1:56:19Speaker 01

  My credential application has been filed. And we'll see.

• 1:56:25Speaker 01

  These games get crowded and all that, but.

• 1:56:27Bill Simmons?

  Do you want me to talk to Bobby Bacala and who are the other Sopranos that go?

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  I don't know about the other Sopranos, but I, I mean, the Knicks have more celebrity fans than the Lakers somehow now.

• 1:56:36Bill Simmons?

  Want me to call Modine? See if there's extra tickets?

• 1:56:40Speaker 01

  He hasn't been there. I haven't seen him there in a while.

• 1:56:42Bill Simmons?

  When we give her a ring?

• 1:56:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Get Suzie on the, on the horn.

• 1:56:45Bill Simmons?

  You gotta go to that one.

• 1:56:47Speaker 01

  But no, I mean, like the East is again, who, who wants this conference other than, well, I mean, we're taping this before Boston Philly. If Boston blows the crap out of Philly.

• 1:56:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, let's do that. We'll do that in the first segment because Boston will give us, right now it's 11 to 10. So we gotta go pretty soon. I gotta do a really quick parent corner with you before we go.

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  Shoot.

• 1:57:07Bill Simmons?

  So Amazon Prime, they do the thing where if it's like three devices are using it, they shut one down or four, I forget what the number is. So my, my daughter's using my Amazon Prime, which is fine because she's my daughter. I'm sure yours will be in college someday using your Amazon or one of your other streamers. And I was using two different ones because there was two games going on and it logged me out of one of the things. And it was because my dad was logged into my Amazon. So I had to call my dad. My dad's like, well, I can't get Amazon unless I'm on your Amazon. And I'm like, but dad, you, you have Amazon Prime.

• 1:57:43Bill Simmons?

  I do? Yeah. You guys have Amazon Prime. That's when you get packages or you send stuff like, you pay for Amazon Prime. I'm positive. And he's like, but that, so my Amazon Prime would get me the games? I'm like, yeah, you have Amazon Prime, which would allow you to use Amazon Prime to then watch the game on your Amazon Prime. So we walked through this and my, my wife and I were on speaker just like ridiculing him.

• 1:58:16Speaker 01

  Oh, that's not nice.

• 1:58:17Bill Simmons?

  No, we love to make fun of my dad. But I realized they should be doing PSAs.

• 1:58:24Bill Simmons?

  I really think they should, Amazon Prime should have a whole ad campaign like, the game is on Amazon Prime. And guess what? You have it.

• 1:58:34Speaker 01

  The more you know.

• 1:58:34Bill Simmons?

  You actually paid for it.

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  The more you know.

• 1:58:36Bill Simmons?

  You already have Amazon Prime. Go to it, hit the button, then look, the game is going to be on there. You don't have to steal it from your kids. So I just, the streamers things, it's been really rocky this first year, not knowing what games are on. I did, I went to three before I landed on ESPN for the first game today. It's like a little game show.

• 1:58:57Speaker 01

  My 83 year old father has figured it out. He could take, they come over for, they come over for dinner every once, at least once a week. And they were, I think they came Thursday and he was like, hey, are the, are all the games on Prime tonight? And I was like, yeah, it's like, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a try. See, see, see how, see how, how it goes. I'm like, okay, you don't, you don't have to call my, my younger sister is the one who usually does the.

• 1:59:21Bill Simmons?

  Gets a little dicey?

• 1:59:22Speaker 01

  No, she does the tech aid to the parents. But like, I can't get on the Zoom kind of stuff. But he figured it out and was watching the games.

• 1:59:30Bill Simmons?

  I think it's been a real problem in bars because I mentioned this on a podcast about bars and hotels recently and got a few emails from people who were talking about being at a crowded bar with people telling the bartender to put on Amazon and just them just basically like doing the Borat like.

• 1:59:48Speaker 01

  Well, everyone will get there.

• 1:59:51Bill Simmons?

  We'll all get there at some point. It's just, this is how it was gonna go. But yeah, so to the parents out there, the older parents, you probably have Amazon Prime.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  Stick with it.

• 2:00:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, stick with it. It's gonna happen. Okay. Zach Lowe, you podcast Tuesday morning?

• 2:00:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:00:07Bill Simmons?

  Okay. And then you're going to the MSG with Bobby Bacala and A.J. Soprano on Tuesday night?

• 2:00:13Speaker 01

  That's, it's the plan.

• 2:00:14Bill Simmons?

  That sounds great. All right. Good to see you. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm coming back on Tuesday with another podcast. Plus rewatchables Ghostbusters Monday. Buckle up, get ready for that one. Thanks, everybody. Thanks to Netflix, too.

• 2:00:49Bill Simmons?

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• 2:01:27Speaker 02

  Fox News Coverage of Democracy 26 is streaming live on Fox One. Stream your midterm election coverage from the Fox News voices you trust in the days leading up to November 3rd, live on Election Day and in the days after. Don't miss breaking election news as it happens. Expert analysis of every pivotal race, crucial conversations, and more. When America decides the balance of power, turn to the voices you trust.

• 2:01:53Speaker 03

  Having uncontrolled eosinophilic esophagitis, or EOE, can mean you're stuck in many ways, like cutting your food into tiny pieces. Or stuck, chewing food for a long time. Dupixent Dupilumab, a prescription medicine for patients one year and older weighing at least 33 pounds, can help with that. It's a breakthrough treatment that can reduce inflammation in the esophagus and improve swallowing. How about this? Dupixent is not a steroid. It proactively treats EOE, so you can get ahead of it.

• 2:02:30Speaker 04

  Severe allergic reactions, including skin reactions, can occur. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing, or wheezing, or swelling of your face, mouth, tongue, or throat. Tell your doctor of newer worsening joint aches and pain, or a parasitic infection, or asthma. Don't change or stop other treatments without talking to your doctor.

• 2:02:45Speaker 03

  Feeling stuck with EOE? Start treating with Dupixent. Talk to your gastroenterologist or allergist today about Dupixent. Learn more at dupixent.com or call 1-844-DUPIXENT.