Joker’s Out, and Boston Might Be Next. Plus, an MLB Cocktail Party and 'Survivor 50' With Rob Mahoney, Billy Gil, and Jason Concepcion.

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Rob Mahoney LIVE on Netflix after the Timberwolves eliminate the Nuggets to recap the Thursday NBA playoff slate and preview the remaining Round 1 matchups (1:07). Then, Billy Gil joins to talk about the five biggest MLB cocktail topics of the last five weeks (01:04:55). Finally, Jason Concepcion hops on to catch up on ‘Survivor 50’ and to make predictions for the show (01:41:58). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Rob Mahoney, Billy Gil, and Jason Concepcion Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Jonathan Frias The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines 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.

• 0:41Bill Simmons?

  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. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat.

• 1:43Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast, live on Netflix. We're doing the first hour live. Anyway, Rob Mahoney is here. So I have new rewatchables coming on Monday. There's Something About Mary we're doing. You have The Ringer NBA Show. I do. Multiple episodes a week and then the Prestige TV Podcast as well. Rob, I invited you to discuss what turned out to be one of the most bizarre nights of basketball we've had in the playoffs in some time. It started out with the Knicks being up by 50 points in the first half of a game. The Celtics just completely falling apart in Philadelphia. We might have another Jason Tatum injury and then Nikola Joker getting bounced.

• 2:25Bill Simmons?

  And what was it for you, the Jaden McDaniels game or the TJ Shannon game?

• 2:29Speaker 01

  I think it's gotta be the Jaden McDaniels game with all due respect to Terrence Shannon.

• 2:35Bill Simmons?

  I think McDaniels played 45 minutes, 32 and 10. And snatched Jamal Murray's soul. So we'll start there. They have no Io, didn't know he wasn't playing until today. No, uh, and obviously, and then no Di Francesco and they're like seven point underdogs, I think, seven and a half after Io went out. And just a classic, awesome playoff home win where they just, everybody showed up. Is it fair, is it too sports talking to say it looked like they actually wanted it a little bit more? Would you go that far?

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, let's lay it out. Like the Nuggets had the best player in the series even before Anthony Edwards got hurt. They had an all NBA caliber guard in Jamal Murray, who did not show up for this particular game or was smothered out of it by Jaden McDaniels. They had one of the runners up for six man of the year. They had a deeper roster in theory, at least versus the version of the Timberwolves that was down four rotation players by the end. I think you could say they wanted it more. I think you could say the Wolves were like more committed to the way that they execute. And we're executing more relentlessly. And we usually think of that defensively, right? But when you watch Jaden McDaniels. Go around every handoff, every ball screen for 45 minutes. When you watch Rudy Gobert and the intensity he played with all throughout this series.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Call it what you want. They like flat out played these guys and the Nuggets don't have any excuses for losing a series like this.

• 3:55Bill Simmons?

  Could not get over the hump either. It felt like it was one point, two points, three points, then eight, back to two, back to three. And they could never get the basket that got it over. They had their, it's 98, 95, four minutes left. Murray wide open three misses. They get the ball back. Murray hits the backboard. Nuggets rebound. Then Jones has a wide open three at 3:30. He misses. And then at 197, they clear out for Shannon.

• 4:24Bill Simmons?

  And they've been targeting Murray all game. They've been going left the whole game. It didn't matter if it was Shannon or McDaniels. Everybody's just going left, left, left. I don't know if there was some hole in the offensive line for the Nuggets that uh, the pass rush for the tip rules were exploring. And Shannon just, he can't, can't shoot. He's playing five feet off him, blows by him anyway, gets a three-point play and that feels like that flipped the game. This is why you gotta love playoff basketball though. You just never know. You never know when you're gonna have the Terrence Shannon game. You never know when Jaden McDaniels is gonna be the best player on the floor in a game that has Nikola Joker in it. And if you're Minnesota, you got Ant coming back, hopefully uh, what, next week, you think?

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Hopefully. I mean, hopefully soon. And it seems optimistic he'll at least be able to play in that next three-round series.

• 5:07Bill Simmons?

  And then Io probably coming back. Yeah. Obviously not coming back, although it was nice to see him on the sidelines. Playing the role of Paul Walker in varsity blues cheering the uh, cheering the guys on.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Well, and the whole team showing up in his jersey. I thought that was a really nice touch.

• 5:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was, there was, so it was an interesting one because I thought the line was gonna be way lower. I think it ended up at least seven, but I, to me, this was like a 50-50 game until I heard about the Io injury. And then I was like, well, I don't, they don't have enough players. How are they gonna do this? And then you think part of what they're doing, the McDaniels throttling Murray and doing 94 feet with him, like, how's he gonna do that if he has to play 45 minutes? Well, he actually did it. So, we talk about the leap guys that we have in round one every, every playoffs. Have we had a better leap guy than him? I think this is the guy.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Than McDaniels?

• 5:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I think every year we have the one guy who's like, whoa, I guess you're a star now. And it feels like he's actually a star now.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Well, I would say not even the leap, but if you wanna go back even further into the regular season, his long-term development over the course of this year as a ball handler and as a mid-range scorer, like, that's been kinda germinating this whole time.

• 6:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  He was never in the mix for most improved player, nor should he have been. Like, he didn't make that kind of jump. But in terms of the most important developments in the entire league, it's kinda hard to argue that this was so critical, given everything that the Wolves had stripped away from them in this series. And if they didn't have a Jaden McDaniels who could handle the ball, they're not gonna win this game. And so, he handles, he delivers, he puts up 30, like, tough contested shots. What a fucking awesome game from him.

• 6:42Bill Simmons?

  And also just throttles Murray.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:44Bill Simmons?

  And then, on top of everything else, backs up all the shit talking he did for two weeks. Over and over again, shit talked the Nuggets, went at Joker.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 6:54Bill Simmons?

  Um, and was not afraid of him, unlike some other guys. So when they see Joker get the crazy eyes to do it, he was laughing it off. It kind of set the tone for them.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:05Bill Simmons?

  So you have him and you have Ant and, and now, I mean, Ant has to be out of his mind. This is like, they made conference finals last two years in a row. This was a pretty major upset. I mean, they were, I forget what the odds were heading into game five, but I think the Nuggets were like minus 400, minus 500, something like that. It just felt like this series had flipped. And then, you know, I gotta ask this about Denver. In a weird way, was the Gordon injury bigger than any other injury in this series? Cause it kind of, you, you realize all the stuff that he did for them and all the deficiencies that he masked, that as soon as you took it out, I, they just couldn't replace it.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  It's a huge deal. Aaron Gordon has basically always had an outsized place in terms of importance with the Nuggets, and they are not the same team without him. But the Wolves are not the same team without Anthony Edwards. You're like, like, losing the driver of your entire offense and then your second most athletic guard, and then Ayo Dosumu has the Ayo Dosumu game, and then he gets hurt. Like, I'm, I already can't wait for like what other fan base tricks themselves into thinking that they have a Terrence Shannon, like fourth string guy on their bench. City Sisoko is gonna pop off for 30 for us in a must win playoff game. Like, this stuff just doesn't happen. And so, yes, Aaron Gordon being out for the series, or for the latter part of the series, not getting Peyton Watson back for the series at all, those things matter. But the Wolves just had bigger hurdles. And

• 8:30Speaker 01

  that's where I, I just have a hard time giving the Nuggets any rope here, including Nikola Joker, who I thought like played well individually in this game, but his job is to anchor this offense. And this offense with the Nuggets getting bounced is gonna go out with a worse offensive rating than like the Houston Rockets this year. So whatever you may think about, like, you know, Ime Udoka's coaching and flow, the Nuggets weren't able to muster anything better than that with one of the best players in the world at the center of it.

• 8:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And he saved a little the last two games, cause I thought he was really good in game five, obviously. And then the second half he played today was a, we're not going down like this kind of half.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:08Bill Simmons?

  And honestly, it only felt like Cam Johnson was joining them for a lot of that half. And then even Cam Johnson kind of ran out of gas, but Spencer Jones was okay as a two-way guy. But it was, it was not an inspiring Denver effort. There's a lot of questions that I guess we're going to have to start asking over the summer. They're going to provide a lot of podcast content for us, Rob.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  I'm very grateful.

• 9:31Bill Simmons?

  Maybe that was their goal this year. Maybe that, maybe that's what they had to offer for us, but you know, they're kind of stuck with this roster. And when you were on the last time, we were talking about, you know, Gordon heading into year 13 with some miles on him and some, and some body damage and Murray with the giant contract, Joker with the giant contract, not a lot of flexibility.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Christian Brown of three points with a giant contract. Yeah.

• 9:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that extent, the ill-fated Christian Brown extension. So not a lot of maneuverability for this team. And they're in a conference that has OKC and San Antonio and Minnesota, a team that has a chance to make three straight conference finals, plus some, some other teams coming. Who knows if Dallas is going to be really good in two years?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 10:12Bill Simmons?

  It feels like the, feels like we hit the finish line with this nucleus. I don't see, I don't see a world where this bounces back because this is bad.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  I could, I could see it living on a little bit just because the alternative options are so hard to navigate in terms of like making a dramatic change this summer. But you're right, they, they did not have it. They didn't have the extra gear. Watching Shannon come in and just look five steps faster than basically any Nugget on the floor. Like that's worrying stuff, despite whatever their injury circumstances may be. And I think when you look at this team in this series, you're right. From the moment it went down, the Nuggets were the favorite, felt like the favorite. But you watch this game and I felt like the real indicator of who's favorite is like, which team is in the other team's head? And I never got the sense that the Wolves were afraid of the Nuggets at all in this game. Meanwhile, you saw Nuggets across the roster, smoking layups.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Jamal Murray threw a runner off the side of the backboard because he was so afraid of Rudy Gobert's contest. So it's like, that was the battleground and Minnesota had it. They dictated terms, Denver never really felt like they had enough answers, even when they did have more bodies.

• 11:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, sometimes a team just feels like they have the other team's number. And Minnesota certainly carried themselves that way. Even the altercation when, uh, who was the guy who tried to fight?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Jalen Clark, yeah.

• 11:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just inexplicably tried to goad him into a hockey fight. And Nas Reed comes from behind and gives him the big shove and like, it felt like 10 guys were ready to fight. And that Joker's smart, they realized like, oh, they're trying to rope me into this. But that, that was their attitude the whole series. They're kind of like, fuck you, dude. We don't care how good you are. We, we think we can be tougher and better than you.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  And that's why we love them, honestly. Like, it's one of the best things about the Wolves is they do just want to say fuck you to everybody.

• 11:53Bill Simmons?

  There was one other thing that happened in this game. Somebody else we have not given our flowers to, zombie Mike Conley.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 12:01Bill Simmons?

  Out of nowhere, came, I think he's missing like part of, part of his neck. And maybe like three fingers and might have gangrene in his right leg. But he zombied it up, hit a couple of big shots, uh, took a, took, took a couple. He took at least one charge.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, drew some offensive fouls, came up with loose balls.

• 12:20Bill Simmons?

  Doing old school zombie Mike Conley things and they needed that too. I don't, how many minutes did he play?

• 12:25Speaker 01

  He played 26 minutes.

• 12:26Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my Lord.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  And they played like a really tight eight man rotation where they could not have afforded to give the Mike Conley minutes anywhere else. Like, they really needed him to be that competitive. So credit to Mike, who just shows up, was almost not on the Timberwolves. Remember, he get bounced around at the trade deadline, end up winding back here as a result of a buyout. And they really needed him.

• 12:46Bill Simmons?

  That weird rule that nobody knew existed. I remember flagging a couple of things we flagged during this season that I'm like, huh? I wonder if that'll end up mattering. The, you can trade a guy and then if he gets waived by that team and the second team trade and all of a sudden he come back. And then that game 82, which we thought in the moment like, wow, I guess Denver's not afraid of playing Minnesota. And, uh, and Minnesota was certainly delighted by that. So, uh, I would say better Minnesota law, better, better Minnesota win than a worse Denver loss. But a terrible Denver loss regardless. But I don't want to take away a lot from Minnesota because

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely not.

• 13:23Bill Simmons?

  All the injuries they had to win this series anyway and to do it in six, not in seven. I thought that was crazy. Like what it, this has to be one of the best Minnesota moments ever. Like for, for the Timberwolves franchise, right? This has to rank up there with 2004 and beating Joker a couple of years ago. This is up there with anything.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  I mean, the roller coaster, just in terms of the hope that seemed to be there and seemed to disappear and seemed to vanish with, you know, Dante DiVincenzo's ruptured Achilles. Like, it's just been such a tumultuous series and for it to end with, you know, Jaden McDaniels is a guy who's like not going to carry a franchise. But it's very clear at this point, he can win you a playoff series and win you a game like this one with the two-way effort. Like became a superstar for a week, for a moment, for a game, like for just enough to really dominate this thing. And between, for him and Gobert to kind of like pretty definitively be among the best players in this series, regardless of who was in or out of it. I mean, just an incredible turn of events for Minnesota.

• 14:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, then think, think about their last 10 months. So last summer, really trying to get Durant, right? Trying to, and I don't know who was in that trade, but I assume it would have had to have been either Gobert or Randall.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  I think Randall was the rumored one often.

• 14:37Bill Simmons?

  With at least McDaniels wouldn't have been in it, I don't think. But at least like a couple of the guys we saw tonight were probably in that trade. And then they were in the honest mix pretty famously in February. And I thought it affected their team a little bit after the deadline because the reports were that they were in it, they, they were trading all of these guys and all these different places. And in that case, I think McDaniels probably would have been involved. He would have been one of the guys. Yeah, because they wouldn't need enough picks and assets to come back. That doesn't happen. I thought that affected them. At least for a little while after deadline. I have no evidence other than just watching them play. They seemed a little, little spooked by that. We've watched them go up and down all year, but it always felt like their ceiling was really good.

• 15:21Bill Simmons?

  Denver was a little different where they started out great. They were 500 for basically 39 games. And then finished the year really great. I think they won 13 straight. They sold me. I believed, but I also believed in a team that was gonna have a healthy Aaron Gordon. So Gordon does, let's say everybody stays healthy. So we get Gordon, we had, we have no injuries at all and we play this series. What do you think the result is just out of curiosity?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  I mean, based on the way it went, I still would pick the Wolves. I think it has as much to do with like who's out there and more about like, how are they responding to the runs by the other team in the moments of adversity? And like the Nuggets just did not have a lot of wind in their sails at any point in the series. And that gets harder when guys are out of the lineup and you feel like you don't have options. But I don't know, Minnesota just seemed to find that like they had an endless reserve of that sort of inspiration and energy. And it's like, that seems like a fuzzy, ephemeral, untangible thing until you watch a team like the Wolves punk the Nuggets over and over and over.

• 16:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I became, what if Minnesota, they lost game one and then they won game two, right? Isn't that what happened?

• 16:28Bill Simmons?

  That game two, I'm looking back.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Why does that feel like a year ago?

• 16:32Bill Simmons?

  Feels like a year ago. Game two was the one where I felt concerned for Denver. Because I thought Minnesota had a, it was the same way I felt actually after Celtics Philly on Tuesday night. I felt like Minnesota had a recipe that was a recipe that made sense. And once they, once it clicked for them, we just have to hound Murray.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:52Bill Simmons?

  Let's try to wear him down. Let's try to beat up Joker and let's really, really, really wear these guys down and see if that, that works. It worked. Murray, Murray was, who had a pretty good statistical series for the most part, but the fourth quarter stuff wasn't great. But then tonight, he finally wore down. So McDaniel's MVP of the series.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  I have no problem with that. And if not that, why not give it to Rudy Gobert? I think they both deserve it.

• 17:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Gobert. It always felt like on the verge of getting 3,000 like a minute and fouling out, but and elbows flying, but he was able to to land the plane for them. I thought Joker had figured about a little bit more in the last two games like figured, figured, kind of figured out the geometry of going against him and had a little more success, but it was still always a challenge.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Always a challenge. Yeah, he was able to get to his floater, I think, a little more easily over these last two games, getting into post ups more comfortably where he didn't feel just like absolutely smothered by Gobert. There were an alarming number of times in those first couple of games where he would get deep post position, try one of his fakes, try one of his pivots, not get anywhere and just have to pass out, not to create an advantage, but just like, I'm about to get a three second violation, we got to bail in this possession. Rudy was sensational. There's so many other forks in the road in addition to the ones you talked about with like Yanis and KD like almost trades and whatnot. Like, how many times have we just gone around the carousel with like, do they need to break up like their big man rotation? Do they need to invest in different kinds of players? Can they afford

• 18:24Speaker 01

  to have Rudy Gobert and Julius Randall and Nas Reed on the same team when playing all three of them together was one of the, you know, the critical moments of this game? It's, it's amazing how many Wolves found ways to redeem themselves in addition to trading for Io Dusum with the deadline, and I don't think they win game five without him. Holding on to Terrence Shannon, who was supposed to be a big part of their plans in the preseason, never quite panned out, had some injury stuff, but sat on the bench and didn't get moved. And if they had, maybe they don't win a game like this. Like, so many things had to break their way, but they broke their way because they were patient with a lot of the right guys.

• 18:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Conley, his only really bad move was the Dillingham pick. He traded in the future first for Dillingham, but he was able to spin him into Dusum. So in a weird way, he salvaged it. I remember joking at the time, they gave up so much for Gobert and I just hated the trade. I hated it. I just, I still kind of can't believe how much they gave up. But I remember when they, when they were, it was somebody like Woj, who clearly was being fed from the Timberwolves. And it was something like, it was very important for the Timberwolves that they kept Jaden McDaniels in the deal. And I remember joking about that on a pile like, yeah, thank God you kept him. And meanwhile, I just won MVP in a series. So I guess I'll take the belated loss on that one.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Got to.

• 19:42Bill Simmons?

  Joker, big picture.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:44Bill Simmons?

  This is now starting to feel a little Moses Malone, 1978 to 1983-ish of somebody who was either the best or the second best player in the league year after year for a really long stretch. In Moses's case, it was, I think it was probably five, it was 79, 83, where he was just the best guy in the league. Only won one title that last year in Philly, made the finals in 81, and that's it. Joker wins one title and that's it. Like a couple of conference finals and there's other reasons, like Murray basically misses two years, but you think about first Yanis, then Joker, with the one title, and it felt like there was going to be more. I remember talking to Doc

• 20:26Bill Simmons?

  in 2023 after the finals, like, could this be a little dynasty? These guys are young. How many can they win? We felt that way a little bit with Yanis too, and that this is just a league now.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:37Bill Simmons?

  You could win one title and you're done. Look at the Celtics right now. They win in 24. Feels like they're gonna have, and then all of a sudden you might be getting pushed to the side. So is this just the league now? Do we have too many good players?

• 20:47Speaker 01

  I mean, I think it's always been something that's easy to take for granted, especially when you're a younger team. The idea that, oh, we still have this much of a prime window ahead of us. We're gonna get back. Like, we have the right players. We're gonna get back. Contracts pull teams apart, injuries pull teams down. There's just like too many variables to ever think that you're just gonna get back, which is part of why when you see a team that's anywhere close, you just have to go for it literally every time you can, even if that means giving up some of the picks that you hold really tightly, you know, giving up some of the guys that you drafted on your team that you still believe in, but just may not be there for the right moment when you desperately need an upgrade on the wing or whatever. And I think, especially at this moment right now, if you're not the Thunder or the Spurs, it's just really hard to look at the next couple of years and feel

• 21:32Speaker 01

  super bullish, super optimistic about exactly where you are right now. Like, you have to do work. You have to keep improving. And that's kind of the, the most dizzying part about the Nuggets situation is even if they got everybody back, even if they made some marginal upgrades, it probably still wouldn't be enough. It wasn't enough to beat the Wolves without Anthony Edwards.

• 21:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and you got, your guys get a little older too, and you can start to feel it in a series, right? Minnesota, still with the younger legs. And if you were talking about which team's upside, would you just rather want for the next couple of years? As great as Joker is, you would take Minnesota at this point. Especially if they can. You know, they have the right to, you know, pay Dusumu. I don't know what the rules are with how how much they can give him. Will that just immediately send them over the tax? Will they have to cut some stuff? But I assume they're going to make a big effort to keep him.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:19Bill Simmons?

  And if they can keep him and McDaniels and then Gobert and Randall on smaller contracts with Ant as the franchise guy, that that might be sustainable.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  I mean, it's

• 22:29Bill Simmons?

  For the rest of the decade, it's pretty good.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  It's already been among the most bankable things in the West. Like you talked about, you know, looking back at the Rudy Gobert trade. If you want to think about this as like the Rudy Gobert, like era of the Minnesota Timberwolves led by Anthony Edwards, of course. But since they traded for Gobert, they lost to the Nuggets in the first round, happens to, you know, play a really good team.

• 22:49Bill Simmons?

  Early.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Back to back Western Conference Finals, and now you just beat the Nuggets with Nikola Joker and, you know, sent some what was supposed to be a contender packing right in front of everybody. So who are you betting on to be a more consistent Western Conference contender than this outside of that Thunder Spurs range? Like, right? Like, they're right here and they consistently just turn up and beat people and push great teams to their limits. Just kind of proving to be who the Wolves are.

• 23:16Bill Simmons?

  And a team that, as we've talked about for years and years, was being built to beat Denver specifically. A little like the Knicks with the Celtics, which, which

• 23:27Speaker 01

  You want to get into that?

• 23:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we should get into that. Wow. As if it wasn't bad enough that the Celtics stunk. I could feel it coming from game five. I really was worried after game five when we talked about in the pot. I thought there were some it was not your typical loss at home where you just, oh, we just didn't make our threes. It's fine. It happens. This was like their offense fell apart in the second half and Philly had a lot of confidence and Paul George was outplaying Jaylen Brown, which he did again tonight. So I was concerned about today. Tatum left the game and was having issues with his good leg. And they were like, is it a cramp? Is there a strain? What is it? He was asked after the game if he's fine and he said, yes.

• 24:13Bill Simmons?

  I flagged it immediately and his lift was gone from the moment it happened. He took a few shots. I'm sure that you could find the clips on social, but he took a few shots. At least three and was in there and he just was at a different speed from the moment something was wrong. And then the game got out of hand, so they smartly pulled him. If, if he even has a slight strain, I'm sitting him in game seven. That's a wrap for me. You cannot fuck with the Tatum part of the season. And that to me is, if he's even 96%, I'm out. You're sitting and we'll try to win without you. We did it all year and maybe we'll have you for round two. What would you do?

• 24:51Speaker 01

  I would not play him, but I just want to acknowledge, I really appreciate what you did here, which is the Celtics got this game handed to them and how quickly you pivoted the narrative to like, oh my God, Jason Tatum's leg. What are we to do?

• 25:03Bill Simmons?

  But this was, they got their asses kicked. Philly protected home. They were underdogs. I want to talk about how good they were, but coming out of that, it's like, oh my God, Tatum's hurt again?

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:14Bill Simmons?

  And it's, it's the other calf? Like this loss was bad enough. Now, now I'm on Twitter Googling strain calf, cramp. I'm texting people like this was just, this game was a three hour nightmare.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  It was a nightmare for the Celtics. I mean, Tatum did look different in the first half. I thought he was more successful, certainly had some like really smooth drives, some really good pull up jumpers. Was not quite the same guy. But even then, I mean, Philly's perimeter defense and their wings in this series have just been sensational. Like Kelly Oubre on like guarding Jalen Brown mostly, but switching over Paul George, Jesus Christ, like playoff P in his fullest effect maybe ever. The combination of those guys plus just all the interchangeable parts where, you know, it's been so telling that every time a Tatum or Brown wants to get ahead of steam in transition, wants to like, take advantage of those moments where these smothering wings might not be on them, Quentin Grimes just slides over, VJ Edgecombe just slides over,

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Justin Anderson just slides over. They just have so many of these guys, like just an endless pit of good wings who they can plug and play. And it's proven really difficult for Boston to do basically anything with.

• 26:20Bill Simmons?

  The worst part of the, of everything you said is that Paul George outplayed both guys in this game.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Yes, straight up.

• 26:25Bill Simmons?

  And Paul George has been really good this whole series. We've talked about it every part I've done. I thought this was the best game he's played tonight. He was 2021 Paul George offensively a few times. Defensively, I thought he, I think they've just throttled Brown. I mean, Brown was terrible tonight. And I didn't think he was very good in game five either. The stats were a little deceiving. I thought even the shots he made weren't great shots. Got yet another offensive foul, but I thought, you know, this was a guy that during the season was scoring on everybody and getting the shots he wanted on every good defender in the league from Lou Dort on down. And in this series, cannot seem to get the shot he wants against any perimeter guy in Philadelphia. And they seem really confident on it. And

• 27:10Bill Simmons?

  I tweeted something at halftime about, I just couldn't believe how bad the Celtics were in that first half, where it was all the things you're worried about if you're a Celtic fan going in, where it's like, Derrick White looks a little rickety.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:24Bill Simmons?

  We're going too slow. We're walking it up. Hate that. Missoula has now quit on the bench. I think in the first half, Pritchard was the only guy that had any bench points. None of the other, this whole bench mob, these guys that would swing these games, just punted on that. Playing Tatum and Brown big minutes. Well, what happens? Tatum may have gotten hurt in the third quarter. He's playing 42 and 40 minute games this year. I think he was averaging 40 minutes a game or 38 a game or something like that.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  What about a Nemez Kada may not have control of his limbs?

• 27:54Bill Simmons?

  I had dumb Kada fouls written down. Is Vooch terrible? I think has been lurking as a question with Celtic fans. And he, he's basically been unplayable. And, and then on top of it, like this bad version of Jaylen Brown that just hasn't been there all season. All of a sudden shows up. So it was another legitimate win. Here's a stat for you, Rob.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Please.

• 28:17Bill Simmons?

  Lowest scoring quarters the Celtics have had all season.

• 28:22Bill Simmons?

  14 in the second quarter against New York on October 24th. 13 in the third quarter against Milwaukee in December 11th.

• 28:34Bill Simmons?

  11 in the fourth quarter of game five and 14 in the third quarter today.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Yikes.

• 28:39Bill Simmons?

  Two of the worst quarters they've had, two of the four worst quarters they've had all season happen in the last two games. And they had a stretch of the second half of game five into the entire first half of game six. Where they just got their ass kicked for a full game leading into the third quarter. So, you know, I know game seven's at home, but I don't like the way they're playing. I think Philly has a ton of confidence and beats a variable. I don't, I, I didn't think he was nearly as effective in this game as he was in the last game. Um, and I thought actually like if he had shot better, they could have won that game by 30. But he's still impactful. You're still thinking about him. And I guess, would you say the gamble of playing him game four and basically plunking on that game because he,

• 29:21Bill Simmons?

  they couldn't figure out how to incorporate them. I guess it's paid off, right?

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Well, they, I mean, they had to ease into it clearly and figure out how to manage their offense firing on all cylinders at once with Embiid involved. I think, I mean, introducing him in mid series has given the whole dynamic a really interesting jolt. Because right, usually when you're a favored team, by the end of it, I mean, we're going to talk about what happened with the Knicks and the Hawks, for example. You see the superior team kind of like tightening its grip overall, like they learn which players they need to play. They learn which buttons they need to push. And by the end, they feel like they're in control. But throwing in and be like changed everything about how the series is played, who is guarded, where like how the Celtics are aligned. And you could see it in this game where even though he isn't scoring well, he's getting guys in foul trouble. He's baiting the Celtics into overreaction with double teams.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  He gives the Sixers like a good way to steady their offense where they don't have to just like go through Maxey so much or go through Paul George so much. They can actually kind of counterbalance this stuff. And I also think he was a huge help keeping the Celtics off the offensive glass where through three quarters, they basically had like two or three offensive rebounds. And Boston is not a team that can really survive that way.

• 30:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And it's funny because that I always felt like was a weakness with Embiid, especially as he got older. Is you could crash the boards on him and get all this second chance stuff. They, they had. I think they had one offensive rebound. Was it the entire game or just in the first half?

• 30:46Speaker 01

  They picked them up in like

• 30:47Bill Simmons?

  They picked them up in garbage time.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  In garbage time, yeah.

• 30:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah, they're down nine at halftime. They one offensive rebound. Yikes. All right, the Philly piece of this. Maxey's been the best player in this series. And I remember Zach and I in a most intriguing players in the playoffs pod that we did that seemingly happened about 20 years ago because we've had so many playoff games. And Maxey was the one I picked for like the leap. Like, could this, could this happen? The guy's relentless. He feels like he's faster than anybody in the Celtics. He even when if you look up, he has four points, all of a sudden he'll have 10 points in like four minutes. Clearly seems like the leader of the team. He's been great in the home games and

• 31:36Bill Simmons?

  if they win a game seven in Boston, which is conceivable with the way the Celtics are playing, I think it starts there. I think that to me, it's a Maxey, Paul George, and then whatever you get from Embiid is a bonus.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, again, I really don't think we can say enough great things about Paul George, but with Maxey, the ease with which he toggles between attacking on ball like really, really aggressively and also just spacing out to let other people shine. It's a really unique combination like that kind of speed and that kind of shooting just don't come together in the same package very often. And he doesn't even necessarily need to be Steph Curry flying around the floor, like doing all this off ball movement. Just his gravity on the weak side is a really, really powerful thing, especially because if you do kick to him, I don't care how well you contest or close out, like he's going to blow by you on the counter drive. And so he just gives the Sixers so many options and he feels more and more powerful as all these other guys are being established, right?

• 32:32Speaker 01

  The better Paul George plays, the more dangerous Maxey becomes. The more Embiid is a real threat, then oh my God, what are we supposed to do with Tyrese's result? So it's they've proven to be like a really formidable combination.

• 32:43Bill Simmons?

  And the other thing to just kind of keep doing what you're doing when you introduce this crazy Embiid variable and the usage rate for him and it hasn't affected his stuff at all. Yeah, I had him my last Ringer 100 that we handed it, I had him 16th.

• 32:59Bill Simmons?

  I think it's really tough to keep him out of the top 10 best players in the league at this point. Like I, you know, I don't know when we turn on our next list, but it just, if you're watching all these guys against each other, we're missing a couple of guys that are in the playoffs, like Kawhi and people like that. But it's just hard for me to believe Maxey's not in the top 10 now.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Well, even this season, I mean, he was an all NBA second team guy, like rock solid all year long for all of the weird lulls that the Sixers had in their seasons with injuries and suspensions and whatnot. He was the constant piece of it. And I mean, I think his buoyancy too, as a personality is a really important part of this. Like if you're going to have that kind of year, you do need a guy who can just help people, like help keep people's spirits up. And Joel Embiid is not necessarily that. Paul George is not necessarily that.

• 33:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  I think he and Vijay just gave this team an energy and like a shot in the arm at some of the precise moments over the course of the year where they really needed it. And certainly in these playoffs, like I, the more I think about this series, the more I think about game two. Like that's the one that Boston, everyone with that team should like have in their nightmares if they do end up losing this series because

• 34:03Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  They lost it and they lost it because they didn't take the Sixers very like seriously enough. They just didn't like play their game and work hard enough. Like that was an effort loss. And if they lose this series because they let up one too many effort losses early, like that's the kind of thing that sticks with you.

• 34:19Bill Simmons?

  Lazy, lot of threes.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:21Bill Simmons?

  It was all the same shit that sunk them last year. Today, actually, today was a little more concerning because I thought they actually played hard and I thought they just played, Philly played harder and wanted it more. The Kada piece of it, they're relying on these guys that made sense in the regular season. Now you're, now you're throwing Kada against Joel Embiid and he just seems like he doesn't have control of his limbs half the time.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  I feel like we zoomed past the most important part, which is like, on a scale of one to life alert, like how are you doing? What is your current mental state?

• 34:54Bill Simmons?

  Not great. I was, I'm telling you, I was, after game five, I was, and then the next day and talking to people and texting with my super nervous dad.

• 35:05Bill Simmons?

  We just were really concerned after that game because it felt like the team had lost its identity. Like we were talking about Minnesota's identity before of they just kept it even with these injuries and they just were going to ball pressure and we're going to attack and we're going to have a chip on our shoulder. Boston, a big part of their identity was this bench and the bench mob coming in and the bench shifting games and being able, you know, their whole season, it's Jalen and White and Pritchard are the three reliable scorers. Very rarely were all three of them good in the same game and sometimes only one of them was good in the game. But the bench was able to switch stuff. And it was interesting in the second half when they kind of punted and he finally played Garza, Shireman, Pritchard,

• 35:47Bill Simmons?

  Harper and Walsh. A lineup that I would have played every game. Guys that have played together for stretches over and over again.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Bill, you can't play those guys together in actual playoff minutes.

• 36:00Bill Simmons?

  I would have played them.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  You can't do it.

• 36:02Bill Simmons?

  Here's what you can't do. Play Jason Tatum 42 minutes in a playoff game.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  That's a problem too.

• 36:06Bill Simmons?

  Coming off a torn Achilles for 40. Like at some point, obviously that wouldn't be the five, but that what you have where you either put Brown in there or one of them or, I don't know. I honestly would have thrown that out and just said muck the game up for four minutes versus some of the stuff we were watching. That lineup actually almost, it felt like they were going to bring them back. They were down 12. I was like, oh my God.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  They're going to do it.

• 36:31Bill Simmons?

  But Ron Harper is somebody that I actually think you could make a case should have played a little. Walsh definitely should be playing more. Like no question. I think he's the one guy that's given Maxey real trouble. And then Shireman, he just punted on in the playoffs and I don't understand it. I said this, every pot I've done, I don't understand. He was coming on as like the super sub for them and they just basically punted on his minutes and I don't really get it. The stuff Mazz has done in this series, I don't really understand. They're not playing through the guards enough. They stopped doing the little picks at the top for the guards and it's just all this face up one-on-one stuff for the two forwards. It's like watching battering rams. It's not, it's a really ugly offense and this wasn't how they played this season, Rob.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  I think it's some of the stuff that's baked into the, just like the construction of the team in its current form, and then some of it being Tatum and Brown's worst habits coming home to roost, all swirling together in the worst possible way. Against the defense, we should add again, it's just like equipped to switch a lot of these actions.

• 37:28Bill Simmons?

  Right, ready for everything.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  If you did want to run, you know, like a little bit more of a guard-heavy offense, a little bit more ball-screen oriented, like it's not like the Sixers couldn't handle that for the most part. I think they're pretty, they're pretty well-suited for it.

• 37:40Bill Simmons?

  And Maxey's defense, I think, is, we've seen Maxey guard bigger guys and fight people. You know, the trade deadline, they traded Simons for Vucevic, and Simons was really important for this team as this super-sub off the bench. He didn't always have it, but he would sometimes, but he was a good monkey wrench guy, like a better version of what Bones Allen has been doing on Minnesota. And there were quarters that he would swing, and they lost that, and they feel like they're a guard short. And the reasoning was, well, we think Vooch, we have more center depth. Obviously, there was tax stuff, but really it was a money trade, and they were keeping their fingers crossed that Vooch still had any gas in the tank, and he just doesn't. And there has been no sign, from the moment they got him, that he,

• 38:23Bill Simmons?

  that he can help them. And I, I thought he was unplayable tonight, and I don't even, I don't even know if we're gonna see him that much in game seven. So you go from Simons, who's this wild card, oh, White doesn't have it, oh, this guy's sitting threes, to Vooch, who's just, he's just a groaner. I don't think any of his shots are going in.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  I mean, that's another benefit for Philly in terms of just having Embiid on the floor in this series, is it just changes the way that Boston has to think about its rotations. And you feel, if you're Joe Missoula, feel compelled to put Vooch out there, just like we have to have a size-appropriate body to hurl in front of Joel Embiid, because, I mean, just who knows what would happen to Luca Garza if he had to do that for 30 minutes?

• 39:03Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Versus if it's just Andre Drummond and a Dembona out there, like you can get away with all sorts of other lineups. You can play small, you can play different, you can play, like variations of what already works for them, and you don't feel like so reliant on Vooch's.

• 39:17Bill Simmons?

  I thought Philly should've and could've won game three, and Boston had to make a couple really big shots to stave them off, and there was some veteran playoff experience, but Philly has figured out this series from game two on what to do. And you have the Celtics now, it's a game seven. This'll be the ninth Sixers-Celtics game seven, Rob?

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Is that true?

• 39:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Celtics won in 59, 65 and 68. Sixers won in Philly in 77. Tough loss for, uh, for young, uh, Bill Simmons. 83 to 77.

• 39:55Bill Simmons?

  1981 Celtics come back from 3-1. I was there. 1982 Celtics come back from 3-1 again and the Sixers win game seven. I was also there. 2012 was that weird Derrick Rose year when he got hurt.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 40:09Bill Simmons?

  And we ended up with Philly and Boston in the, uh, I think it was round two. And, uh, that was Rajon Rondo's greatest shooting game ever. Celtics win that. And then, uh, 2023. When the Celts were down 3-2, they win in Philly in game six. Tatum is a big game. Then they kill them Philly in game seven. So this is our ninth one. And if I'm Philly, I, I feel like I can win the game. Like a hundred percent.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  They definitely should feel that way.

• 40:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Harder on the road. Like, I mean, it's, it's still gonna be a task, but I think you're spot on that they have really seized on to a couple of really like key strategic things in the series. Plus we'll see whatever becomes of Jason Tatum's leg and how ready he is to go and be the best version of himself. But Philly has everything they need to win. Like clearly they can really put the screws to the Celtics. Uh, whether they can do it again, game over game. Like, look, this stuff is hard, but an incredible showing by them just to put themselves in this position to begin with.

• 41:03Bill Simmons?

  What do you think the line is? Just out of curiosity.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  I would bet it's Celtics, but fairly slim. Maybe like three and a half, four and a half points.

• 41:11Bill Simmons?

  It's seven and a half.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Seven and a half.

• 41:13Bill Simmons?

  Incredibly too high. I would put this, I would make this a four point game. Cause you know, we've just, we've seen this pretty huge sample size. There was the outlier Pritchard game in game four, plus Embiid coming back into that. But, um, I thought the one move the Celtics had, and I would have been interested to see if they did in the second half today, but then Tatum got hurt was.

• 41:34Bill Simmons?

  What about Tatum at the five shooters everywhere?

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:37Bill Simmons?

  What's making bead work? It's not like the centers are playing well to begin with. Let's just see what this looks like, but we never got to see it. And if Tatum's healthy, I wonder if we'll see that. Like, are you just better off playing him at the five than Vucevic for those minutes? And playing him with guards and shooters and that's it?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  I think it would, it would have been worth a look, especially because Embiid is not super mobile right now. Not to the extent that he has been over the last couple of years when he's played, but you can drive around him defensively. You can roll around him defensively. And so, yeah, I would have liked to see that version of the Celtics give it a go, but I don't think it's very realistic to ask of Tatum at this point.

• 42:15Bill Simmons?

  Do you realize that the Celtics blow game seven at home? This will be 2023 against Miami. Pretty big favorites in that series.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:25Bill Simmons?

  25 last year against the Knicks. Pretty big favorites in that series. And then this series, they were favorites all the time. I think they were like minus 1800 after game four, minus 2200. So this would be a title and three dramatic devastating collapses in the last four years of the Joe Bazul era. And I don't, I don't know what to make of it.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Well, and it will have officially transcended like whatever Miami complex exists, right? Like this is no longer a Heat Celtics thing. This is just a Celtics thing. I fear for you. I fear for you and everyone in your circle, Bill. It does not seem like a good thing to have to live with if it does come to that.

• 43:03Bill Simmons?

  Let me add this component, Rob. You have, you have children.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  I do not have children.

• 43:08Bill Simmons?

  You don't have a child yet?

• 43:09Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:10Bill Simmons?

  All right, I have a 21 year old child on Saturday.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 43:15Bill Simmons?

  My daughter turns 21 years old.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 43:18Bill Simmons?

  On May 2.

• 43:22Bill Simmons?

  I am not doing a podcast on May 2 after that game, win or lose. So I'm just saying that now, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna have a podcast until Sunday. I can't decide if my daughter turning 21 that day and we're gonna be with her is a good sign or a bad sign for the Celtics. She loves the Celtics, by the way. I feel like it's a good sign, but I don't know.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  I'm gonna say it's an irrelevant sign and you'll talk yourself into some divine meaning in either of it.

• 43:46Bill Simmons?

  Nothing's irrelevant, Rob. Nothing's irrelevant.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Well, this is a good thread, though. Do you have any particular game seven superstitions? Do you approach a game like this any differently than any other Celtics playoff game?

• 43:58Bill Simmons?

  Yes. I asked my mom, who's 100% Italian, will make a little shrine thing for good luck. And I only ask her for specific kind of sports moments.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  What is in the shrine?

• 44:13Bill Simmons?

  She's got a whole weird Italian thing. So I'm gonna have to shrine it up. I mean, if Tatum doesn't play, this might kind of solve itself unless we get like this crazy Baylor Shireman game or something, but.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  I really am imagining the closet shrine with like the burning candles, the Baylor Shireman portrait in the middle. Like, I think, you know, you really gotta go all out for an occasion like this.

• 44:37Bill Simmons?

  Well, I also have the karma piece of it. Like, I can't be like, oh, that dinner we were gonna have for your birthday? Like, I can't, we gotta just stay in and watch the game. I'm gonna have to do whatever she wants, obey all father-daughter rules, and let her control the process in a way that she feels good about because that will help the Celtics. I'm gonna do my part. Karma-wise, I'm doing my part. I don't want to blame myself years later.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  At first, I thought you were just being a good dad, but no, it's just so you can get the karma so the Celtics will win.

• 45:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I want her to be happy on her birthday.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Okay, it can be both.

• 45:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. This is just a nightmare. First of all, if they lose to Philly, that's three home losses in a seven-game series to a team that was a play-in team. And then we're in a situation, Zach Lowe asked us on his podcast, like, who's gonna win the East?

• 45:29Speaker 01

  The Orlando Magic.

• 45:31Bill Simmons?

  Is that the answer?

• 45:32Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's since, well, actually, I think we have our clearest indication yet of the answer, and it's in the last game that we haven't discussed tonight.

• 45:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Knicks turned it on.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 45:42Bill Simmons?

  And I thought they solved Atlanta in game five. I thought that was an easy bet tonight. They were like minus two and a half. I didn't think they would be up by 50 points in the first half.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  No.

• 45:51Bill Simmons?

  But they're running on all cylinders, and it feels like they're the only team that would actually have a chance to. Land one or two punches.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:00Bill Simmons?

  On the Spurs or Thunder. I don't know if they would beat either team, but they could at least get some jabs in and maybe a couple of right crosses.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Well, this high gear that they showed is just better than anything we've seen in the entire Eastern Conference, maybe all year, like maybe even above and beyond what the Pistons were in the regular season or the, you know, the shiniest version of the Celtics. Like this was an incredibly impressive win, a historic win in a bunch of different ways. I didn't know you could show this kind of violence on TV anymore. Like just getting this kind of lead and holding it. And every time I seemed to check back on the game, it was just getting worse and worse and worse for Atlanta. I, it's hard to not be blown away by how good the Knicks can be when they have it all together. And after this, I think they've certainly deserved the benefit of the doubt as far as when they're able to do that.

• 46:44Bill Simmons?

  Is it possible the regular season just doesn't matter?

• 46:47Speaker 01

  You can't say that.

• 46:48Bill Simmons?

  And that we, we just, because we get podcast content out of it for six and a half months, we're convinced these little signs and this means this and that means that. Like the one thing that I think mattered all season was San Antonio rising to the occasion against Oklahoma City. That felt like, okay, this is significant. We didn't think these guys were real yet. They are real now and they feel like they can beat this team. And this is a thing now that's happening. Other than that, are we just on a roller coaster ride with the up and down? Like, look at like Orlando and Minnesota.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:20Bill Simmons?

  The two most frustrating teams in each conference are now teams you could conceivably see just, I don't know how far either of them are going to go, but I can see them keep going. And then you look at that team like the Knicks that over and over again, we've wondered, what's wrong with this team? Do they like each other? Oh my God, they're, they're going to blow it up after the, after they get bounced and now they look great. So can you just turn it on in basketball now, like out of nowhere for two weeks and then all of a sudden come together? Cause it seems like that's the case.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  I think if the Magic could have turned it on, they would have turned it on in that play in game. Like, I think there's, there's more in play than that.

• 47:58Bill Simmons?

  It's a solid point.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Here's what it is. Like years, years ago, the big picture stuff used to tell the whole story. Like whoever wins a ton of games in the regular season, that's going to translate pretty seamlessly to the playoffs. Like the dominant teams are the dominant teams are the dominant teams. Now I think you like really have to pay attention. Like I think it's, it's so much more than who is the first, second and third seed in each conference. It's where are those meaningful steps forward for a guy like Jaden McDaniels? Where are the literal vulnerabilities? Where it's like, man, it just seems like when push comes to shove, this team doesn't have enough spacing or doesn't have enough size. Like when you look at this one matchup, when you look at OKC versus San Antonio, for example, like what does that tell us about both teams? I just think the lessons of the regular season require more and more of a magnifying glass to find, but they're there. It's just not as like big and in flashing lights as it used to be.

• 48:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Celtics thing really rope a dope to me, especially the Jalen part who was just really good all season and now can't seem to score against any guy in the Sixers. Here's another topic from the Knicks Hawks. I know OJ Ananobi, OG Ananobi isn't the best forward in the league, but if you just watched round one, you would think he was. And then you would think Paul George was the second best forward in the league. So that's, I guess, one of the round one sore lines, but this is the best he's ever played. He was incredible tonight. And I thought, I thought he was the MVP of the series.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  I, I think he is the MVP of the, well, Cat gives him a good argument there too as well. Like the triple doubles, the playmaking, like Towns, even his defense all proved to be really important. That's what it is for me. Like the Knicks offense got whatever it wanted in this game. You don't get up by 50 points without doing that. But their defense was just like soul crushing in the first half in terms of breaking down everything that Atlanta does. And they had-

• 49:48Bill Simmons?

  And running after they got, turned the ball over. They're off.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  And OG was a huge part of that, right? Like he's creating turnovers. He's getting stops. He's getting out on the break and getting easier and easier shots. And then even when they guard him, he's hitting threes over these wings who are like good defenders, but not OG Ananobi sized. And so they had no answer for him really at any point in the series. And he is the exact kind of problem in that Aaron Gordon shaped mold where it's like, if you don't have a counter for this kind of player, he's just going to make your life a living hell over seven games.

• 50:16Bill Simmons?

  I think they have to be the favorite to win the East now. I'm gonna look at the odds.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  That feels, that feels more than fair. After you go on a 67 to 13 run in a game against a good team.

• 50:26Bill Simmons?

  They're not the favorite.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  They're not?

• 50:29Bill Simmons?

  On Fanduel, they're plus 128 and the Celtics are minus 102. Oh, and the Cavs are minus 172.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  I don't get it.

• 50:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wait, and then for the final, yeah, they're not the, they're plus 310 to make the finals. So they're plus 128 to make the next round, plus 310 to make the finals and 16 to 1 to win it. I would by far, if your life depended on it, the Knicks have to be the pick from what we've seen so far. Especially if we don't know what we're getting with the Celtics.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Right, which I want to acknowledge, like it's a crazy thing to say, given the season they had and the conversations we've been having about the Knicks all year, where I think they, they've been under a lot of scrutiny, some by their own doing in terms of how they would respond to adversity. And now we know they lost two games by one point, came out with a monster win and then a historically monster win, in which they put up, I think the biggest winning margin, like the biggest lead of any game in the.

• 51:26Bill Simmons?

  61 points.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, 61 is the biggest lead of any playoff game in the play by play era. And then ended up with one of the most decisive closeout games ever. So.

• 51:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's why you gotta look at the playoffs, Rob. Like after Friday, we're like, oh my God, Saturday in Atlanta, game four. We'll see what happens to the Knicks. They might be blowing it up. And now all of a sudden, three days later, it's like, how are they not the favorite in the conference? What's happening? I thought they were awesome today and they were really fun to watch.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  They were.

• 51:54Bill Simmons?

  And I think, you know, as a Celtics fan, I look at some of the athleticism and how creaky the Celtics kinda looked. They're just not getting really fast break points at all. And then you watch that Knicks team flying around and making plays on defense. It's not looking good for the Celtics. This is where we go like, you know, Tatum came back, we got under the tax.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  It's a moral victory.

• 52:15Bill Simmons?

  This summer, we're gonna figure it out.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Do they hang a banner for getting under the tax? What do they do for that?

• 52:19Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I'll have to ask Bill Chisholm.

• 52:23Bill Simmons?

  I hesitate to bring this up, but I'm not gonna have another podcast till Sunday.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 52:28Bill Simmons?

  I do wonder what happens with Jalen long-term if they lose the series.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  In terms of what the team will do or like what will happen to him internally?

• 52:41Bill Simmons?

  No, I wonder, does he become a trade possibility? And I don't say that like to be aggregated or to start Reddit threads, anything like that. I'm just, I really genuinely wonder where last year, they lost that Knicks series before Tatum got hurt. They were going to lose that series. Tatum got hurt at the end of a game, they're going to be down 3-1 and they were going to lose that series. They weren't going to come back from that, I don't think. So you, basically you flame out in that series and then you flame out in this round one, two, and you have two guys making a combined $120 million. And it's looked pretty rocky the past couple of years in the playoffs. I just wonder, would they look at this as a chance to reset? I have no idea, I have no inside information, but I think it has to at least be a conversation, right?

• 53:26Speaker 01

  I'm fine with the conversation, but I still think he's closer to the guy he was in the regular season than he is to the version that's getting walled up right now.

• 53:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm not talking about like, oh, we got to bail on him. I'm just talking about big picture. He just played his 10th year.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:39Bill Simmons?

  He was awesome. He's going to be a first-team All-NBA. Is this the highest we could possibly sell?

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 53:45Bill Simmons?

  Could we rebuild around Tatum, Pritchard, some of these other guys we have? Try to get a haul back, try to reset our salary, maybe go after a free agent or another piece?

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:57Bill Simmons?

  I think it's at least going to be a topic if they blow a 3-1 lead to the 7 seed.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Look, if you blow that lead and lose all these home games under this circumstance, even with all of the caveats about, oh, this is supposed to be a gap year. Oh, Jason Tatum is not, still not fully himself yet. All of that's fine. You should still win a series like this. I still would want to bet the future of my team on Tatum and Brown. Like, that's still a core that I believe in. It's still a pairing that I think works as long as those guys want to make it work. And some of it is just the alternatives, right? Like, it's, it's much easier said than done to go out and find a better fitting component part or to, to bet on someone like Peyton Pritchard who has great games, but then had like 14 points on 16 shots in this one where they desperately needed more scoring. So there are a lot of good but limited players on the Celtics roster who need help and need to play better than they did tonight.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  Changing the core of it, I don't think solves the problems and they just need to keep adding pieces around the edges, I think, more than anything.

• 54:54Bill Simmons?

  This is where I give my annual disclaimer, or not annual. My guaranteed disclaimer every time this topic comes up. I do not want them to trade either guy. Please keep them together. I like rooting for them. I want them to finish their careers in Boston. I'm just worried that this will become a topic.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:13Bill Simmons?

  And I think it's at least worthy of a topic of like, hey, what do we have here? We just had two devastating playoff losses in a row.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:21Bill Simmons?

  Like, and I think you have the conversations and you land on. Tatum came back in March.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:28Bill Simmons?

  You know, Jalen had a huge burden, obviously wore down in the playoffs. Let's try to build a better team around them and let's come back full, full scale next year. We've had an incredible amount of success with this. That is the correct answer for how to handle this? I just don't know with the new owner, who knows?

• 55:45Speaker 01

  I think like the question is almost, it's always like, does this work well enough to suit our needs? Does this work well enough to beat the best teams in the league? More than it ever is like, oh, this needs to be blown up immediately. Like an interrogation of seasons that go sideways. Every team in the league that loses in this fashion should be doing that. We're talking about the Nuggets in the same way for the same reason, right? It's like, if you, if you need answers as to why you lost a series, you should start by looking at the players on the floor and the coaches who coached them. And like, is there something in these component parts that doesn't make sense in the way that we need it to?

• 56:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, what happens with, that's, that's another team that's going to have to have that conversation. Did we take the Joker, Murray Gordon thing as far as we could take it? And now what do we do? We'll see. The Celtics could easily win by 15. Do you have any? I know you did this on Ringer MB already, but Pistons, Magic?

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 56:38Bill Simmons?

  Pistons favorite in this one? They got a superhuman performance from Cade at home and barely won.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:47Bill Simmons?

  And that was without Franz. I don't know if Franz is coming back or not. I think the Magic are gonna win game six. I don't think the Pistons have enough, and I don't think Cade can do that two more times. So I just think the Magic are gonna win this series. Do you disagree with that?

• 57:02Speaker 01

  I think the Magic are gonna win the series, but I think they do need Franz back at some point. Like if not for six, then for seven.

• 57:09Bill Simmons?

  For the defense.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  The defense on Cade is super important, and he's just been so much better at it than even, you know, like a hardworking role player like Jamal Kane, or like a good lively athlete like Anthony Black. Like, it's just not the same thing.

• 57:20Bill Simmons?

  Do we get zombie Jonathan Isaac? Is he alive? Where is he?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  I think he's also still on the injury report, perpetually, but I think including right now.

• 57:29Bill Simmons?

  Can Mike Conley's doctor go see him? Cavaliers, Raptors? I just feel like this goes seven. I picked Cavs in six. My only two series picks were Knicks in six, which hit, and Cavs in six. And yet I think the Raptors will win this game. What do you think?

• 57:47Speaker 01

  I think the Cavs might have it, not because they're-

• 57:49Bill Simmons?

  Tell me why.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  I don't think they're so much better. I just think that they've gotten just enough progression from their bigs as far as being actual contributors to these games now that it's like, okay. Now there is a balance to the roster and to the lineup that makes sense. And so if you're getting Evan Mobley to play like an actual big, which they did, Jared Allen to play good interior defense, which he did, and you're getting some good supplementary shooting from like, I think Sam Merrill's been really important to this rotation. Like Max Struce's movement, adding him to the starting lineup, I think was a step in the right direction. And also like, who knows what Brandon Ingram's status is gonna be? Like, the Raptors are another team who are short on bodies, still don't have Emmanuel Quikly. Scotty Barnes got dinged up in that game too. He did not look himself at all afterwards either.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  And they like really need him to be hyper aggressive. So I think there's like a little bit too much of an accumulation.

• 58:37Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Lakers, Rockets.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  Who knows?

• 58:40Bill Simmons?

  I have no, I have no feeling on Cavs Raptors. I'd probably lean Raptors. I don't think I would bet on that. I've kind of stayed away from that series in general. I think the Rockets are gonna beat the Lakers. And I think this is destined to go seven, and I just has that feeling. But I do feel like the Rockets found-

• 58:58Bill Simmons?

  Some sort of something with their young guys and especially Jabari Smith like, okay, I guess I'll try to have to make some field goals now.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  He was really good.

• 59:08Bill Simmons?

  Just good enough and Thompson was a maniac and Shengun was fine. And, uh, and I just think it's this Lakers team, some of the stuff they did with them strategically, you know, Kennard had did the CJ McCollum of he had a couple of good games and as the series went along, he died. I just think it's gonna be really hard for the Lakers to get the right kind of offense. So it feels like seven.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  I think seven is fair. I mean, this is kind of a test of do you believe in the attrition of a seven game series? Cause it looks like the Lakers are just getting kind of like gradually worn down bit by bit by the athleticism and the activity of Houston's defense. And by the end of it, like who knows what LeBron is even gonna have left? Who knows how comfortable Austin Reeves is gonna be as he's still kind of finding his legs? And so if you believe in that kind of like cumulative thing over a playoff series versus the any game, anything can happen, sort of like gunslinger mentality, that kind of tells you who you think is gonna win it. I just like, in my heart of hearts.

• 1:00:07Bill Simmons?

  You don't trust the Rockets?

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  I don't trust the Rockets. And so it's like, I, I acknowledge all of the ways that this is weighing down the Lakers and they do not look like a team that's in control and they certainly look like a team that's giving up a lot of just like speed and power and physicality and size basically across the lineup. I just, I do think the Lakers will win. I think it will be ugly. I just, I just don't trust the Rockets collective execution.

• 1:00:30Bill Simmons?

  Minus three and a half favorites in that one. And then, uh, I guess Sixers Celtics. So we're down, we're down to four series. This was still a lot of basketball.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  I know. A lot of deep series in the first round.

• 1:00:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, usually, uh, by the time we get there. So for the playoffs, big picture, the Minnesota, San, oh my God. San Antonio has a minus 3,000 favorite against Minnesota.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, and come back, can't come back fast enough. Like they're just desperately gonna need everybody they've got.

• 1:00:58Bill Simmons?

  What's the Gobert, Wemby, I can't remember. What's their relationship? They played on France together, but Wemby kinda, Wemby kinda, Gobert got a little buried on one of those teams, I remember.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  I think it's still pretty cordial. I think it's like a big brother kind of relationship a little bit, but.

• 1:01:12Bill Simmons?

  I think it can be a little frostier.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, look, Gobert's a proud guy. It doesn't take a lot to get under his skin and he tends to show up when things do. So I, I hope things do go that way.

• 1:01:22Bill Simmons?

  I need a new favorite player for the playoffs. I'll get back to you on who I pick. A favorite non Celtic. If we lose to Celtics and Joker and we don't have Steph Curry, I'm just a man adrift at that point.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  I think if they lose to the Sixers, you should just have to like root for Kelly Oubre the rest of the way. Like you should just have to adopt a Sixer.

• 1:01:40Bill Simmons?

  I, you know, they are really fun to watch. This is one of the more bizarre basketball stories we've had. Like we did the best, the worst contracts draft in March and Embiid and Paul George were the two worst contracts. They were the first two picks. And by the way, not controversial at all.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  It really felt that way.

• 1:01:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And now both of those guys, I mean, the Paul George coming back from the 25 game, we're still not sure what he did suspension.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Bill Simmons?

  And immediately reverting to 2021 Paul George, I don't fully understand, but it's a thing that's happening.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  It is a thing that's happening.

• 1:02:11Bill Simmons?

  Many reasons why the basketball playoffs have been so strange.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  I'd go a step further. I don't even think it's just like reverting to the Paul George that we know and admired and in versions past. Like there is something about the way that he does a little bit of everything that makes this like weird hodgepodge Sixers team make some kind of sense. Like I just don't think they function really without him. And you could see it even as in that stretch where he was out and it's, he's not OKC MVP Paul George. He's not even quite like the scorer he was with the Clippers, but it's like the connecting passes, the defense, the conduct, like the contested rebounding. He's like, he's like a supercharged Warriors Andre Iguodala at this point. And it's like that's a really valuable player to have.

• 1:02:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, and also being able to run plays for him and he's actually getting good shots and scoring. So we, if they win game seven, is Daryl Morey, is he back?

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Winner of the playoffs?

• 1:03:00Bill Simmons?

  Is Morey back? He's like, I told you, Maxey, Paul George and Embiid, I told you guys.

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  I can't wait for the victory laps of really all of this playoff round. Like there's just so much crow to be eaten all around, including, including by guys like us. So I look forward to it.

• 1:03:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, if Embiid can come back from appendicitis and plays Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.

• 1:03:25Bill Simmons?

  And play big minutes and do a lot of different stuff. That would be one, not even one of the three most incredible things that's happened in this playoffs, because we had Zombie, Mike Conley, and Jaden McDaniels and whatever else happened tonight. All right, Rob Mahoney, when are we going to hear you on Ringer NBA again and see you?

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Uh, we'll be on Ringer NBA Monday morning, talking about the weekend's game. So looking forward to it. I mean, hopefully, you know, get some game seven actions coming on Sunday as well, in addition to the Saturday ones.

• 1:03:50Bill Simmons?

  All right, and I'll text you what happens on my daughter's 21st.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Please do.

• 1:03:53Bill Simmons?

  What ends up, hopefully, I don't end up in a gutter somewhere, driving 10 shots and wondering what happened to the Celtics.

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  Got speed, Bill.

• 1:03:59Bill Simmons?

  Thanks for staying out. We're going to take a break, come back with Billy Gill, talking a little baseball.

• 1:04:05Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. If you bet the Kentucky Derby on FanDuel, which you should, you can bet on all your other favorite sports. Right now, all customers get a Derby Bet Reset. That's right. That means you'll get a racing bonus back if your bet doesn't win. The app is super easy to use. You don't have to be a horse racing expert to get in on the Derby Day action. You gotta bet on the Derby. Bet the fastest two minutes in sports on FanDuel. Download the app now to get your bet reset for the Derby. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Age and residency restrictions apply. Often required. Verified FD racing account required. Refund issues. Not much travel racing site credit that expires nine days after receipt.

• 1:04:48Bill Simmons?

  Max refund $10 unless otherwise specified. Restrictions apply. See terms at racing.fanduel.com. This episode is brought to you by HubSpot. You know why elite point guards make everyone better? It isn't just the no look dimes. It's because they know everything. Who's hot? Who's tired? What the defense is doing? Which teammate needs a basket? Most businesses don't have that. Sales run one play, marketing runs another. Nobody told service. The game plan has now changed. HubSpot gives you that point guard vision, one platform, full customer context. And that context is everything you need to win. Visit hubspot.com to learn more.

• 1:05:31Bill Simmons?

  All right, the Duke, Billy Gillis here. You can find him on a bunch of Ringer things, including Ringer Tailgate, the, uh, the biggest hit show of 2026.

• 1:05:41Bill Simmons?

  Before we go to baseball, because we're going to wrap up the month in baseball, April. I guess we technically started in March. I asked last week, why do people go to the NFL draft? And got a bunch of different responses. I'm just gonna cold call you on this one. 320,000 people in Pittsburgh. It's free. There's food and drink. It's a big clusterfuck and you get to watch some guys pick. Would you ever do this?

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  I maybe once. I think they said for the weekend, it was like 800,000 for the, for the three days, right? I don't know the people who go on day three. Like, there's the people that I guess day two, maybe, but day three, Mike Vrabel didn't even show up too. So like, why are fans in Pittsburgh showing up to day three of the draft?

• 1:06:26Bill Simmons?

  You know who showed up? Michael Keaton came out and made a pick. Pittsburgh fan? Yeah, Batman was out there day three. I, maybe that's why you go. You just don't know what's gonna happen.

• 1:06:37Speaker 02

  I don't like that. I don't like that for Michael Keaton. I feel like if you're Keaton. Yeah, I mean, first round, okay, like, you know, the commissioner does the big picks. But you can't be more than day two if you're Michael Keaton. Once they say day three, it's like, no, thank you.

• 1:06:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's a pass. All right, baseball. Really kind of fun, crazy season so far. Do you want to go with the teams that are in complete shambles? Cause I asked you to do a top five. Actually, no, no, you know what? I'm turning this over to you. I asked you to do a top five list. I was gonna say to do glass half full or glass half empty with some of the teams, but let's do the list and then whatever's left, we'll talk about after. So you're gonna do a list, top five biggest things. I said, top five most hugest things that have happened last five weeks. Yeah.

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  This is what has happened with our baseball discussions and previews so far. It's a little vague. So first one, I treated kind of like a cocktail party, whereas like if this is a cocktail party you go to, where baseball comes up for whatever reason, these are topics that you could talk to. Last one, I was just nerding out about the World Baseball Classic. This one, I thought, you know what? This is a thing this weekend. You have a big celebration, a wedding or something, maybe. You see people you haven't talked to in a while. You know, they're sports fans. Let's go back to the cocktail party. Let's just talk about the things that are going on. You don't have to be paying too close attention to baseball. You just throw out these stories and like, wow. This person is really in on what's happening this season in baseball so far.

• 1:08:04Bill Simmons?

  Okay. So you want to go one to five or do you want to go five to one?

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  Let's go one to five. I mean, these aren't, these aren't necessarily like a top 10. Like this is like the biggest story. That's the worst story. These are just five things that are going on. And you can kind of rank them in your own importance based on who you're talking to. Based on the demographic, the area you're in, what you think they might find interesting. So this is just, this is just for you. This is a little appetizer. You like pick it up, get this, then regurgitate it to your friends. So the first one. I mean, this is a big one that's been happening this week. Firings. I mean, it's April. We have two managerial firings already.

• 1:08:39Bill Simmons?

  Including one of the weirdest managerial slash coach firings in the history of Boston sports. Since I've been following any of my teams. Firing Alex Cora. Two games into a three game series in Baltimore after they had a blowout win. I just don't understand the timing of it at all. Why they didn't just wait until after the series.

• 1:09:00Speaker 02

  The thing is, I mean, you would know better than I would. You're watching all the Red Sox games. You're a Red Sox fan. Obviously they're not happy there. They've been chanting sell the team while John Henry's there in the stands. So something was going to change, but it was not, I think, what anyone was hoping for would change. Or especially not the manager that thought they would fire. So they fire Alex Cora. He has obviously a great track record. He had, this is technically his second stint with the Red Sox. Cause he has the first one and then they had the whole Apple watch situation where he was suspended for a year. And they parted ways and they hired poor Ron Reneki. And then after a season and the fake suspension was over, Ron Reneki was, was gone and they brought Alex back immediately.

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  I think that the best summary of this was by the anonymous alum of the Red Sox, which I'm sure you saw, which was, it's like shitting your pants and changing your shirt. That seems to be kind of the attitude so far with how this hire went. I don't know if you saw the pictures that went out there, but then, you know, Veritek was one of the coaches that was let go. They picked them up in like these charter vans.

• 1:10:07Bill Simmons?

  Thumbs down?

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  The charter's van said, "Coaches for hire" because they were, you know, coach vans, whatever, which is like not intentional. He then gave the thumbs down, which Veritek like, "Just be careful." You know, "You've been part of this family for 30 years. There's rumors that they're just reassigning you. You'll be back. Let's not upset anyone too much and cost yourself a future position."

• 1:10:27Bill Simmons?

  So, Cora wasn't awesome the last five years. He was fine, but you know, he won in 2018, which is also eight years ago. I also don't think he was the problem. The problem's the roster. What's been interesting is all the stories and stuff that's come out after. And it really just seems to me like the GM's not that good, but spends a lot of time with the owner. And they've had like signings or young guys or young guys that have gotten behind who haven't done well, or a couple pitchers. So they've traded pitchers away like Kyle Harrison this year, who's now really good on the Brewers. So if you're in job protection mode and you're the GM, you're just throwing the coaching staff under the bus. You're like, "I told you Kyle Harrison was going to be good. I don't know what we were doing with him.

• 1:11:10Bill Simmons?

  I had to trade him before he was, wasn't asking and now he's good, but he should have been good here." And I just think he undermined the manager and the coaches because they got rid of all the hitting coaches, but kept the pitching because the pitching's been a little more reliable. And it just sucks because the GM is a robot. Nobody likes him. And, uh, and the team just feels rudderless and I don't know why John Henry even wants to own it. Nobody thinks he's doing a good job anymore.

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  Well, that takes us to our next managerial firing, which was the Phillies, which I think was also surprising. And Alex Cora is connected to that because they offered Alex Cora that job after they fired Rob Thompson, which is kind of weird. And he said, no, I'm going to take time, which is probably good because then he doesn't have to just end up right back and, you know, managing the Phillies, which are struggling. They're one of the two teams that has a 10-plus game losing streak this season, along with the Mets. And then who do they hire? They go to their bench coach, Don Mattingly, who before the season, Don Mattingly, I'm not a fan of Don Mattingly, but before the season, Don Mattingly, bench coach last year of the Toronto Blue Jays. I'm surprised, honestly, that he hasn't managed since he managed the Marlins a couple of years ago, and he's just been bench coaching

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  ever since. But Donnie Baseball was asked before the season if he, if he was interested in managing again, and he threw out the generic, oh, you know, I don't have the energy to, to keep managing. I'm just, you know, I don't, I don't still have it in me. And then Dave Dombrowski said, hey, Donnie Baseball, you want to manage this team? He said, absolutely. And then they asked him in the press conference, like, hey, what happened there? Because we asked you before the season if you had any interest in managing again, and you kind of hinted at and said you didn't have the energy to do this anymore. And he's like, yeah, Rob was here, so I didn't want to kind of ruffle any feathers. So I just kind of said that thing, but I'm good. I'm good to manage. Then he wins the first game. And they're like, did you give any big speeches to the guys? Did you rally the troops? What'd

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  you say? And then he was just kind of like, just congratulations. It's just another game. Like, we're supposed to be winning these? Like, what do you want me to say to them? You know? So Donnie Baseball.

• 1:13:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, you think like, when you came on before the year, we were talking about all of these big market teams that had a chance to be good and how, what an unusual spot it was for baseball, right? Big cities, big marquee players, and it just felt like it was going to be an awesome season. Then the season starts, Red Sox suck, Mets suck, Phillies suck. Dodgers start out okay, but not, certainly not a threat to win 120. But that's just baseball. I didn't, I didn't follow what was going wrong with the Phillies, but it seems like, seems like mirror image of what was happening with the Red Sox. Just complete disappointment.

• 1:13:48Speaker 02

  They've been disappointing, another disappointing, not a managerial firing yet, but on the hot seat and probably will be fired soon is Carlos Mendoza of the Mets. They lose 12 straight, 10 and 20 this season. He's had his two seasons that he's managed have been winning season, but they had that epic collapse last year. They've gotten off on the wrong foot this year. He had a couple of days ago, a situation where he got ejected. He was like just going out of his way to bump the umpire.

• 1:14:12Bill Simmons?

  I love those.

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  Pitcher, Mets pitcher goes and fields a ball that's right on the line, throws it into the, it didn't go into the stands, it stayed in the play, but just like swipes at it with his glove to try to shoe it foul. It's called fair. Three Pirates end up scoring on the play because they, instead of going after the ball, just decide to argue with the home plate umpire. So the Pirates just keep rounding the bases and scoring. Mendoza comes out, he's screaming, he's chest to chest, like actually like physically bumping the umpire as he gets ejected. I think he knows he's on his way out. So he's like, I gotta do something here. I gotta show some fight. I need. Yeah, I do too. Honestly, that's the one thing about replay, not ABS, we'll get to that later on. That's the one thing I miss about replay is the managers getting ejected because you can't really argue anything.

• 1:14:56Speaker 02

  And if you go out and you argue something that's reviewed, you immediately get wrong. So there's no theatrics anymore. I miss that.

• 1:15:02Bill Simmons?

  How's our dude in San Francisco who came from college and had five team meetings in the first eight days or whatever? I'd say they're like 500, right?

• 1:15:12Speaker 02

  Well, we thought, we thought that he was not going to make it out of week one and they already started going and they were like kind of putting out like the PR like, no, trust this guy. They're four games under right now. They're last in the West. I mean, the problem with being last in the West is you have the Dodgers there.

• 1:15:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:26Speaker 02

  You have a better looking Rockies who are at the bottom too, and the Padres are going to be contenders. So it's a, it's definitely a tough division for him to be in. I mean, you went to a game this year, right?

• 1:15:36Bill Simmons?

  I did. Has there been comedy with him now or is it just kind of depressing?

• 1:15:40Speaker 02

  It's just been like, nothing that stands out. That's like, wow, this guy really doesn't know what he's doing. It's just.

• 1:15:46Bill Simmons?

  He wasn't offering his players NIL money or anything? Okay.

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  No, and I honestly, I think that he might, and we talked about this last time, he may be the one that gets Buster Posey fired, which is kind of like, then he'll be double hated because Buster Posey is so beloved by the Giants fans out there. I hate him too. I have my baseball. He's not a fan of Buster Posey.

• 1:16:04Bill Simmons?

  I like baseball babes.

• 1:16:06Speaker 02

  He ruined the catching position. He ruined the play at the plate because he had to go and he had to get trucked by Scott Cousins. And then he injured his leg and then they just changed all the rules for catchers forever. Then you had like three seasons where you needed to give the runner a lane and you had no idea like, well, does he have a lane? Does he not have a lane? They were calling guys safe at home plate that never even touched the base because it was ruled that they didn't have a lane and they didn't even try to slide like Buster Posey, one of the people who has ruined baseball, but we'll digress and not get into that today.

• 1:16:37Bill Simmons?

  Think of all the fights he cost us. I mean, the guy barreling into the catcher was a top three baseball fight starter.

• 1:16:45Speaker 02

  I mean, guy barreling into the catcher was one of the greatest playoff baseball moments ever when it was the Giants against the Marlins down here. Pudge Rodriguez, JT Snow hits him. He holds on to the ball.

• 1:16:55Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:55Speaker 02

  Pulls it out, ends the NLDS, which is like, of all the series is like the whatever series, right? Now there's all these wild card rounds, so NLDS is a little bit better, but the NLDS always kind of felt like, these are the day games that you get out of the way early on. No one's really paying attention, so.

• 1:17:09Bill Simmons?

  Good stuff to bet on. That's it. All right. So we got manager of finance. What's your next thing?

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  Are Juiced Balls back in baseball?

• 1:17:17Bill Simmons?

  Lot of home runs this year.

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  You have eight guys, I believe, who already have 10 home runs. You have Aaron Judge with 12. You have Morikami with 12. Mike Trout, by the way, is back. We, anyone who wrote off Mike Trout and said, you know what? This guy may be the greatest of all time until his teammate Shohei Ohtani came and he's definitely the greatest all time. We kind of forgot about Mike Trout and he's just been existing out there in Anaheim.

• 1:17:40Bill Simmons?

  Gets hurt every year.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  Well, that's the thing, but he's healthy this year, already has 10 home runs on the season. Then you have like another six that have nine home runs already this season. We could have, I mean, the pace probably won't keep up.

• 1:17:52Bill Simmons?

  Drew, Drew Romo got called up to the White Sox the other day. I know this because he, we picked him up on my AL keeper team. Switch hit catcher, home runs from each side in his first game. That's when I was like, what's going on with these balls?

• 1:18:05Speaker 02

  Okay, where are you, not that this is the topic, but where are you on your budget for the year? Because I've got an updates throughout the year and it seems like you're constantly putting flyers out there and spending money. And we're a month in and I don't think that you're budgeting this properly.

• 1:18:18Bill Simmons?

  Now, we've spent 40 of our 100, but we've spent smartly, including Arigetti on the Astros for 17, which we really needed. We have Brian Baio, who has given up 26 earned runs already this season, which is four more than anyone else in baseball. And has one of the highest ERAs heading into May of any starting pitcher, I think this century. So needs to say, we needed some help.

• 1:18:41Speaker 02

  Was he a, was he a keeper or did you like?

• 1:18:44Bill Simmons?

  Sadly, it was a $7 keeper and, uh, and, um, my least favorite player of 2026. Cause he's killing my favorite team and my AL keeper team. It's a double murder.

• 1:18:54Speaker 02

  Well, which is worse for you? Like, do you hold grudges based on fantasy, like failures?

• 1:18:59Bill Simmons?

  A hundred thousand percent.

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Bill Simmons?

  There's, I still hate Jose Ramirez because we had his one bad Indians year and I just still hate his guts.

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  So I hate Jordan Walker of the Cardinals because he's been doing great. And I hate him because I drafted him four seasons too early. And then I would keep him year after year and I could keep him for two years. And then I was like, I've given up on Jordan Walker. I'm done with him. This isn't going to work out for me. And of course this year he's coming out and he's hot.

• 1:19:27Bill Simmons?

  That's us with Josh Young on, uh, on the Rangers who's finally lighting it up. We had him forever. I had him for the entire 2020s.

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had I had James Wood last year on my team from the Nationals and opted to keep Jackson Merrill instead of him because I thought, you know, this will be the year Jackson Merrill finally turns it around for the Padres. And I would be keeping him at a higher round than James Wood. So I'm like, I'll make it up. James Wood ends up going in the first round and has like 10 home runs already. So.

• 1:19:53Bill Simmons?

  It really hurts. No, it's really painful. Yeah, it's you put a lot of time in these guys for your fake baseball team and they don't respect it.

• 1:20:01Speaker 02

  Well, I invested in them. I believe in them before anyone else. I believe in them more than they believe in themselves. And then they let me down. And when I say, you know what? It's not you, it's me. Like, let's just kind of end this. Then all of a sudden, they become like the hottest person out there. They're dating again, rubbing it in my face.

• 1:20:16Bill Simmons?

  This is the worst one, though. And we didn't have him. But if, you know, the guy who had Mason Miller in our league, who now goes to the National League and becomes having one of the greatest pitching seasons of all time, that hurts even more. Where it's like that, that just got stolen from you.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  Okay, you know what? We're gonna go out of order here and we're gonna bring, we're gonna bring up that topic because he's on the list. There's been really good pitching this year. Like, we have all of the home runs. We were just talking about the ball being juiced. Mason Miller, he's out there for the Padres. Going back to last season, has 34 and 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings. It ends kind of like not in the best way this year. You have Jose Soriano, who had 150 strikeouts last year, but he had like a mid-four ERA. He's like 500 record as a pitcher.

• 1:21:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, on the Angels too.

• 1:21:03Speaker 02

  On the Angels, 5 and 1, .84 ERA, 3rd in the league in strikeouts, and under one whip, just comes out. I mean, you would think it's gonna catch up to him. They'll see, you know, tape or whatever, figure out whatever it is that he's changed this year. But you have these things every year where you just have this kind of like average player just come out of nowhere. And this, if you go back to fantasy.

• 1:21:24Bill Simmons?

  Trevor Rogers last year. Like, where the fuck did he come from?

• 1:21:27Speaker 02

  He's another one that's dead to me because Trevor Rogers was a guy that was a Marlin back in the day.

• 1:21:32Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:21:32Speaker 02

  And he made the All-Star team as a rookie because every team needs to have an All-Star. And it's like, okay, this is like a good starter. And then he was just like a middle of the road guy. He has like a 6 ERA year in and year out. It's like, okay, whatever. He ends up on, on the Orioles. And then he's like a Cy Young Award winner. The only reason he doesn't win any of the actual like ERA titles or strikeouts or any of that, he wasn't in contention because he didn't start the season. He didn't have enough innings pitched. But he was electric last year.

• 1:21:58Bill Simmons?

  Now he's back, now he fell back to her.

• 1:22:00Speaker 02

  Well, and Shohei Ohtani too, in terms of pitching, he's great. I don't know what else to say about it.

• 1:22:05Bill Simmons?

  So we have like, we have some awesome starters and we have a couple awesome closers. But there is this middle ground of pitcher that's just getting hammered. And I think those are the guys giving up most of the home runs.

• 1:22:16Speaker 02

  The middle ground guys are the ones that are supplying.

• 1:22:19Bill Simmons?

  Those guys are just getting destroyed.

• 1:22:21Speaker 02

  They're supplying the maybe multiple 60 homerun players this season for us. So God bless them too, because they're in there to really kind of save the game. Honestly, they're probably more entertaining than the guys who are striking everyone out. They'll get us out of the game quick and it'll be like a two hour and 15 minute game. But the other guys are the ones providing the fireworks.

• 1:22:39Bill Simmons?

  What's your next one?

• 1:22:41Speaker 02

  All right, next thing. Is ABS the greatest thing to happen to baseball since the wild card? I was trying to think back, what's the best year? I was trying to think back, what's the best year that something has happened? Like, I, I think the wild card is the best thing that happened to baseball for ABS. But ABS, I mean, you have catchers who are out there embarrassing umpires. Umpires can't do anything about it. Salvador Perez seems to take joy in embarrassing the umpires and seems to know the strike zone better than any catcher out there. Then you have the game that you were watching, the Red Sox game earlier this year where Eugenio Suarez of the Reds is called out looking. And then he challenges it and they're like, no, that's a ball. Then he gets called out looking again, challenged it. No, that's a ball.

• 1:23:26Speaker 02

  Then he flies out, but it was electric in Cincinnati that night.

• 1:23:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that would, it kind of turned the Reds season around. Now, now the Reds are a contender.

• 1:23:34Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 1:23:35Bill Simmons?

  Two straight ABS wins?

• 1:23:37Speaker 02

  One of the surprise teams of the season so far, the Reds.

• 1:23:39Bill Simmons?

  Wasn't a surprise to me because watching them in that series, I was like, are these guys good? I thought the Reds was like one of those. It's like, here's another pitcher throwing 97.

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  Well, speaking of the Reds, I don't know if that was even their biggest ABS challenge win of the season. Cause earlier this week, the Reds had one of the more memorable ABS challenges of the season where they're up seven to two in the ninth inning. And there's a promotion where if the Reds strike out 11 batters, the fans in the stands get free pizza.

• 1:24:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:24:08Speaker 02

  So they're up five runs, ninth inning, not a close game. All of a sudden, Reds catcher. Challenge is a call. So then everyone's just waiting around because they know we're, we're sitting on 10 strikeouts right now. What are we gonna do?

• 1:24:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:23Speaker 02

  The momentum, the anticipations building, all of a sudden the graphic pops up on the screen, the ball comes in and you see it got a corner. There's a little red circle around the ball, strike three, he's called out, he has to walk back. The, the place erupts, the crowd's going crazy because they get free pizza.

• 1:24:41Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:24:42Speaker 02

  I love those promotions in baseball where it's attached to like these random things that I guess insurance companies or whatever like figure out probabilities and like, yeah, like how many times are they going to strike out 11 hitters in a game? So they do it.

• 1:24:54Bill Simmons?

  Basketball does too with the free throws and it always seems like it gives an electric surge to the crowd. I, I like it too.

• 1:25:00Speaker 02

  I like the guys that this was the case, I think in Cincinnati. I like the guys who are aware of the promotion and know like, hey, especially the road guys in basketball because basketball is usually attached to like road free throws. And if they miss like two in a row, you'll get like 10 chicken nuggets somewhere or something, right? So the road guy that knows, okay, this is a promotion. My team's down by 15 right now. There's two minutes left. I could just miss these two free throws with everybody chicken nuggets. What difference does it make to me? You know, I've become a fan favorite. Then the place erupts because they win the nuggets. Huge fan. Also, I don't know if you saw this theory floating out there about ABS before we go on to our final topic.

• 1:25:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:38Speaker 02

  In our cocktail party. There's been a theory floating around Twitter where obviously for years, catchers framing has been a big thing where you put value in the catchers who catch the ball out of the strike zone, bring it in. In our baseball preview, I was saying, you know what? I think that those guys are going to have a hard time because you can no longer be the catcher that can't hit and can't do anything, but is great at framing and tricking the umpire. There's a theory that's been out there on Twitter and there's been some minor evidence that maybe it's in place where catchers can now do the opposite, where catchers can catch a ball in the strike zone and frame it out of the strike zone. So it gets called a strike.

• 1:26:17Bill Simmons?

  A zag? Wow.

• 1:26:18Speaker 02

  And they, and they bait the hitter into wasting an ABS challenge on a ball that's a strike that when they look back, they're like, that was definitely out of the zone because the catcher has moved the glove out of the strike zone just to get them to waste their ABS challenges.

• 1:26:34Bill Simmons?

  It's the next level. This is pretty good. I like ABS. When you talked about the most important things that they've changed over the years, pitch clock is obviously up there, but the single most important thing ever, where it was just the two leagues and it was like Premier League, you just won the league and then you played in the World Series. Whenever they thought to split that up and have division playoffs, which is I think like 1969, somewhere around there. I still like that's probably the most, but that's probably the most important decision they ever made, right? Cause the Yankees would be up 25 games in August and literally everybody else would be eliminated. There would be like seven weeks left.

• 1:27:11Speaker 02

  How do you feel? Were you a big, I mean, you're an AL guy, so you're a DH guy. I hated when they made the DH universal thing. I love the pitchers hitting in the National League.

• 1:27:21Bill Simmons?

  I liked having different leagues.

• 1:27:23Speaker 02

  Well, I liked also when then you'd have like the AL hitters come. I wasn't a huge fan of interleague play because it took a little bit away from the World Series for me, but whatever, it's fine. But when you'd have the AL's guys come and they'd have to hit in the NL parks and you'd be like, oh my God, like this, this guy could actually hit. Then we lose out on the Madison bum garners of the world who are hitting like eight home runs a season as a pitcher.

• 1:27:44Bill Simmons?

  I love that Rick Suckiff was another good one. Yeah, there's been some good ones over the years. I don't like it. All right, what's your last one?

• 1:27:50Speaker 02

  Final topic here for the sports cocktail party. The rookie class this year has been really good in baseball.

• 1:27:57Bill Simmons?

  McGonigal is like leading all these different categories in the AL or in the top two.

• 1:28:02Speaker 02

  It's insane. He has incredible, I mean, he's not a guy that's going to go out and hit you 40 home runs, or at least not this year. But he has great plate discipline. I think he has walked 16 times to 17 strikeouts, which is a crazy ratio. Great batting average, great OPS. And he's one of four guys this season, and he's one of two that's active, that has already signed a contract extension, which is like a very rare thing. He signed a contract extension 20 games into his service time to buy out all of his arbitration. So he signs an eight-year, $150 million contract. So.

• 1:28:38Bill Simmons?

  It's a steal.

• 1:28:39Speaker 02

  20 games in, the Tigers are like, you know what? We gotta lock this guy up.

• 1:28:43Bill Simmons?

  Sadly, that's what the Red Sox did with Roman Anthony, who is now in an absolute free fall. So I don't know if that always works.

• 1:28:49Speaker 02

  I was gonna ask you about the firing. If you're down on Roman at all, or if you're just kinda like, eh, this is just not the season.

• 1:28:56Bill Simmons?

  Roman's been a complete mess. He's been a mess in the field. It's a big topic with all the Red Sox fans wondering what the hell happened.

• 1:29:05Bill Simmons?

  And I have no answers. But this was somebody I would have bet anything on that this guy had it. Same way you would bet now with McGonagall.

• 1:29:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14Bill Simmons?

  Last year, Anthony, before he got hurt, it was like, oh, my God, this guy's gonna be in my life for 20 years. And he's just been a mess this year. So hopefully, he's just going through a funk.

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  Well, he didn't. I don't think his was as high as 150 either, was it?

• 1:29:26Bill Simmons?

  No, he was 100. He was like eight for 100. McGonagall, they were just like, we're all in. This is, he's a shortstop too, which is,

• 1:29:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, a little more important.

• 1:29:34Speaker 02

  So they, they also, the other one that was signed this year was Connor Griffin, who we talked about before the season, the number one prospect the Pirates brought up. He signed a nine-year, $140 million contract with five years of service. Him so far, you know, slow start, but he's a rookie. He just turned 20. They bought him, if you saw, they bought him a bounce house that they put in the Pirates locker room. Cause I think they asked Skeens, like, what do you buy him? And he's like, what do you got, a 20-year-old, a bounce house? And then a couple of days later, there's a bounce house in there. He's only hitting 231, two home runs, but he has plenty of time to figure it out. Two more guys that signed contract extensions this season. Both of these have zero days service time. So the Mariners signed their shortstop, eight-year, $95 million, Cole Emerson. And the Brewers signed their shortstop, Cooper Pratt, eight years, $50.75 million.

• 1:30:18Speaker 02

  Neither of those have played yet in the major leagues. Both of them also kinda sneaky struggling right now in the minors. But everyone's just locking up their guys first month of the season. We had all this stuff. It's great if it works.

• 1:30:30Bill Simmons?

  Like in the NBA, we would be doing this. You would do this with Cooper Flag or Dylan Harper or Con Knippel. Like you would get the two extra years and give them more money, right?

• 1:30:39Speaker 02

  Well, the one guy that I remember, like historically this happening with, was back in 2008, Evan Longoria, who the Rays locked up immediately when they called up. Do you wanna guess what his contract length and amount was at that time? 2008.

• 1:30:57Bill Simmons?

  Probably, I'm gonna say eight years, 40 million or something?

• 1:31:01Speaker 02

  They signed Evan Longoria, their face of the franchise player, who ended up, you know, being great. Six years, 17 and a half million dollars.

• 1:31:11Bill Simmons?

  And that was their big move?

• 1:31:13Speaker 02

  That was their big move.

• 1:31:14Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:31:15Speaker 02

  I mean, listen, if anyone can sign a player for six years, 17 and a half million dollars, that incredible.

• 1:31:21Bill Simmons?

  Well, the Red Sox stayed Christian Campbell, who had this awesome spring training a year ago, and they gave him eight for 60, I think. And then he went, he's, he had a career craters in AAA now. So they went all in on him and he can, he can barely play. I do feel like there's a lot of rookies all over the place. And then you look at like, the Athletics, who are leading the West now, and their team's just loaded with dudes. Like, all these, they're like a AAA All-Star team, basically, just kind of treading water.

• 1:31:50Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, they have the small park. The only, you have to be worried about pitching there because their hitters can hit because it's a, it's a small park, so they're gonna hit them out. But the pitchers have to pitch there so they can give those up. Did you see there was a leak potentially of what the A's new name might be in Las Vegas?

• 1:32:05Bill Simmons?

  What was it?

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  So someone was out there looking at like, job listings on the A's website, and this is like, not confirmed, obviously, by any chance. But there was a guy out there looking at job listings on the A's website, and found a number of job listings. And then underneath it, it said the Las, it said Las Vegas Black Flames. And it, and then he was like, what is that? So then he kept looking and every single job, every single job that was listed said Las Vegas Black Flames.

• 1:32:33Bill Simmons?

  What does that even mean?

• 1:32:34Speaker 02

  I don't know, because I, and when I think about a flame and fire, you think like, white, or red, or orange. I've never heard of Black Flames.

• 1:32:43Bill Simmons?

  Why wouldn't it be like the Las Vegas Hot Streaks?

• 1:32:46Speaker 02

  I, I don't know why it can't be the Las Vegas.

• 1:32:51Bill Simmons?

  Shouldn't it be something where you're on like a streak or a bender or winning money? I don't know.

• 1:32:59Speaker 02

  You know what? I was wrong. It's the, it's the black fire.

• 1:33:02Bill Simmons?

  Black fire? That's even weirder.

• 1:33:04Speaker 02

  So, black fire is a scientific phenomenon where a flame appears black or dark when a sodium-rich fire like salt and alcohol is lit.

• 1:33:14Bill Simmons?

  The fuck?

• 1:33:15Speaker 02

  Uh, the Las Vegas Black Fire. This could be one of those things that gets put out there.

• 1:33:19Bill Simmons?

  Two words or one year, one word?

• 1:33:20Speaker 02

  It is two words. I don't, I don't think it's gonna.

• 1:33:24Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you my big takeaway for the baseball season? Cause it's a really sad Red Sox season.

• 1:33:29Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:33:30Bill Simmons?

  And I'm worried that I'm not gonna watch enough baseball. I, I don't know, hopefully they'll come back, but they're like, they stink, they're 12 and 18, crochet's on the DL now, it's like.

• 1:33:40Speaker 02

  But this is the perfect time. Like, this is the time for baseball to stink because everyone's distracted by the NBA playoffs.

• 1:33:45Bill Simmons?

  I'm watching NBA and NHL, I get it. Um, so they did this thing last year where they would put, they would put like this furry helmet on people after they hit a homer. Teams have these different gimmicks when you come back to the dugout and they put, so they did this year, but this team doesn't have the same chemistry this year at all.

• 1:34:03Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:34:04Bill Simmons?

  And they don't really seem to have the same kind of leadership. And it's just like a grim, it's almost like our WBC American team, like just kind of a grim group of guys. So then they, they do this, somebody hit a homer and they put this big green fur helmet on him and he, he goes back in, they hit him, but there's like no camaraderie with it and it's just kinda sad. I think they should make a rule, nobody can decide on their gimmick until May 1st. Let's buy some time. I don't think the Red Sox needed any gimmick. And when the gimmicks come, it usually comes when, cause one of the things we love about baseball is when the team kinda has the magic, right? Where it's like, oh shit, we got something this year. Whoa, they're doing stuff at second base and they're doing little like signals to each other and oh, it's really happening.

• 1:34:49Bill Simmons?

  Nothing's sadder than watching a bad baseball team. Try to adhere to forced gimmicks. I fucking hate it. I wish they would just care. The new manager should just been like, we're done. We're good. We're, we're done with all of these.

• 1:35:00Speaker 02

  Is it like Wally, the mascot? Like it's like a Wally head or something? Or is it some?

• 1:35:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's what it is.

• 1:35:06Speaker 02

  The, uh, the Pirates, I think have a welder's helmet, which is kinda cool for the Pirates. Just cause of Steel City and all that, but they're not off to the best start.

• 1:35:14Bill Simmons?

  What about like just like, like rigid, firm handshakes? Like somebody zags and goes back to the 1960s. Just, they just do this to each guy. That wouldn't work.

• 1:35:22Speaker 02

  That adds like Team USA WBC stuff, I think, right? Weren't they like saluting or something when they were like celebrating?

• 1:35:28Bill Simmons?

  One of the reasons we lost. Plus, you didn't mention as one of your cocktail storylines, the, the, the damage from the WBC. The collateral damage of all these different dudes, then culminating in a 44 year old getting arrested for having, not arrested, uh, getting caught. Do you see the, the shortstop on one of the Latin American teams?

• 1:35:46Speaker 02

  Ramirez, I think, right? He was on the Cuban team.

• 1:35:48Bill Simmons?

  Four different types of steroids in his body.

• 1:35:51Speaker 02

  Honestly, like, if you're 44, you're out of baseball.

• 1:35:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:55Speaker 02

  You're not gonna come, like, who cares? What are they gonna do?

• 1:35:57Bill Simmons?

  He's like, it's like, what can you give me? I'll take it.

• 1:36:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Are you gonna suspend me for 81 games? Like, I'm not playing in your league anymore.

• 1:36:04Bill Simmons?

  I'm out. I work in a hardware store. What's gonna happen?

• 1:36:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, is it true? I've seen multiple pictures. The Red Sox have like a sign behind home plate. The kids eat free after every win. So the, the rumor that's been go, or the joke that's been going around is the red, the kids in Boston are starving because they can't win games.

• 1:36:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. Sad time.

• 1:36:24Bill Simmons?

  It's tough. The thing is, um, there's really no hope either unless Roman Anthony gets going. Cause the crochet piece, losing 200 innings of a guy who every five days would just come out and throw seven, eight innings and be awesome. But we felt that that last year, he was over 200 innings. And anytime that happens with a pitcher, you're always like, uh-oh. Oh, boy. Should he come out there?

• 1:36:50Speaker 02

  Can you spin it like, well, this, you know, if there's a time to get injured, this is the time. He's only got certain pitches in the chamber. Let's not waste him on this like crap season.

• 1:36:58Bill Simmons?

  Maybe. I mean, the, the good thing is for them, like, it's not like anybody's like running away with the wild card or anything like that. So we'll see. How are your Marlins?

• 1:37:07Speaker 02

  There's like three wild cards now.

• 1:37:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:09Speaker 02

  Marlins are fine. They're second in the East right now behind the Braves, but they're, I think a game or two in a, big series against the Dodgers. They won two of three. They blew the first one too. Could have swept the Dodgers, but I mean, they're behind the Braves, but they're like six and a half back already behind the Braves. It's a bad division, but they're probably going to have to contend for the wild card. And there's a lot of good teams in the NL. So.

• 1:37:30Bill Simmons?

  The only other cocktail thing you didn't mention was the, the Ben Rice, Aaron Judge combo. And whatever's going on there. So we traded Ben Rice in our keeper league and it's just.

• 1:37:39Speaker 02

  I traded him last year.

• 1:37:40Bill Simmons?

  Haunting us because he's eligible catcher. Um, but those guys together, um, and then whenever Stanton can put together three straight healthy weeks and I don't know, the Yanks feel like they have a little something this year.

• 1:37:53Speaker 02

  I mean, they're off, they're, they have offensive firepower for sure.

• 1:37:56Bill Simmons?

  They're a little scary.

• 1:37:57Speaker 02

  They just need to, I mean, the Yankees just need to make it to the playoffs and then stay healthy in the playoffs and not collapse, which.

• 1:38:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I thought you were saying for us, the Yankees just need to make it to the playoffs and then they will collapse.

• 1:38:09Speaker 02

  Well, no, they, I'm saying if you're a Yankees fan, if you're the Yankees, they just need to not collapse. Like they'll be fine in the regular season.

• 1:38:15Bill Simmons?

  We know they're going to collapse in the playoffs.

• 1:38:17Speaker 02

  Oh, I hope they collapse. Aaron, Aaron Boone is another one of my baseball grudges that I hate. So like, nothing makes me happier than when people were screaming to fire Aaron Boone.

• 1:38:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, how about the fact that he lasted longer than Alex Cora? The odds of that would have been like, I don't know, 10 to one a year ago?

• 1:38:34Speaker 02

  Every year they want to fire him, it seems like, and he just keeps kind of sticking around. This is where I think baseball misses George Steinbrenner, honestly, because George Steinbrenner would not have been putting up with Aaron Boone all of this time. He wouldn't have been putting up with Stanton and the big contract that he had when they brought him over, which now is like one of the best contracts in baseball. It's like $300 million for like 10 years at the time. And now he's like middle of the road salary guy, but he would have been telling to get out there, telling him he wasn't injured. Like, I kind of miss George Steinbrenner going out there and really just being a menace.

• 1:39:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, we also, the last cocktail part of the thing, the Padres selling for $3.9 billion. To billionaire Jose Feliciano, no relation. But it seems like that sale is going to hold, but holy shit. So baseball is doing well, right? As we head to a massive lockout that might cancel all of next season.

• 1:39:26Speaker 02

  They're doing good. And we didn't even talk about Morikami, who's been incredible.

• 1:39:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, 12 homers.

• 1:39:30Speaker 02

  Who's a rookie, 12 homers. I think the concern about him was because he set a single season record for home runs a couple of years ago in Japan. And the question was, is this going to translate so far? It's translate. I mean, his batting average is low, but who cares? Chase Delauter came out and he had a great start to the season. Four homers in three games. Sal Stewart is out there with the Reds, another rookie who's great. The Reds have convinced themselves, Reds fans that they may. I do too. The Reds have convinced themselves that they may have two 40-40 players this season on the same team with him and Eli De La Cruz, who Eli De La Cruz, another guy who I was in on real early. That's a guy where like five years ago I was struggling. I was like draft day and I was like, oh God, who do I keep?

• 1:40:12Speaker 02

  Cause our league has like a minor league roster slot that you could draft a minor league player. So I text Mike Scher and I was like, do you have any names? He's like, get this guy Eli De La Cruz. I'm like, perfect. Get him in like the 17th round or something. They call him up that season. God, incredible. This year I was going to lose him because you can only keep him for two seasons after you draft him. So I traded him at the deadline last year to get a number one pick for this year's draft. And I was like, eh, last year a little bit disappointing. Like I could afford it. I'll get a first rounder for this year's draft, which I think ended up being spent on like Pete Alonso or something, which is a disaster. And now Eli belongs on his team for two seasons because once you trade for a keeper, you could keep him for an additional two seasons. So that's another guy that it's like, I want you to succeed.

• 1:40:55Bill Simmons?

  Now you're putting your stink on him.

• 1:40:57Speaker 02

  No, I like him. I like to think I discovered him on guys like that.

• 1:41:01Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you take credit for it. I like it.

• 1:41:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. On guys that are rookies that I, I draft and I put in my rookie slot. I take credit for. Another guy, Pete Crow Armstrong.

• 1:41:10Bill Simmons?

  You discovered him. Yeah.

• 1:41:11Speaker 02

  I discovered Pete, Pete Crow Armstrong was another one of my minor league slot guys. And then I had him for two seasons and I was like, this guy's not going to pan out. So I let him go last season and it comes out. It's like, oh wow, this is one of the best players in baseball. That was a mistake. Him, him last year, the two worst guys I decided not to keep, Pete Crow Armstrong. Cal Raleigh, both of them on my team the year before that I could have kept. And Cal Raleigh was a free agent pickup that would have cost me a 20th round pick. And I was like, oh, God, you're just not good at evaluating talent.

• 1:41:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. The Mariners seem like they were gonna have a year from hell season, but I think they've righted the ship. And they have the guy that's in our minor league system in the AL Keeper League, Cade Anderson, waiting to potentially come up.

• 1:41:56Speaker 02

  I mean, their division is winnable. They could be a playoff team.

• 1:42:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:00Speaker 02

  They're 500, they'll be fine. We were wondering, you know, World Baseball Classic, that was looking like the biggest loser of the World Baseball Classic was the Mariners. They were all fighting with each other, saying that they didn't care about winning the World Series.

• 1:42:11Bill Simmons?

  No, it really was.

• 1:42:13Speaker 02

  The signs were there.

• 1:42:14Bill Simmons?

  No, but I think they righted the ship. They're okay. All right, Billy Gil. Good cocktail, I like the baseball cocktail party gimmick.

• 1:42:20Speaker 02

  I do too.

• 1:42:20Bill Simmons?

  Just take some tidbits from us. Drop them around at a wedding, bar mitzvah, graduation party, 50th birthday dinner, 30th birthday dinner, whatever. Good to see you. Thank you.

• 1:42:33Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:42:34Bill Simmons?

  All right, Jason, it's up to you on this here. We're taping this on a Thursday afternoon before Knicks Hawks. It was too risky to do it after Knicks Hawks. You just never know with that team. Although you gotta be feeling pretty good. We don't need to talk about them.

• 1:42:45Speaker 03

  Feeling good right now, but yes, you never know.

• 1:42:47Bill Simmons?

  OJ and Anoby, rising up the rankings, the most popular Knicks. Yeah, shit's happening. Shit's going down.

• 1:42:53Speaker 03

  The focal point.

• 1:42:54Bill Simmons?

  Grand Theft Alvarado, some things are happening. Okay.

• 1:42:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:42:57Bill Simmons?

  Survivor 50.

• 1:42:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:00Bill Simmons?

  An absolute tour de force of a season. We have now nine people left. We had a two hour episode last night that dare I say was one of the best episodes in the recent history of the show. We had a Mr. Beast cameo. We had an unbelievable coin flip. You're a historian of the show. Where did that one rank on the great episodes?

• 1:43:21Speaker 03

  You know what? I mean, it's up there. It's historic, as Rizzo said, where we saw things in this episode that we've never seen before. And I was, you know, I think with regards to the Mr. Beast cameo, like a lot of longtime Survivor fans, I had a little trepidation about that. But like, he made it about the competition, which was really cool. And the twist was really interesting, you know, where they had, he brought this coin that you could flip. And if it came up the called side. The person who flipped it is say against immunity is safe. And the prize pot for everyone, for whoever wins Survivor doubles to two million. They lose or out.

• 1:44:06Speaker 03

  So I, you know, Devens stepped up and I think that was probably the right call because it seemed like Devens was gonna go home. So why not?

• 1:44:16Bill Simmons?

  Great call by him. Great call for them to increase the prize pot. I've had an issue about this for a long time. This show started in 2000 and it was a million dollars. So I don't know what inflation is from 2000 to 2026, but it feels like we could have bumped that up anyway.

• 1:44:32Speaker 03

  It's been in between three and 5%. So yes, I agree with you. We should have been.

• 1:44:36Bill Simmons?

  Two mil.

• 1:44:37Speaker 03

  It should have been popping up.

• 1:44:38Bill Simmons?

  Two mil should have been in the neighborhood.

• 1:44:39Speaker 03

  Not to mention we're cutting costs like it's a shorter game now. They're on the island for less amount of time. Let's pump it up, get the stakes, get the juice flowing. And you can see that everybody was excited about it, except for Joe, who when his arch rival Devens hit and was immune, did not even flinch.

• 1:44:59Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:45:00Speaker 03

  Did not, did not look excited about it.

• 1:45:02Bill Simmons?

  You know, it's funny. I mean, the edit can obviously shape some of this as you're watching it, but

• 1:45:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:06Bill Simmons?

  I was completely 100% convinced, A, that Devens was gonna be the one to flip the coin. Like, that's just his personality. And then B,

• 1:45:14Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 1:45:15Bill Simmons?

  I really thought he was gonna hit it. Like, it almost made me wanna go to Vegas with him and just do roulette.

• 1:45:21Bill Simmons?

  To succeed at any sort of gambling like that, you really have to have that irrational confidence and exuberance. Always works in Vegas. So when, when he was like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do heads because my kids love Mr. Beast. And I was just like, this guy's gonna fucking get this. He really is.

• 1:45:37Speaker 03

  It was interesting, you know, because I was wondering, would anybody else try and convince somebody else to do it in their own? I was a little surprised that Joe either didn't take it on himself or try and convince.

• 1:45:55Speaker 03

  Stephanie or Jonathan, somebody in their alliance to do it, or somebody Aubrey, somebody completely like, I guess Aubrey was their backup. So that was kind of why they were chill about it.

• 1:46:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:05Speaker 03

  But, you know, because the ultimate nightmare for that alliance is Devon's hits, which is what happened.

• 1:46:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but Stephanie should have been the other one that threw herself into this because if Devon's hit that, she's out. I don't care that you have your steal your vote thing. Guess what? Now you're gonna lose eight to two instead of nine to one. You're losing.

• 1:46:27Speaker 03

  Steph, not a wartime consigliere figure. She put some things in motion, you know, throwing names out, throwing Sarie's alliance out. And then the second that leaks out is panicked. And every move after that was like increasing the panic. I mean, even to be lectured by Rizzo at Tribal, where Rizzo's like, just stand behind it. You said it or did you say it? You put out names, Survivor people throw out names. Say you threw out the name and just stand behind it. But she couldn't even do that. When Devon's put everybody's business masterfully, a master stroke, to put everybody's laundry out on the table and say, this is what's been going on. She couldn't handle it.

• 1:47:10Bill Simmons?

  Right. So she got pulled in. There were three people. She was pulled in as the fourth. And then she moseyed on over to see if she could get the majority votes. And everybody this entire season has made the fatal mistake of trusting Sarie at some point and being like, yeah, let me see if what Sarie thinks. And then it's like, that's it. You've just fucked yourself immediately. It's like going to see Vito Corleone in The Godfather.

• 1:47:33Speaker 03

  Really. I have to say, this is an all time like Devon's episode. I came away thinking, it's a shame that this is only his second time back.

• 1:47:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:43Speaker 03

  And I hope I see him again and again. But Sarie. Her ability to like ride out the early heat because of her status as a legend and then just kind of lay back in the cut and pull strings. This is what, the third time she's defended Ozzy?

• 1:48:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:02Speaker 03

  Somebody, somebody puts an alliance member's name in her ear and she just immediately swings into action.

• 1:48:07Bill Simmons?

  How do they not know at this point? Here's an idea. Don't bring a possible Ozzy vote to Ceri. It's not gonna work. She's gonna immediately slit your throat. It's done.

• 1:48:15Speaker 03

  This is, it, it, it's incredible. I mean, it truly is the work of a, of a, of a black widow type strategist because for it to be as obvious as it is to us. And everybody, these are all historians of the game. They know what she's done in the game.

• 1:48:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:32Speaker 03

  And for nobody to suspect her or to have a threat level equal to the other people who they are targeting is, it's incredible. It's amazing.

• 1:48:43Bill Simmons?

  She's the type of contestant that I've always hated in this game. The ones that just ride low under the radar. Nobody sees them. They're the most dangerous ones. They're never gonna win a challenge and they just get underrated over and over again. And meanwhile, she's been pulling the strings this whole season. She sees everything. She protects her alliance. Her alliance is somehow loyal to her. Nobody backstabs her, goes after her. Nobody ever says, you know who should get out? Ceri. She's the most dangerous person in the game. She's fucking Queen Cersei. Let's get her out.

• 1:49:14Speaker 03

  Well, I think the alliance thing is important, Bill, because that's what you need. The reason that people want to work with her is because if you are in that day one alliance with her, as Ozzy is, as Ruzo is, it's rock solid until the moment where real decisions have to be made. I mean, she's going to the mat again and again and again to defend people. Now, it's a, the strategy behind it is wonderfully selfish. She's always thinking like, what are the layers to get to me? If this person is out, the next person is me. Like if Ozzy, if Ozzy's gone, they're looking at me next.

• 1:49:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:52Speaker 03

  Period. So I've got to protect these layers around me. But the way she goes about it, where nobody ever thinks.

• 1:50:00Speaker 03

  Let's get three out and Ozzy and her alliance, to your point. It's certainly not on the horizon right now that they would betray her, not right now.

• 1:50:10Bill Simmons?

  One of the keys to this game, it seems to be is not to be the one that's starting the vote idea.

• 1:50:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:50:16Bill Simmons?

  You, you really want to be the one who it gets brought to you when there's like four or five in motion and then you take that information and then use it against the people who came up with that idea.

• 1:50:26Speaker 03

  That's exactly right.

• 1:50:27Bill Simmons?

  And that's the move. You never want to be the, the active voter outer. You want to be like the receptor to the vote.

• 1:50:35Speaker 03

  Right. You want to be, you want to be like Agassi with a great return of serve.

• 1:50:39Bill Simmons?

  Totally.

• 1:50:40Speaker 03

  This is what Steph tried to argue at tribal, but I think Devon's, again, this guy, he's so chaotic, but so strategic about it, willing to take big risks. The thing I loved about his, put everybody's business out there. Here's what Jonathan said. Here's what Stephanie said. Here's what I, he also said, and you know what? I threw Rizzo's name out because otherwise it's totally not credible. That's what makes what he said credible.

• 1:51:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:08Speaker 03

  And they were scrambling after that. Stephanie then tried to say, yeah, but I, I didn't, I didn't start with the name, which is like, come on.

• 1:51:17Bill Simmons?

  Well, her move should have been, look, there were three people sitting on the beach.

• 1:51:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:51:21Bill Simmons?

  They came to me and I, and I swear on my parents' lives that they brought up Ozzy's name. Like that's always the move. If you know you have the truth behind you, you have to basically swear on somebody back home, which I think a lot of people are afraid to do, but that's what I would have done. I swear on my kids. I'm just having a nice little walk. I just peed in the ocean, coming back in.

• 1:51:42Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 1:51:43Bill Simmons?

  My three friends are over there and they're like, hey, what if we voted out Ozzy? And I'm like, holy shit. Is that where we are in this game? And then I brought it up to two other people. I did not start this. It was those people right there.

• 1:51:54Speaker 03

  On my kids.

• 1:51:55Bill Simmons?

  On my kids, my parents, the New York Knicks.

• 1:51:59Speaker 03

  That's it. On my dog Donna, on Jalen Brunson, Carl Anthony Towns and the New York Knicks.

• 1:52:05Bill Simmons?

  All of them.

• 1:52:06Speaker 03

  Throw Josh Hart in there. I did not bring up Ozzy's name. I just, I just think when you act panicked, Steph has the.

• 1:52:13Bill Simmons?

  It's over.

• 1:52:14Speaker 03

  It, it, her. A weakness in her game, and it's always been a weakness in her game, is she can't lie with a straight face.

• 1:52:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:21Speaker 03

  Suri kind of called it out. She's begins getting shifty. She's looking all around. She's like-

• 1:52:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Suri said she didn't make eye contact with me.

• 1:52:30Speaker 03

  You know.

• 1:52:31Bill Simmons?

  That's a tough one.

• 1:52:31Speaker 03

  And Suri, it's like that Hannibal Lecter thing, when he ate the nurse and his blood pressure never came up.

• 1:52:39Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:52:39Speaker 03

  She's like that. And if you are gonna tussle with her, you've gotta have that level of calmness about you. And Steph really didn't. And what's interesting to me is her alliance were part of the unanimous vote to vote her out. So does that mean like the Trust and Honor Alliance, the Anti-Lying Alliance, we hate lying? We hate Rick Devens and his tricky ways? Does that mean it's like, it must be completely dead at this point, right?

• 1:53:07Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's the thing about, that's so interesting about Survivor is these, to watch the 50, where it's a lot of the best people that have played, they have the history of the game. They, in some cases, have relationships with each other, and they know how to lie and cheat and steal and do all the stuff you do. But then you have this human element too that comes in, and it's like, we have a letter from home, and then all of a sudden they're fucking jelly. And then meanwhile, they're, and five seconds later, they're just these political animals trying to assassinate and crush each other. And then it's like, here's a letter from, from your dad.

• 1:53:40Bill Simmons?

  I haven't seen it for 15 days.

• 1:53:44Bill Simmons?

  I always get mad at this. I always say to my wife, because my wife always gets choked up during this, because she gets choked up at stuff, and I'm like, I would never cry, I'm sorry. We'd probably end up like getting separated because you'd be upset that I didn't cry when I got my letter from you. I just wouldn't. It's not a long enough time.

• 1:53:59Speaker 03

  This is, I, this is exactly, I said the exact thing to my wife. I was like, if I was on Survivor and they were still doing the family visit, I'd just be like, hey, what's up?

• 1:54:09Speaker 03

  Game face. Like, I'm, I'm, I'll see you when I get back, hopefully with the million.

• 1:54:13Bill Simmons?

  The only thing that would have made me cry if it was a letter from Patriots coach Mike Frabel. Bill, some stuff happened. I just wanted to prepare you now for when you come back. Our season is now in shambles. That would have made me cry. That's about it. Anything else? No family member would have gotten to me.

• 1:54:32Speaker 03

  What did you, what do you make of, of Joe's hatred of Rick? I, I've absolutely loved the rivalries that have happened, like the absolutely inexplicable Aubrey Genevieve beef, which I don't even understand where that came from. It just like, they appeared on the beach together, walked away, and next thing you know, they absolutely hated each other.

• 1:54:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:54Speaker 03

  Joe and, and Rick, I get, and the thing I like about it is it's like a styles makes fights type of situation where Rick really is.

• 1:55:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:03Speaker 03

  A master manipulator, an oily guy, like the fake idol hidden by the fire, all the plotting and thinking ahead, whereas Joe is just like, you know, my word is bond. I'm gonna be an honorable guy out here. I'm never gonna tell a lie, ever. And so that makes it very compelling.

• 1:55:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:20Speaker 03

  Um, but I'm also frustrated by, I'm like, why did you come on this game if you just never want to lie?

• 1:55:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and does that make it less likely he gets voted out or more? If somebody is just completely honest at all times, does that make him more of an asset to just keep around until there's like five left?

• 1:55:39Speaker 03

  More readable, right?

• 1:55:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can just read him down. You know that, okay, well, Joe is, Joe's not gonna cross his alliance, and I probably know where I stand with Joe. Um, and if Joe catches me being tricky, he's gonna come after me immediately. Yeah, I think you'd keep Joe around because that, the challenge threat thing makes it, complicates it, but he's very readable.

• 1:56:00Bill Simmons?

  I think an NBA coach should try this in the playoffs. Here's our defensive strategy, and here's what we want to do on offense. Here, here's what we're gonna do, guys. We shoot a lot of threes tonight. Um, Jonathan is the one. There's these prototypes that always work on these shows. Jonathan as the big muscular guy. So then the theory is, well, he's dumb. I don't have to worry about him, but he's not dumb. He's been actually one of the smarter guys in the game. And I don't know if it's the editor, whether they're actually not seeing it, but he seems like it's really feels like him and Suri are in the most control. And then Rick Devens as the wild card chaotic guy seemed to have the most sway over the game right now, I would say.

• 1:56:43Bill Simmons?

  And then the other one is Rizzo, just because he's so happy to be there. Such a fan of everybody, such a delight at all times. I could see him getting in the final three because people are just like, you know what? I like that guy.

• 1:56:55Speaker 03

  I could see that. I think the way the jury is stacking up right now. Rizzo would really have to argue the hell out of the thing if he gets there because there's a generational gap that's happening. And I could see the jury being like, I don't want to hand this kid too many dollars. What are you talking about? That said, I've really been impressed by his game this season, the self-awareness.

• 1:57:18Bill Simmons?

  The consistency of the happiness and just his he's just so honored to be there like, and it feels real to me. I don't know.

• 1:57:27Speaker 03

  Unlike, can I just say like, why did Aubrey come on this game? She's, she's picked it up lately, but

• 1:57:36Bill Simmons?

  My least favorite.

• 1:57:38Speaker 03

  For like 70% of the episodes thus far, she looked like she got called into work on her day off and that she's here now. And she's like, doesn't want to be here. She's like, every time they, even like every time they go to her, there's never, she doesn't seem gratified, never seems happy about anything that's going on is like kind of gritting her teeth through it. You actually saw her at one point, like really like chanced her jaw in this episode. It's a very strange contrast. And to your point about Jonathan, he is showing the strategic side that it was unclear that he had his first time through. Like he, he saw that Ozzy and Suri are close. Like he called that out and I think that was good targeting by him.

• 1:58:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And he, he spotted a couple of these people. Yeah. They, they don't really know what to do with Aubrey as a character, to your point. So that when she's doing the auction, I don't know what the auction dollars were this year, but it just seems like everybody could buy everything. And she got the mac and cheese. And she's like, this makes me think of my kids and starts getting choked up. And you could see the producers like, finally, we got something. Close in on her eating the mac and cheese. She might cry.

• 1:58:47Speaker 03

  What do you think would have happened if everybody would have spent their money?

• 1:58:53Speaker 03

  And here comes Mr. Beast and nobody has money to bid on the like, would they just be, hey, sorry. Jimmy, Mr. Beast, uh, everybody spent their money on, uh, grub worms and chocolate chip cookies. And so you gotta fly back. What, what was the move? Is that it happened?

• 1:59:09Bill Simmons?

  What if he had had like, here's my offer. It's two straight weeks of immunity, highest bidder wins. So nobody had money left because they were buying like chocolate chip cookies. Yeah, I, I didn't understand really. First of all, I, did they have $500? Like, I don't even know if Jeff, Jeff never said what the number was. And then the move is just go in immediately on food. But my wife and I always talk about like, don't like, don't get the milkshake. You're just gonna be shitting your, shitting your brains out in the woods for like five days.

• 1:59:38Speaker 03

  You're gonna feel good for 20 minutes and then you're gonna feel terrible for the rest of the time. Chocolate chip cookies, same thing.

• 1:59:44Bill Simmons?

  Buy cocaine. Yeah, chocolate chip cookies is another one. I'll do the heroin and the cocaine, Jeff.

• 1:59:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:59:49Bill Simmons?

  Sounds great.

• 1:59:50Speaker 03

  The cake.

• 1:59:51Bill Simmons?

  Right. The charcuterie board was actually like a decent idea. Yeah, cake terrible. Um, charcuterie board, you get meat, cheese, some bread. Like I can sustain that, but cake?

• 2:00:02Speaker 03

  Cake is, is crazy. It's like 10,000 calories of pure sugar. You're gonna eat that after eating rice for two weeks? It's crazy. Although Suri did, did throw up. But remember they used to give, they used to do beers. I remember like Rupert at one point, they gave him like eight, nine, 10 beers, which is.

• 2:00:20Bill Simmons?

  Right. Yeah.

• 2:00:22Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 2:00:23Bill Simmons?

  Not a great idea. The other highlight of the auction was, uh, Jeff caught a whiff of Suri and Jeff is always coming in like from his like fancy glamping camp. So the odors of everybody really must be, he must be like, wow.

• 2:00:37Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 2:00:38Bill Simmons?

  Get a little strong in here. Um, sorry. So we have nine left. We have Devens, Ozzy, Big Jonathan, Joe are the men. Suri, Aubrey, Emily, who is my other least favorite. I just every week hoping she gets voted out. No, no, no real reason, just kind of ready for her to go.

• 2:00:55Speaker 03

  Well, you don't like the way she just gives up everybody's secrets?

• 2:00:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:58Speaker 03

  As soon as they tell her a secret.

• 2:01:00Bill Simmons?

  Like that shifty, she, she's like in Dead Poets Society. She's the guy who you know is gonna turn on Nawanda. Um, Tiffany, Tiffany and, uh, oh, Rizzo's the other guy too. Tiffany, I think, has had a strong comeback. Um.

• 2:01:16Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 2:01:17Bill Simmons?

  But we have to do an MVP ballot with nine people left.

• 2:01:20Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:01:20Bill Simmons?

  Um, to me, clearly, on my ballot, number one, I don't think there's the same kind of controversy of SGA versus Wemby versus Joker. I think this is more like a LeBron James 2009 type season. Devens has been out of his mind. I think he has to be MVP. The fake, the fake idol, the fact that he pulled that off and then didn't tell anyone for two more episodes and then just casually, just to fuck with Joe.

• 2:01:47Speaker 03

  That was fake.

• 2:01:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I made that up. Look, it's nothing. Um, and, and then how eager he was to grab the coin flipped, um, him interacting with Mr. Beast, the whole thing. I think he has to be MVP so far.

• 2:02:01Speaker 03

  Um, I'm gonna pitch a haircut on that.

• 2:02:04Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 2:02:04Speaker 03

  My MVP is the Devens-Joe rivalry. I just.

• 2:02:07Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 2:02:08Speaker 03

  It's, it's so exciting, right? It's like almost, it's almost Magic Bird. It's almost that kind of thing because it's, again, it's two different approaches to the game. One is out there, risk, crazy, chaos, plotting. The other one is like rock solid, my word is bond, you can trust me.

• 2:02:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:29Speaker 03

  I'm gonna leave here and live my life the same way I lived my life in the game. That's who I am. And it's, it's just so compelling to me. Every, it just, the hatred like oozes out of them. Whenever one of them is speaking, I mean, especially Rick. Whenever Devens is saying stuff and they cut to Joe, Joe looks like he wants to set Rick on fire. And I, I love it. It's so good.

• 2:02:58Bill Simmons?

  All right. My number two MVP is Sarie.

• 2:03:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:03:01Bill Simmons?

  Who I just don't understand how she has this much power. I think she sat out at least four challenges.

• 2:03:07Speaker 03

  Probably four.

• 2:03:09Bill Simmons?

  She just, everybody is completely indebted to her, afraid of her, and sucking up to her at all times. It's unclear why. Every time somebody crosses anybody she likes, it's immediately over for them. And it's like watching, I don't know, like a high school, high school class president who actually knows how to work the class and get all the shit they want, make themselves prom queen. And I don't know how she's doing it.

• 2:03:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, to me, it's like, imagine, it's like if Asar Thompson had a jumper. Imagine if she was a physical threat.

• 2:03:45Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:03:46Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? Like, forget it.

• 2:03:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:50Speaker 03

  Forget it. The fact that she is doing this with no physical ability, what's, nobody's sweating her in a challenge ever. And they would really have to rig it.

• 2:04:03Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:04:03Speaker 03

  Like in Joe's first season. I'll just say, it was very notable that we never saw a puzzle with Joe. Until the end, they let him go on a run of five, six challenges. And then finally got a puzzle and it was like, huh?

• 2:04:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:17Speaker 03

  And very clearly playing to his strengths. They'd have to rig it with her. But man, if she had that part of her game, I completely agree with you. She is my second. Also, she is just pulling the strings and nobody's looking at it.

• 2:04:29Bill Simmons?

  Well, I wonder if she did have that part of the game, she'd be more obvious as a threat. It's almost like part of what makes her a threat is she's lying there under the radar. And if people are like, well, she'll never win a challenge.

• 2:04:41Speaker 03

  Well, there's a window, right? Because if she can survive the first two episodes.

• 2:04:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:48Speaker 03

  Then she's, she's going to lay in the cut. Because the first thing you do when you get to the island and you go, let's get her, because if she sticks around, she's too dangerous. And if she survives that part of it, and she always does.

• 2:05:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:03Speaker 03

  She's going to be there.

• 2:05:03Bill Simmons?

  But that's what I don't understand about this season. What you just said they did to Mike White. They were like, we gotta get him out. He's too manipulative. He has like these special powers. Let's dump him. Sarie, this is the fifth time she's been on the show. We know, we know what this is now. This is, you know, she, she's like an NBA star who's had five all MBAs already. Like, we know, we know what this is. And they're completely dumbfounded by this.

• 2:05:30Speaker 03

  Maybe Mike's, maybe Mike's big error was the fact that he came and shredded, like he had been to Barry's boot camp and has been taking HDH or whatever it was. And it's like, now you're like, oh, God, he's got that, he's got the skill, he's got the tools, and he's in shape. Let's get him out of here.

• 2:05:47Bill Simmons?

  My number three MVP is Rizzo. I think he's a great proxy for the fans and people who really love this show and love all the twists. And, you know, the, one of the big gimmicks with this year is the fans have been able to decide some stuff, which, um, honestly, Adam Silver's got to really think about for NBA. Like, the 2026-27 season, the fans decide, oh, this year, the one seed now has a 2-2-3 home court advantage. Um, and we just add, the fans just get to run one season, I think would be the smartest thing the NBA ever did.

• 2:06:26Speaker 03

  I would agree with you, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna pitch a haircut on that. I'm gonna go with my third MVP is Jeff Probst.

• 2:06:31Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 2:06:32Speaker 03

  I agree with you with Rizzo. Um, he's the prototype of the type of contestant and type of fan base that Jeff has been openly courting for years now. He's always saying, are you 16 and 17 years old? You love Survivor? Hey, why don't you try out? Send us a postcard, send us your tape, and we'll, we'll get you on. Um, but it's the thing you said, his willingness to be like, okay, what's working, what's not working? What can we try? What are the super fans of this, what, what are the people who love this show want to see? And how can I work that in? I think that's really smart. How about, how about Jeff Probst for Commissioner of the NBA? I'd love to see it.

• 2:07:11Bill Simmons?

  I don't think anyone, and I always feel like they're VO editing him after, and then they're really not, because when they're doing these challenges and stuff, he's always in real time doing play-by-play, like he's like Mike Breen. So, my wife, she was, uh, she, Jeff Probst lives in, I guess somewhere in LA, but he belongs to the same tennis club as my wife. And uh, and my wife was pulling out of a parking space and Jeff Probst was waiting for her to pull out. So she, so he could pull in the parking space and she could see him. And so she told me, I was like, Jeff Probst was pulling in the pub. So I was like, was Jeff narrated in the parking space and going, and Carrie is pulling out of the parking space and here's Jeff. Pulling into the parking space.

• 2:07:55Bill Simmons?

  And he's done it in two turns. Like, does he just do-

• 2:07:57Speaker 03

  He did it in two turns. Don't give up now, Carrie. Can you make the turn in one turn? Can you do- And she's going to the overhead camera now and now she's looking back in the mirror.

• 2:08:07Bill Simmons?

  Here he is. He has pulled in and now he's turning off his car. Does he just practice this all day? How does he do it? Or does he just turn it on when he's on and out?

• 2:08:17Speaker 03

  It's muscle memory by now, right? I mean, you're talking 20 plus years of him doing this.

• 2:08:21Bill Simmons?

  What a legend. Yeah, I think that's a really good third MVP choice. Well, what a season. Who's gonna win in your opinion?

• 2:08:31Speaker 03

  I would, if I had to bet.

• 2:08:35Speaker 03

  I would like to see Rick Devens win. I would like to see Rick Devens or Suri win, but I think Devens, in this order, Devens, Suri, long shot because of the, of the, uh, challenge nature of the, of the competitions to come. And then Rizzo, third, with his negative being, I think he's really gonna have to pitch it to the jury, but those three I'd like to, I think could do it.

• 2:08:58Bill Simmons?

  I think Devens finally gets voted out because the other guys and ladies are gonna realize he's done too many great things this season and he's gonna win if it gets to a jury. But I think he wins with that people's choice vote that they're, they win the extra money for best contestant of the year. Like sometimes they'll do that. They have like the $500,000 prize for-

• 2:09:20Speaker 03

  Right. There's, there's, there was a prize, Sia, the pop star Sia.

• 2:09:26Speaker 03

  Used to, uh, give money to whoever she liked. I'm not sure she's doing that anymore, which made me worry about-

• 2:09:32Bill Simmons?

  This is Mr. Beast comes back. He loves giving money to people.

• 2:09:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, but Mr. Beast is flowing in money. So why doesn't, he should pick up the slack there.

• 2:09:40Bill Simmons?

  So I think he wins that, but I don't think he makes the final three. I think it's gonna be Suri.

• 2:09:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:09:46Bill Simmons?

  I think it's gonna be Rizzo. And I think it's gonna be Tiffany.

• 2:09:51Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 2:09:52Bill Simmons?

  Cause I think, I think they have the game and everybody else figured out the best. And Tiffany can win some of these challenges and hang around.

• 2:10:01Bill Simmons?

  And I think the guys are all gonna turn on each other, would be my guess.

• 2:10:04Speaker 03

  I think if it's Sarie, Jeff will break down in tears. Because he is, it's been very notable the last few times she's been on the show. She noted, you know, very famously got voted out because of a crazy idol play that boomeranged on her by her allies. And when that has happened, he, this guy, he, he loves a Hall of Fame legend and he gives her like a send off. If she wins it, ban. I mean, it's gonna be, it's like Dirk 2011 or something. Like it's just one of the greatest runs we've ever seen.

• 2:10:42Bill Simmons?

  She's having a great season. I'm just glad Coach is out. That one.

• 2:10:46Speaker 03

  You don't like Coach?

• 2:10:47Bill Simmons?

  I don't. I really don't. If I was on the island with Coach, I would just be like, we gotta get this guy out. He's driving me crazy.

• 2:10:55Speaker 03

  What is it? The haikus? Is it the tai chi? What specifically?

• 2:10:59Bill Simmons?

  What's more annoying, like honestly, he's in that Segal Van Dam kind of area territory of self parody. Like he's the last one who doesn't realize it. Yeah, so I think Tiffany has been impressive and I think with the edit, they're setting them up. And I think the next step here is for the guys to start taking each other out. Devin's.

• 2:11:21Speaker 03

  It's coming soon.

• 2:11:22Bill Simmons?

  Joe versus Jonathan and maybe Rizzo's the only one that survives. But they can also have control over this with some of the challenges. If they have like, you know, when they, when they really wanna get rid of some of the guys or potentially have the guys, they'll do like the stand on a pole and your feet can barely fit on it. And they do that one. Like there's a couple of ones they can do to rig it a little bit.

• 2:11:44Speaker 03

  As I said, if they wanna get Joe out, they could do it anytime with

• 2:11:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:50Speaker 03

  with some sort of puzzle that involves spelling. He'll be gone. And much respect to Joe. He seems like a very nice guy.

• 2:11:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:59Speaker 03

  If it comes to spelling, he is out.

• 2:12:02Bill Simmons?

  All right. I can't wait. So your pick is you're going Devon's.

• 2:12:08Speaker 03

  I'm gonna go Devon's. I think he's it's gonna be choppy waters in this very next episode, but I think if he survives it, very dangerous guy.

• 2:12:15Bill Simmons?

  Legendary performance by him. What a, what a, just an all-timer. On Wait A Second, your new podcast with The Ringer, which has been excellent, you covered the White House Dinner and the concept of assassination attempts, immediately delving into conspiracies with our own Brian Curtis, the most journalistic guy we have at The Ringer. So this is a good podcast. I can't wait to listen to it.

• 2:12:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, check it out. What does it mean for our, what does it mean for our current reality that so many people are so willing to accept that certain things like the most recent event at the White House Correspondents Dinner was potentially staged? We talk about that with Curtis. He was fantastic on it. Check it out.

• 2:13:02Bill Simmons?

  What's my next one gonna be for my next appearance?

• 2:13:05Speaker 03

  We got, I've got the research packet. I'm compiling it.

• 2:13:08Bill Simmons?

  All right.

• 2:13:08Speaker 03

  Week after week. We're just waiting for the moment to drop it. Maybe in July, when some of the anniversaries of the murders comes up or sometime this summer. I can't wait.

• 2:13:17Bill Simmons?

  We might have to do it there in the middle of a Knicks Celtics playoff series, if that's how it pans out as part of the healing process for us.

• 2:13:24Speaker 03

  Yes. I'm, I'm, I'm ready. Zodiac. Be there.

• 2:13:29Bill Simmons?

  All right. Good to see you. Thank you.

• 2:13:30Speaker 03

  Good to see you.

• 2:13:32Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's it for the pod. Thanks to Mahoney and Jason and the Duke Billy Gil. Thanks to Gahow and Eduardo as well. New rewatchables coming for you on Monday. We did There's Something About Mary to kick off Comedy Month on the rewatchables. Netflix is a joke as well. You can find all the movies that we're gonna do in May. They're on Netflix as well, starting on May 1st for a lot of them. I'm gonna be back on Sunday with Zach Lowe after whenever the latest Sunday playoff game is. I assume we're probably gonna get a game seven on Sunday, but we will see. Have a great weekend. Happy birthday to my daughter and I will see you on Sunday night.

• 2:14:15Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Get them a problem, call 1-800-GAMBLE or 1-800-MY-RESSET. Call 888-797-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 8778-HOPE-NY, or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.