Nick Wright reacts to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder's dominant Game 1 win over Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals of the NBA Playoffs. Nick breaks down why the officiating toward SGA has gotten out of control after another night of questionable calls for the NBA's MVP. Later, Nick reacts to the Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese feud and shares what must happen for this WNBA rivalry to go to the next level. Finally, Nick puts on his GM hat and shares his plan to save the Boston Celtics following Jayson Tatum's Achilles injury vs. the New York Knicks. #Volume #Herd
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Best of the Week for What's Right
with Nick Right the best takes and moments from this
week on the show. Enjoy. So you would like to
have this story be a team that has been intelligently built,
that has a superstar scoring champ about to be League MVP,
(00:23):
a you know, kind of up and coming second and
third options in JDub and Chet and this team just
absolutely annihilating Minnesota in the Thunder's first conference finals game
since KD was there. You'd love for that to be
(00:45):
the story, but it's not the story. The story is
and there's no way around it. And I think you
guys know from as I r up myself my hesitation
across sports to blame officials, and I'm not blaming the
(01:08):
officials for this one, but the officiating is the story.
Because the dichotomy between how the thunder Guard, which is
awesome playoff physical defense, and the way Shay is allowed
(01:31):
to be guarded and the way Shae courts contact or
initiates contact and then reacts as if there were a
sniper in the crowd and just flails to the ground
and time after time after time gets rewarded for it
(01:53):
is utterly maddening, and we have seen listen, James Harden
was different stylistically than Shay, but did a lot of
this same stuff. Obviously, maybe this feels more jarring because
(02:14):
Harden's teams were not the best defensive team we've seen
in a quarter century or at least twenty years. That
was on the other end of the court, roughing everyone up.
But it is impossible to watch, and I like it
(02:36):
by the way, the way Caruso and Dort and Wiggins
and Wallace and j Dubb are allowed to guard and
then see on the other end of the court, how
Shay gilges Alexander is treated by the refs as if
(03:00):
he's playing by a different set of rules. Miles Brown,
who is someone I quote a lot on this show
because I think he's a smart guy, and I also
think he has a very funny twitter. He's at Mt Brown.
He tweeted the way OKC gets to play football on
(03:20):
one end of the court and behind museum glass on
the other is infuriating, and that is exactly how I feel.
And I do think there is a knock on effect
from when Shae gets When Shade draws four fouls in
the first five minutes, of the game. Not only does
(03:43):
Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert and others get in foul trouble,
but and go Beert. Listen, go Bert got two fouls early.
One was offensive, so maybe he's the wrong example. He
actually didn't fall again after that, but he was kind
of seemingly knocked out of the game impact wise after
those opening two fouls. But the knock on effect is this,
(04:06):
when the refs make it clear immediately we are going
to reward Shay's flopping because that's what it is. It
is shameless flopping. Then later in the game and you
saw it in the second half, guys feel like, well,
(04:26):
I have to give him space or else he's going
to draw the foul even if the foul didn't exist,
And all of a sudden, shaken totally comfortably step into
that seventeen footer that he's the best in the league
at And we have the the bad, acting, dopey, agenda
(04:55):
laden folks who have been trying to tell you for
the last five years the league is dying. Because the
league had the audacity to be able to try to
have some type of social conscience. Those folks who've been
in hiding this postseason because the ratings have been off
the charts because the games have been great. Those folks
(05:16):
obviously have not acknowledged that the first two rounds of
these playoffs, the ratings were some of the best we've
seen in more than ten years in this league through
the first two rounds. Now, part of that is the
games have just been awesome, But it have that type
of rating when Stepp really only played around, when Lebron
(05:39):
only played around, when Durant didn't make the playoffs at all,
when Giannis only played one round is a testament to
the fact that the audience has enjoyed the way these
games have been played and officiated that this postseason we
are allowing a level of physics and a level of
(06:01):
contact that is so unlike what is allowed in the
regular season. The audience likes it, and the teams have adjusted.
And it's not even accurate to say that that is
applied to every team except the Thunder, because it absolutely
(06:22):
has applied to the Thunder's defense. Alex Cruso's awesome and
I give him massive credit. Alex Crusoe was basically allowed
to take out a police baton on Nikola Jokich the
refs are like, whatever, man, you're six inches taller than him,
deal with it. Fine. I am not complaining about that.
(06:45):
I thought that was great. But when you compare that
to the way the refs are saying, you have to
guard Shay and these are laughable plays. And credit to
Doris and to Richard Jefferson for acknowledging it during the broadcast,
(07:09):
but these are Shay. It's not even like the old
hard and hook the guy's arm and then go up.
It is just take a take a step and act
like you got hit and collapse to the floor while
tossing up a shot. Some of the most egregious ones
(07:31):
yesterday he actually made the shot while falling. There was
one truly egregious one that the Timberwolves challenged in won.
But you don't have endless challenges and you don't want
to use them early, and it's just unbecoming. And I
(07:57):
was one of the I had a level, not huge,
but a level of thunder skepticism. Was I wondered, was
Shay going to get the whistle in the playoffs that
he got in the regular season, And up to this
(08:18):
point the answer is absolutely yes, if not a better one,
because he's averaging this well, probably about the same whistle
his free throws in each game of these playoffs. Seven
in the first game of the playoffs, he only played
twenty three minutes because they won by fifty four. In
(08:39):
Game two of the playoffs, when they won by twenty
nine in game three, thirteen in the deciding game against Memphis,
and then nine in Game one against Denver, eleven in
Game two against Denver, just five in the overtime loss
(09:02):
to Denver, than twelve, then six, then eleven, then nine,
and last night fourteen. And this is going to sound
unsportsman of me, but it is sports, and this is
(09:25):
part of it. If I am Minnesota and this is
how they are going to I'll give it game two
and see what type of whistle he's getting. But if
it's clear any type of contact he is going even
(09:45):
if he generates it, even if it's borderline fraudulent, he's
just going to get that whistle, then you guys need
to decide as a team if we're going to get
our money's worth on these fouls, because right now he
(10:05):
is getting the best of all worlds. He's living at
the free throw line, and he's leaving the game physically
feeling better than he came into the game because there's
no hard contact. Last night, there wasn't a single foul
that was like, oh, that's a hard playoff foul. And
I'm not talking about dirty plays. I'm not talking about
(10:28):
undercutting him anything like that. The audience knows what I'm
talking about here, and I hate that that's the story,
but that's the story of Game one, and it is
why people got And sometimes I say things on the
TV show are on here and I say ahead of
(10:48):
time that I know I'm gonna get killed for this.
Don't care. It's just how I feel. I owe the
audience honesty. So I'm going to give him honesty. And
when I set on the show yesterday, I think the
thunder of the best team, I think they're going to win.
I hope the Timberwolves win. Part of it was because
(11:11):
I do not like this style of play being rewarded.
I just don't the foubating, flopping nonsense. And I'm glad
I got that takeout prior to Game one because I
feel like a lot of America watching that game joined me.
(11:36):
And here's the other part of it. He doesn't have
to do this, so take later stage Jimmy Butler, who
is not a volume or a good three point shooter,
who was not a crazy explosive athlete, and in order
(12:03):
for him to be peak effective, he had to be
drawing fouls. But he drew fouls kind of the old
fashioned way. He would pump, fake, get you in the air,
and go up, and that can be annoying, but that's
not grifting. That is it's a frustrating guy to go
(12:26):
against because you're like, just stay on the ground. He's
not going up with his first shot, and guys would
have a hard time with it. Shay is just kind
of wildly throwing himself into the lane, falling sideways, looking
for minimal contact, selling it like Daniel day Lewis, and
(12:55):
being rewarded by it in a playoffs when for other guys,
guys it has been if you're not bleeding from the nose,
it probably wasn't a foul and it's just wildly frustrating. Now,
was that again, was that the reason the thunder one
(13:18):
by twenty six They outscored him seventy to forty in
the second half, So was that that was the story
of the game. But was that the reason the thunder one. No,
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Speaker 1 (15:40):
I am just beside myself. That's too strong, the latest
WNBA controversy. It's just evidence demons that we are not
yet ready societally to have this rivalry exist, and I
don't know that we ever will be. So here's the
(16:02):
thing that I shouldn't have to say, but I think
because it goes without saying ball say it anyway. Obviously,
if fans are chanting anything racist or making racist animal
(16:23):
sounds anything like that, that is abhorrent, deplorable, and those
people should be banned for life. If you didn't catch up,
let me, let me, people might be like, the hell
are we talking about? So here's the deal. Caitlin Clark's
Indiana Fever played Angel Reese's Chicago Sky. Caitlyn had a
triple double, Angel had a bunch of rebounds and a
(16:45):
bunch of mislayups, and the Fever one by thirty. During
the game, Angel committed a hard foul. I'm sorry, Caitlyn
committed a hard foul on Angel that was called a flagrant.
To me that was borderline, but whatever her it was
a smart hard foul. And then Angel got pissed. Some
(17:05):
professional or semi professional lip readers you know, think she's
you know, said she was effing crazy or something. There
were due, there were you know, dueling technicals. Right. Do
we think we have this all correct?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Just some random person on Twitter who we have no
idea if they were even at the game, was like
the crowd making monkey noises at Angel Reese is you know,
way out of line. Obviously that'd be way out of line.
The thing is, the game was on tv I there
(17:38):
seems to be no evidence of this whatsoever that this happened.
There is a clip when Angel misses a free throw
of what sounds like a dolphin noise. Now, I because
it's twenty twenty five and everything sucks, have learned. There
is some streamer who laughs sounds like a dolphin, and
(18:00):
now idiot fen zers like laugh like him, do what demons?
Can you kill this? His name's Fly.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
I think they're talking about flight like a popular that's right,
t K two k YouTuber.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I could see a.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Dolphin noise sounding pretty close to monkey noise though.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So I agree with that. I agree with that. I
agree with that entirely. That may but again, I need
more than one person's tweet before I'm going to and
let me say this as well, before we get to
what I actually want to talk about here. Some of
(18:41):
the alleged Caitlin Clark fans and I said this last year,
we had really you can just check our archives. We
had real smart I think conversations on this. Some of
the alleged Caitlin Clark fans are not Caitlin Clark fans.
They are just racists, some of them. They they just
like that they think this white girl is humbling these
(19:05):
black girls that definitely, unequivocally clearly exists. The thing is,
it mostly exists online. It to my experience, does not
seem to exist that much in person at the games.
And now again the WNBA needs to be proactive about
(19:25):
making sure that doesn't, you know, invade the actual arenas.
There's nothing you do about the online stuff as sadly
it's the world in which we live. Those people are
pieces of shit. Now, I think everybody knows it. But
then the race stuff then gets even more complicated because
then there are fans of Angel who I don't even
(19:47):
know if they're fans of Angel, but there feels like
there is a like a solidarity of like no, like
there are shitty people on a acting these black WNBA players.
So we then need to act like Caitlin Clark isn't
this super nova of the talent. And the whole thing
(20:08):
just sucks because idiots get involved, and the WNBA commissioner,
who I don't know that Kathy Ingelbert's a wartime consoliari,
releasing a statement today like we're investigating this, like I'm
not sure. I maybe would have investigated it. And then
if there was any evidence whatsoever that this happened, then
(20:30):
I release a statement like, to me, your statement validates
the allegation when I have seen no evidence that this happened. Okay,
now there's all that. Here's the thing I want to
talk about. People are gonna be mad, don't care, demons.
Angel Reason needs to be better. Yeah at basketball. I'm
(20:53):
not talking about as a person. I'm not talking about
as a podcaster. I'm not talking about it as at
the met Gala. She needs to be better player if
we want this rivalry to be able to have some
staying power. Like she had a very very busy offseason. Again,
we are we are one game in, but at this moment,
(21:15):
it does not seem like the offseason involved a lot
of Mike and drills of left handed layups. And she
is right now, Angel Reese. I'm I'm sorry. Right now,
she is a wildly famous rebounder. It's like a I mean,
(21:40):
somebody had the funniest tweet on this. I think it
was Miles Brown who tweeted it. The The Caitlin Clark
Angel Reese rivalry is like if Kobe had a rivalry
with Marcin Gortat, and I just can't get that out
of my head, Like, I mean, this is the there, Listen.
(22:05):
I don't think Caitlyn is the best player in the league,
to be clear, that's still Asia Wilson until proven otherwise.
I think she will one day be the best player
in the league. But ain't Angel Rees right now? Okay,
Kent Taggert evidently gets credit for that tweet, Thanks guys.
I mean that was really funny. Caitlyn's team is I
(22:32):
think gonna be awesome, and she's awesome. An Angel is
a nice player that has real value and is maybe
already the best rebounder in the league, certainly one of them.
But if that is going to be a real right
on court rivalry, then Angel Rees needs to get better
(22:55):
at some of the fundamentals. That's just a fact. And
this is where I'm gonna sound like the old man.
But you had a very very very busy public offseason,
and if you didn't all like, if you come back
(23:17):
this year the same exact player that you left last year,
that's a miss by you. And so that's that, to me,
is the more the thing to watch is that is
Angel Reyes going to continue to be a thirty five
percent layup shooter, because that's gonna that that is going
(23:37):
to put a real ceiling on who she can be
as a player. And this is where I am just
going to trust my entire career bona fides that people
aren't going to be able to try to draw me
into the I mean, you know what, everyone's gonna get
drawn into it. Damn. Look the people is I guess
(23:59):
a Q was Lebron of being anti black because he
gave props to Caitlin Clark. And so this is so
toxic on certain levels that anybody could be you know,
people could make allegations about anyone's motivations. My real motivations
on this are, I do I love the idea of
(24:21):
this being because they clearly don't like each other. I
love the idea of this being a real rivalry, but
one both parties got to hold up there into the
bargain as far as making them both being awesome.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
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Speaker 1 (25:01):
Let's go to the Eastern Conference and your Celtics getting
what's the term dog walked in a game six? Go ahead?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Not fair?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
I mean, we didn't have our best player, but it
is what it is. Yeah, and I was obviously a
little confident that we're gonna win that game.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And that's so that how it went.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
It's time to go home. Tatum was out. We got
dogged in the game six. Like you said, do you
think that we should blow this team up for the
money or do you think that we showed enough to
keep the band together try to run it back next year?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Listen, I always I certainly don't think they I don't
think they should blow it up. They could have won
the championship if things break a little differently like I.
So I can hold both of these thoughts in my head.
I do think if you had a healthy Jason Tatum
(25:55):
and the Knick series was a best of twenty one
first to eleven, you beat them in that series every
time it's played like you don't, no, no, no. My point
is is, I do think Boston, over a large enough
sample would have beaten the Knicks. I thought where I
(26:18):
thought people blew the analysis of it was because games
one and two were, you know, one point in overtime games,
despite the Celtics shooting twenty five from three. What I
where I thought people screwed up their analysis was is
(26:40):
that it they acted as if it mattered that ah
more often than not, the Celtics would at least split
those two, if not win them both. It didn't matter.
It's a race to four and it's two nothing, and
so to me, I thought the series ended then when
the Knicks were up two zho in Boston, and I
(27:03):
think the series, even if Jason Tatum is healthy, and
I think you might agree, the Knicks still win because
the Knick. If you agree with this opinion, the Knicks
were winning Game four, even if Tatum doesn't suffer that
horrific injury. Then I just think it was unrealistic to
(27:26):
say the Celtics were gonna win three straight. And I
think you saw that in what happened in Game six,
not the blowout. Here's the part I think people are missing,
and it gets lost because it was a blowout. The
Celtics were relying too much on old guys who showed
(27:50):
you all postseason that they were not able to be
good in consecutive games unless they had multiple days off.
And that's Horford and that's Drew Holiday, and that you
weren't gonna get those days off, and so they you
had a bunch of time between Game four and five.
(28:11):
Those guys were awesome in Game five, and then Drew
was one for eight in Game six and Horford was
four for seven, which is fine, like they so, so
I think the Knicks were better in this series, and
that's what mattered. Now, would I blow it up?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
No?
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Do I recognize the Celtics' financial realities are such that
they are going to have to make some significant changes.
And the answer to that question is yes. To me,
it's pretty obvious. Here are the changes I would make
if I were Boston, because they are in such a
(28:53):
devastating salary position, I would And I now opening the
Celtics cap table. Al Horford is a free agent. You
just have to I think he retires, Yeah, you just
have to let him walk. So that's gone. You then
(29:14):
have these big salaries Jalen Brown fifty three, Tatum fifty four,
Drew thirty two, Chris STAPs thirty, Derek White twenty eight,
and then a sneaky one, which is Sam Houser ten million. Okay,
(29:35):
I would if I were them, you let Horford walk,
and you trade Drew Holliday, and you keep together Tatum
Brown White, and you hope that Chris STAPs next year
(29:55):
is healthy. And now here's the other piece of the
Chris STAPs thing, because I wouldn't trade him before the year.
If there is real hope that Tatum could be back
for next year's playoffs, I think that is unrealistic. However,
(30:16):
it does seem like that because they did the surgery
like within hours of the injury, that that could really,
you know, curb shave some time off the recovery. At
next year's trade deadline, because Chris STAPs is an expiring contract,
(30:36):
I would I would look and see does it make
sense to offload him or to keep him if we
think he's gonna walk in the offseason either way depending
on is Tatum gonna be back for this playoff run?
But the next time Tatum's healthy, I would definitively want
(30:57):
Tatum Brown and Derek White together. The reason I brought
up Sam Hauser is I read something that because of
like the repeater tax and the aprons and all this shit.
Sam Hauser's ten million dollars demonse costs the Celtics sixty
(31:18):
two million dollars because it's of the different like three
xing the penalties for if you're over this certain lines.
So it doesn't that money doesn't go to Sam, it
goes to the league. So he's a fine player on
a nce on his salary basically, right, Well, not so
(31:39):
it's on it. It's on eighty one salary. The point
I'm making is if you if you stack the salaries
up and like and you're like, hey, here's our total salary.
What would happen to our luxury tax bill if we
traded the ten million dollars sam Hauser contract that one move,
(32:00):
if they had everyone else still there, would save them
the ten million in salary and fifty two million in penalties.
Now obviously that means trading Drew Holiday saves you even more.
But that's that was just an example of what the
financial realities are for a team that I think next
(32:21):
year is not really competing. But I do think Tatum Brown,
Derek White, there's proof of concept when I say competing,
Like I think they'll still be good.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
I don't think they're not championship level next year, right.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
And so, and this was the point I made going
into game six. If you treated Chris Stapsid as if
he were out, which I was. If you had a
team going into a year and you said, our best
players Jalen Brown, our second best players Derek White, our
third fourth fifth guys are Drew Holiday, al Horford, Peyton Pritche,
(33:01):
you would put that team in the same tier you
put the regular Detroit Pistons, like, oh, that's a good team,
Like you know what I mean, they should make the playoffs,
like Jalen his cad in that situation, you know, go
on down like, but you wouldn't look at them as
a championship contender. And that's what the Celtics were by
(33:23):
the end of that series. Does that make sense, Yeah,
that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
I like it all. I love getting rid of Drew.
I love both those guys, Drew an al Horford. But
it is it's and honestly not Drew Drew. I honestly,
if you will, the testings out a little further, but
that makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
It just if you if you feel like, here's the
point I would make on Drew if you if you're
if the feeling is of your guys making thirty ish
or way more Chris STAPs, Derek White, Drew Holliday, Tatum Brown,
(34:02):
that Derek White is too important and younger and all
of that, Tatum Brown untouchable, And it's a decision between
Chris STAPs and Drew. The the easy answer is will
move Christaps. He's But if you want to try to
(34:26):
get real draft compensation back, because you are trying to,
you know, get you more young, cheap players, Drew has
way more trade value, right does that? Does that make sense?
Like that? So I those, But I don't think you're
trading Jalen Brown. You're obviously not trading Jason Tatum, and
(34:48):
I would be shocked if you're trading Derek White,
Welcome to the Best of the Week for What's Right
with Nick Right the best takes and moments from this
week on the show. Enjoy. So you would like to
have this story be a team that has been intelligently built,
that has a superstar scoring champ about to be League MVP,
(00:23):
a you know, kind of up and coming second and
third options in JDub and Chet and this team just
absolutely annihilating Minnesota in the Thunder's first conference finals game
since KD was there. You'd love for that to be
(00:45):
the story, but it's not the story. The story is
and there's no way around it. And I think you
guys know from as I r up myself my hesitation
across sports to blame officials, and I'm not blaming the
(01:08):
officials for this one, but the officiating is the story.
Because the dichotomy between how the thunder Guard, which is
awesome playoff physical defense, and the way Shay is allowed
(01:31):
to be guarded and the way Shae courts contact or
initiates contact and then reacts as if there were a
sniper in the crowd and just flails to the ground
and time after time after time gets rewarded for it
(01:53):
is utterly maddening, and we have seen listen, James Harden
was different stylistically than Shay, but did a lot of
this same stuff. Obviously, maybe this feels more jarring because
(02:14):
Harden's teams were not the best defensive team we've seen
in a quarter century or at least twenty years. That
was on the other end of the court, roughing everyone up.
But it is impossible to watch, and I like it
(02:36):
by the way, the way Caruso and Dort and Wiggins
and Wallace and j Dubb are allowed to guard and
then see on the other end of the court, how
Shay gilges Alexander is treated by the refs as if
(03:00):
he's playing by a different set of rules. Miles Brown,
who is someone I quote a lot on this show
because I think he's a smart guy, and I also
think he has a very funny twitter. He's at Mt Brown.
He tweeted the way OKC gets to play football on
(03:20):
one end of the court and behind museum glass on
the other is infuriating, and that is exactly how I feel.
And I do think there is a knock on effect
from when Shae gets When Shade draws four fouls in
the first five minutes, of the game. Not only does
(03:43):
Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert and others get in foul trouble,
but and go Beert. Listen, go Bert got two fouls early.
One was offensive, so maybe he's the wrong example. He
actually didn't fall again after that, but he was kind
of seemingly knocked out of the game impact wise after
those opening two fouls. But the knock on effect is this,
(04:06):
when the refs make it clear immediately we are going
to reward Shay's flopping because that's what it is. It
is shameless flopping. Then later in the game and you
saw it in the second half, guys feel like, well,
(04:26):
I have to give him space or else he's going
to draw the foul even if the foul didn't exist,
And all of a sudden, shaken totally comfortably step into
that seventeen footer that he's the best in the league
at And we have the the bad, acting, dopey, agenda
(04:55):
laden folks who have been trying to tell you for
the last five years the league is dying. Because the
league had the audacity to be able to try to
have some type of social conscience. Those folks who've been
in hiding this postseason because the ratings have been off
the charts because the games have been great. Those folks
(05:16):
obviously have not acknowledged that the first two rounds of
these playoffs, the ratings were some of the best we've
seen in more than ten years in this league through
the first two rounds. Now, part of that is the
games have just been awesome, But it have that type
of rating when Stepp really only played around, when Lebron
(05:39):
only played around, when Durant didn't make the playoffs at all,
when Giannis only played one round is a testament to
the fact that the audience has enjoyed the way these
games have been played and officiated that this postseason we
are allowing a level of physics and a level of
(06:01):
contact that is so unlike what is allowed in the
regular season. The audience likes it, and the teams have adjusted.
And it's not even accurate to say that that is
applied to every team except the Thunder, because it absolutely
(06:22):
has applied to the Thunder's defense. Alex Cruso's awesome and
I give him massive credit. Alex Crusoe was basically allowed
to take out a police baton on Nikola Jokich the
refs are like, whatever, man, you're six inches taller than him,
deal with it. Fine. I am not complaining about that.
(06:45):
I thought that was great. But when you compare that
to the way the refs are saying, you have to
guard Shay and these are laughable plays. And credit to
Doris and to Richard Jefferson for acknowledging it during the broadcast,
(07:09):
but these are Shay. It's not even like the old
hard and hook the guy's arm and then go up.
It is just take a take a step and act
like you got hit and collapse to the floor while
tossing up a shot. Some of the most egregious ones
(07:31):
yesterday he actually made the shot while falling. There was
one truly egregious one that the Timberwolves challenged in won.
But you don't have endless challenges and you don't want
to use them early, and it's just unbecoming. And I
(07:57):
was one of the I had a level, not huge,
but a level of thunder skepticism. Was I wondered, was
Shay going to get the whistle in the playoffs that
he got in the regular season, And up to this
(08:18):
point the answer is absolutely yes, if not a better one,
because he's averaging this well, probably about the same whistle
his free throws in each game of these playoffs. Seven
in the first game of the playoffs, he only played
twenty three minutes because they won by fifty four. In
(08:39):
Game two of the playoffs, when they won by twenty
nine in game three, thirteen in the deciding game against Memphis,
and then nine in Game one against Denver, eleven in
Game two against Denver, just five in the overtime loss
(09:02):
to Denver, than twelve, then six, then eleven, then nine,
and last night fourteen. And this is going to sound
unsportsman of me, but it is sports, and this is
(09:25):
part of it. If I am Minnesota and this is
how they are going to I'll give it game two
and see what type of whistle he's getting. But if
it's clear any type of contact he is going even
(09:45):
if he generates it, even if it's borderline fraudulent, he's
just going to get that whistle, then you guys need
to decide as a team if we're going to get
our money's worth on these fouls, because right now he
(10:05):
is getting the best of all worlds. He's living at
the free throw line, and he's leaving the game physically
feeling better than he came into the game because there's
no hard contact. Last night, there wasn't a single foul
that was like, oh, that's a hard playoff foul. And
I'm not talking about dirty plays. I'm not talking about
(10:28):
undercutting him anything like that. The audience knows what I'm
talking about here, and I hate that that's the story,
but that's the story of Game one, and it is
why people got And sometimes I say things on the
TV show are on here and I say ahead of
(10:48):
time that I know I'm gonna get killed for this.
Don't care. It's just how I feel. I owe the
audience honesty. So I'm going to give him honesty. And
when I set on the show yesterday, I think the
thunder of the best team, I think they're going to win.
I hope the Timberwolves win. Part of it was because
(11:11):
I do not like this style of play being rewarded.
I just don't the foubating, flopping nonsense. And I'm glad
I got that takeout prior to Game one because I
feel like a lot of America watching that game joined me.
(11:36):
And here's the other part of it. He doesn't have
to do this, so take later stage Jimmy Butler, who
is not a volume or a good three point shooter,
who was not a crazy explosive athlete, and in order
(12:03):
for him to be peak effective, he had to be
drawing fouls. But he drew fouls kind of the old
fashioned way. He would pump, fake, get you in the air,
and go up, and that can be annoying, but that's
not grifting. That is it's a frustrating guy to go
(12:26):
against because you're like, just stay on the ground. He's
not going up with his first shot, and guys would
have a hard time with it. Shay is just kind
of wildly throwing himself into the lane, falling sideways, looking
for minimal contact, selling it like Daniel day Lewis, and
(12:55):
being rewarded by it in a playoffs when for other guys,
guys it has been if you're not bleeding from the nose,
it probably wasn't a foul and it's just wildly frustrating. Now,
was that again, was that the reason the thunder one
(13:18):
by twenty six They outscored him seventy to forty in
the second half, So was that that was the story
of the game. But was that the reason the thunder one. No,
let me tell you guys, NBA's eighty two game grind
is done and the real fun has begun. The NBA
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Speaker 1 (15:40):
I am just beside myself. That's too strong, the latest
WNBA controversy. It's just evidence demons that we are not
yet ready societally to have this rivalry exist, and I
don't know that we ever will be. So here's the
(16:02):
thing that I shouldn't have to say, but I think
because it goes without saying ball say it anyway. Obviously,
if fans are chanting anything racist or making racist animal
(16:23):
sounds anything like that, that is abhorrent, deplorable, and those
people should be banned for life. If you didn't catch up,
let me, let me, people might be like, the hell
are we talking about? So here's the deal. Caitlin Clark's
Indiana Fever played Angel Reese's Chicago Sky. Caitlyn had a
triple double, Angel had a bunch of rebounds and a
(16:45):
bunch of mislayups, and the Fever one by thirty. During
the game, Angel committed a hard foul. I'm sorry, Caitlyn
committed a hard foul on Angel that was called a flagrant.
To me that was borderline, but whatever her it was
a smart hard foul. And then Angel got pissed. Some
(17:05):
professional or semi professional lip readers you know, think she's
you know, said she was effing crazy or something. There
were due, there were you know, dueling technicals. Right. Do
we think we have this all correct?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Just some random person on Twitter who we have no
idea if they were even at the game, was like
the crowd making monkey noises at Angel Reese is you know,
way out of line. Obviously that'd be way out of line.
The thing is, the game was on tv I there
(17:38):
seems to be no evidence of this whatsoever that this happened.
There is a clip when Angel misses a free throw
of what sounds like a dolphin noise. Now, I because
it's twenty twenty five and everything sucks, have learned. There
is some streamer who laughs sounds like a dolphin, and
(18:00):
now idiot fen zers like laugh like him, do what demons?
Can you kill this? His name's Fly.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
I think they're talking about flight like a popular that's right,
t K two k YouTuber.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I could see a.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Dolphin noise sounding pretty close to monkey noise though.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So I agree with that. I agree with that. I
agree with that entirely. That may but again, I need
more than one person's tweet before I'm going to and
let me say this as well, before we get to
what I actually want to talk about here. Some of
(18:41):
the alleged Caitlin Clark fans and I said this last year,
we had really you can just check our archives. We
had real smart I think conversations on this. Some of
the alleged Caitlin Clark fans are not Caitlin Clark fans.
They are just racists, some of them. They they just
like that they think this white girl is humbling these
(19:05):
black girls that definitely, unequivocally clearly exists. The thing is,
it mostly exists online. It to my experience, does not
seem to exist that much in person at the games.
And now again the WNBA needs to be proactive about
(19:25):
making sure that doesn't, you know, invade the actual arenas.
There's nothing you do about the online stuff as sadly
it's the world in which we live. Those people are
pieces of shit. Now, I think everybody knows it. But
then the race stuff then gets even more complicated because
then there are fans of Angel who I don't even
(19:47):
know if they're fans of Angel, but there feels like
there is a like a solidarity of like no, like
there are shitty people on a acting these black WNBA players.
So we then need to act like Caitlin Clark isn't
this super nova of the talent. And the whole thing
(20:08):
just sucks because idiots get involved, and the WNBA commissioner,
who I don't know that Kathy Ingelbert's a wartime consoliari,
releasing a statement today like we're investigating this, like I'm
not sure. I maybe would have investigated it. And then
if there was any evidence whatsoever that this happened, then
(20:30):
I release a statement like, to me, your statement validates
the allegation when I have seen no evidence that this happened. Okay,
now there's all that. Here's the thing I want to
talk about. People are gonna be mad, don't care, demons.
Angel Reason needs to be better. Yeah at basketball. I'm
(20:53):
not talking about as a person. I'm not talking about
as a podcaster. I'm not talking about it as at
the met Gala. She needs to be better player if
we want this rivalry to be able to have some
staying power. Like she had a very very busy offseason. Again,
we are we are one game in, but at this moment,
(21:15):
it does not seem like the offseason involved a lot
of Mike and drills of left handed layups. And she
is right now, Angel Reese. I'm I'm sorry. Right now,
she is a wildly famous rebounder. It's like a I mean,
(21:40):
somebody had the funniest tweet on this. I think it
was Miles Brown who tweeted it. The The Caitlin Clark
Angel Reese rivalry is like if Kobe had a rivalry
with Marcin Gortat, and I just can't get that out
of my head, Like, I mean, this is the there, Listen.
(22:05):
I don't think Caitlyn is the best player in the league,
to be clear, that's still Asia Wilson until proven otherwise.
I think she will one day be the best player
in the league. But ain't Angel Rees right now? Okay,
Kent Taggert evidently gets credit for that tweet, Thanks guys.
I mean that was really funny. Caitlyn's team is I
(22:32):
think gonna be awesome, and she's awesome. An Angel is
a nice player that has real value and is maybe
already the best rebounder in the league, certainly one of them.
But if that is going to be a real right
on court rivalry, then Angel Rees needs to get better
(22:55):
at some of the fundamentals. That's just a fact. And
this is where I'm gonna sound like the old man.
But you had a very very very busy public offseason,
and if you didn't all like, if you come back
(23:17):
this year the same exact player that you left last year,
that's a miss by you. And so that's that, to me,
is the more the thing to watch is that is
Angel Reyes going to continue to be a thirty five
percent layup shooter, because that's gonna that that is going
(23:37):
to put a real ceiling on who she can be
as a player. And this is where I am just
going to trust my entire career bona fides that people
aren't going to be able to try to draw me
into the I mean, you know what, everyone's gonna get
drawn into it. Damn. Look the people is I guess
(23:59):
a Q was Lebron of being anti black because he
gave props to Caitlin Clark. And so this is so
toxic on certain levels that anybody could be you know,
people could make allegations about anyone's motivations. My real motivations
on this are, I do I love the idea of
(24:21):
this being because they clearly don't like each other. I
love the idea of this being a real rivalry, but
one both parties got to hold up there into the
bargain as far as making them both being awesome.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
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Speaker 1 (25:01):
Let's go to the Eastern Conference and your Celtics getting
what's the term dog walked in a game six? Go ahead?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Not fair?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
I mean, we didn't have our best player, but it
is what it is. Yeah, and I was obviously a
little confident that we're gonna win that game.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And that's so that how it went.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
It's time to go home. Tatum was out. We got
dogged in the game six. Like you said, do you
think that we should blow this team up for the
money or do you think that we showed enough to
keep the band together try to run it back next year?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Listen, I always I certainly don't think they I don't
think they should blow it up. They could have won
the championship if things break a little differently like I.
So I can hold both of these thoughts in my head.
I do think if you had a healthy Jason Tatum
(25:55):
and the Knick series was a best of twenty one
first to eleven, you beat them in that series every
time it's played like you don't, no, no, no. My point
is is, I do think Boston, over a large enough
sample would have beaten the Knicks. I thought where I
(26:18):
thought people blew the analysis of it was because games
one and two were, you know, one point in overtime games,
despite the Celtics shooting twenty five from three. What I
where I thought people screwed up their analysis was is
(26:40):
that it they acted as if it mattered that ah
more often than not, the Celtics would at least split
those two, if not win them both. It didn't matter.
It's a race to four and it's two nothing, and
so to me, I thought the series ended then when
the Knicks were up two zho in Boston, and I
(27:03):
think the series, even if Jason Tatum is healthy, and
I think you might agree, the Knicks still win because
the Knick. If you agree with this opinion, the Knicks
were winning Game four, even if Tatum doesn't suffer that
horrific injury. Then I just think it was unrealistic to
(27:26):
say the Celtics were gonna win three straight. And I
think you saw that in what happened in Game six,
not the blowout. Here's the part I think people are missing,
and it gets lost because it was a blowout. The
Celtics were relying too much on old guys who showed
(27:50):
you all postseason that they were not able to be
good in consecutive games unless they had multiple days off.
And that's Horford and that's Drew Holiday, and that you
weren't gonna get those days off, and so they you
had a bunch of time between Game four and five.
(28:11):
Those guys were awesome in Game five, and then Drew
was one for eight in Game six and Horford was
four for seven, which is fine, like they so, so
I think the Knicks were better in this series, and
that's what mattered. Now, would I blow it up?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
No?
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Do I recognize the Celtics' financial realities are such that
they are going to have to make some significant changes.
And the answer to that question is yes. To me,
it's pretty obvious. Here are the changes I would make
if I were Boston, because they are in such a
(28:53):
devastating salary position, I would And I now opening the
Celtics cap table. Al Horford is a free agent. You
just have to I think he retires, Yeah, you just
have to let him walk. So that's gone. You then
(29:14):
have these big salaries Jalen Brown fifty three, Tatum fifty four,
Drew thirty two, Chris STAPs thirty, Derek White twenty eight,
and then a sneaky one, which is Sam Houser ten million. Okay,
(29:35):
I would if I were them, you let Horford walk,
and you trade Drew Holliday, and you keep together Tatum
Brown White, and you hope that Chris STAPs next year
(29:55):
is healthy. And now here's the other piece of the
Chris STAPs thing, because I wouldn't trade him before the year.
If there is real hope that Tatum could be back
for next year's playoffs, I think that is unrealistic. However,
(30:16):
it does seem like that because they did the surgery
like within hours of the injury, that that could really,
you know, curb shave some time off the recovery. At
next year's trade deadline, because Chris STAPs is an expiring contract,
(30:36):
I would I would look and see does it make
sense to offload him or to keep him if we
think he's gonna walk in the offseason either way depending
on is Tatum gonna be back for this playoff run?
But the next time Tatum's healthy, I would definitively want
(30:57):
Tatum Brown and Derek White together. The reason I brought
up Sam Hauser is I read something that because of
like the repeater tax and the aprons and all this shit.
Sam Hauser's ten million dollars demonse costs the Celtics sixty
(31:18):
two million dollars because it's of the different like three
xing the penalties for if you're over this certain lines.
So it doesn't that money doesn't go to Sam, it
goes to the league. So he's a fine player on
a nce on his salary basically, right, Well, not so
(31:39):
it's on it. It's on eighty one salary. The point
I'm making is if you if you stack the salaries
up and like and you're like, hey, here's our total salary.
What would happen to our luxury tax bill if we
traded the ten million dollars sam Hauser contract that one move,
(32:00):
if they had everyone else still there, would save them
the ten million in salary and fifty two million in penalties.
Now obviously that means trading Drew Holiday saves you even more.
But that's that was just an example of what the
financial realities are for a team that I think next
(32:21):
year is not really competing. But I do think Tatum Brown,
Derek White, there's proof of concept when I say competing,
Like I think they'll still be good.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
I don't think they're not championship level next year, right.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
And so, and this was the point I made going
into game six. If you treated Chris Stapsid as if
he were out, which I was. If you had a
team going into a year and you said, our best
players Jalen Brown, our second best players Derek White, our
third fourth fifth guys are Drew Holiday, al Horford, Peyton Pritche,
(33:01):
you would put that team in the same tier you
put the regular Detroit Pistons, like, oh, that's a good team,
Like you know what I mean, they should make the playoffs,
like Jalen his cad in that situation, you know, go
on down like, but you wouldn't look at them as
a championship contender. And that's what the Celtics were by
(33:23):
the end of that series. Does that make sense, Yeah,
that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
I like it all. I love getting rid of Drew.
I love both those guys, Drew an al Horford. But
it is it's and honestly not Drew Drew. I honestly,
if you will, the testings out a little further, but
that makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
It just if you if you feel like, here's the
point I would make on Drew if you if you're
if the feeling is of your guys making thirty ish
or way more Chris STAPs, Derek White, Drew Holliday, Tatum Brown,
(34:02):
that Derek White is too important and younger and all
of that, Tatum Brown untouchable, And it's a decision between
Chris STAPs and Drew. The the easy answer is will
move Christaps. He's But if you want to try to
(34:26):
get real draft compensation back, because you are trying to,
you know, get you more young, cheap players, Drew has
way more trade value, right does that? Does that make sense?
Like that? So I those, But I don't think you're
trading Jalen Brown. You're obviously not trading Jason Tatum, and
(34:48):
I would be shocked if you're trading Derek White,
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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