On today’s episode, Jason and Super Producer Rob G (Robert Guerra) get the party started with a full recap of the Miami Heat's Game 2 win over the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals. Behind yet another hot shooting night from guys like Gabe Vincent, Max Strus and Duncan Robinson, Miami surged ahead in the fourth quarter and never looked back. It was actually the most efficient fourth quarter from any team this entire season. The only question then becomes: Can the Heat do it again three more times? We're betting they can't. On the flip side, Nikola Jokic bulldozed his way to 41 points - and some are actually saying that was a bad thing. History says the Nuggets are better when Jokic is whipping the ball around the court and getting the other guys involved. Let's see if Michael Malone can unlock Point Jokic again as the series shifts to South Beach. Later, the guys close the show by discussing J-Mac's viral moment from late last week regarding the 'toxic' atmosphere surrounding the Phoenix Suns. Was Jason too harsh with his criticism? Or did he only take blowback because he didn't do a better job highlighting the hands-on approach of new Suns owner Matt Ishibia?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. What
is up Straight Fire, Ram. It's the Jason McIntyre Straight
Fire for Monday, June fifth. A wacky night in the NBA.
(00:26):
Some fluky stuff going on in the altitude at Denver.
The Miami Heat claw back into the series. A bit
of a shocker. We'll get to it shortly. But to
the those of you consuming this via video for the
first time, Yes, we are in video now on YouTube.
You know you're not used to the usual Monday podcast
and I like to open with a little, you know,
weekend happenings in the world of Jay mack as. I
(00:48):
like to, you know, brag about my recreational sports habit,
which my wife does not love and I love. So
I played in the soccer tournament. I basically do two
soccer tournaments a year, Parent tournaments, and we happen to
win the championship, which was really nice. I got an
assistant to the assistant general manager credit for roping in
a couple guys who ended up being integral to our team.
(01:09):
One of them was the MVP. We won three to
two in the championship. I wasn't really a factor in
the Championship. I had a bad game in the Semis,
but I did have a ridiculously nice back heel goal
in a nine to nothing drubbing of like some parents,
but at any rate. So I couldn't play in the
men's league because I was exhausted from soccer. Now I
gotta tell you I've been in the men's league out
(01:29):
here in Torrance and we won the championship two years ago,
went to the top level. We lost in the finals.
Very upset about it, so he recruited some new talent
to the squad. We had a guy who walked on
at Oregon State. He made his debuto, and we had
a guy who walked on an Oregon joined the team.
And you know, he's like twenty four years old. And
I know you think, of Jay, you're old. Why are
(01:50):
you playing with this guy? Here's the reason I like
to do NBA comps for all the guys on our team,
and we're on a text chain and they love it
when I make like, you know, this guy's Gordon Hey,
and this guy's who else did I have? I think
I had somebody was who's the guard buddy heel and
then someone else. You know, I like do these comparisons,
(02:10):
and instantly after the game, one of my buddies is
texting me from the from the team, Dude, who is
this guy's NBA com handle? Was insane? Totally controlling the game.
And my first thought was he's like a young Chris
Paul out there. I mean, he had the ball on
a string. The other team was so frustrated. And here's
the best part, and I'll get to the Nuggets Heat
game in a second. The best part is after the game.
(02:33):
The opposing team a big Herd fans, so like during
the game, they were talking to me because I just
went to watch the team, you know, new guys. I
wasn't playing, and they were talking to me on the
bench like they knew me. And I was just like, oh,
these guys are new Lee. I've never met him and
they watched The Herd regularly. So right after the game
they come up to me and they're like, dude, are
you gonna talk about this game tomorrow? I was like, ah,
(02:53):
I'll probably do that on the podcast, but probably not
on the Herd. And you know, we're leading this team
the whole time. By ten. They had some good they
had some good players, but it was more of like
my turn, your turn, A lot of one on one,
not a lot of team basketball, which is what we
thrive in. Screens, pick and move, pace, in space, all
that fun stuff, you know, nerdy old guys playing basketball.
(03:14):
And at one point they were one of their best
players basically comes to me on the bench and one
of my other guys and was like, we are playing
like the Minnesota Timberwolves. He was so frustrated that the
team was fouling and doing stupid stuff, and now you're
terminally bored. So let's get to Miami one to eleven,
Denver one oh eight. In Yes, a bit of a
shocker if you consider Miami made seventeen three pointers and
(03:36):
if not for a late miss by Jimmy Butler, it
would have been forty nine percent from three instead of
forty eight. That's not gonna happen every day, folks. Okay,
they got the consummate team effort and it was captured
in a video on well not a video, just a
screen grab. Are you ready for this? So Max Strews
remembers zero points over ten in Game one, rebounded with
(03:59):
fourteen points. I think he had two threes in the
first quarter, maybe three you're Duncan Robinson. I would consider
him the hero. Duncan Robinson a total non factor, the
kind of guy who you you kind of wonder, like,
how do you not have the book on Duncan Robinson
if you watched him in all the last three years.
He is basically a three point shooter. Yeah, he can
drive and sort of finish at the room, but that's
(04:20):
not what he wants to do because that's not his
skill set. They the Denver Nuggets, left him open for
at least three threes. No, maybe it was two and
it was, yeah, two threes in the fourth quarter. Denver
went into the fourth up eight, and you think, Okay,
Miami probably gonna get blown out because why why why?
In the previous two game two's the opponent from fatigue
(04:43):
at altitude with only one day off, that's key kind
of melted down. Phoenix lost Chris Paul late third quarter
and they got destroyed in the fourth. Even though they
had the lead, Denver just ran away and hit Game two.
Lakers were playing outstanding. Jamal Murray finds another level. I
think he had twenty three points of the fourth. Teams
get tired, Lakers got tired down the strest Lebron's on
(05:04):
attacking extra day off from Miami. They finished the quarter
with one of the most oh, let me get the
exact wording here, one of the most efficient fourth quarters
in the history of the NBA Finals. Eleven of sixteen
in the fourth quarter, thirty six points on a mere
twenty possessions. Let that sink it. Some of the calculator
(05:27):
crew went intallied. And that's like one hundred and eighty
nine one point eight nine points per possession, which is
basically ungodly in the NBA. And you take all that
into account. And this is no disrespect to the Heat.
They have a great coach. By the way, we'll get
to what happened with Spolstra and an ESPN reporter in
a minute. I don't think this is sustainable, and I
(05:47):
know it's like choke here. Rob G's gonna tell me, Hey,
the Heat are shooting from threes in the playoffs like
the KD and seph Warriors KT Steph claim remember those
guys against like the Rockets against the Spurs, Like that's
how good they're shooting for three in these playoffs. I'm
just telling you, I don't think they can do that.
(06:09):
Throughout the series. I don't think it's sustainable. It's just
not eleven of sixteen in the fourth, thirty six points
on twenty possessions, and yet Denver had a three to
tie Jamal Murray step back over Butler, and that's another subplot.
We'll get to front rim backboard. It was close, it
was online, look good. Murray kind of knew it wasn't
(06:31):
in after the first bounce. But Miami had a historically
great fourth quarter. Denver had a three to tie with
five seconds left. That's why this is not sustainable. I
mean I picked Denver in seven. Then I wanted to
readjust and say, maybe Denver in five or six, will
Miami get a game? I think that's a logical conclusion.
(06:51):
And all the Heat fans are gonna be like, well,
wait a wait to say we had seventeen threes. That's
just not sustainable. Anybody who watches basketball knows this. Now
let's get to point number one. I just got seven
minutes into the podcast, and I have not mentioned Nicola Jokic,
who was fuh phenomenal forty one points, eleven boards. Ah,
(07:12):
but this is key. Four assists, five turnovers. Jokic had
a tremendous game. However, the four assists he's getting like
double digit asists, he's averaging a trouble double in the playoffs.
What happened? Well, I guess the untrained eye before the
series said you got two options. You can let Nicola
(07:33):
Jokic go off as he did for I Believe fifty
three against Phoenix and a loss, or you can double
Jokic and not let him beat you the two time
MVP and say we dare you, Michael Porter Junior, we
dare you KCP to beat us and lo and behold.
Throughout the series. They've been doing that. Not no, sorry,
(07:54):
not the series, the playoffs, all the Denver other guys
have been delivered. Well, what happened here, Miami, And not
to simplify things for Spolstra again here it comes. But
twenty eight shots for Yolks, fifteen for Murray and a
lot were late when they were down and a flurry
to come back KCP four shots. So you're telling me,
(08:16):
Michael Porter Junior, who had another bad game, I'm not
gonna go in a lot of Nuggets fans are kind
of out on him. Minus fifteen and twenty six minutes
for MPJ I'm not out on him, but if he's
not playing great at home, I'm curious how he's gonna
do on the road. I digress. Jokis took twenty eight shots. Gordon,
MPJ Murray and Caldwell combined took thirty four four starters
(08:41):
thirty four shots, one starter, twenty eight. Now, Yokis was
great forty one points. I actually had a take that.
For the last few years, a Steph Curry three felt
like the most automatic shot in basketball. When Curry's taking
those threes, you feel like that's going in every time.
It feels like, as I watch Yokic in these playoffs,
(09:02):
Jokic in the painted area is automatic. He's throwing up
weird stuff. You're like, what is that and then boom,
boom boom. He's got that buttery soft touch. Everything bounces
in just absolutely tremendous. But if he's not hitting the
open guy, you know, fine, you can have forty one,
(09:22):
and you know, our great staff here came up with
the stats. In three games where Yokic has over forty points,
Denver is zero and three, three games for Yokic over
forty Denver own three, thirteen and one when he does
not score forty, so I think and I know that.
(09:44):
Now this is the spolstual moment with ESPN reporter Ramona
Shelbourne had asked, I know this is like a simple answer,
but the idea of letting Yokic eat and you know, uh,
hugging up the shooters not paraphrase what she said, but
that's essentially what she said, And almost immediately Spolster cut
(10:06):
her off and was like, no, no, that is like
the untrained eye will see something like that. Well, dude,
you can talk to any reporter you want. You can
talk to anybody who's watched the Nuggets for five minutes.
Like obviously Spolstra one of the best coaches in the league.
Let's be real, dude, You've got two options. You can
let Yokichi or you cannot let the other guys eat.
And they chose door number two and it kind of worked.
(10:30):
Now again, I don't think it's gonna work throughout the series.
I don't think they've solved Denver. I'm gonna remind everyone
Denver led by eight heading into the fourth Denver led
I think in the second by I've taken all these
Losory notes. During the game, they heat trailed by fifteen
in the second quarter before like a late run by
the way, Miami's bench was largely abysmal outside of dougle Robinson.
(10:53):
Of course high Smith. Remember how high Smith was supposed
to be a factor. You guys were telling me, Oh,
hig Smith, Highsmith, he could hang with Yokic minus seventeen
in six minutes. Caleb Martin, who's battling a flu apparently
was not feeling good, did not start twenty one minutes
one of three, but he hit a big three in
the fourth quarter. Ey guy's fearless. And then Cody Zeller
(11:15):
in eight minutes minus fourteen. So I don't know necessarily
that those two are playables. So you're gonna have to
ride a guy like Lowry who wasn't great until the
fourth quarter, and then just kind of go with the
hot hand like Kevin Love wasn't really making much did
it two threes? But here is a stat that I
saw on social media. Jimmy Butler, guy who I thought
(11:36):
would have a monster Game two breakout, he has now
gone under his point total in five straight games. Let's see,
they did win this one again. Fluky fourth quarter one
of the most efficient shooting quarters in the history of basketball.
We'll go with that. And then the other three were
(11:57):
Game seven when he did not go off, and Game
five and six when he basically was not doing well.
Jimmy Butler, I don't want to say's struggling, but this
is now five games in a row where he's shooting
I believe like thirty five percent. Is he getting tired?
I don't know, But does it matter. If Gabe, Vincent
and Max Strus combined to go eight for sixteen for
(12:17):
three and you trussed in two from Duncan and a
bomb from Kyle Lowry and Presto, you gotta won one series.
So I will add this. I thought Bam out of
Bio played great. He looks really good. I mean he
was struggling badly against Boston. He is, He's playing out
of his mind. Denver's gonna have to find something out
of Porter Junior and KCP. Both those guys had awful
games two of nine combined for three. Eric Gordon again
(12:39):
delivering for me on the prop front. So, by the way,
I know you guys care deeply about my pockets. Gordon
and Murray combined for thirty. I think they had like
forty something in Game one so that puts him in
the seventy range. I need like one hundred and twenty
seven from them. Now we're definitely going five games. I
(13:01):
think I won the NBA Player Points Pool after capturing
the College Basketball NCAA Tournament Player Points Pool. What can
you say, Rob, You know, this is what I do.
I like hoops, my first love as a kid with soccer.
Now it's been basketball for the longest time. Now, obviously
NFL number one to cover but and gamble on, but
(13:21):
I do love, love me some hoops. NBA playoffs. Listen,
I'm glad we got a series, aren't you.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, you know, the only thing I love more than
an extended NBA playoff series is hearing rich guys talk
about how they want more money gambling. That's like my
favorite thing in the whole world. Now, you know what
I think. You know, you and I disacrented a lot
of things, but I think you and Iron really lockstep
on this one. You mentioned that the Miami Heat, the
shooting that they had in that fourth quarter. You know,
(13:49):
it's even more impressive when you consider that in that
fourth quarter it was, from what I read, the slowest
paced fourth quarter of the postseason. Period, like they were
doing it on minimal possessions, no runouts. It was just
they were hitting everything in shot. I don't think they
missed a shot for the first half the quarter at least.
(14:12):
And to your point, though, is it sustainable? I don't
think it is. Like it's you don't go from the
twenty seventh ranked three point shooting team in the regular
season thirty four point four percent to thirty nine point
one percent in the playoffs, which, as you mentioned, is
(14:33):
higher than anything of the Steph KD Klay Thompson era,
which for my money, is not only arguably the greatest
team ever twenty seventeen, but the greatest collection of shooting
talent this league has ever seen.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Period.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I don't think that's not even argument. And these guys
are blowing them out of the water. And yet you're
getting a lot of people, especially the Heat supporters, who
are saying, well, this is just the testament to how
tough they are and Heat culture and Eric Spolstra and
and some of that's true. Spolstraw definitely give him a
ton of credit for what he's doing, you know, what
(15:07):
he's getting out of his guys, But a lot of
it is just Hey, they are in a zone that
we have never seen before from a team like this.
If this was you know, the Clippers who shot it
off during three from three during the regular season. If
it was the Warriors as we mentioned before, if it's
one of those teams Boston Celtics, you know they shot
(15:29):
great from three in the regular season, then hey, you're like, hey,
they're they're doing kind of what they always do. They've
always been great shooting. This is not who Miami is.
They are for whatever reason, like touched by an Angel,
I just don't.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Show you watch you did watch it? Oh my god.
My wife mocks me forever, mentioning it like I'm a
loser for because I watched it. Dude, that show was good. Anyways,
I could continue, well, no, it's.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Fine, just quickly, I just I don't care that they
won this game and everyone's like, hey, we got a
series now, blah blah blah. Like I fundamentally believe in
the law of averages, and I do not believe that
this Miami Heat team is the greatest shooting team in
NBA playoff history. I don't I don't see it, which
(16:17):
is why I'm not worried at all about Denver to
winning the series.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Here is the card for concern. I brought this up
before the series. This extra day off thing is significant, man,
Like you saw the Lakers wearing down, like that's an
exhaustive series. Lebron's oldest player in the league, oldest player
in the league, like as a factor. Anthony Davis obviously
was somehow still upright and took a young guy like
(16:39):
Austin Reeves to be instrumental for the Lakers. Well, now
Game three is I believe on the seventh, so that
would be Wednesday, extra day off for Miami. Rob there's
a world where Miami goes home, gets some home cooking
and they're up to one. Denver has not trailed in
a series in this postseason, and I'm very curious how
(17:03):
they respond. You know, it felt I think I might
have tweeted this out, but when Murray missed that three,
everybody looked like I thought it was going in. Everybody
was kind of like, whoa wait, it happened. Denver lost
at home, first playoff loss at home, and my first
reaction was, Drago is cut. If you remember when Rocky
(17:25):
versus Ivan Drago in Rocky four, one of my favorite
movies of all time. Rocky's just getting pummeled by him,
pummeled by him, pumble, and all of a sudden, Rocky
just comes back with this huge right boom and Drago's
like and he reaches and like touches his eye and
his cut and then announces like the Russian is cut,
like screaming it. And I was like, when you notice, like, okay,
(17:45):
it's game on. And it felt like that again, a
couple of reasons to think Miami's got a shot. I
think it was still fluky, So I'm gonna stick with Denver. Obviously,
I'm not changing my pick off off of fluky fourth quarter.
If you want to make a case for Miami, haven't
the Jimmy Butler game yet. I mean it's been a while,
maybe he is tired, maybe not have not seen the
Jimmy Butler game. And what happens if this Jimmy Butler
(18:11):
defending Jamal Murray thing becomes a thing. Murray I think
he was at ten shots heading into the fourth quarter
and then he kind of, you know, went off a little.
I think he had two threes and maybe he had
an assist. He had ten assists again, like Jamal Murray's
playing great basketball, but Jimmy Butler on him a little longer, tenacious.
(18:31):
Jimmy Butler is never gonna quit going through a screen.
I don't know who's rob who you got as a
second scorer when you go to Miami. Now again, I
know people say, hey, Jason, relax, we just watched the
Lakers series. Jamal Murray went off in La Okay. He
wasn't being guarded by Jimmy Butler. Like I don't know
(18:53):
who the second score is. If they're gonna say, Yokic
will give you forty plus and it ain't gonna be Jamal.
I mean, do you Aaron Gordon is not like reliable.
He'd give you eight to fifteen, eight to eighteen, eight
to twenty. Maybe KCP did not look He looked reluctant
to shoot, miss to lay three. Bruce Brown looked pretty good.
(19:13):
Maybe he's the guy by the way, he played more
minutes than MPG. And I'm not trying to start anything here.
I was a little surprised by not riding Porter Junior.
Why do you think he did that? Or was he
asked about a rob.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
No, But you know Michael Malone as candidate as he
normally is in the postgame. The one big SoundBite that
came out of Game two was him saying that we
have to, you know, talking about effort and the NBA Finals.
I should never have to talk about effort in an
NBA Finals game. That to me felt like I'm talking
specifically about one to two guys. In this case, I
would guess MPJ, but I'm not gonna call him out
(19:48):
by name because that wouldn't be cool. So I'm just
gonna say as a team or effort was there, because
I don't think you could watch that game in Game
two and say that Denver lost due to lack of effort.
I don't think that was it at all.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
So quick note on Michael Porter Junior. I'm looking at
the stat sheet. Michael Porter Junior is a kind of
guy who can either shoot threes, take you off the dribble.
He he'll jam on you. He's tough. Did not attempt
a free throw in the game against In game one,
he attempted too. In games Lakers two, three, four, he
(20:19):
attempted too. He's not attempting a ton of free throws,
but the mere fact that he's not getting to the
line and he's a damn good free throw shoot. That
would concern me a little bit, like is he settling
shooting forty four percent from the field thirty eight percent
from three eighty two from the line, Like the guy
can play. I don't remember any total defensive lapses. Oh,
(20:42):
by the way, for the heat fans who said we
only shot two free throws in the first game, they
attempted twenty. Ah, I called in them, called that was
it Scott Foster who was a ref?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
No, I don't think it was Scott Foster. Well, I
may have. I don't think so. I don't think so.
But come on, you know that you know how the
NBA works. This kind of thing is cyclical.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Fair Denver did eight nineteen to twenty two, So not
a a huge discrepancy there. But I'm just happy we
get like extra basketball, you know. I know Game four
looks like it's later for Friday night, not ideal for
the pod, but I guess this means we can just
you know, trickle in. Some guests start to talk some
football NBA off season stuff. I don't know, Rob, Like,
(21:23):
I wonder if the interest level goes up now that
Miami's hanging around from like casual fans, because I do
know coming up this next week is like a lot
of kids nationwide are getting out of school, people start
to go on vacations. I mean, hey, our men's league team, Rob, Hey,
we only had seven guys, and two of them weren't
even on the team. They just kind of showed up
when we invited them, like it's it's summers. Is a
(21:46):
little tough, even me getting back from Paris, by the way,
I know, I had to toss that in there again
because Rob just wants to make fun of me. But no,
Paris was awesome. I get back, try to go right
to the gym, get back in a routine, and I
got sick and I was not feeling good Thursday and Friday, Friday.
By the way, I'll just end on this, Rob, I
(22:07):
don't even know if you know this. So Cowherd was
supposed to return for the Herd Friday. That was the
plan all along, even while after I hosted Thursday, plan
was him to a host. So I didn't I didn't
like to spend time Thursday night thinking about the Herd
because it's like I'm not gonna host. I could get
ready in the morning, I wake up to do a
(22:29):
little workout. My phone rings at six thirty am. Hey,
Jake Cowherd, is flight got canceled like three times, we
need you to host. I mean it was I don't
I try not to panic a lot. I'm not good
at that I'm working on it. I was straight up nervous, like,
oh my gosh, I've got like no time to prepare.
(22:50):
I don't have any like strong. I didn't really have
an amazing takeoff game one because it was kind of
a crappy game and I needed like a lot And oh,
by the way, Alex Curry, who did the show with
me Thursday, she was just unavailable, like they hadn't planned
her to be in, and so it was me solo
for three hours. And I think there was like, you know,
(23:11):
I'm bearing this deep into the podcast. I think there
was some nerves on the staff like, oh geez, Jason's
got to do three hours of TV by himself, and
like after the initial oh my gosh, we're off, I
was just like, hey, let's get back up, getting back
on a bike. As Rob knows, he was my producer
(23:31):
when I had a three hour radio show for like
five years maybe six at Fox Sports Radio. Now there
was no TV element there, And this is a little
bit more of a sweat because you're on camera and
you have to be looking at the camera and be presentable,
and like you know, you're doing a radio show, you
could just kind of look at your computer the whole time.
Not the whole time, but you know what I'm saying.
And it was one of those like good challenging moments
(23:54):
kind of thrust into Now, Rob, I know you've had
to fill in like spotty in duty on the couple, right, Yeah,
where Broussard or Parker route. Initially it's a little nerve wracking,
then it's like exciting, like, oh, this is my show.
I got a chance to shine and spread my wings. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Absolutely, I think I guess the only difference between normally
when I'm well, the biggest difference is you're on TV.
That's a huge difference, Like you said, having to you know,
be looking at a camera and you're not like shuffling
through notes while you're talking, because you just can't do
that on TV like you can on radio. That's obviously
the biggest thing. But the other thing that helps me
is that because I'm producing the show, I kind of
(24:31):
already know what the topics are going to be anyways,
So I'm not flying blind as kind of as you are,
having to come in last minute and just really put
a show together. I will say I caught a little bit.
I didn't catch the whole thing of you on Friday.
It's a little shocking that you say that you had
nerves considering you set the Phoenix Suns fan base on
fire on Friday, and I'm getting tagged in tweets like
(24:52):
I had anything to do with it. I'm like, come on,
that's that's not that's not me.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Wait why because you're a Laker, because you're a late
number one Laker fan.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
No, because they know that I work with you, so
obviously you know I must be ok association.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I don't know if the audience cares, but that's fair. Uh.
They were even tagging a guy who goes on the
hurt Eddie Johnson, former Sons sharpshooter from like the eighties
or nineties, and they were like, Eddie, you've got to
rip this guy. And Eddie's like, I disagree. Obviously not toxic,
but now I can elaborate. We got the podcast, okay,
So I said, I don't want to get my words
(25:25):
wrong here. But essentially I said, and we talked about
it on the pod, like is it a good environment
in Phoenix? Nick Nurse could have picked any job he wanted.
He took the Sixers with the uncertainty of James Harden.
Monty Williams obviously was let go. Who was the other coat.
Frank Vogel is who they ended up hiring in Phoenix.
(25:46):
But Milwaukee's job was Phil first. Philly's job was Phil first.
Phoenix the job with Kevin Durant Devin Booker was Phil last.
And I just I you know, there be many many
reasons why. Maybe the new owner was cool with that,
and he had no problem waiting for Last. He wanted
(26:07):
to get his guy, we'll see. I like Frank Vogel
probably more than most people. But between the Devin Booker
and Chris Paul versus DeAndre Ayton, which is really a thing,
and you guys know this, it's a thing. Don't try
to act like it's nothing. Don't try to act like Frank.
Like Frank Vogel may come in and try tomend fences,
but I don't see that happening. They do not like him, guys.
(26:28):
His work ethic is not there Chris Paul, Devin Booker,
they're out. I'm not breaking any ground here. They don't
obviously listen, their teammates don't hate the guy. They're like,
they're not like I'm gonna not come to training camp
if he's on the roster, nothing like that. But they
know his work ethic. They've been on the team with
him now, Booker for many years and Chris Paul for
since he joined the team, Like they know what they got.
(26:50):
And then you have the Chris Paul situation looming with
his contract which is not fully guaranteed, much easier to move.
And let's be real, rest of the roster ain't great.
They got waxed by Denver, like I mean, embarrassed in
Game six at home. So when you add up last
job filled Kevin Durant saying back in Brooklyn with Kyrie,
(27:13):
and it wasn't just Kyrie who said it, Kevin Durant.
I listened to the video before I made this comment,
Kevin Durant, we don't need a coach. You can just
roll the ball out me Kyrie like okay. And oh,
by the way, the prospect of an eight and for
Kyrie trade, which has been flowed by mark Stein and
a lot of people. I mean, we've talked about it
here before, like there is so much happening there that
(27:35):
I would consider that toxic. Now, Rob, I'm sure that
people hear that word. It's strong. But I'll say I'll
tell you where I got the word. My son is
in a chess club and him and some other kids,
you know, hang out and I'm driving him around or whatever,
and they got kind of hooked on the word toxic
for several days and they keep using it and it
(27:56):
seemed like a good word to fit at the time.
And now go ahead and tell me I'm an idiot.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
No, I don't think you're I mean, I think toxic
is a strong word, but maybe a little bit. But
even still, I don't think you mentioned what would be
considered the quote unquote worst most toxic part of the
whole situation is the new owner. And that's the new
owner woaj who is the most plugged in NBA reporter,
(28:23):
you know, period point bank period reported At one point
during when Mani Williams first got fired quote Matt Ishbio
was fully taken over the franchises basketball operations. A few
different websites caught that they screen grabbed that specific sentence.
Next you know, he edits it and reposts it and
(28:44):
takes that sentence out. But as whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I I did not see this.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, that happens right when Monty Williams.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
So you're saying that the initial clip which is real
or was it ai which.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Is which is a real? In Woja's column about the firing,
and obviously he took it down. I'm assuming because look,
we don't Woja. He doesn't put things out there to
put him out there, so he must have got told
later they that sounds aggressive, that sounds a little bit
too strong. Please remove that, and as a favorite, hey,
(29:19):
I'll take it down. What I think the overall story still.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Totally ncapped, which is so let's be wrong, even Haines
to bolster your point, I think Hayden said, you know,
it's his run in the show, didn't consult with the
GM when he went to get Kevin Durrit, not that
he asked you that he's a billionaire. He bought the
team do.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Whatever that Chris Haynes reported that he wanted Isaiah Thomas
to come here. You remember, and these guys are are
reputable sources. They don't just throw stuff against the wall
like they're really good. And then last thing, Frank Volgel
gets the job. I'm happy for Frank. I think he's
a good coach. I think he's gonna do really well there.
But it's you notice in a few of these recaps
about why he was chosen, the word you kept seeing
(30:02):
was he's a collaborative guy, which is code for as
a few people pointed out. For pointed out when he
got the Lakers gig, it was you're keeping on this
assistant coach, Jason Kidd is your assistant if you get
the job, point blank period. Okay, the son say you're
keeping our lead assistant. We're gonna make him highest paid
assistant if you get this job, point blank period. So
(30:22):
what it reads to me is, Frank Vogel, we are
going to hire you. But don't get it twisted. Ownership
is running this thing. This is not you just coaching
the job. This is us overloading everything Jerry Jones style,
and you do the day to day stuff. But we're tech.
You know, we're the ones in charge, not you.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
It might not sound like an enviable gig to a
lot of people with that scenario. It's basically like your
boss hires you, but you're really hamstrung into who you
can bring in and what you can do. What the
bottom line is, he's coaching Kevin Durant and Devin Booker,
two of the best fifteen the fifteen to twelve players
in the league, and they were the NBA Finals favorite
(31:06):
for some time there. Vegas respects him. I mean, durantsid
all time great, Devin Booker's really really good. I don't know.
I mean, yeah, I think you take that job if
you're Frank Vogel, plus you want to rebound from the
toxicity that you experienced with Russell Westbrook and Lebron out
in LA. So I don't know. I don't really have
(31:30):
any regrets for using that phrase about the Suns, but
I get it. I mean all week, I literally did
not open social Twitter, you know him on the gram
after maybe like four o'clock on Friday Pacific time, I
like didn't open Twitter at all. I didn't do anything
on there. Nothing. It's like there's no games. I didn't
need to see who won the Dodgers Yankee series? Rob Yankees,
(31:53):
oh handily or close to two games. To one we'll taken. Yeah,
so yeah, I have, we got. We ended up getting
Yankees tickets here for damn. I thought it was coming up,
but I guess it's a little later. Maybe it's in July.
Very excited, try to go to a good Dodgers game
every year, but baseball is a tough sell in June,
(32:17):
you know. Anyways, all right, we rambled way too long
on a Monday. Talk to you guys tomorrow.
The volume. This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. What
is up Straight Fire, Ram. It's the Jason McIntyre Straight
Fire for Monday, June fifth. A wacky night in the NBA.
(00:26):
Some fluky stuff going on in the altitude at Denver.
The Miami Heat claw back into the series. A bit
of a shocker. We'll get to it shortly. But to
the those of you consuming this via video for the
first time, Yes, we are in video now on YouTube.
You know you're not used to the usual Monday podcast
and I like to open with a little, you know,
weekend happenings in the world of Jay mack as. I
(00:48):
like to, you know, brag about my recreational sports habit,
which my wife does not love and I love. So
I played in the soccer tournament. I basically do two
soccer tournaments a year, Parent tournaments, and we happen to
win the championship, which was really nice. I got an
assistant to the assistant general manager credit for roping in
a couple guys who ended up being integral to our team.
(01:09):
One of them was the MVP. We won three to
two in the championship. I wasn't really a factor in
the Championship. I had a bad game in the Semis,
but I did have a ridiculously nice back heel goal
in a nine to nothing drubbing of like some parents,
but at any rate. So I couldn't play in the
men's league because I was exhausted from soccer. Now I
gotta tell you I've been in the men's league out
(01:29):
here in Torrance and we won the championship two years ago,
went to the top level. We lost in the finals.
Very upset about it, so he recruited some new talent
to the squad. We had a guy who walked on
at Oregon State. He made his debuto, and we had
a guy who walked on an Oregon joined the team.
And you know, he's like twenty four years old. And
I know you think, of Jay, you're old. Why are
(01:50):
you playing with this guy? Here's the reason I like
to do NBA comps for all the guys on our team,
and we're on a text chain and they love it
when I make like, you know, this guy's Gordon Hey,
and this guy's who else did I have? I think
I had somebody was who's the guard buddy heel and
then someone else. You know, I like do these comparisons,
(02:10):
and instantly after the game, one of my buddies is
texting me from the from the team, Dude, who is
this guy's NBA com handle? Was insane? Totally controlling the game.
And my first thought was he's like a young Chris
Paul out there. I mean, he had the ball on
a string. The other team was so frustrated. And here's
the best part, and I'll get to the Nuggets Heat
game in a second. The best part is after the game.
(02:33):
The opposing team a big Herd fans, so like during
the game, they were talking to me because I just
went to watch the team, you know, new guys. I
wasn't playing, and they were talking to me on the
bench like they knew me. And I was just like, oh,
these guys are new Lee. I've never met him and
they watched The Herd regularly. So right after the game
they come up to me and they're like, dude, are
you gonna talk about this game tomorrow? I was like, ah,
(02:53):
I'll probably do that on the podcast, but probably not
on the Herd. And you know, we're leading this team
the whole time. By ten. They had some good they
had some good players, but it was more of like
my turn, your turn, A lot of one on one,
not a lot of team basketball, which is what we
thrive in. Screens, pick and move, pace, in space, all
that fun stuff, you know, nerdy old guys playing basketball.
(03:14):
And at one point they were one of their best
players basically comes to me on the bench and one
of my other guys and was like, we are playing
like the Minnesota Timberwolves. He was so frustrated that the
team was fouling and doing stupid stuff, and now you're
terminally bored. So let's get to Miami one to eleven,
Denver one oh eight. In Yes, a bit of a
shocker if you consider Miami made seventeen three pointers and
(03:36):
if not for a late miss by Jimmy Butler, it
would have been forty nine percent from three instead of
forty eight. That's not gonna happen every day, folks. Okay,
they got the consummate team effort and it was captured
in a video on well not a video, just a
screen grab. Are you ready for this? So Max Strews
remembers zero points over ten in Game one, rebounded with
(03:59):
fourteen points. I think he had two threes in the
first quarter, maybe three you're Duncan Robinson. I would consider
him the hero. Duncan Robinson a total non factor, the
kind of guy who you you kind of wonder, like,
how do you not have the book on Duncan Robinson
if you watched him in all the last three years.
He is basically a three point shooter. Yeah, he can
drive and sort of finish at the room, but that's
(04:20):
not what he wants to do because that's not his
skill set. They the Denver Nuggets, left him open for
at least three threes. No, maybe it was two and
it was, yeah, two threes in the fourth quarter. Denver
went into the fourth up eight, and you think, Okay,
Miami probably gonna get blown out because why why why?
In the previous two game two's the opponent from fatigue
(04:43):
at altitude with only one day off, that's key kind
of melted down. Phoenix lost Chris Paul late third quarter
and they got destroyed in the fourth. Even though they
had the lead, Denver just ran away and hit Game two.
Lakers were playing outstanding. Jamal Murray finds another level. I
think he had twenty three points of the fourth. Teams
get tired, Lakers got tired down the strest Lebron's on
(05:04):
attacking extra day off from Miami. They finished the quarter
with one of the most oh, let me get the
exact wording here, one of the most efficient fourth quarters
in the history of the NBA Finals. Eleven of sixteen
in the fourth quarter, thirty six points on a mere
twenty possessions. Let that sink it. Some of the calculator
(05:27):
crew went intallied. And that's like one hundred and eighty
nine one point eight nine points per possession, which is
basically ungodly in the NBA. And you take all that
into account. And this is no disrespect to the Heat.
They have a great coach. By the way, we'll get
to what happened with Spolstra and an ESPN reporter in
a minute. I don't think this is sustainable, and I
(05:47):
know it's like choke here. Rob G's gonna tell me, Hey,
the Heat are shooting from threes in the playoffs like
the KD and seph Warriors KT Steph claim remember those
guys against like the Rockets against the Spurs, Like that's
how good they're shooting for three in these playoffs. I'm
just telling you, I don't think they can do that.
(06:09):
Throughout the series. I don't think it's sustainable. It's just
not eleven of sixteen in the fourth, thirty six points
on twenty possessions, and yet Denver had a three to
tie Jamal Murray step back over Butler, and that's another subplot.
We'll get to front rim backboard. It was close, it
was online, look good. Murray kind of knew it wasn't
(06:31):
in after the first bounce. But Miami had a historically
great fourth quarter. Denver had a three to tie with
five seconds left. That's why this is not sustainable. I
mean I picked Denver in seven. Then I wanted to
readjust and say, maybe Denver in five or six, will
Miami get a game? I think that's a logical conclusion.
(06:51):
And all the Heat fans are gonna be like, well,
wait a wait to say we had seventeen threes. That's
just not sustainable. Anybody who watches basketball knows this. Now
let's get to point number one. I just got seven
minutes into the podcast, and I have not mentioned Nicola Jokic,
who was fuh phenomenal forty one points, eleven boards. Ah,
(07:12):
but this is key. Four assists, five turnovers. Jokic had
a tremendous game. However, the four assists he's getting like
double digit asists, he's averaging a trouble double in the playoffs.
What happened? Well, I guess the untrained eye before the
series said you got two options. You can let Nicola
(07:33):
Jokic go off as he did for I Believe fifty
three against Phoenix and a loss, or you can double
Jokic and not let him beat you the two time
MVP and say we dare you, Michael Porter Junior, we
dare you KCP to beat us and lo and behold.
Throughout the series. They've been doing that. Not no, sorry,
(07:54):
not the series, the playoffs, all the Denver other guys
have been delivered. Well, what happened here, Miami, And not
to simplify things for Spolstra again here it comes. But
twenty eight shots for Yolks, fifteen for Murray and a
lot were late when they were down and a flurry
to come back KCP four shots. So you're telling me,
(08:16):
Michael Porter Junior, who had another bad game, I'm not
gonna go in a lot of Nuggets fans are kind
of out on him. Minus fifteen and twenty six minutes
for MPJ I'm not out on him, but if he's
not playing great at home, I'm curious how he's gonna
do on the road. I digress. Jokis took twenty eight shots. Gordon,
MPJ Murray and Caldwell combined took thirty four four starters
(08:41):
thirty four shots, one starter, twenty eight. Now, Yokis was
great forty one points. I actually had a take that.
For the last few years, a Steph Curry three felt
like the most automatic shot in basketball. When Curry's taking
those threes, you feel like that's going in every time.
It feels like, as I watch Yokic in these playoffs,
(09:02):
Jokic in the painted area is automatic. He's throwing up
weird stuff. You're like, what is that and then boom,
boom boom. He's got that buttery soft touch. Everything bounces
in just absolutely tremendous. But if he's not hitting the
open guy, you know, fine, you can have forty one,
(09:22):
and you know, our great staff here came up with
the stats. In three games where Yokic has over forty points,
Denver is zero and three, three games for Yokic over
forty Denver own three, thirteen and one when he does
not score forty, so I think and I know that.
(09:44):
Now this is the spolstual moment with ESPN reporter Ramona
Shelbourne had asked, I know this is like a simple answer,
but the idea of letting Yokic eat and you know, uh,
hugging up the shooters not paraphrase what she said, but
that's essentially what she said, And almost immediately Spolster cut
(10:06):
her off and was like, no, no, that is like
the untrained eye will see something like that. Well, dude,
you can talk to any reporter you want. You can
talk to anybody who's watched the Nuggets for five minutes.
Like obviously Spolstra one of the best coaches in the league.
Let's be real, dude, You've got two options. You can
let Yokichi or you cannot let the other guys eat.
And they chose door number two and it kind of worked.
(10:30):
Now again, I don't think it's gonna work throughout the series.
I don't think they've solved Denver. I'm gonna remind everyone
Denver led by eight heading into the fourth Denver led
I think in the second by I've taken all these
Losory notes. During the game, they heat trailed by fifteen
in the second quarter before like a late run by
the way, Miami's bench was largely abysmal outside of dougle Robinson.
(10:53):
Of course high Smith. Remember how high Smith was supposed
to be a factor. You guys were telling me, Oh,
hig Smith, Highsmith, he could hang with Yokic minus seventeen
in six minutes. Caleb Martin, who's battling a flu apparently
was not feeling good, did not start twenty one minutes
one of three, but he hit a big three in
the fourth quarter. Ey guy's fearless. And then Cody Zeller
(11:15):
in eight minutes minus fourteen. So I don't know necessarily
that those two are playables. So you're gonna have to
ride a guy like Lowry who wasn't great until the
fourth quarter, and then just kind of go with the
hot hand like Kevin Love wasn't really making much did
it two threes? But here is a stat that I
saw on social media. Jimmy Butler, guy who I thought
(11:36):
would have a monster Game two breakout, he has now
gone under his point total in five straight games. Let's see,
they did win this one again. Fluky fourth quarter one
of the most efficient shooting quarters in the history of basketball.
We'll go with that. And then the other three were
(11:57):
Game seven when he did not go off, and Game
five and six when he basically was not doing well.
Jimmy Butler, I don't want to say's struggling, but this
is now five games in a row where he's shooting
I believe like thirty five percent. Is he getting tired?
I don't know, But does it matter. If Gabe, Vincent
and Max Strus combined to go eight for sixteen for
(12:17):
three and you trussed in two from Duncan and a
bomb from Kyle Lowry and Presto, you gotta won one series.
So I will add this. I thought Bam out of
Bio played great. He looks really good. I mean he
was struggling badly against Boston. He is, He's playing out
of his mind. Denver's gonna have to find something out
of Porter Junior and KCP. Both those guys had awful
games two of nine combined for three. Eric Gordon again
(12:39):
delivering for me on the prop front. So, by the way,
I know you guys care deeply about my pockets. Gordon
and Murray combined for thirty. I think they had like
forty something in Game one so that puts him in
the seventy range. I need like one hundred and twenty
seven from them. Now we're definitely going five games. I
(13:01):
think I won the NBA Player Points Pool after capturing
the College Basketball NCAA Tournament Player Points Pool. What can
you say, Rob, You know, this is what I do.
I like hoops, my first love as a kid with soccer.
Now it's been basketball for the longest time. Now, obviously
NFL number one to cover but and gamble on, but
(13:21):
I do love, love me some hoops. NBA playoffs. Listen,
I'm glad we got a series, aren't you.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, you know, the only thing I love more than
an extended NBA playoff series is hearing rich guys talk
about how they want more money gambling. That's like my
favorite thing in the whole world. Now, you know what
I think. You know, you and I disacrented a lot
of things, but I think you and Iron really lockstep
on this one. You mentioned that the Miami Heat, the
shooting that they had in that fourth quarter. You know,
(13:49):
it's even more impressive when you consider that in that
fourth quarter it was, from what I read, the slowest
paced fourth quarter of the postseason. Period, like they were
doing it on minimal possessions, no runouts. It was just
they were hitting everything in shot. I don't think they
missed a shot for the first half the quarter at least.
(14:12):
And to your point, though, is it sustainable? I don't
think it is. Like it's you don't go from the
twenty seventh ranked three point shooting team in the regular
season thirty four point four percent to thirty nine point
one percent in the playoffs, which, as you mentioned, is
(14:33):
higher than anything of the Steph KD Klay Thompson era,
which for my money, is not only arguably the greatest
team ever twenty seventeen, but the greatest collection of shooting
talent this league has ever seen.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Period.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I don't think that's not even argument. And these guys
are blowing them out of the water. And yet you're
getting a lot of people, especially the Heat supporters, who
are saying, well, this is just the testament to how
tough they are and Heat culture and Eric Spolstra and
and some of that's true. Spolstraw definitely give him a
ton of credit for what he's doing, you know, what
(15:07):
he's getting out of his guys, But a lot of
it is just Hey, they are in a zone that
we have never seen before from a team like this.
If this was you know, the Clippers who shot it
off during three from three during the regular season. If
it was the Warriors as we mentioned before, if it's
one of those teams Boston Celtics, you know they shot
(15:29):
great from three in the regular season, then hey, you're like, hey,
they're they're doing kind of what they always do. They've
always been great shooting. This is not who Miami is.
They are for whatever reason, like touched by an Angel,
I just don't.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Show you watch you did watch it? Oh my god.
My wife mocks me forever, mentioning it like I'm a
loser for because I watched it. Dude, that show was good. Anyways,
I could continue, well, no, it's.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Fine, just quickly, I just I don't care that they
won this game and everyone's like, hey, we got a
series now, blah blah blah. Like I fundamentally believe in
the law of averages, and I do not believe that
this Miami Heat team is the greatest shooting team in
NBA playoff history. I don't I don't see it, which
(16:17):
is why I'm not worried at all about Denver to
winning the series.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Here is the card for concern. I brought this up
before the series. This extra day off thing is significant, man,
Like you saw the Lakers wearing down, like that's an
exhaustive series. Lebron's oldest player in the league, oldest player
in the league, like as a factor. Anthony Davis obviously
was somehow still upright and took a young guy like
(16:39):
Austin Reeves to be instrumental for the Lakers. Well, now
Game three is I believe on the seventh, so that
would be Wednesday, extra day off for Miami. Rob there's
a world where Miami goes home, gets some home cooking
and they're up to one. Denver has not trailed in
a series in this postseason, and I'm very curious how
(17:03):
they respond. You know, it felt I think I might
have tweeted this out, but when Murray missed that three,
everybody looked like I thought it was going in. Everybody
was kind of like, whoa wait, it happened. Denver lost
at home, first playoff loss at home, and my first
reaction was, Drago is cut. If you remember when Rocky
(17:25):
versus Ivan Drago in Rocky four, one of my favorite
movies of all time. Rocky's just getting pummeled by him,
pummeled by him, pumble, and all of a sudden, Rocky
just comes back with this huge right boom and Drago's
like and he reaches and like touches his eye and
his cut and then announces like the Russian is cut,
like screaming it. And I was like, when you notice, like, okay,
(17:45):
it's game on. And it felt like that again, a
couple of reasons to think Miami's got a shot. I
think it was still fluky, So I'm gonna stick with Denver. Obviously,
I'm not changing my pick off off of fluky fourth quarter.
If you want to make a case for Miami, haven't
the Jimmy Butler game yet. I mean it's been a while,
maybe he is tired, maybe not have not seen the
Jimmy Butler game. And what happens if this Jimmy Butler
(18:11):
defending Jamal Murray thing becomes a thing. Murray I think
he was at ten shots heading into the fourth quarter
and then he kind of, you know, went off a little.
I think he had two threes and maybe he had
an assist. He had ten assists again, like Jamal Murray's
playing great basketball, but Jimmy Butler on him a little longer, tenacious.
(18:31):
Jimmy Butler is never gonna quit going through a screen.
I don't know who's rob who you got as a
second scorer when you go to Miami. Now again, I
know people say, hey, Jason, relax, we just watched the
Lakers series. Jamal Murray went off in La Okay. He
wasn't being guarded by Jimmy Butler. Like I don't know
(18:53):
who the second score is. If they're gonna say, Yokic
will give you forty plus and it ain't gonna be Jamal.
I mean, do you Aaron Gordon is not like reliable.
He'd give you eight to fifteen, eight to eighteen, eight
to twenty. Maybe KCP did not look He looked reluctant
to shoot, miss to lay three. Bruce Brown looked pretty good.
(19:13):
Maybe he's the guy by the way, he played more
minutes than MPG. And I'm not trying to start anything here.
I was a little surprised by not riding Porter Junior.
Why do you think he did that? Or was he
asked about a rob.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
No, But you know Michael Malone as candidate as he
normally is in the postgame. The one big SoundBite that
came out of Game two was him saying that we
have to, you know, talking about effort and the NBA Finals.
I should never have to talk about effort in an
NBA Finals game. That to me felt like I'm talking
specifically about one to two guys. In this case, I
would guess MPJ, but I'm not gonna call him out
(19:48):
by name because that wouldn't be cool. So I'm just
gonna say as a team or effort was there, because
I don't think you could watch that game in Game
two and say that Denver lost due to lack of effort.
I don't think that was it at all.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
So quick note on Michael Porter Junior. I'm looking at
the stat sheet. Michael Porter Junior is a kind of
guy who can either shoot threes, take you off the dribble.
He he'll jam on you. He's tough. Did not attempt
a free throw in the game against In game one,
he attempted too. In games Lakers two, three, four, he
(20:19):
attempted too. He's not attempting a ton of free throws,
but the mere fact that he's not getting to the
line and he's a damn good free throw shoot. That
would concern me a little bit, like is he settling
shooting forty four percent from the field thirty eight percent
from three eighty two from the line, Like the guy
can play. I don't remember any total defensive lapses. Oh,
(20:42):
by the way, for the heat fans who said we
only shot two free throws in the first game, they
attempted twenty. Ah, I called in them, called that was
it Scott Foster who was a ref?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
No, I don't think it was Scott Foster. Well, I
may have. I don't think so. I don't think so.
But come on, you know that you know how the
NBA works. This kind of thing is cyclical.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Fair Denver did eight nineteen to twenty two, So not
a a huge discrepancy there. But I'm just happy we
get like extra basketball, you know. I know Game four
looks like it's later for Friday night, not ideal for
the pod, but I guess this means we can just
you know, trickle in. Some guests start to talk some
football NBA off season stuff. I don't know, Rob, Like,
(21:23):
I wonder if the interest level goes up now that
Miami's hanging around from like casual fans, because I do
know coming up this next week is like a lot
of kids nationwide are getting out of school, people start
to go on vacations. I mean, hey, our men's league team, Rob, Hey,
we only had seven guys, and two of them weren't
even on the team. They just kind of showed up
when we invited them, like it's it's summers. Is a
(21:46):
little tough, even me getting back from Paris, by the way,
I know, I had to toss that in there again
because Rob just wants to make fun of me. But no,
Paris was awesome. I get back, try to go right
to the gym, get back in a routine, and I
got sick and I was not feeling good Thursday and Friday, Friday.
By the way, I'll just end on this, Rob, I
(22:07):
don't even know if you know this. So Cowherd was
supposed to return for the Herd Friday. That was the
plan all along, even while after I hosted Thursday, plan
was him to a host. So I didn't I didn't
like to spend time Thursday night thinking about the Herd
because it's like I'm not gonna host. I could get
ready in the morning, I wake up to do a
(22:29):
little workout. My phone rings at six thirty am. Hey,
Jake Cowherd, is flight got canceled like three times, we
need you to host. I mean it was I don't
I try not to panic a lot. I'm not good
at that I'm working on it. I was straight up nervous, like,
oh my gosh, I've got like no time to prepare.
(22:50):
I don't have any like strong. I didn't really have
an amazing takeoff game one because it was kind of
a crappy game and I needed like a lot And oh,
by the way, Alex Curry, who did the show with
me Thursday, she was just unavailable, like they hadn't planned
her to be in, and so it was me solo
for three hours. And I think there was like, you know,
(23:11):
I'm bearing this deep into the podcast. I think there
was some nerves on the staff like, oh geez, Jason's
got to do three hours of TV by himself, and
like after the initial oh my gosh, we're off, I
was just like, hey, let's get back up, getting back
on a bike. As Rob knows, he was my producer
(23:31):
when I had a three hour radio show for like
five years maybe six at Fox Sports Radio. Now there
was no TV element there, And this is a little
bit more of a sweat because you're on camera and
you have to be looking at the camera and be presentable,
and like you know, you're doing a radio show, you
could just kind of look at your computer the whole time.
Not the whole time, but you know what I'm saying.
And it was one of those like good challenging moments
(23:54):
kind of thrust into Now, Rob, I know you've had
to fill in like spotty in duty on the couple, right, Yeah,
where Broussard or Parker route. Initially it's a little nerve wracking,
then it's like exciting, like, oh, this is my show.
I got a chance to shine and spread my wings. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Absolutely, I think I guess the only difference between normally
when I'm well, the biggest difference is you're on TV.
That's a huge difference, Like you said, having to you know,
be looking at a camera and you're not like shuffling
through notes while you're talking, because you just can't do
that on TV like you can on radio. That's obviously
the biggest thing. But the other thing that helps me
is that because I'm producing the show, I kind of
(24:31):
already know what the topics are going to be anyways,
So I'm not flying blind as kind of as you are,
having to come in last minute and just really put
a show together. I will say I caught a little bit.
I didn't catch the whole thing of you on Friday.
It's a little shocking that you say that you had
nerves considering you set the Phoenix Suns fan base on
fire on Friday, and I'm getting tagged in tweets like
(24:52):
I had anything to do with it. I'm like, come on,
that's that's not that's not me.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Wait why because you're a Laker, because you're a late
number one Laker fan.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
No, because they know that I work with you, so
obviously you know I must be ok association.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I don't know if the audience cares, but that's fair. Uh.
They were even tagging a guy who goes on the
hurt Eddie Johnson, former Sons sharpshooter from like the eighties
or nineties, and they were like, Eddie, you've got to
rip this guy. And Eddie's like, I disagree. Obviously not toxic,
but now I can elaborate. We got the podcast, okay,
So I said, I don't want to get my words
(25:25):
wrong here. But essentially I said, and we talked about
it on the pod, like is it a good environment
in Phoenix? Nick Nurse could have picked any job he wanted.
He took the Sixers with the uncertainty of James Harden.
Monty Williams obviously was let go. Who was the other coat.
Frank Vogel is who they ended up hiring in Phoenix.
(25:46):
But Milwaukee's job was Phil first. Philly's job was Phil first.
Phoenix the job with Kevin Durant Devin Booker was Phil last.
And I just I you know, there be many many
reasons why. Maybe the new owner was cool with that,
and he had no problem waiting for Last. He wanted
(26:07):
to get his guy, we'll see. I like Frank Vogel
probably more than most people. But between the Devin Booker
and Chris Paul versus DeAndre Ayton, which is really a thing,
and you guys know this, it's a thing. Don't try
to act like it's nothing. Don't try to act like Frank.
Like Frank Vogel may come in and try tomend fences,
but I don't see that happening. They do not like him, guys.
(26:28):
His work ethic is not there Chris Paul, Devin Booker,
they're out. I'm not breaking any ground here. They don't
obviously listen, their teammates don't hate the guy. They're like,
they're not like I'm gonna not come to training camp
if he's on the roster, nothing like that. But they
know his work ethic. They've been on the team with
him now, Booker for many years and Chris Paul for
since he joined the team, Like they know what they got.
(26:50):
And then you have the Chris Paul situation looming with
his contract which is not fully guaranteed, much easier to move.
And let's be real, rest of the roster ain't great.
They got waxed by Denver, like I mean, embarrassed in
Game six at home. So when you add up last
job filled Kevin Durant saying back in Brooklyn with Kyrie,
(27:13):
and it wasn't just Kyrie who said it, Kevin Durant.
I listened to the video before I made this comment,
Kevin Durant, we don't need a coach. You can just
roll the ball out me Kyrie like okay. And oh,
by the way, the prospect of an eight and for
Kyrie trade, which has been flowed by mark Stein and
a lot of people. I mean, we've talked about it
here before, like there is so much happening there that
(27:35):
I would consider that toxic. Now, Rob, I'm sure that
people hear that word. It's strong. But I'll say I'll
tell you where I got the word. My son is
in a chess club and him and some other kids,
you know, hang out and I'm driving him around or whatever,
and they got kind of hooked on the word toxic
for several days and they keep using it and it
(27:56):
seemed like a good word to fit at the time.
And now go ahead and tell me I'm an idiot.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
No, I don't think you're I mean, I think toxic
is a strong word, but maybe a little bit. But
even still, I don't think you mentioned what would be
considered the quote unquote worst most toxic part of the
whole situation is the new owner. And that's the new
owner woaj who is the most plugged in NBA reporter,
(28:23):
you know, period point bank period reported At one point
during when Mani Williams first got fired quote Matt Ishbio
was fully taken over the franchises basketball operations. A few
different websites caught that they screen grabbed that specific sentence.
Next you know, he edits it and reposts it and
(28:44):
takes that sentence out. But as whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I I did not see this.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, that happens right when Monty Williams.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
So you're saying that the initial clip which is real
or was it ai which.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Is which is a real? In Woja's column about the firing,
and obviously he took it down. I'm assuming because look,
we don't Woja. He doesn't put things out there to
put him out there, so he must have got told
later they that sounds aggressive, that sounds a little bit
too strong. Please remove that, and as a favorite, hey,
(29:19):
I'll take it down. What I think the overall story still.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Totally ncapped, which is so let's be wrong, even Haines
to bolster your point, I think Hayden said, you know,
it's his run in the show, didn't consult with the
GM when he went to get Kevin Durrit, not that
he asked you that he's a billionaire. He bought the
team do.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Whatever that Chris Haynes reported that he wanted Isaiah Thomas
to come here. You remember, and these guys are are
reputable sources. They don't just throw stuff against the wall
like they're really good. And then last thing, Frank Volgel
gets the job. I'm happy for Frank. I think he's
a good coach. I think he's gonna do really well there.
But it's you notice in a few of these recaps
about why he was chosen, the word you kept seeing
(30:02):
was he's a collaborative guy, which is code for as
a few people pointed out. For pointed out when he
got the Lakers gig, it was you're keeping on this
assistant coach, Jason Kidd is your assistant if you get
the job, point blank period. Okay, the son say you're
keeping our lead assistant. We're gonna make him highest paid
assistant if you get this job, point blank period. So
(30:22):
what it reads to me is, Frank Vogel, we are
going to hire you. But don't get it twisted. Ownership
is running this thing. This is not you just coaching
the job. This is us overloading everything Jerry Jones style,
and you do the day to day stuff. But we're tech.
You know, we're the ones in charge, not you.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
It might not sound like an enviable gig to a
lot of people with that scenario. It's basically like your
boss hires you, but you're really hamstrung into who you
can bring in and what you can do. What the
bottom line is, he's coaching Kevin Durant and Devin Booker,
two of the best fifteen the fifteen to twelve players
in the league, and they were the NBA Finals favorite
(31:06):
for some time there. Vegas respects him. I mean, durantsid
all time great, Devin Booker's really really good. I don't know.
I mean, yeah, I think you take that job if
you're Frank Vogel, plus you want to rebound from the
toxicity that you experienced with Russell Westbrook and Lebron out
in LA. So I don't know. I don't really have
(31:30):
any regrets for using that phrase about the Suns, but
I get it. I mean all week, I literally did
not open social Twitter, you know him on the gram
after maybe like four o'clock on Friday Pacific time, I
like didn't open Twitter at all. I didn't do anything
on there. Nothing. It's like there's no games. I didn't
need to see who won the Dodgers Yankee series? Rob Yankees,
(31:53):
oh handily or close to two games. To one we'll taken. Yeah,
so yeah, I have, we got. We ended up getting
Yankees tickets here for damn. I thought it was coming up,
but I guess it's a little later. Maybe it's in July.
Very excited, try to go to a good Dodgers game
every year, but baseball is a tough sell in June,
(32:17):
you know. Anyways, all right, we rambled way too long
on a Monday. Talk to you guys tomorrow.
Host
Jason McIntyre
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