March 25, 2025 • 24 mins
On today's episode, Jason reacts to another loss by the Lakers and breaks down why they still don't have too much to worry about. Jason gives his thoughts on the current state of USA Soccer. Plus, Jason gives a look inside his bets for the Sweet Sixteen!
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is straight fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
What is up? Straight fire? Fam, It's me Jason McIntyre.
Straight fire for Tuesday, March the twenty fifth. Oh boy,
it is not a great Tuesday. Just a lot of
negative news right out the gate. Not a great way
to start the day. Not good at all. Obviously. The
Juju Watkins loss for college basketball is big. Injured, her
(00:33):
knee carried off the court. I mean, listen, I know
Paige Buckers of Yukon is a superstar. I mean, Juju
Watkins is like face of the sport level stuff page
is obviously spectacular. But Juju Watkins is a huge loss
to the women's NCAA tournament, carrying the torture and USC
are awesome and without her, it's a tough go. And
(00:54):
it just sucks to see a superstar go down like that.
Just not great. And then we've got the Lakers losing
in Orlan, know of all places, like goodness, gracious, I
don't even know what to make of it. Before I
fully dig into sports, I do need to quickly talk
about USA soccer. People are getting a little worked up.
(01:14):
I will say I honestly did not look at any
NFL news just because there's so much other stuff happening.
We'll talk about NFL with the draft coming up. I
just I did not watch a ton of USA Panama
and USA Canada the third place game. But let me
just quickly, because you guys know, I'm a big soccer guy.
We are owners of a soccer team in Mexico, so
(01:36):
I follow the sport closely. I'm watching the Cox every week.
We did just lose the leading score in the league
to a bad head injury, and it looks like he's
probably done for that. It's just terrible news, awful. So
I'm watching a lot of soccer, and when I tuned
in to the condensed version of USA Panama, I just
(01:57):
saw a team that, like no fire, didn't really know
what they were doing. It looked like a lot of
newness out there. And I don't want to overreact because Potchatino,
he's only been there for like five minutes. Okay, I
doubt he even knows everybody's name yet. And we're at
the stage where it's like, okay, hey, we've got this
(02:19):
this grace period. Everybody's gonna know what's going on and
get on the same page. And here's the identity of
the team and here's how we're going to operate, and
that takes some time, and they haven't had a lot
of time together. And then I was reminded by somebody
in the soccer world, Aja, the World Cup is in
like fifteen months. I was like, oh, shoot, shucks, you're right,
(02:39):
and it almost there's almost vibes of hey, do you
remember the Democratic Party kept propping up Joe Biden and
kept proppinghim up until they couldn't do it anymore, and
then they had to let him go. And then they
put in what's her name? I can't believe I'm spacing
on her name, but anyways, and they decided we're gonna
have her run for president. It was just like, what,
(03:00):
why did you do this so late? And it cost
them dearly. It was a bad move, and I almost
wonder if they waited too long to get rid of
the old coach and bring in the new guy. Like
I know, there's still fifteen months, but with club seasons
and guys not fully healthy and not totally fit, it's like,
when is he going to get all the guys on
(03:22):
the same page. Let me be clear, we are better
than Panama at soccer. We are better than Mexico at soccer.
Right now, the US is undeniably Canada is gaining ground.
We're still better than them. Now. I know we didn't
beat Panama Canada. Obviously, it's not the end of the world.
I don't think it's a huge regression. My only concern
(03:44):
is that it only is a fifteen month window to
get ready and there's not a lot of margin for
error when you're hosting the damn World Cup in the
summer at twenty six Now, a lot of my friends
in la are all geeked is. They're like, dude, you
rent out your house for top dollar because people around
the world are coming. And I was like, oh, we're
not doing that, and people are excited to go to games.
(04:08):
And I'm like, when you host the World Cup, you
gotta show up, you gotta win games, you gotta advance.
And I've gone on record that we are a quarterfinal
or semifinal worthy team. And I know you guys are
laughing hearing this. Oh Jay, you're freaking clueless. No shot,
we can't hang with that. Netherlands, the England, the Brazil, Argentina,
we can't hang it. We can't and we will on
(04:29):
our home turf. We just we need to get our
act together. And I will just add this, if you
guys remember that hockey. I don't even know what it was,
that all Star Face of Nations, whatever it was called.
I think it was in February, and it was just
as a lot of political upheaval was starting and it
(04:49):
became a Canada versus the US thing. I'm gonna go
ahead and say this, the US, due to some new policies,
are rankling some of our neighbors and friends, and currently
Panama and Canada don't seem thrilled with us. And I
just wonder if some of that was extra motivation the
way it was in hockey, just a little bit, and
(05:12):
we didn't rise to that occasion to match that. And
all I know is put your tino, bro. You gotta
clean this up. You don't have a ton of time,
but let's get it together, all right. I just did
five minutes on soccer. Robbie's not here, so he can't
yell at me. He's what is he gonna do? Day
four of his six weeks sabbatical for paternity leave. Man.
(05:34):
I did remind him that I did not get anything
close to six weeks back when my kids were born.
I guess that says maybe that I'm just old.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
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Speaker 2 (05:53):
All right, let's quickly go what we want to do? Do
we want to go NBA? Yeah, let's go NBA. Because
the Lakers, on the heels of a bed pooping against
the Chicago Bulls at home Saturday night, went to Orlando Monday.
They won the first quarter there, I think minus one
and a half. They won the first quarter by four,
(06:13):
and then as they are wont to do, kind of
sort of fell apart coming out of the locker room.
They were blasted in the third quarter thirty four eighteen,
got it close in the fourth and could not get
over the hump, and they take a double digit loss
to the Orlando Magic. Now Orlando's been reeling. This was
their starting back court, Corey Joseph and KCP, but it
(06:33):
didn't matter because Paulo Bankko went bonkers. Franz Wagner had
thirty two, and Anthony Black, the young kid out of
Arkansas only twenty one. Top ten pick in twenty twenty three.
He looked pretty good and Lebron backed him down and scored,
and Black was very angry. I was like, Oh, this
guy's got he's got a chip on his shoulder. We
(06:54):
had seventeen six and five off the bench and the Lakers, folks,
this is the story for this second game in a row.
The defense did not They could not get any stops.
On the matter, Luca had a solid game thirty two,
seven and seven. Lebron missed all his threes, but he
was twenty four eight and six. Austin Reeves eighteen six
and four, Drian Finney Smith had fourteen and seven. Ruey
(07:16):
hatchimor not back yet. And it's pretty clear that the
team is just kind of sort of floundering when it
comes to what are we doing defensively? Now, they did
go through a I believe it was a twenty two
game stretch where the Lakers had the best defense in
the league. And if you were saying, well, wait a minute,
that's just twenty two games. It's not really a representative
(07:37):
sample size. Okay, fine, but you need to keep that
same energy for the Lakers, who for the last two
games have not played well. Like two games verse twenty two.
I think the Lakers are going to be fine. It's
just that these are games that they kind of sort
of have to win because the upcoming schedule it's not
exactly favorable. And I'll tell you why. It kind of matters.
(07:59):
And I know some people are going to write this
offl Jay, Come on, who cares. It's March, folks. We're
down to eleven games left in the season. You know,
the Lakers get heavy opponents late in the season because
they're made for television. They're at Indiana Wednesday, they will
come out breathing fire. JJ Riddick was angry. I think
they'll win that first quarter. Then they get a revenge
(08:21):
spot Thursday and a back to back against the Bulls.
Do they play their guys or sit them and save
them for Memphis? A game Saturday that matters a lot
more in Memphis, I should add in Memphis, Memphis is
reeling itself and after that big game at home against
the Houston Rockets next Monday, that is a huge one,
(08:41):
followed by Warriors, Pelicans, OKC, OKC Dallas which got back
Anthony Davison one last night, Houston and Portland. So the
Lakers have two against Houston, two against OKC, Dallas, Memphis,
and Golden State. A rigorous test for sure, a stretch,
no doubt. That being said, plenty of opportunities for the
(09:04):
Lakers to gain ground. This is what's going down right now.
OKC is number one in the West. That's undeniable. They
will get the hot top seed, but it is a
dog fight for two, three, four and home court advantage.
Currently Houston, which ended up taking an l last night,
who they lose to. Uh no, no, I'm sorry they
lost Sunday night. Houston did so. Houston is second in
(09:26):
the West, the Nuggets are third, Lakers are fourth, Grizzlies
are five, Warriors six, and there isn't a lot of space.
If I told you the Lakers at four were sixteen
games back in the West, the Clippers and Timberwolves are
seven and eight at nineteen games back. So there, it's
(09:47):
possible the Lakers could fall to the play in I
don't anticipate it, but it's in play. It could happen.
I mean, I don't think it will, but folks like
why not? Lakers could if they don't get their act
together defensively. Could Now, this is an interesting development. The
Denver Nuggets played another game without Nicole Jokiz. This is
five miss games. I did read the stat that this
(10:09):
is the most consecutive games he's missed in his career.
And when you're in a fight, a dog fight for
the two seed in the playoffs, you know you'll getch
You're thinking he'd played through anything. This must be a
legit injury. Jah Moran also dinged up. If the Grizzlies
want to have any shot, they need him. He seems
to be hurt a lot, and so the West is
(10:32):
kind of sort of influx. You've got Steph Curry with
the pelvic thing, although it sounds like he's gonna go
tonight in the in the big game against the Heat.
Jimmy Butler's return to Miami. The side note, do you
think Jimmy Butler gets booed because of the way he
left or cheered? He did take a small jabb at
Heat culture, saying it's a little overrated. He did that yesterday.
(10:53):
I don't know how that's gonna go over He did
take the Heat to the finals twice in the bubble
against the Lakers and then later against the Nuggets. Yeah,
Nuggets Remeber. They took down the Celtics. So getting Miami
to the finals twice is a pretty damn great accomplishment
for Jimmy Butler. I would think he'd be applauded, But
at the end, he did not want to play. He
(11:14):
wanted out. Now you could argue, hey, Jay, he wanted
out because the Heat didn't want to pay him all
the money. Okay, that's fair. Why did they want to
pay him because he's on the older side and this
is a bunch of games, Like Okay, I understood that.
That being said, very interested to see if Butler gets
boot I would guess it's sixty forty cheering, maybe seventy thirty.
(11:36):
I mean, it's Jimmy Butler. You know, he's done a
lot for the franchise. Let's you know, it's like a
relationship you got, you got five great years together. The
last six months are painful. You need that like cooling
off period afterwards to realize, yeah, we had a great
run that just the end kind of sucked. So ultimately,
I think Jimmy Butler got to a good spot in
Golden State and they're pretty dangerous. But if I'm the Lakers,
(11:59):
I absolutely do everything in my power to get to
the three seed if Houston Clinton too. Now, Houston, I
think the site is yet tankathon. They do like NFL
Draft order, and they have NBA as well. They have
NBA whereas it. Yeah, they have the strength of schedule
(12:24):
and currently they also have lottery stuff. Currently, Washington, Utah,
and Charlotte are all in the mix fourteen percent in
the Cooper Flag sweepstakes. Obviously, I floated Washington a while ago.
I think that would be pretty good for the league.
You'd love it if Washington were good. They haven't been
good in forever. Utah. I know Dwayne Wade's open for
(12:47):
him in Utah because he bought into that franchise. I
don't Utah really like anybody. You can be good in Utah.
I just I don't know. And then Charlotte, where some
people are like, hey, LaMelo ball and Cooper Flag, that's
a show that could be true. New Orleans looking at
for Philly at five now, that would be fascinating if
(13:08):
Philly jumped up trust the process. Hey we got Cooper Flag,
Joel Embiid, Paul George, and Tyrese Maxey. That's a hell
of a team. And that's I get Technically it's in
play for Philadelphia. They could land Cooper Flag. I don't
expect them to, but it certainly seems like the Sixers
(13:29):
are doing everything in their power to wind up with
a good shot at Cooper Flag. Now regarding remaining strength
of schedule, toughest schedule left in the league. Oh those
poor Phoenix Suns. Oh boy, toughest schedule by a mile.
They still have two against Boston, two against Milwaukee, one
against OKC, Houston, Nicks and Warriors. That is lethal. I'm
(13:53):
looking for. Minnesota has a very favorable schedule. They only
have nine games left, so there's a chance they get
out of the play. But at the top, so it's
Phoenix with the toughest, Detroit second, San Antonio third, poor
Weebin Yama. The Lakers are four. That's not great. So
you have the fourth toughest schedule the rest of the way,
you're trying to catch Houston. You've got Lebron coming off
(14:15):
an injury, you still have Ruy Hatchiemore out. This is
not great. Now they have the offense, but the defense
just not showing up whatsoever. Kind of sort of scares
me and not gonna lie. I'm a little worried about
the Lakers falling to seven. However, if the Rockets get two,
(14:37):
it's not the worst thing in the world to be
the seventh seed. The only problem is you still have
to play the seven eight game, and you know, you
turn an ankle whatever, and you lose that, then you're
really screwed and then you got to play. You don't
want to play. Okay, see first round. I'm not afraid
of them, but you don't want to play in first
round after playing two play in games, right, If you're
(14:57):
the seven and you lose, then you're in this have
an eight game to get the eight seed. So if
I'm the Lakers, I definitely got to wrap this up.
And you know, I'm definitely worried for Luca and Lebron.
And it's weird I'm saying that because I've been bullish
on them going to the Western Conference Finals. At the minimum,
(15:20):
I think they're NBA Finals team. I just we just
got to quickly get this stuff together. Lebron coming off
the injury did not look sharp. Austin Reeves figuring out
how to work with I mean, they scored sixty in
the first half, but all of a sudden, once again
second half, the bottom falls out and it's like we
can't stop a nosebleed. Dalton connect barely playing Rui five
(15:42):
points off the bench, Missus two threes. Dory Finney Smith
is playing well and he's their best defender. But again,
I'm not pushing the panic button for the Lakers. I
know some others are. Obviously, you want to win that game.
It was kind of sort of important, and they drop
it to Orland. So now they got Indiana, and I'm
just I know you guys haven't paid attention to Indiana.
(16:04):
I came into the season saying I think the Pacers
are one of the most dangerous teams in the league.
Would not shock me if they were back in the conference. Fine, Indy,
currently fourth in the East, would face the Bucks in
the first round. I would pick Indy in that series.
And I'll just remind you guys, and I know it's
a Pacers and nobody really cares. They play hard and
(16:24):
they can go really fast up and down the court
because they have great depth. Ben Shephard has done well
off the bench, Ben Matheren Aaronnie Smith, the former Celtic.
I think they've got good depth. Guys. Remember if Siakam
Turner Halliburton. They play all player their level. Then you've
(16:47):
got Obi toppin coming in TJ McConnell like they got dudes.
This is a dangerous Pacers team. I will be betting
the Lakers first quarter on Wednesday in a very big
bounce back spot.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
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Speaker 2 (17:13):
I thought we'd wrap up quickly taking a look at
the Sweet sixteen once again because I did a bunch
of homework sement on my picks already. Yes, in a
nod to Matthew McConaughey in Two for the Money. If
you haven't seen it, call it up on Amazon, Prime, Netflix, whatever.
It's a great gambling move. It's not great, Okay, I'll
(17:33):
rescind that it's a good gambling movie. Pacino and Matthew McConaughey.
Rene Russo is in it looking very nice. I'm a fan.
And he was running super hot with his gambling picks
and got cocky and decided, oh I'm I'm gonna go golfing.
(17:54):
I'm not gonna grind anymore. And Pacino's like, bro, I
need your picks. What are you talking about. He's like, oh, yeah,
you want my picks? All right, here we go. Here's
my picks, and if you want them for next week,
I'll give him to you tomorrow. So he was giving
out like NFL picks over a week in advance, and
that's when he starts to go downhill, obviously. And I
know it's a little early given out sweet sixteen picks
because there's a lot of work left to be done.
(18:15):
But that duke line is rising. It is up to
nine against Arizona. Yesterday we talked about it. I had
eight and a half. Now listen, I'm going to close
with a I don't know that this is a dumb bet,
but just hear me out. So the NFL, you can
do teasers where you tease through the key numbers of
(18:35):
three and seven. So if let's just say the Texans
are a seven and a half point dog to the Chiefs,
I will tease the Chiefs from seven and a half
down to six point teaser down to one and a half.
So they got a win by two under a field goal.
Because the key numbers in the NFL very clearly are
three for field goals and seven for touchdowns, and on
(18:58):
a lesser scale six becoming a key number eight, but
not as I think it was something like twenty eight
percent of games landed on three or seven last some
ridiculous number. Maybe not that high. Don't call me on it,
but I don't have it in front of me. I'm
not an NFL season right now. And teasing makes sense.
You take two teams, you tease them through the key numbers.
It's called a long teaser. You guys have known this
(19:19):
for years. In basketball, teasing is kind of dumb. There's
no really key numbers. I guess you could argue one, two,
and three. But you know how basketball is. It's so
high variance, with so many possessions. You know, you guy
gets hot from three and it's everything's blown up. So
(19:40):
people don't normally tease in basketball. I think it's kind
of frowned upon, but much like in the NFL, where
it's like, hey, don't bet double digit favorites now, actually
you can you pick your spots. You're all right, So
tell me what you think of this. I talked about
it with my buddy, so you could do a six
(20:00):
and a half point teaser with the four number one seeds. Okay,
you take Duke now it was eight and a half,
you take them down to two. Now it's nine to
two and a half. So they got them by three,
but Duke eight and a half to two, Florida from
six to Basically they just have to win the game.
Auburn minus eight down to one and a half and
(20:20):
Houston minus eight down to one and a half. Tell
me which one of those teams blows the fourteam teaser. Okay,
if you look at the net rating stat which is
everybody knows net rating, Ken Palm has it. According to
net Rating, Duke is far and away number one. In fact,
they're the best I think this century, followed closely well.
(20:45):
Duke is at thirty nine, Houston is thirty five point eight,
Florida's thirty five point six, Auburn is thirty four point nine.
Then there's a gap down to thirty one for Tennessee.
So it's very clear those four number one seeds according
at rating. And again it's not all about analytics, I know,
but analytics matter a lot of folks. Those four teams
(21:08):
are the clear best four in the country. I'm trying
to make a case for Duke losing other than Caleb
Love going nuclear, I don't see it now. Arizona did
face Duke earlier this year. We talked about it. Yesterday.
Duke Duke beat him in Arizona by double digits. Florida,
is there some concern against the crab five of Maryland?
Will certainly yeah. I mean, listen, Marylyn's got they got
(21:31):
a good starting five. Now they have zero depth. Meanwhile,
Florida has four guys six or nine or bigger to
throw at the kid queen who hit the game winner.
So I think the Gators, I think they're good. And
sometimes you have this major scare, you overcome it and
it gets you on a roll and you go to
the championship of the final four. Keep that in mind.
I think Maryland's going to be gassed up all week.
When you hit a buzzer beater, you're the toast of
(21:52):
the town. Everybody loves you. I like Florida in that spot,
especially teased. Then you've got Auburn, and I know I've
gone against Michigan twice. I'm doing it again. I'm just
telling you, Auburn just has so many weapons. I don't
know who it's gonna be. IS's gonna be Broom, It's
gonna be Petiford. And I saw this Chad Baker Mazara,
the kind of the hot head on the team. He's
twenty five years old, twenty five, He's really good. Auber
(22:16):
just has too many weapons for Michigan. And I know you, guys, Jason,
be careful. Michigan blah blah blah, not buying it. And
then Houston, they're probably in the most dangerous spot because,
as we noted yesterday, Purdue is playing in Indianapolis, Indiana.
I could do a quick google, but I'm pretty sure
that Purdue. How far is Purdue? Sixty six miles there?
(22:39):
There we go, so it's about an hour. Okay, you
don't think that a bunch of Perdue fans are gonna
be like, yo, let's pull up and take down Houston.
But Purdue, who they beat High Point in mcnee's like,
come on, I think Houston's got this. I like their
backcourt a lot. I think Crier and Milos are gonna
be way too tough for Braden Smith. And again, Hoon
(23:00):
just has to win by two. Auburn has to win
by two. Florida just has to win by one. Duke
has to win by three, and Duke is formidable, So
I like that as a bet. I'll also be money
line parlaying the four number ones. It's possible that one
of them goes down. But I don't know, guys, I
just think those four are are in good shape, and
(23:23):
I don't I don't love any of the dogs there.
I just think Purdue situationally is in decent shape, and
that would that's the one that probably scares me the most.
Purdue against Houston, but Prdue can't handle pressure. They never
can their guards. Like I mean again, McNeese and high Point,
they jumped out on McNeice early and that was lights out.
McNees was still celebrating that the boombox guy. They were
(23:49):
just way too geeked from that win over Clemson and
now that was a bad read that they would have
any chance in that one. So anyways, that's that's my
big play for the Sweet sixteen. And I just found
out I don't know why schools do this, but like
back to school night is during the Sweet sixteen, and
I'm like, why would they do that? So I told
my kids, like, guys, I don't think I can make
(24:11):
it do. I really need to go see your artwork
in class because like, I gotta watch this. Dude gave Yeah,
these games got a big deal. But anyways, all right,
that's it for Monday. Potentially good guests lined up tomorrow,
very excited for that. We'll talk to you then
This is straight fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
What is up? Straight fire? Fam, It's me Jason McIntyre.
Straight fire for Tuesday, March the twenty fifth. Oh boy,
it is not a great Tuesday. Just a lot of
negative news right out the gate. Not a great way
to start the day. Not good at all. Obviously. The
Juju Watkins loss for college basketball is big. Injured, her
(00:33):
knee carried off the court. I mean, listen, I know
Paige Buckers of Yukon is a superstar. I mean, Juju
Watkins is like face of the sport level stuff page
is obviously spectacular. But Juju Watkins is a huge loss
to the women's NCAA tournament, carrying the torture and USC
are awesome and without her, it's a tough go. And
(00:54):
it just sucks to see a superstar go down like that.
Just not great. And then we've got the Lakers losing
in Orlan, know of all places, like goodness, gracious, I
don't even know what to make of it. Before I
fully dig into sports, I do need to quickly talk
about USA soccer. People are getting a little worked up.
(01:14):
I will say I honestly did not look at any
NFL news just because there's so much other stuff happening.
We'll talk about NFL with the draft coming up. I
just I did not watch a ton of USA Panama
and USA Canada the third place game. But let me
just quickly, because you guys know, I'm a big soccer guy.
We are owners of a soccer team in Mexico, so
(01:36):
I follow the sport closely. I'm watching the Cox every week.
We did just lose the leading score in the league
to a bad head injury, and it looks like he's
probably done for that. It's just terrible news, awful. So
I'm watching a lot of soccer, and when I tuned
in to the condensed version of USA Panama, I just
(01:57):
saw a team that, like no fire, didn't really know
what they were doing. It looked like a lot of
newness out there. And I don't want to overreact because Potchatino,
he's only been there for like five minutes. Okay, I
doubt he even knows everybody's name yet. And we're at
the stage where it's like, okay, hey, we've got this
(02:19):
this grace period. Everybody's gonna know what's going on and
get on the same page. And here's the identity of
the team and here's how we're going to operate, and
that takes some time, and they haven't had a lot
of time together. And then I was reminded by somebody
in the soccer world, Aja, the World Cup is in
like fifteen months. I was like, oh, shoot, shucks, you're right,
(02:39):
and it almost there's almost vibes of hey, do you
remember the Democratic Party kept propping up Joe Biden and
kept proppinghim up until they couldn't do it anymore, and
then they had to let him go. And then they
put in what's her name? I can't believe I'm spacing
on her name, but anyways, and they decided we're gonna
have her run for president. It was just like, what,
(03:00):
why did you do this so late? And it cost
them dearly. It was a bad move, and I almost
wonder if they waited too long to get rid of
the old coach and bring in the new guy. Like
I know, there's still fifteen months, but with club seasons
and guys not fully healthy and not totally fit, it's like,
when is he going to get all the guys on
(03:22):
the same page. Let me be clear, we are better
than Panama at soccer. We are better than Mexico at soccer.
Right now, the US is undeniably Canada is gaining ground.
We're still better than them. Now. I know we didn't
beat Panama Canada. Obviously, it's not the end of the world.
I don't think it's a huge regression. My only concern
(03:44):
is that it only is a fifteen month window to
get ready and there's not a lot of margin for
error when you're hosting the damn World Cup in the
summer at twenty six Now, a lot of my friends
in la are all geeked is. They're like, dude, you
rent out your house for top dollar because people around
the world are coming. And I was like, oh, we're
not doing that, and people are excited to go to games.
(04:08):
And I'm like, when you host the World Cup, you
gotta show up, you gotta win games, you gotta advance.
And I've gone on record that we are a quarterfinal
or semifinal worthy team. And I know you guys are
laughing hearing this. Oh Jay, you're freaking clueless. No shot,
we can't hang with that. Netherlands, the England, the Brazil, Argentina,
we can't hang it. We can't and we will on
(04:29):
our home turf. We just we need to get our
act together. And I will just add this, if you
guys remember that hockey. I don't even know what it was,
that all Star Face of Nations, whatever it was called.
I think it was in February, and it was just
as a lot of political upheaval was starting and it
(04:49):
became a Canada versus the US thing. I'm gonna go
ahead and say this, the US, due to some new policies,
are rankling some of our neighbors and friends, and currently
Panama and Canada don't seem thrilled with us. And I
just wonder if some of that was extra motivation the
way it was in hockey, just a little bit, and
(05:12):
we didn't rise to that occasion to match that. And
all I know is put your tino, bro. You gotta
clean this up. You don't have a ton of time,
but let's get it together, all right. I just did
five minutes on soccer. Robbie's not here, so he can't
yell at me. He's what is he gonna do? Day
four of his six weeks sabbatical for paternity leave. Man.
(05:34):
I did remind him that I did not get anything
close to six weeks back when my kids were born.
I guess that says maybe that I'm just old.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
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Speaker 2 (05:53):
All right, let's quickly go what we want to do? Do
we want to go NBA? Yeah, let's go NBA. Because
the Lakers, on the heels of a bed pooping against
the Chicago Bulls at home Saturday night, went to Orlando Monday.
They won the first quarter there, I think minus one
and a half. They won the first quarter by four,
(06:13):
and then as they are wont to do, kind of
sort of fell apart coming out of the locker room.
They were blasted in the third quarter thirty four eighteen,
got it close in the fourth and could not get
over the hump, and they take a double digit loss
to the Orlando Magic. Now Orlando's been reeling. This was
their starting back court, Corey Joseph and KCP, but it
(06:33):
didn't matter because Paulo Bankko went bonkers. Franz Wagner had
thirty two, and Anthony Black, the young kid out of
Arkansas only twenty one. Top ten pick in twenty twenty three.
He looked pretty good and Lebron backed him down and scored,
and Black was very angry. I was like, Oh, this
guy's got he's got a chip on his shoulder. We
(06:54):
had seventeen six and five off the bench and the Lakers, folks,
this is the story for this second game in a row.
The defense did not They could not get any stops.
On the matter, Luca had a solid game thirty two,
seven and seven. Lebron missed all his threes, but he
was twenty four eight and six. Austin Reeves eighteen six
and four, Drian Finney Smith had fourteen and seven. Ruey
(07:16):
hatchimor not back yet. And it's pretty clear that the
team is just kind of sort of floundering when it
comes to what are we doing defensively? Now, they did
go through a I believe it was a twenty two
game stretch where the Lakers had the best defense in
the league. And if you were saying, well, wait a minute,
that's just twenty two games. It's not really a representative
(07:37):
sample size. Okay, fine, but you need to keep that
same energy for the Lakers, who for the last two
games have not played well. Like two games verse twenty two.
I think the Lakers are going to be fine. It's
just that these are games that they kind of sort
of have to win because the upcoming schedule it's not
exactly favorable. And I'll tell you why. It kind of matters.
(07:59):
And I know some people are going to write this
offl Jay, Come on, who cares. It's March, folks. We're
down to eleven games left in the season. You know,
the Lakers get heavy opponents late in the season because
they're made for television. They're at Indiana Wednesday, they will
come out breathing fire. JJ Riddick was angry. I think
they'll win that first quarter. Then they get a revenge
(08:21):
spot Thursday and a back to back against the Bulls.
Do they play their guys or sit them and save
them for Memphis? A game Saturday that matters a lot
more in Memphis, I should add in Memphis, Memphis is
reeling itself and after that big game at home against
the Houston Rockets next Monday, that is a huge one,
(08:41):
followed by Warriors, Pelicans, OKC, OKC Dallas which got back
Anthony Davison one last night, Houston and Portland. So the
Lakers have two against Houston, two against OKC, Dallas, Memphis,
and Golden State. A rigorous test for sure, a stretch,
no doubt. That being said, plenty of opportunities for the
(09:04):
Lakers to gain ground. This is what's going down right now.
OKC is number one in the West. That's undeniable. They
will get the hot top seed, but it is a
dog fight for two, three, four and home court advantage.
Currently Houston, which ended up taking an l last night,
who they lose to. Uh no, no, I'm sorry they
lost Sunday night. Houston did so. Houston is second in
(09:26):
the West, the Nuggets are third, Lakers are fourth, Grizzlies
are five, Warriors six, and there isn't a lot of space.
If I told you the Lakers at four were sixteen
games back in the West, the Clippers and Timberwolves are
seven and eight at nineteen games back. So there, it's
(09:47):
possible the Lakers could fall to the play in I
don't anticipate it, but it's in play. It could happen.
I mean, I don't think it will, but folks like
why not? Lakers could if they don't get their act
together defensively. Could Now, this is an interesting development. The
Denver Nuggets played another game without Nicole Jokiz. This is
five miss games. I did read the stat that this
(10:09):
is the most consecutive games he's missed in his career.
And when you're in a fight, a dog fight for
the two seed in the playoffs, you know you'll getch
You're thinking he'd played through anything. This must be a
legit injury. Jah Moran also dinged up. If the Grizzlies
want to have any shot, they need him. He seems
to be hurt a lot, and so the West is
(10:32):
kind of sort of influx. You've got Steph Curry with
the pelvic thing, although it sounds like he's gonna go
tonight in the in the big game against the Heat.
Jimmy Butler's return to Miami. The side note, do you
think Jimmy Butler gets booed because of the way he
left or cheered? He did take a small jabb at
Heat culture, saying it's a little overrated. He did that yesterday.
(10:53):
I don't know how that's gonna go over He did
take the Heat to the finals twice in the bubble
against the Lakers and then later against the Nuggets. Yeah,
Nuggets Remeber. They took down the Celtics. So getting Miami
to the finals twice is a pretty damn great accomplishment
for Jimmy Butler. I would think he'd be applauded, But
at the end, he did not want to play. He
(11:14):
wanted out. Now you could argue, hey, Jay, he wanted
out because the Heat didn't want to pay him all
the money. Okay, that's fair. Why did they want to
pay him because he's on the older side and this
is a bunch of games, Like Okay, I understood that.
That being said, very interested to see if Butler gets
boot I would guess it's sixty forty cheering, maybe seventy thirty.
(11:36):
I mean, it's Jimmy Butler. You know, he's done a
lot for the franchise. Let's you know, it's like a
relationship you got, you got five great years together. The
last six months are painful. You need that like cooling
off period afterwards to realize, yeah, we had a great
run that just the end kind of sucked. So ultimately,
I think Jimmy Butler got to a good spot in
Golden State and they're pretty dangerous. But if I'm the Lakers,
(11:59):
I absolutely do everything in my power to get to
the three seed if Houston Clinton too. Now, Houston, I
think the site is yet tankathon. They do like NFL
Draft order, and they have NBA as well. They have
NBA whereas it. Yeah, they have the strength of schedule
(12:24):
and currently they also have lottery stuff. Currently, Washington, Utah,
and Charlotte are all in the mix fourteen percent in
the Cooper Flag sweepstakes. Obviously, I floated Washington a while ago.
I think that would be pretty good for the league.
You'd love it if Washington were good. They haven't been
good in forever. Utah. I know Dwayne Wade's open for
(12:47):
him in Utah because he bought into that franchise. I
don't Utah really like anybody. You can be good in Utah.
I just I don't know. And then Charlotte, where some
people are like, hey, LaMelo ball and Cooper Flag, that's
a show that could be true. New Orleans looking at
for Philly at five now, that would be fascinating if
(13:08):
Philly jumped up trust the process. Hey we got Cooper Flag,
Joel Embiid, Paul George, and Tyrese Maxey. That's a hell
of a team. And that's I get Technically it's in
play for Philadelphia. They could land Cooper Flag. I don't
expect them to, but it certainly seems like the Sixers
(13:29):
are doing everything in their power to wind up with
a good shot at Cooper Flag. Now regarding remaining strength
of schedule, toughest schedule left in the league. Oh those
poor Phoenix Suns. Oh boy, toughest schedule by a mile.
They still have two against Boston, two against Milwaukee, one
against OKC, Houston, Nicks and Warriors. That is lethal. I'm
(13:53):
looking for. Minnesota has a very favorable schedule. They only
have nine games left, so there's a chance they get
out of the play. But at the top, so it's
Phoenix with the toughest, Detroit second, San Antonio third, poor
Weebin Yama. The Lakers are four. That's not great. So
you have the fourth toughest schedule the rest of the way,
you're trying to catch Houston. You've got Lebron coming off
(14:15):
an injury, you still have Ruy Hatchiemore out. This is
not great. Now they have the offense, but the defense
just not showing up whatsoever. Kind of sort of scares
me and not gonna lie. I'm a little worried about
the Lakers falling to seven. However, if the Rockets get two,
(14:37):
it's not the worst thing in the world to be
the seventh seed. The only problem is you still have
to play the seven eight game, and you know, you
turn an ankle whatever, and you lose that, then you're
really screwed and then you got to play. You don't
want to play. Okay, see first round. I'm not afraid
of them, but you don't want to play in first
round after playing two play in games, right, If you're
(14:57):
the seven and you lose, then you're in this have
an eight game to get the eight seed. So if
I'm the Lakers, I definitely got to wrap this up.
And you know, I'm definitely worried for Luca and Lebron.
And it's weird I'm saying that because I've been bullish
on them going to the Western Conference Finals. At the minimum,
(15:20):
I think they're NBA Finals team. I just we just
got to quickly get this stuff together. Lebron coming off
the injury did not look sharp. Austin Reeves figuring out
how to work with I mean, they scored sixty in
the first half, but all of a sudden, once again
second half, the bottom falls out and it's like we
can't stop a nosebleed. Dalton connect barely playing Rui five
(15:42):
points off the bench, Missus two threes. Dory Finney Smith
is playing well and he's their best defender. But again,
I'm not pushing the panic button for the Lakers. I
know some others are. Obviously, you want to win that game.
It was kind of sort of important, and they drop
it to Orland. So now they got Indiana, and I'm
just I know you guys haven't paid attention to Indiana.
(16:04):
I came into the season saying I think the Pacers
are one of the most dangerous teams in the league.
Would not shock me if they were back in the conference. Fine, Indy,
currently fourth in the East, would face the Bucks in
the first round. I would pick Indy in that series.
And I'll just remind you guys, and I know it's
a Pacers and nobody really cares. They play hard and
(16:24):
they can go really fast up and down the court
because they have great depth. Ben Shephard has done well
off the bench, Ben Matheren Aaronnie Smith, the former Celtic.
I think they've got good depth. Guys. Remember if Siakam
Turner Halliburton. They play all player their level. Then you've
(16:47):
got Obi toppin coming in TJ McConnell like they got dudes.
This is a dangerous Pacers team. I will be betting
the Lakers first quarter on Wednesday in a very big
bounce back spot.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I thought we'd wrap up quickly taking a look at
the Sweet sixteen once again because I did a bunch
of homework sement on my picks already. Yes, in a
nod to Matthew McConaughey in Two for the Money. If
you haven't seen it, call it up on Amazon, Prime, Netflix, whatever.
It's a great gambling move. It's not great, Okay, I'll
(17:33):
rescind that it's a good gambling movie. Pacino and Matthew McConaughey.
Rene Russo is in it looking very nice. I'm a fan.
And he was running super hot with his gambling picks
and got cocky and decided, oh I'm I'm gonna go golfing.
(17:54):
I'm not gonna grind anymore. And Pacino's like, bro, I
need your picks. What are you talking about. He's like, oh, yeah,
you want my picks? All right, here we go. Here's
my picks, and if you want them for next week,
I'll give him to you tomorrow. So he was giving
out like NFL picks over a week in advance, and
that's when he starts to go downhill, obviously. And I
know it's a little early given out sweet sixteen picks
because there's a lot of work left to be done.
(18:15):
But that duke line is rising. It is up to
nine against Arizona. Yesterday we talked about it. I had
eight and a half. Now listen, I'm going to close
with a I don't know that this is a dumb bet,
but just hear me out. So the NFL, you can
do teasers where you tease through the key numbers of
(18:35):
three and seven. So if let's just say the Texans
are a seven and a half point dog to the Chiefs,
I will tease the Chiefs from seven and a half
down to six point teaser down to one and a half.
So they got a win by two under a field goal.
Because the key numbers in the NFL very clearly are
three for field goals and seven for touchdowns, and on
(18:58):
a lesser scale six becoming a key number eight, but
not as I think it was something like twenty eight
percent of games landed on three or seven last some
ridiculous number. Maybe not that high. Don't call me on it,
but I don't have it in front of me. I'm
not an NFL season right now. And teasing makes sense.
You take two teams, you tease them through the key numbers.
It's called a long teaser. You guys have known this
(19:19):
for years. In basketball, teasing is kind of dumb. There's
no really key numbers. I guess you could argue one, two,
and three. But you know how basketball is. It's so
high variance, with so many possessions. You know, you guy
gets hot from three and it's everything's blown up. So
(19:40):
people don't normally tease in basketball. I think it's kind
of frowned upon, but much like in the NFL, where
it's like, hey, don't bet double digit favorites now, actually
you can you pick your spots. You're all right, So
tell me what you think of this. I talked about
it with my buddy, so you could do a six
(20:00):
and a half point teaser with the four number one seeds. Okay,
you take Duke now it was eight and a half,
you take them down to two. Now it's nine to
two and a half. So they got them by three,
but Duke eight and a half to two, Florida from
six to Basically they just have to win the game.
Auburn minus eight down to one and a half and
(20:20):
Houston minus eight down to one and a half. Tell
me which one of those teams blows the fourteam teaser. Okay,
if you look at the net rating stat which is
everybody knows net rating, Ken Palm has it. According to
net Rating, Duke is far and away number one. In fact,
they're the best I think this century, followed closely well.
(20:45):
Duke is at thirty nine, Houston is thirty five point eight,
Florida's thirty five point six, Auburn is thirty four point nine.
Then there's a gap down to thirty one for Tennessee.
So it's very clear those four number one seeds according
at rating. And again it's not all about analytics, I know,
but analytics matter a lot of folks. Those four teams
(21:08):
are the clear best four in the country. I'm trying
to make a case for Duke losing other than Caleb
Love going nuclear, I don't see it now. Arizona did
face Duke earlier this year. We talked about it. Yesterday.
Duke Duke beat him in Arizona by double digits. Florida,
is there some concern against the crab five of Maryland?
Will certainly yeah. I mean, listen, Marylyn's got they got
(21:31):
a good starting five. Now they have zero depth. Meanwhile,
Florida has four guys six or nine or bigger to
throw at the kid queen who hit the game winner.
So I think the Gators, I think they're good. And
sometimes you have this major scare, you overcome it and
it gets you on a roll and you go to
the championship of the final four. Keep that in mind.
I think Maryland's going to be gassed up all week.
When you hit a buzzer beater, you're the toast of
(21:52):
the town. Everybody loves you. I like Florida in that spot,
especially teased. Then you've got Auburn, and I know I've
gone against Michigan twice. I'm doing it again. I'm just
telling you, Auburn just has so many weapons. I don't
know who it's gonna be. IS's gonna be Broom, It's
gonna be Petiford. And I saw this Chad Baker Mazara,
the kind of the hot head on the team. He's
twenty five years old, twenty five, He's really good. Auber
(22:16):
just has too many weapons for Michigan. And I know you, guys, Jason,
be careful. Michigan blah blah blah, not buying it. And
then Houston, they're probably in the most dangerous spot because,
as we noted yesterday, Purdue is playing in Indianapolis, Indiana.
I could do a quick google, but I'm pretty sure
that Purdue. How far is Purdue? Sixty six miles there?
(22:39):
There we go, so it's about an hour. Okay, you
don't think that a bunch of Perdue fans are gonna
be like, yo, let's pull up and take down Houston.
But Purdue, who they beat High Point in mcnee's like,
come on, I think Houston's got this. I like their
backcourt a lot. I think Crier and Milos are gonna
be way too tough for Braden Smith. And again, Hoon
(23:00):
just has to win by two. Auburn has to win
by two. Florida just has to win by one. Duke
has to win by three, and Duke is formidable, So
I like that as a bet. I'll also be money
line parlaying the four number ones. It's possible that one
of them goes down. But I don't know, guys, I
just think those four are are in good shape, and
(23:23):
I don't I don't love any of the dogs there.
I just think Purdue situationally is in decent shape, and
that would that's the one that probably scares me the most.
Purdue against Houston, but Prdue can't handle pressure. They never
can their guards. Like I mean again, McNeese and high Point,
they jumped out on McNeice early and that was lights out.
McNees was still celebrating that the boombox guy. They were
(23:49):
just way too geeked from that win over Clemson and
now that was a bad read that they would have
any chance in that one. So anyways, that's that's my
big play for the Sweet sixteen. And I just found
out I don't know why schools do this, but like
back to school night is during the Sweet sixteen, and
I'm like, why would they do that? So I told
my kids, like, guys, I don't think I can make
(24:11):
it do. I really need to go see your artwork
in class because like, I gotta watch this. Dude gave Yeah,
these games got a big deal. But anyways, all right,
that's it for Monday. Potentially good guests lined up tomorrow,
very excited for that. We'll talk to you then
Fox Sports Radio News
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Jonas Knox
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