April 4, 2025 • 22 mins
On today's episode, Jason recaps the huge matchup (that he was in attendance for) between the Lakers and Warriors, and Jason explains why the Warriors have now become the worst potential playoff matchup for the Lakers. Jason gives his thoughts on Luka Doncic's struggles, but points out some bright spots for the Lakers. Jason breaks down how the Warriors have returned to championship-contending level. Plus, Jason gives out his bets for both Final Four games!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
What is up Straight Fire Family. It's me Jason McIntyre,
Straight Buyer for Friday, April of fourth. Oh my goodness,
what a thriller last night in the NBA. Lakers won sixteen,
Warriors won twenty three. I was there buddy who as
he's in tickets and VI to me and another buddy
(00:31):
of ours. We went and I don't know, guys, Oh
my goodness. I don't want to start the podcast on
too much of a down note, but man, that was
a brutal loss for the Lakers. We'll obviously dig into that.
Maybe we'll just do the whole podcast on that game.
I mean, I know, Jannis went for thirty five, twenty
assists and seventeen rebounds against the Philadelphia Top Sixers. That's
(00:56):
what their new nickname is. Apparently not the seventy six
ers anymore. They're the Tops because they need to keep
their top six picks. So they've been losing and losing
and losing anyways, all right, So yeah, you know what,
We'll save best bets for the end of the podcast
with the final four Duke Houston and Auburn, Florida. By
(01:17):
the way, joh john A Broom, Johnny not Johnny, mister Broom.
We'll just call him that. How's that. Mister Broom practiced
in full on Thursday, met with the media, said he's
going to be one hundred percent. He will play, so
we can remove all that. The line did not change
for what it's worth, all right, we'll get the best
bets at the end of the podcast. And as crappy
(01:39):
as it sounds, and this is honest, guys. I don't
totally gamble on baseball though. I saw my buddy at
the Lakers game and he's like, dude, I started betting
the Dodgers money line.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
It was like, oh, how they do tonight? And that
was last night and he's like, well, they didn't play,
so I bet the yank he said they won. So
I mean, listen, it's a favorites kind of year, right,
Maybe that's maybe that's a move, just money line rollover
bets on the Dodgers every night. I don't know, you know,
because after March Madness, I don't pack up my shop
and go home. I still will bet some NBA, but
(02:09):
not a lot. I just I don't really gamble on
baseball too many games you know, just too much that
goes into it. It's just I can't, so I just
you know, keep my powder drive.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Though.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
There'll be some nice cashing out to be done here,
and I do have to go to go back to
Vegas cash the ticket. It's been a nice little run here,
although if the Lakers don't make the finals or the
Western Conference finals, I might have to rescind all that. Anyways,
let's get to that Laker game real quick. Warriors one
twenty three Lakers one sixteen. We'll start with the obvious.
(02:42):
The Lakers had beaten the Warriors three times this season.
Anthony Davis on the Lakers was a cheat code against
the Golden State Warriors. They had zero answer for him.
He would eat inside if you're interested. They played on Christmas.
That was the game. I think Austin ree said the
game winner. That's right, Anthony Davis got hurt in that one.
(03:03):
Lebron had thirty one, Austin Reeves had twenty six. Dalton
connect at thirteen, Max Christie starting play scored sixteen points.
That was a game that Yeah, Austin Reeds sat the
game winner. Warriors lost by two. So that was their
first meeting. Let's see second meeting was at the end
of January. Lakers rolled and Anthony Davis had thirty six points.
(03:28):
But again Andrew Wiggins was the leading scorer for the worst.
Game three early February, Lakers win by eight. Lebron had
forty two points forty two. Let's see, Anthony Davis did
not play in that, nor did Luca don Chic, but
(03:49):
the Lakers won anyway. So bottom line, the Lakers had
been rolling over the Warriors this season, and then the
Jimmy Butler trade happened, and Golden State's a totally different
team they are now when Curry and Butler plate nineteen
and two. Now, this is not really about Jimmy Butler
because he was not a huge factor on Thursday night.
He had eleven points, four boards, three steals. You know,
(04:09):
he played. He played good defense, obviously because that's his
calling card. He made a couple free throws late, he
had three steel like, you know, a non scoring Jimmy
Butler game. But without Anthony Davis, the Lakers had no
rim protection and the Warriors eight inside big time. And
then not only did they eat inside, but they hit
(04:30):
nineteen threes and nineteen and forty two. Is forty five
percent from deep. That's ridiculous. Now, I know Lakers fans
are gonna be calling into radio shows very angry today.
We need to get this, we need to change this.
This isn't gonna work. Luka, Doncic is lazy, blah blah blah.
The reality is Brandon Podzemski, the young kid, hit eight threes.
(04:55):
Not only did he just hit eight threes, he was
eight of ten from three eighty percent. Okay, Steph Curry
was four of eleven. Brandon Podzemski a career high eight threes. Folks,
that is a one off, unicorn kind of night for
Brandon Podzemski. He's never gonna hit eight threes in a
(05:16):
game again, especially not against the Lakers. Now, this is
what's interesting. Jonathan Kuminga played a hell of a game
coming off the bench eighteen and nine and four assists
made to three basically in Lebron's eye. Lebron was like,
I'll give you that. I actually said in my seat, oh,
we'll give you that, and then he hit it. But
the Warriors could not miss from deep. What really irked
(05:38):
me was they seemed to be hustling for every loose
ball they got fourteen offensive rebounds. The Lakers grabbed fourteen
to two, but it felt like the Lakers were grabbing
a lot of them in the second half when they
were in catch up mode because they were getting buried.
But it just it looks like all of a sudden, Listen,
the Lakers are a better team with Luca than Anthony Davis,
(05:59):
but not against the Golden State Warriors, at least based
on last night's performance, the Lakers have work to do.
And listen, obviously, you know, you can spin it any
way you want. Hey, this is not the worst loss
in the world because the Lakers were humbled at home
this You know, I've been to like, I don't know,
five Laker games this season. They won all of them
except for this one, and so it was one of
(06:19):
those games where it's like, oh, okay, all right, we're
not gonna steam all the West. We're not a lock
for the number three seed. Our bench isn't great. During
Phinney Smith oh for five on threes, gave Vincent one
for five, so one for eleven on threes, tossing Jared
Vanderbilt's corner three miss, and it's like you get nothing
from your bench. You played Lebron and Austin Reevees forty minutes.
(06:40):
Luca played his worst game with the Lakers, and I'll
go off on Luca. Don't worry, listen, I keep it real. Guys.
You know that I'm a Luca guy. Throw and through.
I just got a Luca T shirt this week, or
to the game last night, I'm a Luca fan. He
had his worst game with the Lakers, undeniably last night.
Technical foul, complaining, now back on defense, hands on his knee.
I actually thought he was sick in like the third quarter.
(07:02):
I'm like, he must be ill. He's not even trying.
And don't say that's the normal Luca. No, no, no,
he was getting cooked. Now, after the game, credit to Luca,
came out and said this performance by me is unacceptable.
So he's taking blame, which is good. Again, the scary
thing is Podzemski carried them early, just hit three after three.
I think he had nine in the first quarter, nine points.
(07:25):
He had a buzzer beating like half court three that
was banked in, huge, and then down the stretch he
had another big three. The kid had the game of
his life. Now, I don't think any of that is
can be duplicated. Can Curry go off again, certainly? Can
Jimmy Butler up his game? Definitely, But Jimmy Butler upping
his game is different from eight threes from Podzemsky. Okay,
(07:47):
So let's not totally panic Lakers fans. That being said,
I would definitely say that the Golden State Warriors are
not a great matchup for the Lakers. I thought it
would be vice versa because I've seen the Lakers steamroll
them in the last couple of years, even despite the
Anthony Davis trade. Without Davis, I mean, the Warriors ran
some great sets, They got amazing looks, they hustled better
(08:08):
on the offensive glass, and the lack of Anthony Davis
really really showed up in this one. It may and
other games. I thought Jackson Hayes would have a good game.
He had zero touch around the rim. He didn't want
to shoot it in close. It's like, bro, what lay
it up? Just toss it off the glass. You're the
biggest guy out there. He was a complete non factor
(08:29):
in fifteen minutes, and the Lakers, I don't think they
want to see. I'm going to readjust my rankings the teams.
The Lakers do not want to see in the playoffs.
I'm gonna put the Golden State Warriors one. I will
put Nicola Jokic two, and then the OKC Thunder three.
That's my new hierarchy of who I don't want to
see in the playoffs.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
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 fs are
to listen.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Live now the positives for the Lakers. Austin Reeves was
in frickin credible nine threes, thirty one points. He kept
the Lakers in the game, no doubt about it. Lebron
was pretty fantastic thirty three, nine assists, five rebounds, hit
five threes, eight of nine free throws. Had a very
(09:20):
very good game, very good game. Luka, Doncis let the
Lakers down. I didn't realize Ruey had twenty four. You know,
he had a coup, a couple of timely threes, and
had some dunks, awful easy Lebron passes. It was a
quiet twenty four, if that's possible. But what killed the
Lakers was their bench. And this is where I need
to criticize JJ Reddick for a moment. So I have
(09:43):
said numerous times how good JJ Reddick is. I think
he's been a phenomenal coach. I thought I was Coach
of the Year this year. He's pushed all the right buttons.
I love the rotations. I've loved everything. And for some reason,
I didn't like the fact that he had Dalton Connect
play zero minutes. Now I had to ask my buddies, like,
(10:04):
why is he in the doghouse? Is he heard? Is
he what's going on? And nobody had an answer. Now,
I did then call up Dalton Connect's game log, and
in recent weeks he ain't playing much. He had a
stretch when Reeves and Lebron were hurt. He had thirty
two against Denver, he had thirteen against San Antonio, twelve
(10:24):
against Denver, seventeen against Milwaukee. Since that game, he's played
seven minutes, five minutes, five minutes, twelve minutes, five minutes,
four minutes. That's it. And he played zero in a
high level game. Now, maybe it's that he's a rookie,
maybe it's that he doesn't offer much defensively, but I'll
say this, the Lakers kept getting open threes. I mean,
(10:48):
the Warriors made a pretty clear decision. Hey, we know
gave Vince again get hot. We're gonna play the averages
and gave Vincent had good looks. Doroyan Finney Smith he
also had good looks, Jared. They're not guarding those guys.
Luca missed his, and it's like, you watch these guys
missing shots. You saw the Warriors go zone twice. Now
it looked like a one to three one again. I
(11:08):
don't know the telecast on, so I don't exactly know
what it was, but it appeared to be some sort
of one three one zone. And my instant thought is
against the zone. You need a zone buster. Get Dalton
connect on the freaking court. What are we doing? And again, listen,
I'm not saying Dalton Connects a complete game changer, but
watching Podzemski splash threes right and the Warriors hit nineteen, Hey,
(11:33):
you got to match fire with fire. I would have
played Dalton Connects certainly more. Goodwin comes in and is
an energy guy and hustles. He had a couple steals,
but again, not a shot. The Warriors are going to
respect and he's not a scorer. And so when the
Lakers bench gives you three, four or five, six, seven
points and the Warriors bench gives you eighteen to eight
(11:58):
twenty six to seven. They were outscored. I mean Kuminga
alone doubled up the Lakers bench, So it's like, you
just can't have that happen. But again, this is one game.
Obviously I hyped it up. I thought it was one
of the biggest games of the regular season. So now
let me adjust the playoff situation for you in the West.
The Lakers now fall half a game behind Denver. They've
(12:21):
played one fewer game for the three. You don't want
the four seed because right now it looks like as
Memphis did. Despite Memphis reeling, they did win last night,
four five, six, in some order, is gonna be Lakers, Warriors, Grizzlies.
That's what it appears to be. And I say that
(12:41):
because I mean, I guess, I'm sorry. Let me, Minnesota
could get out of the plane, and you don't want
to be in the plan. Okay, the only way you
get out of the plane as a victory is if
you play in the seven eight game, you win, and
then you play the Houston Rockets. That I think would
be the best case scenario for whoever the seven is
Houston and Memphis are the two weakest teams in the
(13:03):
Western Conference who are going to be in the playoffs.
I'm not including the Kings, sorry, guys. The Kings are
not going to be a factor. That being said, Golden
State is a game behind the Lakers. We can go
schedule for schedule. It isn't great for the Lakers. Let's
start with the Warriors because I don't even know their schedule. Here,
(13:23):
Golden State plays next ooh oh my. They host the
Denver Nuggets tomorrow. Now, this is a game. Remember the
Nuggets sat there guys last night because they want their
guys fresh for tonight. So that's what do the Warriors do.
Curry had fifty two against Memphis, thirty seven against the Lakers.
(13:46):
And are you going to play Curry now again? Like,
is he going to go all out? Just I mean,
there's a big game. They host the Denver Nuggets tonight
and then they have Houston, Phoenix, Spurs, Blazers, Clippers. It's manageable.
This Denver game is huge. This is the next like
(14:08):
big game. Now the Lakers have it back to back
as well, but they are hosting the Pelicans, who are
down Zion. They're down, Brandon Ingram, I'm fairly certain they're down. CJ. Mccoum.
I don't even know who they have now. Again, they're
in a spot like the Warriors. How much do we
play guys? Lebron played forty, Austin mus played forty, Luca
played thirty eight or thirty seven. The Lakers absolutely have
(14:32):
to here's the Lakers' best case scenario they win. What
do you want? Here do you want? I guess I
gotta look at denver schedule because if Denver gets the three,
the Lakers are the four. They play SGA in the
second round, but they might play the Warriors in the first.
That's horrible. So Denver has at Golden State versus the Pacers.
(14:56):
I can't tell if the Pacers are jockeying for position
the Kings, who are looking to stay in the play
in Memphis, which is jockeying for position in Houston. Damn.
Every team that Denver has is still in the playoffs.
That's as a tough schedule for so I think Denver
is more likely to lose a game after this. Warriors won.
So I think if you're a Lakers fan, you're probably
rooting Warriors. I think no, no, you'd want to root
(15:26):
Denver here, push the Warriors off the Lakers tail, and
then assume Denver's going to lose another one. Yeah, I
think that's what it is. So toughest remaining schedules according
to Tankathon, Oh my, this is interesting. Number one is
the Houston Rockets. They have five teams left. They're all
(15:47):
playoff teams. Number two is Phoenix. Number three is the Lakers,
who have three non playoff teams, but the MAVs are
one and they're getting kind of sort of healthy. Utah
is four. Golden State way down at thirteen. Interesting, but yeah,
(16:07):
Denver only has five left. Oh man, this is gonna
be fascinating. I just listen. Nobody wants to see Curry
Lebron in the first round. That would be horrific for
the league. You know, that would just not be good
at There's no scenario where you want to see Lebron
versus Lakers in the first round. You just don't. I'm sorry,
Lebron versus the Warriors and Curry in the first round.
(16:30):
You just don't want that. That would be a nightmare
for the league. So I'm gonna have to wat. I
guess I'm gonna have to watch closely.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yet 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 (16:48):
I do have a busy weekend ahead, and obviously I
don't want to give away too much, but bottom line
is I will be watching the final four, probably on
my phone, and I have several bets in let's quickly
go through them. I think I talked about the obvious
(17:08):
one right out of the gate, and that is that
I've hit and fired on is two team Parlay Duke
minus four, and that's with one nineteen juice. This was
made I think Saturday Sunday Duke minus four of Florida
minus two. I like both the favorites. Now the favorites
have been rolling and it looks like there's some momentum
(17:31):
in the market for the dogs. Here Auburn in a
revenge spot, Houston in a revenge spot from last year.
Houston's defense the best defense Duke has played since they
lost a Clemson in February. And this is a better
defense than Clemson. So I could see some people making
a case for Houston and the favorites can't win every
single game the rest of the way, right, They're not
(17:51):
gonna win everyone. I don't really care, So that was
a decent bet for me. Then bigger than that was
money line Duke. Money line Florida as opposed to win
by four, win by two. So I'm looking at an
oh for two. If we have a dog show up,
then I like Duke so much. And again I recommend
(18:17):
not teasing basketball. It is not smart. Long term, you
will not win. I tease Duke to plus one, meaning, hey, listen,
they just got to win the game. If they lose
by one, I can still get a push out of it.
And then I teased Auburn up to eight. I don't
think Auburn gets blown out. And I made this bet
(18:37):
after Broom was ruled in. So they're gonna have all
their guys, They're motivated, they know the opponent. Florida's had
a couple close games. I think Auburn keeps disclosed, So
I tease Duke to plus one, Auburn to plus eight. Again,
don't tease basketball, it's not smart. I'm made an exception
here because I do believe Auburn can keep disclosed. I
think Auburn has a better chance of pulling the upset
(18:58):
than Houston, if that makes any And I'm probably gonna
have to come on here Monday and eat Crow when
Duke loses, and I'm just a mess now. I don't
know if any of you guys are into prop bets,
but I think I made the case here it might
have been on the herd that I would not be
surprised if Kelvin Samson threw some major wrinkles at Cooper
(19:23):
Flag of Duke. You could argue that Cooper Flag has
some Nikola Jokic in his game where he's just too
good to be stopped. He's gonna score, he's gonna rebound,
he's gonna assist, he's gonna bring the ball up, he's
gonna make some wild plays, he's gonna get the crowd
fired up, like he's just that good of a player.
And you have two ways to defend Jokic. You could
(19:44):
play him straight up and he's gonna come at you
and score fifty five points, but he's not gonna load
up on assists because you're you're hugging up the shooters
and you're chasing Gordon around and you're really just saying
we don't care if Yokich pieces, We're not letting the
other guy go off. So that's one way, and the
other way is, hey, we're gonna do the opposite of that.
(20:05):
We're gonna do what we do right. We're gonna play
our style, our scrappy, tough, physical, and and Cooper Flag
is nobody special. We've seen better teams blah blah, you know,
and you run the risk then of Flag going off.
And a guy like Canipple, who's who's really lights out shooter,
and I'm doing a mock draft for Fox Sports and
he's in the lottery. This kid's good, but I do
(20:27):
have questions like is he really really good? Because on defense,
like you don't really have to worry about the rim.
You've got a seven footer who's also in the lottery
and Cooper Flag, so like you can gamble a little,
you can pressure more because you've got back up. And
then on offense, it's like, oh, everybody's looking at Cooper
Flag Procter over here. He's a good shooter, and I
(20:51):
can I can chroake it from deep and I can
attack the rim. So like Canipple's really really good, he's
in a fortuitive spot, but I would look at props
for him and Cooper flag Over. I know Houston wants
to play a methodical, slowdown game. We'll see if they
get to play. If it's in the fifties, Houston has
a shot, right if Dukes. If Duke's in the fifties
with the under four time out, you know Houston's gonna
(21:13):
be in that game. They probably win it. But if
this gets the sixties and seventies, I like the Blue
Devils for sure, and I'm on Duke pretty significantly. And
I guess that would lead to why don't I have
straight up bet? Why didn't I straight up bet? Too?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
You know things happen straight up bets for me. In
this tournament, they're not going well. You know what's going well,
moneyline parlays and parlays that is dominated. I think I
saw a stat that the favorites hold on I have
this somewhere. Favorites in the Elite eight and Sweet sixteen.
(21:52):
This is insane. Favorites in all the favorites won in
the Elite eight Sweet sixteen, all of them, Favorites of
six or more are thirty two and two in the
NCAA tournament.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Basically, this has just been favorites winning but not always covering,
and that's super frustrating. If I'm like, hey man, I
got a bet Duke and then they win but don't
cover like that, that's a crap feeling. I'd rather they
lose out right if they're not going to cover. But
I don't want that because of the Calcutta. And I'll
just wrap up with this. So you know, we got
Duke in the Calcutta. Some of the guys probably going
(22:30):
to get together to watch the game and rabble rouse
and then Monday would be a big one. If Duke
is playing for the Natty. That's a significant day for me.
I'm extremely fired up, and I know we have a
lot of anti Duke crowd just because it's Duke. Guys.
Your boy wants to do badly. All right, everybody, have
a great weekend, enjoy the final four, the NBA race
(22:54):
to the playoffs. Back on Monday. Talk to you then,
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
What is up Straight Fire Family. It's me Jason McIntyre,
Straight Buyer for Friday, April of fourth. Oh my goodness,
what a thriller last night in the NBA. Lakers won sixteen,
Warriors won twenty three. I was there buddy who as
he's in tickets and VI to me and another buddy
(00:31):
of ours. We went and I don't know, guys, Oh
my goodness. I don't want to start the podcast on
too much of a down note, but man, that was
a brutal loss for the Lakers. We'll obviously dig into that.
Maybe we'll just do the whole podcast on that game.
I mean, I know, Jannis went for thirty five, twenty
assists and seventeen rebounds against the Philadelphia Top Sixers. That's
(00:56):
what their new nickname is. Apparently not the seventy six
ers anymore. They're the Tops because they need to keep
their top six picks. So they've been losing and losing
and losing anyways, all right, So yeah, you know what,
We'll save best bets for the end of the podcast
with the final four Duke Houston and Auburn, Florida. By
(01:17):
the way, joh john A Broom, Johnny not Johnny, mister Broom.
We'll just call him that. How's that. Mister Broom practiced
in full on Thursday, met with the media, said he's
going to be one hundred percent. He will play, so
we can remove all that. The line did not change
for what it's worth, all right, we'll get the best
bets at the end of the podcast. And as crappy
(01:39):
as it sounds, and this is honest, guys. I don't
totally gamble on baseball though. I saw my buddy at
the Lakers game and he's like, dude, I started betting
the Dodgers money line.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
It was like, oh, how they do tonight? And that
was last night and he's like, well, they didn't play,
so I bet the yank he said they won. So
I mean, listen, it's a favorites kind of year, right,
Maybe that's maybe that's a move, just money line rollover
bets on the Dodgers every night. I don't know, you know,
because after March Madness, I don't pack up my shop
and go home. I still will bet some NBA, but
(02:09):
not a lot. I just I don't really gamble on
baseball too many games you know, just too much that
goes into it. It's just I can't, so I just
you know, keep my powder drive.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Though.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
There'll be some nice cashing out to be done here,
and I do have to go to go back to
Vegas cash the ticket. It's been a nice little run here,
although if the Lakers don't make the finals or the
Western Conference finals, I might have to rescind all that. Anyways,
let's get to that Laker game real quick. Warriors one
twenty three Lakers one sixteen. We'll start with the obvious.
(02:42):
The Lakers had beaten the Warriors three times this season.
Anthony Davis on the Lakers was a cheat code against
the Golden State Warriors. They had zero answer for him.
He would eat inside if you're interested. They played on Christmas.
That was the game. I think Austin ree said the
game winner. That's right, Anthony Davis got hurt in that one.
(03:03):
Lebron had thirty one, Austin Reeves had twenty six. Dalton
connect at thirteen, Max Christie starting play scored sixteen points.
That was a game that Yeah, Austin Reeds sat the
game winner. Warriors lost by two. So that was their
first meeting. Let's see second meeting was at the end
of January. Lakers rolled and Anthony Davis had thirty six points.
(03:28):
But again Andrew Wiggins was the leading scorer for the worst.
Game three early February, Lakers win by eight. Lebron had
forty two points forty two. Let's see, Anthony Davis did
not play in that, nor did Luca don Chic, but
(03:49):
the Lakers won anyway. So bottom line, the Lakers had
been rolling over the Warriors this season, and then the
Jimmy Butler trade happened, and Golden State's a totally different
team they are now when Curry and Butler plate nineteen
and two. Now, this is not really about Jimmy Butler
because he was not a huge factor on Thursday night.
He had eleven points, four boards, three steals. You know,
(04:09):
he played. He played good defense, obviously because that's his
calling card. He made a couple free throws late, he
had three steel like, you know, a non scoring Jimmy
Butler game. But without Anthony Davis, the Lakers had no
rim protection and the Warriors eight inside big time. And
then not only did they eat inside, but they hit
(04:30):
nineteen threes and nineteen and forty two. Is forty five
percent from deep. That's ridiculous. Now, I know Lakers fans
are gonna be calling into radio shows very angry today.
We need to get this, we need to change this.
This isn't gonna work. Luka, Doncic is lazy, blah blah blah.
The reality is Brandon Podzemski, the young kid, hit eight threes.
(04:55):
Not only did he just hit eight threes, he was
eight of ten from three eighty percent. Okay, Steph Curry
was four of eleven. Brandon Podzemski a career high eight threes. Folks,
that is a one off, unicorn kind of night for
Brandon Podzemski. He's never gonna hit eight threes in a
(05:16):
game again, especially not against the Lakers. Now, this is
what's interesting. Jonathan Kuminga played a hell of a game
coming off the bench eighteen and nine and four assists
made to three basically in Lebron's eye. Lebron was like,
I'll give you that. I actually said in my seat, oh,
we'll give you that, and then he hit it. But
the Warriors could not miss from deep. What really irked
(05:38):
me was they seemed to be hustling for every loose
ball they got fourteen offensive rebounds. The Lakers grabbed fourteen
to two, but it felt like the Lakers were grabbing
a lot of them in the second half when they
were in catch up mode because they were getting buried.
But it just it looks like all of a sudden, Listen,
the Lakers are a better team with Luca than Anthony Davis,
(05:59):
but not against the Golden State Warriors, at least based
on last night's performance, the Lakers have work to do.
And listen, obviously, you know, you can spin it any
way you want. Hey, this is not the worst loss
in the world because the Lakers were humbled at home
this You know, I've been to like, I don't know,
five Laker games this season. They won all of them
except for this one, and so it was one of
(06:19):
those games where it's like, oh, okay, all right, we're
not gonna steam all the West. We're not a lock
for the number three seed. Our bench isn't great. During
Phinney Smith oh for five on threes, gave Vincent one
for five, so one for eleven on threes, tossing Jared
Vanderbilt's corner three miss, and it's like you get nothing
from your bench. You played Lebron and Austin Reevees forty minutes.
(06:40):
Luca played his worst game with the Lakers, and I'll
go off on Luca. Don't worry, listen, I keep it real. Guys.
You know that I'm a Luca guy. Throw and through.
I just got a Luca T shirt this week, or
to the game last night, I'm a Luca fan. He
had his worst game with the Lakers, undeniably last night.
Technical foul, complaining, now back on defense, hands on his knee.
I actually thought he was sick in like the third quarter.
(07:02):
I'm like, he must be ill. He's not even trying.
And don't say that's the normal Luca. No, no, no,
he was getting cooked. Now, after the game, credit to Luca,
came out and said this performance by me is unacceptable.
So he's taking blame, which is good. Again, the scary
thing is Podzemski carried them early, just hit three after three.
I think he had nine in the first quarter, nine points.
(07:25):
He had a buzzer beating like half court three that
was banked in, huge, and then down the stretch he
had another big three. The kid had the game of
his life. Now, I don't think any of that is
can be duplicated. Can Curry go off again, certainly? Can
Jimmy Butler up his game? Definitely, But Jimmy Butler upping
his game is different from eight threes from Podzemsky. Okay,
(07:47):
So let's not totally panic Lakers fans. That being said,
I would definitely say that the Golden State Warriors are
not a great matchup for the Lakers. I thought it
would be vice versa because I've seen the Lakers steamroll
them in the last couple of years, even despite the
Anthony Davis trade. Without Davis, I mean, the Warriors ran
some great sets, They got amazing looks, they hustled better
(08:08):
on the offensive glass, and the lack of Anthony Davis
really really showed up in this one. It may and
other games. I thought Jackson Hayes would have a good game.
He had zero touch around the rim. He didn't want
to shoot it in close. It's like, bro, what lay
it up? Just toss it off the glass. You're the
biggest guy out there. He was a complete non factor
(08:29):
in fifteen minutes, and the Lakers, I don't think they
want to see. I'm going to readjust my rankings the teams.
The Lakers do not want to see in the playoffs.
I'm gonna put the Golden State Warriors one. I will
put Nicola Jokic two, and then the OKC Thunder three.
That's my new hierarchy of who I don't want to
see in the playoffs.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
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 fs are
to listen.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Live now the positives for the Lakers. Austin Reeves was
in frickin credible nine threes, thirty one points. He kept
the Lakers in the game, no doubt about it. Lebron
was pretty fantastic thirty three, nine assists, five rebounds, hit
five threes, eight of nine free throws. Had a very
(09:20):
very good game, very good game. Luka, Doncis let the
Lakers down. I didn't realize Ruey had twenty four. You know,
he had a coup, a couple of timely threes, and
had some dunks, awful easy Lebron passes. It was a
quiet twenty four, if that's possible. But what killed the
Lakers was their bench. And this is where I need
to criticize JJ Reddick for a moment. So I have
(09:43):
said numerous times how good JJ Reddick is. I think
he's been a phenomenal coach. I thought I was Coach
of the Year this year. He's pushed all the right buttons.
I love the rotations. I've loved everything. And for some reason,
I didn't like the fact that he had Dalton Connect
play zero minutes. Now I had to ask my buddies, like,
(10:04):
why is he in the doghouse? Is he heard? Is
he what's going on? And nobody had an answer. Now,
I did then call up Dalton Connect's game log, and
in recent weeks he ain't playing much. He had a
stretch when Reeves and Lebron were hurt. He had thirty
two against Denver, he had thirteen against San Antonio, twelve
(10:24):
against Denver, seventeen against Milwaukee. Since that game, he's played
seven minutes, five minutes, five minutes, twelve minutes, five minutes,
four minutes. That's it. And he played zero in a
high level game. Now, maybe it's that he's a rookie,
maybe it's that he doesn't offer much defensively, but I'll
say this, the Lakers kept getting open threes. I mean,
(10:48):
the Warriors made a pretty clear decision. Hey, we know
gave Vince again get hot. We're gonna play the averages
and gave Vincent had good looks. Doroyan Finney Smith he
also had good looks, Jared. They're not guarding those guys.
Luca missed his, and it's like, you watch these guys
missing shots. You saw the Warriors go zone twice. Now
it looked like a one to three one again. I
(11:08):
don't know the telecast on, so I don't exactly know
what it was, but it appeared to be some sort
of one three one zone. And my instant thought is
against the zone. You need a zone buster. Get Dalton
connect on the freaking court. What are we doing? And again, listen,
I'm not saying Dalton Connects a complete game changer, but
watching Podzemski splash threes right and the Warriors hit nineteen, Hey,
(11:33):
you got to match fire with fire. I would have
played Dalton Connects certainly more. Goodwin comes in and is
an energy guy and hustles. He had a couple steals,
but again, not a shot. The Warriors are going to
respect and he's not a scorer. And so when the
Lakers bench gives you three, four or five, six, seven
points and the Warriors bench gives you eighteen to eight
(11:58):
twenty six to seven. They were outscored. I mean Kuminga
alone doubled up the Lakers bench, So it's like, you
just can't have that happen. But again, this is one game.
Obviously I hyped it up. I thought it was one
of the biggest games of the regular season. So now
let me adjust the playoff situation for you in the West.
The Lakers now fall half a game behind Denver. They've
(12:21):
played one fewer game for the three. You don't want
the four seed because right now it looks like as
Memphis did. Despite Memphis reeling, they did win last night,
four five, six, in some order, is gonna be Lakers, Warriors, Grizzlies.
That's what it appears to be. And I say that
(12:41):
because I mean, I guess, I'm sorry. Let me, Minnesota
could get out of the plane, and you don't want
to be in the plan. Okay, the only way you
get out of the plane as a victory is if
you play in the seven eight game, you win, and
then you play the Houston Rockets. That I think would
be the best case scenario for whoever the seven is
Houston and Memphis are the two weakest teams in the
(13:03):
Western Conference who are going to be in the playoffs.
I'm not including the Kings, sorry, guys. The Kings are
not going to be a factor. That being said, Golden
State is a game behind the Lakers. We can go
schedule for schedule. It isn't great for the Lakers. Let's
start with the Warriors because I don't even know their schedule. Here,
(13:23):
Golden State plays next ooh oh my. They host the
Denver Nuggets tomorrow. Now, this is a game. Remember the
Nuggets sat there guys last night because they want their
guys fresh for tonight. So that's what do the Warriors do.
Curry had fifty two against Memphis, thirty seven against the Lakers.
(13:46):
And are you going to play Curry now again? Like,
is he going to go all out? Just I mean,
there's a big game. They host the Denver Nuggets tonight
and then they have Houston, Phoenix, Spurs, Blazers, Clippers. It's manageable.
This Denver game is huge. This is the next like
(14:08):
big game. Now the Lakers have it back to back
as well, but they are hosting the Pelicans, who are
down Zion. They're down, Brandon Ingram, I'm fairly certain they're down. CJ. Mccoum.
I don't even know who they have now. Again, they're
in a spot like the Warriors. How much do we
play guys? Lebron played forty, Austin mus played forty, Luca
played thirty eight or thirty seven. The Lakers absolutely have
(14:32):
to here's the Lakers' best case scenario they win. What
do you want? Here do you want? I guess I
gotta look at denver schedule because if Denver gets the three,
the Lakers are the four. They play SGA in the
second round, but they might play the Warriors in the first.
That's horrible. So Denver has at Golden State versus the Pacers.
(14:56):
I can't tell if the Pacers are jockeying for position
the Kings, who are looking to stay in the play
in Memphis, which is jockeying for position in Houston. Damn.
Every team that Denver has is still in the playoffs.
That's as a tough schedule for so I think Denver
is more likely to lose a game after this. Warriors won.
So I think if you're a Lakers fan, you're probably
rooting Warriors. I think no, no, you'd want to root
(15:26):
Denver here, push the Warriors off the Lakers tail, and
then assume Denver's going to lose another one. Yeah, I
think that's what it is. So toughest remaining schedules according
to Tankathon, Oh my, this is interesting. Number one is
the Houston Rockets. They have five teams left. They're all
(15:47):
playoff teams. Number two is Phoenix. Number three is the Lakers,
who have three non playoff teams, but the MAVs are
one and they're getting kind of sort of healthy. Utah
is four. Golden State way down at thirteen. Interesting, but yeah,
(16:07):
Denver only has five left. Oh man, this is gonna
be fascinating. I just listen. Nobody wants to see Curry
Lebron in the first round. That would be horrific for
the league. You know, that would just not be good
at There's no scenario where you want to see Lebron
versus Lakers in the first round. You just don't. I'm sorry,
Lebron versus the Warriors and Curry in the first round.
(16:30):
You just don't want that. That would be a nightmare
for the league. So I'm gonna have to wat. I
guess I'm gonna have to watch closely.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yet 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 (16:48):
I do have a busy weekend ahead, and obviously I
don't want to give away too much, but bottom line
is I will be watching the final four, probably on
my phone, and I have several bets in let's quickly
go through them. I think I talked about the obvious
(17:08):
one right out of the gate, and that is that
I've hit and fired on is two team Parlay Duke
minus four, and that's with one nineteen juice. This was
made I think Saturday Sunday Duke minus four of Florida
minus two. I like both the favorites. Now the favorites
have been rolling and it looks like there's some momentum
(17:31):
in the market for the dogs. Here Auburn in a
revenge spot, Houston in a revenge spot from last year.
Houston's defense the best defense Duke has played since they
lost a Clemson in February. And this is a better
defense than Clemson. So I could see some people making
a case for Houston and the favorites can't win every
single game the rest of the way, right, They're not
(17:51):
gonna win everyone. I don't really care, So that was
a decent bet for me. Then bigger than that was
money line Duke. Money line Florida as opposed to win
by four, win by two. So I'm looking at an
oh for two. If we have a dog show up,
then I like Duke so much. And again I recommend
(18:17):
not teasing basketball. It is not smart. Long term, you
will not win. I tease Duke to plus one, meaning, hey, listen,
they just got to win the game. If they lose
by one, I can still get a push out of it.
And then I teased Auburn up to eight. I don't
think Auburn gets blown out. And I made this bet
(18:37):
after Broom was ruled in. So they're gonna have all
their guys, They're motivated, they know the opponent. Florida's had
a couple close games. I think Auburn keeps disclosed, So
I tease Duke to plus one, Auburn to plus eight. Again,
don't tease basketball, it's not smart. I'm made an exception
here because I do believe Auburn can keep disclosed. I
think Auburn has a better chance of pulling the upset
(18:58):
than Houston, if that makes any And I'm probably gonna
have to come on here Monday and eat Crow when
Duke loses, and I'm just a mess now. I don't
know if any of you guys are into prop bets,
but I think I made the case here it might
have been on the herd that I would not be
surprised if Kelvin Samson threw some major wrinkles at Cooper
(19:23):
Flag of Duke. You could argue that Cooper Flag has
some Nikola Jokic in his game where he's just too
good to be stopped. He's gonna score, he's gonna rebound,
he's gonna assist, he's gonna bring the ball up, he's
gonna make some wild plays, he's gonna get the crowd
fired up, like he's just that good of a player.
And you have two ways to defend Jokic. You could
(19:44):
play him straight up and he's gonna come at you
and score fifty five points, but he's not gonna load
up on assists because you're you're hugging up the shooters
and you're chasing Gordon around and you're really just saying
we don't care if Yokich pieces, We're not letting the
other guy go off. So that's one way, and the
other way is, hey, we're gonna do the opposite of that.
(20:05):
We're gonna do what we do right. We're gonna play
our style, our scrappy, tough, physical, and and Cooper Flag
is nobody special. We've seen better teams blah blah, you know,
and you run the risk then of Flag going off.
And a guy like Canipple, who's who's really lights out shooter,
and I'm doing a mock draft for Fox Sports and
he's in the lottery. This kid's good, but I do
(20:27):
have questions like is he really really good? Because on defense,
like you don't really have to worry about the rim.
You've got a seven footer who's also in the lottery
and Cooper Flag, so like you can gamble a little,
you can pressure more because you've got back up. And
then on offense, it's like, oh, everybody's looking at Cooper
Flag Procter over here. He's a good shooter, and I
(20:51):
can I can chroake it from deep and I can
attack the rim. So like Canipple's really really good, he's
in a fortuitive spot, but I would look at props
for him and Cooper flag Over. I know Houston wants
to play a methodical, slowdown game. We'll see if they
get to play. If it's in the fifties, Houston has
a shot, right if Dukes. If Duke's in the fifties
with the under four time out, you know Houston's gonna
(21:13):
be in that game. They probably win it. But if
this gets the sixties and seventies, I like the Blue
Devils for sure, and I'm on Duke pretty significantly. And
I guess that would lead to why don't I have
straight up bet? Why didn't I straight up bet? Too?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
You know things happen straight up bets for me. In
this tournament, they're not going well. You know what's going well,
moneyline parlays and parlays that is dominated. I think I
saw a stat that the favorites hold on I have
this somewhere. Favorites in the Elite eight and Sweet sixteen.
(21:52):
This is insane. Favorites in all the favorites won in
the Elite eight Sweet sixteen, all of them, Favorites of
six or more are thirty two and two in the
NCAA tournament.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Basically, this has just been favorites winning but not always covering,
and that's super frustrating. If I'm like, hey man, I
got a bet Duke and then they win but don't
cover like that, that's a crap feeling. I'd rather they
lose out right if they're not going to cover. But
I don't want that because of the Calcutta. And I'll
just wrap up with this. So you know, we got
Duke in the Calcutta. Some of the guys probably going
(22:30):
to get together to watch the game and rabble rouse
and then Monday would be a big one. If Duke
is playing for the Natty. That's a significant day for me.
I'm extremely fired up, and I know we have a
lot of anti Duke crowd just because it's Duke. Guys.
Your boy wants to do badly. All right, everybody, have
a great weekend, enjoy the final four, the NBA race
(22:54):
to the playoffs. Back on Monday. Talk to you then,
Fox Sports Radio News
Host
Jonas Knox
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