May 21, 2025 • 52 mins
Sean Brace and Kyle Fisher talk #NFL's failure to ban the Tush Push, Jose Alvarado's 80-game suspension, who can step up, possible trade targets, and more, #NBAPlayoffs - #Pacers vs #Knicks and #Thunder vs #Timberwolves.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:23):
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Speaker 2 (00:46):
What in SAGI edition to the Daily Ticket and a
Good Afternoon. It is a Wednesday, a Daily Ticket, Come
in your way, still ride in from the home studio,
joined by a special guest. Open up the show here
on this beautiful Wednesday and Midiller Valley the Great Kyle
Fisher back on the program, and be sure to find
(01:09):
Kyle on all Things Socials. Kyle Fisher forty five real
easy to find there and of course represent the team
over at Philly Sports Network. I didn't think we'd be
talking much NFL today, and I don't really want to
talk too much about the play, But at the end
of the day, man, it is a big topic and
it's just like it's still hanging on and I don't
(01:32):
see this going away, especially next year when they vote
on it again. And maybe if they don't pass it
next year, maybe that's when it rides off into the sunset,
and it is what it is. But at this point
in time breaking news as of about an hour ago,
the NFL has said that they will not ban the
Tush push for the upcoming season. They could not come
(01:54):
up with the votes. I think they needed twenty four
to twenty five votes, whatever it is, and could not
get to that number. Jason Kelsey was brought in by
the Eagles to go in and speak, and you know, look,
what needs to be said has been set a hundred
different times, a hundred different ways. There's nothing new to
add to this conversation. It's kind of weak to see
(02:17):
these teams come out there and say we want to
get rid of it due to safety and whatever other
nonsense they're throwing in there. Ultimately, it comes down to this.
The Eagles are unbelievable at running that play. They just
won the Super Bowl. They're one of the best teams
in the league for the past few seasons, and it's
definitely taking a shot at Jalen Hurts and the offense
(02:40):
as a whole. If they're able to remove that, I
understand while why teams are trying to do that, Like
I said, it's pretty easy if the Eagles were in
the basement. If the Eagles were a five hundred ball club,
I don't think we're hearing much about the pushbush. But
because this team consistently competes for the division, has just
won the Super Bowl, has had unbole success with that
(03:01):
offensive line, angel On Hurtz, this is why we're dealing
with it right now. But it's a great conversation for you, Kyle,
your thoughts man.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, I mean, the you've already said a lot of
the talking points about the supporting end, right it's there.
The argument is that there's player safety concerns, and I
understand that some coaches that at least have mentioned we
want to get ahead of injury concerns because there's no
data to support that there's injury concerns with this play,
(03:30):
you know. I mean people want to call it a
rugby play. How many rugby injuries are caused by scrums.
It's minimal, and those guys aren't wearing pads. We're talking
about guys getting this close to each other. Yeah, it hurts,
but it's nothing like running down and taking a guy's
head off across the middle of the field on a
bad pass. It's nothing like blowing somebody up or pulling
them down for a horse collar tackle. The safety argument
(03:53):
until there's data to back it up, I'm throwing that
out the window because there's no proof is that is
a dangerous play. I still think some of the things
that people are going to have to answer for, right
like Sean McDermott, they run a variation of the play
Josh Allen Big Body. They maybe not don't do as
much pushing physically as the Eagles do. But when asked specifically,
(04:16):
he was part of the committee that was around the
safety of the play itself. When asked point blank, if
the play, you know, if your concern is about safety,
and the play gets does not get banned, are you
going to use it again? If your number one concern
is safety, are going to put your guys in in
a not safe position? And he couldn't answer the question,
and it's a question he should be. The reporters in
(04:38):
Buffalo should hold his speak to the fire and make
him answer that, yeah, you are concern of yours, Why
on earth are you putting your guys in that position?
So I think that it's that's going to be a
lot of the fallout. But I think Eagles fans are
just going to hold the hold their cocky heads high
after this one, for sure. And and and if you're
a Green Bay fan and you know Eagles fans personally,
(04:58):
well I'm sorry in advance for today because it's going
to be a lot of a lot of grand standing
from Eagles fans for sure.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah. And you know, even if they want to ban it,
Even if they did ban it today, I still feel
like the Eagles are going to be successful with the
quarterback sneak and whatever variation of the play they want
to throw in their minus the pushing of the player.
I'll tell you straight up where I'm at that might
surprise people.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I would never want this play to be banned because
simply the success that the Eagles running at like that's
in the conversation there, But for me as a whole,
I never liked the whole pushing of a player with
that rule change back in you know what, two decades
whatever it was that they decided to remove that, Well,
we know why they decided to remove that, because that
(05:44):
puts points on the board. If there is a player
that's stuck on a five yard line and all of
a sudden you get the two tackles running up and grab.
We've seen it happen a lot. Doesn't happen every game, no,
but there is some sort of pushing forward of the
player in every game. I would say that, but that
results in points, probably not. But I've never been a
(06:05):
fan of that. I've never been a fan of pushing
the player forward. I just don't. I don't like that,
and I think that it's extremely beneficial for the offense.
And we know how the league is built and what
makes you know, butters, the bread points and things that
help out the offense. I just never liked it. But
I never really cared about it, and I don't now
except they're trying to remove a great play from the
(06:26):
Eagles repertoire. But it doesn't matter, like they're still going
to be successful. A. J. Brown said it best yesterday.
It's one damn yard. It's one yard.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I love my Alatta's argument yesterday. He said, I hope
they'd ban it because I hate the name. He's like,
we don't care. It doesn't make a difference, stuf Us.
We're gonna use it because we can, but it's not
the reason that we win games.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
And if you watch the Eagles from an unbiased position,
and you think that that's the reason they won games,
then you don't know what you're talking about when it
comes to football. That is a great football team regardless.
I think it was our guy, Jeff Kerr from CBS
covers the Eagles for CBS Proper covers Afhillies for CBS Philly.
He tweeted out something a little while ago when the
vote was pushed back about the Carson Wentz quarterback sneak,
(07:12):
which was not a toush push, had a higher percentage
of success than the touch push. The Bill's quarterback sneak
in the last two seasons had a higher success rate
than the toush push. So what are we complaining about? Like, again,
it feels very and I'm letting my fandom show for
a moment, but it feels very personal when one team
(07:36):
has popularized this specific version and that's the only version
that's on the TABE. I know that they did change
some language late to try and get to try and
get it across the line. A lot of the pushing
and pulling. I think the original way that it was
phrased is like you couldn't push somebody Immediately after they
received the snap from behind, but a few second delay
is fine. And then they had to change that because
(07:58):
they thought that, okay, this is way too specific and
it still didn't pass right. So clearly people are comfortable
with it. I agree with you. I remember what was it,
Reggie Bush in a yeah, yeah, yeah, where they had
to play recalled right against Notre Dames. So that was
I remember a time where it didn't exist. And if
they said, look, we just think the game played cleaner
(08:18):
or played more like we envisioned before that rule changed,
and we want to change it back to what it was,
that's the easiest, simplest argument, and I think everybody says sure.
But when you start bringing in these other things player safety,
that's when it turns into a much bigger story.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, And like I said, now you're just motivating these
guys you want to remove it. You're given the Eagles
digital team something to work with, which is ammunition.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
The bulletin board material. I don't understand why, especially a
Super Bowl champion exactly, you'd think that maybe that team,
not that I think this is the DNA of that team,
but you think a team that just won may be
like and now you've just given them more motivation to
get jacked up for week one. Once again, I don't
think they were gonna let the foot off the pedal,
but you people find any reason to put bulletin board
(09:09):
material up, Like the Chiefs would talk all the time about, oh,
people doubt of us. People didn't think we could do
the three feet? Are you sure because every single publication
picked you as the favorites before the season started, Like,
if they're finding any reason, they heard one guy on
one podcast one time say that they should that they're
not gonna win, and they ran with it all season.
Why give that to their defending Super Bowl champions?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
And I do want to point this out because there
is a lot of people that could have the bias
in play, and I just feel like, very a strong majority,
let's just say, eighty seventy five eighty seventy seventy five percent,
I'm saying on my timeline right now, I'm seeing excuse
me say that, Hey, look like there's no reason to
(09:53):
ban this. You're just banning it because you can't stop it.
And one team is really good at it, and it
looks pretty weak. And I think that we're seeing that
from a good strong majority of people that are in uh,
you know, as far as the media is concerned cover
the NFL, whether they're a beat writer, like, the majority
of people that I've seen are on the common sense
(10:15):
side of It's like wait a minute, man, and and like,
don't you feel like I get it right? Like these things?
You know, when you draft a guy like Jalen Hurts,
he brings us to the table. When you put together
an offensive line like that, yeah, your strength is going
to be running the football. But you know, oh, in no,
there have been great plays over the years that we
have been like, oh my god, no one's ever gonna
(10:37):
stop it. That's it. It's over. And guess what, somebody
comes up with a plan and they stop it. You know,
like it's part of the game too. I feel like
the tush push to brotherly shaw, whatever you want to
call it, eventually will be figured out to a point.
And I don't know if that has more to do
so with injuries or you know, Jalen Hurts gets out
(10:57):
of the equation. Is this all on jailing? Who knows?
But all in all, like I do feel like these
things do get figured out majority of the time. So
just let it play and we'll see what happens. But
that's not how the NFL viewed it. They open it
up the rules committee. I thought it was going to
be banned today, Diana Rassini was pounding herd chest. Adam
(11:18):
Schefter apparently was saying it as well that he expected
it to be banned and it was not the case.
So maybe Jason Kelcey and his final thoughts had something
to do with that. Speaking of final thoughts, your final
word on this.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Well, I think you mentioned Jason Kelsey. He's you know,
everybody loves him. Why not bring him in, right? But yeah,
I think it's there's not much more to say, Sean.
It's it felt like a personal attack. And if the
Eagles want to use that as motivation, great, But I
think they're a good enough team that this vote didn't matter.
It didn't make one iota of a difference. The only
difference might have been that Saquon gets a couple more
(11:51):
touchdowns and hurts. It's a couple less. That's about it.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, I agree with that. All right, over to the
world of major leagu based excuse me, woo live right baby,
Hey ho. The sneeze that was a going there. Let's
talk about the first place Phillies. Let's shift gears and
get on over to the Diamond and the Phils continuing
to win out there in Colorado and not saying much
(12:17):
because the Rockies are about as bad as it gets
as far as Major League Baseball, as far as professional
sports are concerned. Eight and forty right now they have
their two and eight in their last ten. And now
I've lost two straight, two to Phillies. Phillies have two
more against Colorado. We welcome that a good four game
stretch here out there in Colorado for the fightings back
at it this evening, first pitch at eight forty pm,
(12:39):
Taiwan Walker, come on down minus two to eighteen quickly
on this. Unless you have a take on these games,
Colorado is so bad, Like you know, you can't sit
here and say, oh, take the Phillies at minus two eighteen?
Can you? Can you say it at minus one fifty
five for the run line. I don't have a problem
with that. I could look at the eleven. I know
Taiwan Walker's been playing little. I have been pitching better
(13:00):
this year, but eleven. Maybe Colorado gets into their mode,
but that is a bad baseball team. I don't know
if the Phillies are going up there and scoring eleven themselves,
So even then I would probably stay away. But I
guess the big picture conversation for the Phillies is more.
It's more entertaining to me than anything to day to
(13:21):
day right now. And I hate to say like that
because nobody's won anything here. I made to twenty first.
But you know, the conversation about the bullpen, Alvarado being suspended,
the you know mcabel comes in, You're gonna have Painter
coming up eventually. Here, Ranger Suarez, we know what he's
capable of, Taiwan Walker, what was said, what we've known,
(13:42):
what he's doing now, Like the conversation about the bullpen
and how do you figure this out? From Dombrowski and
Thompson moving forward is more entertaining than anything that's taking
place on the field for me at this point in
time with the Phillies. So I'm curious to know where
do you stand on that conversation. And let's start with
mick Abe. You know we heard about painter painter or
(14:02):
pain or painter or painter. I don't know, like I
know people have been mentioning this guy. Don't get me wrong,
Luke Arcaney yourself. You guys do a great job. But
I wasn't expecting that debut, and now.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
What yeah, I mean it was. I think he had
the advantage of pitching against the Pittsburgh Pirates first and foremost.
I don't want to discount what the guy did. He
is still major league pitching. It's still a major league team, right.
Any team can go out there any day and beat
another team, just like any other professional league. But for
(14:31):
him to go out there, you know, the Pirates had
every single potential stud in their lineup on Sunday, Any
potential starter, any potential trade chip or young building block
was in that lineup for that team, and he made
them look like they weren't ready for him, as opposed
to the other him not being ready for the moment
he had. I was there on Saturday, the day before
(14:52):
his start, and spoke with the team and his attitude.
I remember hearing interviews with him last year where I
was just trying to work through and grind through, and
this offseason he really spent the time to refocus and
re establish his mentality. Right. He's used to be a
real fiery guy, very calm, cool and collected, coming into
(15:13):
this season, and it was focusing on the things that
you can control. You hear that a lot in sports,
but it's easier said than done, right, And I remember
it was Anthony sam Filippo from On Patterson who asked
him both in Lehigh and then again in Philly, you
know you talked a lot about just getting one percent
better every time you're out one percent, these incremental moments,
(15:34):
and he said, you know that can feel like a
grind to a lot of guys, especially if it's not
been the mental focus of your game forever. And he said, no,
he's like, you know it being here regardless of the
result tomorrow, which was an incredible result that to him
made it all worth it.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
It showed you what putting in the work can do.
And you see a lot of the guys on the
team having that. And the thing that I've noticed the most.
I know that you probably want to hear more about
the kids electric start, but to hear guys from Triple
A and to hear Marshawn talk about this, and to
hear Able talk about this, it is becoming an organizational
(16:12):
message on focusing on the things you can control and
focusing on incremental improvement as opposed to we need to
turn it around right now, right we need to do
something right now to change or to swing things for us.
One thing that I remember in the Gabe Caplar years
was it it felt a lot like there was a
disc game Caplar years.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I like it right, but.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
It felt like there was a disconnect between the different
levels in the Phillies organization and what the club has
done with Don Browski and Mattingly, and they have really
focused on organizational development, and I think that you're seeing
the fruits of that labor. It may not have flipped
on day one, but you see mick Abel as an example.
You're going to see Andrew Preener as another example. You
(16:52):
see what Chris Sanchez, what they were able to turn
him into, what guys like Marsh have been able to
do on the rehab assignment and turn his season around.
I think that the organizational message being consistent from level
to level gives you a clear development path and it
helps show what this team can be, not only in
the short term but the long term. And mick Abel
(17:14):
was an exclamation point on that. So I know that
you probably wanted to talk about his outing which was great,
But to me it's sent a much different message. Not hey,
we have a great starting pitching depth. It's look at
what the organization has done. Look at what the organization
is doing to develop talent, something that they may not
have been prideful of a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
No, and look, this is what you need to continue
to compete year and year out. You have to build it.
And it wasn't you know, a fluke when the Phillies
were able to go on that run and when the
one World Series in eight and then go on and
have the success year after a year after year. Now
again they went out and made some great moves and
did have some pieces, But yeah, if you develop it,
(17:55):
you're able to maybe push some of those pieces into
the middle of the table and fetch your self somebody
like a Roy Halliday, somebody like a Cliff Lee, somebody, uh,
you know, whatever it may be, whatever, And essentially you
don't even have to go that high of a bar, right,
Like what we're talking about now with the with the
flaws of this Phillies team, and again albeit caveat May
(18:17):
twenty first is like, what are you going to do
to replace Alvarado? That's got to be at the top
of the list now because he was his best, best reliever,
He was dominant. He was a guy that could strike
the bases outloaded, you know, and with nobody out like
it's it's you felt comfortable majority of time as much
as possible with him coming into the game. But we'll
(18:37):
see how they handle it. We'll see what happens there.
I know that they can always use a bat somebody
to come in. And again we know that injuries are
going to uh poke their head into the conversation as well.
It just it's effected the matter. It's a long, long season.
Everybody goes through it. But now Mark, Henry Junior and
I were talking yesterday about, well, come October, come September,
(18:59):
what is it look like for you? Do you think
Ranger Suarez will be in the bullpen for a playoff run?
Do you think one of or both Painter and Abel
will be in the bullpen come playoff time? I do
like if these guys are up, they're going to pitch,
they're going to play, and only so many players or
only so many pitchers can get the starting spots come
(19:20):
playoff time. So I think that those three names could
at least two will absolutely be in the bullpen, maybe three.
And I'm even pushing the fast forward button on Taiwan Walker.
Whether that's unfair. Who knows, he might get traded. We'll
see what happens there. But you know, and if that's
the case, Kyle long winded, like, I think the bullpen's
in a pretty good spot. I get it, young players,
(19:43):
you're asking a lot that spot, no doubt about it.
But still got plenty of time to build up. But
I think that the bullpen might not be that much
of a issue. If that's how the final results going
to look come September.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah, I mean, you need to get there. That's the
key is. I think that if everybody remains healthy, you
nailed it right. You're going to see Suarez most likely
just because he's done it before in that bullpen, being
your emergency guy pitching two three innings when you're more
likely to pull the starter in a quicker manner in
the playoffs. I don't know, they seem to not want
(20:19):
to put Painter in there. I think that they're worried
about him ramping up and trying to throw harder. You know,
everybody's stuff plays up a little bit in the bullpen
coming off to Tommy John. I think they're worried about
that becoming too stressful on his arm. He already throws
pretty hard, and coming off that surgery, I think they
want to reserve him. So I don't know what his
innings are going to look like come the postseason, even
you know, we need to see what is innings looks
(20:40):
like when he gets here first. I would hope that
if you're bringing him up and giving him major league time,
that and you find yourself in a position where you
need an arm in the bullpen, that he's an option, right.
But the other option would be to put somebody else
there who might not be as comfortable either. So I
just envisioned like what the Rays did at David Price. Right,
they brought him up in September. He was supposed to
(21:01):
be a hot shot starter. He went to the bullpen
and was lights out on that one playoff run for them,
and then they just stretched him back out in the offseason.
I think it was Ruben Tomorrow on The Phillies Show
podcast who suggested while Ranger has the experience, he said
that if they're forced to move somebody in the bullpen
because they have so many arms, Christopher Sanchez might actually
(21:22):
be the best option for that, and while hesitant to
take him out of the rotation, if everybody else is
pitching as well as they are, his stuff already plays up.
You know, he's throwing more ninety seven ninety eight, whereas
Suarez falls around ninety four. If he's playing up to
ninety nine one hundred in the bullpen, he already has
the contract where Swarz is in his last year, so
you can probably comfortably go to him and his agent
(21:43):
and say, look, this is a let's get through and
go try and win a World Series with our guy
pitching in a different role. He's pitched out of the
pen before, so it's not farign too him. And then
we and there's some sort of guarantee or a handshake agreement,
and the second the season's we expected to be back
in that rotation. Is one of our top two or
three arms in the twenty twenty sixth season. So I
(22:06):
think that they have options, which is something that you
rarely see, and they don't have a whole lot of
options to shove guys in triple A, so they have
to figure out ways to get created in the bullpen.
I think the struggle becomes if you want to reserve
certain guys for longer outings, then you're pushing other people
into high leverage roles that maybe they're not comfortable being
(22:26):
in as of yet. Right, Joe Ross has looked good
at times. Is he comfortable pitching in a high leverage role.
He hasn't done it to this point in his career. Right.
He's a former starter turned to a pretty solid reliever
last season. They thought solid enough to bring him in,
but they expected him to be a two, three inning
guy as opposed to a guy who's pitching the seventh, eighth,
(22:47):
or ninth inning. Not that he can't, but he hasn't
shown that he can just yet. And that's always a
thing with bullpen arms, for whatever reason, is no one
trusts that you can do it until you show that
you can. Right. Even Matt Strom knows how lights out
he is. But when he first started pitching in the
eighth inning, I remember a lot of Phillies fans being weary, like,
this is what this guy really does? You know, he's
(23:07):
more of a longman, more of a sixth inning guy,
not the eighth inning. And then over over time you
see how electric he is and he can do it
on the flip side with Oryan Kirkering, right, I think
he's performed well, but it looks shaky at times. It
looks like oh nine Brad Lidge instead of oh eight
brad Lidge, where every time he gets somebody on, you're like,
oh goodness, what's gonna happen here, even though Lidge still
ended up having a decent year for the most part,
(23:29):
and Kirkering's numbers are pretty good. Until he shows that
he can do it, can you trust that he can? Right? So,
I think you're more looking at a bullpen addition come
deadline as opposed to forcing somebody. But between now and July,
they're going to have to figure it out and they're
gonna get creative. Aaron Nola's health is going to be
the number one thing that determines what they do next.
Because if Walker can go out there and play up
(23:51):
a little bit and pitch like he did in his
first relief outing, especially not that he pitched poor in
the second one, but that first one was lights out
with seven strikeouts over three innings, I think that he's
a viable option back there, and they've pitched better as
a unit as of late, They're still not top of
the of the league. They're not the Mets necessarily who
were I think since the beginning of May have like
(24:14):
a sub two five era out of the pen. But
the three seven seven in the month of May is
much improved on the five oh six through April, right,
So if they can see some consistency and some guys
get comfortable back there, then they're in an advantageous position.
The question becomes, are they the first ones calling around
and are people going to hold their feet to the
(24:34):
fire to try and maximize the value on a bullpen
arm at this point in the season.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Well, he did bring up Ranger Suarez there, and we
did talk about Ranger and talk about his agent, Scott Boris.
Interesting to see how that conversation will be had that
at the end of the season, and I'm sure they're
talking now quite Frankly, I believe Alec Boehm is represented
by Scott Boris as well.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Correct, I'm not positive.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Sure he is. Yeah, yeah, Coming around to the offensive
side of the game for the Phillies, here Boom coming through,
Harper's ripping the cover off the baseball. Schorebert continues to
go yard three hundred bombs, you know, just getting it
going again. And and this team has the look. I'll
be it on May the twenty first, not even Memorial Day.
(25:23):
But it's a lot of fun to tune in and
watch this team play, regardless if it's the Rockies, regardless
if it's the Sacramento Slash. I'll always call the Oakland
A's Braves coming to town next week as well post
Memorial Day. So that's a pretty good run there. But
ultimately it comes down to Phillies fan tuning in want
to be entertained and enjoyed the hell out of out
(25:45):
of some winning baseball. And that's that team right now.
Has the look. And it's a lot of fun watching
him play. And I don't care who they're playing, whether
it's Colorado last play sports team in the history of sports,
or a team that this team has an opportunity to
win some games. A lot of fun. And we didn't
even talk about Wheeler, we didn't talk about some of
the other bright spots with this team.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Yeah, there's so many positives, it's tough to cover everything.
The one thing I've said to my son, he keeps
springing up like, oh, you know what they played the
Pirates and the Rockies. So of course they look good.
It's like but traditionally some of the concerns about this
team and from every fan base, is when you watch
your team play down to the competition and they're not
doing that. They're doing exactly what you're supposed to do
(26:25):
against these teams. Right. They took care they beat schemes,
won nothing on a run that barely scored, right, but
they did what they had to do. The bullpen did
what they had to do. Abel did what he had
to do. They've put up seventeen hits in two straight games. Yeah,
it's Colorado, it's a big outfield, but most of them
haven't been the long ball. They had a few home
(26:46):
runs late in the game yesterday, but they've done damage
the way small ball. They've done traditional damage, singles, doubles, buns,
sack flies, getting guys over, hitting behind runners. The things
that wins championships is what they've done this last week plus. Right,
whether you win a series or not, Like you said,
to watch them and to see the excitement on the field.
(27:09):
They're not struggling to beat the Rockets. They're taking care
of business and making it look easy like it should
they're not struggling against the pirates. They're taking care of
business and beating them in a way that you should
that someone would expect of a World Series caliber team.
So to me, that's the biggest thing is they're not
playing down to their competition. They are beating teams in
the way that you should beat them, whether they're high,
(27:30):
high level competition or not.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah, the only issue that I have right now with
this team was a stat that was put out there
by Tom McCarthy when Boehm hit the go ahead home
run in the eighth inning, where I think there were
one in fifteen in games that they trailed after seven innings,
and that you know, look, I don't know what that
number is going to be, what that record will be
at the end of the season, but generally speaking, those
things have a an't even themselves out. Again, if you're
(27:55):
winning ball games, you're gonna have some tough losses, get it.
But he could examine it and you could go a
little bit more detail with it, and where a team
lacks the ability to come up with a big hit,
if it's not Scherberg going yard, who is it. Those
sort of conversations I think, you know, it's still too
early to be had here on May to twenty first,
(28:17):
four time that I mentioned a date, But it is
something that should have your attention. It should be something that,
you know what, this is a team we'd like to
see have the ability to come back and win some
of those games. We'll see what happens, you know, after
a few more weeks of action, a few more weeks
of gameplay. But this team right now first place in
the East. And there's not a complaint coming out of
(28:38):
my mouth at this point in time.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
No complaints with that about the potential to bring back
David Robertson, Oh God, for the third time.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, I was like, wait a minute, can you mean
to tell me there's nobody in the house, Like you
really got to go dial him up? But regardless last year, Yeah,
Dombrowski's got his ways. You know, he knows what he's doing.
He's going to stick to the script, and he's no
dummy for sure. All right, let's go ahead and switch
gears once again. Philly's coming up tonight that game. DraftKings
(29:05):
sportsbook currently showing that the fightings with a Taiwan walker
on the mound, a nice big favorite of minus two
eighteen total coming in at eleven eight forty. First pitch, Yes,
over to the NBA. We do have some other items
going on in the sports world. Let's just put it
(29:26):
that way. Pretty good one last night as far as
Western Conference Finals Game one, Timberwolves in Oklahoma City Thunder,
big time number and okay, see a rolled in the
second half. They were given seven and a half. Tight game.
In the first half, Minnesota looked really good at points
and then you just kind of had the vibe that
OKAC was going to figure it out and be the
(29:46):
better team. In the second half. They were, and then
some holding the Minnesota Timberwolves to I believe forty total
points in the second half if I'm not mistaken, which
is just ugly. But bottom line is, I don't think
we should be all that surprise, ey, because we're talking
about one of the better teams, if not the best team.
Excuse me when it comes to defense. I believe the
(30:08):
Oklahoma City Thunder where the best team in NBA all
season long, regular season as far as defense was concerned.
So no shock there that the defense led to the
victory and Minnesota held the Thunder to forty four points
and that was all she wrote right there. Excuse me,
forty points by Minnesota in the second half. I had
(30:29):
to write the first one first time. Anyways, you know,
you look at SGA and what he's been able to
do as far as MVP all season long. It just
feels like that, okay See will be the team that
prevails and comes out of this. I know that. I
kind of in my mind was thinking that this is
gonna be a great series. I was hopeful, and it's
only one game, but okay See, does look like they're deeper,
(30:51):
does look like they're there. They have, you know, better
scoring options, and the home court is pretty important this
time of year as well, So it's that they did win.
I did take the seven and a half last night,
so I'll chalk up a loss there. Oh well, it happens.
But man, hopefully SGA can lead the charge for Game
two and just keep it going for okay see. Your
thoughts on.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Game one, Yeah, I mean, like you said, it was
a typical Oklahoma City defensive route. You know, the second half, especially,
forty points in an NBA game and a half is
rare nowadays, especially regardless of how good your defense is.
So to do that against a caliber. Excuse me, a
team the caliber of Minnesota is extra impressive. Anthony Edward said,
(31:36):
you know, we got to figure some things out. The
field goal percentage was pretty low for some guys on
their team. Their bench was a big problem last night,
not what we've seen from them all season long. The turnovers.
There's a way to play against tough defense and not
turn the ball over, and that was the big thing
I think they finished with turn the ball over nineteen
(31:56):
times last night. You can't win a game, regardless of
how big, regardless of the opponent, if you turn the
ball over nineteen times. I don't care how good their
defense is. You need to hold onto the ball, especially
come playoffs. So they'll go back to the drawing board.
I still think it's not going to be a quick series.
I don't think this thing's over in four or five.
I think Anthony Edwards on his own, is just too
good to give up. But you have some really good
(32:18):
veterans on that team, and Randall and Gobert that can
help them. The key is going to be ken the
bench do a little bit more than they did to
not put all that pressure on the starters. But Oklahoma
City looked like we thought they would. I don't know
if we thought that that they would look that dominant
in the second half. But none of this is surprising
from Okay, see, it's more surprising to see how Minnesota
(32:39):
looked on the other end as opposed.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
To Yeah, really shyed away from the moment in that
second half. Again, easier said than done. You're going up
against the best team and dominant. I think there were
nineteen games better than the Minnesota Temblelives in the regular season,
and here we are in the Western Conference finals. They're
going head to head. Kind of seems unfair, but no
one cares about that point in time. You gotta win
(33:01):
four games and advance to the finals. And oh, by
the way, neither of those two teams have won an
NBA championship before, so it would be a first time
in NBA history. With that being said, let's get on
over to the Pacers and the Knicks, and I'll tell
you what. This is the hot topic in all of
sports right now, from coast to coast. All eyes are
(33:21):
on the Knicks and Pacers game one. Of course, we
know what took place last year in this series, Pacers
getting by the Knicks. We know that the injuries were
a huge concern and ultimately really cost the Knicks an
opportunity to advance last year. Whether that's true or not,
or you believe that or not, doesn't matter. Ultimately, it
came down to the Pacers advancing. So here we are,
right here right now, as my guy Danny Small checking,
(33:43):
it is brace and brunts and believer. I've always been
a brunts and believer. I've always been a brunts and believer.
Now backer has a different story, but a brunts and believer.
I love Jael Brunson. You gotta the Knicks as much
as I hate the Knicks. You gotta believe, man, like
this isn't a fluke. This team has put it together
and they are battle tested. They've been down by twenty
(34:07):
to the Celtics to come back and win that that
was a tough Detroit Detroit series that they were able
to prevail in. I don't really look as we sit
here right now. I want the Pacers to win, don't
get me wrong, but I can't tell you that I
believe that that's how it's going to be. I know
that there are a few guys on the Gambler Gang
that do feel very passionate about the Pacers winning. I'm
(34:28):
not one of them. I am not one of them,
and quite frankly, Kyle, from me to you, as just
a sports fan, I don't know if I want that either.
Like I don't want to see the Nick, I don't
want to see Knicks fans gloat and be happy, and
they're just absolute maniacs outside the garden. I get it
the same way. But when it comes to the NBA
(34:51):
Finals next week or two weeks, whatever it is, first
week of June, are you going to be more inclined
to sit down and watch Oklahoma City versus Indiana or
Okay See versus the Knicks. And I'm pretty sure the
majority of America are absolutely in agreement by saying, give
me the Dix.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yeah. If I wasn't from Philadelphia and group of Philadelphia
fan that the Knicks is the easy answer, right, There's
no way to to say that the excitement and the
history and the hooplah around that team won't be more
exciting to watch in this championship. As a lifelong Philadelphia fan,
Please don't let them win. Please, anybody do whatever it
(35:31):
takes to eliminate the Knicks.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
So would would the best case be for us for
them to get to the finals and lose, like, okay,
we get that next step, or no, we just want
them eliminated right now. I'm pretty sure that I could
say right here, right now, I just want them eliminated,
just get.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Rid of me. Yeah, I just think I want them eliminated.
But I mean they already get to hang over our
Sixers fans heads like, hey, where's your conference championship at?
With your MVP? Where's it at? Or you know, where's
your conference championship appearance?
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Hearance?
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah, yeah, where does it make it there? Then you
can talk to us? Right, So there's there's plenty to
say and the frustrated, like I'll never forget watching that
crowd come in to Philadelphia and take over the Wells
Fargo Center, how much I hate to admit it, they did.
It was obvious on the broadcast, and they will be
(36:22):
ungovernable if it happens again. Boston they don't really come
down for games like that, so it means one fine, right,
But New York they're just like us. It's just been
a while, right, so that they're going to be more
unbearable the next couple of years. Indiana. Their fans don't
really show up to the Wells Fargo.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
So I'm fine, definitely not making the trip.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
But the more exciting one neutral perspective, it has to
be the next Yeah, it'll it'll cause a stir for
sure that hasn't been seen in the NBA in.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
A little bit. Yeah, that's what I mean. So it's like,
all right, I'm trying to weigh it out here, but look,
none of that matters. All that matters is this is
going to be a great game. It's four and a half.
You got the two stars between Halibert and then Jalen Brunts,
and the way that they have commanded and run both
at their offenses, and just it's been a lot of
(37:11):
fun to watch both of those players really over these
last few weeks. But if you've been paying attention to
the league in the last two seasons, you know that
Halbert and Brunts that have been two really damn good ballplayers.
But do you know the team wise? I look at
the Pacers and I just give them a slight edge
from top to bottom as far as team depth is concerned.
(37:32):
They run deeper, they shoot a bunch of threes. I
know what the Celtics just shot a bunch of threes
against the Knicks. Didn't work out for them. You know,
Like I said, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend
that I'm going to be this expert handicapper on this one.
Flip a coin. If you're a Knicks fan, good luck.
If you're a Pacers backer, good luck. I could see
Game one going to Indiana, of course. I could see
(37:53):
Game one going to the Knicks. I could see this
series going to the Knicks. I could see the Pacers
beating the Knicks like they did last year. So well,
this is why there's only four teams left, two series
left to get to the NBA Finals. Good luck to
everybody out there. But with that, four and a half
was our number yesterday, still holding state at four and
a half right now to twenty two and a half
is our total in this one. And again, when you
(38:15):
start to talk about these two teams, my mind automatically
goes to Brunson and whether or not there will be
somebody out there that can at least limit him, slow
him down, shut him down, whatever it may be. And
I don't know if that player is on the Pacers roster,
so I think Brunton's gonna continue to weave his magic
in and score thirty plus and to be that focal
(38:37):
point for the knickt offense. I just think that the
Pacers can hang. The Pacers aren't scared. They came back
from a few times in that Cleveland Cavaliers game. And
then like as soon as I'm saying that, Kyle, immediately
what I think about is the fact that they were done.
The Knicks were down by twenty two times to the
Celtics in one boat of those games. So it's like,
these two teams are here for a reason. Good luck.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Yeah, it's two very gritty teams, two teams that play
a similar style of basketball, not exactly the same. Obviously
different skill sets across the teams. But when you think
about seeing basketball, depth basketball, that's what these guys play,
right And yeah, you may limit your depth for a
playoff series, but these guys play like they know the
next guy has their back. And it's not always the case,
(39:20):
even in conference finals and NBA Finals, where you see
teams play with an attitude of the team is going
to win this. Even if we know who our stars are, right,
we if they can somehow limit Brunson, and he doesn't care,
right if he scores eighteen instead of thirty five, he
knows that somebody else on that roster's picking him up.
If Bridges has to have all of his focus on
(39:43):
the defensive end because that's what's going to be beneficial
to the team, he's gonna do that, or I mid
if at the midway point, he realizes, Hey, I need
to turn it on on the offense because these guys
need a little bit of help. They've done that in
this postseason so far against the defending champions. So it's
to me, I'm excited to watch it because I think
it's just going to be a great series. You know,
(40:03):
you know me, I'm not die hard NBA guy, but
watching these two teams all season has been fun from
a basketball perspective. So to see them faced off on
the biggest well next the biggest stage, but on one
of the biggest stages, it's going to be interesting. It's
going to be entertaining. It feels a lot like for
for Philadelphia fans out there when people talked about, oh,
(40:24):
it's it's a matchup of you know, Eagles and forty
nine Ers. Yeah, we know they're elite teams, but it's
the battle of the two best teams overall. Take I'm
talking strictly Eastern because I know what Okac did all year.
But these two guys, these two teams have been two
of the deeper teams all season long, and they've stayed
healthy enough to survive the grind and get here. And
(40:44):
I think you're going to see that in display the
entire time the entire three.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Three times matched up this season, Nicks took two out
of three. First one took place in October twenty fifth,
second one November tenth, and Indiana Pacers ended up winning
that one one one. We're three and a half point
home of dogs. They were also home two point home
dogs in the final matchup on February eleventh, where the
Knicks one one twenty eight to one fifteen. A lot
(41:11):
has changed from that point in time of the season,
no doubt about it, but the Knicks still are the
favorites here four and a half, which would be the
highest number as far as the series is concerned all
season long for these two teams. Here. We know what
these two teams have been through in these last two
series to get to this point. But bottom line, is man.
We got some really good scorers, great coaching going on,
(41:35):
solid teams. No Fluke seeing the Pacers in this spot,
and for my money, no Fluke seeing the Knicks in
this spot. That was a hell of a victory over
the Boston Celtics. And I don't think overstating it at all.
With that being said, Oh, hang on a second, with
that being said, quickly on this the futures market as
far as winning it all this year for the NBA Finals,
(42:01):
and if I could thank you, Team Futures, keep it
simple DraftKings sportsbook of course. Okay, see with a leg
up on everybody one to zero in their series minus
two hundred at this point in time, Nicks plus four
to seventy five Pacers plus seven hundred t Wolves plus
one thousand. Are you gonna say?
Speaker 3 (42:19):
I was just gonna say that the You know, I'm
not big on Destiny Talker Team of Destiny at all,
but it shure started to feel that way with those
back to back twenty point comebacks, didn't it. I mean,
over the defending champs, the Knicks, they felt like this
was going to be the year for them with those
two epic epic comebacks. Epic stops by bridges. I know
(42:39):
that wasn't the end of the series, but to see
them do pull that off, it kind of felt like
this this is the team, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
And it's crazy too with these two teams in the
history and of course Reggie Miller back in the day
twenty six years ago, twenty five years ago for both
of these teams making the Eastern Conference finals. The Knicks
won an NBA championship back at seventy who I want
to say Pacers have yet to win an NBA championship.
So three out of the four teams that could potentially
be playing in next week's NBA Finals have yet to
(43:07):
win a championship. So somebody will. And of course, as
I said, with the Knicks haven't done it for a
long long time. So we got some new blood and
that's exciting. Whether it will be an MSG meltdown or
another Jalen Brunson masterclass, we shall find out a little
bit later this evening. Once again, four and a half
(43:27):
point spread on that one. All right, I want to
close up shop on this one fun hour to get
the party started. We do have some great programming following
this show. Here. X is into you Sebastli two, my
guy Matty g and Adam Booth back at it again
talking to all things Philadelphia Union, who are on fire
(43:48):
right now. You're paying attention to the Philadelphi Union MLS
soccer call Fisher.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
I have not been able to pay attention to much Union.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
They're on top of the East right now, tied twenty
nine points. About that, I full disclosure. I got so
much going on. I pay, I watch, I pay attention,
but it's a long season, so I don't really get
caught up in the standings. But when I did see
the other day that they were one of the best
records in the MLS, it's crazy because they fired Jim Currn,
(44:19):
the head coach who's been here forever. He's my guy,
love Jim, and I didn't think that they were gonna
have the success that they've had, albeit early in the year.
But man, it's been a lot of fun to pay
attention to. Even better that we have a podcast that
has the second all time leading scorer in philadelph Union
history featured on it and specialists.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
You go check that out.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
That's coming your way next year on the Gambler And
then at five o'clock you like the title of this one.
Ryan Beefcoyle and Nick McLay back with another edition of
Football Is King. Yes, they cover college football NFL. They're
gonna hit you with everything that's taking place, including little
toush push conversation and the schedule release. Anything for you
(45:04):
on the schedule release last.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Week, I found it interesting that they had no back
to back home games. That was I don't think that's
on purpose. I think it's just a way that the
schedule and travel worked out. But they're the first defending
champions ever to not have back to back home games
the following season, So again, don't think it's on purpose,
just think it's a coincidence. Are the most interesting and
what they're they're the first the first team ever to
(45:29):
have ten plus matchups against playoff teams from the year prior,
so two things that stick out. Again, I don't think
any of it was on purpose, but if you're a
conspiracy theorist, you can see that two first time things
with the schedule plus push push dominating the conversation in
the offseason. What are they trying to slow down other
(45:49):
than one of the best teams in the league. So
I do those are the interesting takeaways.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
I do think it's a difficult schedule.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Oh for sure. Yeah. I mean again ten plus games again. Yeah,
teams that just made the playoffs. So you can't really
argue that it's an easy schedule, doesn't matter how good
you are.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
No, you're right, And I guess I would let me
back it up and phrase it like along the lines
of when we get these schedules that come out, I'll
just go back to last year. I remember looking at
last year's schedule going eh, you know, not the most difficult.
I remember saying I didn't like to buy where it was,
and then that worked out very well. Right.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
There have been times like when a schedule comes on,
you're like, all right, that looks pretty easy and it
turns out to be difficult. So it's like you can't
really get caught up too much. But when you do
look at who they have to go to where they
have to go, you know, such as you know, the
specialty or the primetime schedules, the chiefs on a schedule,
I guess it starts and ends with the teams that
(46:49):
you have to play number one, But then you do
focus on who were they playing the week before? When
is this game being played. But you're right when you're
taking on the Detroit Lions, who are going to be
a good football team, when you're taking on the Buffalo
Bills that are going to be a good football team,
when you're taking on you know, the Commanders actually have
a different feel this year than ever before in a
(47:10):
long damn time, right, you know, Like I said, Kansas City,
this is a tough schedule, so again, we'll see how
it plays out. Long way to go, but pretty cool
to get.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
There's a good chance that I will actually have an
Eagles game this year, so I'm pretty Yeah, the Denver
Week five is likely to be the Jim Nance Tony
Romo crew. So I'll be on this. I'll hopefully be
on the sideline, Yes sir, Yes sir. Get the home game,
Get to get to stay at home for once. So
I like that.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, that'd be good. I'd like to see that all right, Last,
but not least? Am I out of line? Am I wrong? Like?
Am I out of my head? I know I'm wrong?
Am I out of my head? I didn't know that?
Like Memorial Day was this weekend?
Speaker 3 (47:55):
What I mean?
Speaker 4 (47:55):
You have a lot going on, Sean, you know, don't
get it tested little upside down at the moment.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
So I thought Memorial Day weekend was next weekend. I thought,
like next weekend was Memorial Day weekend. My wife tells
me yesterday like it's Memorial Day Friday, and I'm like, what, No,
it's not like Merorial Day weekends. The following we get
I didn't see anything though. I didn't see any specials.
I ain't see like, no fanfare, no, like I don't know.
(48:21):
I just thought there was more of a buzz about
Memorial Day weekend.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
I haven't seen much at all, to be honest with you,
So it's could just be we're getting a little older
and all the buzz is sent somewhere else, all the
buzz is on TikTok. I'm not on there, you know,
I don't know. So that's it. That's what I'm going with,
at least.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
All right, good stuff, Kyle Fischer. Final thoughtsfore you get
out of here, sir, what are you working on over there?
Speaker 3 (48:42):
I'm working on putting together something about time on Walker's
role change. I haven't had a chance to speak to
him directly, so I know that I had teased that
last time out. But I'm interested in that, and then
I did find I had a note that I want
to kind of expand on with some of the offensive
players when I'm back down there for the series. I
had asked Rob Thompson about an approach that Alec Bohm
(49:05):
had taken. He's normally a free swinger, swings early in
the count. Jt room Uto hit right before him and
grounded out on the first pitch, first pitch to Boem
in his middle middle. He takes it, ends up grinding
out a seven or eight pitch of bat, still gets
the single. And I asked Thompson if that was something
that would that they had to tell him, hey, go
slow down, or is that something that is just an
evolution of his game, and he said that it's something
(49:26):
that they preach being cognizant of what the other half
of the team is doing, right, being cognizant of what
our pitcher just went through in that half inning and
what we need to do to you know, if we
need to give him extra rest, let's grind out these
at bat. So I want to ask the guys kind
of what being cognizant of all facets of the game
means to them and if they feel like It's kept
them more connected as a team, more connected to the
(49:48):
game itself, more ready for any situation, especially with how
much shifting and pinch hitting to do latent game. So
it's it's an idea. Don't know quite where it is,
but that's what I'll be working all about the park
next week.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
I like it. Kyle Fisher forty five on Socials as
always represented the team over at Philly Sports Network. Check
out what they have to offer, great, great coverage on
all of Philadelphia Sports. That's at Philadelphia s And I
know your guy, Liam is a big Footy fan, a
big you know, he's across the pond, so he's got
(50:19):
to be a SCO fan. Got a big woman Manchester
United coming up here. So it's the first time that
I'm actually sitting down with a little bit of hype,
a little bit of just excitement for my team in
so long. And I am ready for this team to
lose two to nothing, maybe three one, and I'm just prepared.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
But we'll see what happens. It's that should be fun though.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Uh two ones, two quick ones before we get out of here.
I did see on my television that a J Hawk
is representing the Eagles. He's wearing an Eagles jersey. I
don't know if that's al Seon Jeffrey. It looks like
a weird jersey. I don't know if it's an Eagles
jersey anyways. Second thing is Hard Knocks has said that
they are going to have the Buffalo Bills this year.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
That'll be very interesting. Yeah, I mean, I like that team.
They got some characters. I'm sure that they'll stay away
from any Sean McDermott rob Ross beaches until they have
a chance to vet what he's gonna talk about. But
other than that, what what I didn't what it happened?
Speaker 2 (51:20):
No, yeah, no, no, I know, no, No, I just
forgot about it. I forgot about it.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
Yeah, So I'm sure that they'll they'll they'll do a
long editing session on that one before they release it.
But you got some great characters up there. I love
Dion Dawkin's former Temple guy on the offensive lineup there.
Just got a new contract, I believe, So they have
some great guys up there. Who doesn't want to see
more about Josh Allen and they're in they're in a
tough spot, so it's gonna be really interesting to watch them.
(51:45):
You know, they've had a few years falling shore behind
Kansas City. Kansas City falls short against the Eagles in
the Super Bowl. What's there? What's their attitude gonna be
like off the field. So it'll be nice to see them,
especially because they feel like they've been little brother a
little bit out in the AFC to Kansas City for
these last few years. Perfect season to do it. Can
they finally get over the hump after after Kansas City
(52:08):
had to kind of walk away from the Super Bowl
with their tail between their legs.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah, that was on my television screen yesterday. Is this
the year that the buffal little bills finally get past
the kids?
Speaker 3 (52:17):
And like, guys, it's on your screen every year. Yeah,
like they get.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
You know, we got to find new conversational topics, right,
new questions please? Yeah, it's not that hard. Great job, Kyle.
Continue to follow you on all things social colle Fishing
forty five. Everybody, keep it locked right here to the
game of coming up next access in the ufall by
Football is King. I'll be back tomorrow with Sam Austrey
more on the Gambler, next
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Spreads Total and all the prop that's in the tweens
it's the gambler.
Number one on your car radio preset hand, the new
and improved Diehard Radio ads and w D two seven
three D Philadelphia. I is Fox Sports Radio, The Gambler,
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Philly is the Gambler, The Gambler, Philly's home for all
(00:23):
things sports gambling.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
What in SAGI edition to the Daily Ticket and a
Good Afternoon. It is a Wednesday, a Daily Ticket, Come
in your way, still ride in from the home studio,
joined by a special guest. Open up the show here
on this beautiful Wednesday and Midiller Valley the Great Kyle
Fisher back on the program, and be sure to find
(01:09):
Kyle on all Things Socials. Kyle Fisher forty five real
easy to find there and of course represent the team
over at Philly Sports Network. I didn't think we'd be
talking much NFL today, and I don't really want to
talk too much about the play, But at the end
of the day, man, it is a big topic and
it's just like it's still hanging on and I don't
(01:32):
see this going away, especially next year when they vote
on it again. And maybe if they don't pass it
next year, maybe that's when it rides off into the sunset,
and it is what it is. But at this point
in time breaking news as of about an hour ago,
the NFL has said that they will not ban the
Tush push for the upcoming season. They could not come
(01:54):
up with the votes. I think they needed twenty four
to twenty five votes, whatever it is, and could not
get to that number. Jason Kelsey was brought in by
the Eagles to go in and speak, and you know, look,
what needs to be said has been set a hundred
different times, a hundred different ways. There's nothing new to
add to this conversation. It's kind of weak to see
(02:17):
these teams come out there and say we want to
get rid of it due to safety and whatever other
nonsense they're throwing in there. Ultimately, it comes down to this.
The Eagles are unbelievable at running that play. They just
won the Super Bowl. They're one of the best teams
in the league for the past few seasons, and it's
definitely taking a shot at Jalen Hurts and the offense
(02:40):
as a whole. If they're able to remove that, I
understand while why teams are trying to do that, Like
I said, it's pretty easy if the Eagles were in
the basement. If the Eagles were a five hundred ball club,
I don't think we're hearing much about the pushbush. But
because this team consistently competes for the division, has just
won the Super Bowl, has had unbole success with that
(03:01):
offensive line, angel On Hurtz, this is why we're dealing
with it right now. But it's a great conversation for you, Kyle,
your thoughts man.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, I mean, the you've already said a lot of
the talking points about the supporting end, right it's there.
The argument is that there's player safety concerns, and I
understand that some coaches that at least have mentioned we
want to get ahead of injury concerns because there's no
data to support that there's injury concerns with this play,
(03:30):
you know. I mean people want to call it a
rugby play. How many rugby injuries are caused by scrums.
It's minimal, and those guys aren't wearing pads. We're talking
about guys getting this close to each other. Yeah, it hurts,
but it's nothing like running down and taking a guy's
head off across the middle of the field on a
bad pass. It's nothing like blowing somebody up or pulling
them down for a horse collar tackle. The safety argument
(03:53):
until there's data to back it up, I'm throwing that
out the window because there's no proof is that is
a dangerous play. I still think some of the things
that people are going to have to answer for, right
like Sean McDermott, they run a variation of the play
Josh Allen Big Body. They maybe not don't do as
much pushing physically as the Eagles do. But when asked specifically,
(04:16):
he was part of the committee that was around the
safety of the play itself. When asked point blank, if
the play, you know, if your concern is about safety,
and the play gets does not get banned, are you
going to use it again? If your number one concern
is safety, are going to put your guys in in
a not safe position? And he couldn't answer the question,
and it's a question he should be. The reporters in
(04:38):
Buffalo should hold his speak to the fire and make
him answer that, yeah, you are concern of yours, Why
on earth are you putting your guys in that position?
So I think that it's that's going to be a
lot of the fallout. But I think Eagles fans are
just going to hold the hold their cocky heads high
after this one, for sure. And and and if you're
a Green Bay fan and you know Eagles fans personally,
(04:58):
well I'm sorry in advance for today because it's going
to be a lot of a lot of grand standing
from Eagles fans for sure.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah. And you know, even if they want to ban it,
Even if they did ban it today, I still feel
like the Eagles are going to be successful with the
quarterback sneak and whatever variation of the play they want
to throw in their minus the pushing of the player.
I'll tell you straight up where I'm at that might
surprise people.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I would never want this play to be banned because
simply the success that the Eagles running at like that's
in the conversation there, But for me as a whole,
I never liked the whole pushing of a player with
that rule change back in you know what, two decades
whatever it was that they decided to remove that, Well,
we know why they decided to remove that, because that
(05:44):
puts points on the board. If there is a player
that's stuck on a five yard line and all of
a sudden you get the two tackles running up and grab.
We've seen it happen a lot. Doesn't happen every game, no,
but there is some sort of pushing forward of the
player in every game. I would say that, but that
results in points, probably not. But I've never been a
(06:05):
fan of that. I've never been a fan of pushing
the player forward. I just don't. I don't like that,
and I think that it's extremely beneficial for the offense.
And we know how the league is built and what
makes you know, butters, the bread points and things that
help out the offense. I just never liked it. But
I never really cared about it, and I don't now
except they're trying to remove a great play from the
(06:26):
Eagles repertoire. But it doesn't matter, like they're still going
to be successful. A. J. Brown said it best yesterday.
It's one damn yard. It's one yard.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I love my Alatta's argument yesterday. He said, I hope
they'd ban it because I hate the name. He's like,
we don't care. It doesn't make a difference, stuf Us.
We're gonna use it because we can, but it's not
the reason that we win games.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
And if you watch the Eagles from an unbiased position,
and you think that that's the reason they won games,
then you don't know what you're talking about when it
comes to football. That is a great football team regardless.
I think it was our guy, Jeff Kerr from CBS
covers the Eagles for CBS Proper covers Afhillies for CBS Philly.
He tweeted out something a little while ago when the
vote was pushed back about the Carson Wentz quarterback sneak,
(07:12):
which was not a toush push, had a higher percentage
of success than the touch push. The Bill's quarterback sneak
in the last two seasons had a higher success rate
than the toush push. So what are we complaining about? Like, again,
it feels very and I'm letting my fandom show for
a moment, but it feels very personal when one team
(07:36):
has popularized this specific version and that's the only version
that's on the TABE. I know that they did change
some language late to try and get to try and
get it across the line. A lot of the pushing
and pulling. I think the original way that it was
phrased is like you couldn't push somebody Immediately after they
received the snap from behind, but a few second delay
is fine. And then they had to change that because
(07:58):
they thought that, okay, this is way too specific and
it still didn't pass right. So clearly people are comfortable
with it. I agree with you. I remember what was it,
Reggie Bush in a yeah, yeah, yeah, where they had
to play recalled right against Notre Dames. So that was
I remember a time where it didn't exist. And if
they said, look, we just think the game played cleaner
(08:18):
or played more like we envisioned before that rule changed,
and we want to change it back to what it was,
that's the easiest, simplest argument, and I think everybody says sure.
But when you start bringing in these other things player safety,
that's when it turns into a much bigger story.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, And like I said, now you're just motivating these
guys you want to remove it. You're given the Eagles
digital team something to work with, which is ammunition.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
The bulletin board material. I don't understand why, especially a
Super Bowl champion exactly, you'd think that maybe that team,
not that I think this is the DNA of that team,
but you think a team that just won may be
like and now you've just given them more motivation to
get jacked up for week one. Once again, I don't
think they were gonna let the foot off the pedal,
but you people find any reason to put bulletin board
(09:09):
material up, Like the Chiefs would talk all the time about, oh,
people doubt of us. People didn't think we could do
the three feet? Are you sure because every single publication
picked you as the favorites before the season started, Like,
if they're finding any reason, they heard one guy on
one podcast one time say that they should that they're
not gonna win, and they ran with it all season.
Why give that to their defending Super Bowl champions?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
And I do want to point this out because there
is a lot of people that could have the bias
in play, and I just feel like, very a strong majority,
let's just say, eighty seventy five eighty seventy seventy five percent,
I'm saying on my timeline right now, I'm seeing excuse
me say that, Hey, look like there's no reason to
(09:53):
ban this. You're just banning it because you can't stop it.
And one team is really good at it, and it
looks pretty weak. And I think that we're seeing that
from a good strong majority of people that are in uh,
you know, as far as the media is concerned cover
the NFL, whether they're a beat writer, like, the majority
of people that I've seen are on the common sense
(10:15):
side of It's like wait a minute, man, and and like,
don't you feel like I get it right? Like these things?
You know, when you draft a guy like Jalen Hurts,
he brings us to the table. When you put together
an offensive line like that, yeah, your strength is going
to be running the football. But you know, oh, in no,
there have been great plays over the years that we
have been like, oh my god, no one's ever gonna
(10:37):
stop it. That's it. It's over. And guess what, somebody
comes up with a plan and they stop it. You know,
like it's part of the game too. I feel like
the tush push to brotherly shaw, whatever you want to
call it, eventually will be figured out to a point.
And I don't know if that has more to do
so with injuries or you know, Jalen Hurts gets out
(10:57):
of the equation. Is this all on jailing? Who knows?
But all in all, like I do feel like these
things do get figured out majority of the time. So
just let it play and we'll see what happens. But
that's not how the NFL viewed it. They open it
up the rules committee. I thought it was going to
be banned today, Diana Rassini was pounding herd chest. Adam
(11:18):
Schefter apparently was saying it as well that he expected
it to be banned and it was not the case.
So maybe Jason Kelcey and his final thoughts had something
to do with that. Speaking of final thoughts, your final
word on this.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Well, I think you mentioned Jason Kelsey. He's you know,
everybody loves him. Why not bring him in, right? But yeah,
I think it's there's not much more to say, Sean.
It's it felt like a personal attack. And if the
Eagles want to use that as motivation, great, But I
think they're a good enough team that this vote didn't matter.
It didn't make one iota of a difference. The only
difference might have been that Saquon gets a couple more
(11:51):
touchdowns and hurts. It's a couple less. That's about it.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, I agree with that. All right, over to the
world of major leagu based excuse me, woo live right baby,
Hey ho. The sneeze that was a going there. Let's
talk about the first place Phillies. Let's shift gears and
get on over to the Diamond and the Phils continuing
to win out there in Colorado and not saying much
(12:17):
because the Rockies are about as bad as it gets
as far as Major League Baseball, as far as professional
sports are concerned. Eight and forty right now they have
their two and eight in their last ten. And now
I've lost two straight, two to Phillies. Phillies have two
more against Colorado. We welcome that a good four game
stretch here out there in Colorado for the fightings back
at it this evening, first pitch at eight forty pm,
(12:39):
Taiwan Walker, come on down minus two to eighteen quickly
on this. Unless you have a take on these games,
Colorado is so bad, Like you know, you can't sit
here and say, oh, take the Phillies at minus two eighteen?
Can you? Can you say it at minus one fifty
five for the run line. I don't have a problem
with that. I could look at the eleven. I know
Taiwan Walker's been playing little. I have been pitching better
(13:00):
this year, but eleven. Maybe Colorado gets into their mode,
but that is a bad baseball team. I don't know
if the Phillies are going up there and scoring eleven themselves,
So even then I would probably stay away. But I
guess the big picture conversation for the Phillies is more.
It's more entertaining to me than anything to day to
(13:21):
day right now. And I hate to say like that
because nobody's won anything here. I made to twenty first.
But you know, the conversation about the bullpen, Alvarado being suspended,
the you know mcabel comes in, You're gonna have Painter
coming up eventually. Here, Ranger Suarez, we know what he's
capable of, Taiwan Walker, what was said, what we've known,
(13:42):
what he's doing now, Like the conversation about the bullpen
and how do you figure this out? From Dombrowski and
Thompson moving forward is more entertaining than anything that's taking
place on the field for me at this point in
time with the Phillies. So I'm curious to know where
do you stand on that conversation. And let's start with
mick Abe. You know we heard about painter painter or
(14:02):
pain or painter or painter. I don't know, like I
know people have been mentioning this guy. Don't get me wrong,
Luke Arcaney yourself. You guys do a great job. But
I wasn't expecting that debut, and now.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
What yeah, I mean it was. I think he had
the advantage of pitching against the Pittsburgh Pirates first and foremost.
I don't want to discount what the guy did. He
is still major league pitching. It's still a major league team, right.
Any team can go out there any day and beat
another team, just like any other professional league. But for
(14:31):
him to go out there, you know, the Pirates had
every single potential stud in their lineup on Sunday, Any
potential starter, any potential trade chip or young building block
was in that lineup for that team, and he made
them look like they weren't ready for him, as opposed
to the other him not being ready for the moment
he had. I was there on Saturday, the day before
(14:52):
his start, and spoke with the team and his attitude.
I remember hearing interviews with him last year where I
was just trying to work through and grind through, and
this offseason he really spent the time to refocus and
re establish his mentality. Right. He's used to be a
real fiery guy, very calm, cool and collected, coming into
(15:13):
this season, and it was focusing on the things that
you can control. You hear that a lot in sports,
but it's easier said than done, right, And I remember
it was Anthony sam Filippo from On Patterson who asked
him both in Lehigh and then again in Philly, you
know you talked a lot about just getting one percent
better every time you're out one percent, these incremental moments,
(15:34):
and he said, you know that can feel like a
grind to a lot of guys, especially if it's not
been the mental focus of your game forever. And he said, no,
he's like, you know it being here regardless of the
result tomorrow, which was an incredible result that to him
made it all worth it.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
It showed you what putting in the work can do.
And you see a lot of the guys on the
team having that. And the thing that I've noticed the most.
I know that you probably want to hear more about
the kids electric start, but to hear guys from Triple
A and to hear Marshawn talk about this, and to
hear Able talk about this, it is becoming an organizational
(16:12):
message on focusing on the things you can control and
focusing on incremental improvement as opposed to we need to
turn it around right now, right we need to do
something right now to change or to swing things for us.
One thing that I remember in the Gabe Caplar years
was it it felt a lot like there was a
disc game Caplar years.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I like it right, but.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
It felt like there was a disconnect between the different
levels in the Phillies organization and what the club has
done with Don Browski and Mattingly, and they have really
focused on organizational development, and I think that you're seeing
the fruits of that labor. It may not have flipped
on day one, but you see mick Abel as an example.
You're going to see Andrew Preener as another example. You
(16:52):
see what Chris Sanchez, what they were able to turn
him into, what guys like Marsh have been able to
do on the rehab assignment and turn his season around.
I think that the organizational message being consistent from level
to level gives you a clear development path and it
helps show what this team can be, not only in
the short term but the long term. And mick Abel
(17:14):
was an exclamation point on that. So I know that
you probably wanted to talk about his outing which was great,
But to me it's sent a much different message. Not hey,
we have a great starting pitching depth. It's look at
what the organization has done. Look at what the organization
is doing to develop talent, something that they may not
have been prideful of a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
No, and look, this is what you need to continue
to compete year and year out. You have to build it.
And it wasn't you know, a fluke when the Phillies
were able to go on that run and when the
one World Series in eight and then go on and
have the success year after a year after year. Now
again they went out and made some great moves and
did have some pieces, But yeah, if you develop it,
(17:55):
you're able to maybe push some of those pieces into
the middle of the table and fetch your self somebody
like a Roy Halliday, somebody like a Cliff Lee, somebody, uh,
you know, whatever it may be, whatever, And essentially you
don't even have to go that high of a bar, right,
Like what we're talking about now with the with the
flaws of this Phillies team, and again albeit caveat May
(18:17):
twenty first is like, what are you going to do
to replace Alvarado? That's got to be at the top
of the list now because he was his best, best reliever,
He was dominant. He was a guy that could strike
the bases outloaded, you know, and with nobody out like
it's it's you felt comfortable majority of time as much
as possible with him coming into the game. But we'll
(18:37):
see how they handle it. We'll see what happens there.
I know that they can always use a bat somebody
to come in. And again we know that injuries are
going to uh poke their head into the conversation as well.
It just it's effected the matter. It's a long, long season.
Everybody goes through it. But now Mark, Henry Junior and
I were talking yesterday about, well, come October, come September,
(18:59):
what is it look like for you? Do you think
Ranger Suarez will be in the bullpen for a playoff run?
Do you think one of or both Painter and Abel
will be in the bullpen come playoff time? I do
like if these guys are up, they're going to pitch,
they're going to play, and only so many players or
only so many pitchers can get the starting spots come
(19:20):
playoff time. So I think that those three names could
at least two will absolutely be in the bullpen, maybe three.
And I'm even pushing the fast forward button on Taiwan Walker.
Whether that's unfair. Who knows, he might get traded. We'll
see what happens there. But you know, and if that's
the case, Kyle long winded, like, I think the bullpen's
in a pretty good spot. I get it, young players,
(19:43):
you're asking a lot that spot, no doubt about it.
But still got plenty of time to build up. But
I think that the bullpen might not be that much
of a issue. If that's how the final results going
to look come September.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah, I mean, you need to get there. That's the
key is. I think that if everybody remains healthy, you
nailed it right. You're going to see Suarez most likely
just because he's done it before in that bullpen, being
your emergency guy pitching two three innings when you're more
likely to pull the starter in a quicker manner in
the playoffs. I don't know, they seem to not want
(20:19):
to put Painter in there. I think that they're worried
about him ramping up and trying to throw harder. You know,
everybody's stuff plays up a little bit in the bullpen
coming off to Tommy John. I think they're worried about
that becoming too stressful on his arm. He already throws
pretty hard, and coming off that surgery, I think they
want to reserve him. So I don't know what his
innings are going to look like come the postseason, even
you know, we need to see what is innings looks
(20:40):
like when he gets here first. I would hope that
if you're bringing him up and giving him major league time,
that and you find yourself in a position where you
need an arm in the bullpen, that he's an option, right.
But the other option would be to put somebody else
there who might not be as comfortable either. So I
just envisioned like what the Rays did at David Price. Right,
they brought him up in September. He was supposed to
(21:01):
be a hot shot starter. He went to the bullpen
and was lights out on that one playoff run for them,
and then they just stretched him back out in the offseason.
I think it was Ruben Tomorrow on The Phillies Show
podcast who suggested while Ranger has the experience, he said
that if they're forced to move somebody in the bullpen
because they have so many arms, Christopher Sanchez might actually
(21:22):
be the best option for that, and while hesitant to
take him out of the rotation, if everybody else is
pitching as well as they are, his stuff already plays up.
You know, he's throwing more ninety seven ninety eight, whereas
Suarez falls around ninety four. If he's playing up to
ninety nine one hundred in the bullpen, he already has
the contract where Swarz is in his last year, so
you can probably comfortably go to him and his agent
(21:43):
and say, look, this is a let's get through and
go try and win a World Series with our guy
pitching in a different role. He's pitched out of the
pen before, so it's not farign too him. And then
we and there's some sort of guarantee or a handshake agreement,
and the second the season's we expected to be back
in that rotation. Is one of our top two or
three arms in the twenty twenty sixth season. So I
(22:06):
think that they have options, which is something that you
rarely see, and they don't have a whole lot of
options to shove guys in triple A, so they have
to figure out ways to get created in the bullpen.
I think the struggle becomes if you want to reserve
certain guys for longer outings, then you're pushing other people
into high leverage roles that maybe they're not comfortable being
(22:26):
in as of yet. Right, Joe Ross has looked good
at times. Is he comfortable pitching in a high leverage role.
He hasn't done it to this point in his career. Right.
He's a former starter turned to a pretty solid reliever
last season. They thought solid enough to bring him in,
but they expected him to be a two, three inning
guy as opposed to a guy who's pitching the seventh, eighth,
(22:47):
or ninth inning. Not that he can't, but he hasn't
shown that he can just yet. And that's always a
thing with bullpen arms, for whatever reason, is no one
trusts that you can do it until you show that
you can. Right. Even Matt Strom knows how lights out
he is. But when he first started pitching in the
eighth inning, I remember a lot of Phillies fans being weary, like,
this is what this guy really does? You know, he's
(23:07):
more of a longman, more of a sixth inning guy,
not the eighth inning. And then over over time you
see how electric he is and he can do it
on the flip side with Oryan Kirkering, right, I think
he's performed well, but it looks shaky at times. It
looks like oh nine Brad Lidge instead of oh eight
brad Lidge, where every time he gets somebody on, you're like,
oh goodness, what's gonna happen here, even though Lidge still
ended up having a decent year for the most part,
(23:29):
and Kirkering's numbers are pretty good. Until he shows that
he can do it, can you trust that he can? Right? So,
I think you're more looking at a bullpen addition come
deadline as opposed to forcing somebody. But between now and July,
they're going to have to figure it out and they're
gonna get creative. Aaron Nola's health is going to be
the number one thing that determines what they do next.
Because if Walker can go out there and play up
(23:51):
a little bit and pitch like he did in his
first relief outing, especially not that he pitched poor in
the second one, but that first one was lights out
with seven strikeouts over three innings, I think that he's
a viable option back there, and they've pitched better as
a unit as of late, They're still not top of
the of the league. They're not the Mets necessarily who
were I think since the beginning of May have like
(24:14):
a sub two five era out of the pen. But
the three seven seven in the month of May is
much improved on the five oh six through April, right,
So if they can see some consistency and some guys
get comfortable back there, then they're in an advantageous position.
The question becomes, are they the first ones calling around
and are people going to hold their feet to the
(24:34):
fire to try and maximize the value on a bullpen
arm at this point in the season.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Well, he did bring up Ranger Suarez there, and we
did talk about Ranger and talk about his agent, Scott Boris.
Interesting to see how that conversation will be had that
at the end of the season, and I'm sure they're
talking now quite Frankly, I believe Alec Boehm is represented
by Scott Boris as well.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Correct, I'm not positive.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Sure he is. Yeah, yeah, Coming around to the offensive
side of the game for the Phillies, here Boom coming through,
Harper's ripping the cover off the baseball. Schorebert continues to
go yard three hundred bombs, you know, just getting it
going again. And and this team has the look. I'll
be it on May the twenty first, not even Memorial Day.
(25:23):
But it's a lot of fun to tune in and
watch this team play, regardless if it's the Rockies, regardless
if it's the Sacramento Slash. I'll always call the Oakland
A's Braves coming to town next week as well post
Memorial Day. So that's a pretty good run there. But
ultimately it comes down to Phillies fan tuning in want
to be entertained and enjoyed the hell out of out
(25:45):
of some winning baseball. And that's that team right now.
Has the look. And it's a lot of fun watching
him play. And I don't care who they're playing, whether
it's Colorado last play sports team in the history of sports,
or a team that this team has an opportunity to
win some games. A lot of fun. And we didn't
even talk about Wheeler, we didn't talk about some of
the other bright spots with this team.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Yeah, there's so many positives, it's tough to cover everything.
The one thing I've said to my son, he keeps
springing up like, oh, you know what they played the
Pirates and the Rockies. So of course they look good.
It's like but traditionally some of the concerns about this
team and from every fan base, is when you watch
your team play down to the competition and they're not
doing that. They're doing exactly what you're supposed to do
(26:25):
against these teams. Right. They took care they beat schemes,
won nothing on a run that barely scored, right, but
they did what they had to do. The bullpen did
what they had to do. Abel did what he had
to do. They've put up seventeen hits in two straight games. Yeah,
it's Colorado, it's a big outfield, but most of them
haven't been the long ball. They had a few home
(26:46):
runs late in the game yesterday, but they've done damage
the way small ball. They've done traditional damage, singles, doubles, buns,
sack flies, getting guys over, hitting behind runners. The things
that wins championships is what they've done this last week plus. Right,
whether you win a series or not, Like you said,
to watch them and to see the excitement on the field.
(27:09):
They're not struggling to beat the Rockets. They're taking care
of business and making it look easy like it should
they're not struggling against the pirates. They're taking care of
business and beating them in a way that you should
that someone would expect of a World Series caliber team.
So to me, that's the biggest thing is they're not
playing down to their competition. They are beating teams in
the way that you should beat them, whether they're high,
(27:30):
high level competition or not.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah, the only issue that I have right now with
this team was a stat that was put out there
by Tom McCarthy when Boehm hit the go ahead home
run in the eighth inning, where I think there were
one in fifteen in games that they trailed after seven innings,
and that you know, look, I don't know what that
number is going to be, what that record will be
at the end of the season, but generally speaking, those
things have a an't even themselves out. Again, if you're
(27:55):
winning ball games, you're gonna have some tough losses, get it.
But he could examine it and you could go a
little bit more detail with it, and where a team
lacks the ability to come up with a big hit,
if it's not Scherberg going yard, who is it. Those
sort of conversations I think, you know, it's still too
early to be had here on May to twenty first,
(28:17):
four time that I mentioned a date, But it is
something that should have your attention. It should be something that,
you know what, this is a team we'd like to
see have the ability to come back and win some
of those games. We'll see what happens, you know, after
a few more weeks of action, a few more weeks
of gameplay. But this team right now first place in
the East. And there's not a complaint coming out of
(28:38):
my mouth at this point in time.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
No complaints with that about the potential to bring back
David Robertson, Oh God, for the third time.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, I was like, wait a minute, can you mean
to tell me there's nobody in the house, Like you
really got to go dial him up? But regardless last year, Yeah,
Dombrowski's got his ways. You know, he knows what he's doing.
He's going to stick to the script, and he's no
dummy for sure. All right, let's go ahead and switch
gears once again. Philly's coming up tonight that game. DraftKings
(29:05):
sportsbook currently showing that the fightings with a Taiwan walker
on the mound, a nice big favorite of minus two
eighteen total coming in at eleven eight forty. First pitch, Yes,
over to the NBA. We do have some other items
going on in the sports world. Let's just put it
(29:26):
that way. Pretty good one last night as far as
Western Conference Finals Game one, Timberwolves in Oklahoma City Thunder,
big time number and okay, see a rolled in the
second half. They were given seven and a half. Tight game.
In the first half, Minnesota looked really good at points
and then you just kind of had the vibe that
OKAC was going to figure it out and be the
(29:46):
better team. In the second half. They were, and then
some holding the Minnesota Timberwolves to I believe forty total
points in the second half if I'm not mistaken, which
is just ugly. But bottom line is, I don't think
we should be all that surprise, ey, because we're talking
about one of the better teams, if not the best team.
Excuse me when it comes to defense. I believe the
(30:08):
Oklahoma City Thunder where the best team in NBA all
season long, regular season as far as defense was concerned.
So no shock there that the defense led to the
victory and Minnesota held the Thunder to forty four points
and that was all she wrote right there. Excuse me,
forty points by Minnesota in the second half. I had
(30:29):
to write the first one first time. Anyways, you know,
you look at SGA and what he's been able to
do as far as MVP all season long. It just
feels like that, okay See will be the team that
prevails and comes out of this. I know that. I
kind of in my mind was thinking that this is
gonna be a great series. I was hopeful, and it's
only one game, but okay See, does look like they're deeper,
(30:51):
does look like they're there. They have, you know, better
scoring options, and the home court is pretty important this
time of year as well, So it's that they did win.
I did take the seven and a half last night,
so I'll chalk up a loss there. Oh well, it happens.
But man, hopefully SGA can lead the charge for Game
two and just keep it going for okay see. Your
thoughts on.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Game one, Yeah, I mean, like you said, it was
a typical Oklahoma City defensive route. You know, the second half, especially,
forty points in an NBA game and a half is
rare nowadays, especially regardless of how good your defense is.
So to do that against a caliber. Excuse me, a
team the caliber of Minnesota is extra impressive. Anthony Edward said,
(31:36):
you know, we got to figure some things out. The
field goal percentage was pretty low for some guys on
their team. Their bench was a big problem last night,
not what we've seen from them all season long. The turnovers.
There's a way to play against tough defense and not
turn the ball over, and that was the big thing
I think they finished with turn the ball over nineteen
(31:56):
times last night. You can't win a game, regardless of
how big, regardless of the opponent, if you turn the
ball over nineteen times. I don't care how good their
defense is. You need to hold onto the ball, especially
come playoffs. So they'll go back to the drawing board.
I still think it's not going to be a quick series.
I don't think this thing's over in four or five.
I think Anthony Edwards on his own, is just too
good to give up. But you have some really good
(32:18):
veterans on that team, and Randall and Gobert that can
help them. The key is going to be ken the
bench do a little bit more than they did to
not put all that pressure on the starters. But Oklahoma
City looked like we thought they would. I don't know
if we thought that that they would look that dominant
in the second half. But none of this is surprising
from Okay, see, it's more surprising to see how Minnesota
(32:39):
looked on the other end as opposed.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
To Yeah, really shyed away from the moment in that
second half. Again, easier said than done. You're going up
against the best team and dominant. I think there were
nineteen games better than the Minnesota Temblelives in the regular season,
and here we are in the Western Conference finals. They're
going head to head. Kind of seems unfair, but no
one cares about that point in time. You gotta win
(33:01):
four games and advance to the finals. And oh, by
the way, neither of those two teams have won an
NBA championship before, so it would be a first time
in NBA history. With that being said, let's get on
over to the Pacers and the Knicks, and I'll tell
you what. This is the hot topic in all of
sports right now, from coast to coast. All eyes are
(33:21):
on the Knicks and Pacers game one. Of course, we
know what took place last year in this series, Pacers
getting by the Knicks. We know that the injuries were
a huge concern and ultimately really cost the Knicks an
opportunity to advance last year. Whether that's true or not,
or you believe that or not, doesn't matter. Ultimately, it
came down to the Pacers advancing. So here we are,
right here right now, as my guy Danny Small checking,
(33:43):
it is brace and brunts and believer. I've always been
a brunts and believer. I've always been a brunts and believer.
Now backer has a different story, but a brunts and believer.
I love Jael Brunson. You gotta the Knicks as much
as I hate the Knicks. You gotta believe, man, like
this isn't a fluke. This team has put it together
and they are battle tested. They've been down by twenty
(34:07):
to the Celtics to come back and win that that
was a tough Detroit Detroit series that they were able
to prevail in. I don't really look as we sit
here right now. I want the Pacers to win, don't
get me wrong, but I can't tell you that I
believe that that's how it's going to be. I know
that there are a few guys on the Gambler Gang
that do feel very passionate about the Pacers winning. I'm
(34:28):
not one of them. I am not one of them,
and quite frankly, Kyle, from me to you, as just
a sports fan, I don't know if I want that either.
Like I don't want to see the Nick, I don't
want to see Knicks fans gloat and be happy, and
they're just absolute maniacs outside the garden. I get it
the same way. But when it comes to the NBA
(34:51):
Finals next week or two weeks, whatever it is, first
week of June, are you going to be more inclined
to sit down and watch Oklahoma City versus Indiana or
Okay See versus the Knicks. And I'm pretty sure the
majority of America are absolutely in agreement by saying, give
me the Dix.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yeah. If I wasn't from Philadelphia and group of Philadelphia
fan that the Knicks is the easy answer, right, There's
no way to to say that the excitement and the
history and the hooplah around that team won't be more
exciting to watch in this championship. As a lifelong Philadelphia fan,
Please don't let them win. Please, anybody do whatever it
(35:31):
takes to eliminate the Knicks.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
So would would the best case be for us for
them to get to the finals and lose, like, okay,
we get that next step, or no, we just want
them eliminated right now. I'm pretty sure that I could
say right here, right now, I just want them eliminated,
just get.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Rid of me. Yeah, I just think I want them eliminated.
But I mean they already get to hang over our
Sixers fans heads like, hey, where's your conference championship at?
With your MVP? Where's it at? Or you know, where's
your conference championship appearance?
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Hearance?
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah, yeah, where does it make it there? Then you
can talk to us? Right, So there's there's plenty to
say and the frustrated, like I'll never forget watching that
crowd come in to Philadelphia and take over the Wells
Fargo Center, how much I hate to admit it, they did.
It was obvious on the broadcast, and they will be
(36:22):
ungovernable if it happens again. Boston they don't really come
down for games like that, so it means one fine, right,
But New York they're just like us. It's just been
a while, right, so that they're going to be more
unbearable the next couple of years. Indiana. Their fans don't
really show up to the Wells Fargo.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
So I'm fine, definitely not making the trip.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
But the more exciting one neutral perspective, it has to
be the next Yeah, it'll it'll cause a stir for
sure that hasn't been seen in the NBA in.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
A little bit. Yeah, that's what I mean. So it's like,
all right, I'm trying to weigh it out here, but look,
none of that matters. All that matters is this is
going to be a great game. It's four and a half.
You got the two stars between Halibert and then Jalen Brunts,
and the way that they have commanded and run both
at their offenses, and just it's been a lot of
(37:11):
fun to watch both of those players really over these
last few weeks. But if you've been paying attention to
the league in the last two seasons, you know that
Halbert and Brunts that have been two really damn good ballplayers.
But do you know the team wise? I look at
the Pacers and I just give them a slight edge
from top to bottom as far as team depth is concerned.
(37:32):
They run deeper, they shoot a bunch of threes. I
know what the Celtics just shot a bunch of threes
against the Knicks. Didn't work out for them. You know,
Like I said, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend
that I'm going to be this expert handicapper on this one.
Flip a coin. If you're a Knicks fan, good luck.
If you're a Pacers backer, good luck. I could see
Game one going to Indiana, of course. I could see
(37:53):
Game one going to the Knicks. I could see this
series going to the Knicks. I could see the Pacers
beating the Knicks like they did last year. So well,
this is why there's only four teams left, two series
left to get to the NBA Finals. Good luck to
everybody out there. But with that, four and a half
was our number yesterday, still holding state at four and
a half right now to twenty two and a half
is our total in this one. And again, when you
(38:15):
start to talk about these two teams, my mind automatically
goes to Brunson and whether or not there will be
somebody out there that can at least limit him, slow
him down, shut him down, whatever it may be. And
I don't know if that player is on the Pacers roster,
so I think Brunton's gonna continue to weave his magic
in and score thirty plus and to be that focal
(38:37):
point for the knickt offense. I just think that the
Pacers can hang. The Pacers aren't scared. They came back
from a few times in that Cleveland Cavaliers game. And
then like as soon as I'm saying that, Kyle, immediately
what I think about is the fact that they were done.
The Knicks were down by twenty two times to the
Celtics in one boat of those games. So it's like,
these two teams are here for a reason. Good luck.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Yeah, it's two very gritty teams, two teams that play
a similar style of basketball, not exactly the same. Obviously
different skill sets across the teams. But when you think
about seeing basketball, depth basketball, that's what these guys play,
right And yeah, you may limit your depth for a
playoff series, but these guys play like they know the
next guy has their back. And it's not always the case,
(39:20):
even in conference finals and NBA Finals, where you see
teams play with an attitude of the team is going
to win this. Even if we know who our stars are, right,
we if they can somehow limit Brunson, and he doesn't care,
right if he scores eighteen instead of thirty five, he
knows that somebody else on that roster's picking him up.
If Bridges has to have all of his focus on
(39:43):
the defensive end because that's what's going to be beneficial
to the team, he's gonna do that, or I mid
if at the midway point, he realizes, Hey, I need
to turn it on on the offense because these guys
need a little bit of help. They've done that in
this postseason so far against the defending champions. So it's
to me, I'm excited to watch it because I think
it's just going to be a great series. You know,
(40:03):
you know me, I'm not die hard NBA guy, but
watching these two teams all season has been fun from
a basketball perspective. So to see them faced off on
the biggest well next the biggest stage, but on one
of the biggest stages, it's going to be interesting. It's
going to be entertaining. It feels a lot like for
for Philadelphia fans out there when people talked about, oh,
(40:24):
it's it's a matchup of you know, Eagles and forty
nine Ers. Yeah, we know they're elite teams, but it's
the battle of the two best teams overall. Take I'm
talking strictly Eastern because I know what Okac did all year.
But these two guys, these two teams have been two
of the deeper teams all season long, and they've stayed
healthy enough to survive the grind and get here. And
(40:44):
I think you're going to see that in display the
entire time the entire three.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Three times matched up this season, Nicks took two out
of three. First one took place in October twenty fifth,
second one November tenth, and Indiana Pacers ended up winning
that one one one. We're three and a half point
home of dogs. They were also home two point home
dogs in the final matchup on February eleventh, where the
Knicks one one twenty eight to one fifteen. A lot
(41:11):
has changed from that point in time of the season,
no doubt about it, but the Knicks still are the
favorites here four and a half, which would be the
highest number as far as the series is concerned all
season long for these two teams. Here. We know what
these two teams have been through in these last two
series to get to this point. But bottom line, is man.
We got some really good scorers, great coaching going on,
(41:35):
solid teams. No Fluke seeing the Pacers in this spot,
and for my money, no Fluke seeing the Knicks in
this spot. That was a hell of a victory over
the Boston Celtics. And I don't think overstating it at all.
With that being said, Oh, hang on a second, with
that being said, quickly on this the futures market as
far as winning it all this year for the NBA Finals,
(42:01):
and if I could thank you, Team Futures, keep it
simple DraftKings sportsbook of course. Okay, see with a leg
up on everybody one to zero in their series minus
two hundred at this point in time, Nicks plus four
to seventy five Pacers plus seven hundred t Wolves plus
one thousand. Are you gonna say?
Speaker 3 (42:19):
I was just gonna say that the You know, I'm
not big on Destiny Talker Team of Destiny at all,
but it shure started to feel that way with those
back to back twenty point comebacks, didn't it. I mean,
over the defending champs, the Knicks, they felt like this
was going to be the year for them with those
two epic epic comebacks. Epic stops by bridges. I know
(42:39):
that wasn't the end of the series, but to see
them do pull that off, it kind of felt like
this this is the team, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
And it's crazy too with these two teams in the
history and of course Reggie Miller back in the day
twenty six years ago, twenty five years ago for both
of these teams making the Eastern Conference finals. The Knicks
won an NBA championship back at seventy who I want
to say Pacers have yet to win an NBA championship.
So three out of the four teams that could potentially
be playing in next week's NBA Finals have yet to
(43:07):
win a championship. So somebody will. And of course, as
I said, with the Knicks haven't done it for a
long long time. So we got some new blood and
that's exciting. Whether it will be an MSG meltdown or
another Jalen Brunson masterclass, we shall find out a little
bit later this evening. Once again, four and a half
(43:27):
point spread on that one. All right, I want to
close up shop on this one fun hour to get
the party started. We do have some great programming following
this show. Here. X is into you Sebastli two, my
guy Matty g and Adam Booth back at it again
talking to all things Philadelphia Union, who are on fire
(43:48):
right now. You're paying attention to the Philadelphi Union MLS
soccer call Fisher.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
I have not been able to pay attention to much Union.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
They're on top of the East right now, tied twenty
nine points. About that, I full disclosure. I got so
much going on. I pay, I watch, I pay attention,
but it's a long season, so I don't really get
caught up in the standings. But when I did see
the other day that they were one of the best
records in the MLS, it's crazy because they fired Jim Currn,
(44:19):
the head coach who's been here forever. He's my guy,
love Jim, and I didn't think that they were gonna
have the success that they've had, albeit early in the year.
But man, it's been a lot of fun to pay
attention to. Even better that we have a podcast that
has the second all time leading scorer in philadelph Union
history featured on it and specialists.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
You go check that out.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
That's coming your way next year on the Gambler And
then at five o'clock you like the title of this one.
Ryan Beefcoyle and Nick McLay back with another edition of
Football Is King. Yes, they cover college football NFL. They're
gonna hit you with everything that's taking place, including little
toush push conversation and the schedule release. Anything for you
(45:04):
on the schedule release last.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Week, I found it interesting that they had no back
to back home games. That was I don't think that's
on purpose. I think it's just a way that the
schedule and travel worked out. But they're the first defending
champions ever to not have back to back home games
the following season, So again, don't think it's on purpose,
just think it's a coincidence. Are the most interesting and
what they're they're the first the first team ever to
(45:29):
have ten plus matchups against playoff teams from the year prior,
so two things that stick out. Again, I don't think
any of it was on purpose, but if you're a
conspiracy theorist, you can see that two first time things
with the schedule plus push push dominating the conversation in
the offseason. What are they trying to slow down other
(45:49):
than one of the best teams in the league. So
I do those are the interesting takeaways.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
I do think it's a difficult schedule.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Oh for sure. Yeah. I mean again ten plus games again. Yeah,
teams that just made the playoffs. So you can't really
argue that it's an easy schedule, doesn't matter how good
you are.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
No, you're right, And I guess I would let me
back it up and phrase it like along the lines
of when we get these schedules that come out, I'll
just go back to last year. I remember looking at
last year's schedule going eh, you know, not the most difficult.
I remember saying I didn't like to buy where it was,
and then that worked out very well. Right.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
There have been times like when a schedule comes on,
you're like, all right, that looks pretty easy and it
turns out to be difficult. So it's like you can't
really get caught up too much. But when you do
look at who they have to go to where they
have to go, you know, such as you know, the
specialty or the primetime schedules, the chiefs on a schedule,
I guess it starts and ends with the teams that
(46:49):
you have to play number one, But then you do
focus on who were they playing the week before? When
is this game being played. But you're right when you're
taking on the Detroit Lions, who are going to be
a good football team, when you're taking on the Buffalo
Bills that are going to be a good football team,
when you're taking on you know, the Commanders actually have
a different feel this year than ever before in a
(47:10):
long damn time, right, you know, Like I said, Kansas City,
this is a tough schedule, so again, we'll see how
it plays out. Long way to go, but pretty cool
to get.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
There's a good chance that I will actually have an
Eagles game this year, so I'm pretty Yeah, the Denver
Week five is likely to be the Jim Nance Tony
Romo crew. So I'll be on this. I'll hopefully be
on the sideline, Yes sir, Yes sir. Get the home game,
Get to get to stay at home for once. So
I like that.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, that'd be good. I'd like to see that all right, Last,
but not least? Am I out of line? Am I wrong? Like?
Am I out of my head? I know I'm wrong?
Am I out of my head? I didn't know that?
Like Memorial Day was this weekend?
Speaker 3 (47:55):
What I mean?
Speaker 4 (47:55):
You have a lot going on, Sean, you know, don't
get it tested little upside down at the moment.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
So I thought Memorial Day weekend was next weekend. I thought,
like next weekend was Memorial Day weekend. My wife tells
me yesterday like it's Memorial Day Friday, and I'm like, what, No,
it's not like Merorial Day weekends. The following we get
I didn't see anything though. I didn't see any specials.
I ain't see like, no fanfare, no, like I don't know.
(48:21):
I just thought there was more of a buzz about
Memorial Day weekend.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
I haven't seen much at all, to be honest with you,
So it's could just be we're getting a little older
and all the buzz is sent somewhere else, all the
buzz is on TikTok. I'm not on there, you know,
I don't know. So that's it. That's what I'm going with,
at least.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
All right, good stuff, Kyle Fischer. Final thoughtsfore you get
out of here, sir, what are you working on over there?
Speaker 3 (48:42):
I'm working on putting together something about time on Walker's
role change. I haven't had a chance to speak to
him directly, so I know that I had teased that
last time out. But I'm interested in that, and then
I did find I had a note that I want
to kind of expand on with some of the offensive
players when I'm back down there for the series. I
had asked Rob Thompson about an approach that Alec Bohm
(49:05):
had taken. He's normally a free swinger, swings early in
the count. Jt room Uto hit right before him and
grounded out on the first pitch, first pitch to Boem
in his middle middle. He takes it, ends up grinding
out a seven or eight pitch of bat, still gets
the single. And I asked Thompson if that was something
that would that they had to tell him, hey, go
slow down, or is that something that is just an
evolution of his game, and he said that it's something
(49:26):
that they preach being cognizant of what the other half
of the team is doing, right, being cognizant of what
our pitcher just went through in that half inning and
what we need to do to you know, if we
need to give him extra rest, let's grind out these
at bat. So I want to ask the guys kind
of what being cognizant of all facets of the game
means to them and if they feel like It's kept
them more connected as a team, more connected to the
(49:48):
game itself, more ready for any situation, especially with how
much shifting and pinch hitting to do latent game. So
it's it's an idea. Don't know quite where it is,
but that's what I'll be working all about the park
next week.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
I like it. Kyle Fisher forty five on Socials as
always represented the team over at Philly Sports Network. Check
out what they have to offer, great, great coverage on
all of Philadelphia Sports. That's at Philadelphia s And I
know your guy, Liam is a big Footy fan, a
big you know, he's across the pond, so he's got
(50:19):
to be a SCO fan. Got a big woman Manchester
United coming up here. So it's the first time that
I'm actually sitting down with a little bit of hype,
a little bit of just excitement for my team in
so long. And I am ready for this team to
lose two to nothing, maybe three one, and I'm just prepared.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
But we'll see what happens. It's that should be fun though.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Uh two ones, two quick ones before we get out of here.
I did see on my television that a J Hawk
is representing the Eagles. He's wearing an Eagles jersey. I
don't know if that's al Seon Jeffrey. It looks like
a weird jersey. I don't know if it's an Eagles
jersey anyways. Second thing is Hard Knocks has said that
they are going to have the Buffalo Bills this year.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
That'll be very interesting. Yeah, I mean, I like that team.
They got some characters. I'm sure that they'll stay away
from any Sean McDermott rob Ross beaches until they have
a chance to vet what he's gonna talk about. But
other than that, what what I didn't what it happened?
Speaker 2 (51:20):
No, yeah, no, no, I know, no, No, I just
forgot about it. I forgot about it.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
Yeah, So I'm sure that they'll they'll they'll do a
long editing session on that one before they release it.
But you got some great characters up there. I love
Dion Dawkin's former Temple guy on the offensive lineup there.
Just got a new contract, I believe, So they have
some great guys up there. Who doesn't want to see
more about Josh Allen and they're in they're in a
tough spot, so it's gonna be really interesting to watch them.
(51:45):
You know, they've had a few years falling shore behind
Kansas City. Kansas City falls short against the Eagles in
the Super Bowl. What's there? What's their attitude gonna be
like off the field. So it'll be nice to see them,
especially because they feel like they've been little brother a
little bit out in the AFC to Kansas City for
these last few years. Perfect season to do it. Can
they finally get over the hump after after Kansas City
(52:08):
had to kind of walk away from the Super Bowl
with their tail between their legs.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah, that was on my television screen yesterday. Is this
the year that the buffal little bills finally get past
the kids?
Speaker 3 (52:17):
And like, guys, it's on your screen every year. Yeah,
like they get.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
You know, we got to find new conversational topics, right,
new questions please? Yeah, it's not that hard. Great job, Kyle.
Continue to follow you on all things social colle Fishing
forty five. Everybody, keep it locked right here to the
game of coming up next access in the ufall by
Football is King. I'll be back tomorrow with Sam Austrey
more on the Gambler, next
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Spreads Total and all the prop that's in the tweens
it's the gambler.
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