Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Better run right out to the KwaitCommon Spirit Health hotline and bring on George
Sadato, ESPN Jode. How youdoing this season? Hey guys, how
are you doing pretty well? Ihad a lot of interesting comments coming out
over the last I don't know,twenty four hours or so, and I
want to start with I think MichaelMalone. I understand frustration in the moment.
I certainly do, but it's themedia's job to ask questions and sometimes
(00:24):
we don't frame them exactly correctly.I understood his frustration with a you know,
the twenty points, forty points,two points, it doesn't matter how
big a lead we gave up,we lost. The season's over. But
he tacked on that you know,stupid ask question there at the end,
and it felt like to me thatwas you know, I get the frustration,
but that part felt like it wasunnecessary. Oh, I totally agree.
(00:46):
And I like Michael Malone a lot. I think the last time I
was on with you guys, Italked about how he makes my life easy
in those in game interviews that wehave to do with the coaches. I
think he's one of the best,not the best, at it, just
because he gives you real raw emotion, right and honestly gives you good analysis
(01:08):
of his own squad at that particulartime or juncture of the game. So
I say this with the ultimate respect. Yeah, I just think he kind
of botched that one, right,Like particularly the stuff at the end,
as you mentioned, I didn't thinkit was a bad question at all,
to be honest with you, Ithink that as a journalist there you're trying
to capture the moment and you wantto provide as much detail so that he
(01:32):
could give you an essence as muchdetail. And I don't know if this
is true because I wasn't in thebuilding yesterday, but I had heard that
he did it. He did thepress conference fairly quickly after the game,
and you know, maybe that's oneof those where and I know he wanted
to probably get it out of theway, because why does he want to
labor the moment. But maybe aftersuch a tough loss, maybe you take
(01:53):
a moment, you know what Imean in retrospect. And here's the thing
with Malone, Like I said,he's a great guy, be honest.
The emotions are part of who heis. He's a coach's son, so
he understands kind of the weight ofhis words and things like that, and
he's a good dude. So Idon't I don't think that, you know,
I don't think it's like I'm goingto judge him by this moment,
(02:15):
you know, publicly and feel like, you know, I think differently of
him. But yeah, everybody hasa bad moment. His unfortunately is you
know, trnt of cameras and itgets replayed a ton. But yeah,
I think it was it was notIt was not the right thing to do
in that scenario of at least that'sthe way I think. So, George,
when you watched that third quarter wherethe Nuggets have been sensational, especially
(02:38):
against the Lakers, different scenario withthe Timberwolves, but coming on that third
quarter, when you look at whathappened to the Nuggets and they allowed a
twenty eight to nine run by theTimberwolves. From your perspective, what did
you see that the Nuggets did inthe first half that they were not capable
of doing in the second half?Hitting shots? And it's just really that
(03:01):
simple. They missed a ton ofshots, and I think because they missed
a ton of shots and then Minnesotastarted to see some of them go in
that just started to swing the momentumand then their defense started to step up
because they started seeing shots fall Minnesotathat is, And I think it was
just that, like the they itwas the perfect storm in regards to what
(03:23):
was transpiring there. And I thoughtthat they did a much better job on
Jamal Murray, particularly in that secondhalf and early in that third quarter.
So to me, it was justthat they just didn't hit shots, and
some of them were good shots.It wasn't that, you know, always
just great defense. But that's theway it goes. And anyone not named
(03:43):
and I know Joker, look,Joker's great, Like I'm not going to
rip Joker. Joker was fantastic.He's the MVP for a reason. Joker
Jamal Murray. To me, evenwith their struggles in the second half,
that's when you need your teammates,you know what I mean, Like,
that's when those other guys not namedJoker and Murray needs to step up well.
And that was sort of the problem. I mean, you look at
the at the end of twenty onepoints by everyone else from the Nuggets combined
(04:06):
not named Jokitch and Murray. Imean, we talk about the two main
game, but that's ridiculous, especiallywhen you've got guys like Porter, as
Nick's pointed out previously, on amax contract, that's got to be able
to chip something in on the pointtotal at some point. Yeah, and
I think, correct me if I'mwrong. You guys may have the numbers,
but I could have sworn. Iwant to say his last four games,
(04:28):
he only Michael only. I thinkTali twenty five points? Is that?
Does that sound right? Because Ibelieve that's the number that sounds about
right. Yeah, it's just youcan't have And it's crazy because you know,
you saw how incredible he can be, you know, last year during
that run and even in the seriesbefore against the Lakers, and yeah,
you just can't have that. AndAaron Gordon. Look, it's funny because
(04:51):
Tyler Lew said this to me.I said this on the record a million
times. He's always said to me, if Aaron Gordon gets going, they're
unbeatable. And you know AG's hadyou know, he's good for a game
here or there. And I'm nottrying to put this on him either,
But again, it's the collective,right, you know, somebody needs to
step up in that scenario. AndI think Gordon. You know, they
(05:14):
were doing a great job of bottlinghim up on the boards. He could
you know, he had a coupleof easy bunnies and put backs there Potentially
that didn't go in credit to Minnesota. Man, Like, they deserve the
credit they I think Yoki said itbest, like they were built to beat
them, interestingly enough, as youguys know by the architect who built the
Nuggets, right. So yeah,I just think that if I look back
(05:38):
at the Nuggets portion of this,because Minnesota deserves all the credit, and
I think that has got to besaid first and foremost. But I think
there were some missteps beyond what wejust discussed. I think the front office
was a bit misguided in thinking.And Malone alluded to this as well yesterday.
There was a lot on those starters, man, Like that bench was
(05:59):
thin. Could you have brought backBruce Brown, you know, I mean
yeah, probably right, like itjust became a money thing. But I
think that you needed to look atthat bench and realize something needed to be
tweaked there because you were just puttingtoo much on the five guys who I
still think are the best five startersin the league in regards to the way
(06:21):
they said who's the favorite to oneat all? From who remains in your
mind? I mean, on paper, it should be Boston. You know,
they have the actual experience of beingin the finals, but I don't
know how much I trust them.And you know, even this year where
they've had a cake walk due toinjuries, right whether it was Miami or
(06:44):
Cleveland, they've dropped the game hereor there they shouldn't have or even played
in games that were close that shouldn'thave been close, and that to me
worries me. But I think wemay have seen the NBA Finals in the
series you guys just played in,because I think those are the two best
teams from a talent perspective in myopinion, in regards to also finishing games
(07:11):
and playing in tight games and understandingwhat it takes to come back in games,
whereas Boston they spend at times abit of a front running team and
when you punch them sometimes they'll justbe like, ah, we'll get to
the next game. And I don'tknow how many You can't really do that
that often at this page of theyear, you know, I mean,
(07:33):
look, you can make the casethat Denver didn't even look locked in early
in this series, and then theyhad to try to win four out of
five and they almost pulled it offbecause they've got that championship experience, but
still were not able to do it. And you just can't give away games
in this in this league at thistime of year. So that's part of
(07:54):
the reason I don't trust them,But certainly from a talent perspective, they
should be the favorite. Speaking ofwhen you look at Anthony Edwards, I
mean, obviously this is the guyis U. I mean, he's a
vibrant, he has a lot ofpersonality, he's very athletic, He's proven
that he can score forty points,fifty points. But when you look at
the landscape of how the NBA isbuilt around so many superstars, is he
(08:18):
becoming the new face of the NBA? You know, Nick, I hate
that question, and I'm sorry.It's not your fault. I'm not trying
to Mike Malone, you okay,or Michael Maloney, I just because you
know, question, there's just somany guys, you know what I mean,
that you can pick from. Youknow that I hate to say that
(08:41):
this one guy is the face.You know, So look, this last
generation had two guys in my opinion, you know, this last era had
Lebron and Steph Curry in my opinion, and I think that, you know,
I think Joker has become a faceof the league, know certainly after
winning a champions ever winning three mvps, So you know, I think
(09:05):
Shay will be in that time.Shay golds Alexander. I think there's a
lot of guys to choose from.Is Anthony Edwards in that conversation, no
question. Does he have a reallyfucking personality. He's got a bit of
a throwback personality. He's got aold school he curses a lot. You
know, he's got a great smile. He loves to play ball. He
(09:26):
wants to play all eighty two games. He says it out loud. Yeah,
he would be a great spokesman.And he's you know, he's an
American born player, right. Ithink that, you know, it doesn't
matter to me, but I dothink that stuff matters when you're dealing with
the country at large, right becausethere's no language barrier. They're more relatable,
(09:46):
they're speaking you know, he's speakinghis first language, unlike a guy
like Luka Doncic, for example.To me, who could be a face
of the league. His play isincredible. I mean he's like Lebron,
Jerry West, Larry Bird all rolledinto one, you know what I mean,
like in a lot of ways,so you know, and even magic,
you know with his passing ability.So but you know, he's right,
(10:09):
and he speaks English very well,but it's not his first language.
He can't emot in the way thatAnthony Edwards can because he's born and raised
in the United States, right,So, guys, and I say this
as someone who's Hispanic, right,Like I you know, my parents knew
English, but it wasn't their firstlanguage, so they had to think before
they spoke, right, Whereas it'svery natural for Anthony Edwards to be fun
(10:33):
and this engage in personality because it'sit's his first language and we're in America.
So again, I love the internationalaspect of the NBA, but I
think that that plays a small roleinto it too, beyond his incredible play.
But I think that what's best forthe NBA is the totality of having
(10:54):
guys like Anthony Edwards and Luka Doncicfrom Serbia, right number of Serbia,
from gosh, what country is he'sfrom? It just just I lost it
now anyway, But jokers from Serbia, right, Slovenia, right, Miyama
from France. Right, Like,there's guys from all over the world.
(11:16):
That place is sport. It's themost global sport we have that's not soccer.
But I guess that's a long wayaway to say that you have a
lot of guys that can be thefeace of the league, including the guys
just mentioned a second ago in VictorWoman. Yeah, HEGs Slovenia, if
I remember correctly, I could,yeah, okay, yes, yep,
anyway, it was one of thoseI knew it was one of those Baltic
countries. Yeah, they changed,so I mean, you never you know,
(11:37):
I try to keep track of allthose that the world has changed since,
you know, the last twenty years, since since I graduated high school.
I can't keep track. The mapshas totally changed, the land mass
is the same, all the nameshave gotten troubled in English is my first
language, and I still mess itup sometimes. So, uh, that'
said a lot about U. Iguess, well, probably me, But
whatever, George, we really appreciatethe time receiving them. You got it,
(12:00):
guys, anytime, have a goodnight. Absolutely take care of Toege
de doal ESPN
Better run right out to the KwaitCommon Spirit Health hotline and bring on George
Sadato, ESPN Jode. How youdoing this season? Hey guys, how
are you doing pretty well? Ihad a lot of interesting comments coming out
over the last I don't know,twenty four hours or so, and I
want to start with I think MichaelMalone. I understand frustration in the moment.
I certainly do, but it's themedia's job to ask questions and sometimes
(00:24):
we don't frame them exactly correctly.I understood his frustration with a you know,
the twenty points, forty points,two points, it doesn't matter how
big a lead we gave up,we lost. The season's over. But
he tacked on that you know,stupid ask question there at the end,
and it felt like to me thatwas you know, I get the frustration,
but that part felt like it wasunnecessary. Oh, I totally agree.
(00:46):
And I like Michael Malone a lot. I think the last time I
was on with you guys, Italked about how he makes my life easy
in those in game interviews that wehave to do with the coaches. I
think he's one of the best,not the best, at it, just
because he gives you real raw emotion, right and honestly gives you good analysis
(01:08):
of his own squad at that particulartime or juncture of the game. So
I say this with the ultimate respect. Yeah, I just think he kind
of botched that one, right,Like particularly the stuff at the end,
as you mentioned, I didn't thinkit was a bad question at all,
to be honest with you, Ithink that as a journalist there you're trying
to capture the moment and you wantto provide as much detail so that he
(01:32):
could give you an essence as muchdetail. And I don't know if this
is true because I wasn't in thebuilding yesterday, but I had heard that
he did it. He did thepress conference fairly quickly after the game,
and you know, maybe that's oneof those where and I know he wanted
to probably get it out of theway, because why does he want to
labor the moment. But maybe aftersuch a tough loss, maybe you take
(01:53):
a moment, you know what Imean in retrospect. And here's the thing
with Malone, Like I said,he's a great guy, be honest.
The emotions are part of who heis. He's a coach's son, so
he understands kind of the weight ofhis words and things like that, and
he's a good dude. So Idon't I don't think that, you know,
I don't think it's like I'm goingto judge him by this moment,
(02:15):
you know, publicly and feel like, you know, I think differently of
him. But yeah, everybody hasa bad moment. His unfortunately is you
know, trnt of cameras and itgets replayed a ton. But yeah,
I think it was it was notIt was not the right thing to do
in that scenario of at least that'sthe way I think. So, George,
when you watched that third quarter wherethe Nuggets have been sensational, especially
(02:38):
against the Lakers, different scenario withthe Timberwolves, but coming on that third
quarter, when you look at whathappened to the Nuggets and they allowed a
twenty eight to nine run by theTimberwolves. From your perspective, what did
you see that the Nuggets did inthe first half that they were not capable
of doing in the second half?Hitting shots? And it's just really that
(03:01):
simple. They missed a ton ofshots, and I think because they missed
a ton of shots and then Minnesotastarted to see some of them go in
that just started to swing the momentumand then their defense started to step up
because they started seeing shots fall Minnesotathat is, And I think it was
just that, like the they itwas the perfect storm in regards to what
(03:23):
was transpiring there. And I thoughtthat they did a much better job on
Jamal Murray, particularly in that secondhalf and early in that third quarter.
So to me, it was justthat they just didn't hit shots, and
some of them were good shots.It wasn't that, you know, always
just great defense. But that's theway it goes. And anyone not named
(03:43):
and I know Joker, look,Joker's great, Like I'm not going to
rip Joker. Joker was fantastic.He's the MVP for a reason. Joker
Jamal Murray. To me, evenwith their struggles in the second half,
that's when you need your teammates,you know what I mean, Like,
that's when those other guys not namedJoker and Murray needs to step up well.
And that was sort of the problem. I mean, you look at
the at the end of twenty onepoints by everyone else from the Nuggets combined
(04:06):
not named Jokitch and Murray. Imean, we talk about the two main
game, but that's ridiculous, especiallywhen you've got guys like Porter, as
Nick's pointed out previously, on amax contract, that's got to be able
to chip something in on the pointtotal at some point. Yeah, and
I think, correct me if I'mwrong. You guys may have the numbers,
but I could have sworn. Iwant to say his last four games,
(04:28):
he only Michael only. I thinkTali twenty five points? Is that?
Does that sound right? Because Ibelieve that's the number that sounds about
right. Yeah, it's just youcan't have And it's crazy because you know,
you saw how incredible he can be, you know, last year during
that run and even in the seriesbefore against the Lakers, and yeah,
you just can't have that. AndAaron Gordon. Look, it's funny because
(04:51):
Tyler Lew said this to me.I said this on the record a million
times. He's always said to me, if Aaron Gordon gets going, they're
unbeatable. And you know AG's hadyou know, he's good for a game
here or there. And I'm nottrying to put this on him either,
But again, it's the collective,right, you know, somebody needs to
step up in that scenario. AndI think Gordon. You know, they
(05:14):
were doing a great job of bottlinghim up on the boards. He could
you know, he had a coupleof easy bunnies and put backs there Potentially
that didn't go in credit to Minnesota. Man, Like, they deserve the
credit they I think Yoki said itbest, like they were built to beat
them, interestingly enough, as youguys know by the architect who built the
Nuggets, right. So yeah,I just think that if I look back
(05:38):
at the Nuggets portion of this,because Minnesota deserves all the credit, and
I think that has got to besaid first and foremost. But I think
there were some missteps beyond what wejust discussed. I think the front office
was a bit misguided in thinking.And Malone alluded to this as well yesterday.
There was a lot on those starters, man, Like that bench was
(05:59):
thin. Could you have brought backBruce Brown, you know, I mean
yeah, probably right, like itjust became a money thing. But I
think that you needed to look atthat bench and realize something needed to be
tweaked there because you were just puttingtoo much on the five guys who I
still think are the best five startersin the league in regards to the way
(06:21):
they said who's the favorite to oneat all? From who remains in your
mind? I mean, on paper, it should be Boston. You know,
they have the actual experience of beingin the finals, but I don't
know how much I trust them.And you know, even this year where
they've had a cake walk due toinjuries, right whether it was Miami or
(06:44):
Cleveland, they've dropped the game hereor there they shouldn't have or even played
in games that were close that shouldn'thave been close, and that to me
worries me. But I think wemay have seen the NBA Finals in the
series you guys just played in,because I think those are the two best
teams from a talent perspective in myopinion, in regards to also finishing games
(07:11):
and playing in tight games and understandingwhat it takes to come back in games,
whereas Boston they spend at times abit of a front running team and
when you punch them sometimes they'll justbe like, ah, we'll get to
the next game. And I don'tknow how many You can't really do that
that often at this page of theyear, you know, I mean,
(07:33):
look, you can make the casethat Denver didn't even look locked in early
in this series, and then theyhad to try to win four out of
five and they almost pulled it offbecause they've got that championship experience, but
still were not able to do it. And you just can't give away games
in this in this league at thistime of year. So that's part of
(07:54):
the reason I don't trust them,But certainly from a talent perspective, they
should be the favorite. Speaking ofwhen you look at Anthony Edwards, I
mean, obviously this is the guyis U. I mean, he's a
vibrant, he has a lot ofpersonality, he's very athletic, He's proven
that he can score forty points,fifty points. But when you look at
the landscape of how the NBA isbuilt around so many superstars, is he
(08:18):
becoming the new face of the NBA? You know, Nick, I hate
that question, and I'm sorry.It's not your fault. I'm not trying
to Mike Malone, you okay,or Michael Maloney, I just because you
know, question, there's just somany guys, you know what I mean,
that you can pick from. Youknow that I hate to say that
(08:41):
this one guy is the face.You know, So look, this last
generation had two guys in my opinion, you know, this last era had
Lebron and Steph Curry in my opinion, and I think that, you know,
I think Joker has become a faceof the league, know certainly after
winning a champions ever winning three mvps, So you know, I think
(09:05):
Shay will be in that time.Shay golds Alexander. I think there's a
lot of guys to choose from.Is Anthony Edwards in that conversation, no
question. Does he have a reallyfucking personality. He's got a bit of
a throwback personality. He's got aold school he curses a lot. You
know, he's got a great smile. He loves to play ball. He
(09:26):
wants to play all eighty two games. He says it out loud. Yeah,
he would be a great spokesman.And he's you know, he's an
American born player, right. Ithink that, you know, it doesn't
matter to me, but I dothink that stuff matters when you're dealing with
the country at large, right becausethere's no language barrier. They're more relatable,
(09:46):
they're speaking you know, he's speakinghis first language, unlike a guy
like Luka Doncic, for example.To me, who could be a face
of the league. His play isincredible. I mean he's like Lebron,
Jerry West, Larry Bird all rolledinto one, you know what I mean,
like in a lot of ways,so you know, and even magic,
you know with his passing ability.So but you know, he's right,
(10:09):
and he speaks English very well,but it's not his first language.
He can't emot in the way thatAnthony Edwards can because he's born and raised
in the United States, right,So, guys, and I say this
as someone who's Hispanic, right,Like I you know, my parents knew
English, but it wasn't their firstlanguage, so they had to think before
they spoke, right, Whereas it'svery natural for Anthony Edwards to be fun
(10:33):
and this engage in personality because it'sit's his first language and we're in America.
So again, I love the internationalaspect of the NBA, but I
think that that plays a small roleinto it too, beyond his incredible play.
But I think that what's best forthe NBA is the totality of having
(10:54):
guys like Anthony Edwards and Luka Doncicfrom Serbia, right number of Serbia,
from gosh, what country is he'sfrom? It just just I lost it
now anyway, But jokers from Serbia, right, Slovenia, right, Miyama
from France. Right, Like,there's guys from all over the world.
(11:16):
That place is sport. It's themost global sport we have that's not soccer.
But I guess that's a long wayaway to say that you have a
lot of guys that can be thefeace of the league, including the guys
just mentioned a second ago in VictorWoman. Yeah, HEGs Slovenia, if
I remember correctly, I could,yeah, okay, yes, yep,
anyway, it was one of thoseI knew it was one of those Baltic
countries. Yeah, they changed,so I mean, you never you know,
(11:37):
I try to keep track of allthose that the world has changed since,
you know, the last twenty years, since since I graduated high school.
I can't keep track. The mapshas totally changed, the land mass
is the same, all the nameshave gotten troubled in English is my first
language, and I still mess itup sometimes. So, uh, that'
said a lot about U. Iguess, well, probably me, But
whatever, George, we really appreciatethe time receiving them. You got it,
(12:00):
guys, anytime, have a goodnight. Absolutely take care of Toege
de doal ESPN
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