NBA Playoff Round 1 Exit Survey, Mike Breen Looks Ahead to Round 2, Plus a Vegas Recap

Hey, we're still a listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcast and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. You guys ever get limp stick? I'm not talking about on the ice. Rujiette Ready is a custom compounded 3-in-1 ED treatment designed to get your brain and body back in action. It dissolves under your tongue. No pills or water needed. Works in just 15 minutes on average. It can last up to 36 hours, so no buzzer beaten here. It is doctor prescribed 100% online and ships directly to your door. Go to Rujiette.com slash Chicklets. Get 15% off and start scoring today. That's R-U-G-I-E-T dot com slash Chicklets. The Rhymer Solo Show presented by DraftKings. On today's show, I'll run through just a bunch of different storylines mostly focused on the teams that are no longer with us in the NBA playoffs. And then I'll break down stuff all week. So I'm excited to get to the second round. I've also got some rapid fire stuff for you. Mike Breen on all the teams and the East, New York getting out. We do East West, Don't worry, West Coast fans. So we hit on all the teams with him as well and also talk about his new broadcast team and how much fun it's been. And we've got life advice and a little bit of a Vegas recap, but the part of my take one is probably a lot better than mine is. There you go. The NBA playoffs are in full swing and the intensity isn't letting up. Every night delivers high stakes drama, clutch performances and unforgettable moments. You'll be talking about for years. And with DraftKings Sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NBA, your winnings get a boost every single day, all playoffs long. Playoff stars turn it up round by round and DraftKings turns it up with them with a profit boost available every single game day from the first round all the way to the finals. 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Denver's clearly the worst one to lose to Minnesota with Minnesota's injuries and the way we were starting to feel about Denver. You know, it's funny because going into last postseason, you're like, I don't know what's going on with Denver team. And then this year with the bench, even though there was some ups and downs with some of the pieces around Yolkich and Murray and as great as Murray had played in those games without Yolkich, you're like, all right, well, look, they'll get game five at home. And then now I was out. Like that's the worst series loss of all these teams that were limited this past week. I don't know that that one's up for debate. These next three, I could see all being interchangeable. I have Orlando, even though Boston also blew the 3-1 lead here, just because of that game six, the second half, which I know is kind of what Orlando is, but even no matter what Orlando is, like for it to be that bad. And then to have them get eliminated yesterday, not shocking, like the shooting variance shows up. And I mean variance in the sense of Cades getting everything going by everyone being open in Detroit, hitting all those shots around them, which is not necessarily something that they had done in the series. We'll get to that a little bit later. And maybe it's because Orlando, see, this is the thing is if I say Boston loses Tatum for seven, it's a little fronds miss the second half of the series. So I could see people looking at Boston going 3-1, but it really depends on what you think about Detroit or Philadelphia. I'm totally open to everybody thinking Philadelphia. Well, I'm not saying everyone is, but if you were to say, I think Philly might be the best team in the East right now, because this was the whole point of this team. This is what it was supposed to look like. Paul George like this and B'd like this, at least offensively and how he kind of changed that series. So it really depends on like what you think of the opponent. Maybe you think they're both the same, but that Orlando game six is going to be tough for me to shake. I'm just glad I'm not a magic fan, because if I was a magic fan, I'd be haunted by that. If I were on the magic, I'd be haunted by that. Even Anthony Black after getting eliminated in game seven was like, what we remember about this season. It was like game six. So I have Boston third worst loss and then Houston, again, you can make a compelling argument for them with no Luca Reeves coming back late in the series. But if Katie only plays one game, like not only any of us really liked Houston, but we liked him at least in the first round with the Lakers injuries. The next thing you know, they're down three zip Atlanta. I have as worse than Toronto, just because of being at home and putting together, maybe in real time, the worst hour of basketball I've seen in a really long time. Toronto, I think they deserve credit for getting into a game seven, especially with Ingram quickly not available for the entire series. Ingram obviously played. I'm talking about quickly being out and then Portland, Phoenix are in their own little tier like Portland even showed me some stuff. I was excited about Phoenix on the whole. I think the season success based on the expectations and the turnover. And no one think of they were going to be any good and they make the playoffs, even if they were completely outmatched against OKC and had their own issues with health in that series. So I could switch some of this stuff around. Again, Orlando game six is just in my head too much. Katie being available only for one game. And then again, this version of Philadelphia, where you're like, this was kind of the plan, I guess it just came together in the last week. And luckily the last week was during the first round of the playoffs. But there's also part of me that thinks with Boston, not having Tatum for seven, two is like, is this what was supposed to happen? And it isn't. I mean, you're up three, one, you're supposed to win if you're Boston, you're supposed to win game five at home. But Detroit being this weird new one seed that has massive offensive limitations where they still know other than Tobias Harris going, I don't know if you're going to count on that every single round. And he was terrific on the whole I thought in this series. But you're still a little worried about that second guy outside of Kade. And then with Kade only being available to one game, you're like, maybe this is what was supposed to happen, but it still feels pretty disappointing. And that's kind of like the general theme that I'm sitting here with on a Monday morning going hard of the teams that lost and the two, three, one leads that were blown. Is there an argument to be like, yeah, but if Philly was going to turn into this and Detroit ultimately was a six to win team, like how upset should you be? Because what happens when these teams are eliminated? And again, I'll raise my hand on this as well is that you start to turn this into like this big version of Monday morning quarterback, and you're doing it to all these teams that have been eliminated and you're starting to like trade all these players. And it's almost like looking at the first half of the first round of the NFL draft and saying five teams should move down. You're like, well, good luck because you're going to need some dance partners. And if you're these NBA teams that are pretty good and you still want to be competitive, so you're not interested in young players or draft picks, like there's just not that many trades out there for a guy that's really good on another team that's going to take you a notch higher than whatever your expectations were. So this is why with Orlando, I'll spend a little time on them after the game for win, I'd said they're the best or they're the most talented bad team I've seen in years. But their lack of shooting burns them again. They finished with the worst offensive rating in the playoffs of any team, 101.9 points per 100 possession. So that's last 16 out of 16 teams that played in the playoffs. That number is so bad that it's six points worse than Brooklyn's regular season offensive rating that was of course last in the NBA. The Franz thing, the Paolo thing, long term because they didn't play a lot during the regular season. And there's a minutes number in here that's kind of nice for the magic if you want to buy into that. But maybe there's a longer term thing with Paolo and Franz, you're like, can we really have two, six, 10, kind of better on the ball who can't shoot off of it? I don't know if Paolo is going to remain this poor of a shooter. Franz still seems to have this nasty hitch in his shot. Defensively, it was a huge loss for Orlando because at least with Franz in there, you could go, we put Paolo on Cade and Franz on Harris, at least size-wise, or Franz on Cade and go the other way. There's some size. Whoever Paolo wasn't playing on to close out the series, the other player was going to have a massive size advantage. And as soon as Cade has size advantage, it's over. And you know, Harris optimized every chance he had against a smaller defender. Franz would have changed that because we saw it when it was actually something was happening, even if there were moments early, early in the season with Franz just getting back, where he felt offensively it's not him at his peak form. But I thought he was getting close to that as we saw him kind of get more comfortable in this. So in 61 minutes with Orlando's five guys, so it's Franz and Paolo, it's Suggs, it's Carter, it's Bane. In those 61 minutes in this series, Orlando was a plus 14.7 against Detroit. So you could sit there and say like, hey, that's a really good number. And now that they fired Mosley, it was early this morning, you could argue a surprise, it took that long that there's something and unfortunately, I would say there's a lot of times I'll look at a team that I don't like. And then somebody comes up with some like lineup, where they go, look at this lineup. I remember the Trailblazers had one of these like six years ago, it's like, well, when the five guys are out there, it's actually the best net rating of any team in the NBA. It's like, yeah, but do you think that's actually who you are? Do you think that those five guys up against any other five guys, like that's the best team in the NBA? There are plenty examples of this. Milwaukee had like a really aggressive, impressive like five man lineup number in a year where I forget when they were limited to playoffs, but it was fairly early. But it was something that the media like it becomes a local thing where you start banking on this number that looks so impressive. So it is a nice number. It tells you a little bit about this series and also what Franz meant in it. But to go, hey, we were plus 14.7 with our five guys in that series against the one seed. And that's how we built the three one lead. We're good. That would be a mistake, because when it's bad and you're a magic fan, the only thing you're thinking of offensively, like, I hope this is only a 12-0 run. I hope it's only 15-0. Like that's what you start rooting for. Like I hope it's not like a 24-2 thing here. Can we just do a quick 12-zip run? So we're still back in this game, at least defensively. And you could also argue with Detroit's newness. Yeah, they were in the first round last year and their offensive limitations. We talked about the second option, still not really being sure of who they want their closing five to be in the fourth quarter, that they were a perfect 1-8 matchup kind of victim for who Orlando is. Detroit shot it through the first six games. They shot 22% in the fourth quarter on three pointers. They shot 71% from three in the fourth quarter of yesterday's game. If you look at the financials here for the magic, Palo, Fraun, Suggs, Bain, all making north of 32 million. They're the only team in the NBA with four players making 30 million or more. Mosley's out. They need to figure out a way to play faster. It makes zero sense. And it might be a Palo thing. Like whoever the new coach is, you're going to have to try to find a way to be like, hey, we need to go off of even some makes, but often misses. We need to go and look for an advantage. And if we don't, we can pull it back out and then figure out something. I don't know that a new coach is all of a sudden going to invent more shooting, which is a problem here because if you look at the way Boston's been constructed with these two bigger wings, who aren't even as big as, well Tatum's as big as these guys, but he's not as stout as Palo, obviously. But the Jalen Tatum taking turns thing can work if a defense is helping off of shooters. But then you're going to get burnt if you have shooting around you. Orlando's just not consistently had enough shooting around. And I think there's also maybe a conversation when all the guys are healthy. If this is the same group that they bring back next year is that there needs to be a little bit more trust in Bain, but maybe not having a Sar glue do them for seven games will make his life a little bit easier. So some minor things there because they don't have a ton of flexibility because of all the picks that they've traded. And basically you have to give Palo a chance with a new coach, hoping that whoever that guy is gets through to him a little bit more and convince Palo of some of the risk reward stuff that he's traded in the wrong direction with on shot selection. Boston, Missoula had his team read Sun Zulu the art of war. And one of the lines is, if you see a weakness in your opponent, exploit it unless it's in bead limping around a game seven on defense. I guess that message didn't get through. I don't want to be too harsh on this team because ultimately like this isn't what's supposed to happen. So I mean, you can chop it up into two different things. You can do a season long view and go, well, I mean, it's an incredible success considering the turnover, the expectations the year Jaylen Brown has, they get Tatum back. And then there's like the second part. It's like, yeah, well, they got Tatum back. They were the favorites to get out of the East because nobody seemed to really respect Detroit. You had a three one lead against the Sixers. Like what the hell happened? What game five happened? I mean, game five, you lose the fourth quarter, twenty eight, eleven. That can't happen. I don't want to call them soft because they're not soft to make it through this regular season the way they did. There's a mental toughness to this team that has shown itself in the past, but they also have, maybe it's an arrogance, an arrogance that happened in the Nick series last year and blowing those 20 point leads, an arrogance that when they're up three one and they lose game five, or maybe it's just the predictable nature of who they are and that when you're winning, you're commended for keeping it even, just being even keel all the time. But when you're losing, I'll admit, I'll be like, is this a collection of kind of reserved personalities where they needed somebody in some sort of leadership role to step up and go like, hey, we can't let this happen again. In the fourth quarter, excuse me, in the last five minutes of game two, game five and game seven, all games they lost, they were four of twenty nine from the floor. And they can talk about open looks, hey, we like our looks. You know, there's a lot of open looks for a lot of teams out there, but it also comes down to like who is taking that shot at that time. Orlando will talk to you about open looks and it's like, okay, cool, we get a lot of open, nobody's going to make any of these things. So I find them incredibly frustrating. I don't know if like arrogant feels more fair, and there's an entitlement with them that is somewhat understandable, but when you start like mapping out their collapse here and Tatum not being available for game seven, it probably gets down to a little bit more of like, who you feel is the better team right now? Is it Detroit? Blowing a three one lead to them isn't as bad as blowing it to Philadelphia, because there's an argument to be made too. Like what if Philadelphia is everybody's favorite team in the East? Because collectively the East right now, which I'll finish with, I mean, I don't know how impressed you are, but it's just an annoying team. Yeah, the Celtics are just an annoying team, and I don't want to be more harsh than that about it, but I just can't believe how many times you can watch them and go. So you guys are just going to do this again, huh? And then it just doesn't seem like anybody's like pulling everyone aside and go, hey, we are about to fuck this up guys. Let's try something else. Toronto, commendable season. To be honest with you, like I told you about the roster construction, I've never liked it because of how much money they've spent on all these guys. I mean, it is a ton of money on their five dudes. It's like 180 million bucks, right? And Brandon Ingram, you could sit there and say, well, if they had had me, if you've been healthy, I don't even know if that's the case. I just don't like him in the playoffs. The quickly thing obviously hurts because it's asking everybody else to step up around him. But I would say I feel better about Barnes. I feel better about RJ Barrett. I feel great about Murray Boyles. I feel better about Shed and Chacoby Walter. So I've just never liked it as much because of the spending, because it's 165 million. That's right for Barnes, Ingram, quickly RJ and Pertle. But game seven versus Cleveland, the bigs finally step up for Cleveland in the way that you would expect them to against this frontline for Toronto, where it's rookie and Pertle, who they'd rather play the rookie than Pertle, who they spent money on. Allen had a terrific game six and seven, incredible third quarter yesterday. And then Mowgli's huge game five and game six. Mitchell and Harden though, would you classify those as good series for either of those players? I would say no. There's also a segment idea here of who is at the party for best player in the east and what a finals run will mean for that player. I think it's Cade, it's Brunson, it's Mitchell, it's Maxi. And I think you got to write Mb down. I mean, could we be sitting here in a couple of weeks saying, hey, we think Mb is the best player in the East. He's retaken the throne. I don't know if you would just hand it right back to him, but we know how much we overreact on all the playoff stuff. But he again, really impressed me once he kind of decided to get a little bit more locked in offensively. I think it's going to be a problem for him defensively. I don't know what's going to happen in that New York series as far as the defensive matchups. I'd imagine they probably don't want to be chasing cat around all over the place. So maybe it turns into another thing where you have the big playing on Josh Hart, which means Josh Hart's going to get a million rebounds in this series if Mb is playing him, because Mb is just not going to pay attention to him the entire time. Or maybe Mb, we're overrating him collectively because he was defended by Vooch, Garza and Kada. I can't wait to see what happens with the Mitchell Robinson matchups in this one. Donovan Mitchell had 62 points in the first two games. Then he had a six or 24 and 11 to 26. So unless it's more of the same with a SAR against him, I'd have to imagine he's due for a bit of a breakout. All Brunson has to do is hit a few shots to close out the playoffs. And then there'll be a reminder of he's actually the best player in the East. I think Cade probably is with whatever you want to say about Tatum at this point. But all of these guys are eligible for this. Just to remember the Halliburton rules. I don't think there was one national media member that suggested Halliburton was a top 10 player in the NBA, which is why when we talked about the Patriots last year, I was like, okay, as remarkable as this run is, this is not what happens in this league. It's been like 40 years. This is not what is supposed to happen with a roster making it to the NBA finals or potentially winning a championship. And they get the game seven. And who knows if Halliburton was healthy for that one. But during that Eastern Conference finals run in that next series, then it became kind of like maybe Halliburton is 10. So remember that rounding up math, we start discussing those five players navigating the next couple rounds. Houston, simple question. Do you feel better or worse about your team after this year's exit or last year's exit? So let's go back. Let's take a look at your Houston Rockets. So in 25, they finished with 52 wins, same as this year, two seed last year, four seed the year before, or excuse me, two seed last year, four seed this year. Offensive rating went from 12th to eighth. Defense of rating went five to six. Rebounding rating stayed number one in the NBA both seasons. The shooting percentage stuff on the advance, bottom third, 24th last year, 20th. Now in the clutch last year, they were tied for the second most clutch wins, which kept hearing about all the time, but their overall net rating was like plus one. And I don't know that anybody that watched the Houston Rockets close games last year, I'm like they're winning, but I don't know that I really liked this. And I think this is going to be a problem, the playoffs. And then it turned to Van Vleet just being like the only guy that you could trust in the playoffs in that first round lost to Golden State. So the bring in Durant, you know, you switch out Dylan Brooks, who was a nice tone setter, but not really a number one option for a playoff team unless you're Phoenix and Booker's not playing. You trade Jaylen Green, who you could tell with that contract, they were indifferent with him. So, you know, I don't think that they were worried about like, oh my gosh, we're giving up all of this talent for Durant, because Durant's going to come in and fix some of this stuff. However, when you look at the clutch net rating for the Rockets this year in 26, it went from 16th with a plus one to 24th in the NBA at minus nine. In the playoffs, their clutch rating was minus 17. So you could sit there and say, hey, well, you know, they didn't have KD. Well, with KD, it actually was way worse than it was back in 25. The bigger Rockets talking point is who of the young guys do you feel better about? A man, the shooting continues to be a huge, like potential fatal flaw. I don't think you can play a guard that shoots this poorly. He's now taking 89% of his shots as twos and they tried it out of necessity. They tried it as maybe trying to have him develop as some sort of on ball guy. Right now, it looks like a reach. You could argue that some of these numbers here are still, like, just not good enough, even though the on off stuff for him, the regular scene was pretty good. Jabari has been a box score plus minus net negative three or four years, including this year. You could say the earlier years, hey, they weren't that good. Okay, that's fine. Tarisan, he's 35% from three his career first half of the season, 46% from three. I don't know that anybody really thought of him as a shooter. He has not defended that way in the playoffs. They're like, all right, cool numbers. He also shot 22% from three in the second half of the season. If you want to get into a post all star pre all star all thing, it was 31 games for the all star break, 29 games for him after the all star break. So it's basically even he fell off a cliff and he wants a new deal. Shingoon, five years in, he can't shoot and he's a liability on defense. And if you're playing him with a man, you're now playing two different guys that can't shoot as talented as he is. And he's made two all star teams now. The advanced numbers absolutely love him. The on off stuff is really weird plus seven last year minus six this year. But if he doesn't have shooters all around him to space it out for his terrific drives and great passing ability, those men, Shingoon lineups that I would see out there and what other teams are doing to him defensively, you're like, this is a problem. So if you're looking at Houston, do you feel better about any of the young guys? Do you feel better about Reed simply because he actually played this year? And then you can throw in Durant in a new version of off ball contact where it doesn't seem like he loves it. I don't want to call him Hall of Fame, Brandon Ingram, because I don't think that that would be fair to Durant, but you can make an argument. You don't feel better about any of these guys. And now you have contract decisions on Tari, who apparently was asking for the bags, you can ask whatever you want for a man who's eligible for that monster deal, which I don't think Houston will do because we have some sort of thing to look at here in the past with J. L. Green's deal where he did three years, 105 million fully guaranteed with a player option for third year while Mowgli and Cade were signing deals for five years and 269 million. This Rockets group was like, Hey, we like you score a lot of points. We don't think you're that guy. And here's the offer that we're going to make you. And I imagine they'll try to do the same thing with a man Atlanta. This is a good 10 months. You get the pick from New Orleans, which we still can't believe has the seventh best odds for the number one overall 29% chance of a top four pick. You moved on from Trey. I think local radio guy in Atlanta, who's being very difficult, maybe doesn't have a ton of depth. I'm not even picking anyone in particular, but I know this argument exists because national NBA guy might do this too. You're like, wow, whatever, they traded Trey, but at least they made it to an Easter conference finals of Trey. I think it's too simple in grading who you are as a franchise by looking at this outlier year where you advance deeper in the playoffs than you expected to. I think it's incredibly misleading at times with teams. I think Atlanta is a prime example of that. You should be looking at your team and three to five year windows. They had Trey there for a really long time. His trade value told you what the rest of the league thought about him. So they turned the page on him. The recent shea thing looks like an absolute bust. They have a stud in Jalen Johnson who got some playoff experience despite not looking comfortable throughout all of it. And they could be the rare team that has an incredible lottery value pick to trade to another team for somebody that they can plug in. But again, how many teams that are going to want to get better are ready to get better now? Which player is on a bad team that is going to make that trade before the draft? Unless Atlanta is like, hey, this is a great way to keep costs down. We think this guy is more ready to play for us now. All right, let's finish with a little rapid fire here. The Knicks clearly needed the most out of any team in the East. Could anything happen in San Antonio, Minnesota or OKC LA? For me to go San Antonio over OKC, I know what the regular season stuff is going to be when those teams match up in the Western Conference Finals. I think OKC punted on the fifth game, which is not an opinion, it's fact. You could also factor in that when we played such limited minutes against OKC and they still won four out of five. I'm not going to let myself fall into this trap of taking San Antonio, no matter what happens in the second round if they match up in the Western Conference Finals. Will Hardin get a who are we bidding against three-year $100 million contract extension from Cleveland, no matter what happens in the second round or in the Eastern Conference Finals? The answer is yes. He does have a player option for $42.3 million. Does a finals run mean the most for anyone other than Embiid? If Embiid makes it to the NBA Finals, buckle up, Yokoch fans, they're going to be back. They're going to be marching at you. Be like, I thought these guys were dead. They're not dead, they've just been lurking. And if I set the over under at one and a half stars, it will be injured between now and the end of the finals. You would hammer that over, unfortunately. 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That's an additional 20% off better plants and better growing at fastgrowingtrees.com using the code Ryan at checkout fastgrowingtrees.com code R-Y-E-N. Now that's the perfect time to plant. Let's grow together. Use Ryan to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. We're through the first round as we build towards the finals. So who better than to have the voice of the NBA finals on ABC and ESPN? Mike Breen. Good to see you, man. Hey, nice to be on. Thanks for having me. First round was wild. I'm hoping the second rounds is good. Wild. I think there's a bigger picture East thing that I want to get to and where you're at with the West. But I have to start with Orlando and Detroit in that series. Yeah, the call yesterday, it's very easy to forget these first rounds, right? Unless you're like a hardcore fan of one of those teams. But this one feels like I'm going to remember it for a little while. The way I'll ask this then is if you're asked about this series in a couple years, if you can keep track of it, right? With all the stuff that you have to do. Like what will stand out as a memory for how many stories this series kind of told? Two things. Number one, that, uh, Kate Cunningham has a chance to be an all time great. Um, he's just, he's got this obviously great skill, but he has this presence about him, this confidence for a guy that's just 24 years old, his, his poison maturity is off the charts. And he is unguardable one on one, unguardable teams have to double team them. Um, otherwise they've got no chance of stopping them. So that's number one. And number two was one of the most inexplicable collapses and offensive displays I've ever seen in, in, you know, 35 years of watching NBA basketball up close. That was, it was painful to watch. You've, you actually felt, felt for the Orlando magic in that game six in the second half. And a lot of it had to do with, with spectacular defense from Detroit, but to see an NBA team go through that, uh, I've never seen anything like it. And the ironic thing about it, Ryan, was their first half Orlando's first half of game six was probably the best half they played in the entire series. And then they followed it up with an, an historic collapse. I have been frustrated with Orlando all season because I like this group so much. I like Powell and a C I think of doubt because some of the inefficiency stuff, which is totally accurate, but like, in another way, what I loved about this series is that it was a true one on one at times. It's, Hey, our star that's supposed to be at your level against your star. And I think K showed that there's probably a little bit of a gap, um, just in the playmaking. And when you consider the talent around Paulo, but clearly they've moved on from Mosley is that news broke this morning. Where would you put Orlando in, in the group of like incredibly talented, frustrating teams? They're probably number one this year, but to give them an excuse, they don't have that complete meltdown if Ron's Wagner is playing in the game. And he's such an essential player on that team. And that's why I feel bad for, for Jamal Mosley, who I think is an excellent coach. Wagner had not been healthy. They have not been healthy. Uh, the last three years is always guys missing big chunks. And for him to miss those last three games like that, that was, that was a huge part of why, uh, why they faltered down the stretch. Um, so I feel bad for him from that standpoint, but that's, as we know, that's now part of the game. There was a stretch where MB comes in and his first game back and he's getting his points. And I was loving it because I was, I was just as frustrated as legs and RJ were, where it's like, okay, but you're getting your points, but you're not, you're not really asserting yourself, which is to be understood because he's, you know, missing all this time after a serious surgery here. But what was it like sitting next to those guys once the light kind of went off for him, B and how he changed his approach? Cause you could, you could sense that it was almost like legs and RJ were getting what they wanted, even though there was some production when he first showed up. You know, what you say is, is one of the fun things of the job, whether it's a legs or RJ, whether it's UB Brown or Doug Collins, whether it's Jeff or Mark, whether it's Doris or JJ. When analysts see something beautiful happening all of a sudden, and it's almost like the light goes on in the team or in a certain player, they take such, take such joy in it, because it looks like, ah, he found it. He found what needs to be done. And they can tell that because they were frustrated by it. MB is, if MB is healthy all these years, he's going to go down as one of the great players of all time as well. But unfortunately he hasn't been and his presence changes the whole dynamic. And it was so evident that it changed the dynamic of the team and it affected some of the other players, especially a player like Edgecom still trying to figure out how to play with them. So when he started realizing, okay, I can defeat them doing some other things, it was, they were having, they enjoyed it immensely. And you could tell the difference in the, in the spirit of the way the sixes are playing. I probably should ask this at the end, we're running through the east, but I think it works here as well because within beads resurgence, you're like, is it crazy if they get out of the east? You know, with Kade getting through that first round and then being the one seed with all these wins, even though I still think they're a little confused on who they want to be. The Knicks might be everybody's favorite just because we feel like they were just in the Eastern Conference finals last year. And then you go, well, look, Cleveland might have the best four out of any of these guys. Although, as I say that, Mike, I'm wondering, are you, are you collectively underwhelmed, maybe with the four East teams more so than you thought you would be two weeks ago? Underwhelmed? Yes. The only one that gives me pause is Cleveland, that they had so much trouble with, with the Raptors. Although, again, the Raptors are a team that got better as the season went along. But no, I still think Detroit has a chance because of their defense and because of a special player. I think they have a chance to beat anybody. And the Knicks, they showed what we've seen in the last couple of games, those last several games are some of the best basketball they've played in the last several years. So, and Philadelphia has always been, you know, the if healthy, and they are, they've got three great players, great players. And I put Paul George in there, who, who's to be the number three option on a team. Now you add the kid Edgecomb and, and some of the bench players. So, no, not, not, not at all. I think, I think what we're seeing is that there's a lot of good teams and there's a lot of talent, and you're not going to be able to impose your will on the opponent every single night. There's some nights you, you just don't have it. There's some nights the teams play great defense. So I think it's because of so many other talented teams make it harder to dominate in the league than it was, say, you know, several years ago. I may be thinking about the East end, because the way I framed that, it doesn't seem fair to say that about the Knicks. You're like, why, why, why were you underwhelmed because it went to city? Were they supposed to sweep Atlanta? Like, no, like you'd expect that was Atlanta was going to get a couple of games. But as I match it up against the West, but I don't want to jump ahead to that. You know, I don't want to jump ahead of that. I guess two weeks in after I look at the West, I'm like, I don't know how any of these teams have a chance to the finals with them, but I'm going to hold that thought because I want to stay on New York. What's different about this group, which is basically the same group except for some bench guys that are, that are playing more, as opposed to the team that made to the Eastern Conference finals last year under TIPS? I think the number one difference is, is OG on an OB. When you have a third option offensively, that can explode the way he can and playing with a confidence. He's, that means the defense really, now you've got three guys you really have to watch and three guys you might have to double team. And when you have a defense that has to do that with three different guys, it just makes it so difficult to stop an opponent. So I think his surgeons on the offensive end has made an enormous difference in their potent offensive tack already. And they've always been a really good defensive team. They've had good defensive principles. They're just up and down. And some teams are just like that. Like we want them to play great every single night. Well, they're not capable of doing it. Some teams just every once in a while lay an egg more than others. And their defensive inconsistency was a part of that. But now that they're locked in and now they see their potential, I think their confidence skyrocketed with those last couple of games against Atlanta. Do you have to watch Hart for entire season to appreciate him enough? Yeah, I think that I think that's a great point. And I knew he was good. I remember there was Nick's were playing Portland when he was a Portland. And I'd seen them twice in a week. And I remember saying on the air when he was a trailblazers, every team needs a Josh Hart. That's why I felt a watching a couple of times. And then when he came to the next and you watch him every single night, it's it's so evident every team needs a Josh Hart, a guy that's willing to change the pace of the game does not care if he has a single shot. He would not care if he took a single shot and played 40 minutes as long as his team one, if he had to defend for 40 minutes, if he had to rebound, if he had to push the pace, it doesn't matter. All the players say all I want to do is win. Most of them kind of believe it, but not 100%. That's all he cares about is winning. That first round matchup between these two teams two years ago is one of my favorite first round series I've ever watched. And and Bede had huge moments. And he also had a bunch of moments where like, is he losing his mind out there? Just stuff that was absolutely crossing the line. And I think with him, it's even more frustrating for the opposing fan base, because he's sort of pretending to play it off as if like, Oh, no, no, no, that didn't happen. You see the replayer like, Oh, my God, like this guy's this guy's losing it. That feels like it's already nasty before it starts in the best way possible. Do you think there's anything from that series two years ago that you're going to apply to like, how do you think this would play out? Well, I think for the fans, there's no question for there's no question. And Bede became a garden villain because of the scraps that he had with Mitchell Robinson, Robinson got hurt on one of the plays that they felt was over the line. So that's going to that's going to be for the fans. But I think because of that, because of the scraps and because of it was a physical series, and there was some, you know, great momentum swinging plays and the emotional roller coaster, I think because a lot of guys are still there from those teams, it'll happen. And the thing that I remembered the most about that series is how home court didn't mean a heck of a lot. And that's, that grinds a big change in the last several years, you know, home court advantage is great. But for example, this Nick team, all their signature wins this year are and in the playoffs in the previous years have all been on the road, whether it's Detroit game six, whether it was the Philly clincher that year in the series you're talking about. So it'll be interesting to see how the home court plays out. Because I know in watching over all these years, there's no doubt in my mind that the opponents love playing in Madison Square Garden more than any other arena, they get so fired up for the electricity, for the show, for the Broadway stage feel of it. And that's going to be interesting to see, because even though the Knicks have home court advantage, they played better on the road than the playoffs the last couple of years. Back to my East point, which I don't know that I'm getting full buying from you, which I think is good, because maybe I'm a little too negative after all the elimination talk that I had this morning. But if the Knicks, like there's no 61 Boston team, like at the other side of the bracket here, it's still a Philly team. You're like, well, that was a really impressive run they put together, like is Embiid even going to stay healthy through a seven game series, which is a totally fair thing to have here. Cleveland's backcourt, I felt like was underwhelming, despite those two guys being the leading scorers, the Cavs, to me it just wasn't enough. If the Knicks don't get out of the East, how's that going to be received? Oh, it's going to be a big disappointment, especially now that it's not against the Celtics, who everybody thought was going to have Tatum, and it's not against the number one seed. So, they feel confident that they can get there, but it will be a big disappointment for them not to make it to the, at least not to the Conference Finals, because they'll be favored. They have home court. Once again, things are going in their way in terms of the path now. But Detroit, if they are fortunate to beat Philadelphia and Detroit fortunate to beat Cleveland, Detroit is a brutal matchup for them this year, and they've got revenge on their minds. Talk about bad feelings from last year's playoff series. So, that would be interesting going, but it would be a really tough way for the season to end. I've asked everyone this throughout the season, so I'll ask you as well, were you ever tempted with San Antonio's run during the regular season, and to see them have this thing that no one can really say, hey, we have a great plan against Wembley-Yama, although I don't know that there's too many great plans against SGA either, were you ever tempted to go like, hey, I think San Antonio will win the whole thing this year. I know that I was tempted at times. I just, I wouldn't let myself do it with the inexperience. So, you think no, definitely no. I know the four of the five in the regular season, but as I've said earlier, and I remind everybody through this, like the Spurs could say, sure, OKC punted on game five, but Wembley-Yama, I think the most minutes he ever played in any of those games was 28 against OKC, and I will get to kind of, you know, Minnesota in LA stories here a little bit, but I guess I'm making myself stay stubborn in that no matter what happens in the second round, whether it's San Antonio looking more impressive than OKC, don't let yourself pick San Antonio against OKC if that's the Western Conference Finals matchup. And I just like asking any of the guys around it, because I was just so tempted. I was seeing it. It felt real. I was like, this is the one of the few times I feel like OKC is how to hard time. Like the thing that OKC does to everybody else where on offense, you're like, this is going to be really hard for about six minutes. San Antonio was doing that to the Thunder in a way that I just don't really ever see all that often. And as impressive as it was, I was like, don't fall for it, but I can understand why somebody would fall for it. They could win it all and I would not be shocked in the least. I get the whole experience thing, obviously, but this is this team is so much more than Wembley. And, you know, we're talking about a guy that can dominate a game of both ends without a problem. There are so many other good players. They have a great balance of some young, great athletes who play with hunger and some smart veterans. And their head coach, I am so impressed with this man. He's done an unbelievable job. The respect factor he has in that locker room. So looking absolutely win. And with OKC, and listen, OKC is still a favorite. But let's remember they had two seven game series last year in the semifinals and in the finals. And in the finals, how Albert goes down in the first half of game seven, the Pacers led at half time of game seven. And then obviously, OKC turned it off. And I know, you know, you got to go the whole 48, but it wasn't as easy as everybody remembers. And, you know, to get to your point about teams that sometimes they can look they can look bad and they're like, I don't know about them. I have a stat, if you don't mind me reading this. Please. So last year, OKC, in the conference finals, they lost a game to Minnesota by 42 points. 42 points. The year before, Boston, when they won the title, in the finals against Dallas, they lost a game in the finals by 38 points. Golden State in 22 when they won the title, they lost by 39 points in the second round. And when Milwaukee won in 2021, in the second round of Brooklyn, they lost the game by 39 points. So even the great teams, the champions have nights where they look like, oh my goodness, what is wrong with them? It just it just happens because there's so much talent in the league that on any given night, you could win by 40 and you could lose by 40. Even great champions. Do you think that happens more now with the variance of the shooting? Like, yeah, because I don't pay so much. Sure. There's some go ahead, pace of play and the three pointer change that. And that's why, you know, that's why teams every year franchise record for most points in a season, franchise record for what they averaged, franchise or every team sets a franchise record with three pointers made and attempted now. But between the pace of play that has increased dramatically and with all the three pointers, those type of outcomes are much more frequent. I want to say something nice about Minnesota. I want to say I love their toughness. I love what they did. I think Denver losing that series is the worst first round loss of any of the T8 teams that were eliminated this week. So I mean, I could sit there and be really nice, but nobody's picking them. So I don't know if you can you do a better job if you were hosting a show on what you would say about Minnesota's chances in this year. I love the way they compete. Really well coached. I was happy for Rudy Gobert. You know, the defensive players never get the same credit as the offensive players. I'm so glad when a Hall of Famer, whether it's to Kenby Mutombo or Ben Wallace, they can win the Hall of Fame because they were great defensive players. Because as Wemby certainly noted earlier this year, you do have to play at both ends of the floor. But I always feel that the defensive players never get the same credit and Gobert, because he looks so awkward at times offensively and people like to make fun of him offensively. He is a great, great defensive player. He's one of the greatest of all time. So when you have that hub on defense like him, you know you can always stop people and then you get all these other players who are strong defensively. McDaniels is such a strong defensive player that you give yourselves a chance. Now if Ant plays, it's going to be a wild series because Edwards is capable of going off. But if he's not healthy, they're going to have a really tough time. I know you can't answer this because it would cause all sorts of shit. Tell me why you're going to ask me. You were going to ask me a question I can't answer. Well, I could just hear it in your voice and I think it happens with guys that have a lot of experience like yourself, where everybody loves beating up on Rudy. You know, I have a hard time with Rudy sometimes where I let the bad parts probably overshadow all the good. And he was fantastic in the way he set the tone against Jokic and kind of made it hard. And Jokic could kind of later start to the normal level of efficiency that we would expect from Jokic in this series. But my guess is that you hear so much of it and then you have access to the people that are with this guy all the time when you get assigned their games or you're on them for a series. And that I think, you know, I'm listening for quite a while, I think I have a little bit of a read on your personality that you then end up becoming not defensive and certainly not on the broadcast, but more appreciative that would go against the tide of what the public sentiment is of some of these players. Is that fair? I can't answer that. Well, I was really going to ask you, do you ever lean over to legs off the camera and go, this guy sucks? No, obviously, when you do talk to coaches and they tell you how important a player is, when you do talk to teammates and they tell you how important it changes your mind. And then when you meet the player itself and he discusses his role and discusses how he approaches things, you have a whole different insight into them and you have a whole different insight into the culture and the feelings in that organization and in that locker room. You know, a player like, yes, Tobias Harris. Tobias Harris, when he was in Philadelphia, he seemed to take the fall for every loss that they had or some of them. The guy's been nothing but a great pro. And if you ask the guys who play with them, they can't stop raving about a player like that. And the same thing with the Minnesota players, they can't stop raving about Gobert and what he does for them on the defensive end, how they can gamble so much more because he's back there. So to answer your question, because of that, yeah, you tend to understand the players a little bit better and what they mean to the team. Listen, there's no, I shouldn't say no, because there's probably been a few of them. There's no perfect player. So every player has a flaw. Every player can be inconsistent. And I just, I've always tried to throughout my career, focus on the positives. Yeah, sometimes I have to be critical and sometimes you have to point out the weaknesses. But I've always liked to focus on the positives and what they bring and especially when you hear it from the people around them, how important that is. Yeah, I think that's part of the broadcast too. And that I think it's always a good reminder that, you know, the NBA doesn't exactly want guys on the call being like, Hey, this is, this like, I'll be at home going, well, how come they're not pointing out like what, and then it's just like, yeah, but that's not what they want. They don't want somebody to sit there and turn into a podcast where it then becomes being super critical. You can be critical of the play, you can be critical of the decision. But if it were like a bad Rudy game, I don't think anybody involved and need to hear about it from the Timber Wolves, where if somebody on the broad like if Shaq were doing a game and doing the same studio stuff on the broadcast, that's just not what anybody would want on that side of it. So even if the fan wants it sometimes, not even mean to be specific Rudy, I'm just using that one example of like clearly here's somebody who doesn't like him, although I don't think the list of centers that Shaq doesn't like today is a short list. It's just something for all of us as the audience to remember even if you're frustrated at home about a player, the way the story is told. I always tell the story. Do you remember Snapper Jones? Yo, yeah, Steve. Yeah. So Snapper was, he was a terrific player, but I thought he was one of the most underrated analysts ever. And we became great, great friends. And he would, after he retired, he would every once in a while send me text during the games and stuff. And one time the Knicks were playing and JR Smith was having a miserable game. And I was pretty critical, pretty hard on him for me. And he calls me the next day and he said, Hey, he says, I got to let you know. Everything you said about JR Smith last night, you were right. But it sounded personal. You sounded like a fan who was mad at him. He was, you can't let it sound personal. And it was such a great lesson that, yeah, be critical, but don't make it sound personal. And I've, I've never forgotten that. That was a local broadcast though, right? Correct. Which sometimes you can be more sometimes advance. Exactly. Exactly. But it was a great lesson from a great man. All right. What's the best LeBron question to ask you? Because I could sit here and say, Hey, how much do you appreciate him? You'll tell me a ton. I'll say, Hey, is this surprise? You know, say, yes, of course. We can all say selfishly, like we're kind of excited just to get another round out of them, even though they're, they feel like they're completely outmatched. So what would, if you were, if you were doing this, what would you ask yourself about LeBron to get your best LeBron anecdote out of this answer? Oh, wow. I've never been asked that way. Some may say it's a terrible way to ask a question. No, no, no, no, it's, it makes you think. I would say, you know, two things for me stand out about them. And then I'll try and think of a question. We may just get what we need. We don't have to worry about that part of the assignment. Number one, to me, he's the game's all time leading score. We know that. But his biggest strength has always been his passing, always from day one, his passing is, has been as good as anybody who's done it when, when he was in his prime. And number two, again, the game's all time leading score, the play he's most famous for is a defensive play. And I was found that ironic, because there's this guy, the points, the crazy numbers. It's, it's incredible that those other parts of the game are probably more important in terms of his legacy. I hate that word legacy, well, somebody's still playing, but more important than, than his, his overall legacy than, than other things. And I do think there was a stretch there. It was like, I'm going to say 10 of 12 years, where his team was like legitimately competing for a championship. And if they didn't win, they were probably the second best team. And, and those are the things that I always think about with him. Yeah, the numbers are incredible. And, you know, granted, he's played so many years, so the numbers are going to continue to climb. But it's, for all the numbers that he had, the, to me, the biggest number was how many years his team had a chance to win a championship. I don't know what kind of access you've had throughout the season to him, or what kind of access, because I don't, I don't know all of your assignments here, but if you've had that access, is there any help in like us having him? Because he's always kind of like, let me, let me rephrase this. He's talked about like, oh, I could play forever. I mean, all these guys always do that. Like I could be an elite player for the next five years. And it's like, well, even with this, that's probably not true. But do you ever get the sense of like more, like this final stage of appreciation? Like, yeah, it's about championships, but to be this productive. And I think at times it's still even hard for him. We can, we can pretend it looks easy. But I think the effort that he has to engage in, especially with this lineup, what he's tasking himself with offensively, that he can still do some of the things that he's doing when it's not just like as easy as it's been through earlier years. There may be an appreciation that maybe he never expected to have for his own game at this stage of his career. I think I didn't think he had it early in the season because he was trying to come back from that injury after missing the early games. But I think as the season has worn on, and I think having his son there with him has, has made it a little more impactful for him. There's no question the appreciation of what he's done. I mean, you think that the guy's been an NBA player more than half of his life, which has got kind of hard to believe. And I do believe he could play for another, let's see, 41. He could play for another eight, nine years. And like he could come off the bench and average 18 minutes a game and give you 12, seven and five. I think he's because of his mind, his brilliant basketball mind, he could still do that. But I have noticed, and I have not had really any access to him at all this year, one of my regrets is that after COVID, a lot of the interactions with the players kind of went backwards a little bit. We didn't get to see them as much anymore. We used to get them before the games and all the national games. So I haven't had that with him. And I'm disappointed because whenever you sat down with him, you just, it was so interesting on his takes on the game. But in watching him all these years, there's no question there's an appreciation knowing that it's near the end and what he's accomplished and what he's meant to the game. Okay, see, treated that first round like an experiment. I think their head coach said before game one, the game one was information gathering. Clearly Phoenix, not even at full strength, not a worthy opponent. They sweep them. Okay, see, doesn't even shoot it that well. Jamie Williams, I think misses two of the games on top, everything else. When you look at okay, sees adaptability, their options. How rare is it for a team that's this good to go, we still have 10 or 11 guys that we can throw at you. Yeah, it's what's rare is that those 10 or 11 guys, they're all satisfied in their role. That's to me the rarity. Because a lot of teams have depth, but they're not going to play that much. And the guys don't want to play in much, they want to play more and they want more minutes and they want more shots. These guys, the camaraderie on that team, and it's from a guy who plays every third game to a guy who averages 12 minutes a game to the starters who played 34 or 35 minutes a game. It's incredible how, and this is where I think Mark Degno has been so wonderful as a coach, how they've all bought into their roles. And I'm sure some of them wishes they could play a little more, but it has no impact on their commitment to the team. That to me is obviously besides the talent, but that to me is the real key to the team, they have all bought into their roles, and the team is all that matters with them. And he's done a great job of doing that with a lot of guys who would be playing 30 minutes for other teams. The last couple of years, would you agree if you're not prepared officiating for one, the screen files are out of control. That you have to tell your bigs, like you can't give them anything to call on you because the guys are going to fall down. The off ball contact, which is always ramped up during the playoffs, but it is, it's almost a bear hug to get from the opposite side back to the ball. And then the off, the offensive players advantage on the contact, although I think they've been tightening up some of the off arm stuff a little bit more through the first round. I feel like I saw it called more regularly than I would in the playoffs. You're sitting there court side, you've seen the evolution of how this, you know, moving target is always evolving in the way a game is officiated. How do those three factors or maybe another factor that I'm not thinking about impact the way you can tell a game is going to go? Well, the screen setting is, it can be maddening. There are, I think, the average is, there's 300 ball screen set per game. It's like, it's a crazy number. And, you know, like what makes the extra, make it illegal or not, you know, is the player fighting over hard or is he trying to flop? It's such a difficult thing to call because there's so many of them. And I think overall they've done a, they've done a solid job on that because it's, again, there's, there's so many per game. The thing that I wish they would clean up is the ball handler, impeding the progress of the ball handler. It's supposed to be an illegal if you affect their speed, balance, quickness, or rhythm. And almost every drive to the basket now, the speed, quickness, balance, and rhythm is all, it's, it's, I think, it has some impact. Meanwhile, if you go to the basket, they allow a lot more contact with the basket. But on the perimeter, I think it's very, very difficult. And I know the NBA has said this a few years ago, they felt the offense had too many advantages. So they wanted to make it a little more equal and they wanted to give the defensive better chance. So when, when the player makes some contact with them, as long as the defender doesn't get in their path, it's not a foul. And I do like that. But I think what would change everything would help the defense where they didn't have to be as more physical, if they would call more, in the old days, we called it, bombing that violations or carry every single player. Now the ball, the hand is under the ball. It used to be once your hand went under the ball on a dribble, that's a violation. And it is, it's a bombing violation or a carry violation. And they don't call on anymore. And if you watch, players on offense can get such an advantage if they, if they can have the hand under the ball and carry it over like that. I think if they really cut down on that, and the players would adjust in a moment, the players are so incredible at how they adjust to how the game is called. But if they did it consistently, I think that would help the defense and there wouldn't be as much of the physical clutch clutching and grabbing that goes on all the time. That was the big Jerry West thing. And he was absolutely right. You know, he was sitting there, he's a tad cantankerous about an era judgment thing. He's like, but it's a very, because of all the things that we're sitting here and debating, because we had a dribble on top of the basketball. And I don't mind that the NBA let it go because the Iverson stuff is fun, right? Like that's, that's fun. It allows your most, most athletic players to play with this incredible world-class athleticism. That's why I like to travel and some of the gather stuff's never really bothered me. I never quite understood the gathering backwards. And I texted somebody with a fishy. I never heard back from them. I don't know when the pivot foot changing thing became legal. Is that one? It's not supposed to be legal. If you were stuck on your pivot foot and just going around, you weren't then allowed to escape with another step. I'm sure somebody will tell me, well, actually the rules and some of this is the rule bending that we've had, but there are, there are teams that you can see like, okay, see, spine with it because it's gone through the playoffs here a couple of times. San Antonio can match their physicality on the perimeter. If all you have to do is watch Castle off the ball to be like, he is bought in to being like, you can't call all of these against me. But if you are not, and I look, Minnesota's up for the physical challenge. The Lakers guys have been around for a long time. So out West, I don't know if that big of a deal, but if your team is not ready for that off ball stuff, if you just want to give up, you know, it can take some guys out of it. But as I'm running through all the teams that are left, I think a lot of these guys have been around long enough. It's not like down in Mitchell is going to be surprised when he's coming from the opposite corner that somebody's in his back pocket the whole way there. Right. It's, it got to find a balance in there. And I think overall, I think that the officiating in the first round has actually been really, really good. We haven't had games where like, oh my goodness, that was a disgrace. I think overall has been really good. The other thing and Monty McCutcheon, who's in charge of the referees who is as good an official who ever called the game, he was brilliant. He's terrific. Yeah. And he's one of my favorite people that I've met in 35 years. He's so smart and he's so great for the league. I have this constant argument with them. So they call on the jump shot, the landing area when the defenders sort of shoot releases the ball comes back down. Now the defenders in the landing area, they call a foul. The right thing to do. Sometimes the flagrant guys are getting hurt. My thing to him is on drives to the basket on a layup guy goes up releases and the player can block it, but then goes plowing into the, the, the offensive player before he was back on the floor. That's just as dangerous if not more yet that's not called ever, ever. I've seen guys get completely destroyed driving to the basket on a, on a block shot. But after the block shot, he just goes crashing into the player and the guys now he's, he's impaled on the stanchion for crying out about. So that's one, another one that I'd like to see change because I think guys can get hurt. We have a landing area on a jump shot. I think we have needed landing area on a layup too. I saw a hardened one though in game seven that I didn't love. So I, I was like, I don't want more of this. And I would say, were you guys like 10 feet away from MB's flop on the entry pass against Jaylen Brown? Yeah. Yeah. When I, when I, I think we even mentioned how much you did in Bain and B. But that's, you know, when it goes too much and I think the flopping rules and, and I think the flopping rules and I credit Jeff Zangandi, he, he railed on it for so many years that they finally started penalizing for it and they backed off a little bit. And I think they could, they could do it again. But it's, it's been a part of the game forever. It's, it's, you know, if it gets you an advantage, I don't fault the player for doing it. If he's going to get the call, he's going to get the advantage. Yeah. I mean, it worked. All right. I just want to cover a little that last thought here. You've had some change in a very short amount of time after having consistency with the team. And I'm enjoying this tremendously. I mean, I'm a huge fan of legs. RJ is my guy. How has this been different? Well, legs is, if you've gotten to know him at all, he has, he's spent his whole life loving and following the game. And it's, it's sort of point where like, when you go to dinner and he's talking strategy, like, all right, stop, can we order? So stop talking basketball just for a minute so you could order. I mean, it's just nonstop his love of the game. And he's waited for years and years to get to the level and, and show the people just how great he was. He always did it with Scott on Sports Center. And those were great segments. But now to see him get a chance to analyze the game, you know, he's like a kid on Chris morning on every single game, his love of the game goes, comes flying through the screen. And I think he's been, he's been great. And Richard has welcomed them with open arms. And I think they're balanced. They're very two different type of analysts. And I think it's been a really nice mesh. So I'm thrilled for legs and what he's been able to do. And he's, I think he's, he's absolutely killing it. I'm loving it. I think it's great. And I'm, I'm really happy for you guys who put so much time into the regular season and get to bring us the finals here in a few weeks. So enjoy the ride and we'll check in, man. Thank you. Right. Anytime. It's an honor to be on. The Alliance continues into the second round of the NBA playoffs. We are giving you out a play for Tuesday night. Although I'm just telling everybody, pay attention to those. Josh Hart rebound totals, especially if NBA ends up on him. So that's a little, little teaser for you. All right. Who's board is it? Who won last week? I think I was the only one last week. Had a little bit of a rough stretch here, but you know, playoffs turn around here. I'm going to go. So we're going to do Pistons, Cavs. I was tempted to take the Pistons minus three and a half, but I feel like it's like, I don't know, that just baiting me for coming back from three, one. I was tempted to take the over because I feel like the Pistons are going to be like, cool. We don't have to play the magic anymore. Like with this offense is easy now. I'm just going to take Cades over. I think he's just kind of recent other level. I think he's awesome. He doesn't have, you know, the magic defenders like hounding him the entire time as soon as Frans went out. He was a different player. So 28 and a half points. I'm taking the over for Cade. Okay. Kyle. I'm not listening to Ryan anymore. So I'm going to take a hardened over here. We're taking over six and a half assists for James Harden. I like that. Set the tone. Doesn't want to take a ton of shots early. Those drives of the basket. He's handing it off to somebody else. So I mean, I know that is in the series. Yeah. It's a really good question. I was thinking about that this morning because you could say, Hey, do to Mitchell what he did to Bane, but they may say, you know, well, I think he's, I think they'll mix it up. I think they'll go, Hey, maybe we want to come off the head of the snake here with hard. I mean, the thing is if Harden can get left on you, he still has a really good chance because of the release on that floater and then past combo stuff like he can get it. I just, I thought the way he was officiating in game seven was fucking disgusting. He had like four that were so bad. So I didn't think he was really all that good in game seven. I don't think Mitchell's been really good in the series either. So that's kind of the alarming thing is you go, Hey, how come it took you seven games or they haven't even played that well? And if you have Mowgli and Allen waking up, I mean, look at all forums, not going to happen at the same time. The way defensive assignment stuff here, I imagine it's weighed against Cade and then you know, I mean, it has to be, but yeah, I think it's always going to play both guys. I think I'll play both guys in the back court. Duran, I mean, good luck. I mean, that guy has not done really anything. Yeah, I would, I would, we've already talked about this. I don't want to talk about my rankings anymore. Yeah, we're good. But now, I mean, he did almost nothing against only one Del Carter and then Patazze who, you know, looks going to fight and give you effort and everything. But now it's it's Allen Mowgli and maybe they're not staggered as much. But you know, the scary thing here for Detroit is Cleveland's deep. They're really deep. Wade, Struess, Merrill, Schroeder, Tyson, who looked completely out of sorts at the beginning of the series and played some better minutes, but they like Wade's defense. So they may go back because they went back to Wade as the starter. All right, this is now another monologue. So I'll shut up. All right. Can I do an Asar under for points in game one? Eight and a half is the number. You're actually getting some money on that. Under because there's not going to be any perimeter shooting. And I'll think, although there's probably some transition stuff that's a little spicy for him with Harden taken off the first half, not getting back on defense if there's some breaks off of misses. But Asar going up against the rim here when the point totals weren't that high, what are the average 8.6 against Orlando? Lasts four games, 6, 6, 4 and 8 points. And he's not taking any free throws really. When he's shooting 50% from free throw line in that first series as well, it's not going to make a three. So I'm going to go under Asar's eight and a half. What does that pay us? That's plus 5.25. Whoa. Completely different week. Oh man. All right. Check out the latest odds sportsbook. DrathKings.com. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Today's life advice is brought to you by Microsoft 365 Copilot. What if you can add an AI assistant to your work without leaving your workflow built into Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook. Copilot works where you work, helping you do more in the apps you were to use. In Word, Copilot helps turn scattered notes into a first draft. In Excel, it generates insights from your data and an Outlook it cuts through the noise to get you up to speed faster. The apps you know, go further with Copilot. Learn more at m365copilot.com slash work. All right. We've got the gang here. Good to see everybody. I know it was less eventful than the others around me. That's for sure. Some questions of why Kyle wasn't at Max's bachelor party. Probably because we don't know each other. Yeah, that was probably the biggest reason. Yeah, not being invited. Number two. Yeah. Yeah. Two related to number one. But yeah, I did 20 hours in Vegas. You know, it was, I told everybody like you will, I haven't listened to the episode. I don't imagine there's much to talk about with me in there because I was not exactly the life of the party. Dude, 90% of that magic was just you going there. So I mean, you could have done nothing and it was still like, it was massive. Just to put it on the graphic exactly. Your face was there for Friday. Yeah. So Rudy couldn't pull that off, but you know, Max can. So that's awesome. Yeah, that's nasty. That's fair though. That's fair. I deserve that. Yeah, I got in, I think like seven or something o'clock and they have, I mean, they did a complete first class deal on core. They had a huge suite watching the games, a lot of bad food, a lot of bad food in the suite. And then right over the sphere, suite there, sea fish, three and a half hours, you know, a lot of new guys in the fish scene. And then, a lot of guys first fish experience was at the sphere. That's nuts. That sounds crazy. I mean, the spear experience is so incredible. Like I would tell anyone, if you have the chance to go see a concert and you're not even the biggest fan of that band, like you'd have to like them a little bit or just appreciate live music. It is one of the all time live performance spectacles to see that screen. Would you see Backstreet Boys at the sphere? Just for the experience? Like how was the bar? That would be a little tougher. Okay. Okay. I don't know though. That might be my heat zone right now though. Just show up single, maybe like do like a 10 pound cut. Just go in there. I don't know. Hair thing. Curls that like Backstreet Boys that are my age, probably still like Frosted Ticks. You might be put on a list. I don't know. You see some of those Backstreet Boys. I think those fans would be pretty understandable. Some of those dudes are you know, totally regular now. So yeah, I think the Backstreet Boys would be fine with it. But I'm just saying like women love the Backstreet Boys. So like if you were having a really, really tough spell, like would you just go like, I'm just going to get out on the floor and mix it up a little bit. Probably never do that. But yeah, that's a good point. Surya, like maybe the Backstreet Boys is a line. Really cool videos, man. I don't want to go to that. All right. So maybe not the Backstreet Boys, but I would say anything else. And the cool thing was just seeing how much everybody enjoyed it. Like guys that maybe don't even like fish all that much because it was that big of a spectacle. And then I, we all changed. And then unfortunately, someone made the call to get a table at live. And it took us, I think it took us longer to get in than how long me, Big Cat and PFT were in there. So I guess there's a connection to John Summit because he's from Chicago or whatever. And his whole story, I guess he was like an accountant. And now he's just out there in a white tank top, firing away jams, just surrounded by a sea of women. And then Dante was like, no, I'm texting with its manager, like we're all supposed to go down there and hang out with him in the DJ booth. And you're like looking down at the DJ booth. Like, I don't think they want us to hang out down there. And so there was, there was nowhere to really stand at the table. And then I was like, all right, well, I might as well just get a drink if I'm waiting here. And I, that's the oldest, like, you know, Jorah Mormont in Game of Thrones. Of course. Like, he's in love with Daenerys the entire time. But it's like, who's this second son, Dick head with the long hair, although the second guy replaced him was the same character had short hair. And then like, John Snow shows up. And it's just like, that's how I felt like Jorah was just like looking around going, you're so old. You are so fucking old. Your heart's in the right place. You're out of your helmet. You're so old. Although, you know, it's not that long ago. Went pretty late there with Chris Long. So I'm not saying like I don't have it in me. But right, when we rolled in, I mean, it's got to be in the perfect storm, right? Yeah, it was in security forever. And I also knew I was like, I don't really want to, I don't want to feel terrible tomorrow because I'm flying back and I've got shit to do. And so any friends? No, wait, as big cat, like as I waited to order a drink, big cat's like, we're out of here. So just like the box and he was like, I'm allowed to just check the box. Cool. So I didn't even have a drink waited the whole time pat down security. I mean, it took forever to get in there. And I was like, isn't the whole point of having a tables that it's not supposed to take forever to get inside? And so the whole point of being famous, you're not supposed to have to wait. I mean, there's a lot of dudes that people know feel like it would be easier for you guys to move around and get a spot. They had the spot. Like once we were in, we had the spot and the whole deal was fine. Like I've done that part of it before. And usually it's somebody else. Somebody's like, Hey, we're silos here. Part disease. Sorry, kicking people out. Yeah. So then the three of us went back to the casino and none of us even did anything that because I was like, are we going to do anything? They're like, no, I was like, what time was it? We were back at encore by two. Oh, okay. Oh, so what time was fish like nine eight to like 1130. Oh, that's not bad. That's not short for fish show. No. Oh, that's I mean, they're not going like crazy. They don't have like 40 minute song sometimes or everyone's looking around like, okay, that's what I thought. I did about 30 minute talking hits cover. Okay. Can we get so yeah, that's my is there we get like a do you make any friends? Like is it we get like a maybe a top five bottom three of dudes that you might want to allow. There's no bottom three out with all the honestly, all the guys were great. Max's brothers were great. So congrats to Max. Chef Johnny and I bonded a little bit. He went to UVM for a year. So we had some, although I think his experience was slightly different than mine based on the age gap, but you know, we were talking up for Mon a little Dante and I got along, but I think he was a little frustrated that I was that was lame. And then there was, I'll tell you, like it was nice. They were like, don't leave, don't leave, like stay for game seven Celtic sixers. And they were like, are you do not want to stay because of Max and his brothers and how annoying they're going to be. I'm like, I don't think I'm going to, you know, whatever happens, happens. Like I'll be okay. But then the other guys weren't going to be okay. I don't think. And then big cats is going to sit there and make sure everybody's fighting with each other. Just stirring the pot more and more. And Zach was really polite, incredibly love that about him. Yeah. Yeah. There's like a Zach Kyle spin off show that I feel like we could maybe get in the works here. We're just thinking for just spitballing. Was there like maybe, were there any like hometown guys from Max there? Or was it like besides his brothers was it just work guys? Like it was like a work thing. Who knows? There may be like a secondary bachelor party formation. Yeah, this was just working the two brothers. Yeah, that's what I that's what I gathered when I saw the graphic. I was like, does he have like his old friends here, but it must be a second second party sort of deal. Nice. Yeah, I might have been just so nice that they were like, we have to invite his brothers because it was the sweet it was the show. It looked like a shelf, man. Live. And then it was beach club the next day. And then I don't know what happened Saturday night. Like I stopped paying attention to it. And then they golfed at the wind resort on Sunday. And then they taped the episode last night. So yeah. I'm glad you got out there. You know, shocked. I was shocked. I was really cool. You were on that. You shocked the world, man. That was awesome. That was really awesome. You know, I don't I don't know if I should think I like guys down to be honest. If fish was not playing at the sphere, would you have gone? Oh, no comment. Okay. Say less. Yeah. All right. Is that is that fair? Yeah, no. Okay, you got to you got to miss the the Orlando collapse live. So probably a little bit to go back and watch it. It sucked just as bad on the rewatch. Sure it did. Sure it did. Okay. My first ever selfie video, literally of all time. I saw that you you went out there just shocking weekend. Well, it was Friday night. I was also solo dating that night too. My wife went out to dinner. So it was just kind of like a little bit of a hectic situation. So it was already in a tense mood. And then so they're, they're what the other up at half obviously. And I missed like kind of the beginning of the third quarter put in the kids to bed. And then it was so it was 22. And then it was, I think 10 or 12 or so. And I'm just like, I know where this is going. And I was just in a bad mood for a while. And then Kev texted me, our social guy was like, Hey, do you know pressure? But do you want to do this? And I was like, yeah, I got some thoughts. I called Kevin Clark. We talked for a while. Oh, that's kind of a venting session. And then I yeah, then I put then we sent a selfie video over. So you know, check that off the old bucket list. Good times. I'm glad you did it. I loved seeing it. I was like, he's gonna do this. It's almost like therapy for. Yeah. All right. Anyway, couple emails here. Hmm. Which one do we go with? Did we go with this one? Yeah, let's do it. 64240 Jim's six, seven days a week. Wow. 100,000 steps a week. Wow. Yeah. In 2026 player comp, Trey McBride, even though I grew up playing hoops, I'm better at football, moved to a big Southwest city year and a half ago. I really enjoyed a walk as previously mentioned. Yeah. But my walks frequently end at one of the local bars I become a regular at on numerous occasions, I've either been hit on, talked to, offered a drink or gawked at by males. Who can I, who I can only assume or get? I want to be clear. I have nothing wrong with or whatever sexuality folks choose, but this is starting to get weird. I'm confused as to why men love to talk to me, but girls don't. Aside from the obvious idea of sitting with a girl, how do I stop attracting members of the same sex? Thanks, love the pod. Kyle's number one on my list of guys to have a beer with. Well, Kyle's straight too. So that would change the dynamic here. So you're going to hit on by gay dudes a lot. What's up with the simple stuff? Like what are you wearing? What do you look like? I know, are you wearing like five inch shorts maybe in a tank? Like there could be some confusion going on there. Is it a gay bar? I think you probably would have figured that out. I don't know. Imagine if that was the only thing you did. Well, some bars aren't gay bars, but like, you know, like sometimes like this bar isn't a Patriots bar, but the Patriots guys decide that's where we're watching games on Sunday. You know what I mean? There's not a flag hanging up, but it's just like, why did you say paths, dude? Because I'm always looking for a paths bar. Oh, all right. And it's just like, you know, it's kind of an unofficial, you know, we'll be here about 20 minutes for the games, get the good seats, stuff like that. So maybe, maybe that's the case. Are you walking to different bars? Do you have like the best walking route? It's like, this is, this is my route and this is where I have to go. Have you, have you like changed the variables in this experiment? I think what you're wearing possibly hands up too. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's got a grizzly bear. He's huge and he's working out six, seven days a week. Get more shape. Yeah, let yourself go. Yeah. Knock it down to 70,000 steps a week. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you, your boys had this, but a couple of times it was like 100% on me. Like, if you're wearing skin colored bathing suit, hiking through Greece by yourself with no shirt on, dudes on moped's are going to check in. One night when I was walking around another Greek village, I ended up over at like a shed that there was stuff going on and there weren't any women. And so I was like, all right. And I was just like exploring and wandering. And then I was getting like, not chased, but it was like, no, no, you're good, dude, come back. I was like, no, I'm not good. Like do your thing. And then there was another time I was in Palm Springs, where in the five inch inseams at legends, uh, donned me with pink horns. And I walked, I just kept walking. I was like, Oh, what's going on down here? Whatever. And then I was like, Oh, wait a minute. And it was like, Hey, so sometimes it's, it's sort of on you, on the vibe that you're putting out there. We had a Cabo thing where I went to this resort by myself and I was just by myself and I was super friendly with, I know that's shocking, but like I was just friendly around the pool a couple of different days. And then a couple, a couple guys are like, wait a minute, you're straight. And they were like super disappointed. And then they actually started getting like rude. That was always that I think I've told that story where they were like, wait, this whole time they were like, did you know that we were, I was like, yeah, of course I did. You're like, and you just never said anything. I was like, what's, so I supposed to be a dick? I was supposed to treat you differently. You let us buy you all those G and T's. What the fuck, man? I love that in college, by the way. I was just accepting plenty of, plenty of shelf drinks. That was great for, for broke me. And, and honestly, it was like, That happened to you on college? Yeah. Yeah. In college. And a lot of my boys were like kind of weirded out, but I was like, dude, I mean, they're, Free drinks, free drinks. They're friends with people I'd like to be friends with of the opposite sex. So this actually worked out. Right. It's just like, just not being weirded out like really went a long way for me. Yeah. I would say that's, that's been the case a few times. Like one of my serious, serious girlfriends, her roommate was gay and like very, very, I'm talking like a couple of weeks in, they were like, do you want to meet up? And I was like, yeah, sure. And then I was like, all right, let me, let me handle this in a mature way. And then it was like massive points afterwards. Or like this guy's unbelievable. It came by and had a couple beers with us. So whatever. Just not, look, there's probably just a lot of straight guys. Like I would never, ever do that. So look, I'm just saying the outfit thing that Kyle brought up is really smart. I think it's either Surya or you did. That's, that's something to pay attention to. But I love to get in that credit. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Steve, was Steve, I apologize. I was thinking of you with the five inch inseams. And the 10 comment. Come on. Yeah. Like I just, it was the first thing that came to my mind. Cause like there's, you know, there is a look and you do, it's like you are, there's a look and you're mysterious. So I totally understand like why, it's like, why is this guy in this situation right now? I feel like that happens to you a lot. And it's like, oh, maybe there's something else about him, you know? Like, so are you putting out some tobacco or email or like, are you, you might just be putting out some sort of like vibe to the world that you don't know. And, you know, or do you have a bubbly personality? Like I'm just trying to think of like what these things could be. What kind of eyebrows do you have? Right? Are you, are they always, you want to be always on fleek? Yeah, exactly. You know, how quick do you, how long does it take you to talk about lumber? Too long, apparently. Yeah. I don't know that I have any advice for this other than like, I had a guy, a hairdresser that was in my building in Boston and he, you know, we were friendly as it could be. And he could see like, I was dating girls over the time that I lived there. And he just, he wouldn't let it go. And then he stole like 20 bucks from me. So I was like, perfect. No, I can, you know, you just, I was like, you definitely didn't slide it under my door. I was like, I don't have any money. Like I would have seen it. He's like, no, I would have been the highlight of my fucking week, dude. This is how it ends, man. No advice. I know what you may be texting me at 3am asking if I have any wine. Like, dude, you trying to, trying to use my heterosexual move on me. Maybe what you could do is just ask one of these dudes if they're like hitting on you. And actually they're sitting down at bars and having conversations. You could ask them this. He was like, Hey, man, I was just wondering, why do you think I get so much attention from one side of the aisle and not necessarily the other? Fascinating. Yeah. Better than that. That's so good, Com. Sorry, interrupted you. Keep going. That's it. That's all I have. I mean, if they're just, if you're sitting at the bar anyway, you know what I mean? And it's, this is already underway. And she's like, you know what, I actually have a question if you don't mind. It's a good one. Yeah. You could just have soft eyes, man. Kind, welcoming eyes. Yeah. Like, if you, if you, again, if you moisturize, maybe you get a manicure, like you never know. I moisturize. Yeah. You never know. I can be, this is not a lot of How are you not? dudes are doing that. I really forget a lot. Somebody just made comments about my elbows. I gotta get going on that. Probably not her best one. Telling my daughter I have a girlfriend. 43 years old, retired, US special ops combat vet. Well, thank you. Yeah, you have a girl. Especially like badass dudes. 190 centimeters tall, 82 kilogram heavy. Currently curling 4K, four kilogram weights to muscle failure four times a week because heavy weights are stupid. Oh, that's right. That's the old Steve Weatherford thing. He had me on those German reps where it was like 10 second rest in between sets. Anyway, I love the pod. Need some advice. I've been divorced five years and my daughter from that marriage is now 18 years old, graduating high school. I come from a big close family where divorce is both uncommon and not talked about. So I'm in uncharted waters. One and a half years ago, I started dating a game, dating again after a long, wow, that's a weird way of saying you weren't with anyone. So let's just say divorce five years, three and a half years, just tapping out of the game. Yeah. One year ago, I met a girl who I really like and now she's definitely my girlfriend. Well, yeah, it'd be great if you know that a year later. I'd like to tell my daughter that I have a serious girlfriend, but don't know how to bring it up to subject. What are your suggestions? P.S. the magic are awesome, but but Franz is the guy to trade this summer. No, that's, no, 365 co-pilot offered a response. Do you remember what they said? Yes, I actually do. Hey, not using his name. Congrats on finding someone you like for the talk with your daughter. Just be straightforward. She's 18. She gets it. Tell her you care about her and that this person makes you happy. That's usually enough. Good luck with the Wagner trade talk too. That almost sounded like Saruti until the end. Here's the thing. Most of these life advice things is like, I get pegged and just like, oh, you're just saying the obvious. It's just like, just talk to the person that you're like, it's not that hard. Just like have a normal conversation. Like you're too much in your head. So you don't know. She not know it's serious if it's been a year. She's 18. Well, sometimes 18 year olds are just like, I'm just going to hang out with my friends, you know, that could be, that could totally, you know, they're not super plugged in, you know, but I would ask like what year dude, like I get it, but a year, you know, they could figure it out. You might notice a few things. Well, we're saying divorce or roommate. She might only be there half the time, you know what I mean? Well, you're they probably haven't moved in. Like she might only be there half the time. He might be scheduling dates when she's away. And then when she's there, she's also like going to the mall or whatever the new 18 year old does this, this time of, you know, with their free time. So it could be that she's totally unplugged. He might, it sounds like he's not even ready to tell her. So he probably hasn't told her he's been dating. Like I think some people can get really like over protective when it actually isn't ever that serious. Like if she's, if she's, you know, five year divorce, it's not like, are you going to get back with mom? It's like, if you're 18 and the divorce for five years, they probably give them that fantasy up boyfriend. Has mom moved on? Like, are you the first one in of either side here to like have this as that part of like the trepidation of why you're scared about this? Because like it is totally normal for you to like want to be love, have love, find someone. I think she will understand that, you know, whether or not she likes it, or it's a whole other story. But I'd be interested to know if like, also has, have you told anybody else about this person? Is she the first family member you're telling? And maybe that's obviously some of the fear too. He didn't mention like, I think she would be upset. Like he's just like, he might just be thinking of this as a whole. It's like, yeah, but it's like, if you know your daughter, it's like, does she want you, does she care about your happiness at all? Like to just from off rip me like, oh, you have a new girlfriend. I don't like this. So I mean, I think you would know if she would have a problem with anybody. Or if, you know, so I think this is totally easy. I mean, I hate to be the copilot guy, but I think it kind of fucking nailed it. To add a little bit to this, I wonder, like if you're thinking about your daughter and you're looking at her, okay, like she's 18, but you're also thinking about this divorce happening when she was 13. And I imagine that you were this, you went this long without seriously dating anybody for basically four years, you didn't go on any dates for three and a half years. And my guess would be that you were prioritizing like a traumatic time for your daughter. And you didn't want to invite something else in to fuck her up even more, which I think is commendable because and I don't want to get on anybody's case, it's going through divorce. And then it's like, Hey, I just got to get back out there and start dating. Because like, there's an element of like balancing your happiness to, especially if you're somebody that maybe is just happier when they're in a relationship. I'm not calling you like super like too dependent. But we all know what we're talking about here. Like, there's some people that cannot be alone, right? And there are other people that can be. So in this case, you may be thinking of her as the 13 year old, and you're still being super protective after going through divorce of her parents. And you're like a little behind her maturity on this specific issue. Because even though she's now 18, you're still seeing your little girl. And you're being perhaps like a little too protective of what her thoughts would be because like, you just don't want to have anything that's disruptive here. I'd also throw in that that at different stages of your life as a child, you go through like, worshiping your parents to then questioning everything about them. And then like, at least for me, you know, unfortunately for whatever, like my first thing, like maybe it was being the oldest was like, I can't wait to get out of here. And then you then work through however many years it takes you to like wanting a closer relationship with them. You'd hope, you know, you get to that point. But there's also something that happens to all of us, whether it's the parodynamic or not, it's just crazy how well you can understand a person. I can have somebody who I haven't had any interactions with the 20 years, but now I'll think about things differently just because we've lived so much longer, we've had all these experiences, we're like, now I totally understand this person were in the moment, I didn't understand it. So I think it might be a nice reminder for you that when you do have this conversation with her, that no matter what her reaction is that you may want the goal of this, it may be I want her to appreciate this conversation years from now, if she's not ready for it now. And so that I'm totally straightforward. I explained to her like, here are my reasons and this is why I didn't date or, you know, my number one thing is like, I want you to be happy, but I don't want to also spend the rest of my life alone so that even if the message isn't received the way you would hope, and I don't even know that that's the case, but we're just playing out all the scenarios, if the message isn't received exactly the way that you're hoping that this could at least be the foundation to when she gets a little bit older, has more of a more mature relationship experiences herself, she navigates her 20s or whatever. And that she'll look back at this time that you talk with each other and you'll go, oh, now I understand you better dad. And I also, oh, go ahead. No, that's it. That's it. I just would end on this. I also, if she's 18 and she's going a typical college route, it might be good to get this on the books before she goes away and comes back for, you know, Thanksgiving break and whatever, like, might be might be good to get this thing going while she's still living at home if she's actually going to be taken off and going out of state, you know, next year or wherever, wherever kids go to college, it might be cool to like have a solid foundation instead of coming back after a couple months and be like, what the fuck's going on? Yeah. And so that could be cool. Yeah, it could be good. Yeah. And honestly, then if you're looking at a normal college schedule, like I would do it before the summer, like, you don't want to be dropping her off school. And again, you know your daughter, we don't, is like, it could go in a million different directions, depending on what her personality is. Like there's some kids at 18 that want to use any kind of news as like some sort of like, oh my God, I can't believe you did this or whatever. They just become like super dramatic about the whole thing. And it's like, well, now I can't even win. And that's why I kind of talked about like whatever you do, think of like her having, if she doesn't understand it right now, will she appreciate the way you relate the message to her years from now when, when she's maybe a little bit more mature, maybe she's ready for it right now. And you're the one that's like, underestimating her maturity on it. Okay, that'll do it for the show. Did you guys listen to part of my take last night? I just saw a couple clips, but no. Yeah, I'm, I'm so not a main character in any of the Vegas stuff, unfortunately. So I'm actually doing their live show. So if you're in the LA area, Tuesday night, where am I going? What a promo. I know. Netflix is a joke, right? Yeah, I mean, Netflix is a joke is only about 800 shows throughout Los Angeles over the next 10 days. So let's get the promo out there. Let's see. YouTube theater. Oh, that's right. Oh, perfect. I'm in Inglewood. So I don't even have to go that far. Jerry O'Connell is a special guest who I totally left out. He was within a minute, you're like, Oh, this is why everybody loves Jerry. He showed up at the cabana. He tapped in as I tapped out full speedo, soak in wet, glowing personality, like Jerry incredible. Like within a minute, you're like, Oh, this is why all these guys love this dude. So he will be the special guest. I am going to be the less special guest, but I'll be up there tomorrow. If you're in the Inglewood area, shout out Paul Pierce. All right, that'll do it for the show. Kevin Tom, Cerudy, Kyle, please subscribe. Ryan Rassila show, Arsenal sports. When life is hectic, energy ups and downs are all you need. 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