The Cade–Paolo Duel, Rockets Claw Back & Cavs Comeback w/ PJ Carlesimo, Plus an Unfortunate Incident in Life Advice

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. Hey, it's Hannah Montoya. Abercrombie's new summer drop is our latest obsession. There's tons of colorful swim, flowy dresses, and they just release new linen blend matching sets. Everything feels so light and breathable. It's perfect for brunch or rooftop happy hours, just like you're on vacation. Shop Abercrombie in the app online and in stores. The Ryan Rossellow show presented by DraftKings also available on Netflix. On today's episode, I'll run through Detroit's huge win, huge nights from Cade and Palo, and just how impressive Cade was on a rewatch this morning. Houston stays alive in their series and we're going to do even more on Cleveland and Toronto and that fourth quarter storyline of Dennis Schroeder with PJ Carlissimo, who also had the spurs advancing in the first round. So some Wemby stuff, some Arvitas stories as well. 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That's code Ryan RYEN on DK horse bet $5 or more on a horse to win the Derby for your shot at a piece of $1 million only on DraftKings. The crown is your gambling problem called 1 800 gambler 18 and over 21 and over in certain states to open owner access and advanced deposit wagering account in resident of state where DK horse or DK racing is available. Eligibility restrictions apply. Void were prohibited. First eligible bet only must win to share prize pool. Cash reward via click to claim that expires in 30 days. Limited time offer. C terms at DK horse.com slash bet slash offer slash details or racing.draftkings.com. We're going to cover Detroit's win. We will cover the Houston win in LA and then we'll get to Cleveland's win against Toronto with PJ Carlismo had the call of that game for ESPN. So that is the plan today. We'll go deeper on the calves win with PJ, but we start with the K versus Palo game combined for 90 points. These two young bucks both had 45 Palos line 45, 9 and 7. Kades line 45, 4 and 5. K did it on 23 shots. Palo it took 31. And then the two big makes at the end for K. I watched all 23 field goal attempts from K again this morning. There's not one bad shot in the entire thing. It's just so easy for him when it's going right. He's completely in control. This is why we don't get totally freaked out when Kade has a bad game, which I think is another thing that happens is like, I think it's hard to watch all of these guys this much. And the great thing about the playoffs, I think a lot of people are experiencing these players with the stakes a lot higher, but they're experiencing like they're a little bit more locked in on these players probably for the first time all season long. And this is why we put Kade on the first team all NBA. This is why Kade is in the conversation with MVP, even though he was clearly not going to win it. I don't know that anybody's going to vote for him first place. I would not vote for him first place, but this is what he is when he's completely in control of the game. He just went at everybody here. You know, if he got Kane in a switch, he went to work. If he could get Bane on a switch, he's just going to dribble him down and then pull up because Bane's just not big enough to contest any of these things. He had two in the first half against Bane, or it's like, oh, you're going to try to do this. All right, done. If he has Anthony Black on him, he looked like he would switch off Anthony Black, but he's certainly not afraid of him because he's just not big enough and even sucks with his tenacity and his fight and what he's going to bring to it. These guys are just collectively too small to deal with Kade. He had another play against Kane, where Stewart comes up to set the screen and Stewart's defender doesn't even want to get into it because he's like, I don't really have to worry about it. I mean, if it's a pick and pop, fine. If Stewart hits a three and beats us on it, but we got to keep everybody back and clog the lane against Kade the way we've seen in some of these other games, right? But Kane gets so caught up going under because I still think if you're undersized with Kade's downhill stuff, you're like, man, I really don't know if I go over the screen, especially with Stu. I'm going to get caught up on this whole thing. So he's going to get an advantage on the drive and I'm going to be behind him. So that's another problem. So Kane goes under this thing, but Stewart sets the screen where he kind of like re-screens. You probably say it's illegal. I don't care. I don't want to call it. And Kane's just pushed down so far that Kade's just walking into a nice, easy three because there's not anyone else in the area to defend it. And I'm not even criticizing necessarily anything they did. Like you can understand what's happening and it's just way too easy. At 110-104, Kade gets Bane again, pull up, you know, exactly what I'm talking about at 112-109. We're under a minute here. Orlando is still in this game somehow because of the three-point shooting, which you did not expect from them. And Orlando gets the stop, but Detroit gets the offensive rebound with 40 seconds left. Kade resets. He gets Bane and Asar is too. He's right in the right corner. Suggs is assigned to Asar. He has nothing to do with Asar. He doesn't even want to defend him. He's not supposed to be. He's completely off of him in the way that you're supposed to be. And Kade ends up hitting it over both guys. Suggs doesn't really get into the play to contest, but it's just really, really easy. Again, 23 shots in a playoff game. There's not one bad shot in all of it. There's a grenade three where it's super deep. He has to take the shot. He hits it. He has another grenade shot on the other side that he missed, but he had to take that shot. I think the grenade three led to the three that followed that pretty closely where you could just see what a total rhythm he was in because he went really quickly. Because I think he was going quick in game four out of desperation. I think he was going quick in game five. Not that he was going quick on all these shot attempts, just out of pure comfort. I think you'll see some stuff today on like defensive assignments with Kade of like, Hey, could you do this? Because I think he ended up O of two against Palo. They were actually, I thought one was a really good look and another one, you know, went in and out. So I don't know if there's anything necessarily there. The problem is that Franz isn't playing. Franz is in a boot and whatever you think of Franz, at least it's somebody body type wise. You can compete a little bit more with Kade, even if they're going to try to run some sort of switch off of him. Palo had a stretch, which is phenomenal. Did everything. He's hitting his threes last night. He's getting downhill. This is why we fight for Palo. This is last night, folks. If you're new here, this is why we get disappointed when people talk shit about him. This is why we defend him. This is why we get disappointed when he's not playing well, because we know what he's capable of doing and keeping pace with Kade the entire night, even though Kade was obviously more efficient. And really, what we're talking about here is the free throws, which I'll get to in a second. Magic loss. So you check in a Wendell Carter and you're like, what happened? 9 points, 4 boards and 34 minutes. But again, really, it was about the free throws for Orlando. You get that kind of three point shooting night from New Orlando Magic, which you should not expect the way they shot it last night. And then you feel like, wait, they lost? Well, they lost because they went 16 to 30 from the free throw line. It was just brutal last night. So that's 12 more points on makes for Detroit and they lose by seven. Palo was five at 12 from the free throw line. He missed a couple of huge ones. It was the only thing on his night that was disappointing. And he's 74% of the regular season. You think of these big spots, he's going to make these, but I don't know if this is something that's going on. I mean, that the performance last night was so bad. I'm going to be looking for it in game six, like a big free throw, like he's just starting to get in your head a little bit because that's what can happen. He had the free throw line, but in the post season, the last two years for Palo, 66 and 65%. So there's something there where he's just not hitting the free throws as much during the playoffs, even if he's having these awesome playoff performances that remind us why we talk about this guy so much. We go to LA last night where I expected the Lakers to probably close out this struggling Houston offense. KD not playing a report this morning that he will be out for game six after Houston gets this one in Los Angeles. I thought LA played pretty poorly throughout this game and first quarter was fine, but the start of the second half, I liked probably a lot of you were like, all right, they're going to put this team away. It's not that big of a deal. And they set an awful tone to start the second half. They dug themselves into a hole again. The turnovers, just the lack of energy, the turnovers on the hole, they have 15 to Houston's 11. So you're like, all right, well, that's not really that bad. The points off the turnovers, 18 for Houston, 13 for LA. So that's only five points. It's not that big of a deal. I'd say watching it, it felt worse. It felt worse than what the box score was telling you because it was just a lot of turnovers. You're making the turnovers now like you're the young team that's freaking out here. So that start of that second half is like, oh, this might actually be a game here. Houston may be able to go back home as I was just expecting the second half LA would crank it up. They've had two things happen here with two of their five main guys that's alarming, but it's just sort of happened. So I don't know that it's necessarily anything different. But Canard, who were raving about through three games, average in 21 a game, he's had seven points in game five, excuse me, seven points in game four, one point last night in game five. And as soon as he comes into the game, it is Canard season. Marcus Smart, who has been fantastic for the Lakers, and he was somebody when they were at full health, you're like, he is going to have so many open shots. And you're like, in the playoffs, is he going to hit a few more of these? Because it seemed to be kind of hit or miss. The overall number is exactly what you'd want to be on some of these open shots from Smart, but he was great for the first three games. He was doing all of the things that you would expect of that who's been through the battles before, and just somebody that you can trust. And in the last couple of games, after averaging 20 a game in the first three, he's averaging 10. He has 10 total turnovers. So he's making mistakes out there that you wouldn't necessarily expect. And of course Reeves was back. He had his 22, was only 416 from the floor. That's probably to be expected with his time off and then just thrown back right into a playoff game. I wanted to bring up this fourth quarter stretch because I thought it was kind of funny because you're looking at Houston a bit like Orlando going, oh, if you're going to get some three point makes this changes everything about what this team is capable of doing, at least for a night. A men Thompson hits a three. And when he hits a three on the broadcast, it's treated like your kid not destroying everything for an afternoon. It's like, hey, you didn't ruin all of our furniture today. Thanks, buddy. So he hits a three where he's completely ignored in the left corner, which is exactly what Lily Kier should be doing. If he's off the ball and it's not in the dunker spot, if he's anywhere in the perimeter off the ball, just ignore him. It does. I don't care if he hits a couple of these things. But what's funny about this is that on this play, there's these three plays where Houston was showing there's dysfunction yet it still was kind of working for him. And I'm going to run through them. So in this place, Shingun is waving at everybody on the other side of the court, his own teammates. And he's basically telling you as you're watching it, like, whatever they were supposed to do, two guys are doing it wrong. And it's all messed up. They get clogged up. A men's wide open. Hey, do you want to take a three? Okay, fine. He hits it. Then on the next play that Jabari ended up getting free throws. I thought Jabari was really good. And I thought he did some really good, like off ball stuff and some cutting because he can really be hit or miss, man. And so he is on the left side and Reed is between him and the ball and Reed is quite clearly supposed to cut away as Jabari comes up to the ball and Reed doesn't do it. And Jabari is like waving and going cut, go, go. He finally does Jabari ends up getting free throws done. Then another play that's leading to kind of this dysfunction and how no one else knows or there's just a lack of communication or, Hey, you know, you're supposed to do this. Well, I thought, you know, you just see it all playing out. Shingun has a turnover on a play where he basically throws the ball up in the air because he's expecting Jabari to cut off of his right side and the spacing is all messed up to begin with. And Jabari is never even cutting. So it was almost Shingun just passing it to someone in the Lakers. It was like a Terry Rozier play and you're like, what, what's going on there? And that's a turnover, but that's three possessions where it was pretty clear no one knew what was going on and they still ended up getting five points. So LeBron kicks it in late. He was getting some really good posts against the small players. If they brought over a double team, there's one play where Shingun is dancing in the paint. He's trying to stay honest to eat he knows that LeBron has a size mismatch. So he has to kind of like show this little double. Aitens delaying his cut. LeBron just plays it perfectly. As soon as Shingun takes a step, that's the wrong way. And Aitens to his credit to also reads it well, just feeds him perfectly. Aitens had some nice makes in this one. But I thought at this point, I was like, okay, LeBron is actually getting really aggressive here and he's going to go for it. LeBron makes this incredible layup left hand 88, 85 and you're like, all right, Lakers going to find a way to pull this off. Then read shepherd happens. And I don't know if it has anything to do with it at all. But after LeBron made that layup, he checks his shoulder into reach shepherd. And it was not just two guys bumping into each other. Like he was just giving it to read. Fine. Read comes right down. And this is the play where Eme said after the game, he was yelling at read being like, you need to demand the basketball, which is a nice little anecdote to how this Eme read story has gone for a couple of years here and read just very comfortably hits a not an easy pull up. He was not contested, but you know, he's floating a bit on this pull up hits the pull up LeBron comes down off a Rui screen, read reads it perfectly, strips LeBron goes down the court dunks. And this game that was 88, 85 is very quick, mean 92, 85. And that was kind of the game on that play to where LeBron got stripped. He turned and yelled at somebody. And I don't know if he was yelling at Rui about the screen, but the screen is not necessarily even what like read just read it right left his guy came over. It wasn't even really that he was switching into read. It just read was able to get LeBron. So I'm assuming LeBron was just mad that he got stripped and then was going to yell at somebody, which again, is not my favorite part about some of these games. Shagoon had some great makes against Aitin. And now here we are headed back to Houston for game six. It is easy to go. Well, you know, this game, the series could be three, two the other way if it weren't for game three. That's not how I roll because I don't think LA punts on game four, if they lose game three. So we could talk about a three, oh, lead and that the Lakers should have already won the series. I'm surprised they lost last night. I'm not surprised that they lost game four, but if they don't come back in historic fashion in game three, the way they do, and just such a disappointing loss for Houston, I think that's being a little convenient. I just don't think Houston, Houston wouldn't get that easy game at game four if LA is not up three zip. Although I was thinking about a first take segment if Houston wins game six, if LeBron blows a three, oh, lead, does that put Jordan back on top? Not sure that I want to, if we titled this podcast, if LeBron blows a three, oh, lead, does that definitively end the goat debate? Unfortunately, the podcast would probably do a lot better that this episode would get, I don't know what the percentage of more downloads is. We would get more downloads with that title. I'm just not sure I want to do that. Cleveland, the story was Dennis Schroeder, 12 minutes in the fourth quarter, six minutes and 52 seconds for Donovan Mitchell in the fourth quarter, and he was out of the game when all of the Schroeder stuff was happening. They talked about it in the post game. Everybody's cool. I want to ask PJ Carlos Samoa about that. He was in the building for that game, and that's what we'll do next. This episode is brought to you by Raising Canes. Raising Canes has one love, craveable chicken finger meals. It's all they serve. So they're focused on doing it right. They're served hot, fast and fresh with no heat lamps or holding cabinets. I'm a huge Canes guy, the crispy chicken fingers, the crinkle cut fries, grilled Texas toast, and of course the Cane sauce. I go way back with Cane's founder, Todd Grace. I've hung out with him in Bat Rouge. I've sat in a suite, brought friends that didn't pay, gone to LSU games with him. He's always a great time. Whatever sport you're watching, make sure you're watching with a box combo from Raising Canes. Raising Canes chicken fingers, one love. He was in the building last night for the Cavs, going up three, two on the Raptors, part of ESPN's coverage of the NBA playoffs. It's PJ Carlos Samoa on the call last night with our guy, Mark Kessinger, going way back. He had Portland, San Antonio. So a lot to get to. Good to see you this morning. You too, Ryan. Good to be with you. So last night, you know, I think this series has been a lot of fun because Toronto is, is responding. They have the, the two games back at their place and you're starting to think like, could Cleveland knock it out of this first round? Even though I think we've been impressed kind of at the high end of what Toronto's been. Last night, Toronto was, was great again. What do you think? Well, I'll, I know what the difference is. Dennis Schroeder, this guy, everybody seems to want to not have him on the team and then everybody loves once they have him. He was the story in the fourth quarter last night. You know, I'm with you and I agree the same thing with, with him. Like from the guy, you never know a guy until he's there. You don't know what he's like until you coached him. And you know what he, he's like in the locker room and how the players like him and like playing with them. But I totally agree with you. I've watched Dennis Schroeder more times either from the other bench or doing games. And I'm saying this guy's a good player and you start looking at how many teams he's been on. We said last night we were complimenting the front office of Cleveland saying everybody talks about the James Harden pickup. How about the Dennis Schroeder pickup? What a difference it's made. And Kenny Atkinson said the same thing before the game. Kenny, when he was talking to us, said he's really made a big difference. He gives him something off the bench. And last night, both teams benches really stepped up big last night. Toronto had to because of the I'd ran an Ingram going down, but I shrewd it was the difference in the fourth quarter. And how about the decision by Kenny too? Keeping Mitchell on the bench basically through that run. And that's one of those things as a coach is Dennis plays all 12 minutes. He is terrific. His energy is great. He went at Scotty Barnes and finished with the right-handed layup where I'm thinking like, I can't even believe you're trying this. And he finishes and then you're looking around going, man, Mitchell still hasn't been out there for a while. He brings him back in at like 240, but the game kind of felt like it granted, you know, things going on their way. They had it under control by then. It was the first time all night that I thought either team didn't respond. It just seemed like every time one team made a run, the other team took a time out or all of a sudden they answered back. It was the only time when about what three, four minutes to go when Cleveland pulled ahead. And I think, Kesty, we said like, well, it's time for Toronto to answer. And they didn't answer. Now, Donovan did come back. You got to put your big gun back in the game where you're going to have all kinds of problems after the game, but he stayed with Dennis for sure. Dennis and Struz have been the two best guys in terms of beating people off the dribble. Now, Struz, they just run out of him when he's shooting three. So he was able to get there. Dennis just seems to be able to go by anybody whenever he wants to and get to the rim. He either gets to shop locked or he gets finished. I guess I don't want to make this like a Donovan Mitchell thing, but I didn't even know if most coaches would have gone without him that long, but it was very clear that, okay, we can't take Shrooder out of this. And then whatever they were worried about defensively, they didn't want to keep both of the guys in. Yeah. I mean, do you just have to talk to Donovan and go, hey, like you've got to trust me here? Like what is that part of the managing that? I got to think that they've had the conversations before because it can't be a first thing. You can't in the playoffs all of a sudden, like your best guy. It had to have happened during the year. Maybe it happened earlier. I don't think it happened earlier in this series because I watched all four tapes before we watched it, but I have to think and Kenny is candid. He does it in a good way. Guys play for him. He's done a really good, you know, they had two really last year, they were spectacular in the regular season. This year, they did a great job keeping it together. They had 41, I think the second most starting lineups in the league this year with all their injuries. I have to think he's had that conversation with Donovan before, you know, like, hey, I'm going to ride this group. And whether you say it's because we need their defense or just, hey, they're going good. I don't want to mess with the flow right now when they're going good. You know, you make it less personal. You don't say this guy's giving me defense and you're not. So, you know, you just kind of say like this team was going really good and they were the fourth quarter early on. It went back and forth a little bit. And I thought for the last maybe five minutes, Cleveland was in control of the game and it was the only time all night that one team got away from the other and there was no response coming. The other topic that is now a multi-year topic with Cleveland is the two bigs and, you know, there are stretches in the series. You're like, how can Mowbly not get going against Pertle? And as much as we all have fallen in love with Murray Boyles, like this kid is a rookie to be doing this stuff, he's also like six, seven. So, you know, when you're thinking about that front line to see Mowbly wake up like that, what do you think? I mean, did you see anything tactically? Do you think anything was different? It was just his turn. I didn't pick up on anything if it was tactically, but we called him out more than I normally do. I just said, these guys can't win this game much less this series unless Evan Mowbly and Jared step up and they did. And I thought the second half was the best. I shouldn't say the best they've played because they had some good minutes. Evan had a really good game too, if I've got it correct. But I said like, I mean, it was just jumping out at you in the first half. They couldn't finish inside. They kept going up and they were going up soft and they were like pumping and nothing was happening. And as you said it, it was Jacob Pertle. Yeah, B.I. was there, but it's not like Brandon Ingram was a big guy. He's long for sure. But you know, he wasn't making that big a difference. But to me, it was jumping out at like, hey, if Evan Mowbly and Jared Allen don't play better than this, I don't know if they can win the game. We thought in the second half they were excellent. Now you got to say shooter, what he did in the fourth would be there too. But you know, Kesty kept saying, hey, here's what Dennis has. I said, yes, if those two bigs don't play the way they do in the second half and block some shots and Mowbly got him going, remember to play, it was about 30 seconds to go in the third. And Kenny put James Harden in the inbound to ball and also to maybe get a shot in a possession. They kick it out and Evan takes it three. And like as he's taken it, I'm saying, boy, this better go because he's two for 11 at the time on three pointers. That was the first of three three pointers he made. He had a little five point run himself late in the third quarter that I thought got Cleveland going. I don't think they win the game without Mowbly and Allen stepping up. And I'm not sure they win the series. Even with what's going on right now, one game going back to Toronto, and if Toronto finds a way to win game seven, those two have got to play better, more be stronger, be more of a presence inside for this team to do something in the playoffs. Your overall thoughts, if somebody had asked you about Scotty Barnes a week ago versus prepping for this series, watching the first four games, and I know he wasn't as good last night. I don't know if he was the same after he hit his leg. He just didn't seem to be as engaged, but just a bigger picture, Scotty Barnes impression from what you've seen this series. He's way better than I thought he was. You know, I don't want to cop out and say Canada because I beg every year. I beg Pete Saccone, I beg everybody to send me to Toronto. I loved it. I was there for years as an assistant, but you don't see them. It's the truth that they don't go on. They don't count the ratings, so that you know, they don't go on very much. They're not a popular team in terms of the networks. He's way better than I thought he was. I knew he was an elite defender. He may even be better at that than I thought he was. You know, I thought he was good staying in front of me. He gets his hands on balls. He rebounds. He hustles back. He makes plays. He is some passer. I don't know if he ever got the 10th assist last night, but he had nine fairly early in the game. He's a better passer than I thought he was. He's better putting the ball on the floor. He's one of the better young players in the league. And it's funny because he seems he's been a long time. It's only, what, five or six years. I would have, if you'd asked me before watching the four games on tape and watching the game live last night, I'd say, yeah, he's a pretty good player. I was wrong. He's better than that. He's an all-star caliber player. He's not going to on the door of being an all-NBA player. I think he's that good. I used Yannis as a comp. And that's not to say that I think Scotty Barnes is going to be the best player in the world at some point, because that's the kind of air that, you know, Yannis is always kind of flirting with. And Yannis is even great this year before the injuries and that whole mess up in Milwaukee. But the comp is like, if you were prepping for Scotty Barnes, you'd be like, what, if you hadn't seen him, right? Like, all right, hey, you got to play this guy. Like, all right, what is he? It's like, well, he's not that much. Do I have to close out on him? Not really. You know, is he going to like shoot him from three? No, you probably actually leave him open like, what are his moves? Well, you know, it's not like he's got the craziest handle of all these different things. And it's like, okay, well, what's the deal? It's like, yeah, except he's going to be the best player on the floor. Like, I think he's been the best player in this series. And, you know, part of it's the passing, part of it's the multi-positional stuff and the fact that it's like, hey, I can guard your center. I can also take James Harden out of the game, possession by possession. Like, if Harden is off the ball against Barnes, he has zero interest of getting back into the play, which isn't exactly new for Harden off the ball with this stuff. But it's, it'd be hard to describe. And then you have to watch it to appreciate it. And I, again, Giannis is not, I'm not saying he's getting to that level, but I think there's a similarity in that, hey, he just gets out there and kind of changes everything. He does. He makes three, like you say, he only shoots low 30s, but he'll make a big one. He puts it on the floor better than I thought. Like, I thought, say, I was giving him a pass and I may be, I might not be being fair enough to the defense of Cleveland. I thought he was, I thought the leg bothered him in the third and fourth quarters. Now, it may have just been better defense by Cleveland, but he's been unbelievably impressive putting the ball on the floor, making shots. The passing last night just jumped out at me the way, the way he passes the ball, but he brings it up the floor. He does everything you can ask anybody to do. He can do on the floor. And I'll tell you, I don't think he's that far off. I'm not saying he's ever going to be a 40% three point shooter, but I think he's even going to improve. I think he'll be a better three point shooter going forward. He's not bad now, but I think he's going to get even better. I think he's a heck of a player. And I love his motor, right? He plays hard all the time. Yeah. That's my favorite thing. And I think that's probably the best part about the honest thing is like once he gets out there, you're never going to worry about whether or not he's invested in the game with Ingram going out last night and he's struggled. I was just going to say, if I was more cynical than I am, which is hard to do, I would have said, well, you know, like somebody said, well, Ingram's not coming back. And I said, well, with the exception of one game, he really hasn't been a factor in this series at all. They've taken him out of it. Now, I give Dean Wade credit early. I thought he was doing a good job in some early games, but B.I. hasn't played very well. No. So that's made a decision easier for Toronto and that Shed gets out there and he's like, you come from Kelvin, Samson's things. Like, I don't have to worry about you competing. Jacoby Walter, who's pitched as this three and D guys actually looking like the three and D guy. And he has been this year too. I'm just kind of going back to the draft of like, I'm not, I'm not sure. I think we get a little loose with that term. So he seems to want to get after it defensively. You know, RJ is probably somebody that you wouldn't put at the level of Shed and Walter defensively. I don't think that's being mean to RJ Barrett. And then you have Barnes and then you're trying to figure out like, which big do you want to survive with? And it feels like they're going back to Perl. But with those two young guards and Ingram not being around, as bad as he's played, if he can't come back for this series, I don't know that it really changes all that much for Toronto. Because there's probably something for Darko there where he, he's like, well, now I at least have the defensive group here to try to match what these guards can do for Cleveland. Yeah, I think it does make some of the substitutions easier, but I'm sure Darko would be the first one to say when, when BI is there, he's a threat at any point to throw a 20 point game out there, or to really change the game with his length and do things. The physicality in this series, and I got it, I'm copping out between New Orleans and Toronto. Haven't seen him. Physical playoff basketball is not to be a BI's liking. That, you know, that, that when the game bogs down and you're letting people be physical, that really hurts him. I'm not saying he's, he's soft or he's 100% right. The playoffs are not suited to him. He's still capable of being an impact player, but it's not his forte. I want to ask you about San Antonio here and I'm trying to think of something because I was going through the old PJ Carlos Samo basketball reference page. Arvitas and Wimbenyama, I'm not comparing the two of them. All right, as players, although I'd say Wimbenyama is passing for a big guy. It's like the easiest thing to overlook and forget because everything else is absurd with him. Victor has some passes where I go, Oh my God, like he can do that too. And when Arvitas came to you, his rookie year, he's 31 years old in Portland. And that was the thing is that it's like, okay, he can do all these other things, but he's also like first and foremost an incredible passer the way that he sees the game. Before I get to that though, what was it? I don't know if it was challenging because he was so damn good so quickly, but this almost like basketball attraction beyond the basketball player, this mythical creature of Arvitas Sabonis, what went into coaching that for you that first year? It was fun. It was great. And people don't remember, Ryan. No, you and I have had these conversations even going back to Bristol many years ago. People forget a younger Arvitas. I didn't know what he was. It was 31 when he came to us. Another constant with him or another thing in common with him and Wemby, they were the best player outside the NBA. And it wasn't even close. Who was the best player not in the NBA? It was Arvitas for about five years. Who was the best player not in the NBA? It was Victor Wimminyama before they even came. When he was younger, people would not recognize if you showed clips of a younger and I'm talking for about five or six years, Arvitas Sabonis, when he's like 19 to in his late 20s, he was much thinner, much more athletic, got up and down the floor. You wouldn't recognize his body type. By the time he came to us because of the legs and the surgeries and whatever he had gone through, he was a big hulk of a man. He was a big, strong guy and he didn't have the mobility to get up and down the floor or to beat you off the dribble. When he was young, like Victor, there was nothing he couldn't do on the floor. He was so skilled, it was unbelievable. He was the easiest guy, great player. He was just delightful. From the first day he came, he was funny. He spoke better English than everybody thought. Like I'd say something to him and he had that deep voice, he'd go, yes, yes. The writers would talk to him after a game and he would go, like, not understand, not understand. Then you'd walk into things and he'd go, what's happened when we leave? I was like laughing because he would like feign that he couldn't understand the question or he didn't want to talk. He was the easiest guy to coach. He was amazing. He was the best defender against Shaq. I thought not that anybody stopped Shaq, but he was the only guy that Shaq couldn't just move out of the way. Like when those two guys were against each other down on the left box or the right box, usually the left box, they couldn't move each other. It was unusual because Shaq, usually when nothing else was there, then he would just pull the guy that was playing him. He couldn't do that against us. Arvitis was a good matchup. Not that he could stop him, but he was strong enough that he couldn't move him. The passing, right, he threw, I mean, he'd throw once every two or three games. He'd get a rebound and he loved the pass, so he would throw it all the time. He would throw a behind the back, like three quarter court pass, like a guy streaking down the floor and is open and he would lead him like with a behind the back bounce pass, because sometimes people would play it when he got a rebound. They would try and stick him and he would just go to the behind the back pass and invariably it would be like one bounce, lead the guy to the basket and he would just say, there's nobody in the world that can throw that pass other than Arvitis, Simonus. But in the half court, the wheeling and dealing, and you talk about playing through somebody, it was like our players finally realized it took a little while, maybe 10, 15 games in, that when he's got the ball, you better move because if you move, if you cut, or if you're open, he's going to find you. And like early on, he'd be hitting guys, you know, like they didn't even know the pass was coming. But it got to the point where when Arvitis got the ball, players knew I got to move or I got to space, I better have my hands up, because I don't know how, but somehow he's going to get me the ball. He was delightful to coach, he was extremely competitive. It was really almost sad in terms of, because I never felt that the people in the NBA saw the real Arvitis a bonus in terms of all the other things he had to his game, but that had eroded before he got to us in Portland. And the reason I ask is, as part of it is again, the attraction point, but your team at the time after practicing, I mean, to what you just said is like after a few weeks, it's like, okay, like this is, this is pretty good. Because I imagine like, I think it's a very typical thing, like some young guys, all American guys, big basketball cities, big time college programs, who's this Russian villain? Like, are you serious? Like this guy? And then it's like, oh, okay, he's incredible. And the way he sees the game, like I was looking at his page this morning, I didn't realize like the advanced stuff for him is off the charts. Like the stuff no one ever talked about back then. Because I was like, I wonder if there's any like holes in this. I was like, it's even better than I even remembered it being because I wasn't ever looking at stuff like that back when he was playing. But when I look at Victor, and I think Mitch Johnson is done such a great job and being creative with him, which I think there was kind of like, all right, how is this going to look offensively with him? Because it's not, it's not like he's just going to clear out and work with off the dribble, although there are times where he can still do that. And I just believe it. There's that play they love to start them in the corner, and they run that curl off a screen. And if you play it on the high side, you can shut it off. But then you're opening yourself up to a back cut, which he'll figure out. So I guess the question I'm asking is, probably with Arvitas, I imagine is you just had to roll it out, he would figure it out. But Mitch learning about the creative ways to get when we going because you're not good, just going to have them bring the ball up and work it at that size. It's just not, it's not what they want to do. And it's great that they don't want to do that. It's, if Mitch doesn't get enough credit, he hasn't done a good job. He's first just stepping in for pop, as you know, was impossible. And he's made it look, I don't want to say easy, but he's done an incredible job. This, there was more, I thought, legit candidates for coach of the year in the NBA this year than we've had in a long time. And by the way, Tiago Splitter, Tiago Splitter was, maybe he was six or seven on the list, but he was going to be a disgrace if he doesn't get that job. And from what I'm hearing, he's not going to, I shouldn't go by rumors, but he's done an excellent job. Mitch has been incredible for that team to get where they are. His relationship with Victor from day one, when he was still the assistant, that's what people don't remember. He started out as the assistant and he had this great relationship with Victor. They're still, I'm sure Mitch would say, they're still seeing things. They're still developing things that they, they're finding out. Wow, I didn't know he could do this too. I love watching him before a game, Ryan. When he does his workout, Victor comes out late. You know, some superstars get their thing done early and then they disappear. Victor comes out late and the other team is done. And when they go to the locker room, he does full court things. Like your assistant will throw the ball off the backboard and he'll get it like it's live in a game. And he busts the ball up the court at game speed. Sometimes like he stops, does it like between the legs, goes all the way to the basket and dunks it. Sometimes he pulls up and takes a three point shot. He does like warm-ups like a point guard would do, but he does it at game speed, full court before the game, every game. You should watch his pregame warm-up. I said this all the time and people laugh and you and I are not big on what it costs to go to an NBA game. I mean, you know, I love it and I love making a living in the NBA. I've done that for like 20 plus years now. I would pay money to watch Victor Remagnano play every single day because if you watch two at most three games, you're going to see something that nobody else in the league can do and maybe you've never seen in a basketball game before. He does some things, but you just shake your head and you got to go back. Even on the screen, you got to play it back and go, did he just do that? It's incredible how skilled this guy is and how much enthusiasm he has for the game and how good he is with his teammates. You watch his interaction on the bench or with the team. I mean, it seems like from the outside, he's almost a perfect guy and, you know, fortunately, I get a chance to spend a lot of time with the San Antonio guys having worked there. We did two of the games. I was there for the third one because we were in between series after the game on Lakeers Houston. It's incredible to watch and you talked about you asked me before, like how is Scotty Barnes better than I thought he was for sure. San Antonio Spurs are way better than I thought they were. I thought they were good. They're really good. I mean, it's almost a shame if it ends up San Antonio, OKC and the Western Conference finals. It's too bad if that is the Western Conference final. Well, I can't wait for it. I hope that's what it is. I understand what you're saying is that they're so good. Because you worked there, I imagine in some of the prep stuff when you had two of the games, like is there anything that you can share with us on like, OK, Castle takes it like this is all happening while Castle jumps to a level that I didn't think was going to happen this quickly, if ever. Fox appears to be totally fine. Like some guys with Fox's scoring resume come in going like, I don't care what the plan is here. Like I got to get my 30 points. He can kind of fit in how he needs to fit in. And then Harper. No, there's a guy who I missed. I had no idea he was this good. Even before game three was a game three that he went off in Portland. Yeah. I mean, he was really game three for a veteran player in the league was a big time performance for a rookie playing his first road playoff game. It was impossible to play as well as Dylan Harper played particularly in the second half of that game, because Portland was being competitive. Dylan Harper just didn't let them be. But he and Stefan Castle just do not play like first or second year players. There's so the thing that jumps out of me is they're so physical. They're so strong. Stefan Castle loves to go to like inside and just bogot people and he'll dunk on him or he'll take the little short shot. He makes more threes. Dylan Harper is going to be, I mean, the only problem for Mitch is finding play time for him. Because De'Aaron, as you mentioned, I thought De'Aaron was struggling a little, the first couple games that he came alive in games four and five. You know, I think if they are going to win the whole thing, they need De'Aaron Fox to be special to be like, you know, one of the best player on the floor some nights. And I think he's doing that. But I got news for you. Mitch is losing no sleep whatsoever. Wondering what he's getting from Steph Castle or Dylan Harper. He's very confident they're going to be there game in and game out. And they defend also like they're physical. They get after people. Denny Avde played really well in that series. He got beat up the entire series. Those guys were just whaling on him and he was hitting back on them. But they don't play like rookies. They really don't. And I think that's what separated San Antonio. They were 30 and four to close the NBA. I think February, March and April, if I'm not mistaken, they were 30 and four. I mean, you can't do that unless you're elite defensively and you have this alien playing in the middle that nobody can deal with. So you feel like Mitch is like, Hey, I just trust these guys and give me the coach speak. Because I just wonder if there's even part of him that would even share like, I can't believe these guys are this good this soon. No, no, I think he'd say it. But the other thing that he is, you don't you don't notice it because Mitch kind of does it in a nice way. The lucky thing in the playoffs because the TV guys unfortunately now there's no local TV. We sit sometimes right near the bench. He gets on people from from De'Aaron Nwembe right down to the rookies. He's very hard on it. Like when they make a defensive mistake, he calls them on it instantly. He doesn't do it like a knucklehead, but you're talking to right now used to do it. And maybe embarrass a player when he talks to him, but he's very demanding. If you watch him at practice, he tells them what to do, but he'll call Steph over, he'll call Dylan over, he'll call De'Aaron Fox over and go, Hey, you let the guy beat your middle that we're not doing that. I mean, he is really, really good. I'm so impressed with the job Mitch is doing. But one of the things he does as well as anybody in league, he holds players accountable from the best players to the young guys that hardly play at all. So he's still on Steph. Dylan Harper in his post game, I think it was with us. I can't remember whether I was watching the tape or the post game interview or it was a post game interview with us. Somebody asked him how he likes playing for Mitch. And he said, I like him because he holds me accountable. And he does. I mean, he calls as soon as he makes a mistake. He tells him that and Dylan Harper, you know, not surprisingly, you know Hart very well as father. It's not surprising that he would want to be held accountable. I'm so glad you said that about Mitch. Cause I'll admit, like I kind of thought, did they just, are they in this post Papa bitch thing where, you know, the Spurs are so tightly knit. It's like, okay, this is a guy that we trust internally, but we're still not a hundred percent sure. You know, last year, it's not really even fair to give him a grade because you're like, Hey, it's a younger team. One be misses all this time. And the way they've managed when be the way the development has worked. And maybe just it's Brian hitting on all these draft picks too. And drafting the side, but there's enough credit. No, I mean, they showed Brian on TV and I guarantee 99% of the people seeing the Spurs general manager on TV was like, Oh, that's what he looks like. But there's, there's creativity. I think there's, there's stuff that they do throughout the course of how much fun they are to watch where look, they closed out that, that series with a C level game from them. And they've shown that they can turn a switch on, I think in three of the four wins this year, or excuse me, three of the four wins in the series where it's like, Hey, Portland, like, I know you're having a good time, but like this thing's about to be over. And they're doing it with a group that like normally that group's like 28 or 30 years old. Be like, did you have fun kids? All right, this is over. And they're like younger than the guys that they're doing this too, which is just absurd. So a quick thought on Portland, because I enjoy that city. Yep. Their passion for basketball. I thought it was like a fun season for Trailblazers fans just to at least be back up on the map. I think there's some really good things with this roster that are exciting, but you have another one. It's done a good job. Joe Cronin doesn't get credit for the job. He's done in Portland. They've done good things with their rosters. Some of the guys, they move some of the guys they get. I thought they were crazy for taking on the Drew Holiday contract and the way he moved and the way he had to defend women, Yama. And then like, you know, I think, there's more positives in this series that you can build on, but it kind of got the better of him the last couple of games. Yeah. So for sure. I think Tiago did a great job. Joe Cronin did a good job. It's sad. Some of the stuff I'm hearing, I hope they get it together. You know, I'm biased. I spent three years in Portland. I love the city. It's a great city. They love their team. You know, I hope they're able to keep it together. Avdi, I was wrong on. He's way better than I thought he was. I thought he was a good player. He's not a good player. He's an elite player, incredible. And he's competitive. He got knocked down 50 times in that series, got up every time, never said a word. I mean, he's physical as hell. You know, just to tie one thing in San Antonio, I know you would appreciate you should hear RC talk about Brian and Mitch almost like a father or grandfather talking about these young pros. Like he is so proud of the job that those two guys are doing. In fact, you know, like he and pop put those guys in position and the job they're doing, it's unbelievable. I was sitting before game four talking with RC and to hear him talk about Brian and Mitch is really a nice thing. Well, I'm glad, again, I'm glad you said that because I know your ties to the franchise and how I think there's like a spurs thing. I think it's a very real thing where you guys all are like super proud of any attachment to the franchise at all. But also the ties to the Portland thing. So the new ownership coming in and you alluded to it there a little bit. It's like, what's going on here? Would you, if you were in the coaching market, which I know you're not, or at least I don't think you are. No, I am for sure. But fortunately, everybody realized, don't forget this guy. Okay. All right. Well, that's breaking news. We'll have to be the breakout PJ available. I mean, look, I think there was a stretch there where Kelvin was, was in coaching purgatory. I think Kelvin Samson's name was attached to like 15 jobs in a row. And look, it worked out, he got back to Houston. He's doing a great job. Can you take this? Like, I understand if you're a younger coach and you're going, okay, so what's the plan here? I mean, I don't know how true any of this stuff is. It just keeps being reported over and over all is that the owner wants to bring in a front office that doesn't cost anything. And he wants to pay a head coach like 25% of what the going rate is here. Now it's one of 30 jobs. There's always going to be somebody that will take it. The expenses of an MBA team to short the head coach, like I'm not saying you have to pay him 15 million, like some of these other guys, that seems to be like a waste of, hey, I've shaved a few million off this head coaching thing. If it becomes something that the coach who were to take it would feel like he's doing something maybe that he shouldn't be doing for the profession, but it's not like they're going to have a strike and no one's going to take this job. If it ends up being $1 million a year to be an MBA head coach. No, there's only 30 jobs in the league and, hey, it's the MBA, it's business. He's the owner. The owner can do whatever he wants and you can't second guess that. It's his team. He can do it. I don't like the way they're handling that. You don't, when a guy's still working, you don't be talking allegedly to all these college coaches and assistants in the league. And I fault some of the coaches because you shouldn't be talking to somebody if a guy's still under contract there and you don't know his status. So the way that was done is being done supposedly is very unprofessional. I don't like him making some people check out at a hotel early and some of the stories I'm hearing, but he's the owner. He can do what you want. You have to think when it comes down to salary, players are still going to go where the money is. Everybody's saying, well, nobody's going to go there. That's not true. People are still going to go there if he's willing to spend the money on the players. But he's putting his coach in a really bad position. If he ends up settling, if you will, or what the players or agents are going to think is, he settled for a coach because he was able to get him for a million dollars. The fact that if Tiago Splitter is not hired, a lot of people in the league are going to shake their heads because they're going, this guy didn't do a good job. He did an excellent job in a really difficult situation. He handled it really well. And to me, the most important thing, right, players are playing for him. The number one thing, forget all the X's and O's and all the other things that go into being a head coach, particularly in the NBA. The number one thing is players got to play hard for you and they got to respect you. Portland Trailblazers players play hard for Tiago Splitter and they really respect them and like them. That's a commodity. That's not the case in 30 different, you know, cities in the league or 30 different teams in the league. So that's disappointing to me if Tiago doesn't get the job. But when a guy's an owner, they went from one extreme to the other. Paul Allen was the best owner you could be. He was generous. He was a great fan and he didn't interfere. I didn't always like, you know, what Bob Whitsit did or they didn't like what I did. But Paul hired guys and he let them do their job and all he was was a fan and he was a tremendously generous and supportive owner. It doesn't appear like that's the way it's going to be going forward in Portland. Doesn't mean they can't be successful, but I think it's going to be difficult. All right, let's play out a scenario here. We'll finish with this. And I'm glad you said that something about Portland as well because like I looked at like, I think Klingon's going to be a guy. What Rob Williams turned into in this series, although Rob having a really amazing stretch and being healthy would make me probably want to like see if somebody wants to trade for him. Drew was better than I thought he was going to be. Kamara is a terrific player. I don't always love some of the Grant stuff, but he turned it around at least in the series because in the beginning it was a disaster. Yeah. So there's actually for a team that isn't even in the top six in the West, there's a lot of things I like about this team and I would hate for all this momentum to be derailed for fan base that deserves some, some good days ahead. All right, but let's, let's play this out. Ownerships like PJ, you and Kesty, you are the star of that broadcast. No offense to cap. Just kidding. Your basketball acumen, the spurs connections, all of this stuff. You've had time away from the game. You've been able to reset this whole thing. I want to ask you to be the head coach of an NBA team. I'm going to give you three guys that played for you and you have to pick one to be on your bench. On my bench? Yeah. Like, well, you gap, I'm going to let you have a bigger staff than just one guy, but like the ex, the ex player. All right. So here's, here's, you can pick one of these three guys to be on your staff. Chris Wilcox, Kurt Thomas, or my guy, Muhammad Sine, was one of my draft misses early days. Kurt Thomas, that's an easy one for me. I like, I like, I like all three guys. I like Kurt Thomas, the professionalism, what he brought to the, what he brought to the team. And I think he'd be a great role model and they'd be great and development players. All right. There you go. What's your next game? We don't know. We're going to find out tomorrow night. I think we're sleeping on Game Sevens. They're waiting to see, I think we'll go, if it goes to Atlanta, New York, I don't even know. It could be Game Sevens. It could be, maybe Boston finishes it up. We're sitting waiting. We got one day of treading water, watch a lot of games and they'll tell us where we're headed. All right. Saturday night somewhere. I don't know where. All right. Well, we'll be there. We'll be watching, we're listening. Whatever you end up doing throughout the rest of the NBA playoffs. Thanks, PJ. All right. Thank you. What's up guys? It's PFT here. Grit week is here. We're back on the road and you already know that we're bringing twisted tea along for the ride as the official drink of grit week. The new twisted tea summer party pack is five percent alcohol. It's realized tea, no carbonation. It's perfect for long days, longer nights and whatever happens after practice interviews. Plus, you've got multiple flavors in the pack, including a hard lemonade that's made with real lemons and the canned turns blue when it's ice cold. So you can always tell when it's ready. Grit week, twisted tea, tea time, let's ride. Twisted tea brewing company, Cincinnati, Ohio. Please drink responsibly. You want details? Bye. 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 co-pilot. What if you can add an AI assistant to your work without leaving your workflow built in a Microsoft word, Excel and Outlook co-pilot works where you work helping you do more in the apps you already use. In word, co-pilot 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 co-pilot. Learn more at m365co-pilot.com slash work. All right. It seems like everybody has a smile on their face today. I don't know what's going on. So why don't we, whatever you guys, what needs to be done? No, I didn't even know this. Kyle just kind of offered up this information. It was like pre-show stuff. I was like, you got to stop talking because we need to obviously discuss this on the show. I didn't even realize Kyle, because I said to Kyle before, I was like, oh, collared shirt Kyle today. Like what, that's interesting. And he goes, man, and told me a story. So I think just the floor is yours to you. I don't know. All right. Share what you want to share. Yeah. I guess, I know this isn't Ryan's favorite, fucking angle of the show, but I shipped my pants this morning, like 18 minutes before the PJ interview was to go on and I was freaking out. My beautiful wife was like going to a doctor's appointment. She was in the bathroom, like curling her eyelashes or something. And I fucking, I'm barging there like quasi-modo. And I'm like, I need you to get out of here right now. And so again, I'm counting by the time this is happening, there's like 15 minutes. And I'm just, I text Tom. I'm like, man, I might be five minutes late to PJ. Is there a way you can roll without me? He's like, okay. I get back with two minutes to spare. And I just, the PJ thing happens and we have like 30 minutes and I've just, I haven't seen my wife since like that's her last memory of me. We've got this weird like no, I'm just like, I haven't seen her. She was like, all right, well, I got to go. Good luck. I'm just like, man, this is awful. And then we got these weird, these weird like 30 minutes, between. And I was just like, my day's got to change. Somehow it's got to change. So I went in and I did a little spring cleaning, found all my Tommy Bahamas first day going to two chains here. So I just, just turned my day around. I know you don't like the poop. The poop. Yeah, no, it's fine. I, I, it was just the proximity to go time was crazy. I mean, I've worked time, you know, we look great. So I would never know. I know why. Yeah, right. Yeah, you're right. Are you, are you just glad I work from, yeah, I'm just glad I work from home, man. Yeah, because the way we were talking, like imagine if it was in office doing this. And I'm like, the amount of times that like dudes, I feel like have thrown their underwear out in the lavatory. It's just, it's probably a way higher percentage than you think it is. Yeah. I mean, look, it's science. Sometimes what do you think was going on with you? Did something last night or I'm upset. I'm feeling good. Like, I'd like, it's not like, I made some, I made some grilled chicken last night, which I get a little bit weird about, you know, I can totally tell when a steak is good, but I feel fine. It was just, you know, just trusted the wrong thing. That's all it calls. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like you could use yourself. And I sweeps. I'm a Seagrams guy, but yeah, that's right. Are you? Wow. Yeah. It's, I think it's the least sweet of all of them. It's the best. That's like, that's totally fraudulent too, by the way, right? Like there's zero chance that just like drinking ginger ale makes you feel better. I don't know. How much ginger is in the ginger ale? Probably not a ton. I'm gonna push back on that. And my childhood is just lying to me. Ginger ale and tussin bro, you're fine. It's all good. Don't get me wrong. I love ginger ale. I mean, ginger ale is like the official drink of taking a flight anywhere. It's like, I don't drink ginger ale unless I'm flying. Way better in the sky too. Yeah. Just can't even create that. I don't, I don't feel like, Hey, I don't feel well. Here's a soda. But you sip it. You know, you're not like, Oh yeah, let me get this medicine down. You sip it. It's like, I don't know if it's a ritual as well, but I think, should we, should we look up why it works and why you're just dead wrong about this? Do we even want to know if Sarutti's right? I don't know. Actually, I just stopped. I just started hitting backspace there. Listen, if it's a placebo thing, right? Is that, am I using the right term? Yeah, yeah. Then, Hey, it works for you. It works for you. Who am I to ran on your parade? I just like, I'm just, I don't know about the science behind it. It's probably fair. I mean, it's kind of like Ethan Strauss, the other day when it was the born to run thing, and then everybody was like, Oh my God, this is amazing. Dude started running barefoot or whatever. And then it was like, Yeah, this is totally wrong. Actually, no, this is true. So I don't, I don't know what to do anymore about anything. People have so much time on their hands. You can, you can post essentially any thought and there's going to be somebody be like, No, that's actually not what's, what's going on. Specifically offensive line play. But yeah, anyway, usually offensive line play. Great call, Suryi. All right. This one is, this one, let's just do this for Kyle. See if you might not know if this guy's already on the upling. Let's see what we got. Yeah. Five nine and three quarters, one 52 ran a four, five nine mile a few years ago. Now trying to run a sub three hour marathon as a long time life advice listener. I thought what better place to run 26.2 than Poughkeepsie, New York. Wow. I'll be taking the train up from New York city this Saturday than running the Hudson Valley marathon on Sunday, May 3rd. It starts with some great views by heading over the walkway, heading over the walkway over the Hudson, then 13 miles down the Empire State trail winding through some beautiful northeast forest for turning around and heading back to Poughkeepsie. I'll be really hurting around mile 23 or 24 when we come back into town. I think Kyle cheering me on is just what I need to push through those last few miles. But I'll understand if he has to take care of the rabbits. What is the rabbit count out right now? Two. Wow. That's not even jinxed that dude. Let's just keep moving on with the emails. All right. Or if he gets distracted by a good 500 piece puzzle, anyway, it's up to show. I so regret the puzzle thing that I said to you guys. I so regret that. Stanford Steve even hit me up on the puzzle thing. It is worth asking that. How many people did a master's puzzle on the final day of the master's and didn't watch? There's no way anyone else in the world did that. I didn't not watch any of it. I just didn't. I forgot. I got one of one. I was just puzzling hard and I forgot to check back. Dude, wait, do we ever get flow state sometimes? And you're like, there's, you see like a 500 to a thousand. You're like, I'm never gonna, you're like, I'm never gonna finish this. And then all of a sudden you're like, Oh, the, the border's done. And then you're like, Oh my God, look at this. That's a tree. And you just, it all works out. You know, it's a story of perseverance. Like Max Verstappen at spa. Like I imagine it's just one with the car, man. I'm one with the pieces. Yeah. I feel like what is it? Is that like, that would be like somebody who's like playing Madden, but not watching the Super Bowl like during the Super Bowl. Okay. All right. That's more believable. But you're right. Yeah. That's like having a Jewel in your backyard and listening to a CD in your bedroom instead. I hate this, man. I hate this. You know, he's right outside. Yeah. Yeah. It's my favorite part of voodoo child though. It's hard to replicate that. Yeah. Oh, you guys are funny. What do you think, man? You're going to make it to the marathon? You got to do it. Like, yeah, if it's not raining. Yeah. Yeah, but wait, you guys are coming across the bridge and then where are you going? Like, I'm certainly not going to be waiting at the end of the bridge for you, dude. I'm sorry. I'll look up the map. I'll look up the map. I'll look up the map and you don't even know them. Yeah, I won't know who to look for. Who are you going to, who do you even know who you're cheering on? 593 quarters, 152. Yeah. He's like, I'll be in the recilibri, like I'll put, you know, whatever. Let me know if he gets back to us. Yeah, let me know if he gets back to us. I'll think about it. I got a slow weekend. I think it's close to rain. We have some merch coming out again through Barstool. So, yeah, after you said what you just said, I thought about a t-shirt, but the sayings t-shirt doesn't really work. Yeah. I've been told sayings don't really have a huge market. Okay. What about I shit myself? What about puzzling hard? That would be the one, I think. Puzzle flow state. I mean, a flow state. Yeah, just as I'm in a flow state on the back. I don't know. I still don't know the market for that shirts. It's pretty niche, but I buy one. Yeah. Okay. I'll, maybe I'll forward this email to you and you guys can connect, but then I feel like I'm putting you on the spot and I just don't. Just let me know if he replies and if you don't look, then you don't look. Hey, by the way, team USA handball, I just got an email from our guy, Jason. They won the tournament in St. Kitts. How about that? They go from Hermosa and Redondo. Jesus. Getting things like, we're just going to head over to St. Kitts. So, there's an open camp practice in Hermosa Beach this weekend, May 2nd, the 3rd. So, he won't be there all day, Saturday, Sunday. So, I guess it's open for anybody in the South Bay area that wants to go on and support team USA beach handball. It's not a tryout. I don't think it's a tryout. No, these guys are all pretty tall. They're all pretty tall and athletic. I would have run around with them had I been invited, but there was like a soft, hey, we'll get you out there thing. And then I didn't want to fall off and be like, hey, I bet you've been thinking about that exchange for a bit. Well, I don't really want to push it. Yeah. I don't want to insult the level that they're at, but if you want to, I'm not, anybody that's listening to this pod that lives in the South Bay area, go support the team. Great guys. I don't think, I think what he's saying is it's open. I mean, they're there. It's not like they're security around. So, go check them out because they were actually, no one was around. I don't think people knew what was going on. So, not going to treat it like F1 in Vegas. And those guys remember, we were there for Vegas, right? When they were like blocking off anyone that would have possibly had it, who didn't pay for seats, who would have had an actual site above a car doing a turn. Yeah, it's not going to be like that. The city turned into a maze if you can't look at this. Never seen anything like it. Speaking of handball, I inadvertently bought handball shoes. Didn't know that they were handball shoes. I just like do they look like basketball shoes? No, they're like, they're Sambas, but they're on the side. I was like reading the thing. I was like, it's called handball, especially all. And I was like, oh, like I'm a handball guy. It's like, what the weird thing is they're like not you're definitely a guy though, I could tell just by looking at it. Well, well, you know, no, it's not a bad thing. Yeah. Yeah. Another kind of trendy, but they're comfy. And yeah, so I guess I, but they're very, I expected like, you know, if you're playing because they play on like a hard court, right? I mean, I know the beach guys. What color are they seeing a lot of like a basketball? Well, I might be like a harder rubber court. Like, yeah, I don't remember being wood when I was a shoe is like ultra low top and match. Like there's no support whatsoever. Yeah. And it's like, I would my ankles would be destroyed. Not about the green white ones. Okay. Nice. I'm looking at those right now. I like them. Thanks. Yeah. Comfy. Okay. This has to do with kids doing stuff that's bad. It's common theme. We've got a lot of emails about kids doing stuff, which I know everybody, the parents out there, there's a large segment of you that love when we touch on this stuff, but we've got Saruti here, right? We would have had Wargon talk about that, but somebody just emailed it and said Wargon, but not forgotten, which I thought was clever. So credit to the person that said that. All right. Hello. Hello. 42, six foot no gym for me, except for body weight work in the basement pushups and burpees. As Chris Long once said, if you're pushing, you should also be pulling. I think he's right about that. It's not everything. I can do four pulls. Who's not buying that T-shirt? God, it's so easy for some guys. Really? I know. Just Chris is that UVA education that sort of pops up every now and again, you're like, ah, that's really smart. Our guy says this NBA comp is JJ Redick. I could fill it up in high school. Had a decent two, three dribble pull-up. The reason JJ ended up becoming such a good NBA player is that that senior year at Duke, you're like, there's way more to this guy than just the way he talked Richard. The reason he became a good NBA player is because he grew up on a gravel driveway. Oh, as a former graveler myself, didn't quite work out that way. I had a buddy who would like, he'd like died on that hill. He's like, um, good shooter because I grew up on a gravel driveway just like JJ Redick. I was like, okay. Did she make you a better hand? I don't know what shooting has to do with that. Handle, yes. He never dribbled. He just shot. Oh, because he couldn't dribble. Yeah. Well, some of us try. I remember just begging my dad for a paved driveway. I was like, is there any way? Is there any way? We do talk about it, like a house meeting. Yeah, I know. Yeah. It all starts to make sense that everything happens for a reason. All right. So reason for writing in, this one's a little long. I'm saying that, but it's good. A previous life advice discussed the thievery by a son of a couple in their friend group, and it got me thinking about the situation. It just came to light my own home. I'm the youngest of a large family. My parents heard about Catholics and Sunday mass growing up was not negotiable. Since leaving the house, I did not attend for many years. Fast forward to today. I have four daughters ages five to 11, a wonderful wife. My wife has made Sunday mass a regular thing last five or six years. I go to appease her. And since the recent passing of my mom, it's been therapeutic as being in church reminds me of her. Okay. Anywho, last weekend, we were in church and my eldest daughter excused herself to go to the bathroom. So the 11 year old. After what seemed to be like 15, 20 minutes, she had not returned. So I signaled to my second oldest to go check on her sister. A minute later, number two returned in motion for me to follow her. So uh, follow her and she also grabbed her jacket. Number two walked into the laser room and seconds later, both my daughters emerge. My oldest had the jacket tied around her waist and it clearly been crying. She went and explained that all the bathroom stall doors were locked, but no one was in them. She couldn't get in, panicked and she wet herself. She was mortified. I was confused. I walked to the reception desk and explained the situation to the gentleman behind the counter. He stood up and quickly said again. He explained that this is likely the 10th occurrence in the last year. Multiple situations of kids wetting themselves in one instance of an elderly church goer having a full blowout in her pants. Kyle. It happens. Yeah. I was, I didn't even mean to do, tie it all together. I was still confused. I gathered the family and we left the services early so my daughter could go home and get cleaned up. Something didn't sit right about my second oldest daughter's behavior. When we got home, I asked her to go to the hardware store with me. It's an easy ask and the store gives out free bags of freshly popped popcorn. Driving the store, I was like, what's that? That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, it's that just reek of American and small town values. I just want to get back to it sometimes. And I think about that. Just a nice little hardware store. Like, hey Russ, what am I doing wrong here? He brings me back to some rusty drawer. That's why his nickname is Russ. All right. Driving to the store, I remember daughter number two had gone to the restroom during mass. I asked her if the doors are locked when she went in. She put her head down and said, no, I had a feeling. So I just asked sweetheart, look at me. Are you locking the doors? Silence. I will not get mad. Please answer me though. Yes, it's me. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I thought it was funny, but when that man said a woman pooped her pants, I realized it's not that funny. I was like, dude, you can't do that anymore. Yeah. I don't even know what to say. You saw how embarrassed your sister was. Now imagine that old woman. So you crawl under the stalls and lock each one of them and you return to church. Yes. Dude, seriously? This ends today. Your sister will kill you if you tell her. I need to think on this. Not cool dude. I like that he calls his daughter dude. I do too, actually. I've not told my wife or anyone else until now. I think my wife will flip and probably make her fess up to the pastor. I don't want that for my daughter. Plus, I'm not a fan of the pastor. And the idea of more interaction with him is not something I want for myself. What's astounding to me is she's been playing this joke for months, but the audience for the joke is one person. It's her sauce. It's chaos. And there's also part of me that also finds it a bit funny. Maybe she gets it from me. What would you guys do here? I'm two days removed from this. By the way, she did not get popcorn at the hardware store. Yeah. Smart. I think this is a secret. I think this is a secret. You monitor. You monitor the situation is what I think. Well, the good news for you. I've done this before. I don't know why, what the context was, but I've done this before. I was like, oh yeah, you can just kind of snake out under and like, look what I did. I don't know why. I was younger, probably about this age, maybe a little younger, but I remember doing this. It wasn't like a, it wasn't a repeat offender, but I was like, oh yeah, look at that. Fucking chaos. Anyway, I would say the good news is she has, she feels sad about it. She feels bad. Like, if she didn't have empathy about this, I think you'd be like, okay, this is what's going on here. You know, like, you know, the joke. Check the backyard for animals. Yeah, shouldn't be there. Damien. So she feels bad. Like, I don't know. I just think kids do this stuff. I think you're probably right. Like, don't, that you don't need to involve, she clearly felt bad. You don't need to involve anybody else. Monitor the situation, but like, what's, what's, making it worse on her, I don't know, what's, what good is that going to solve? I had somebody in my life, I'm not going to say who, when they were in kindergarten, they spent like weeks at recess digging a hole and covering it with leaves, just in the hopes of somebody falling in it. This is just what kids do, man. Like, they just do weird, and he's fine. Like, it's all right. And this is just what kids do. I don't, I don't, most kids dig the China. They don't dig, like trap someone. I think, well, I don't think, I think it was just like, hey, this could be funny like you do. It's just leave somebody falls in it. I'll be the one laughing. You know, it's just like, I don't think it's that big of a deal. So, uh, you know, you know, you're, I think it's weird to build a trap at recess. So, you know, you don't have to get all your own life. Sometimes you just, you know, you had surviving the game on VHS, the house he grew up at. Engineer doing great. Yeah, actually, but okay. What if it were your son? What if it were your son and not your daughter? Is that what kind of problem are guys running into here a little bit? It does feel more like a, like a, like a son, a dude thing that it doesn't, a little girl thing, but you think he'd be easier to digest it or he'd be like, we're telling everyone we're right. You're calling sexism on this. Yeah. I think advantage females on this one. I didn't know we were going there. I like to keep track of the things that women get the benefit of that. No, we don't. Sure. That'll work out well for you. You know, like if John Butcher-Gross loses his job at ESPN, he can't go on only fans and put up the number of some of these other people. Yeah. Although Butcher is great. I don't know about that. Maybe he'd do better than we think. Never mind. Edit that out. Yeah. Yeah. You can make me edit that out. No. Absolutely not. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I think if it were your son doing this, just in the way the world works, you'd be ready to teach a lesson, come down, harder here. Yeah. But here's where I'll say, man, because my daughter, she's three now, and she does like little things that are not not to this level yet. She's not over enough. I think to be pulling schemes like this, but she does stuff and it is hard to be met. When you're a dad, it's hard to be mad at your daughter, dude. He's got four of them. So maybe it's like, I've only got two and there's probably chaos at his house at times. But it's just, they're so cute. And it's so like, you could be mad at the moment and then like, you know, they do something really sweet, whereas boys are just, you know, I mean, not saying boys can't be sweet too, but just to bring the sexism full full circle here. But man, there's just something about not being able to be mad at your daughter that I didn't understand until basically the last like two years of my life. Sometimes I think a lesson is priceless. And if he, if she heard that she's the reason that some lady who maybe she thinks about like, in the way she would think about her grandma has pooped her pants at church and probably will like one of her best outfits. She's probably not even thinking that deep into it. But like that's sort of a lesson that even just somebody yelling at you, you might not get, you know what I mean? Like you, you've actually humanized this thing that you're like, you think you're a fucking genius when you figure out you can do this with bathroom stalls, you know what I mean? It's like, also you get to sneak out of church for 15 minutes, solid. That's like, she's like, she's like an evil genius. She's like, I just, I've been gone for 15 minutes. And like, I've just, I may have this invention of the locked stall from the inside. What are they going to do? And the fact that she like the consequence actually happened already, that might even be like more of a precious lesson than a pastor being like, do you understand blah, blah, blah. So I think if you're monitoring and you, she also got a little bit of that real world stuff and she knows, you know, that's got to be, you know, maybe there's something you could do with that. Maybe there's a look and eyebrow raise. I think the fear though, if you'll allow me this, but the fear of the parent is like those early times where you go, do I need to make some sort of example out of this? Because if something were to happen like three years or maybe to look back at this moment and go, oh, why didn't do enough then? She didn't understand how wrong she was. And it's actually leading to her feeling like she's getting away with some of this behavior. I mean, this is a really hard thing to do. This is the part of the parenting thing that's like, it's the impossible game. You know, like so much of this stuff is still going to be your fault, even if you've done the best job ever. But do you just pass it off to the wife here? I think the venue to yourself, man, the venue is alarming. The act is not church is fucking crazy. But the act of this is not like, I don't think it's outside of the baseline here. Like I don't think it's like, so crazy, but a little alarming, but, but I also think there's a big difference between like if she was bullying somebody at school and like targeted attacks on a specific person, where she sees it and doesn't care, like this is kind of, she didn't, I don't think she maybe she didn't fully understand like what was going to happen. She's like, this would be kind of funny and then doesn't really think that someone's going to shit their pants because of her actions. And now she does, she feels bad. Like I think this is pretty harmless. I don't, I just don't think we need to, I think this is a cool- But it's calculated. It's kind of, and the fact that he brings it up like no one, she's not doing it to show off. She's not doing to get attention. She's doing this. She's probably bored. Like it's, I mean, I'm no offense to church, but like, you know, I think people are going to be okay with you saying church is boring. Yeah. All right, fine. I don't know. I just think kids do that. This specific thing though, I think she, you discover something. It's like, they don't have keys for these. What are they going to do? It's kind of a loss that you're taking as you're crawling around in a public stall to do this. So I don't know if you could maybe work that angle and go, Hey, you realize when you're doing this, you're just getting urine all over your clothing from other people. So I don't know. First day of sixth grade, me and my bus buddies, we were the first kids on the bus. It was just the way it was. And we put like all the connector seat belts across the rows in the first like eight seats. Tough way to start first grade or sixth grade dude. Really bad. Really bad. But like that there was like, like someone could have gotten hurt. I think someone actually did trip and it's like, I wasn't insane. It was just, I just needed one other kid to be like, Hey, what do you think about this? Put the seat belts this way instead of that way. And it's like, I don't think, I don't think anyone was super alarmed, but it's just, you know, sometimes you just think you're a fucking genius and you're really an asshole. Get so many kid ones lately. Hey, the audience is, uh, is growing up, you know, All right. How about this one? Younger guy here. Been a fan of the show for a few years and never written in before, but recently felt compelled to do so. Five foot 10, 170, Jim stats bench, 180, max squat, maybe 300. Haven't maxed out. There's a lot of maybe three hundreds being thrown our way lately. Just, you think you're rounding up? Yeah. But again, if you don't want to just go, I mean, 300 sort of a weird number unless you're just doing, uh, whatever. I was just going to keep it moving. I'm just, I did something I've noticed a couple of times here. Haven't maxed out forever, but this is a good estimate. Oh, okay. So there you go. I should have kept reading player comp, Tyrese Halliburton, McCann, Tonker, shoot three, as well as him. Hello. Well, I grew up playing alongside of him. So I think it's fair to pick him as a player comp. Okay. Wow. That's pretty cool. Halper's not like a dunker. So I think you're okay on that front too. Yeah. Always trying to facilitate, be good and a loud teammate, make good passes during pickup. I try my best on defense, but sometimes get out physical due to my average stature. Anyways, after a couple of bad dates, thanks to hinge, I matched up with this girl a month ago, been on four dates with her since all four dates have been great. We share some common interest golf, bar trivia, movies, but have enough differences to always keep it interesting and fun. I'm planning on asking her to be my girlfriend very soon. Smart. Dude. Awesome. Oh, the title of the email is when to say I love you. I was like, where's the question? This guy spent, 66% of it was squats and Halliburton, and then it was two sentences on these four dates. Which I guess is probably, yeah. So he wants to know when to say I love you. Man, four feels quick. Hey, when you know, you know, I don't know. I feel like you either got it, you know, they got to do it really early where it's like, Hey, this is, I'm just going to say this. This is wild or give it like a couple months. Like there's a weird period in there where it's like, don't say it like it's awkwardly too early. I think it's probably a slow play as the move. I'm Googling it. What the internet thinks. I think it's strange. How soon to say I love you. Do we ask you guys how long it took you with your wives? Three to five months. AI says. That's crazy. It probably took me a while. That feels like, I don't even know if you've said it yet. I was going to say it. My wife can feel like, yeah, I can count on how many hands. I'm still waiting. Yeah. Love you, babe. Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember the time. I honestly don't really remember. Do you have one? Do you remember Kyle? I mean, there's certain activities that can come out later. You could just say it. It's like, oh, you did. I'm not kidding. I'll leave it there. But I don't know. I think sometimes you just, you decide to respond to the bathroom. Your timing is fucking on one today. That's awesome. She's running out screaming f bombs and you're like, I love you. Close the door. Oh my God. That's your love right there though. Yeah. I think other times I've replied to her. I don't want to ever be in that love with that amount of love. No, no, I know I'm wrong. I know I'm totally wrong and I deserve all the eye rolls. I never want to be so in love with that something. I'm like, hey, sorry, but I know what happens. I know I'm speaking as somebody who's never had a wife and it's not loose. You're a guy with several bathrooms in your house too. So, you know, you'll probably be fine. I was thinking about it. The last time I lived with a girl that was 18. That's Christ. You're so not ready. I did live with Carissa in Malibu for a couple months. Oh man. Yeah, but that was, she was gone a lot. Dude, you are so not ready. That's crazy. It's a long time. Two months. Oh man. Do you think that ship is turning around in the right direction? Probably isn't. And to talk it off, the first time I said I love you is to get out of an argument. That's all. Yeah. There's almost like there's no wrong way. I did like her for no right way, but I was like, I need to put this. You didn't love her. I need to stop. We need to get you to bed and fire up some Madden. I was gonna get out of jail free card for you. You used that one time. Yeah, it fucking worked too. You must have been exhausted, dude. I was just getting worn out. Early 20s, worn out. It just was getting, just she wouldn't let something go. She was right. And I was like, how I got it? I got it. I got it. And then she was like, and now you're just going to like play video games or something. And I was like, I'm like, I should just say it. I did actually really like this person, by the way. So maybe it just, I needed that little, it wasn't like it was a random. I'm like, stop yelling at me. I love you. What? This shouldn't be actually hard for him because he says he's going to ask her to be his girlfriend, which we discussed as some people just skip that step altogether. Adults usually. If that goes well, yeah. If that goes well though, I'd say give it another month. I'm really happy for you. You seem excited. I think you might be a little too excited. So I would just tell you, if you want to listen to us give you this advice, I would just give it a little bit more time. I don't think she's going to be less interested if you don't say it soon. Yep. The other side of it is that you could potentially scare her away if you say this a little quicker than she's ready. So go with the sorority approach. Act like you love her. Don't tell her you love her yet. Wow. That's just, can you make that and make that just an Instagram post for the show? With like maybe a weathered Russian oak behind it. Yeah. We should do that for the show. Get that kind of content out there. Pivot into some relationship sayings. Oh, maybe we could have one of those things where it's like eight swipes on Instagram, just a bunch of different ones. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I'll keep thinking of a song to put there. What? Okay. That's the show. Thanks to everybody involved. Tom, Kevin, sorority and Kyle. Make sure you check us out on Netflix for full episodes every day, every day episode comes out. That'll do for us. Right. We're solo show. YouTube Friday. YouTube Friday. That's right. YouTube Fridays. Don't forget those. Barstool Sports. Cheers. Hello. I'm here with Josemarino and Snickers for football's rapid fire on or off your game. Right, Josemarino, you've got one or two opinions on football, so I want you to tell me whether the following is on or off its game. First up, the AR. Off the game. Half and half scarves. Off the game. What about backflip celebrations? Off. Cutting holes in the back of your socks. Off off. Off the game. What they need. Even the ones without golfs, they do the holes. Snickers, you are off your game when you are hungry. Right now, a guide dog puppy is taking her very first steps. One day, she'll help someone with sight loss live a full and independent life. Find the crossing best. Good girl. 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