It was just beautiful to watch fans be that happy. And the players, like we said earlier, play with that amount of heart and effort at the end of the game, heart playing every second in the game. It's nice to see that. But the cursed Sixers is one of the thoughts on my mind. With Joel Embiid, it's sad at this point. I mean, I think you can point blame in him if you want to, but this is his 10th postseason loss in which he had a positive plus minus, but his team lost. That happened in two game sevens for the Sixers as well. So it's like Embiid is, you know, he's limited, but he's out there. He's still making a positive impact. He's a plus in game one. He's a plus in game two with him on the floor. He changes things when he's out there compared to Paul Reed and his backups. And yet the team is still just suffering these heartbreaking defeats over and over and over and over again. And he can't even blink out of one eye on top

of a knee injury. And they blew a really great Maxi game. Maxi really took it to the, I mean, completely outplayed Brunson, who a lot of people had top five MVP, including me. Brunson looked pretty mortal. They were doing all kinds of things to mess him up. All of it was working, and the Knicks just basically tried harder and got a lot of second chance points and just kind of stole the game, which is when you know you have a good team, when you can steal a game like that, that you have no business winning. It wasn't lucky. It was grit.

Do you buy and beat after the game, you know, him saying we're going to win the series? Do you think the Sixers have that amount of belief going home where fans are going to be? I think that's insane. I think it's nuts too. Like if you're going home to certain crowds, I think you might say, oh yeah, the role players will be better, but Buddy Heald looked frightened in that game. Guys just were not putting an effort in the final... Buddy Heald's stock is going for pennies right now. God! And Tobias...

What the hell? I like Tobias. I'm out of excuses for Tobias at this point, because last year it was like, oh man, Harden and Embiid dominate the ball. What's your excuse this year? You barely do anything. And what your team really needs in this series is rebounding. So go down and get some rebounds. But it's a tough one because Embiid's going to be 31 next year. This was a real chance to at least get to the Eastern Finals the way this lined up with Giannis getting hurt. And, you know, the Knicks just stole a game from them that they had no business winning. But if you've watched the Knicks all year, it wasn't that surprising. It's a bad matchup where you have, on the one hand, you have this team that's a little slow, a little banged up. And then you have this Knicks team that's just relentless. And that was one of the reasons I love the Knicks in this series. Because I was like, a non-healthy Embiid, I just think the Knicks are like a pack of pit bulls. You can't fight them off. Josh Hart played 48 minutes yesterday and was playing harder than everybody in the last five minutes of the game. I just think they're at a different level competitively. I thought Embiid was crazy to say that because if they lose game three, that looks super stupid. And I don't know what the point of that is either. It's not like it gives anyone confidence. They've shown nothing in those first two games that could make you think they're going to win the four of the next five. Do you agree with my theory against, I said to Rosillo on Sunday night, I think sometimes you can win a series in game one. Because I felt that way with Boston and Brooklyn two years ago. It was that game one was such a big win and such a huge game and for them to pull that out, I was like, they're going to win the series now. And that's how I felt about the Knicks. And I don't think Embiid sees that yet. I

don't think it's necessarily true with the Sixers-Knicks series, because they had game two. I mean, they were up. Right, they had it. They had it. They had it. Like, it was in their hands, and they just let it slip. And then it would have been one-to going back to Philly, and who knows. But I do think it can happen, and this is an example where they lost the series in game two because I see no chance of them fighting back. You are demoralized. That's one of the worst losses of many terrible losses the Sixers have suffered over the last six, seven, eight years. So I think for Philadelphia, it's like we talked about in regards to Phoenix with going back to the drawing board, the one difference for the Philly side of things, like if you assume worst case, you lose them four or five on the Philly side of things, the difference between them and Phoenix is the fact that they have all the cap space in the world this off season. They do have flexibility. And they have excuses. They have like, hey, man, Embiid was hurt. He'll be healthy next year. Phoenix has no excuse. He can't blink one of his eyes. He's coming off a surgery to his knee late in the year. So there's legitimate excuses. And you feel good about the fact that Maxie is looking legit. Maxie is the one silver lining for the Sixers side of things here. He looks awesome. And so I think for Philadelphia, you go into the offseason still feeling like, okay, this season just didn't go our way, but how can we build positively from this? At the same time, the questions about Embiid's health are not going to go away, which is why I think it was, you know, I think the conversations about whether to bring him back or not, I know you've kind of thought maybe you don't bring him back considering his injury risk. But to me, you had to bring him back if there was a chance of bringing him back. Because there's no guarantee he'll be even healthier next year. He may never be healthier again entering the postseason again when he's on the wrong side of 30. This could have been the last chance. We don't know that. I hope it's not with Embiid, but it could be.

If you're the Philly GM, would you trade him or keep him? You keep Joel Embiid. Okay.

Do you think about trading Embiid? At least. I don't know how this gets better. You might not talk to an assistant, but you think about it in the back of your own mind. I don't know how it gets better. I

don't know how the injuries get better. I was like, oh man, I'm so healthy now. Like big guys, they get bigger every year. And once they pass, they're like heavyweights. Once they pass a certain weight point, they don't really lose the weight. So now he's carrying around a way bigger load than he's ever had before, but he's also had this is surgically repaired. That was surgically repaired. Oh, he had to have that fixed. Oh, he has two broken orbital bones and it's just, you know. I said to Rousseau on Sunday, it's like what happened to Blake Griffin where sometimes you can just have too many injuries. It's possible it goes that way at the same

time. The Sixers are probably at least tied in the series or maybe up in the series if they have A, someone far more competent than Tobias Harris, and B, a better backup center than Paul Reed or Mo Bamba or any of the options that they have behind a beat on the bench. They're missing two things, really. They have a lot else on this team. Kyle Lowry's been good for them as a rotation point guard since they got him mid-year. Nick Batum has been really good overall as well. Oubre's been good. They have good role players. It's upgrading on Harris and upgrading the backup center. Those are the keys for the Sixers to it. least give this a greater chance moving forward. You think they regret not doing a Tobias Harris, Bradley

Beal something last summer? I

mean, I think with Maxie's development, no. Maxie has gotten so much better. It just would have been too much overlap in terms of

skill set. Nuggets Lakers. Jokic had a 20-20 which has happened eight times in the history of the NBA in the playoffs. He has four of the eight. What a monster. His last 37 playoff games, a legitimate 30, 13, and eight, dating back to the start of the 21 playoffs. Wow. Every time I think I've peaked in how much I love Jokic, he does shit like he did the last night. The thing that my takeaway from that game, which was just awesome. And I thought the Lakers played really well. And it was weird to hear them blame the refs because I thought they took a bunch of haymakers. They were going against a team that in the third quarter decided we're winning this game, even though we're down 20. We've done this before. We're taking this game. And the Lakers kept hitting shots and kept fighting them off and kept fighting them off. And ultimately, LeBron gacked the one with 17 seconds left. He had a wide open three. And if he makes it, they're up three with 17 seconds left. He missed it. He'd been making it the whole game. But if he makes the shot, they probably win the game. So it was weird to hear them talk about the refs. But LeBron was, I thought, incredible in the second half. Like that, it was like crazy to watch. And Denver just kept taking it, taking it, taking it. And it was that same inevitability that we talk about with them that we used to talk about the Chiefs too. I was trying to think like they're down 19 in that game, and I'm like, they're going to come back. I'm trying to think how many other teams this century I felt that way about, and it's really only the 17 Warriors and the 01 Lakers, and that's it, are the only two teams where I would have felt like they're coming back, and that's it, and that's this century, and now we are one quarter of the way through the century I wouldn't even said that about the Miami Heat the early 2010s I really think that's the list because when they want to they score every time they have the ball are

they one of the greatest well where do they rank as one of the greatest clutch teams in league history? I think

when you're talking offenses, that's the list since Jordan retired. If they go back-to they've lost four times in the playoffs this year and last year. That's not nothing. But I think if they go back-to and they keep winning games like that, with how good and competitive the league is this year, it faults them a whole other level. Because you're also talking about Jokic now, who has a chance to be, I think, a legitimate chance to be one of the 10 best players ever. Rousseau and I talked about this Sunday. I think he's hitting all the check marks now that we will be talking about him with Bird and Magic and Duncan and Kobe and all these guys. I think he's on his way, but they need the title this year. It'll

be some crazy conversations very soon if they go back to back. And I mean, there's just an inevitability with him in these games where it's all, like you said, the Chiefs, where there's a belief in Mahomes that he's going to pull it out. Like there wasn't Brady. We had it with Brady. Yes, exactly. We had it. We know what it feels like. Had it with, you know, down 28 to three where it's like, okay, there's a little sliver of a chance. Right. And you're down 20 points in the second half with Jokic. You're like, we're in this game. We got a shot. This is manageable. And I think, you know, with Jokic, he has reached incredible individual heights um

but like he was taking it to Davis oh my god like it wasn't like he had you know Joel Prisbella in front of him like he's just backing down Davis and triple drop

stepping him and doing all kinds of shit it was fucking crazy yeah it's like as amazing as anthony davis was in the game he was making things harder on yokich he was fighting hard defensively he was even better offensively he wasn't missing at all in the first three quarters of the game he was amazing as amazing as ad was yokich was significantly better somehow some way and i i think when i was watching that game last night when in the middle of the third quarter they're down 17 points and Michael Malone changed up the Nuggets defense they went with Jokic on Rui Gordon on AD and KCP on LeBron James I was like hmm I wonder if this is where the game shifts we'll see what happens if this works out and it did that is where things shift it just felt like the entire Lakers offense got discombobulated. You know

what else happened? That was when Darvin Ham went into a coma. Yeah, he just stopped doing anything. Just take out Rui and put in prints. How fucking hard is this? I'm on my couch. I don't even like the Lakers. Why is Rui still playing? They just eliminated him from the game, and you still have him out there.

He had a terrible game. I mean, I felt like also the one other thing when I was re-watching the game earlier today, like it almost didn't occur to me watching live last night, but I tracked the pick-and run. LeBron ran zero pick-and ball screens in the first half. He ran 12 in the second half. D'Lo ran 10 in the first half and only six in the second half. And while re-watching the game, I'm like, D'Lo kind of just vanished in the second half. Don't

you think part of their strategy was let's save LeBron's legs until the second

half? And that was part of it. It's like the opposite of what you said on the pod on Sunday night where you're like, he had a great first six innings and then he kind of fizzled. It was the opposite, where they just let him roll on defense. He was amazing on defense in that entire game, and then they saved his legs for the second half, and he was great. But D'Lo did disappear. The D'Lo AD pick and roll is part of the reason why AD had such a big game. Getting him shots, kind of rolling to the basket at the short roll. AD was feasting on that with D'Lo, and D'Lo himself was too. But they went away from that, and that speaks to, I think, when it comes to that defense the Nuggets went to, the lack of adjustments from him. I think maybe at some point, maybe you do force things back to D'Lo a bit more. Try to find situations to get D'Lo and AD together. Prince over Rui is the other one. For sure. Granted, Prince has had his issues this year. He would have been better than Rui in that game. Rui

was not good. He'll make like a crazy 24-footer out of nowhere. The altitude, I think, is the other thing with these games. When your lead is slipping away and you could see all those guys were starting to get tired. And Jokic, who doesn't seem like he should, he's in the best shape of anyone in the game, but he really is. The guy just never stops moving, never gets tired, always plays at the same speed. He's relentless. And, uh, it's a really special team. It really is. Like, uh, I enjoy watching them as much as any non-Celtics team that I can remember. It's like real greatness. It really reminds me of those. I hated the Lakers, but I really liked watching the 0-1 Lakers. I felt like they were special. And the same thing with the 17 Warriors. We're like, this is just special. The Miami during the 33-game win streak was the other one like that that wasn't in the playoffs, but not 33, 27. But when they had that long win streak, it was like, this is special. Like, these guys have something, like, magical together. I really feel like they have it, and I think it's going to be just shocking if anyone beats them in the West. I agree. Whether the Celtics can beat them, we'll see. They have the best chance, but man, this is going to be such a tough team to beat.

Denver, and it's all rooted in Jokic. Again, it's rooted in the Mahomes, the Brady, the belief factor, right? Even that, the last possession of the game, the game-winner by Murray, Jokic orchestrated that entire thing. Like the ball's inbounded, and Jokic is like, give it to Murray. He goes up the floor. He's pointing to his teammates to kind of clear out the entire right side for Murray. He tells KCP they're going to run a double screen for Murray. And it's like he's doing everything on the court without even touching the ball. And I think him empowering Murray in a moment like that and down the stretch, even though Murray didn't have a great game individually really until the end, it's that belief factor with Jokic that helps your team as a whole, like with Mahomes, like with Brady, where it's like, we have a chance with this guy to bring us back. And then he empowers everybody in turn as a leader. He is truly, truly a special talent and the ways in which he's improved in little ways. He was once a guy who would have nights where he'd have zero points or four shots and he wouldn't be looking for a shot and he realized, oh, me being selfless isn't not shooting. I need to score for my team to win. And proving as a defender, like he is honestly one of my favorite players I've ever watched in my entire lifetime. He is truly, truly special. And I'm thankful to watch Jokic. I know it's cheesy to say, but it's true.

He is that special as a player. Yeah, I'm trying to think of my favorite non-Celtics player. And it's probably him and Magic and Curry are probably my favorite three. Selfless

players, all three of them. That's what they have in common, right? Yeah, because that's my favorite thing. Tomorrow

we have Heat-Celtics. The Celtics would have been asleep in this game, but the Caleb Martin thing, which everybody's been talking about for three days, now the crowd's going to be all drunk and fired up. Big mistake by Miami. And then Pelicans Thunder, which is you know, that is just I have a season pass for that one. I'm watching every minute of that series. It's a great matchup. My guy Trey Murphy, who you don't think is nearly enough to be the centerpiece of a Devin Booker trade. I

love Trey Murphy. Just not for Devin Booker.

I just said he was the centerpiece. I got to check. I have some Trey Murphy fans in my life. I'll be interested to see what they feel like. I feel like he might be untradeable for them. If you're going to ask the Pelicans going backwards, who are your most untradeable guys? It's probably him first, Herb second, and Zion third. Oh, wow. Ahead of Zion. Yeah, because Zion, he hasn't finished a season. And

he's expensive. I don't know. I'm just talking about trade assets. Yeah, fair, but he's still Zion, and you still need Zion to win a title. You still need a star. And I love Trey Murphy. Don't get me wrong. I love Trey Murphy. I've loved him since pre-draft. The dude's awesome. To see him blossom the way he is is really cool. But I think he's probably third. It's one Zion, two Herb Jones, best perimeter defender in all of basketball. I have Zion third. And

then Trey third, in my opinion. I have Zion third. I think he would be a little harder to trade than people think. It does speak to the decline. Because of the salary and the health. This speaks to the decline

of Ingram, though.