transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] This episode is brought to you by State Farm. One minute, the crowd's cheering, the next, the scoreboard flips. Sports are full of surprises, and life isn't much different. That's where State Farm comes in, where they're easy to use digital tools, and over 19,000 local agents who can help you call the right play. Because when you know someone's ready to assist, you have the confidence to take on the unpredictable. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer, price and eligibility are varied by state. Coming up on The Zach Lowe Show, it's Thursday, we have three huge games tonight, including two pivotal game threes, Knicks Hawks and Thunder Wolves. We'll talk about those a little bit. And then Steve Jones Jr is coming on to talk about all the stuff that happened last night and all of Friday's major games. Steve Jones Jr, you know him from Twitter, from the Dunker Spot, one of those guys where, if you wanna understand what happened in the game, you gotta follow him, you gotta follow his Twitter. Detroit, Orlando, the Pistons even it up. What did they do? What are some counters for the Magic in game three? Oklahoma City, Phoenix. It looked like the headline was gonna be, whoa boy, J-Dub is all the way back. How scary is this freaking team? And then in the third quarter, he pulled up with a hamstring issue. We'll talk about the implications of that for the Thunder. When do they actually need Jalen Williams back? How do they adjust without him? Phoenix, Devin Booker went at the officials. There were some shaky calls in game three. We'll talk about, or game two, we'll talk about whether they were right or wrong. And then Steve and I will get into Lakers, Rockets, Houston. Hello. The playoff started and Sixers-Celtics.

Speaker 2:
[01:37] Shea Serrano comes on to talk about Spurs, Blazers.

Speaker 1:
[01:40] His life is a Spurs fan. His relationship with his dad, Denny Avdea, Scoot Anderson, that whole series going back to Portland with or without Wemby in game three.

Speaker 2:
[01:48] We'll see.

Speaker 1:
[01:49] And then it's time. Mets Corner. Yeah, they won. Throw a goddamn parade. Mets Corner, all coming up on The Zach Lowe Show.

Speaker 2:
[02:02] The Zach Lowe Show is brought to you by FanDuel.

Speaker 1:
[02:05] The NBA postseason is here and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. FanDuel is the best place to bet the teams, players and plays during their playoff run. Build a same game parley or try live betting and jump in after tip off. And don't forget, with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game. 20 or over in select states, 18 or over in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

Speaker 2:
[02:47] Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show, day six of the NBA playoffs.

Speaker 1:
[02:52] Three more big games tonight, including pivotal game threes between the Wolves and Nuggets and Knicks and Hawks. Two fascinating series. Who you got in those two series, Steve Jones Jr, if you've made picks? Did you make picks?

Speaker 3:
[03:04] I had Knicks in six.

Speaker 1:
[03:05] Me too.

Speaker 3:
[03:07] What was the other one you said?

Speaker 1:
[03:09] Nuggets, Wolves.

Speaker 3:
[03:10] I had Nuggets in seven.

Speaker 1:
[03:12] Okay, I had Knicks in six. I still feel good, despite the hilarity of the last game, and I had Nuggets in six. I still feel pretty good about the Nuggets in six or seven, but that's going to be a fun one tonight. As those resume, we'll see what adjustments come to bear. Let's talk about the games from last night first. Oklahoma City Phoenix. Looked very much like the headline of that game was going to be, whoa, Jalen Williams is all the way back. He's spinning through double teams. He's roasting Oso Iguodara on switches. He's running in transition. His size on defense, you like feel it on the wing. His Phoenix is like, where is he? Is he gonna rotate here? Is he gonna rotate, oh, we just turned the ball over again. And then the headline shifted to, uh-oh, hamstring pulled up in the third quarter. He'll have an MRI today. We'll know today, tomorrow, whenever, what his status is. I would assume they treated this, it was the other hamstring in the regular season, but they erred on the side of extreme caution in the regular season because they were number one seed the whole season. They didn't need to do anything up to 0 in this series. I would expect them to also err on the side of maybe less extreme caution, but I would expect so. But I do expect them to miss some time. Just, you know, you have the luxury of it. Steve, when do they actually need Jalen Williams to do? Could they win the title without Jalen Williams?

Speaker 3:
[04:38] I mean, based on the success they had all year, you can make the argument that they could because they have the depth. They still have the line-up versatility. The defense is still strong. I think part of, I'm glad you mentioned it, the shame of the injury is you really felt the force that he played with on both ends of the floor and how he can elevate them. Just a reminder of how good Jalen Williams is for the Socoma City Thunder Machine. So for me, I think to win a championship in this Western Conference, they will probably need him absolutely by the conference finals by the latest.

Speaker 1:
[05:07] I would agree.

Speaker 3:
[05:08] Second round.

Speaker 1:
[05:09] I think next round, which we will talk about, even if it ends up being the Lakers with Luka and Reeves at just say wildly optimistic, they're both 90% of themselves, I think they could beat the Lakers without J-Dub. That's how good they are. They have AJ Mitchell, they have Kason Wallace, they have Caruso will now play every game, which he doesn't in the regular season. They went double big a little bit more right away last night after J-Dub got hurt. But the shame of it is not only was he playing well, a couple of things happened right before he got injured that I was super excited to see. Number one, they ran an empty side pick and roll with him and Hartenstein on the right side of the floor that ended in a lob dunk for Hartenstein with Shea off the ball. And that's one of the things that having, AJ Mitchell is a very good player, you can move Shea off the ball a little bit when they share the floor. J-Dub is bigger, which you actually really feel, I think, defensively when he's the second biggest guy on the floor in their chat at the five, or whoever at the five lineups, they're one big lineups. But he's also, this guy's an all NBA level ball handler, an all NBA level secondary option, and it just opens up more stuff for Shea. They also finally, I've been waiting for this, Steve Jones Jr, they trotted out Shea, Caruso, AJ Mitchell, J-Dub, and Shet, which is a five-man lineup that played seven possessions in the regular season. I'm like, maybe they just don't want to try this out, maybe it's too small, maybe it's like they want Liu, they want Cason. They finally trotted it out and I was like, yes, let's go. Then he got hurt right away. But I do think as great as they are, whoever gets to the conference finals, assuming Wemby is healthy and knock on wood, he will be after this concussion, assuming the Nuggets, whoever gets through that side of the bracket is healthy. I just think those teams are so good that the margin from as great as Oklahoma City is to how good their ceiling is nudged up with a 6-8 monster like that. I do think they need them to get to the finals.

Speaker 3:
[07:09] No, I agree, especially with Stan Antonio's ability to poke at them defensively and then dimmer their ability to score on the other end. I think you need Jalen Williams and his force, especially with how teams want to guard Shea. You put Jalen Williams one pass away, you're trying to help. It makes a huge difference.

Speaker 1:
[07:26] I don't know what to really say about this series. Oklahoma City is plus 25 per 100 possessions. The Suns offense is drawing dead. The Suns have turned the ball over on 21% of their possessions, which is, you have no shot. The Thunder are just making them shoot a ton of contested, pull up mid-range jumpers. Their threes are way down. Their rim shots are way, way down. And only 19% of their shots have come at the basket. They just have no answer for the Thunder defense. So let's talk about the officiating, because that became a story last night. Devin Booker called out James, was it James Williams, I think, by name for having a crap game. Maybe it was James Capers. I can't remember which James it was. It was one of them. And we had, let's see, we had a unnatural shooting motion offensive foul on Devin Booker. We had Devin Booker getting called for a technical, for kind of saving the ball in a scrum play. There was actually a foul call, but he saved it and hit big Jalen Williams in the butt. He got called for a technical. And I understand the frustration. Do you under, I'll just put it to you. Do you understand the frustration? Did you think that was a officiating, like, shaking game?

Speaker 3:
[08:39] I mean, I never really think too much about the officials. That's my dad's fault. But I think for, if you're in the perspective of Devin Booker, yeah, they're really physical. They're hitting me, they're showing their hands. Every drive I'm getting hit, I'm kind of tired of it. I'm not getting the calls I need. I'm out of rhythm. I'd like to go home and get some calls. So I understand that portion of it as far as it goes. I think OKC's defense has been too overwhelming for me to say, hey, they are purely winning this because the calls are not being made. No one's going to say that. But I mean, I think if I'm Devin Booker and this is the playoffs, we played a little bit of Game of Thrones here. Let's talk about the ref so we can change this so I can get some quick whistles, I can get rhythm and we can have some fun when I go home. So I think that is more of the play. It's not even something he usually does. It's like what, the first time that he's really just gone out like this to this degree?

Speaker 2:
[09:29] I like it.

Speaker 1:
[09:31] I respect him because he does not do this. You know that there's going to be Dylan Brooks chicanery in this series, and there was a lot last night and it was delightful. First of all, Shea and Lou Dort with Hall of Fame level facial expressions in reaction to Dylan Brooks, just Hall of Fame, Shea's like, look at this guy over here and that there was a, I couldn't decide if he flipped the bird or not. It was like he's pointing, but in the act of pointing, the middle finger is elevated. Then he's quickly switched to the thumb, they're like, oh, look at this guy. And then Lou Dort when they got tangled up under the rim gave just a great like, like, whoa, okay, all right. But I hated the, first of all, I hate all reviews, but I hated the offensive foul on Booker, where he went up into Caruso and they called it an unnatural shooting motion. It looked normal to me. And then like a few minutes after that, maybe it was even the possession after that, Shea isolated on Gillespie. Now Gillespie puts his left arm out to try to cut Shea off. And you know what's going to happen. There's a reason why guys defend Shea with their hands behind their back sometimes. And then Shea picks up his dribble, sticks the ball underneath Gillespie's arm and raises it up and gets a foul call. It's a rip through, it's I guess a foul, but like it's a wildly unnatural shooting motion. Like it actually looks like if you watch the shooting motion, it looks like he's going to shoot a two handed underhand shot up around Gillespie's arm. If not, if that's not an unnatural shooting motion, what is? And then Shet had the classic like pump fake guy kind of bites on a little bit in the second half and I just like barf into him and get a foul call. So I get the frustration and the technical was bullshit. Sorry, that was a bad technical.

Speaker 3:
[11:15] So you think the refs, they didn't have the best effort in that game?

Speaker 1:
[11:20] I didn't. I don't think it matters because Oklahoma City's defense is just so good. And you just watch these Booker, Green, whatever, Gillespie pick and rolls and here comes, you know, they bring the big guy up. Also comes up Chet, Ihart, Big Jalen Williams, whoever it is. They're up pretty high to cut off the ball handler. Two shooters on the weak side. In comes the Lowe man. As you pointed out on Twitter, they seem to like having Shea as the Lowe man, the sons, even though Shea is just blocking shots at the rim, like fucking Dikembe Mutombo in this series. And then, and then there's one other guy. And you really, this is where you really feel Jalen Williams size when he's the zone up guy between Shea's guy in the corner and the other shooter on the wing. The sons try to bring that shooter up toward the top of the park to make that Jalen Williams defender defend the most space possible. And it just like doesn't even matter because the Thunder are so big and so fast, especially when they have J Dub, the size factor, and so tenacious that you can see the ball handlers pause and second guess themselves. Like Booker had one, you highlighted on Twitter, where Iguodaro was like wide open under the rim, rolled to the rim, rolled behind the big guy defender. Booker rises up to shoot or pass or something 12 feet away. Looks like an easy dump off. But he sees this monster, 6'8, Jalen Williams, rotating down toward Iguodaro, kind of panics because he's coming real fast and he's big and tries to throw it against his momentum back outside and it gets picked off. There was like three of those where Devin Booker went left on a pick and roll, got up, thought he had something, realized, I don't know what I have, I might have something. It's not what I thought I had and I might have that or other thing over there, but they're coming that way. And threw this pass against his momentum and it was stolen or went out of bounds. And they're just under talented against this team. They don't have enough offensive firepower. I would be surprised if they won a game, but the defense is obviously a warning shot to the rest of the league. Like we have another year we can get to and we're already at it.

Speaker 3:
[13:31] They just they close windows so quick as you said. And I think the biggest thing is like in theory, if you're Phoenix, Devin Booker should be able to get this coverage that should open this up. And Oklahoma City is too versatile and they have too much nuance to have to where their bigs can be at the level. They can mix in a switch. We can help on the weak side. You're thinking there's an advantage. It's gone. Next time we give you something different. So how many times have you seen Phoenix try to run a set, go off ball, try and get Booker off ball, try and get some dribble handoffs, play through Oso? Oklahoma City denies their physical and you look, there's 14 o'clock and either Dylan Brooks, Devin Booker, Jalen Green has the ball with a pause of, okay, guess I have to go find one. That's not ideal. They've just taken a lot of things off the offensive menu for the Suns.

Speaker 1:
[14:15] We can sit here and talk about maybe they'll start Royce O'Neill for some more shooting and he certainly loosened up the offense last night. Maybe Grayson Allen gets healthy, that would help. Maybe Mark Williams gets healthy, that would help. I would be surprised no matter who plays if they want a game in the series. No shame in that. The only thing that's going to matter coming out of the series is Jalen Williams' health, and we'll learn about it more in the next 42 to 78 hours, whatever it is, or 48 to 72 hours. I don't know why I went with the other numbers. Knock on wood, he's obviously had a brutal season of just one injury after another from the wrist, which he played through last year, to the right hamstring, to the left hamstring. He's an all-NBA player, you want to see him healthy. He obviously had legendary games in the finals last year that they needed, every bit of them against the Pacers. And as great as they are, and as sexy as a hot take it might be to say they don't even need them to win the championship. Yeah, there's a universe where they can win the title without him, because they'd be favorites over someone coming out of the East and all that. I just find it hard to believe that they can get through at least the last two playoff rounds without him at that level of competition. Maybe they could, but I think their margin shrinks to a dangerous place. Okay, any other thoughts on this series, or can we switch gears and leave the suns in the desert?

Speaker 3:
[15:30] We can switch gears.

Speaker 1:
[15:32] Orlando, Detroit, Steve, if you like offense, you should probably watch a different series. In the regular season, the worst offense in the NBA, the Brooklyn Nets averaged 108 points per 100 possessions. Through two games in this slugfest, Detroit, 101 points per 100 possessions, Orlando, 98 points per 100 possessions. They are 14th and 16th in offensive rating among the playoff teams, with Phoenix sandwiched in between them. They are 15th and 16th among 16 playoff teams in three point percentage, so everybody is missing everything. But Detroit came out last night, they played a much cleaner defensive game. You could count the real mistakes on one hand after what I call the frazzled performance in game one. They had some counters to Orlando's scheme of switching, the K-Durin go underneath and switch and try to take Durin out of the game. I thought Durin had another game. He looks really frazzled and sped up and forcing it on offense. But Detroit discovered some things about how to counter that. What did you see from the Pistons offense in terms of like, okay, we saw what Orlando did in game one. Here's what we're going to come out and try to counter it in game two.

Speaker 3:
[16:57] Well, one, I thought Kay Cunningham set the tone early and Asar Thompson helped as far as just trying to get to a space where, okay, you had success mixing and switching and being at the level and dropping back. I'm going to force your hand early. So I'm going to turn the corner and Wendell Carter Jr, you come with me. I'm in the paint. Asar, please try and do a help beater. Trees, please try and set a flare. I'll find you late. But also, hey, set this high screen for me. As soon as I see Wendell Carter Jr jump out, I'm just going to give you a pocket pass. Get a role, Jalen Durin. Get a feel for something so we can get something. Here's Asar Thompson cutting from the corner. That was big. I think little things like working to just set a pin down for a big, whether it was Isaiah Stewart or Jalen Durin, to try and get Orlando's big on the move to where, okay, you may want to switch, but it's not as comfortable because you're running up to where I'm at, so I think he got go-gone one early in that game. I think it was an adventure for Jalen Durin. He couldn't quite get the drives going. I think he was thinking a lot, especially in that first half. I think he felt it. Like there was a possession about 130 mark in that second quarter. Jalen Durin screens for Cade Cunningham, right? And Orlando switches Franz Vodner onto him. And Cade fires it right to Javante Green on the right wing because he's thinking, okay, Jalen Durin is going to roll and seal, let's get you one big fella. And Jalen Durin is buffered at the elbow. And it's like, oh, okay. And Cade's like, okay, give me the ball. And then he scores on Windell Carter Jr. I think the big thing, if we're talking purely about Jalen Durin in the third quarter, was his ability to position himself to make sure that he got a role. And so he did a good job of flipping the angle of his screens. And so typically, if you're going to set a screen, the defense is going to just kind of slide and give themselves the position where they can get under you. And then that way, you can't roll, you're rolling into their body. He just kind of worked to position to where he could get a touch and then release. And that allowed him to get a role. And so they went to these super high picking roles and he set them flat. He's like, I'm actually not really hitting you. I'm just going to touch you and get out of here. And so them being able to get him rolling, I thought was really important in that third quarter. The other thing was Cade Cunningham kind of looking at everyone on the Orlando Magic side, saying, I think I can score on you. Paolo, let's dance. Franz, Desmond Bain, Jalen Sugg, let's go. I think part of that is poking at the switching aspect where, okay, I don't want you to be as comfortable. I feel comfortable attacking and getting to my spots. And if I could cycle through these matchups, like it's not apples to apples, but the Miami Milwaukee Series where Jimmy Butler just didn't care who was guarding him and said it doesn't matter. And now you're searching for something. If you're Detroit, can we get Cade to position where, okay, maybe we get Daren rolling. We also have Cade playing at this high level. Does that make Orlando change what they want to do defensively? And does that open things back up for us? Whatever playoff questions you have about Detroit. If we can get Daren rolling and we can get rotation from Orlando, we now at least have openings as opposed to just what game one was.

Speaker 1:
[19:57] Yeah, I don't want to exaggerate it. Like, the Pistons scored 99 points per 100 possessions last night. They had a bad offensive game, partly because they're turning it over like 20 times a game. And Daren is a big part of that. He's in his own head. You can see him being like, I got to do something. I haven't compromised the defense, but let me just drive out Wendell Carter Jr. and see what happens. And what's happening is Wendell Carter Jr. is just like, thanks, I'm going to take the ball and you're going to fall over and I'm going to dunk it on the other end. But to your point about the switching, going under and switching gum them up in game one. And last night, I was waiting to see how they would adjust. Adjustment number one is exactly what you said. Jalen Daren slipping so hard out of these picks, sometimes not even setting them, like not setting a screen at all, just like getting into the area where a pick were to happen, if it were to happen, would happen here and then I'm out. And Cade understanding that and delivering the pass early, like you can't switch, you don't have time to switch. And you saw Daren get it, he got one dunk out of it, he got flagrant fouled by Wendell Carter Jr. And then he hit Asar Thompson for two dunks on sort of the big to big kind of passing, you saw that. And then you saw, like you said, Cade being like, oh, okay, but I'm Cade Cunningham. You're going to switch Wendell Carter Jr. on to me? He can't guard me. I'm just going to go by him. And yeah, there's going to be some traffic around the basket because we play a lot of guys who are non-shooters. But it's not traffic I can't navigate because the biggest guy on the floor is the guy guarding me. And I'm going to get by that guy and like, what am I? I'm afraid of Paolo Banquero around the rim. I'm afraid of Desmond Bain. No, I'm just going to go. And that the other thing to your point was he started to hunt other guys. And the Magic are not like a super huntable team. Like they have a lot of good defenders, but Cade Cunningham can do damage against Paolo Banquero one on one. Cade Cunningham can beat Desmond Bain one on one. He can post up Desmond Bain. And particularly if Bain is on Duncan Robinson. And I think last night was a reminder of how critical Duncan Robinson's shooting and movement is to their team. If Bain's on Duncan Robinson, by all means, start setting some Duncan Robinson screens for Cade Cunningham and start randomly flaring out here and there, flipping out of them, getting switches. And you even saw like they've had Duncan Robinson and Durin set like really sort of random, I wouldn't even call them staggered screens. Just like they would just run up together like a big rugby scrum and set picks for Cade Cunningham and make the magic guess. Like what direction is Cade gonna go? Wait, who's screening for who and where? And why is it a back screen? Is it not? Where's Duncan Robinson going? Just sowing that kind of confusion. It's not, again, it was a bad offensive game, but when they defend like they did last night, they just need like an okay offensive game. And I thought they made some of the right adjustments. Now the question for you, put your coaching hat on Steve Jones Jr. is you just saw that as Orlando. Your offense is a whole other mess that we can talk about, but you saw what Detroit did against your defense. The counter came. What's your counter to the counter? If they have, they haven't figured anything out, if the Pistons have at least found the right levers to pull against our go under and switch thing, which worked in game one, we're going to see those same levers again. What's our adjustment for game three?

Speaker 3:
[23:11] Well, that's what I was looking for in that third quarter because Detroit really got some casual rules. But if I'm Orlando, I'm thinking, okay, we do not want to give two on the ball and just purely give them the roles. We could go drop and just drop back and try and contain and say, hey, this is the shot you get. Dictate terms that way. Or we could stick and just try and mix and, okay, let's make sure we protect and if Jalen Durant slips, hey, you fight over, show some nuance, and let's try and mix things up to where we're not going to get this automatically. I think for Orlando, it's more they have to keep terms within what they've done so far in game one and game two. They can't necessarily like Detroit as not great offensively as it was in totality. They can't let them feel unlocked. So I think it's, okay, maybe we just switch harder. And maybe we show help earlier to take away the Jalen Durant role. And we just kind of recreate it that way. It's where we got this switch. You don't necessarily have the role still. And now we get you back to thinking a little bit. And so it could just be doubling down harder on that. But I don't know how much they want to just give Detroit traditional pick and roll coverages overall.

Speaker 1:
[24:17] Yeah, I could see them going under on Cade and not switching just like we'll stay home. We'll still go under screens. And like if you can beat us with jump shots, beat us with jump shots and maybe you will. I could see them like if they switch, I could see them like sending a double team at Cade and just every once in a while, just throw them off rhythm and say, Hey, look, we're going to double you, get the ball out of your hands and we're going to force you to make a bunch of interior passes because again, you're not going to have clean spacing on the floor. Someone's going to be in the dunker spot. Someone's going to be here. Just mix it up a little bit like that. What about Orlando's offense, which was good enough certainly in game one and was a little bit of a mess last night, I think fell into some of their more static, bad habits, bad shot selection. It's funny, the Magic talk a lot about how we can't let our offense dictate our defense. When we have a bad offensive game, sometimes our defense isn't good enough because players let their offense dictate their defense. I feel like sometimes the Magic let their offense dictate their offense. If they start to go through a rut on offense, they don't dig out of it. They actually just fall back on their absolute worst habits offensively of just standing around, ISOing, not going at the right matchups. But how can they attack what was one of the three best defenses in the NBA this year?

Speaker 3:
[25:32] Well, I mean, I think you look at the way they looked at Duncan Robinson, especially Palo Bencaro, and he said, please come here repeatedly. Let's attack you and let's use that as a matchup. And so I think it's more so, okay, let's use Palo as a screener, see if we can get Cade in action, see if we can get Duncan Robinson in action. I don't know how much of this is going to be a pure movement series for Orlando, just because of how they want to, to a degree control tempo in the half court and try and attack matchups, win matchups and leverage the high confidence of their top four players against Detroit and keep this thing close. In the fourth quarter, you got to deal with us. So I'm thinking they'll probably attack matchups, try and get Palo the ball closest in the block, try and probably establish fronds. So I wouldn't be surprised if, hey, Cade, you're in action, Duncan Robinson, you're in action, Tobias Harris, you might be in action. We're gonna try and poke at you guys in a way to where, okay, because that first quarter, you felt Detroit's energy and effort when they were rotating, protecting drives, getting back out and rotating. That second quarter, which wasn't the prettiest, you felt Orlando, while not really scoring, still having the confidence of we know we can get a basket. And so that's where it's like, it's a mirror series because they both need their defense to allow what they want to do offensively to make sense. But if I'm Orlando, we've got to find pressure points. Because when Palo has it go and gets to the line, Detroit may send a double. I think there was one. They didn't want to switch Duncan Robinson. And so Tobias stayed on him. Duncan was like, well, I'm going to double. And it opened up a three for a dozen Bain.

Speaker 1:
[27:00] So it's like, can we buy- One pass away. And it was actually, I think it was one where Palo did not have a switch. He just had Tobias Harris on him. And they rushed at him. Duncan Robinson doubled, as you said, from Bain. And I was like, why are you, like, the worst-case scenario is Palo Bancaro takes an 18-foot fadeaway over the guy that you have assigned to guard Palo Bancaro. Just stay home. Don't- The Desmond Bain III is like a gift for them. Chill out on the help. But I agree with you, like, Palo in the playoffs has 17 post touches. That's number one among all players. 1.8 points per possession, according to Second Spectrum Tracking Data, out of those plays. And I just, like, they're going to try to hide Duncan Robinson on Suggs or Anthony Black, who needs to do a little bit more in this series, or whoever is not Desmond Bain. But a lot of times he's stuck on Bain because Bain's guarding him a lot on the other end. On those possessions, you could not let that go to waste. Duncan Robinson is guarding your most dangerous shooter by a country mile. A guy who can catch and shoot off movement, an accomplished screen flare guy, bring him into the action, have him set a cross screen for Ban Carroll underneath the room, whatever it is. There aren't a lot of places to attack the Pistons. That's one and maybe just more pick and rolls aimed at Duren because he can have some hiccups on defense. But these are just like Orlando is just not a good offensive team. And it's just going to come down to turnovers, rebounding, free throws, like all those kinds of things. But it will be, I think this is going to be a series, a long series now. And I don't know how much of an attractive chess match it's going to be. But last night was, I thought a good, the right kind of response from the Pistons on both ends of the floor. Not a spectacular one, although that 30 to 3 run was like, whoa, that is an avalanche. But, you know, I think we're set up for a fun series. I picked Detroit in five because I just thought they would come out like they were shot out of a cannon, anxious to end the home playoff losing streak. I just didn't know what to make of Orlando. But that game one performance was eye opening. I would switch my pick now to Detroit in seven. I think it's going to be a long series.

Speaker 3:
[29:04] Oh, seven.

Speaker 1:
[29:05] Okay. I also will pick, I think we're having a confrontation in game three. I think we're having double technicals, a shoving match involving over under 4.5 players. Because Isaiah Stewart was doing Isaiah Stewart stuff last night, including challenging every shot at the rim and winning like 80 percent of them. Then Palo got him and if the game had been closer, I wonder what would have happened because you could tell Palo was like, shut up, I got you on that one. Isaiah Stewart was like, I'll be here next time. You want to do it again, I'll be here next time. Something's happening in this series pretty soon. All right, you want to move on to the West?

Speaker 3:
[29:50] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[29:54] This is probably the game I'm most excited about Friday.

Speaker 3:
[29:57] Oh.

Speaker 1:
[29:58] Rockets Lakers.

Speaker 3:
[30:00] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[30:02] I thought Houston's, I thought Ime Odoka's coaching performance in game two was borderline insane. I just did not understand anything the Rockets were doing on offense. Reed Shepard, Kevin Durant and Alperen Shengun played four minutes together the entire game. That threesome is your only roadmap to functional NBA offense against a team who is missing its two best players, which should be shouted from the rooftops all the time. The Rockets are struggling against a team missing its two best players, against a team that has had have Luke Kennard score like 30 points a game to win these games. Those three guys playing four minutes together, Reed Shepard coming off the bench and playing 11 minutes and he didn't play well. He didn't make shots. He was a little frazzled himself. I just thought was like a coaching self-sabotage of the level that I have not seen in a long time. Their offense is so bad that there are so many possessions where nothing happens until there's 14 on the shot clock. And then one thing happens, it doesn't do anything. It doesn't switch the match up in any favorable way for the Rockets. And then they act like 14 on the shot clock means we're done. We just can't do anything else. And Alperen Schenguen or Amen Thompson is like, all right, I guess I'm just gonna dribble from 20 feet out and pray that something happens. And they miss shots or Marcus Smart strips them. I just can't believe the lack of functionality in their offense. A lot of it just comes down to, if Reed Shepard's gonna play 11 minutes, they don't have any guards who can run a functional pick and roll. They don't have anybody but Durant to do it. And he had nine turnovers. He's 37 years old or whatever he is. They don't have enough. They play a bunch of lineups with two, even three guys who are complete zeros from three point range, including Schenguen, who has forgotten how to shoot threes. And so there's just like, even if the Lakers have to send help somewhere and they're junking up the series with switching and doubling Durant every time, they don't care because they can double Durant. Behind him are Clint Capella, Josh Okogi, and Amen Thompson in a traffic jam that the Lakers can navigate. I just think you, I don't understand why, why is Reid Shepard on the team? Why did they draft him? Their only path to offense is that triangle of players and to play it four minutes in a game that you didn't necessarily have to win, but no one wants to be down two zero. It's kind of a crisis and you couldn't score at all and you had no offense. So then, okay, someone just do, we'll do one thing and then someone dribble 50 times and get to the rim. I just thought it was like unconscionably bad.

Speaker 3:
[32:51] Now, I hear it. I mean, I think Houston was searching in that game to throughout the game lineup wise, trying to find what they do. And I think they have to commit offensively to searching.

Speaker 1:
[33:02] So was Reid Shepard playing hide and seek in the locker room?

Speaker 2:
[33:05] What are they searching for? He's sitting on the bench.

Speaker 3:
[33:09] Well, no. Let's think about it. You go back to the start of the second half. They dinged Alper and Shingoon in pick and roll. Pretty good. Get Deandre in rolling. They find some skip passes. They go to switch. They switch and double. And so that's when Houston went small and said, we're going to switch everything. And that's when they really had the lineup where people were like, why are these people playing together? And he may tap the defense button.

Speaker 1:
[33:30] So does he have any other buttons? Is that the only button? Is it like the button that Zach Galifianakis has on between two ferns or it's just one button that you just tap over and over again? It's like, anyway, I'm sorry. I just was watching the game in complete shock.

Speaker 3:
[33:47] Well, one, you got to give a lot of credit to the Lakers defense for the timing on these double teams. As far as dealing with this consistently, it's been incredible. And I think for Houston, tempo has been a concern all year long as far as getting to your stuff sooner, give yourself a little bit more room for error, get to a second action. So I think there were pockets in the third quarter where they were able to get to something that resembled flow. And they're going to have to make quick decisions if Kevin Durant is going to get a double to this level to where, okay, it may not be a perfect world, but you got to drive some of these closeouts. It can't always be a three. You got to make some shots, but drive a closeout. Get the ball back to Alper and Shingoon. There were moments where, okay, Kevin Durant gets doubled. The timing was excellent by the Lakers, but he advances it to Jabari Smith. Jabari tries to drive, gets it to Shingoon. But now Shingoon is able to get to Kevin Durant to get a roll out of it. Use what the Lakers are doing against them to a degree, because the reason they're switching and doubling is because they don't want Alper and Shingoon rolling. And so we don't want Kevin Durant to have the space. We don't want Alper and Shingoon to roll. So we're going to place you in this box. They have to leverage that against them. And so I think using Armand Thompson as a screener, they did that once, I could believe, in the third quarter, the problem was LeBron sniffed it out. So it didn't really matter. But hey, can you just use him as someone who can poke at the Lakers switching? I think the double-edged sword for the Rockets offense is you don't have Alper and Shingoon going because the Lakers, especially at game one and game two said, okay, we're going to push your catches out. We're going to show baseline help. It may be a hard double. What are you going to do about it? Is that going to affect your aggression level? If it does, okay, we're not leaning on that. Now we over lean on Kevin Durant, try and use him to screen for Shingoon, try and use him off ball and staggers and pin down to take 48 seconds, try and use him in dribble handoffs. But they've got to find a way to find the comfort and use the space to keep pressure on Lakers defense. There was a set they ran in that, I think it was the fourth quarter. Kevin Durant, pick and roll, got the switch, Marcus Smart couldn't double, turn the corner, finished. The problem is the Lakers are comfortable and they're just on the fly, and they're willing, unlike many teams, like you put people in the corners, usually the defense stays flat, right? We saw it last year in the playoffs, they'll just come up to the elbow anyways, and say, whatever, make this pass. And so, now that you have the rhythm of what they've shown you, can you poke at it and make it a little bit untenable? I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[36:14] To your point, to your point, they opened the second half with a functional basketball play, clearly a scripted one. Kevin Durant came off a Josh Okogi pin down on the left side of the floor.

Speaker 2:
[36:28] Why is that important?

Speaker 1:
[36:29] Because Luke Kennard is guarding Josh Okogi, and those Rockets cannot just sit there and let Luke Kennard exist in this series without going at him, and they did that way too often. Just let him exist without punishing him. Switch of Luke Kennard on Kevin Durant. Great. That's a great accomplishment. That's what you want. Step one, Lakers double. Step two, Kevin Durant passes to Jabari Smith on the right wing. Step three, defense resets. This is the moment on so many Rockets possessions where everything just dies. You know what happened on this possession? Jabari Smith went right back to Kevin Durant. Shen Goon flew up and set a second pick and roll for Kevin Durant. The Lakers were like, we got to defend another thing and they're moving it fast. Shen Goon rolled to the rim. The help was not there. He kicked it to Jabari Smith Jr. in the corner who missed a wide open three. Great process, didn't make the shot. It's like, why can't we do that every time? And they have a vibe of like, I always remember year one of the LeBron Heat when they were trying to figure out how to use Wade and LeBron and like first world problems. The delta between the stuff they would run out of timeouts and the stuff they would run in the flow of the game was so wide, like they would run this sophisticated five man stuff out of timeouts and they do it once and then the game would be going on. And it's like, they didn't know how to do any of that in the flow of the game. The Rockets have that vibe to them. And I'm like, can we just bottle that? They had another possession where after a Lakers make, it was in the first quarter, I think. Ahmed Thompson ran, like ran sprint dribbled up the floor. I think a Kogi set a screen for him with 20 on the shot clock. I paused it. It was like 20 on the shot clock after a make, the Lakers were not back on defense. They were not set. They had nobody back at the rim. Thompson got a head of steam against Kennard and laid the ball in and it's like, Oh, we're allowed to do that. We're allowed to do something with 20 on the shot clock and go, yeah, do more. That's the only way you're going to score. Because the Lakers, to give them credit, super high IQ team, they have the rockets on their heels because they don't know what to expect defensively. And offensively, look, they're only scoring 113 points for 100 possessions, which is average to below average. But given the talent on the floor, they are dictating the terms of the series offensively and getting pretty good shots across the board. I mentioned Paolo's post numbers. He has 17 post touches. Lebron is number two with 16 post touches. And they're getting 1.4 points per possession, according to Second Spectrum, out of those post touches. And Okogi is the only guy on the team who can kind of not get bulldozed, even if it's like a slow motion bulldoze, like just like six dribbles. If you give them six dribbles, Amen Thompson is going to be under the basket. Tara Eason is going to be under the basket. And between that and Kennard, and I have to give JJ credit, like people don't think the Lakers are a good shooting team. They actually have a pretty decent amount of shooting now, and they're getting stuff out of Smart 8 and Pick and Rolls and LeBron 8 and Pick and Rolls. And the reason they're getting stuff out of it is, on the strong side is Rui Hachimura, and he's a good shooter. And on the weak side is Luke Kennard, setting some screening action with whoever is the fifth guy on the floor that's just meant to distract the defense because it's Luke Kennard, and it's working. They're just totally glued up on both of those guys. And 8 is getting dunks at the rim. Like the Lakers are running good stuff in this series, but this all comes down to, if Houston just can't score at all, they're not gonna win this series. And if they lose this series in dispiriting fashion, I think the off season ramifications could be massive, but we can come back to that. Any final thoughts on what you're seeing X's and O's wise here?

Speaker 3:
[40:13] Well, I was gonna ask one question. Because they tried to put Reed Shepard one pass away from Kevin Durant a few times in that game. Do you think Houston can have enough success to make the Lakers dial it back? Is that the way for them?

Speaker 1:
[40:28] Dial what back? The doubles. No, because-

Speaker 3:
[40:31] The veracity of the doubles.

Speaker 1:
[40:33] I don't think so, because I just think the Lakers are gonna survive with junk defenses anyway. Whatever it is, they're just gonna keep just randomly switching, doubling. I don't think so. But to your point about Reed Shepherd, it's like you run a Shepherd-Shangoon pick and roll, and you have a guy who knows how to compromise the defense. Kevin Durant on the weak side. Now you've got something. Durant and Reed Shepherd two-man game together with Shangoon lurking over here. Now you've got something. It's gonna be threatening. I just don't know that the Lakers have any other response to that than just continue to junk it up a little bit. To their credit, they're doing it quite well. I'm so frustrated because I understand Van Vliet is hurt. Dorian Finney Smith has been a zero. Steven Adams is a whole ingredient in your offense that's gone. By the way, I should have led with this. The Rockets are scoring 105 points per 100 possessions, which would have been dead last by a mile in the regular season. To have that number while rebounding 43 percent of your own misses, that's like a record setting level of offensive rebounding. Your points per possession are still so bad. It's almost so bizarre that it's an accomplishment of some kind. But I'm just frustrated because, let's say they lose in six or five or something that's not like we made a real strong comeback and got it to game seven and whatever. What have I learned about my team if I get to the offseason and the rotation is the way that it's been in the first two games? The whole blessing in disguise, which I never bought for a second about Fred Van Vliet getting injured was, well, I'm going to learn a lot about what I have in Reid Sheppard and Ahmed Thompson, and that's going to inform how I build my team going forward. Right now, I don't feel like like Ahmed Thompson is not a point guard right now, and that's fine. He's still very good for what he is. I haven't learned enough about Reid Sheppard. I haven't learned anything useful about my team, and then I've got to go into this off season facing massive decisions about my coach, about Giannis, about whatever. And if I'm a team like Miami, and this all goes haywire for the Rockets, I might just poke around like, hey, you guys still want to rant? Cause like we can, we might be able to, like the ramifications are huge, but I just feel like I'm frustrated because I don't have as much information about my players as I should based on the roster.

Speaker 3:
[42:54] Okay, that's it.

Speaker 1:
[42:57] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[42:58] So, so, so, so, so, so Rockets and Sixers.

Speaker 1:
[43:01] I don't know. I picked Rockets. I mean, I just, I can't believe I picked the Rockets to win the series. Obviously Durant missing game one was a little bit of a wild card. I just can't believe how bad they've looked against the Lakers team with no Luka and no Reeves. It's just, it's shocking to me. All right. Sixers-Celtics. Let's wrap with that. Sixers' awesome win in game two in Boston. Vijay and Tyrese Maxey, who I will not call them by their horrible nickname, were outstanding. A lot of it is just in game one, they shot four of 23 on threes, the Sixers did. In game two, they shot 19 of 39 while the Celtics shot 13 of 50. But you were on this right from the beginning in game one, where people were shitting on Nick Nurse, people were shitting on the Sixers for looking overmatched and ill-prepared. I was watching it and I was like, I think they've actually got some good ideas. I said this, I think with Bill on Sunday, I think they've actually got some good ideas on how to exploit Boston's tendencies on defense and those good ideas didn't work in game one. They worked in game two. I'm wondering if you can explain in layman's terms, what Philly is doing and how they are leveraging Boston's habits on defense against them.

Speaker 3:
[44:14] Well, Boston was lights out in game one as far as dictating terms to Philadelphia and saying, hey, we're going to keep our big back. This is a team that's really good at collapsing and protecting the paint. One of my favorite things to watch if you're trying to drive into Boston, you're going to see jerseys just emerge and bodies in your way. But basically, Tyrese Maxey, here are your options. You will have space, we're going to trust our defense to navigate this screen. So if you want to pull up, it's going to be contested. If you want to turn the corner into the space that you see, there will be a wing or a guard that meets you somewhere near or around the paint to protect the big so they can stay back. Then you have to make the decision on if you would like to kick the ball, and they didn't make the shots in game one. Then if you would like to actually fully turn the corner, if you're able to at some point, there will be other bodies around you. So we're just going to dictate, these are the shots you get, paint touch is going to be tough. You're not going to get pull-ups. It worked really well. They're very active in game one. Game two, Philadelphia was like, well, what if we just make the shots? And Tariq Smaxley was just, I'm going to make very quick decisions. So okay, that's fantastic. Let's make sure we force this over, so the navigation is not as strong. Let me get to a pull-up, and this is great. The big is back. If I'm going to drive one-on-one and you want to show this elbow help, I'm going to get off of it real quick and we're going to play out of it. If I'm Paul George, give me Peyton Pritchard, Quentin Grimes come one pass away. You want to help? Kick. They were just very decisive. BJ Edgecombe saying, that's right, you are giving me space. Do you not know I like to snake pick and rolls and get to a mid-range pull up or from three? They understood what shots were available and they knocked them down. I think for Boston, the balancing act was okay, as a defense you want to dictate terms, but sometimes the other team agrees. Now, do we lean in on what we know has been successful? Do we lean in on still trying to protect the paint? How do we balance that? I think they stuck with their guns. Because the Sixers have the formula as far as, okay, let's try and get Boston baud down, lighten the shot clock, let's be active, and let's make shots and see what happens. They just kept doing that, and Boston didn't necessarily have the offense or the defensive answers to push them back into place.

Speaker 1:
[46:22] To be clear, if Embiid does not play this series, I still expect Boston to win in a short series. Nothing that happened in Game 2 changes my prognosis for the series. I just want to give the Sixers credit because I think they positioned the puzzle pieces or the chest pieces in the right way. So just imagine this. Like it's very simple. They know how Boston is going to play defense aggressively, as you said. So let's just imagine Tyrese Maxey and Bona run a pick and roll. They don't do it in the middle of the floor. They do it from the right side of the floor. Let's just say the right wing. And Tyrese is going to go left, so he's going into the middle of the floor. The next shooter in line is not at the top of the arc. He's on the opposite wing. They're as far apart. Tyrese and the next shooter are as far apart as basically possible for two guys to be sharing that space at the top of the arc. Everyone else is in the corners on the dunk or spot, whatever. And the point of that is when Tyrese gets into the middle, the Sixers know that guy guarding, let's say Grimes or Edgecomb on the other wing is coming in to the nail. He's going to meet me at the nail. And what Boston likes to do is have that defender switch on Tyrese Maxey and have Tyrese Maxey's defender zoom over and peel onto the shooter, the Grimes, Edgecomb spot on the other side of the floor. And what Philly is doing is saying, we're going to make that switch impossible. It's too much distance for you to cover. And so you're not going to be able to make that switch. And you're going to have choices. You either don't help and Tyrese is going to get into the lane, or you help like that. And we're going to pass it to Vijay Edgecomb before you can even come close to executing that switch. He's going to get an open three or he's going to have a wide open alley to attack the rim. They also baited Boston. Sometimes they'll switch it up and they'll have a shooter in the strong side corner and a guy in the dunker spot in that corner. And Tyrese will go toward that corner knowing that Boston likes to do that same thing. Have that corner defender zoom over and take him and then have Tyrese's defender peel out and take the corner guy. And they're getting ahead of that switch and getting open threes out of it. And Missoula talked after the game about, well, I think we over helped a little bit. And I think you'll see Boston dial some of that stuff back, particularly from the corners. We're just not going to make that switch from the strong side corner. And in the fourth quarter, when Philly won the game, Boston dialed back its coverage a little bit and basically said to Tyrese Maxey, we're not sending that third guy at you, we're going to play you two on two. And Tyrese Maxey was like, cool, here's some pull up threes in your face. And then, then they did the next thing, which was, okay, he's making pull up threes. We're going to bring Kata up much higher to the level of the screen. And Tyrese Maxey was like, sweet, I'm just going to blow by Nemeus Kata and get a layup. And so you saw scheme by scheme by scheme, Tyrese Maxey with some smart positioning from the Sixers beat the counter to the counter to the counter. And the Celtics, I think are going to mix it up, but probably dial back the help a little bit and basically say, we don't think you can do that one, two, three more games in this series. Also, we didn't play a very good offensive game ourselves. We've got some buttons we can push, but I thought Philly did a nice job arranging the board to bait the Celtics into doing things the Celtics like to do and use it against them.

Speaker 3:
[49:46] That's the fun of the playoffs. One team is trying to take something away, we respond and poke right back at it. So I think also just working to clear wings too, and just be like, actually, there's actually not someone you can show help to, we're gonna just have this space and work with it. But I like seeing Boston establish themselves defensively and now have to find a way to dial back and just kind of contain Philadelphia. And to your point, I think early, they'll just dial it down a little bit and say, make shots. We're not gonna hand you shots, make plays. And now if we need to, we can up the activity, we can up the rotations. But I like seeing a seed respond to what a team has done and saying, actually, we can make this something that's difficult for you to deal with.

Speaker 1:
[50:27] Yeah, I thought game two is really fun just because Philly made it a series and Philly is stressed Boston a little bit in a way that I wasn't sure they're going to be able to do. They're like, oh, actually, no, we can hit you a little bit in one of your weak spots, not weak spots, but we know what you're going to do. We'll land a body blow here and there and see how you respond. I didn't think the Celtics offense had a good game. I thought they were a little sticky. I love when Boston doesn't just give Tatum or Brown the ball, but gets them a head start, like run them off a down screen and they catch it on the move on the wing, or they come off a pin down and catch it on the move with an advantage. I didn't see enough of that. I don't think they hunted Maxey aggressively enough, especially when he's on Sam Houser, like that's your best shooter, man. Put him in more stuff. I just thought they played a little bit of a blah game other than, and obviously missed, they shot horribly from three. I just didn't think they ran kind of enough of their best stuff. And I was also surprised. I don't know if you were. I thought Shireman did not play enough. I thought Jordan Walsh and Shireman, but particularly Shireman because of the way he keeps the ball moving on offense. I thought he would have played more. I was a little surprised he didn't play very much. Eleven minutes, I think.

Speaker 3:
[51:37] I think he's an important piece. I think it gets interesting for Joe Mazula as far as trying to figure out which one of these energizer bunnies, as I like to call them, do I place in some of these series at times? I think Charmin could be the most effective because of his shooting. I love when they set a flair for Jason Tatum when he's trailing a play and let him get downhill and run pick and roll. Did this feel like a Boston Celtics stopped flowing and fell into bad habits type game? Or did it feel like we aren't necessarily creating the shots we need to type of game?

Speaker 1:
[52:06] No, it was not quite fall into bad habits. It was just like, I've seen the Celtics play A, offensive games with Tatum and Brownback and press a lot of the right buttons and press multiple of them on the same possession. This felt like a B minus C plus, like just a little dull, a little predictable in a way that I thought they were. I mean, every team has these games every once in a while. I just think they're going to be fine. I would expect them to. I picked them in five. I'd probably just even stick by that pick. I think they can win both games in Philly. But at least we have a little bit of a series. But yeah, the Celtics play a very interesting style on both ends of the floor. And very much, it's very much ingrained within them that the two ends of the floor are tied together. And what we do on one end very much affects what we do on the other end. And people think of that a lot as like, well, that's why they have a low turnover style, or that's why they don't take a ton of shots at the rim, because they don't want to compromise their defense. I think a lot of what they do on, like I think one of the reasons they like this aggressive help and switching defense, I think, I've never asked Missoula about it. I think one of the reasons they like it is, it messes up all the matchups so that if they get a stop, all of a sudden, because Jason Tatum has flashed from here to here and switched on to that guy, you've got the wrong guy close to Jason Tatum, or you've got the wrong guy close to Peyton Pritchard, like everything is scrambled up, and all of a sudden they're running the other way with an advantage. I'd like to actually talk to them about that, because they're just a very interesting team on both ends of the floor.

Speaker 3:
[53:39] No, that's a good point. It's a good point, and also I think their ability to take care of the ball, get back in transition, it's a tough matchup for Philly overall. But, well, now you've got to be thinking about the cross matching. That's an interesting concept because that's not an easy thing to deal with, and I think we have, Boston hasn't even really tapped into, hey, we're going to put a wing on a big and just switch things. It just kept it vanilla to a degree as far as we're going to get a drop. So it's like, what do they have up their sleeve?

Speaker 1:
[54:09] That's true. Are we that worried about Adam Bona? Why don't we put some Hauser on him or somebody on him? I know Bill has talked about playing Tate of it Center. I personally think that Bill is a little too into that lineup for my taste, but they can certainly do it. But even just inverting the matchups, it risks some offensive rebounding like Drummond is a legitimately all-time great offensive rebounder. But look, all I'm asking for in these kinds of series where there's a big, heavy favorite and the best player on the other team or the second-best player, I guess, is injured. It's like, just get me to a game four where it's exciting. And we're there. No matter what happens in game three, especially if Philly wins game three, then game four is like, whoa, boy, exciting. But even if Boston resets to norms in game three, game four is kind of fun. That's all I want. Steve Jones Jr won half of the Dunker Spot with Nicias Duncan.

Speaker 2:
[54:58] If you want to know what happened in the game, not whose legacy is on the line or who choked or whatever, the Dunker Spot is a great podcast for you.

Speaker 1:
[55:07] And Steve and Nicias, their Twitter, their highlight and plays, they're doing the yeoman's work for you during the game to be like, oh, that's why they did that thing. Thank you for your time and your insights, sir.

Speaker 3:
[55:17] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[55:20] The Zach Lowe Show is brought to you by FanDuel, NBA fans. This is your reminder to check in daily because every day during the playoffs, FanDuel is serving up a happy hour. We're talking special drops you won't want to miss from profit boost to bonus bets and more. And the best part, it's every single day, including today. Check for a new reward every single day at the NBA playoffs and don't miss your shot to get a little extra out of the action. Head to fanduel.com/lowe to get started. Twenty-one or over in select states are 18 and over in DC., Kentucky or Wyoming, opt-in required. Rewards are not withdrawalable. Restrictions apply, including bonus and token expiration, leg requirements and max wager amount. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 1-888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

Speaker 2:
[56:08] This episode is brought to you by Men's Warehouse.

Speaker 1:
[56:11] So you've looked at all the data, you've looked at your lineup, and yep, you need to freshen up your wardrobe. So check out Men's Warehouse. They've got you covered for every occasion with a huge variety of clothing and styles, from tailored clothing like suits, sports coats, dress shirts, tuxes for more formal events, to casual clothing like polo, shirts, shorts, and jeans for everyday wear. The Men's Warehouse experts can help you find the right look while their on-site tailors guarantee your clothes have the right fit for your body. Men's Warehouse has over 600 locations nationwide. They are here and nearby when you're ready to love the way you look. All right, we have another series to discuss Spurs Blazers 1-1 and look who it is. My old friend, Shea Serrano. What is going on?

Speaker 4:
[56:57] What's up, Zachariah? How the hell have you been?

Speaker 1:
[57:00] I've been all right. Multiple times. So many times I lost count. Best-selling New York Times, best-selling author, Shea Serrano. Five times.

Speaker 4:
[57:07] Five of them. Five of them things, like Timmy. Like Timmy.

Speaker 1:
[57:12] Same number of rings as your favorite team. The series took an unfortunate turn. We're recording this Thursday morning. We won't know about Victor Wembanyama's availability for Game 3 until I'm guessing probably pretty close to the game or day of game. So what can you do? The fall was a little scary and this Blazers team, Shea is frisky. They defend really hard. Scoot Henderson was unbelievable in Game 2 and I would say if Wemby doesn't play Game 3, I think that's a toss up game and I would pick the Spurs to win the series even if it goes 2-1 Portland. But are you mentally prepared for like we're down 2-1 in Game 4 in Portland, Wemby comes back? Like are you ready to feel the or are you going to be just like as long as Wemby's back for Game 4, you're going to be so confident that it's fine.

Speaker 4:
[58:01] No, I'm terrified. I was terrified going into the series. I had convinced myself that Scoot Henderson was the new Alan Iverson and that Denny was Dennis Rodman and Michael Jordan mixed together. Like that's the level of nervousness I was already going in. And then Wemby goes down and now I'm in a full on panic. We could be up 3-0 and up 45 points in the fourth quarter. I'm still I'm terrified. This is why the playoffs are fun, you know?

Speaker 1:
[58:32] The two guys you mentioned were the lead stories I think of Game 2. And Scoot came back about two weeks into his return this year. I did a Let's Revisit the Brandon Miller Scoot Henderson segment. Because I was like, I think Scoot actually looks pretty good considering he just came back.

Speaker 4:
[58:48] He looks real good.

Speaker 1:
[58:49] His pull up shooting the other day was outrageous. He had no assists. I think that's actually indicative of, with Denny being the point guard basically and Drew Holliday out there is like another point guard. He's found this comfort zone where he actually doesn't have to do too much. The game is a little simpler for him. You don't see a lot of wild turnovers from him. He almost is able to play a more streamlined game that helped him. Denny is just a monster getting to the rim. He's going after Fox on defense. I didn't love the way Fox closed the game for the Spurs once Wemby got hurt. That was a little rough, but what can one do? So we got a series and like, look, I'm pretty confident the Spurs win as long as Wembyama misses only one game. Shams reported last night, I don't know if you saw this, that he did some conditioning work yesterday, which means he's starting to clear the first hurdles of the concussion protocol. But we'll see. You got to buckle up.

Speaker 4:
[59:42] Well, we were two and one against them in the season series without Wemby. He didn't play in any of the games. So if I want to try to calm myself down, I can say we can beat these guys. We should beat these guys. But yeah, watching everything fall apart at the end of game two. We're up 13, 14 points with eight minutes left. And you're like, all right, we're good. We're going to win this game. Wemby can sit out the next two, just get totally fine. Come back to San Antonio, maybe up 3-1, maybe tied 2-2. We can beat them. But yeah, I'm still upset. You know what's crazy? I came for game two. I didn't start watching the game. I got home from, I'm coaching a high school basketball team for spring ball. And so we had a game that night. And I got home during half time, turned the game on, got my little snacks ready. And then the third quarter started and I was like, why is Luke in there? Like I had no idea. I turned my phone on. Oh my God, please God, no. And then I saw the, I'm a wreck right now, Zach.

Speaker 1:
[60:47] It was scary. And look, it was also shaping up to be a really interesting battle between the Blazers and Wemby on both ends of the floor. So you know this, you watch every Spurs game. Some teams guard Wemby with their centers. Some teams guard him with the wing and try to hide their center on Steph Castle or Harrison Barnes or Kelden Johnson, who's ever available. And the Blazers went right to that well immediately. Like Kamara, you're just going to get up under Wemby. We're going to put Klingon over here on Castle, Dare Castle to shoot. Castle's like, oh cool. I'll just, I mean, he's not shooting efficiently, but he's had some threes. He's had some bulldozer drives into whosoever in front of him. And it was just, Wemby's seen that before. They were ready for it. He knows all the counters to it from everything from run him off pin downs from Devin Vassell, run, have him set pin downs for the best shooter on the team, Devin Vassell. Have whoever the center is guarding set pin downs for Wemby to get that switch, get offensive rebounds, post up, all of it. They know how to do it. And it was so interesting to watch him figure it out again in real time under playoff physicality. Then Drew Holliday took the assignment, Drew's all about it. This is the best thing that's ever happened to Drew Holliday. I get to guard this guy and just be Drew Holliday up under him being annoying. And on defense, before he went out, did you get a chance to go back and watch the first half?

Speaker 4:
[62:00] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[62:02] So I'm looking at, I'm watching the first half and I'm like, man, they're putting Wemby in a lot of pick and rolls. They're having more than usual, it felt like to me, they're bringing him in to the action because it's this existential Wemby debate of like, do we want to have him away from the ball or he's just this roving menace with a million foot wingspan or do we want to bring him in to the action and try to loosen up the other parts of the floor? And I looked it up on the tracking data and it was on track to be the second most picks any team had put Wemby on in a game this year before he went out. Like if you do it per possession, it's the second or third highest. So they were trying something new and now, now we just get to wait for game through, just tomorrow. Who's going to watch it with you? What's going to be your routine?

Speaker 4:
[62:51] I'm going to watch it at the house. It's going to be probably one of the twins will be home if I had to guess. And he'll probably wander down every so often. My youngest son will be there. But mainly during the playoffs, everybody is like, leave dad alone when the game is on. So it's me and the dog always watching the game together because she doesn't interrupt too much. But that's my that's my thing. I'm just gonna be sitting locked in in the living room.

Speaker 1:
[63:20] What I really wanted to talk to you about was your game one experience. So you've written a lot over the years about at the Ringer about going to games with your dad, going to Spurs games with your dad when you were a kid, and watching your dad at those games, watching how he behaved, what those games meant to you as a kid. And then game one of their first playoff game in seven years, you and your dad got to sit courtside near the Spurs bench.

Speaker 4:
[63:48] Yeah, buddy.

Speaker 1:
[63:49] And I just wonder sort of, I mean, just what did that mean for you to be able to give him or share with him not only a Spurs game, but from that vantage point? And do you guys talk? How was the whole thing?

Speaker 4:
[64:05] The whole thing was really, really cool and a little more emotional than I was anticipating. I knew we were going to have a good time. We always have a good time at the game. Doesn't matter where we're sitting. But there was a point where we literally, in like the Alamo Dome, sat in the very last row of the, like that stadium holds 70,000 people or whatever. We were in the top, top. Like we went all the way from the very, very top now to the, to the very, very bottom. But it was just so, it was just so neat. We were, as you mentioned, catty corner to the Spurs bench. So, so all the guys are right there. We're right there during the, the lineups. But also Timmy was, Timmy's my favorite basketball player of all time. Reggie Miller was commentating the game. He was my second favorite basketball player of all time. David was there. Pop was there. Gerven was there. Sean Elliott was there. Like everywhere you looked, there was like, oh my God, I love this guy. This person means a ton to me. My dad at the games is a very mellow, sit there, drink his little coke, clap his hand, like a stoic old Mexican man. And I'm like just standing, I'm standing on my feet for 47 of the 48 minutes, just screaming out on the court. But it would be screaming and lean down, high five. Like you're just doing all the things you do with your dad. But I mean, you know this, cause you're a parent, you're a husband. You spent so much of your life as the husband, as the father. And very rarely do you get the chance to be like, oh, I'm the kid again in a situation. And go into the game, sitting there with him, he drove us there. I didn't have to worry about it. Like he did the parking, handed all of that. You just, you know, for two and a half hours, it felt like I was 14 years old again, just watching these superheroes play basketball, sitting next to the superhero who raised me. It was a really beautiful experience.

Speaker 1:
[65:55] Had he ever sat that close to the game, and was there any part of him that felt uncomfortable sitting that close to the game?

Speaker 4:
[66:03] He had never sat that close, I had never sat that close. He was 100% comfortable. He said, we should do this every game. Every single game, these should be our seats. I think you're right, dad.

Speaker 1:
[66:15] So I took my dad, so before we get there, one of the pieces you wrote for The Ringer about watching games with your dad, you wrote about, what did you write about? You wrote about him, like, I can't remember exactly what it was, I should remember it, but something like little things that he would say to you during the game. I don't even remember if it was about the game or about, but there was one or two things that stuck with you. I mean, the memory that I have is, you would be driving home and you'd pass a clock tower, and you would be just amazed that you were awake at 10:30 p.m. as a little kid, but there was a couple of remarks, I can't remember, a couple of remarks your dad said to you that just embedded themselves in your brain, maybe about even the Spurs or sports or something. Do you remember what those were?

Speaker 4:
[67:01] Yeah, I remember all of them. I mentioned when we were driving home from this game, the clock here you're referencing is this digital, just one of those ones that's lit up in lights, and it's at the Security Service Bank off of Highway 90 in San Antonio. We had to drive past that to get home. And I told him when we were driving home, that we live on the other side of town now, but I was like, Dad, let's drive past Security Service so I could see the clock. I know exactly what you're talking about. But so, the one that stands out the most to me is we were at a Spurs game. This is Hemisphere Arena. So we're in SBC Center now, or AT&T Center, whatever you want to call it. It was Alamodome was before that. And then before that was the Hemisphere Arena. This is pre-David Robinson. That's when I started going to the games. But we were at a game, the Spurs were getting blown out. At the time, he was a bus driver for VIA, which is the metro bus system here in San Antonio. And they would just give tickets away because nobody wanted to go to the Spurs game because they were so terrible. So that's how we started going to the games. We were at a game. We're sitting up way high in the seats watching. And I don't remember who the players were. I don't remember what the teams were. But I know we were on offense. The ball got knocked back to the other side of the court. One of the Spurs players was running after it as fast as he could, trying to catch it before it went out of bounds. And then he just dove, full body dove, right around the free throw line, trying to catch the ball before it rolled out of bounds. And he dives, the ball rolls out of bounds. He doesn't get it. And everybody just starts clapping and cheering. And I didn't understand, he didn't do what he wanted to do. What's going on, dad? Why are they cheering for this guy who didn't accomplish a thing? And then he very, and like that very old, I guess at the time, he was a young dad. But in that very dad way, he didn't even look at me. He just said, because he tried, son. And I was like, it just stuck with me forever. And I was like, oh, you just got to try. All you got to do is try. If you try, great. That's it. That's all you that's all you can control. That one is that will be in my head forever.

Speaker 1:
[69:05] It's funny what you remember from these things. So baseball is my dad's sport. And the first game I ever went to was a Mets Pirates game in Pittsburgh, because my mom's family is from Pittsburgh. And I of course loved baseball. I didn't have a team at that point, but the Mets were the local team for me growing up. And I just, and I don't remember anything. I remember Three River Stadium, Ugly Stadium, AstroTurf. Both teams are pretty good. It was like the mid eighties. The only thing I remember was Mookie Wilson led off for the Mets, top of the first. And they show all the stats on the screen. I'm six or seven years old. I don't really know what these numbers mean. And he's batting over 300. And my dad just says to me, I must have asked, what does all that mean? And he just said, anything over 300 is good. Like, just, and that's all. He's not gonna explain the ratio and how walks factor in and whatever. But I remember vividly, Mookie Wilson's hitting over 300 and over 300 is good. And all these 40 plus years later, that's stuck in my head. And then I asked about your dad being comfortable or uncomfortable. Because last year, I took my dad to a Mets Dodgers game at City Field. I took my dad, my wife and my daughter. I had won these tickets at a silent auction, like right behind home plate. And so you get like the VIP entry through the Delta Club and all this. And like, Otani's right there, 10 feet in front of us in the on deck circle. And they're, you know, the Delta Club, all the free food you can eat. They're bringing my daughter ice cream bars and all this. My dad grew up on like a farm in New Hampshire and he was wildly uncomfortable. He was like, I don't think this is how people should watch baseball games. Like this, he would have rather have gone into the upper deck. And he's like, I'm not like, I'm not sure I'm going to bring you to this again. It was just so funny to watch him see it from that vantage point.

Speaker 4:
[70:54] Yeah, it's really anytime your dad or any parent is like out of out of where they're supposed to be or where they feel they're supposed to be, it's the it's the most adorable thing. I do wonder, I do wonder with my own sons who, when they were born in Houston, we were living in Houston at the time. So we would go to two basketball games every year because the Spurs would come to town. So we would just go watch it whenever the Spurs and Rockets would play, we would go to that. And I think a memory that I always have of them is we went to the Spurs game, the game starts, Houston goes up like six zero at the start of the game and it's whatever, they're watching the game. And then I look and one of the twins is crying. And I'm like, son, what's wrong? He just said, you said we were good. We're not any good. He thought the game was over. We're down by six points. I do wonder what our kids are getting. Is she going to remember the ice cream bars at the game with her dad? What's her thing?

Speaker 1:
[71:52] She talks about the ice cream bars constantly. Every time we watch a game on television, she's like, remember how they brought those ice cream bars to our seats and we didn't even have to pay for them? She talks about she fell in love with Francisco Lendor at that game, so she talks about him constantly. She's into it and you talked about a multi-generational thing. From your generation to your kids, you talked about how proud you were when your kids started to actually care about the game and pay attention to the game, and not want to go play on the little play areas that they have for kids during the game. And I've gone through similar things both with the Mets. And when we were in Toronto for the holidays, my wife's family lives in Toronto. My wife's older sister is a season ticket holder with the Raptors. And we bought two extra tickets for my daughter and her cousin, who's about her same age. And they got to sit in their own seats, like away from the adults. I was in the press section. And it was like Raptors nuggets. My daughter doesn't care about the Raptors. And I could see them from where I was sitting. And I was watching them to see, are they gonna just be goofing around or not paying attention? And they were super into the game. And the game ends with nuggets up by three. Brandon Ingram hits like an almost half court shot to tie the game. And everyone's going crazy and send it into overtime. Except the refs ruled that the shot is a little bit late. So we reconvene after the game. And I'm like, did you guys have fun? And I'm expecting to be like, it was so funny how the Jumbotron, the Raptor mascot did this thing. And my daughter was like, we thought that shot was good.

Speaker 2:
[73:28] We thought we were going to overtime, like it was going to go to overtime. Did they review it? Like was that the right call?

Speaker 1:
[73:33] Like that is, so you've had similar experiences, right? We were like, now they care.

Speaker 4:
[73:37] Yeah, maybe my favorite one of once they really started being like into the game was, this was again in Houston. We've gone a bunch of games here in San Antonio, but the Houston ones, they were so much younger, six, seven, eight, nine years old, whatever. And we were at one Houston Spurs game. And this is when Lamarcus was on the team. And it was close game, close game. And then the Spurs pulled away at the end, like in the last minute or so, they go up by six or seven. The people around us, we're sitting in the, it's in Houston, we've got our Spurs gear on. We're in the middle of enemy territory. And everybody's being cool. Like we were all talking trash with each other. Nobody was being disrespectful, right? Cause it's kids, everybody's chill. But the game's going, we go up, it's clear we're going to win. And they start getting up to leave. And so I just start telling everybody, have a safe drive home, have it like that, doing that sort of thing. And then the twins started doing it too. They were like, can we, can we? And I say, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can. Cause they knew, they understood what was going on at that point. And they're just be safe, have a safe drive home. Like, I don't know. Them little things like that are so much fun, man.

Speaker 1:
[74:45] You also talked about, and I wonder if you've actually talked about this directly with your dad. You wrote about how you must, you thought your dad must have felt a certain responsibility for and hope that the Spurs would be good because he had foisted Spurs fandom on you. And now you obviously have to feel that with your kids. But have you ever talked about that with your dad? Like did you do, did he actually, cause I have a story about this too, but just cause I can very much relate to this. Like I'm inheriting this fandom kind of not by choice. And I hope it works out.

Speaker 4:
[75:22] We talked about it a little after when they won their first title in 99. Was the first time that we had any sort of, him, I'm so glad that they won. I'm so glad that you got to experience this cause I never did. And I was a little nervous that you were going to be 50 years old and never have this feeling. And so we talked briefly about it, but he's never been, I mean, if you know any old Mexican dudes, they just don't say anything that's not about like, how to change the oil on your car or whatever. You know what I mean? But what's your thing?

Speaker 1:
[75:56] So my dad is from New Hampshire, as I mentioned, so he's a Boston fan through and through, a huge Red Sox fan. And so when I was a little kid, I started to like baseball. Baseball was the game in the 80s, right? And I was gonna just be a Red Sox fan because that's what you do. You take your dad's fandom. And he actually took me aside when I was like six, seven years old and was basically like, I can't do that to you. It's just like, it's just too, I cannot voice that on you. I think you should pick a National League team. He's like, you can't, there's no, you're not allowed to pick the Yankees. Like it was explicit, like you cannot be a Yankees. And he was like, the National League team is the Mets. They're pretty good. Your mom is from Pittsburgh. So the Pirates are pretty good. They're a National League team. How about one of those two teams? Then we went to that game and we decided whoever wins that game is going to be my favorite team. They played for it.

Speaker 4:
[76:48] They played for your heart.

Speaker 1:
[76:50] They love it.

Speaker 4:
[76:50] Basketball of youth.

Speaker 1:
[76:51] Thank God the Mets won. And then 86 became a very awkward moment in our household because I was a crazy diehard Mets fan. Like Darrell Strawberry was my favorite player. And it obviously ends in like excruciating heartbreak for my dad. But now my daughter is a Mets fan because of me. And I don't know if you're following baseball. They just snapped a 12 game losing streak last night and are like a clown show and getting mocked all over the world. Like the New Yorker mocked them. The New York Times wrote a story mocking them and just like sad sack Mets. And I'm like, what have I wrought now? And she's too young to really care. But I'm like, have I done the thing my dad didn't do to me, to my daughter? I'm concerned about it.

Speaker 4:
[77:34] The Mets are one of two baseball teams that I know about, but only because I follow Sean Fennessey. So I just catch all of the Mets. Like I found myself the other day reading Mets Fix, like a Mets themed newsletter.

Speaker 1:
[77:48] I subscribe to Mets Fix.

Speaker 4:
[77:49] Okay, yeah. So yeah, I know about them and I know about the Dodgers because of my buddy Peter Marietta is like a huge, huge Dodgers fan. But those are only two teams. I don't know anything else.

Speaker 1:
[78:00] By the way, another thing, speaking of 99, that I could really relate to is that you wrote about the Spurs, is they win the title and you remember your dad running out to the car. Just describe, just describe.

Speaker 4:
[78:15] Yeah, the Spurs ended up winning the championship and for whatever reason he just ran outside and started honking the horn in his truck. Just bra bra bra and everybody in the neighborhood was doing it. When we won game one, driving out of there, people were honking. It's like a thing in San Antonio, right? And yeah, I never will forget the sound of the neighborhood. Just sort of you realize everybody's watching the game. We're at the home, you're watching it with your family, whatever game five and just hearing all over the place and him running out to participate in this. Seeing your dad be excited about something is one of the strangest things the first time it happens. You know what I mean? Like he ran, he didn't walk, he ran out of the house. He didn't hug us, he didn't, we did it. He just ran out of the house, brr, brr, brr, brr, and the car is incredible.

Speaker 1:
[79:10] My dad quietly and literally silently wept and just silently wiped away tears when the Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004. That was the extent of it. But the honking I could really relate to because I don't care about football at all, like not at all. One of the Giants Patriots Super Bowls that the Giants won recently, that mean in the last 15 years recently, I was in New York City and watching it at a friend's house, and then my wife and I were walking back to our apartment, and the streets were just over, like every bar was overflowing with people going crazy, honks, the horns were honking and all this, and I didn't care about it. I was like, this is so cool to be in New York for an event like this. And then, flat forward, four years ago, the opposite, this is like moving to the suburbs just in one anecdote. Croatia beats Brazil in the World Cup in penalty kicks, and like an epic comeback penalty kick win. My wife is from Croatia, and we're going crazy in the house, running around the house, she's crying, we're screaming. She opens the door, like thinking, there's gotta be some communal recognition of what just happened. Of course, there's no Croatian people here, there's nothing, no one was watching the game. It's just like silence, and she comes back in the house and immediately calls the closest Croatian restaurant and makes a reservation for like 16 people, because we're just going to invite everybody to a place where they'll actually acknowledge. But that communal acknowledgement and celebration is so fun. I was in San Antonio the year they won the 2014 title, which they clinch at home. And I have never seen a scene like that ever. And the arena is not like near downtown. So it's not as if you're going to walk out to bars and restaurants. Arnovitz, Kevin Arnovitz, our mutual friend, drove us home from the game to our hotel. We literally could not get to our hotel. Every street was blocked off with police and crazy fans. People were hanging on like out of cars, in the back of pickup trucks, on top of cars. And we eventually just had to speed down a runway road, the wrong way down a one-way street to get back to our hotel. So we have to like type, we got pulled over, I think. If I remember, we got pulled over and Kevin had like explained to the cop, like we're just trying to get back to our hotel. It was an absolutely crazy scene. San Antonio is crazy.

Speaker 4:
[81:29] Yeah, it's a beautiful basketball town. That was, that's my favorite championship we've, we've ever won of the five, because there's a small part of you that thought it was over. We weren't going to ever do it again with that core anyway. We had lost in 2013 and you're like, man, this is never going to happen again. And then, yeah, that gave five, oh, and Avalanche by San Antonio. I remember freaking Mike Breen screaming when Manu hits the three, we hit like three threes in a row. And yeah, when the spurs are good, San Antonio is like just alive in a way that not a lot of places are, because it's our only professional team. We don't have any, there's no football, there's no baseball, we've got minor league stuff. But as far as like the professional, there's nothing competing with it. And so it's a basketball town, it's a military city, basketball city. And yeah, when it's leaving the arena, game one, just being in the arena before the start of game one, and you could feel like it had been years, oh my God, we're back, we're playing high stakes basketball. It just grabs a hold of everybody here, even that non-basketball fan. My wife doesn't care about basketball at all, like not at all. And she took the kids to, there's this place called The Rock in San Antonio where they have like a giant screen and they like show games there. She was like there to watch the game with the kids. Cause like, again, she could tell you two people who play in the NBA, but she was like, I want to, you just want to be a part of the, like it just grabs a hold of you.

Speaker 1:
[83:04] It's, it's, it's magic when sports does that. And now you're in it. Now let's, let's just briefly turn to game three, Portland. You're going to another great basketball city in Portland, where the fans are crazy. We don't know if Wemby is going to play. It's a home game. So presumably the owner of the Blazers will actually fund like the two way players going to the game. Maybe the team photographer can get like an Uber ride paid for if he doesn't have a car from his house to the game, but put your coach's head on. Wemby aside, give me something you're watching for in this game or something about the Blazers that's getting under your skin. What do we got in there? What's in your vision?

Speaker 4:
[83:38] I do not like Denny at all. I do not like watching him play basketball. He's so good and he's so smart. And just the thing that he does where he gets the ball in the three point line and you're like, well, he's about to just crash into everybody and then make something happen. He does it every single time. There's nothing you can do about it. I don't like it at all. If I were playing anybody else, I would love it. But I hate that. What I'm most excited to watch, what I'm most curious to see, you touched on it briefly at the end of game two. You didn't like the way that De'Aaron Fox played the last like...

Speaker 1:
[84:11] I mean, I wouldn't say I didn't like it. He missed a couple of shots when he was going at Denny. Denny had five fouls or going at Klingon on the drop coverage. He missed a couple of shots. And then they were loading up to him. There was one where he turned the corner on a handoff play and they just brought everybody in and forced him to kick it to the corner. And that's when Drew Holliday blocked a three in the corner. So they were making it hard for him and he just missed shots. It wasn't like he was shying away from the moment or he choked. But in that moment, that with Wemby out and Castle and Harper's their first go around, that's when you want like a 28 point Fox game.

Speaker 4:
[84:45] Yes, that's exactly right. So I really want to see that. I really, I feel like Wemby goes down. It's sort of hard to get your feet back under you in the moment, if you're one of the first players there, I imagine. So I'm anticipating they're going to come in here. And both Castle and Fox are going to be like, okay, we got to go win this game. It's got to be us, us too. The other guys will follow whatever we do. So I really want to see that happen. I think it's going to happen. We watched it a number of years ago with Derek White, a game in Denver, when he's like, I'm just going to go win this game. He made the leap that night. I want to see that happen in the playoffs. Same with Devin Vassell. This is the first time in the playoffs. He's our assassin player. Let me see you go do it on the road. Let me watch you go make it happen. I'm really interested in seeing what we do there. I really love Portland basketball games. I got to go to one. I happened to be in Portland for a work thing, and the Spurs were in town. And I was like, I'm going to go watch the Spurs play. And I think it was the first game back after Lamarcas left Portland to go to San Antonio. So they were booing the hell out of that, man. They do that cool thing where they pass the game ball down through the stands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd never seen that before. It's going to be a madhouse in there. And I'm a little bit nervous. I do think we're going to win, but I'm a little bit nervous about it. But that's mainly what I'm watching for. I just want to see our guy. I love Dylan Harper. Can I tell you my Dylan Harper theory?

Speaker 1:
[86:18] What's not to love about Dylan Harper? But yeah, of course.

Speaker 4:
[86:20] I've not gotten to tell anybody this on a podcast yet. I want to make this public. But I have this theory of like, if a father played in the NBA and a son plays in the NBA, the roles always get inverted. Whatever they were, the son becomes this other thing. So like you look at Michael Thompson, right? Role player, great role player. Clay Thompson comes in, superstar, right? Dale Curry, role player. Steph Curry, superstar. LeBron James, superstar. Ronnie James, role player. If I'm looking at Ron Harper and I'm like, we get a superstar version of Ron Harper, who Ron Harper was already a monster. But if we get a better version of Ron Harper, I've been very high on Dylan since the first summer league game, our first summer league game, he played against Cooper Flag. Everybody's like, Cooper Flag, Cooper Flag, Cooper Flag. And he locked them up, locked them up. I said, hell yeah. He's got the dog in him. I'm very excited about Dylan Harper. I really, he's so steady and calm. I think it translates well to the road. I think we win the game. I think they're going to play great. Fingers crossed.

Speaker 1:
[87:31] Yeah. I mean, look, pre-knee injury Ron Harper was a monster, and Dylan Harper has a chance to be better than that. Defensively, that's been my favorite thing about him is I started watching his clips at Rutgers. That guy, and you've seen them, they've given everybody a try on Denny. The primary guy is Castle, but they'll switch a bunch of guys on him. I do wonder if in this game they'll try, and Portland has some agency in this too, try to play Denny and scoot a little bit more conservatively, make them shoot jumpers, go under screens against them instead of giving them lanes to attack. But again, Portland can disguise things to make it harder to do that. And I'm glad you mentioned Vasell. He has really amped up in the last month the non-shooting parts of his game, defense. He's flying in for these really well-contested defensive rebounds. He's got a couple of shot blocks and deflections in game one. That guy is starting to put together all the elements of his game. So I'm interested to see sort of all of those things. It should be a fun game three. I guess the dog's got to get ready.

Speaker 4:
[88:34] She's got to get ready, my beloved Penny. She's got to be on that recliner with me.

Speaker 1:
[88:38] I think that's the proper way to watch a big postseason game is either by yourself or with the fewest amount of people around you as possible. Because you don't, I mean, if you're anything like me, you don't want people to see you like that. If it goes badly, that side of me is not for anyone else to consume.

Speaker 4:
[88:58] Yeah, you need to watch a game with a person who is the same level of fan as you are when you get to this stage of the playoffs, because you're both going to be maniacs. You remember when Castle had a 40-point triple double against the Mavericks? I was at that game. I went with our friend, Kirk Goldsberry.

Speaker 1:
[89:20] Professor Goldsberry.

Speaker 4:
[89:21] Kirk came down from Austin. He said, hey, I'm going to be at this game. You want to come? I got a ticket for you if you want to come. I'll meet you up there. Great, I'll be there. And Kirk is Kirk. He gets great, great seats. We were in one of those open-air boxes. And I'm sitting there, me and Kirk just sitting there chatting. And then Manu comes and sits right in front of us. And him and Kirk and Manu are buddies. And then RC Buford comes, sits behind us. I was sandwiched in between these two. Like, oh my God, I'm watching a game with these guys. But I'm sitting there watching a game, and I'm screaming my head off the whole time. And I didn't realize most of the people in the boxes were not doing that. I'm just watching the game going. And then at the third quarter, I get a tap on my shoulder, and I turn around and it's RC. And he's like, oh, you're a real fan. And I was like, am I not supposed to be my fan? And he's like, no, no, it's great. It's great. We love to see what's going on. But yeah, you got to watch a game with people who react the way that you react to basketball. Otherwise, you look like a crazy person.

Speaker 1:
[90:21] I, when you started telling that story, I know RC well enough to know he would have loved to see unhinged Shea. He would not have ever been like, sir, this is a professional atmosphere. All right, Shea Serrano, you know I'm from everywhere. Good luck in game three to you and your family. Thanks for coming on. And I will see you down the road, my friend. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Playoff season is here. So what better way to get into the spirit of things than with a tournament of your own? Compete to see who can make the best dip, test your basketball skills with a game of Around the World. Even better if Michelob Ultra is on the line, especially since they're giving fans a chance to win courtside tickets, prizes and more. Michelob Ultra Superior is worth playing for. Enter now at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra courtside 25 to 26, no purchase necessary, open US residence 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2025 and ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtsidefreeentry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I get to watch basketball, think about basketball, talk about basketball, but even dream jobs have the stuff that nobody dreamed about, the busy work that gets in the way of the actual work. ServiceNow's AI specialists tackle that work, request handled, cases closed, the whole thing done. So you have more time for the work you actually want to do. For me, that's breaking down SGA film whenever I want, and then talking about it into a microphone. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.

Speaker 4:
[91:54] All right, later.

Speaker 1:
[91:58] Well, I thought a couple weeks ago, let's just wait until they break the losing streak to do a Mets Corner. And then the losing streak never ended, and we scheduled one because it was obviously an emergency. And then the Mets did a thing last night that they had not done in 12 games. They won a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins. Not surprisingly, they won 3-2 because the only games they can win are 3-something or 2-something or 1-something because God knows they're not going to score more than 3 runs in any game. They held on for dear life. They are now 8-16. Sean, I just don't even know. I know where I want to start, but you have experienced more pain in the last 15 years than I have because I took a little gap. So I just yield the floor to you. How are you doing?

Speaker 5:
[92:53] If we had spoken two nights ago or yesterday, my voice would have been raised. I would have been ranting. I might have been crying. Today, I feel weirdly, weirdly okay. And that's baseball for you, you know? One win and all of a sudden, the gears started turning in my head and thinking like, is there a way out of this? Is this, could this be okay? And this is the insidious nature of this sport. And this team that has been bedeviling me for 40 years, is even after probably I think the most sustained awful stretch that I can remember. And I know that they had longer losing streaks in my lifetime, but this was bad.

Speaker 1:
[93:45] I'm so glad I came back. I'm so glad. I feel like I've really, 45 and 24, I didn't even bother doing the math for like, I wonder what their record is after 45 and 24, best record in baseball last year. Because I just, it's right, I feel like I'm experiencing just the worst right away. So continue, I'm sorry.

Speaker 5:
[94:07] No, I mean, I think they have like a 400 winning percentage since that 45 and 24 stretch, which, where do you really want to start? I guess is the question, like, do you want to speak specifically about the team and its failures? Do you want to speak about the manager and his future? Do you want to speak about the injuries? Do you want to speak about David Stearns and his construction of the roster?

Speaker 1:
[94:26] Sure.

Speaker 5:
[94:27] Let's talk about that.

Speaker 1:
[94:28] Well, I want to start with, first of all, Soto came back and Lindor immediately got hurt and we're awaiting MRI results on Lindor. Lindor, who after 21 games was on pace for eight RBIs for the season and then quadrupled his RBI total with one swing and had another one last night and seemed to be turning the corner. And of course, as soon as like Lindor maybe had been alive, he got hurt. Soto came back, immediately hit a long fly ball in the first inning to advance Bichette from second to third. And I was watching with my daughter. I was like, Oh, that's what it looks like for a guy to hit a ball hard and far, like hard, high and far. I forgot, forgot all about that. I want to start here. I'm 48 years old. I was an absolutely insane Mets fan, as people know, from my awareness till 2003 or 2004. And there were a lot of good times in that span. There's a World Series, the late nineties were generally very good, the eighties and early nineties until the bottom fallout in 91 were okay, obviously. The only thing that I'm asking for, living in Fairfield County, Connecticut, where it's like 75% Yankee fans, the only thing that I'm asking for is, don't fucking embarrass me. Don't make me go around and have to get laughed at and pity. Now it's pitied. Now it's like, oh, you're really going through a tough time by all the fans of the Evil Empire. And right away, this is just, everyone is clowning the Mets. So just a sample of things that I saw, the twins, the fucking twins tweet out like things that come in dozens, eggs and Mets losses. The New York Times runs an entire article about the curse of Mom Donnie meeting Mr. and Mrs. Mets and makes a mistake in the article. And instead of having any journalistic integrity about the mistake, turns the correction into a joke at the Mets' expense saying, Oh, we messed up the day that they suffered their 11 game loss, lose whatever 11 straight loss they were off. Even the Mets can't lose on an off day.

Speaker 2:
[96:35] You know what, New York Times, screw you. Screw you.

Speaker 1:
[96:39] I'm a subscriber.

Speaker 2:
[96:41] I'm a games app subscriber.

Speaker 5:
[96:44] Yes, I am as well.

Speaker 1:
[96:46] Maybe I won't be.

Speaker 2:
[96:47] How about that?

Speaker 1:
[96:51] ESPN or the Associated Press ran a story for their first home game where they sent a reporter to go to the game and talk to fans and just about why are you at this game in this empty cold stadium?

Speaker 2:
[97:04] One of the fans was like, yeah, I tried to get my wife to go and my kid to go.

Speaker 1:
[97:08] Nobody would come with me, so I just bought a ticket and came by myself and the stories accompanied by photos of guys in the paper bag, like we're the Saints in the 1980s. This is even worse for me because tomorrow, the Mets are hosting a group from my hometown, kids and parents from my hometown for something. It's just a nice little fun thing. And so this has been known for months. And there's like a hundred people from our school going to the game. I'm not going to go because there's three NBA playoff games that night. But it's all everyone's been talking about. Like, oh, everyone's going to go to the Mets game. We all have a bunch of cheap seats. So this is just fresh in my community. Everyone talking about the Mets. And then as gradually more and more people realize like, oh, we might go there might be on a 14 game losing streak when we go. They're going to get booed. I've been prepping my daughter like, they're going to get booed. Just be, and she's like, why? They're trying their best. Why don't those fans go up there and try to hit a baseball? So this is all I'm asking for is don't turn the Mets into the continuous walking punchline of my life.

Speaker 2:
[98:13] And this is what they are now.

Speaker 1:
[98:14] It's just humiliating. I don't want to be humiliated.

Speaker 2:
[98:16] Is that too much to ask?

Speaker 5:
[98:18] A plus rant. I couldn't have said it better myself. That was amazing. I didn't realize when you dubbed this segment Mets Corner that it was meant to mirror the boy in the dunce cap in the classroom sitting in the corner. Like that's what we are. It's two freaking losers wearing a dunce cap, spending every afternoon, or every evening in your case, checking in on what's going on with this pain cave. But everything you said is true. And you know, nature abhors a vacuum and nobody loves a loser. You know, like that's just, these are just facts. The Mets are just losers, man. Like I don't know what the heck is going on. I honestly thought going into this season that they were going to be good. The first Mets Corner of this season, I was like, God, they're going to be really tough to pitch to. This lineup is going to be really interesting. Could I have been more wrong about anything in my entire life? The roster is a joke. Every night, I can't imagine they're going to score more than three runs. It is astonishing how boring the team is. I mean, maybe it was false optimism in an effort to be more positive at this stage of my life. I really did think that something interesting was going to be happening this year. And it's actually the opposite. And it's exactly what you're saying, which is it's embarrassment. It's a pathetic quality that it's not just Yankee fans. It's not just trolls online. It's like everyone is justified to mock whatever this is. All baseball fans, anybody who's aware of American sports is justified in making fun of what the team is doing. And there's rational, logical, analytical reasons why. But then there's also this other thing. There's this cosmic cloud. And I know many fans of many teams feel this way, right? Like if you're a Bengals fan, you feel like you're cursed. If you're a Browns fan, you feel like you're cursed. If you're a Sabres fan, you feel like you're cursed. There's a lot of franchises that have these negative feelings. The Vikings have never won a Super Bowl, for example. But the Mets, man, they tend to make their awfulness operatic. And this has been an operatically bad stretch.

Speaker 1:
[100:33] I mean, they have the highest payroll in baseball, and they're eight and 16. That's the number one reason why every fan of any team is justified in mocking them. That should be impossible to do. Before the season, your optimism, our optimism was not misplaced. Their over-under was like 90, 90 and a half, 89 and a half, like solid playoff contender kind of number.

Speaker 5:
[100:58] I predicted 91 wins.

Speaker 1:
[101:00] Keith Law predicted that they would make the World Series and lose to the Mariners. And I understand all my rational baseball friends. I'm on a few text chains. First of all, one of the text chains last night, Cubs fan Tim, who has been mentioned many times. There's three of us. It's a small chain. Two Mets fans and a Cubs fan texted us in the ninth, wake up your kids as in like you got like they might win. Wake up your kids. Like even he's just like getting into it. I don't even know where I was going with that, but it's, oh, my rational, I have another text chain with two Mariners fans and some other people. They're like, you can't even look at the standings till Memorial Day. None of this matters. The Mets will be fine. They didn't even register that something historically terrible was going on, partly because the Mariners are not having a good season either. I'm like, really? Because it feels like the season is over and they're awful, and none of them can hit, and everyone who was at injury risk is already injured, and the bullpen has been a disaster again. Not again. Diaz is not pitching well for the Dodgers, but Airbender is bending nothing. And now there's like, no one has ever lost 12 games in a row in April and made the playoffs or something like that, or maybe it's at any point in the season. So yeah, forgive me if I feel like the season is over, especially if Lindor is now going to be injured. Senga, it's like they don't even know if they can count on him anymore. We're two weeks and three weeks a month into the season. It's like, well, we're not sure about Peterson. Is he going to be in the rotation? And will we use an opener for him? And Senga, we've got to really get him right. Now they're starting to, this guy, Christian Scott, is starting today. We're already at this stage of the season. We're random dudes. We had a six-man rotation with Menaya as the seventh guy. And now a random dude is starting again. What's happening?

Speaker 5:
[102:48] Well, to Scott's credit, he was a high-profile prospect three seasons ago. He got injured and got Tommy John. And he has been working his way back from Tommy John. Three seasons ago, there was a feeling like this was the number three starter of the future. I'm still hopeful that that's what Christian Scott is. And what Christian Scott represents and what Nolan McLean represents, I think-

Speaker 1:
[103:09] Thank God for Nolan McLean.

Speaker 5:
[103:10] Thank God. I agree. Thank God for him. Those, to me, that's, I think, what the general manager of the team is banking on for the long-term health of this team. So we can talk about that at some point. It's like, what is this? How does this look in the long-term versus how much of pain are we gonna endure this season? But this season, Nolan McLean, Clay Holmes and Freddie Peralta have been good.

Speaker 1:
[103:37] Freddie's been decent, decent.

Speaker 5:
[103:39] I would say he's been above average.

Speaker 1:
[103:41] Okay, yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 5:
[103:42] I would say he has done more than enough to win all but one start he has made.

Speaker 1:
[103:47] Oh, I pity our starting pitcher. We were watching Clay Holmes last night. My daughter and I, I taught her what run support means. Like, it would be nice to give him some run support. And she was like, well, what does exactly does that mean? I explained to her, I was like, I feel bad for these guys. They throw out seven innings, one run, loss, no decision. They'll never get any wins. None of these starters will get 10 wins the way this is going.

Speaker 5:
[104:05] Clay Holmes is quietly climbing that very long list of Mets starters who you genuinely believe in. Where like every time he's on the bump, I'm like, I think he's gonna throw seven innings and give up one run today. And that's so strange because he's a converted reliever who's in his 30s, but he's got this incredible pitch mix. He's really fun to watch pitch. He's a real bulldog. Anyway, they've gotten good starting pitching from their one, two, three and their rotation. McLean, who has carried a perfect game into the sixth inning in two games already this season, looks like, like Jacob deGrom. I mean, he looks like a dude who we're going to be pouring our heart and soul into for the next 10 years, God willing. So like, that's the good, right? Those are the, those are the three good things that we have is those guys. Peterson and Senga, neither of those guys are part of the long-term future of this team. Neither of them are probably going to end the season and the rotation. It's sad. Peterson was a first round pick. I've rooted hard for him over the years.

Speaker 1:
[105:02] All-star last year.

Speaker 5:
[105:04] He was an all-star last year. I thought that that was him coming around. There's that adage about lefties figuring it all out in their late 20s and then going on to have long careers, but he's really backslid. We'll see if he can be effective out of the bullpen. But the lineup makes me want to drink bleach, man. I can't believe how painful, how pathetic, how sad it is to watch these guys hit. The approach is baffling. We've got a whole new coaching staff, aside from the general manager, new hitting coaches. This is a, it's not just that this team spends a lot of money in its payroll, which is publicly available. It's that they spend a lot of money across a lot of bands of the organization. The analytics teams and the coaching staffs have these very specific backgrounds. And one assumes they're supplying a tremendous amount of data and strategy to the players on a daily basis. And what I see is a lot of guys thinking first ball, fast ball, trying to get ahead early and try to get a hit early in the count. So with getting the pitch that they're looking for, which is a codified baseball strategy right now. But that is leading to 100 million ground balls to second base. I can't believe how many ground balls this team hits. And I can't believe the lack of action to your point about Juan Soto hitting one long flyball that was caught being the 12th most exciting thing that's happened to the team this year. It's astonishing. And it's really to a man other than Francisco Alvarez. Every single hitter this season, aside from Francisco Alvarez, when they're up at the plate, I'm like, this is gonna be a put out at third base. And they're gonna go down one, two, three, and there's gonna be no strategy. Mendoza is gonna take no chances. Like we're in a place where they just got it, like try to bunt three times in a row. Try to do something differently.

Speaker 1:
[106:57] Bring back the bunt. Bring back the bunt. Even Alvarez.

Speaker 5:
[107:00] You're not supposed to bunt in 2026, but try something.

Speaker 1:
[107:03] Even Alvarez, just classic stat line for the Mets this season. Four home runs, five RBI's, like awesome. Just none of this, every home runs a solo home run.

Speaker 5:
[107:11] I know. He hits the ball hard though.

Speaker 1:
[107:13] No, I want him to play every day cause he mashes the ball. And we did, like, I assume at some point these guys will play to their track records, right? Like Bichette is going to play better and then he had double last night, scored the first run. Polanco's already injured, Robert's been all right. Simeon just, I mean, Nimmo has an 863 OPS right now and that, like, you can combine three guys in our lineup and not quite get to an 863 OPS. Pete has not been very good for the Orioles. One assumes he will come around. But yeah, you know, this is the other thing why everyone's justified to make fun of them because they have the highest payroll in baseball. But you're not allowed, when you're paying Juan Soto three quarters of a billion dollars and you have the highest payroll in baseball, to be like, yeah, but in three years, we're really well set up. Like if you look at all these, you can't, no, you don't get to do that. And you let a franchise icon, all time home run leader walk for nothing. You traded the longest tenured player on the team, I think, in Nimmo, who I could take or leave, but at least like the guy was good for 20 to 25 home runs and hit the ball pretty hard. And Diaz is not lighting it up, but Devin Williams has been awful. But I want to go back to what you said before. So I remember we talked about this one on one of our earlier segments. Like the Mets being a cosmic joke to me kind of caught me off guard because in my time as a diehard Mets fan, yeah, they had six straight sub 500 seasons from 91 to 96 or six, I think six. And there's like the Vince Coleman firework thing. Like there's some embarrassment in there. But I mean every team other than the Yankees goes through troughs like that and they weren't like horrible, horrible other than one or two of those years. I grew up, they were awesome and they won a World Series and they went deep into the playoffs in other years. Then in the mid 90s to late 90s, they got really good again, they made another World Series. And then I kind of, so I remember talking to you like, I don't like, why are they considered this joke of a franchise? And you filled me in on some of the collapses of the Willie Randolph era and this and that. And now it's like, oh, now I get it, now I'm living it, now I'm getting my real taste of it.

Speaker 5:
[109:21] This is what it feels like for sure. I was trying to think back because the Phillies have been awful this season too, and they actually are now the owners of not just the basement in the National League East, but I think they now have the worst record in baseball and the worst run differential. And was texting with Chris Ryan a bit, and our friend Tracy, who's also a Cubs fan. And I was wondering, when was the last time the Mets and the Phillies were both bad? And this was a time when you were not following the team. I had forgotten that in 2017, the Mets and the Phillies combined to win, I believe, 136 games. They won 66 in 70 games and they were at the bottom of the National League East. That's not that long ago. That's only nine years ago that the Mets won 70 games in the season and the Phillies were even worse. So it's not like this can't happen to big market clubs that spend money, but the Mets in 2017 when they were still under the Will Ponds ownership were not spending $380 million like this team. And if you look at the way the money has been allocated on this roster, it's scary, dude. Don't forget that Frankie Montaz is making like $18 million this year. Don't forget that Luis Robert is making $20 million this year. Don't forget that Beau Bichette is making $42 million this year.

Speaker 1:
[110:34] He's got a player option, right?

Speaker 5:
[110:36] With a player option that I think elevates it to $50 million.

Speaker 1:
[110:38] I mean, if he plays like this, you can pen that one in right now. They're like, of course, I'm opting in.

Speaker 5:
[110:43] You know, I think that there is something kind of fascinating about the fact that there's only three guys under contract in 2028. And we can look down the road and we can say, oh, well, you know, Christian Scott will be in the rotation and Nolan McClain will be leading the team. And Jonah Tong will be up by then too. And Jack Wenninger too. And we'll have this super rotation of 24 year olds. And hey, maybe Ryan Clifford will be up. And by then, Carson Benj will be an all star. And we can kind of like game out what we what I think David Stearns really wants and what I suggested to you over the winter, what I thought he was doing. But the short term moves to make the team competitive now while you've got all these guys and even the trade for Peralta, which featured two big prospects who I think are not off to the greatest starts in Milwaukee. But that was a heavy price to pay. All of that could look it could it could go from looking really stupid to catastrophic very quickly. And then we're going to wake up one day and it's going to be 10 years and the Mets are going to have 191 season under Steve Cohen. I mean, the team has just not been successful under Cohen. Like we can't avoid this topic anymore. They had one 100 win season, which was the culmination of a group of players who were developed under a different ownership coming into their true primes, their 26, 27, 28 year old seasons, plus stepping out and spending big on a couple of pitchers like Max Scherzer, which was the big announcement that Cohen made in addition to acquiring Francisco Indoor. So they had 100 win season that year and collapsed mightily in the playoffs and embarrassingly. Since then, 2024 was a lot of fun, but doesn't it feel fluke-ish when you look back on it now?

Speaker 1:
[112:14] It's amazing. I mean, 18 months ago, the Mets were in the National League Champions Series. That was like yesterday in sports terms.

Speaker 5:
[112:27] Sean Manai also makes $25 million, by the way, just for the record. He's not even in the rotation.

Speaker 1:
[112:32] I mean, he's barely in the bullpen. At Peralta, the lack of an extension for him is interesting. We'll see what happens there. A lot has been written about that. Just some things. 30th, as of going into yesterday's game, 30th in on-base percentage, 30th in slugging percentage, 30th in OPS. Buster only had this piece out where he was talking on one of his tidbits about how teams were throwing more than the usual percentage of fastballs against the Mets, which was, I guess, is considered almost disrespectful of your lineup. We can even dial up our fastball even more because you can't hit the straight thing or the seamer or whatever. It's just, it's shocking. I would actually, you brought up Steve Cohen. Rather than me say it, would you like to talk about his Twitter account?

Speaker 5:
[113:18] Yeah, you should delete it. I don't understand. I do understand his mentality because I'm very appreciative of him as an owner because I found the Will Ponds to be baffling as an ownership group and their cheapness. And I know that there were some specific reasons, especially in the 2010s, why they got even cheaper than they had been prior to that. But Steve Cohen has spent money every single year. He has owned the team. He has thrown a ton of money into the organization. They've clearly improved the way that the farm system operates, the way that the departments beyond what happens on the field operate. Going to city field is a lot of fun. It's a great ballpark. So all of those organizational things, I can laud them and appreciate them. His communication with the fan base leaves a lot to be desired. Scolding the fan base in the first 10 games of the year after the collapse of last season is nightmare PR. And I realize he's extraordinarily wealthy and there's probably no one who can speak to him about why this is a terrible idea. But from the free ticket sales, the free ticket giveaway that he spoke about, and then the lack of people showing up for that, and him scolding fans about that, followed by, in the midst of the losing streak, the infamous Green Shoots tweet, which is, I thought was just a deplorable act of communication. Like, I can't imagine a stupider thing happening to the Mets this year.

Speaker 1:
[114:45] And they were like five to six games into the losing streak by that point. And you sent it to me on, you texted it to me. And I hadn't seen it. I mean, Green Shoots in a six-game losing streak is for, pick your small market rebuilding team.

Speaker 5:
[115:03] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[115:03] Like, it's not for this team.

Speaker 5:
[115:06] Exactly. That's not, New York sports fans are obnoxious. And they're anxious and they're prone to anger, but they're not stupid. Like, we're not stupid. We watch the team every night. I watch the team every night. Like, they can't hit. We can tell. This idea that like a long fly ball from Marcus Simeon is reason to be optimistic is embarrassing. Marcus Simeon is a 35-year-old second baseman who has not slugged above 400 in three years. What are we talking about? Don't embarrass us is really what I want to say.

Speaker 1:
[115:40] Is Ronnie Mauricio, did he do something wrong to somebody? I feel like we brought him up, he had a game-winning hit and I've never seen him again. He's in the minors. And I see these updates like Ronnie Mauricio is three for four in triple A, I'm like, feels like we might be able to use him for something.

Speaker 5:
[115:53] I think if Lindor goes down for a long period of time, they should just let Mauricio be the full-time shortstop. Let Bichette play third base and stick him there because that's where they're going to need him. And he's still developing as a third baseman. And I think they should just let Mauricio, they've never given Mauricio more than like a 10 or 15 game stretch to see if he's a player who can stick in the league. And he's now presumably fully recovered from his injuries a few seasons ago, and I'd like to see it. But you know, I also wanted Mark Vientos to get consistent playing time, and he's getting it. You know what he's doing? Dumb shit.

Speaker 1:
[116:26] Game winning hit last night.

Speaker 5:
[116:27] I mean, running through a stop sign last night, two nights ago, trying to get the force out of third base on a bunt when he's not that elegant a fielder. He just, he's got brain lock in a couple of different ways. That's the other thing, the team is wildly undisciplined, Zach. And that falls on the manager, man. They make a lot of mistakes.

Speaker 1:
[116:49] Oh, Ronnie, we just got an update. Ronnie Maricio is on his way to Queens and will be recalled with Francisco Lindor, likely headed to the IL. Okay, great. There you go.

Speaker 5:
[117:00] I think that's your starting shortstop for the next three weeks at least.

Speaker 1:
[117:03] Whatever it is. On the undisciplined thing, I've been protective of our daughter on the stream of Lindor. Why did you not charge the ball? Of those sorts of mental errors, I've been, she was devastated to learn this morning that he got hurt. But I've been protecting her because those have been also bad. Look, here's where I'll let out. They're eight and 16. Is there a small part of my brain that's like, hey, why not make history? If no team has ever lost 12 in a row, they've got all this talent, why not? Every impulse of my body, 90% of it wants to say, the season is over, this is disgusting. And it probably is. There's always gonna be the why not thing going on here. And give it a month, right? If they haven't crawled within three games of 500, if they don't start making up some ground, you don't have to go on a 12 game winning streak to make up for the 12 game losing streak. You just have to do the opposite of the slow drip of what happened last year. If they don't do that in a month, then the season is over. It probably already is over. But look, I'm not bailing. I'm here, I'm interested to see how Mauricio plays. I'm not gonna give up hope. It's just so dispiriting because the season is so long and there's so many games. And all you want is to have some stakes in the games and it already feels like, oh, okay, there's another loss.

Speaker 5:
[118:29] I have bailed on many in Nick's season. I've bailed on the occasional Jets season. I've never bailed on a Mets season. I always stick it out. I'm always interested because the failure tends to inform what will happen in the off season. And the Mets have only had off seasons for the most part in the last 35 years to think about. And so this was an off season that I was so fascinated by. I was so interested to see. I knew the break up of the core was going to happen. And I was preparing myself for it. And I wasn't surprised by it. It's a little hard to look at the Nimmo thing. And when we did talk three weeks ago, I did say this Simeon trade might end up looking terrible. And it does look terrible so far. Now also, Brandon Nimmo is injury prone and tends to break down over a season. If he finishes the year with above an 850 OPS, I think automatically that trade is not a good deal. Even though Nimmo still has four more years and Simeon has two more years, you basically punted on a valuable season and you picked up a deeply declined player. But the one thing I just want to say really quickly, because I think our instincts are to say, okay, well, we lost Pete, we lost Nimmo, we lost McNeil, we lost Diaz, and we replaced them with these guys, these guys, and these guys. This is not a binary. The choice was not only Jorge Polanco or Pete Alonso. Look in Chicago at Munataka Murakami, who's playing third base and hitting the ball 480 feet every night. Munataka Murakami went to the worst team in baseball, or what was the worst team in baseball, on a cheap deal. Where were the Mets on-

Speaker 1:
[119:59] Because he strikes out too much, right? That was the thing, he strikes out too much. They were like, how's that gonna translate?

Speaker 2:
[120:04] But they were afraid he couldn't hit fastballs. They were afraid he couldn't hit American Major League fastballs. And you know who can't hit American Major League fastballs? The Mets!

Speaker 1:
[120:16] I will conclude, do you talk about the off season and failure in forming? I am again, not knowing much about the mechanics of baseball in terms of front office machinations and trade deadlines. I'll learn all that. I did text you, like, if this were the NBA, and I understand everyone good has a no trade clause on the Mets. I get it. If this were the NBA, there would already be rumors of like teams calling about Soto and teams call the Mets. Is that just not a thing in baseball? Like, why would a team not try to, or why would the Mets not be like, hey, maybe it's time to pull the ripcord and trade this guy for like eight amazing prospects? That's just not a thing that happens.

Speaker 2:
[120:50] The Soto thing is unusual, because I think he hasn't opt out after five seasons. So he's in his second season with the team. And I believe you could get a ton for him, but not as much as you might think because of the size of his contract. And there's not very many teams that are willing to carry $75 million per year, whatever his annual salary is. Lindor, the time to trade Lindor was last off season. You know, that was the time. And I didn't want to do it. I wasn't advocating for it, but his value was incredibly high. And he has effectively, I think, an eight or nine year contract left. And if you look at some of the contracts that were given out to players who are far less gifted or with a far weaker resume than Lindor, you could see people just picking up the remainder of his deal happily and trading prospects for it. Now, you know, he got off to another slow start, he broke his handmade bone, and now he's got some sort of calf injury. And he's a 32 year old shortstop who is not in the prime of his career anymore. I love the guy, I love that he's brought to the team. I was baffled by his mistakes earlier this season, but I'm hopeful that it was just like he was going through something personal and it was leading to some brain farts. Like I have to hope that that's what it was, because he's actually one of the savviest and smartest Mets I've seen in the last 20 years. So him doing those things was bizarre. Those two guys to me obviously have the most value beyond the stud pitching. If they continue in this way and they're like 10 games under 500 in the middle of June, they should be selling everything they can. They should be selling off. They should be turning this team into a flea market, man.

Speaker 1:
[122:24] Well, everything's going great. Sean Fennessey, it's wonderful to see you. You know Sean from the big picture, of course, and associated other Ringer appearances. He also just started a sub stack, Things We Think But Do Not Say, which I'm going to subscribe to right after we get off this. I can't wait to read it. Maybe it will inspire me. Who knows? But you're a beautiful writer. It's nice to see the writing coming back. And we'll reconvene at some point. And maybe we'll be just eight games under 500 still, would be 500 between now and the next one. Who the hell knows?

Speaker 2:
[122:56] Zach, thank you very much. And let me tell you this, let's go Mets.

Speaker 1:
[123:01] Yeah, let's go. Why not? What's the opposite? Let's go Mets. Luke Weaver said it after the game last night. Let's go Mets. Let's go. Why not? Sean Fennessey, thank you, sir.

Speaker 2:
[123:10] Bye, Zach.

Speaker 1:
[123:13] All right, that's it for today's Zach Lowe Show. Enjoy the games tonight. Enjoy the weekend. We'll be back Sunday night with Bill to recap whatever madness happens in the NBA over the playoff weekend. Thank you to Steve Jones Jr. for his incomparable insight. Thank you to the great Shea Serrano for coming on and telling him some fun stories. Thanks, I guess, to Sean Fennessey for some Mets therapy. Thanks, as always, to Mike, Billy and Jonathan on production. And thanks to you all for listening to and or watching The Zach Lowe Show. See you next week. 21 are over and President selects states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Or is it mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland? Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867.

Speaker 4:
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