• 9 months ago
The Garden Report goes live from All-Star Weekend! Bobby Manning and Josue Pavon go LIVE to recap All-Star Weekend and Sunday's All-Star game!

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Transcript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Can you say hard hats, folks?
00:08 Hard hats, lunch pail, steel tool, boots.
00:10 Anything short of a championship this year is a failure.
00:12 Look at this boomer right here.
00:14 You've just got so much talent here.
00:17 Somebody said we need to apologize for Jamie.
00:19 Can I pull the John?
00:20 What are we apologizing for?
00:21 What did we say?
00:22 What did we do?
00:23 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:26 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:29 Hey, Bowie Manning here, back again
00:34 for the second straight night on The Garden Report
00:37 to finally wrap up All-Star weekend.
00:41 Not a really eventful one, but a disappointing conclusion.
00:48 Cam, just way by my side here.
00:52 Game that never generated any real competitive momentum.
00:56 Game that turned into more and more of a blowout
00:59 as it ran along into the second half.
01:02 Thought, as Joe Swayze said to me,
01:04 after halftime, that the third quarter might have been
01:06 an opportunity to tighten the thing up just enough
01:11 so that you could have that classic rush to the finish.
01:14 But you never got it.
01:16 East just poured on three, shot 73s in three quarters,
01:22 hit 41% of them, and pretty much cruised to the finish line
01:26 from there.
01:27 Damian Lillard piled it up from three, shot half quarters,
01:32 made them, won the MVP that way.
01:34 Jalen made it close.
01:35 Tyrese Halberton had the hot start
01:37 that got them out to the early lead.
01:39 So three strong candidates right there for MVP.
01:42 But pretty much everybody who talked after the game
01:44 sounded like Lillard was the right choice.
01:46 So everyone I'm sure in the comments
01:49 here is going to be complaining about the game
01:51 and how terrible it was.
01:53 I do think it's slightly surprising, Cam,
01:55 that after a lot of talk about making this a little bit more
02:00 competitive, there wasn't any real attempt to.
02:04 But this is the All-Star game at the end of the day.
02:06 This is what we've come to know.
02:08 This is probably one of the worst ones we've watched.
02:10 But when you get off to that slow, slow start
02:13 that these teams always do, this is how it's going to go.
02:18 Yeah, especially when you got Halberton
02:22 draining five free pointers in a row to start.
02:24 I mean, I just felt like it kind of got the Western Conference
02:26 thinking, man, we're going to really
02:27 have to defend the three-pointer, or at least
02:29 the half-court, Martin.
02:30 When you got Damian Lillard doing what he was doing,
02:32 the defense just wasn't there, man.
02:34 It just drove me crazy.
02:35 I mean, you could say it kind of went both ways.
02:37 But I just felt like the East was really
02:39 sad with that outside shot that the Westerns was not
02:41 trying to defend.
02:42 And I just think, man, I've been one of those guys who's like,
02:45 I know the All-Star game isn't ever all that exciting.
02:48 It's been a long time since we got a really exciting one.
02:51 But seeing this in person for the first time, man,
02:53 it was rough.
02:54 It was rough.
02:55 You saw the halftime video that Bobby and I posted.
02:59 Cam and I were talking about it earlier, how I was saying,
03:03 this is--
03:05 I don't know how else to mix this.
03:07 I don't know how the NBA can fix this,
03:09 especially after Adam Stiller saying that they went back
03:11 to this format to avoid this type of conclusion.
03:14 And we still got it, man.
03:16 It was just such a blowout game and just very uninteresting,
03:23 especially in the second half after halftime.
03:27 We just lost sway.
03:27 Bobby's on mute.
03:28 We're a disaster here.
03:29 I'll take it.
03:30 So Larry--
03:31 Yeah, go ahead.
03:32 Larry Bird put them on blast.
03:33 Earlier in the day, Larry Bird said, hey,
03:35 I'd really like to see a competitive game.
03:37 We're in Indiana.
03:38 I mean, sticking it to Larry Bird and saying,
03:40 respectfully, we're just not going
03:42 to have a competitive game here is pretty cheeks.
03:46 There were some individual plays that they're so gobsmackingly
03:50 good at basketball, you kind of forget how hard it
03:52 is to shoot from the logo or to dunk the way they did.
03:56 And I get that you don't want to get injured because you
03:58 don't want to play defense.
04:00 But I don't know.
04:01 I don't know who this product is for anymore.
04:03 I don't really know how you--
04:06 but isn't that the ironic thing that people keep tapping in?
04:09 I'm sure they're going to say that they
04:10 had unbelievable viewership.
04:14 So I don't know.
04:15 I think it's for teenagers, sponsors, and highlights.
04:19 And so it probably achieved that goal.
04:20 But it certainly did not capture my interest.
04:23 I mean, I sat and ate chicken fingers in the closet
04:26 for part of the first quarter.
04:29 It was pretty-- it was pretty boring.
04:33 I can't lie.
04:34 And I think Joe Sway turned to me at one point and was like,
04:37 yeah, I can't even pay attention to this anymore.
04:40 And I tried.
04:41 I was keeping notes.
04:42 I was trying to follow the game a little bit,
04:46 note some of the funnier moments.
04:48 He did have Bam throwing it off the Yoka's back on an inbound.
04:51 He did have--
04:52 The Luka thing, right?
04:53 --Yoka running out of transition.
04:54 The Luka missed the dunk, trying to do something crazy.
04:58 But they just didn't stack up enough.
05:00 And I thought you said it best, Joe Sway.
05:03 It was better.
05:04 You didn't even-- you didn't even
05:07 see these guys trying to do flashy stuff.
05:09 Because it was that one pass.
05:10 That's the thing, man.
05:11 It was the bounce alley-oo.
05:12 OK, you want to entertain us?
05:14 It was just a block.
05:15 OK, give us some nice alley-oo, some flashy shots.
05:19 It felt like one pass, shoot.
05:22 All right, now you go.
05:23 OK, oh, fast break.
05:24 OK, great.
05:24 You know what I mean?
05:25 You just didn't get that.
05:27 And I think it really boils down to defense.
05:28 I guess you need-- you need to make that happen.
05:33 Yeah, you need to be able to run off stops and stuff.
05:35 But you also need to be connected.
05:37 And the guys just didn't look connected at all.
05:38 And the biggest problem, honestly, Cam, I thought,
05:40 is they just jacked up a 3 every time they had one.
05:43 And that can speak to some of the debates
05:45 we have about this era and the way the game's played now.
05:48 But all of these guys out there-- and of course,
05:50 they're all perimeter players.
05:51 I thought Towns added a nice low post presence to this game
05:55 and kept the West in it as much as he could, frankly,
05:57 for most of the night.
05:58 But almost everybody else on the floor
06:00 tonight was just launching up a 3 the second they got it.
06:04 97 three-point attempts for the Eastern Conference.
06:07 That had to be so lazy.
06:10 For the East, go on.
06:10 And they shot 43%, just for the East.
06:13 The West went 25 to 71.
06:16 The West shot one free throw.
06:19 The East shot four different--
06:20 And that was the NBA play.
06:21 Are the NBA players just too good?
06:23 Is that what it is?
06:24 If they get hot, it's just like, look,
06:26 the offense is just through the charts.
06:28 Our defense isn't going to match that.
06:30 Is that really what it boils down to?
06:31 Because how else do you make this thing competitive?
06:34 I do think that, Bobby, to your point about the era
06:36 that we're in, other than Steph and Kyrie,
06:38 I can't really think of anyone with insane handles.
06:41 And it's clear that there aren't big-time dunkers out there.
06:44 So the possibility for highlights,
06:47 even if they weren't shooting threes,
06:48 I don't know if this group of all-stars
06:51 really has high-level talent when it comes to dunking
06:55 and dribbling the way we've seen in years past.
06:57 That's a new theory that I'm working on.
06:59 But I'm trying to think of who would cock back
07:01 an unbelievable alley-oop.
07:03 But I just, I don't know.
07:06 Maybe that's just not what they're built for right now.
07:09 - Yeah, and when you look at it right now,
07:12 it is a lot of isolation play out there.
07:13 So you pretty much had the guy coming out,
07:16 putting the shot up every time.
07:17 And it was exciting at the beginning, right?
07:18 The game got off to such a good start
07:20 with the halibut and heaves.
07:22 And that's what effectively allowed the East
07:24 to build the early lead that it did.
07:26 You got the crowd into it a little bit.
07:28 With those attempts, he shot a fifth one,
07:30 trying to make five in a row.
07:32 But then he missed.
07:33 And then he got out of the action
07:34 and other guys started taking their turns.
07:35 And then you didn't see him involved
07:37 until the end of the game.
07:37 And you saw a couple of stretches
07:39 where he tried to get other guys involved.
07:41 But it was mostly just guys taking turns out there.
07:44 And you had that little bit of excitement
07:46 at the beginning of the game,
07:47 the hometown guy hitting those big shots.
07:50 But man, did the crowd die just away from that point on.
07:53 I mean, by the time the third quarter came around,
07:55 it was a 20-point game.
07:57 You had zero, zero energy in this place.
08:00 Absolutely zero.
08:01 They were 10 times more excited for the t-shirt toss.
08:05 There were things in between,
08:06 like the turn of timeouts that this place got as loud
08:09 as it did all night.
08:11 You know, that just shouldn't be it, man.
08:13 Do they have to force these guys to play defense?
08:15 Like, is that what's next for the NBA?
08:17 Is it gonna be like, okay,
08:18 for the first six minutes of each quarter,
08:21 full court press, you have to do it.
08:23 Is that what the NBA's gonna have to do?
08:24 Because I just think they're running out of ideas
08:26 at this point.
08:27 And we may just be stuck with constantly complaining
08:31 year after year how different it is until, let's say,
08:33 like, I don't know,
08:34 similar to what happened to the dunk contest,
08:35 where you get one of those one-offs, like 2016,
08:38 and you're like, oh, well, that's the way it's supposed to be.
08:40 And then the next,
08:41 you have to wait another 10 years or so
08:42 before that happens.
08:43 - I don't think there's any secret sauce.
08:46 I do think the Elon Mending was really good
08:48 while it was in there, Bam.
08:49 And I don't know why they took it out.
08:51 Silver had some ridiculous answer about it,
08:55 about tradition and wanting to bring the game
08:57 back to its roots.
08:58 But this is terrible.
08:59 And it left nothing to watch in the fourth.
09:00 We all went downstairs
09:02 and just started getting ready for the post game.
09:04 And at least, even if it was a blowout
09:06 with the Elon Mending,
09:08 if the East starts to stall a little bit,
09:10 game gets a little closer,
09:11 the clock turns off,
09:12 so you can't just run the clock out.
09:14 And I wanna say the West,
09:15 I know you guys weren't watching close,
09:17 but they did get it within the 20 range late,
09:20 but there was just no time left.
09:22 I think Towns ended up scoring like 50.
09:24 So he was keeping his foot on the gas,
09:27 but there wasn't any time left to mount a real comeback.
09:30 I'm sure guys should start giving up.
09:31 The bench has started going in late in this game as well
09:34 to make sure everybody could get in and play.
09:36 So that Elon Mending,
09:37 I think is an obvious answer to get back in there.
09:39 East West is fine.
09:40 I do think I'd rather see Brown and Tatum go head to head
09:43 than have them taking turns on the same team
09:45 like they were tonight.
09:46 Both ended up having solid games,
09:48 but I thought last year,
09:50 those two and that stretch of isolation
09:52 where they were playing one-on-one
09:54 was the most exciting all-star memory of my life.
09:58 You lost that this year, which was a bummer.
10:00 - Yeah, I mean, that's,
10:03 I'm not old enough to like really believe this take,
10:05 but older NBA fans would be like,
10:07 they're too friendly, they're all friends.
10:09 There is something to that.
10:10 Like there was never a moment where like anyone
10:14 who has any sort of rivalry or like real competitive flair.
10:18 You saw guys who like to collaborate,
10:19 like Luka and Jokic and like Donovan and Jalen,
10:24 but you don't have guys who like
10:26 fundamentally dislike each other.
10:27 I think there's too many all-stars.
10:29 I know people want to expand the rosters,
10:30 but trying to get 12 guys minutes is also kind of hard.
10:33 I feel like a number of people said maybe make four teams
10:37 and there's a tournament.
10:38 I think that's interesting.
10:40 At the end of the day, like you can change the rules,
10:43 you can change the ending, you can tweak it,
10:46 but until the players choose,
10:48 we see them compete on a given night.
10:51 I mean, we see them like go after it on a given night.
10:53 - It's the culture, Kim.
10:54 I think it's the culture, man.
10:56 I mean, look at the last 24 hours.
10:58 Look at the flack that Jalen has received.
11:00 Whichever side of the argument you are
11:01 about what happened out here or out there,
11:03 I should say, in the dunk contest on Saturday night,
11:06 wherever you fit, wherever you fall in the sense
11:07 of how Jalen performed or underperformed,
11:10 whatever the case may be,
11:11 the point is the biggest reason why a lot of these guys
11:13 don't want to do the dunk contest
11:14 or a lot of the guys don't take things seriously
11:17 like all-star Saturday night,
11:18 you got Anthony Edwards shooting his left hand
11:20 and stuff like that,
11:21 because the meme thing, what Jalen was saying,
11:24 I think that's accurate.
11:25 I really do, man.
11:26 Guys don't want to be embarrassed all over social media.
11:29 A lot of these guys grew up
11:30 and social media was just always at their fingertips.
11:33 And I think there's something to that.
11:35 I think that the past generations,
11:37 like you just mentioned, Kim, they didn't have that.
11:39 There wasn't that like, oh, you know,
11:41 I might be embarrassed for the next three or four days
11:45 on SportsCenter and the newspaper,
11:46 but everyone's going to forget about this.
11:47 I just think nowadays it's different.
11:48 You know, I think it's like a, oh man,
11:50 people are going to look back and make fun of me for years.
11:53 And I can't go through that.
11:55 So let's just, I'm too cool for this.
11:56 You know, I'll, if I catch fire,
11:59 keep feeding me and I'll win MVP or whatever, you know,
12:02 if we're on the losing end, so be it.
12:04 It's an art just to be here.
12:06 You know, that competitiveness.
12:08 How many times, Bobby,
12:09 when Yoki is just watch Giannis Mikalaya, you know,
12:14 maybe, I don't know, I'm not saying,
12:15 this is just an example, right?
12:16 Maybe it's not the case in this particular instant,
12:18 but if I try to block that and he dumps on me,
12:22 that's the highlight I'm going to see for the next,
12:23 you know, two, three days, you know, like,
12:25 and that whole aspect of it never existed, obviously,
12:28 because there was no social media, you know,
12:30 the early 2000s or even the late nineties,
12:32 where I feel like you have a much more competitive game.
12:35 I mean, there were, those were those all-star games
12:36 where like guys were, teams were just,
12:38 just over the 100 mark, nevermind the 200 point mark,
12:42 which is happening back to back years.
12:43 It coming off of what Adam Silver said Saturday
12:45 during his press conference about the reason why
12:47 they went back to this to avoid that,
12:49 I think just makes things, this whole thing look terrible.
12:52 And I'm curious as to how they try to, again, you know,
12:55 try to fix this for San Francisco next year.
12:58 - Can I, so I was, I was in the hallway
13:02 and this is conjecture of the highest order.
13:05 Silver got out of here in a hurry.
13:07 He did not seem like a happy camper leaving the building.
13:10 He did not take pictures.
13:11 He didn't chum it up.
13:13 He got out of here and like, who knows,
13:14 maybe he's got a flight to Abu Dhabi or something.
13:16 Maybe he's got business to attend to,
13:17 but he didn't seem happy.
13:19 I'll tell you that much.
13:20 - He said he expected a competitive game.
13:22 So did Larry Bird.
13:23 We'll get to him in a minute here.
13:25 I do want to play Jaylen's thoughts
13:27 on the competitiveness of the game here.
13:28 - Before I think we were attempting
13:30 to put a little bit more effort into it,
13:32 but you know, I'm not sure how successful that was,
13:36 but hopefully as the years go on,
13:39 it gets back to being what, you know,
13:41 what the fans want to see.
13:42 But I think maybe it was a little bit more effort
13:46 this time, I think.
13:47 I don't know.
13:48 You guys would be a better judge than I am.
13:49 - Last year after the game, you'd said like,
13:51 this wasn't basketball, this was just a lead line.
13:54 Were there discussions about playing harder
13:57 or playing more defense?
13:58 Or was the hope that it would just sort of happen
14:00 organically?
14:00 - Yeah, there was some discussions.
14:04 There was definitely some.
14:05 I'm not sure, you know, how successful that was,
14:10 but you know, there's definitely some discussions
14:12 and I guess guys are trying to figure out
14:14 how to do that at the same time of, you know,
14:17 having fun, being safe, being injury free.
14:18 But no, I guess more solutions need to be had
14:22 to figure that out.
14:23 - I don't think there's any secret here.
14:28 It just comes down to how much guys want to compete
14:31 and defend and try.
14:34 'Cause we've seen it before.
14:35 I don't want to hear about injuries.
14:36 I want to hear about having a good time and relaxing.
14:39 We've seen more competitiveness than this.
14:41 And maybe it came down to the rosters too.
14:43 And you know, who was able to try.
14:45 Obviously LeBron, guys mentioned Jokic in the chat.
14:48 They're not going to be guys who are flying around
14:49 out there necessarily.
14:51 And the West was favorite in this game on FanDuel,
14:53 interestingly enough, but they never really had a shot here.
14:56 I do want to get to some other aspects of this game,
14:58 the experience tonight.
14:59 Obviously it kind of stunk as an atmosphere,
15:01 but Cam, Larry Bird showed up.
15:03 It addressed the crowd at the beginning,
15:06 alongside Reggie Miller and Oscar Robertson.
15:09 Brown and Tatum both talked about it.
15:11 He came in the locker room and talked to each player briefly,
15:14 mostly just greeted them.
15:15 Tatum and Bird had a more extended conversation
15:18 on the court.
15:19 Tatum said that mostly was about how he'd want to meet him
15:23 for a long time.
15:25 Tatum called it an honor.
15:26 I don't think there's any Bird trip to Boston in the cards,
15:32 but for how elusive Bird was going back,
15:35 I think at least a decade here,
15:38 for him to show up and be a master of ceremonies of sorts
15:42 in multiple different events here, talk to players,
15:45 and just show face, which is something he rarely does,
15:49 might be at least a step toward that.
15:51 I thought that was a big, big takeaway this weekend.
15:54 - I think that that man just loves being from Indiana.
15:58 I think we won't see him again for another 29 years
16:02 because we're going to wait till the next time
16:04 they host an All-Star game in Indiana.
16:05 But it was great that he won the Legends Award
16:11 at the brunch this morning.
16:12 He was really visible.
16:13 He was really present.
16:14 I mean, I said this to you, Bobby,
16:16 when on Celtics Wire, the site that I write for,
16:19 when we write about Larry Bird,
16:20 we still get like 10X the clicks
16:22 of when I write about Jason Tatum or Jalen Brown.
16:23 Like Larry Bird is still Boston Celtics basketball.
16:26 But boy, howdy.
16:28 I mean, I bet if he ran for governor, he'd win
16:30 because they love him here.
16:31 So that was like a match made in heaven.
16:34 It was really cool.
16:35 Reggie Miller also got a ton of love.
16:38 That's worth shouting out too.
16:40 They love hoops here.
16:41 Whatever you think of the stereotype
16:43 that like they love basketball in Indiana, it's spot on.
16:45 They love basketball in Indiana.
16:47 And I can't think of a better ambassador than Larry Bird.
16:50 - Yeah, no question, man.
16:52 It was great.
16:53 What were you going to say?
16:55 - I was going to say, are you expecting a Bird appearance
16:57 in Boston anytime soon, Josue?
16:59 - Not at all.
17:01 Not even close.
17:02 Honestly, it just doesn't happen.
17:05 But I love that Tatum and Brown,
17:07 Tatum and Brown, Tatum and Larry Bird
17:09 just got that moment to meet each other.
17:10 I mean, Tatum told us that they didn't necessarily
17:12 have a full blown conversation,
17:14 but the historian that Jason Tatum is, man,
17:17 I can tell it's genuine when he says
17:18 that he really appreciated meeting Larry Bird
17:20 and couldn't believe it.
17:22 Larry Bird told him, I couldn't wait to meet you.
17:25 Subject Maxwell always tells a story on a podcast
17:28 about the first time he watched the 30 for 30
17:31 on the Southeast Lakers rivalry.
17:33 And obviously Larry Bird's a big part of that.
17:35 And it was a big part of how he learned
17:38 who Subject Maxwell was in the sense of the finals MVP
17:40 and how much he played a big part in that rivalry.
17:42 So I just think that someone like Jason Tatum
17:46 who did this probably, I wanna say his rookie year
17:49 or his second year, like he gets it, man.
17:51 He gets the tradition, he gets the culture.
17:53 And I think that's a big step,
17:55 especially for the kind of season that Tatum's having
17:58 where the Celtics have the best chances
18:00 of not only getting back to the finals,
18:02 but winning it all.
18:03 And I just think that type of interaction
18:06 and at All-Star Weekend,
18:08 considering the status where Jason Tatum is a star
18:13 in the All-Star game in Indiana,
18:15 I think all that stuff is huge
18:17 for Tatum's growth moving forward.
18:20 - Yeah, you wish there was a little more to it,
18:22 gave a speech or something,
18:23 or said they were gonna meet up at some point,
18:25 but it does seem like it was pretty limited in his camp.
18:28 - In due time, in due time.
18:30 Yeah, I mean- - That's what I'm saying.
18:31 It's that hope there for more.
18:33 - I just don't see the whole like,
18:34 Larry's back in Boston, guys.
18:36 Give it up.
18:37 He's just not that kind of guy
18:38 and he hasn't done it.
18:40 - Maybe he wants to be around the guys more.
18:43 - The O-8 team, it never happened.
18:45 It never happened throughout that era.
18:47 They made a couple of NBA finals appearances.
18:49 It's just super rare.
18:50 It's just not who he is.
18:52 It's not something that I think
18:53 the organization take personally,
18:55 but it's just not who Larry is.
18:57 Larry's not the guy.
18:58 I always love the HBO documentary
19:00 about his relationship with Magic Johnson.
19:02 And one of my favorite parts of that documentary is
19:05 Magic goes to the front while the cameras are,
19:07 Larry's gonna stick to the back.
19:08 I mean, that's just the kind of guy he is.
19:09 He doesn't like the spotlight.
19:11 He's not the kind of guy,
19:12 but I think he generally enjoys,
19:15 obviously the game of basketball,
19:18 Jason Tatum means to the organization.
19:20 So I think to hear what he said to Tatum is super,
19:24 super cool as someone who's been covering this team
19:27 for a handful of years and also for someone like Jason Tatum
19:29 who couldn't stop literally glowing
19:31 as he was telling that story.
19:34 - Yeah, can I mention it too?
19:35 There's just more of an association
19:37 with the Pacers at this point.
19:38 That's a long running thing that happened years ago
19:41 when he had the falling out with the Celtics.
19:44 - I mean, these guys give him a shot.
19:45 He was a head coach here.
19:47 He said he's gonna do it for two years.
19:48 He brought them to the finals.
19:49 He wanted to give it a try and that was it.
19:51 I think that meant a lot to Larry.
19:54 I mean, there was some speculation back then
19:56 that he wanted to be the guy to take over
19:59 when the coaching situation was in flux
20:02 to say the least in the mid to late 90s
20:05 leading into the Doc Rivers era.
20:07 But I don't know.
20:09 I mean, I can't really speak on that personally.
20:11 I was super young, but there was some talk that,
20:14 or speculation I should say,
20:15 that he was hoping that would be the card for him.
20:18 He pivoted to the Pacers, became the head coach.
20:20 And like you said, he wanted to do it for two years
20:22 and that was it.
20:23 I don't know if that plays a part in it,
20:24 but again, I really do think it boils down
20:26 to this being his hometown with the college here.
20:30 And it just means a lot to him.
20:31 Basketball means a lot to this city.
20:33 And the All-Star game hasn't been here since the 80s.
20:35 So it was fitting.
20:36 It was cool for him to be here.
20:38 - And we'll wrap this up with some Brown and Tatum talk
20:40 on the other side.
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21:06 - So we kicked it around a little bit on the side.
21:13 We talked about it last night,
21:14 but it's becoming an annual thing, Brown-Tatum,
21:17 All-Star game experience together.
21:20 They collaborated on the dunk last night.
21:22 Brown talked about that tonight,
21:24 said they didn't practice it, looked better in his head,
21:27 but he doesn't have any regrets
21:28 about the way that thing went down last night
21:30 and he was glad he tried it.
21:32 And maybe not in the cards in the future.
21:35 I think that seemed to be more the feeling tonight
21:37 after the fact with him, but the door is open.
21:41 You know, he wanted to try at least once, he said.
21:44 That was great.
21:45 I think that was the most enjoyable moment of the weekend,
21:48 but overall, just watching those two,
21:50 especially on the court before the game,
21:52 a lot of greeting with some of their friends.
21:53 You saw Brown and Giannis talking on one side,
21:55 Tatum and Bam catching up.
21:57 You know, they're good friends on the other side there.
22:00 Asked both of them about what the experience is like
22:02 and they get along just right throughout the year.
22:05 So it makes some sense that they're catching up
22:08 with other stars, kind of doing their own thing out here.
22:11 But I heard a couple of times, you know,
22:14 from different star teammates who are here,
22:16 the importance of catching up on the season,
22:19 you know, talking about things that went well,
22:20 maybe didn't go as well.
22:21 I know Damian Lowe was just talking about that
22:23 at the press conference, you know,
22:24 and the time he's been able to spend with Giannis here.
22:27 Same deal for Durant and Booker who,
22:31 in Durant's words, the key to their success
22:33 has been how close they've been
22:34 and how much time they spent together off the court
22:36 to start so far.
22:37 So, you know, we've had this conversation for a long time.
22:41 You know, how close they are,
22:42 how much that plays into their success.
22:44 I think we see in this setting again,
22:48 that they're just different guys,
22:51 different friendships, different interests.
22:53 You know, there's no issues between them necessarily here,
22:56 but they're guys who are gonna do different things
22:58 just the way, and I really didn't see outside
23:01 of that dunk there, which didn't go all that well,
23:03 kind of interaction between them,
23:05 at least in what we were able to see over the weekend.
23:07 - Amateurs, man.
23:11 I mean, I should say amateur in the sense of someone
23:14 who probably doesn't have a whole lot of experience
23:16 in the dunk contest, but you gotta practice that.
23:18 Are you kidding me?
23:19 A no-look, love, like, I just,
23:22 I can't believe that they didn't practice it.
23:23 I don't know if that's a testament
23:26 as to how their relationship,
23:28 I get it, these guys are busy,
23:29 they guys have commitments.
23:31 All-Star Week is not just about the events.
23:33 A lot of these guys have commitments
23:34 that they have to attend and all that,
23:36 but I'm shocked, honestly,
23:38 that they didn't get a chance to at least practice this
23:40 during practice, like, in Brighton.
23:43 I don't know if I said this last night,
23:46 but I think that could have easily been
23:49 the best dunk of the night,
23:50 if it was executed properly.
23:52 The first lob was probably the worst lob
23:54 I've ever seen in a dunk contest, or one of the worst.
23:56 And then the second one, I mean,
23:57 obviously he didn't have enough,
24:00 it wasn't close enough for him to pull off the deep round,
24:03 and it just looked bad.
24:06 It was just poorly executed.
24:07 I figured, the way I saw it was
24:10 that maybe they practiced for like 15 minutes,
24:12 but to find out that they didn't practice at all,
24:14 I mean, they didn't have a shot at winning.
24:17 - So John, who couldn't be here tonight,
24:21 he thought it was a disaster, Cam.
24:23 And I just don't, I don't think it was.
24:27 I think he went straight forward with what he did out there.
24:30 Botched that one, that was definitely the worst
24:33 of all his ideas.
24:34 It just didn't come together well,
24:36 and he got too high of a score, frankly.
24:38 And we had the debate last night
24:39 of whether he even should have moved on from that.
24:41 But that was the one, if anything,
24:43 limited from winning the championship, it was that one.
24:45 I don't think it was a disaster.
24:49 It was flashy, tried to incorporate
24:51 a lot of different things, probably too many things.
24:54 But I think a disaster is going out there
24:56 and trying something that's way too hard
24:58 and failing a bunch of times,
25:00 and then having to just throw it down with two hands.
25:02 That's, to me, what a disaster looks like.
25:04 This was just fine to me.
25:06 I thought it was solid.
25:06 I thought it had some good ideas.
25:08 He didn't win, he didn't deserve to win.
25:11 But I thought it was just a solid performance
25:14 and a needed star infusion in the contest.
25:17 So, sure, we'll debate that with John another time.
25:20 But looking back on it a day later, Cam,
25:24 how do you feel about it now,
25:25 getting to watch it back maybe a couple of times
25:26 and just think about it some more?
25:28 - I don't know.
25:32 It's how I feel about the All-Star game.
25:34 If it's great, great.
25:35 But if it's not, it's really forgettable.
25:37 I think going into this,
25:38 my comp for Jalen Brown was DeMar DeRozan,
25:40 who I bet most people listening were like,
25:42 "Oh yeah, I guess he wasn't a dunk contest."
25:45 In a few years, maybe we'll remember.
25:48 - I literally just had that thought.
25:50 - Yeah, we don't think of Jalen
25:53 as a tremendous creative athletic dunker.
25:56 We think of him as a really strong dunker.
25:58 So I didn't really have high expectations
25:59 for what was gonna happen here.
26:01 He got to showcase his respect for history.
26:06 He got to showcase his respect for the internet
26:10 with the Kaysenat dunk.
26:12 He got to do the Terrence Clark thing.
26:14 That's a success.
26:14 That's huge.
26:15 It doesn't matter that he didn't win.
26:18 That was more meaningful than blowing out a cupcake.
26:21 - He personified it.
26:22 Yeah, he personified the entire dunk contest.
26:26 Yeah, I love that.
26:27 - So that pushed into the,
26:28 again, I don't wanna overstate it,
26:30 but I think he pushed into the future a little bit
26:32 with some of the things you can do.
26:33 Now, maybe someone will do it better going forward,
26:36 but I thought there were a lot of good ideas
26:38 that may not execute well.
26:39 And it does still come down to how good are your dunks.
26:42 - That's what it is.
26:43 - And his weren't quite good enough.
26:46 But to me, I thought it was just solid.
26:48 And Cam, you did get to talk to Kai.
26:51 - Oh yeah, Kaysenat.
26:53 Yeah, that's-
26:54 - Cam spoke to everyone.
26:56 He forgot.
26:57 He's like, "Oh yeah."
26:57 - What did he say?
26:59 No, no, the reason I-
27:00 - You mean Guy Fieri?
27:01 Wait, which one was it?
27:02 - Well, no, the reason I paused
27:03 is 'cause one of my editors at USA Today is named Kai.
27:06 And I was like, "Did I talk to him?"
27:07 (laughing)
27:09 So Kaysenat is a YouTube prankster, a comedy person,
27:14 who is like maybe the most famous person in the building.
27:18 I saw him at a half court.
27:22 And I said, "Hey, you worked with Jalen.
27:24 "Do you mind if I ask a few questions?"
27:25 And then we had to leave the court.
27:27 So I ended up walking with him
27:28 from mid-court to the back tunnel.
27:30 And along the way,
27:31 almost everyone paused what they were doing and said,
27:34 "Oh my God, is that Kaysenat?"
27:35 Like, people really love that dude.
27:38 And I really kept saying to him,
27:39 I was like, "Dude, you're so famous."
27:40 And he was like, "Yeah, I am."
27:42 But like really charming, really charismatic.
27:45 Go check out, it's a short on the CLNS YouTube page.
27:49 After this, check it out.
27:50 You can hear that it was like a 30 second hit.
27:52 But he was really polite, tremendous.
27:55 And apparently he has a nice friendship with Jalen Brown,
27:59 which is cool, I didn't know that.
28:00 - Well, let's wrap it up, PA.
28:03 - Thing, hold on real quick.
28:04 I just wanna say,
28:06 I just love that Jalen is so comfortable to,
28:11 not only again, personify these dunks,
28:12 put himself out there,
28:13 but knowing that there's that chance of that criticism.
28:17 We caught up with Jalen Rose quickly after the event.
28:20 And I thought he was spot on when he said,
28:22 "We need more guys like this to participate."
28:24 We wanna see players that participate in the dunk contest
28:29 that are gonna turn around and play in the all-star game.
28:31 It doesn't have to be completely filled with all-stars,
28:36 but having one or two every single year
28:37 does make it interesting.
28:38 I mean, people can make the argument that say,
28:39 okay, maybe that helped him in the sense of
28:41 when you called it closed
28:43 and the judges really wanted to see
28:45 probably the rest of what Jalen had in store,
28:47 whether it was the messages
28:49 or whether it was just pure athleticism.
28:50 You know, Kim, I'm glad you brought up
28:53 the DeRozan comp there,
28:55 because the way I saw it was going into it,
28:58 I said, if Jalen's gonna do this,
28:59 he's gotta have at least three or four
29:01 really good dunks up his sleeve.
29:03 And with his athleticism,
29:04 sometimes it's not about the 360s or the flips,
29:08 you know, all that.
29:09 It can be more of the,
29:11 just throwing off that pure athleticism,
29:13 just those vertical leap dunks,
29:15 almost like Josh Richardson.
29:17 I don't know if you guys remember him,
29:18 but Josh Richardson, like power,
29:20 showing that vertical leap through the leg.
29:23 I thought we would see more of that.
29:25 Probably the best dunk of the night was the assistant,
29:27 Donovan Mitchell.
29:28 I thought that was great.
29:29 Terrence Clark, Tribu,
29:30 were probably, those are probably my two favorite
29:32 dunks of Jalen.
29:33 Again, I just think when it came down to it,
29:35 it was execution.
29:37 But at the end of the day, let's be honest,
29:38 McClung won this.
29:39 And I think that's what it really boils down to.
29:42 And that's okay.
29:43 That's not the worst thing in the world,
29:44 but I don't think this is something
29:45 that we'll look back on and be like,
29:47 oh, that was embarrassing for Jalen.
29:48 I think embarrassing would be missing three dunks in a row.
29:51 - That's what I'm saying.
29:52 - Going over the top.
29:53 Yeah, Bobby, I'll be with you with that, for sure.
29:55 Nor do I think he kept it too, too safe.
29:57 I think it took, he took risk out there
30:00 and it just didn't land as well as I thought.
30:03 I think that Jalen thought it was going to.
30:05 - You know what's embarrassing?
30:07 - They were kind of into it.
30:07 And some of them, they were kind of just like, oh, okay.
30:10 And then the replay, the dunks looked better in the replay,
30:12 but it just didn't have that thunderous reaction
30:16 that maybe Jalen was anticipating.
30:18 - Can I tell you what's embarrassing?
30:20 The dunk contest was so much more interesting
30:22 than the all-star game that we're talking
30:24 about the dunk contest and not the all-star game.
30:25 - Again, for the second night in a row,
30:27 but we still got to take some, what happened.
30:29 - There's nothing.
30:30 - It was more interesting.
30:31 It was more courageous.
30:33 It was more worthwhile.
30:35 Even if it didn't look great all the time,
30:37 it was a hundred times more interesting
30:40 than this all-star game.
30:42 - There was nothing to talk about from this all-star game.
30:44 And overall.
30:45 - Bobby's pissed, Bobby's never coming back.
30:47 - I, yeah, I mean, I guess I'll say,
30:50 I won't go on sounding like an a-hole, but.
30:52 (laughing)
30:53 This wasn't my, this wasn't my favorite.
30:56 - He's like, first class everyone.
30:58 - This wasn't my, this wasn't my favorite event
31:01 I've covered as a whole.
31:02 And there were cool aspects of it.
31:04 Lil Wayne earlier was,
31:06 threw the roof, give us away.
31:07 That was really cool.
31:08 - Oh man, Bobby, Lil Wayne was like your favorite part
31:11 of the week.
31:12 But yes, he did crush it, man.
31:13 Lil Wayne had a heck of a show at the convention center.
31:17 NBA sponsored event.
31:19 It was pretty cool.
31:20 - What was your favorite moment, Cam?
31:22 - I don't know.
31:26 I gotta be honest, Guy Fieri was.
31:28 - I knew you were gonna prop Guy up to the top.
31:31 - I just.
31:32 - Wow.
31:33 Are you foodie?
31:34 Are you foodie like Bobby and I?
31:35 We love food.
31:36 - Yeah, first of all, I do like Triple D.
31:38 He's exactly like, like he's, it's not a character.
31:41 He was so polite.
31:43 I just like tapped him on the shoulder to say like,
31:45 hey, what'd you think of the game?
31:46 And then he, he engaged me for like a full minute
31:48 and he was really.
31:49 - He's a huge NBA fan, for sure.
31:52 - We love this.
31:53 - Also, he had a drink and a cigar in his hand.
31:55 Like that was just larger than life.
31:56 That was really cool.
31:57 I also, I just like, it was like being in a circus.
32:01 It was like cheerleaders going this way.
32:03 - It was chaotic.
32:03 It was mad host.
32:04 - It was, it was.
32:05 - Yeah.
32:06 - I mean, you, everyone listening can hear all the noise
32:09 in the background.
32:10 Shout out to all the people that made this happen.
32:12 The players had the easiest job this weekend.
32:15 So much effort went into making this production happen
32:18 and now tearing it down.
32:20 I was just floored with how much of a production this was.
32:24 - Another random note to close the show
32:27 and I'll stick with the shrimp, Josue.
32:29 - What do you mean?
32:33 - I'll stick with the shrimp
32:33 as my favorite part of the weekend.
32:35 That was, that was enjoyable.
32:36 I think some people saw my skills competition too,
32:40 which how many seconds was it Josue?
32:43 Despite all the missed three.
32:44 - 47.
32:45 I want to say on my phone, the timer said 47,
32:47 which is pretty good.
32:48 - Despite all my missed threes,
32:50 it was still a pretty good time.
32:52 - If every single one of those threes hit the rim,
32:55 we'd be straight.
32:56 People would be like, hey, you missed a handful.
32:59 - We didn't post the time.
33:00 We didn't post the time either.
33:03 - I mean, the time is the time of the video.
33:04 What do you mean?
33:05 As long as the length of the video
33:08 is how long it took you to complete the course.
33:10 And wow, we saw a handful of contestants
33:14 or participants or whatever that were like a minute 40,
33:18 you know, a minute 50, like approaching two minutes.
33:21 And Bobby got under a minute.
33:23 Hey, that's an NBA three pointer, man.
33:25 It's not as easy as it looks, trust me.
33:27 - I am looking forward to the next couple of days off here.
33:31 Celtics are off until Thursday.
33:34 And so we will probably take that time off too
33:37 for the most part here.
33:38 Maybe look back at the first half,
33:40 look ahead to the second half coming
33:41 as the Celtics hit the road right away in Chicago
33:45 and then take on the Knicks,
33:46 who actually officially ruled out,
33:48 at least according to reports,
33:49 Randall and OG through the rest of February.
33:53 And in Randall's case, maybe through the rest
33:56 of the regular season.
33:56 So don't think you'll be seeing those guys in that game,
33:59 but it is still a big one.
34:01 But Celtics restart Thursday against the Bulls in Chicago.
34:05 We will be back then at the latest
34:08 for a post game show that night.
34:10 Thanks for joining us here, Cam, throughout the weekend.
34:13 Good talking to you.
34:14 - Yeah, my pleasure.
34:15 - And of course, check out the Celtics Lab podcast
34:19 which he hosts.
34:20 Joe Swayze probably got a new Cedric Maxwell
34:22 coming before long.
34:23 - Yeah, man, we got a lot to discuss after this weekend.
34:26 - Yeah, and subscribe to Dome Theory as well.
34:29 We'll have a new edition of that this week, I believe,
34:30 after this hectic weekend.
34:33 So we're heading back to Boston.
34:35 We will talk to you all soon.
34:36 Thanks for joining us tonight.
34:38 Thanks for following along throughout all-star weekend
34:40 here on CELANUS Media, Celtics All Access.
34:43 A lot of behind the scenes stuff over there
34:44 on Celtics All Access, so go check that out.
34:46 And that's gonna do it for us here tonight.
34:51 And we will talk to you soon.
34:53 - Wait, Ahmed's got an outro for us, I think.
34:56 - No, he doesn't.
34:57 - You said he was gonna work on an outro.
34:58 - Man, he had a phenomenal game.
35:01 - Phenomenal.
35:03 (laughing)
35:04 - Porfrit's out, I think it's an option.
35:07 (laughing)
35:09 - That did not sound like a chair.
35:11 - It was a freaking chair.
35:13 It does sound like a chair.
35:14 (upbeat music)

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