Bobby Manning welcomes Brian Barrett to the Garden Report to react to Celtics vs Pacers Game 2 and whether the series is over.
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00:00Hey, Bobby Manning here. Welcome to a Friday edition of the Garden Report as Celtics Pacers
00:08turns to Indiana. Some massive series changes here, Brian Barrett, as we welcome you back
00:15in to the show here. Celtics finally went small. They pulled away with a runaway victory.
00:22Not an overwhelming blowout here, but a strong second half to put away was a pretty good
00:27first half effort from the Pacers, from Siakam, who's on fire right now. And some injuries
00:33here as well that might play a factor in this series. A big one on the Indiana side with
00:37Tyrese Halliburton suffering a hamstring injury on the same side as one that knocked him out
00:41for a long period of time earlier in the season. And for the Celtics, not a monumental one,
00:48but with Christophe Porzingis still down, losing another big in Luke Cornett could potentially
00:52play an impact on them so far here. So what are your thoughts from game two here and where
00:59the events of last night put this series now? Well, from a blowout game, there's so many
01:04interesting storylines, right? First of all, Rick Carlisle thought it was a blowout because
01:09he yanked his guys with nine minutes left and they were only down 15. And I get Halliburton
01:15was already out at that point. You have the number one offense in the NBA and you're just
01:18throwing in the towel. I thought that quite frankly, from Carlisle's perspective was pathetic
01:22and this is coming off him admitting that he essentially blew game one. I would doubt
01:27it that Halliburton is ever going to come back in this series, considering the fact
01:30that Woj is already reporting that they're concerned about game three. It's a hamstring
01:34second time he's been dealing. This is you alluded to. So disappears unless the Celtics
01:38really royally screw something up in Indiana that this series is over. But the biggest
01:42thing to me is what you mentioned. They finally went small because and here's the most interesting
01:47thing about that because the numbers are awesome, right? You look at the numbers with percent
01:50on the floor plus 18, which was tied with Jalen Brown, who had 40 points. Jalen Brown
01:56had arguably his best postseason game of his entire career. And the guy that played 12
02:03minutes had the same plus minus because it was really easy to see. They were just switching
02:07everything defensively, right? I mean, there was one point in the game where there was
02:11an off ball switch with reset and he just jumped right in front of miles Turner so they
02:16couldn't make a pass to Turner. They ended up not scoring on that particular possession.
02:20There was twice on back to back possessions where they had a switch with Halliburton.
02:26Those were empty possessions for the Pacers. And it's not a coincidence that the two biggest
02:30Celtics runs of the game for a set was part of both of those. And the thing like I'm very
02:35happy to Celtics are up to, oh, it looks like they're on their way back for their second
02:40appearance in the finals in the past three seasons, which is awesome, especially for
02:44these poor guys. The one thing that concerns me is I've been calling this for a while.
02:50I'm sure Bobby, you've thought about it. Everybody was asking Joe Mazzola about an in-between
02:55game. So you actually got to go small. It took an injury for it to happen. So if Cornette
03:02never hurts his wrist, we probably don't even see percent in the game, which to me, if you're
03:09sort of thinking about the next series, right? I'm not saying that specific alignment is
03:14something you need. I'm just thinking about the next series. That worries me a little
03:18bit because remember last year we had these discussions all the time. There was an obvious
03:22thing that wasn't happening. Why isn't Derek White closing games? He's just a far superior
03:27player to Marcus Smart. And I get maybe during the regular season, you don't want to ruffle
03:30feathers. But if you have to make that critical decision, will you make the right one or the
03:36obvious one? I know Joe likes to play big and it feels like one of I've defended Joe
03:41on multiple occasions.
03:42I think he's an outstanding coach, but one of his faults is he is sort of stubborn. Like
03:46after watching Cornette play in game one, probably shouldn't have played. He probably
03:50shouldn't have been in the rotation to start game two. And the other thing I'd say, Bobby
03:53is, you know what else this does? It takes minutes off out where Al doesn't have to switch
03:57all the time. Like he was playing 36 minutes, 35 minutes and switching on defense and teams
04:02are leaving them on offense. This just gives you another option.
04:06Yeah. And there were certainly some mistakes on Boston's end, including that in game one,
04:10it almost costs them. It's amazing how that game one and what happened in the final minutes
04:15there completely changed the complexion of the series. That would have been a series
04:19at that point with Celtics losing at home and doing it in that fashion, adding some
04:24belief to the paces. There's certainly faded quite a bit by now, as you mentioned with
04:29some of the decisions they've made there going into game three. So it's interesting with
04:35the big man stuff there because Joe even said after the game, like they thought they might
04:39get to small ball at some point, but it wasn't going to be this soon before Cornette got
04:43hurt there, which is unbelievable. Like, and I'm the king, you know, I'm the president
04:51of the Cornette fan club. I think he's been great in this post-season relative to expectation,
04:56but it's all about matchups. And Joe would even say as such, like this just isn't a Cornette
05:01series. When you think about the speed, the perimeter game that Indiana plays, how downhill
05:08they are out of those actions. Like they're just trying to make him move. And you know,
05:12there were some possessions last night where I thought he moved pretty well. There was
05:15one stop where they took it down to the shot clock. And so I get that they want to maintain
05:20belief in a guy like that and not just take them out and go to a guy like Tillman who
05:25hasn't been exceptional defensively either in the spots that we've seen them. And we
05:29haven't seen him at much this post-season either, but Brissette was so obvious and we
05:33were all saying it because it allows you to go small because he's such a good rebounder.
05:40He has some perimeter capabilities defensively too against smaller guys that I think bode
05:45well to him succeeding out there. And we saw it, but the biggest thing is he knows these
05:49guys and this isn't just like he was in Indiana last year and like was had like a cup of coffee
05:54there and then was on the here. He was there for three seasons. And so like intimate knowledge
06:00of what they want to do, those guys' tendencies. I think you saw it come into play on the play
06:05you mentioned there against Turner. Like it's just sitting there for you. I even went up
06:11to O'Shea before game one and was like, are you guys talking about maybe you have a role
06:15in this series? And he was just like, nah, no conversations like that. Here he comes
06:21off the bench in game two after not playing real minutes since April. And he was a great,
06:26he looked comfortable out there. And those were his first real playoff minutes too, which
06:29was extra impressive.
06:30Yeah. And the other interesting dynamic to it is on the flip side, you look at what Indiana
06:35does well, it's not like they're going to post up Myles Turner, right? So, Hey, if you
06:40guys, if you think because they're playing a switching scheme, your fear is, Hey, Myles
06:44Turner is going to kill us on post-ups. First of all, it's just not the reality of what's
06:47going to happen. Indiana doesn't want to play this way. Rick Carlisle famously said when
06:51he had poor Ziggus in Dallas, that the post-up was an inefficient play. Now in his defense
06:56at that time, it wasn't efficient for poor Ziggus, but they weren't doing it like the
07:00Celtics are doing it now when poor Ziggus posts, it's against smaller defenders.
07:04He's not posting up Joel Embiid, right? I mean, he's posted up smaller defenders on
07:08mismatches, but the point being is Carlisle wants to play fast. They're the fastest half
07:13court pace team in the NBA. They don't want to play post-ups. Like the only guy they really
07:18post up would be Siakam, but he likes to operate out of the free throw area anyway. So it's
07:23not even like they have, they can take advantage of you, right? Like they literally can't take
07:29advantage of you playing a small lineup. And the most jarring thing or the weirdest decision
07:34about this whole thing is if you go back to the first game, game one, second half, who
07:39did Jason Tatum start the second half on? They put him on Turner because Turner was
07:44destroying them in that pick and pop game, that pick and roll game. So they said, Hey,
07:48let's put Tatum on this. It'll make that a better matchup. So they already felt comfortable
07:54putting Tatum at, or at least having Tatum guard the opponent's five. So that should
07:59have told you prior to game two, Hey, let's go to an all switching scheme. So it just,
08:05and look, I know that I'm harping on this a lot, but I would have even tried it. I said
08:09it during the Cleveland series, just because the only big they were playing was Mobley.
08:14He can't play the entire game. Like you're really scared of Tristan Thompson coming off
08:18the bench. I just feel like, and look, maybe part of it is they didn't play a lot of Tatum
08:21at the five during the regular season. I would, and I said a couple of times during the year,
08:25like you might as well try this out, or you're going to win the East by a million games.
08:29Might as well try some of this stuff out. So hopefully now that they've done it, I can't
08:33see how you can't go, especially with Cornette status, but we'll see in game three, we better
08:38see a lot of, I almost said Jacoby Brissett, a lot of O'Shea Brissett. And we're not just
08:44he's accused guy, Bobby. Yes. And I went to Syracuse with them. I'm thrilled for him.
08:49It's really cool that he's here for this run on the Celtics and can potentially win a championship
08:54with the Celtics. I was very excited to watch that last night. A good, good reserve player,
08:59good pickup from the off season and underrated one too. And he made an impact last night.
09:03And we'll have to going forward. Cause yeah, there's pressure on that front court spot and
09:07it's going to be interesting going into the finals too, against the potential front courts.
09:11You could see there like Rudy in towns, that's a load there in terms of going up against those
09:16guys and trying to figure out what matchups work best against them. And we've seen Dallas's front
09:21court, uh, obliterate teams that try to play on the smaller side or maybe have a deficiency inside
09:27like Oklahoma city did there. So there's some real talent that center in the finals that could pose
09:33challenges against the Celtics, especially if Porzingis is limited or takes a little longer
09:38to get back here. And I still see the reporting being that they might try to get them into the
09:43series here as early as game four, which is good because he probably needs that little wrap up.
09:47So at that point, you're not too worried about the front court. Like Porzingis will take the
09:51brunt of those minutes. He can match up with all of those different guys we mentioned there.
09:55And then Horford's much better in the low minute reserve role as we've seen at this point. And
09:59then you don't have to worry about the presets and Tillman's and coordinates of the world at
10:03that point. But for now, we don't have Porzingis. It's crucial to keep those Horford minutes down.
10:08You just see that he's going to hold up better when you have them in the 25 to 30 minute range,
10:12rather than 39, like he was at again in game one, you know, doing part to overtime.
10:17Every other day series, it's important to, and you just got to see what you have in all these
10:22different guys. And I'm not going to go the Cato route like some people do. I don't think you're
10:26going to see him at all in these playoffs, but for set, what can you get out of them? Tillman,
10:31what can you get out of them? You want to see this stuff. And even back to the regular season,
10:35like it didn't feel like they went to those looks enough. They didn't even go to small ball at all
10:40during the regular season. It looked like they just rolled it out last night and it worked,
10:43but you didn't try it or get those reps during the regular season. I think they had less than
10:47like 10 minutes combined, uh, with, you know, Tatum center, Brissette center, centerless lineups.
10:55Well, and the shocking thing about that, the fact that they didn't go to it during the regular
10:58season is it's twofold. Think about a, how often Porzingis was out of the lineup, right? He had
11:05one stretch or he missed an extended period of time. And there was other times where they gave
11:08him games off and Al Horford all season didn't play in back-to-backs. So I don't know the number
11:15off the top of my head, Bobby, but there was a ton of games where you either had just Al or
11:21just Porzingis. And I understand at that point you had Cornette and I'm a Cornette guy. I thought he
11:26had an outstanding season. He brings a lot to the table as it pertains to offensive rebounding.
11:30And I know at one point Kate had this stretch where he was amazing. You wanted to see what
11:34you had with Tillman post all-star or post trading deadline, I should say. But it felt
11:39like you had plenty of opportunities throughout the season to say, why don't we just try this
11:43out to see what it looks like? Right. And that's the one thing that I just truly don't understand,
11:47especially with the way that the season wind, it'd be one thing if like Alan Porzingis,
11:51which you didn't want this to happen, but if they both played 76 games, it'd be like, Oh,
11:55I kind of get why they didn't go small ball very often, or at least try it.
11:59But the way that the season played out, you had opportunities. And the one other thing to piggy
12:04back off what you said about Porzingis, I'm with you, man, in terms of if he's good to go. And
12:09like, obviously I don't know exactly like Woj reported that game four could be his opportunity.
12:16Well, that may be the last game of the series. So I just want him to sort of work up a lather
12:20and get out there because it's, it's going to be tough to bring him back for finals,
12:24whether it's Dallas or Minnesota, I think it's going to be Dallas, but it's going to be difficult
12:28to bring him back in that setting after not playing for so long. Like, Hey, you've been out
12:34for a month. Here you go. Here's Daniel Gafford rolling to the basket. Here's Derek Lively rolling
12:40to the basket. Oh, here is a Luka Dantic in a pick and roll situation. Here is Kyrie Irving
12:45trying to get you involved in the matchup. Right. So I just feel like, and I know it'd only be one
12:49game, but at least he'd be out there in a competitive basketball atmosphere at the same
12:53point though. Like if they don't think he's ready, obviously you can't play him. I just,
12:57my hope would be that we see him in game four, just to feel like, okay, because at that point,
13:02at least we'll know a little bit like what he looks like. If we don't see him until the finals,
13:05you'll still have that in the back of your head. Like, how's he going to look? Is he going to look
13:08okay? Yeah, for sure. And you want to be on the cautious side too, if there's risk of reinjury
13:14and there'll be plenty of time for a million practices between these series. If they do wrap
13:18this up in four, uh, given that the final start on like June 6th, uh, you know, two weeks from
13:23now, whatever it's going to be. So it could be another massive layoff for this team that they
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14:13So we talked Porzingis in the front court when it goes for that guard dynamic, um, for the wing
14:19dynamic right now on this team, obviously Tatum got going a little bit in the second half there,
14:24but it's still a, when he start this game, like two for eight, two for nine,
14:29the shooting just still isn't there right now, especially from three.
14:33He's still taking a lot of those pull-up jumpers that just aren't there for him right now.
14:38And he's going through it, at least from a scoring standpoint. And it impacted his defense in the
14:43first half. You saw it, uh, Brown got hot pretty quickly and I'll give them credit. I'll give Tatum
14:49credit for deferring to him. And so they had the ball in his hands for that third quarter that
14:53really swung the game Brown. And he's just been outstanding. Like if he doesn't win East finals
14:58MVP, as this dynamic continues here, I don't know what to say. Like, are they just going to hand
15:03Tatum the courtesy thing that they always do with those kinds of awards? That would drive me crazy
15:07because it's been Brown driving this and I'm not going to do the perk thing. And you know, that
15:13whole thing about like, is this Brown's team? Is he the best player at this point? Because we
15:16understand the responsibility that's in Tatum's hands and how that sets up Brown to do what he
15:21does here. But it just, it feels like at some point Tatum shooting 40% and really struggling
15:28to get a shot off and figuring out what his spot is on the floor. Really. I think the story of this
15:33post-season for him, Brian has been like, who is he as a player? Like, is he going to be the do-it-all
15:37guy master or none? Or is he going to be the guy where scoring dictates the kind of games he has?
15:42And he's kind of veered between those two things, pretty much gained the game this whole post season.
15:48So they've gotten by to this point. They've gotten a lot of breaks. It's unbelievable to
15:52think that the other team's best player could be going down for the third straight round here,
15:56but you have to think in the finals, you're going to actually need Tatum playing at his
16:00highest level for them to get it done. Maybe they won't because you're not seeing Denver at this
16:04point, but that dynamic to me is still so interesting here. Like, can Brown just really
16:10carry this mantle here the rest of the way and just have Tatum do all the little things?
16:13Well, it's interesting. And by the way, Perk is talking himself into a pretzel. I don't know why
16:17this is now a conversation, the Jalen versus Tatum thing. I was just watching the show on ESPN.
16:24What's it called again? It's not The Jump anymore. It's, I forget the name of the show. No, the
16:30All-NBA show. It's on NBA Today. Yes, NBA Today. And Perk is like, you know, he's got this big
16:37bold take that Jalen is now better than Jason Tatum. And then later on, they're talking about
16:41Jalen and the potential snub that he should have made their team. And Perk admits he didn't vote
16:47for Jalen. And then he said, but who are you going to take off? I'm like, well, you have Tatum on
16:51the first team. And he just said that Jalen's better than Tatum. So that was just hilarious
16:55to me. But anyway, just in terms of the Tatum, first of all, I just want to say Jalen, that 40
17:01point, he's on an absolute tear. He's scoring at the rim at will. He's scoring at the paint at will.
17:06He's scoring in transition. It is absolutely ridiculous the way that Jalen Brown is playing.
17:11I thought post-All-Star break Bobby was the best stretch of his career. And now I would say he's
17:17gone to a completely new level as it pertains to that. This is the best basketball he's ever played.
17:21With Tatum, you pointed out the aggravating thing to me about his first half performance was
17:27he let the shooting struggles affect him. Because I had sort of been pointing out the fact that,
17:31well, he's been rebounding the ball well. He's been playmaking. His job is harder than Jalen's
17:36on the offensive end because he has to initiate so much of the offense. He's been great as a
17:40screener. The issue I have is the early shot clock pull-ups, right? Or the early shot clock
17:46step-backs. And it's weird because if you look at the last 46 games of the regular season,
17:51his pull-up numbers, he's north of 38% on threes. He can't hit pull-ups in the post-season.
17:56Same thing happened last year. I guess the scarier part would be entering the game last
17:59night. I haven't looked at the tracking data today, but he had been 3 of 18 on catch and
18:03shoot drills, which that is just sort of alarming. I mean, those are the ones he was
18:07way north of 40%. Is he just not a good three-point shooter?
18:14I thought he had turned a corner, right? I thought he had turned a corner this season, but
18:19I don't know, man. Sometimes I feel like he's almost, and I know he's done a ton of work with
18:24Hanlon. I think he's sometimes too robotic because there's so many good things he gets
18:28to offensively. When him and Derek White are involved in screening action, it feels like
18:33he gets good shots against these mismatches. When he got going in the second half is when
18:37he got the smaller defenders on him. I just wish that he could sort of cut back
18:42on his three-point diet right now. He's taken bad shots.
18:49Obviously, this is the most obvious point. They need a better version of Tatum in terms of what
18:54they're going to do in the next round, if they're going to actually win an NBA finals. But I expect
18:59at some point, it's just the dam's going to open. He can't shoot this poorly for an entire
19:05playoffs, right? It's just impossible to think that that could actually happen.
19:09Now, the one thing he was doing against Cleveland was getting to the free-throw line.
19:13That's another thing, where he wasn't engaged last night. In the first half,
19:16he wasn't getting to the free-throw line. I think that's something he can get back to
19:19as well. I would just like the diet to change a little bit in terms of the shots he's taking.
19:27Yeah, and they're going to need it. They got to figure out what's going on there. I know
19:30they're okay with the current dynamic, but I just don't think it's sustainable if you're
19:35going to go against a team that's playing at the highest level in the finals. We'll see who that is.
19:39We'll see what's left from that West finals. That's going to be a battle. I know you said
19:43you have Dallas coming out of it. I still think we see six or seven games in those
19:47West finals out there. Those are two high-level teams. I think the Wolves are pretty heavy
19:52favorites again tonight, I think five and a half. We'll see what happens out there.
19:57I guess we can focus a little bit on Dallas since you think it's going to be them. I do think that's
20:02a fascinating matchup with the Kyrie thing and the Tatum versus Luka thing and the front court
20:08just being massively better there in Dallas than it's been in the past. They're a really
20:11interesting team because it looked like they could be this competitive team in the West. I
20:16give them an ability to win any series just because of Luka and how dynamic he is, but they've just
20:23sort of rolled to this West finals and then to roll through Minnesota on the road the way they did
20:29in game one. Kyrie doing what he did there in the first half. He's a whole different guy this time
20:34around and that would obviously be the big story going into a Dallas-Boston finals.
20:40What kind of threat do you think they would present to Boston if that's where we're headed?
20:44A real threat. I will say this though. I feel like the Celtics dodged their toughest matchup
20:49with Jokic being knocked out because the Celtics are lucky. They don't have a good matchup for
20:54Jokic. If you look at the tracking data, he killed Porzingis, he killed Al. They just don't have a
20:59good matchup for him. As great as Luka is, and Luka will have big games in the NBA finals,
21:05the Celtics probably have one of the best defenders in the league to guard him in Jalen Brown.
21:09We saw Jalen. I know that in the last game he had the 30 plus points, but he did it on like
21:1530 shots and 11 free throw attempts. Luka was inefficient and Jalen was actually better
21:20offensively. He actually dropped Luka in that game. I'm not saying he's going to shut him
21:24down for a series, but he's a legit defender on Luka. When you look at the flip side,
21:28if you had gotten Denver, you don't have a matchup for him. I do think that Kyrie,
21:32obviously that would be just a fascinating. I can't believe we're here with Kyrie after
21:36everything that's transpired with him since he left the Celtics. I can't believe he's in this
21:39position and I give him credit. I can't believe I'm saying this. He's been outstanding. I just
21:43look at Dallas and I don't think that the way that they won game one, they could never play
21:49that way against the Celtics where they dared Minnesota to shoot, right? They said Minnesota
21:54took their most threes, I think in the entire season, but definitely in the post season.
21:58They were hitting a lot of them in the first half, but they said, hey, let's play the numbers. Well,
22:02if it's the Celtics and you have Kristaps Porzingis healthy and you have, or at least
22:07back in the lineup in some capacity, you have Jalen and I know Tatum's not shooting it well,
22:11but Drew and Derek White, you cannot play that way. You can't just surrender three point shots
22:16to those guys. I think it'd be an awfully difficult matchup in terms of
22:19just what Luca can do because he just, he's so good in the pick and roll, keeping the defender
22:24on his back. And then that little floater game he has, I do think they have really good personnel,
22:29obviously for Kyrie Kyrie outside of that one game, the game one that the Celtics beat the
22:34nets. Remember that where they had the buzzer beater from Tatum smart to Tatum. He was awesome
22:38in that game after that, like he really hasn't played well against the Celtics. And obviously
22:43he's on a great stretch right now, but I think they have multiple guys. Derek White drew holiday
22:47that they could throw on Kyrie Irving. I would take the Celtics to win that series. I said before
22:52the playoffs, I would take the Celtics to beat anybody out of the West besides Denver. I feel
22:56like Minnesota would be an easier matchup for the Celtics because I know they have the size and all
23:00that. I just, well, there's a physicality with their defense that interests me. Like they can
23:07yeah. And especially with the new way they're calling the game.
23:10That's true. Very true. I just think on the flip side,
23:13offensively, they don't have enough playmaking that they can like Mike Conley can set the table,
23:18but he's, you're not scared of him as a score. Right. And we saw Anthony Edwards. He had a
23:22really difficult time against that. And really, if you look at his last four games, he's averaging
23:2720 a game and he's shooting 34% from the floor and 33% from deep as teams have just decided,
23:33Hey, we're going to load up on them. And he's not, he will be a great playmaker in his career.
23:38And he does rack up some assist numbers, but he's not a great passer at this point in time. And like
23:43think about the maturation of Tatum, like the way that Tatum is flying. And I know we just
23:47talked about how poorly he's shooting the ball, but the reads that data makes the passes data
23:52makes these are passes he didn't have earlier in his career. Like when he can throw it from
23:56the right wing to the left corner, or he has that whip pass where he comes off a screen on the right
24:02and throws it back to the left wing. These are things that he didn't have at the beginning of
24:05his career. Even two years ago, I get caught up on the Tatum stuff because listen, I think all the
24:10criticisms fair, but it goes to another level where you have those couple of Edwards weeks.
24:16And it's like, Ooh, here comes Edwards to get Tatum. And it's like, he's 22. And I know he's
24:20ahead of schedule here, but this is kind of the bump in the road. You hit the wall, you hit when
24:26you're 22 and you're on the cusp of a championship guys just don't do it at that age. And some of the
24:31limitations in his game right now are reason why Minnesota probably can't win a title right now.
24:37Yeah. Well, and the other component is Tatum at 23, he was not good against the Warriors in the
24:42finals, but he did destroy Kevin Durant. The same thing that Anthony Edwards did,
24:47except if you go back, he held Durant to three of 18 shooting as the primary defender and he swept
24:54Durant and they made it all the way to the NBA finals before, of course, he didn't have a good
24:57series, but it's almost like Tatum because he had so much success early. He isn't allowed like the
25:03maturation process at all these, like, I think people assume he's 28 or 29 years old. But like,
25:09if you look at the history of the league, Steph Curry wanted 26, Giannis wanted 26, Jordan wanted
25:1527, LeBron wanted 27. This is sort of the order of operations. Like this team to their credit
25:22was ahead of schedule. I'm not saying that it's an excuse this year. If they don't want a
25:25championship, like Tatum will deserve, if they don't win it, it'll be partially because Tatum
25:29didn't perform. Right. So he'll deserve that criticism. But it's almost like Anthony Edwards,
25:34the comparisons were crazy. It was Dwayne Wade. And then it was like, wait, hold on.
25:39Let's go. Let's, let's go another level with Michael Jordan. I'm like, what? And then like
25:43the debate, who would you rather take in the series? Luca or Anthony? Who's the best player
25:47in the series? Luca or Anthony Edwards? I'm like, Luca Nantes is a five time all NBA first teamer.
25:54And we're now saying that Anthony Edwards, because he beat a son's team that was a complete mess
25:59that fired its coach. And then they beat a Denver team that give them a ton of credit for that. But
26:04that team was incredibly arrogant with their approach to the season. They just thought their
26:08young guys are going to be good. They had no depth whatsoever on that team. And the reason
26:12that that team was fatigued is because those guys are playing way too much. Jokic playing 76 games,
26:1747 minutes in a game seven. Like that's a very impressive win for a Minnesota, but
26:22we're acting like they had already, like Anthony Edwards had already arrived. Like he had done
26:27more than Jason Tatum and Luca Nantes combined. Like we saw Luca a couple of years ago,
26:31carry that Dallas team to, uh, Western conference finals. Remember he took out Phoenix,
26:36the champs from the previous year. Right? Yeah. It's funny to think,
26:40as you say that Minnesota delivered Boston, its last championship with the KG trade.
26:46If they deliver another one here by being Denver, that's going to be pretty funny. Um,
26:49but I'll take Randy ball. Yeah. Um, I'm excited for the weeks ahead here.
26:56Finals. There's nothing like it. Celtics look like they're on the verge of it. We'll talk about
27:00it more later with Brian Barrett, but appreciate him stopping by here today. I'm off to Fenway
27:04tonight, Brian, for the first time in this series. So we'll see what that nice little, uh, socks,
27:11Brewers cutter Crawford on the mountain. Yeah, I'll take it. They've been competitive. It's all
27:15I can ask for, I guess right now. So I'm going to stop by and see what the park's looking like.
27:19Um, appreciate it, Brian. Always a great to talk to you. Check out his, uh, off the pike podcast
27:26over there on the ringer as he continues to cover the Celtics playoff run here and probably a little
27:31red socks this summer too, if they're able to stay in the race. Um, thanks everybody for being here.
27:35We're off to Indiana for game three. So we'll see you out there tomorrow with coverage of game three
27:40and after the game, uh, here on CNS media in the garden report. Uh, we'll talk to you then.