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A lot of attacking the rim for Dallas, getting easier shots around the basket. But that classic Boston driving kick attack and excellent defense gets... a big what was it where they were up 21 in the early fourth quarter a little bit of a classic Boston meltdown a bunch of bad isolation possessions Dallas gets going a little bit but at the end Luka fouls out Boston just seeming it kind of reminded me of that Pacers series where they just kind of took control of the game late with a few good defensive possessions and a few quality driving kicks and all of a sudden you the Celtics are up 3-0 in the final. So, Colin, what's your biggest takeaway after game three? Yeah, well, I mean, you can't be a lopsided team, and they're completely lopsided. When Shaq and Kobe were winning championships, or Michael and Scotty, there were a lot of helpers. I mean, good God, you could go to Ron Harper, could drop 20, and Kukoc, and Kerr, and Paxson. You know, there were just other guys that could contribute. I mean, the first half. it was 51-50 at half, and it was Boston against Luka and Kyrie. So I think you just can't be that lopsided. And I also think, to your point, my first takeaway is it's just too much. I wrote this down in the fourth quarter. Luka looked cooked, and he's not a good defensive player, but he doesn't slide quick enough. He doesn't get in great position, and he can complain. A couple times in the first half, he complained. so much that he got behind on defense and got burned. But I think what we're finding out is Dallas had the things that they did against Minnesota they just can't do against Boston. We saw them beat an old team, a young team, a big team. They don't have the personnel to match up on either end of the floor. They just don't. This is just a mismatch, and I think it starts begging the question is, what do we do with Boston? This is one of the great runs by a team ever. is it an Eastern conference that's weak or have we undervalued just how good their, their seven person rotation, you know, if Porzingis and Horford are off the bench, that's a pretty good seven, right? Yeah, I think Boston's really, really good. And I think a couple of underrated elements they have, with the exception of some brief stretches, they had an ugly stretch in the middle of game one, they had an ugly stretch, obviously, in the early fourth quarter here in game three, but they've been playing a lot of grown up basketball, which was something they were a little bit inconsistent with over the course of the regular season. And both Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum have understood their job, which is get the defense in rotation, just so that everyone can play with an advantage. And then a big part of it, too, is Jalen Brown's rise like we, you know, there's been so much talk about Tatum and there's no doubt that like, I think the fact that his jumper has been so often, he's having like a really bad jump shooting playoff run. I pulled this out on my show the other day, but this is the fourth consecutive season where we've seen a decline year over year from on his jump shooting. And so he's kind of just like going through something with his jump shot. That's messing with parts of his game. But I think the major story is less about like Tatum being. lower, but more about Jalen's rising into that tier. I think you could, like, if you were, it used to be for me that Jalen Brown was in that third tier of stars. He wasn't one of the best guys in the league. He wasn't in that list of like all the flawed superstars. He was something beneath that. And basically the entire second half of the season and this entire playoff run, he's been playing at Jason Tatum's level right up there as one of those, that, that second tier of stars in the league. And that just is another infusion of talent that just makes it that much harder. to deal with. And like, again, like I do want to talk about Lucas defense and I think it's an important kind of discussion about his personal development, but I want to start by just kind of just pointing out that Boston is optimizing themselves. They're playing to the best that they are capable of with this group. And that's what makes them so difficult to beat. I do think you made a good point about the matchups though. Like Dallas did get an old injured Clippers team, a Thunder team, which by the way, pushed them pretty hard. and but but they're young and some of their younger players really struggled on the offensive end and then Minnesota as we discussed that nauseam was just a nightmare matchup Dallas was a nightmare matchup for them because they could protect the rim and that's a huge weakness for a team in Minnesota that was literally 17th on offense in the regular season so like I they finally ran into a team that could actually push their specific weaknesses and I think that's probably one of my biggest takeaways from this entire postseason run is like you have to be able to win different ways. You have to be able to play different ways. You have to be able to beat different types of teams. And Dallas was good enough to beat the matchups they got out in the West, but they were not good enough to beat a team that could really spread them out and test their- Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons I always consider Jalen sort of a second tier guy, not a third, but I think- it's a little like D Wade is that D Wade could score 25. It was never beautiful. A lot of mid range playing way bigger. You know, he punched way above his weight physically. Most of the great scores, Michael and bird, uh, uh, Kareem, though not pretty dominant. Um, they either have one or two go-to shots or they're pretty. I mean, Carmelo was pretty offensively Steph. historically, the great scores have just either been unique or they just can do something nobody else can. D. Wade and Jalen Brown are very strong, can be a little streaky. play both ends, highly resourceful, but it's not aesthetically beautiful. It's a tough, physical 27. They just bang into people. They're on the floor. And we punish people. James Harden, it's just Kobe. It's just, oh, this is like, I've never seen anything like it. and I think Jalen Brown to me is a little D Wade where you look up and you're like, man, that guy, that guy plays big. That guy's tough. That guy's strong. That guy's physical. You know, D Wade was not always the best player on his team. He played with Shaq. He played with LeBron, but there were nights D Wade was the best player on the floor. And that's how I feel with Jalen Brown. I think it's just one of those things that Jalen Brown deserves credit for his game. He has worked at his craft. You know what I mean? Like he's like a radio star with a bad voice. Like, like he just worked out, worked people because that jumper initially in the league, you know, he, I, out of Cal, I told you, he looked like a football player. I was just like, damn, this guy is strong. He has worked his butt off. I mean, D Wade went to little Marquette. He goes to Cal. These are guys, these are not like guys that are going to UNC at a high school or UCLA. So. I think Jalen is, and frankly, aggressive as we say matters, and he's really aggressive. That dunk, I wrote it down here somewhere, that dunk by him. my god that's like epic you know ESPN classic you know that's like okay that's an all-time YouTube play yeah i i would i would i would attribute jalen brown's kind of increased you know like just just the rise that he's taken in the season down to three things first of all he's defending at an insane on the senator he hasn't guarded like this since the 2020 season except for he's smarter and a little bit bigger now so he's even better at it the second piece of it is understanding his best advantage which is he is just a better athlete than everybody so doing things like crashing the offensive glass, had a huge offensive rebound putback in crunch time. Just beating people off the dribble. Remember in game two, it was that drive pass Maxi Kliba for the left-handed finish. That was a huge play in that game. And then the third piece of it, and this I think, this is one of my favorite things about the game of basketball, is that pursuit of adding something to your game and seeing it come to fruition on the biggest stage. Jalen Brown worked really hard over the last couple of years to become a mid-range post-up fadeaway jump shooter. And he paid his dues behind the scenes by himself, one-on-one work. And here in this season, he was actually the best post-up fadeaway jump shooter in the league based on points per shot attempt. And I thought it was really cool to see a game here where Dallas gets it down to one after Kyrie made that floater. I think it was 93-92. And he hit two massive post-up fadeaway jump shots. One was out of the post and one was kind of like a step back, but he hit two massive pull-up mid-range jump shots to close that game out. And I guarantee you there was a moment there for him where he kind of looked in and was like, this is why I put in all that work. It paid off. He put in the work. He got better. He gave his team a better chance to win the title. End of story. I want to shift to the Luka thing for a second because, like, I sympathize with this play. to a certain extent. I have all the offensive responsibilities, so obviously I can't just be an all-world defensive player. But we're not asking Luka to be an all-world defensive player. There's a certain baseline level of effort that you need just to have your teams be able to function as a defense. And so many people have made it about Luka versus Tatum, and like, oh, well, Tatum's struggling to guard Luka too. That's fine, but that's not what this issue is. The issue is Dallas can't beat Boston. unless Luca plays better defense. And you saw the stat that was going around. Luca got blown by more times in game two of the NBA finals than any player had in over 10 years. Tonight, just like falling asleep on Sam Houser. He's literally guarding one of their best shooters in the corner one pass away. He's not even looking at him. He's like five steps away, not even looking at him. There's a play where Drew Holliday is just running in circles around him, getting offensive rebounds as Luca's not paying attention on the defensive glass. not sprinting back in transition, complaining at the referees, even like that last play, you know, you have five fouls and Jalen Brown's trying to drive past you and you're throwing your body in front of him and knocking him over. Even if you think that that's a charge, you put the whistle in the ref's mouth. Like you, you made him make a call. I've just so disappointed in his performance in those areas. And all I heard all year is, and I watched him in the regular season, and I did think he played better defense. Playoff basketball, you start getting to conference finals and finals, it's a whole different ballgame. First of all, you're fatigued. You're now into a hundred games. Like, you're now tired. um also the games are more intense it becomes really possession basketball so you can't take plays off so it's a it's a great example when i hear people say well luca's uh defense it was a lot better this year he committed in the regular season but this league's getting younger younger players are less refined you don't have to be a great defensive player in the regular season against about 70 of this league boston completely exposes you defensively like everybody can score. I mean, they're big shoot. Everybody can shoot. They're bench guys. So it's, it does show you the gap between, you know, the conference finals and the finals and everything else you are. You're just, it's a different level. I mean, Michael Jordan, and I've said this before, Michael Jordan's legacy is, you know, if Michael would have played in the Western conference, not the Eastern, he, you know. he doesn't go six for six, right? He would have faced the Pistons and the Celtics perhaps in the finals. So his legacy is built on six for six. We just say he's the best player. Even though Russell won 11, LeBron does everything better. So it does, your legacy is largely framed by finals and Western Conference finals. This has been, this is going to stick to him. like he was atrocious defensively in these finals. And that's going to stick. That's why I say my comp to him is he's a better Carmelo Anthony. I don't think he's in great shape. I don't think he's easy to play with. I don't think he's committed on the defensive end. The difference is he can shoot the three Carmelo refused to. And he's better than Carmelo. Carmelo was an elegant score. He was a beautiful offensive player. And, but, you know, he was threatened by Jeremy Lin. So. I'll stick by this. It's not a perfect comp, but this is going to stick. I mean, if we're going to bang on Tatum and he's going to win the finals, then we've got to bang on Luka, who's going to get swept and is atrocious defensively. well and it was it was specifically one of the major issues for why they couldn't guard Boston and that's the thing like to the point that I made earlier in the show like when I talk about being able to win different ways I'm mainly talking about the defensive end you have to be able to guard different teams like because guess what you are going to face a Jokic in one round that is like this bizarre kind of like post-up force and then you might face the Warriors in the second round it's going to be Steph Curry flying around screens and he's going to be shooting all these threes and they're going to be inverting and running a lot of four on threes with Draymond rolling down the middle of the floor, right? And it's like, all of a sudden you play Minnesota. Here's Anthony Edwards, this old school two guard. And then you play a team like Boston. It's like no true superstar, but five great offensive players that are going to spread you out, right? So it's like, you do have to be able to guard in different ways. It doesn't matter if you can play a role in the regular season, you have to be able to beat four playoff teams. And again, as I mentioned earlier, I understand the offensive responsibility angle. Here's where I disagree with that as an excuse. this is the way your team is built. Your team is constructed so that you and Kyrie do everything offensively. You can't ask PJ Washington to create offense. You can't ask Derek Lively, Daniel Gafford, Josh Green, Derek Jones Jr. That's not their job. They are play finishers who play defense. And so by design, this team needs you to do a bunch offensively. So if you're going to get to the promised land, your goal of winning the title. you have to find a way to do that and guard. And this is, again, something I love about NBA history. Every superstar we've seen has encountered their greatest weakness, their greatest vice, right? MJ and Kobe, it was are they willing to trust their teammates when it matters, right? For LeBron, it was the jumper. He had to literally have Greg Popovich ignore him at the three-point line in 2008 and then again in 2013 before he conquered those demons. and became the basketball player that he needed to be. Even like Steph Curry and Nikola Jokic had to learn how to be better defensively. Luka Doncic has to take better care of his body so that he can hold up better physically over the course of an 82-game regular season and playoff run so that he can do his job on offense while also being, at the very least, a functional part of the defense. He does not need to be all world. He just needs to be better. And I think this is what happens. If you look at most of the great players, Kobe and Duncan and Michael, and you can go back in the history of time, many of them, LeBron were great defensive players in their prime. Others bird and Steph Curry weren't, but they worked at it. They were good team defenders, right? Like, you cannot find... an NBA champion with your best player is an awful defender. Like, I don't know if one exists. I mean, Giannis defends. I mean, look at Jokic, by the way. I think, you know, Jokic gets a bad rap, but his girth creates, you know, he bangs on a lot of people. He may not move his feet as well as you'd like. I don't think he's a bad defensive player. I don't. I think he's okay. But, again, Gordon's excellent. Porter can defend. you can't, you're not going to win a championship. By the way, Kyrie, people say he's excellent defender. He doesn't look as great in this series. Again, he's been bad in this series. So it's almost like in the NFL, we fall in love when quarterbacks run around, but eventually against better defenses and better defensive coordinators, you have to do most of your work in the pocket. Mahomes will run every Super Bowl fourth quarter because he can. but he understands it. But we fall in love with running quarterbacks because it's so damn exciting. I love Jared Goff. It's not exciting. Lamar Jackson, I like watching him play. It's the same here. We fall in love with offense because it does win in the regular season. And it does win championships. But at some point, you're going to face a roster that's going to expose you. And so whether it's running around as a quarterback or scoring these points, ball usage, there's a price. Harden, worn out, Luka. I mean, let's be honest about Luka Biondi. He looks gassed. He looks tired. He looks, you know, so. I don't want to pick on him because he's obviously a gifted player, but this is the difference. When Jokic lost that series with Minnesota, there was nothing to really pick on, right? Like you're like, well, they led by 20. Like there's a reason we're picking on Luka. There's a reason we're tough on Tatum. And let's move to Tatum. I think to your point, I do think he's, this is a confidence thing. Like he doesn't, you know, he had a couple of big baskets late. but it is interesting. It does create an interesting scenario. Is you're watching your teammate crush. He's got a better matchup, right? And you're sitting there thinking, well, his matchup's better. It's kind of fun. I'm conserving energy. And the truth is we have huge leads. How often do they need me? Now in the fourth tonight, he had a dunk at the rim. He had a couple of big shots. So they did need him and he delivered. but you can see, you know, in these mismatches early, Jason, he's sitting around, you know, these stars, LeBron does it. They conserve. They're like, I can conserve. They haven't needed him. They needed him in the fourth quarter, a couple of big baskets. And he delivered tonight. Yeah. We've talked about this before, but like I, it don't, it really dawned on me about two thirds of the way through this season, or I was thinking. for all the flaws that Tatum has as a, like tonight, it was kind of infuriating to watch him just repeatedly settle for that pull up three point shot, even though he literally hasn't been able to make it for like three years. And, but it's like, he's kind of the perfect guy for this group because you need someone that's absolutely willing to feel out whether like he will not grab the reins unless everyone else is falling apart. like if someone else has it going, he'll just keep going to that guy. And like, and so he's kind of in a weird way, like for this particular group, he's the type of superstar that kind of actually does float all the boats higher. He does kind of just seem to, by virtue of his willingness to kind of just disappear into different roles based on what that game needs. It's made it so that this team, because again, my fear with Boston was Will they be able to do this? Will they be able to play drive and kick basketball and trust each other and avoid the bad ISO threes and play defense the way they need to? And they have. And I mean, if again, like, I feel like everything comes back to like what conversation we're having. If we're having the conversation is Tatum, one of the best, like two or three players in the world, then yeah, it's like, we got to be a little bit more nitpicky. That's why we're talking about Luca. You're wondering what you said. You don't want to pick on Luca. this is a pretty low bar that we're asking here. Like we're not saying you need to be all world. You just can't be like highlight real bad on the defensive end of the floor. Like that, that's what we're talking about. And so again, within the context of where Tatum is in this league, I think he's done a beautiful job. And we also have to have the conversation now. You can't roll through the playoffs like this. I mean, they were 23 and seven against the West. I think if you count the playoffs 44 and 11 against the East and they're just like, a hot knife through margarine in the playoffs, you do have to have a conversation like... have we sort of undervalued just how good they are? And I was thinking tonight when Horford had a big, I think a defensive player, a rebound late. And I'm like, dude, he's like their seventh. I mean, their games, I mean, it's like. That stop on Kyrie. It's like, geez, this team's got a lot of, it reminds me a little bit when Andre Iguodala was the MVP in the Warriors. Finally, you're like, you're a pretty deep team when you're bench guy. They aren't as electric or aesthetically pleasing as the Warriors. but I'm telling you, they have more good shooters than the Warriors. The Warriors just had the best shooter on the planet and the best catch and shoot. The Warriors probably had three of the four better shooters if they matched, but if you're going seven deep, I just don't think NBA teams, Jason, this is a younger league, they're not equipped to beat Boston. It's almost like the league got caught flat-footed when they added Drew. and Porzingis, and even without him tonight, you're like, it's just, it's a young league. People don't have that many wing defenders, you know, and by the way, wing defenders has been for about three years, what the league wants. Well, nobody's trading when they get them. Nobody's giving them up. So it's like, there are excellent wing defenders in the league. Boston just happens to have like four and they have seven shooters. So I do feel like the Celtics to some degree kind of have caught the league flat-footed by upgrading at the Marcus Smart position, upgrading at Porzingis, who didn't play, so Dallas scored low tonight, a couple lobs returned. But we've got to be honest about this. It's a moment in time. the league can't defend this team. They're just, when they're playing ball movement Celtic basketball, like that second quarter, nobody's stopping this team. Nobody. yeah, I think this is probably the first NBA team I've ever seen that can credibly run a full rotation, like a literally a full eight man rotation where every single player can dribble shoot everything as well. Like it's, it's, it's truly a unique combination. And so to your point that I don't think NBA teams are prepared for that. Now I've been, I've, I've been thinking a lot about where I would rank Boston among other champions over the course of the last couple of days. And it's complicated because I do think this team appears more dominant than they actually are in the sense that the bottom of the East was extraordinarily weak. So they racked up a ton of wins there to the Eastern conference, had five good teams. Four of them ended up on the other side of the bracket. So they only had to play one of them. And that team was injured. Those teams all beat the heck out of each other. The Celtics had two easy first round opponents. Also, I think you and I would both agree that Minnesota and Denver would have presented more issues. Boston and Dallas would have like. Minnesota has the personnel to contain on the perimeter, which is like literally what you have to do to beat Boston. So I do think like when I was thinking about it, like I, there are teams that are somewhat more limited in recent champions like that warriors team with Steph. I didn't think that was a great roster. I thought that was just Steph literally just like just hit the peak of his play there in that game for, and obviously a deserving champion, but Steph was that team that was not a super talented team. the 2021 bucks, that was the COVID year, a bunch of good teams and good players were out. But I think, I think like, I think Boston has a case to be better than that. Like Denver Lakers Raptors here that we have in the last few years, my one pushback on that would be those were awesome teams that also had the undisputed best player in the world on them at that time. Cause in 2019, LeBron was hurt. You could make the case. Kawhi was that guy, right? Like Jokic last year, probably still the best player in the world. LeBron in 2020, I thought was the best player in the world. So that's the one thing that complicates that discussion. That said, to your point, in terms of the league being flat footed, you got to beat Boston to win the title. so you better have guys that can guard on the perimeter and even your weak links better be able to at least do something within the scheme like funnel to the right spot like compete on the glass get back in transition and so i think that if there's something that dallas has to learn from this and luca specifically if you're going to like boston's probably going to be heavily favored to win the east again next year and so that so that means if you're going to encounter this team again you better be ready for this challenge and I think that's going to be something they're going to have to look into again Luka individually all these teams like uh teams like the Lakers that have like always they're always playing two or three bad perimeter defenders that could be a nightmare if you ran into Boston for whatever reason team uh teams like Denver like Denver even I would have been interested to see this matchup because of seeing Jokic guard in space seeing Jamal Murray guard in space seeing Michael Porter Jr. guard in space and so all of these teams I think are going to be looking at it and like, we got to get more athletic on the perimeter. Yeah. So let's talk a little Jerry West. 86 years old by now, everybody has seen the stories. One of the things that really jumped out to me this week was how badly the Lakers have butchered their coaching search. And I thought they sort of butchered the death of Jerry West. They were very late on sending out something like four to five hours late. And, um, I had a discussion with somebody yesterday and they said, you know, to preserve the bus, Jerry bus legacy, Jeannie may want to consider selling. She can't compete financially. It's, it's not an elite front office. Um, you know, the Clippers office, the executive suite has far more people, far richer owner going into a new arena. Um, it's, they're just not, I, I, I look at the Lakers, uh, very petty with Jerry West. Come on, he's the logo. Um, and I never faulted them when Phil Jackson and Jerry West, you know, they, they, you know, there's reports. That's not who Jerry would have hired. They were never built to get along, right. That, that was never going to work. I get it. Um, but I thought between this coaching search, which has been embarrassing. I mean, when you go after a college coach and you can't bid more than Kentucky does, I mean, this is the law. California is the largest economy in the country. Los Angeles, I think is the biggest single city economy. Maybe it's San Francisco or Silicon Valley, but I thought that was embarrassing. And I thought they handled the Jerry West thing poorly. Um, and I will say this, I reached out to a couple of people today. Um, because it happened right before I went on the show, so I didn't get text during the show. But what people really said was... is that if you think of how long Jerry West was in basketball, it's like, it's like eight to 86, like, you know, eight years old, 86. And that all those, the tough childhood, the brutal childhood, lost his brother, his dad, verbally and physically abusive. It, um, that kind of isolates you. Like you feel like you're on an island. You don't trust dad and there's loss of life in the family. Jerry became a great friend and a great listener and a great ally to players. And I don't think that ever left him. I mean, I think to the very end, it's pretty remarkable when an 80 year old man is revered by 23 year old men. That's really rare. I mean, it's one thing if you're like, you know, you landed on the moon, you're an astronaut, you know, we all have these iconic figures. But for people in your industry to still like, hey, let's get Jerry West on the phone. And I think Jerry's rough childhood created this sort of metal and steel. You know, he said a lot of people say they're dogs. He goes, I was a wolf. I ate dogs. There's a toughness with Jerry, and I wouldn't want to go his path to get it. but I mean, he, he, the word I got from two people today was like, he was relentless. If Jerry wanted something you know, that movie Rick Buecher said today, he was called the logo and El Loco. Like he, like they were both nicknames. So but I guess going back to my, my point with the Lakers, I thought they were really petty on his death. Like you can be petty in life. Don't be petty when somebody dies. Like tell your ex-wife, your ex-husband if they pass, that's the day that you show some grace in class, right? Even if you've had acrimony in a relationship. yeah again it's a low bar it's a low bar it's the day that he died you're expecting more than that i you know obviously obviously jerry was one of the original psycho competitors the guys that are just wired a certain way that obviously led to their success i you know what fascinates me with him too is he's just one of the most respected basketball minds that ever came into the league and he's got his fingerprints on all of these weird turning points in NBA history. For instance, he was basically the guy that put Kobe and Shaq together. I don't know if you remember this, but he was the guy that stopped the Warriors from trading Klay Thompson. He said he'd remember that. yeah like that was a huge like that was a huge turning point in the history of the NBA had they made that deal because I mean as I think Kevin Love is a little underrated in NBA history but he wasn't Clay and Clay obviously was a natural fit with that team say what you want about the Clippers their failures have primarily had to do with health but like I mean if the Clippers ever could stay healthy and together with Kawhi at the top of his game they would have just been a better version of the Celtics team and like he he's how rare is it to, to see an older guy who's been around the league that long, who's that, who's got that much of his finger on the pulse of where the game of basketball is heading. Because that's so unique because usually it's the older guys that are, you know, still run an eye formation and playing with pace and they're stubborn. Yeah, exactly. And he's, he was the guy that was just kind of ahead of the curve in all of those different ways. And like, that's what I'll always remember about Jerry West is if you're. right in the short list of the guys that were the basketball geniuses in the history of the league. He's just on the short list. Yeah, there was a humility about him. You know, it's weird to say, but you can be really confident and simultaneously humble. You can't be arrogant and humble, but you can be confident and humble. And he straddled that line where, and again, his childhood probably had a lot to do with that. You know, you're very grateful when you kind of feel like you escape tough times. And. You know, it's like when they, you know, I was a child of divorce, not to bring it back to me, but when you're a child of divorce, it doesn't matter how much you make. You remember not being able to afford like cleats in high school and having to borrow a friend's. Like you remember having to wear like ripped shorts and PE class because your mom and dad were divorced. Like, I don't care if you're 70, that shit doesn't go away. Like that Tom Brady to this day. has a chip on his shoulder. Went in the sixth round. He could win 30 Super Bowls. It just doesn't matter. So it's sometimes really bad parenting and bad situations create jet fuel and humility and gratefulness. And I think Jerry had all of those things. And, yeah. Well. he won't have to watch the Celtics hoist a trophy, I guess there, Jerry, because I know he didn't like that. I guess, you know, listen, we're going to. Boston has had a great deal of success. The Red Sox don't feel like they're in that stratosphere, but between New England and the Celtics, you know, I said this before the series, the Celtics were too good not to win one. They're too weird to win four. And this thing will eventually break up. Porzingis'health, Derek White will get paid for by somebody. They're just too good not to win. And in this NBA, you know, I watched them tonight. when they are moving the ball, like the second quarter, I mean, I, my notepad, I was, I'm watching it with my daughter. I'm like, this is insane. This is like, this is like, I mean, this is like, if you're in a gym and a bunch of college guys come in and start playing against non-players and you're like, God, everybody's, everybody's great. Like there was a point you're like, this could be a 40 point game. This is Dallas. The crowd just went quiet. I think Boston's too good, too good not to win a title. yeah and we were on that over the last couple of years it was they were gonna get one with this group as soon as they made poor zingas drew holiday trade it just felt like inevitable that once in the next three years they were gonna get one it's just a question of when and like and you know i think i again i think that i think that it really came down to all season long it was whether or not boston was going to play to their strengths when it mattered and they did the jalen brown that we know he's capable of being he's been the jalen brown that we know he's capable of being like Drew Holiday, was he going to be a clunky fit or was he going to be a natural fit? He's a natural fit. By the way, watching Drew Holiday guard Kyrie Irving down the stretch of that game, there's so many highlights now in NBA Finals history from the last few years of just Drew just putting the clamps on people. I thought of this. Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered, don't get greedy. Is this a moment in time? In a weird way for Dallas, this is sort of a, hey, be careful about Kyrie. you got to the finals. This was wonderful. But Jason, he had like, he's had eight bad playoff games like this, like every third game it's bad. And it was atrocious defensively. If there's anything out of this series that you go, oh, okay. It's, you know, if, if Kyrie comes out of this thing, you know, we've seen this with Andrew Wiggins contract here, gets to the finals. It's the minute he got the bag, he's never been the same player. Like This is a reminder, Kyrie's not good defensively. He can be streaky. He's very hot and cold. He can fall in those Boston games in Boston. He gets very ISO very quickly. Just, you know, again, you got to the finals with him. As I was watching this, I thought there were times tonight I'm like, this isn't the worst thing for Dallas. This isn't. And now you'd say, well, Porzingis, Brunson, Kyrie can't. Well, he got to the finals. Did you ever, I mean, did you ever, I don't know. I'm watching the game tonight and I'm thinking, I'm trying to think of positives for Dallas. And my positive is, well, they're not going to sign Kyrie to a massive extension in a year. Right? yeah i think i i think that kairi has been a lot more good than bad in this postseason run i also think he was pretty good tonight uh for the most part again the defense has he scored a lot in the first half yeah he did he was a big part of how they got that early lead but there's he had two absolute stinkers in Boston and there's just no way around it and like the hard part too is that it looked like the crowd got to him a little bit my bigger fear with Dallas and this is by the way this is not this is not just emotion speaking this is just what NBA history has told us there hasn't been a since since KD left the Warriors there hasn't been a team in the West that's even made it twice so like it's a different team every year. It's like, oh, here's the Lakers. Oh, here's Phoenix. Oh, here's Golden State. Oh, here's Denver. Here's Dallas. Next year, Memphis is coming. John Morant's coming back. Jaron Jackson and Desmond Bain are getting better. They're going to be right there in the mix with everybody. Oklahoma City wouldn't be surprised if they were the one seed again next year, not to mention they have a trade to make. The Lakers are probably going to do something to go all in. Who knows what the Clippers are going to do heading into their new arena. There's so many good teams. in the Western Conference and like you trick yourself into thinking like oh we're just going to be there every year like I I would be shocked if Dallas made it back to the finals next year would you first of all Denver is already favored and Denver will make they'll make an addition and Denver led by 20 in game seven against Minnesota and matches up much better with Boston also with Boston we have to be honest Porzingis's health is a real issue this is not a new thing like this is this is who he is also it's different after you win it is hard you know people take a little off season you know make a little longer off season that's just the reality I mean Jalen Brown signed a max played great you know, it's, he may not equal that. So also I think the Knicks will get another player. And I think the Knicks can be physical enough, could be a real pain in the ass for Boston and the playoffs, the way they play, if they can stay healthy and be physical. So Philadelphia has got cap space, Milwaukee, Dame, Giannis, probably both don't get hurt. And I think everybody in the West getting better. I mean, OKC is interesting. They, they have enough draft capital. They're good. They could get great. with the right addition like like that like so yeah i think i think um listen i had boston in six it looks like boston in four but um this this nba which is more international and and more parody i'm here for it you know i i i sat there tonight and i'm like if dallas comes back and wins you got to be kidding me like for for two and a half quarters i'm like god boston is this is this is warrior like with kd this is a machine and then they just got into this awful iso like bad like i'm talking like 12 out of 14 shots you're like that fallaways like like i'm like missoula time out get a set play what do we do and then you know tatum hit a couple jalen horford a big defensive play but um I mean, I think this turned out sort of how we thought it's just been quicker. Well, it should have been more competitive, but we all knew this would happen. You're right. And like, again, all eyes for me are on Luka. If he comes into camp next year and looks physically different, that'll tell me a lot about what he's learned about his game and what he needs to do if he's serious about getting to the promised land. I'll be excited to see that. All right, guys, that's all we have for tonight. This NBA Finals Game 3 Instant Reaction was brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited. Unlimited 1.5. percent cash back is just the beginning cash back three percent on dining including takeout three percent at drugstores five percent on chase travel and 1.5 percent on everything else how do you cash back all right everybody have a good night we'll be back tomorrow morning to get a little bit