June 14, 2024 • 42 mins
With Boston on the brink of an NBA Finals sweep, Marc Stein connects with Celtics radio play-by-play voice Sean Grande for a full Game 4 preview and a comprehensive look at the Celtics' season-to-date ... how they got here and how, in Grande's view, we should have seen this sort of playoff run coming.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to this League uncut in the world of twenty
four hour NBA news.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is you, Lo.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Chris Hans. It's come time, work's time, It's so time.
This League uncut is underway and on fire. This should
be a good one.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Jalab Brown thirteen points in the corner, switches to the
left hand. Jalen tries right the mail class over Green,
throws it down with the right hand and puts a
signature punctuation.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Mark on a dominant third quarter.
Speaker 5 (00:38):
Everyone, welcome in to another edition of this League uncut.
Mark Stein here operating solo, taping this on Thursday night,
on the eve of Game four in these NBA Finals,
operating solo in terms of our normal cast.
Speaker 6 (00:57):
But I do have a special guest. He is the
play by play radio voice of the Boston Celtics, the
same Celtics who have stormed to a three to zero
lead in these finals. Who can complete the first sweep
in the finals that we've seen since twenty eighteen if
they can win Friday night in Dallas. A hearty this
(01:21):
league uncut.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Welcome to my former One time I can actually say
this and not be It sounds ridiculous, but it is
actually true. My former one time radio partner on a
Celtics A real live Celtics radio broadcast, the one and
only Sean Grandy.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You're on the list, man, You're on the all time
partner list. I granted, I've done twenty two hundred games
of Cedric Maxwell, you and I have only done one,
but it's all. It's if you're on the list, You're
on the list.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
Man, Hey man, I was proud to do it. I
was honored when you asked me. It was four or
five years ago when Max was not on the road
with you, and you were in Dallas high high high
above the floor, in the very unwelcome radio position at
the AAC, and you asked me to join you. And
that was actually the first time I had ever tried
(02:11):
to do radio analyst work. And then this in these playoffs,
I had the same opportunity. I got to do three
games alongside MAVs radio play by play voice Chuck Cooper Stein.
I got to do three games in the Clippers series.
So I'm up to four career games on radio.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And listen this time of the year. And this is
obviously a big dilemma and a big choice I had
in my life. Over the last couple of years. This
is the one of the things about doing radio and TV.
I love doing both, but it's sort of like, you know,
the dark, dirty secret of the NBA with local television
is you don't get to do any of the good games,
and you don't get to do playoff games beyond maybe
a couple in the first round. And that to me
(02:52):
when people were when I was in this dilemma about
TV radio, what are you going to do? It was,
are you really the voice of the Celtics if you're
just doing the four games against Charlotte no offense, and
not doing the you know, the big ABC games during
the year, and then not doing the playoffs. And I
can't imagine if you're the voice of the Celtics, you're
not sitting at home tomorrow night. You know, you're documenting
(03:16):
the history and you're covering the team, and so that is.
You know, radio may have these terrible broadcast locations and
get you out of your special seat right at the
AAC and force you high upstairs, but I just can't imagine.
I was with Mark follow All the other night, I said,
you're handling it better than I would, because that was
that was The choice I made was that I just
(03:37):
couldn't give up. I wasn't going to give up these
games and telling the stories that matter.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
And that's outwardlyaks, I know it is eating them up
inside it.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
Like you said, every every team's local broadcast squad after
round one they have to step aside because in round
two everything goes national. And like you said, radio still look.
I have a as one tweeter once hit me with
and I I didn't I can't find the tweet, but
it was, I mean, it was such a it was
(04:06):
so cutting that I will never forget it. They said
something like Stein, you gotta face, you gotta you gotta
face for print.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
No, you gotta face for radio and a voice for print.
So I do.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
I am not exactly blessed with a broadcast voice, but
I love radio as a medium. So to have my
four career games as an NBA analyst, I am proud
that those are those. I'm never gonna get to twenty
two hundred or whatever the number is. You are, but
I will take my four, and I'm happy.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You're you're also. I mean, when you look at what
team has the best combination of TV play by play
and radio play by play in the NBA. I'm not
sure you beat Dallas, you know, with Mark and Chuck
are just so you know, legitimately two future Hall of
Fame guys. Liken Averick fans have been really lucky for
a really long time.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
They will love hearing you say that let's get to
this series because man, better get so quick. The Celtics
have been just beyond impressive. I guess I'm you know,
I have to put my hand up and say that
I was one of those skeptics who said I still
need to see these guys do it on the grandest stage.
(05:15):
I have questions about their Eastern Conference path was so easy,
what is it going to look like against a Western
Conference team?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
And whatever questions or skepticisms you want.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
To raise about these guys, they have swatted it all
away really, really impressively.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Tell me what you're seeing.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, the reason that you were skeptical and so many
people were, is because you haven't seen it and you've
had so many shortcomings to see on the big stage
for so many years. But I go back to the
forementioned Cedric Maxwell and I during the fourteen to fifteen season,
when Golden State was starting to play. They were the
way they were playing, they were dominating, and they were
(05:57):
doing it with defense. Somebody was paying attention to that,
But nobody had won playing the way they had won,
and that team hadn't won Golden State hadn't been a
historically good team. Nobody that year, as it was going on,
thought they were gonna win. And I kept telling Max
that year they're gonna win, They're gonna win the championship,
and nobody could buy it because you couldn't picture it
because it hadn't happened twenty four hours from now. I
(06:20):
would imagine the way things are going when the Celtics
and this entire group and the franchise and all the
people involved here go through the looking glass to the
other side, which is a different world, as you know
with Dirk. Once you cross over that line and you
become different people in the history of the game, people
are gonna look back and say, oh, people doubt of
this team. May maybe they're gonna win two championships, maybe three,
(06:40):
we don't know. It's not the point. The point is
that you couldn't picture it because it hasn't happened yet yet.
As I tried to document its this year, went on,
I hope people weren't appreciating it the historical dominance as
it was happening, because they just pushed away with this
brain that said, yeah, but they haven't won the title yet. Yeah,
but something will go wrong when they And all I
(07:01):
kept saying is all year is they've checked every box.
And the end of the sentence was, they've checked every
box of a team that goes on to win the championship.
As I said all year, Maybe they won't win the championship,
but I don't think so, because I've never seen a
team play There's no team in history there's played this
well dominated the way they've had and not one. So
(07:21):
obviously I'm the least surprising person through ninety nine games
about to go into Game one hundred on Friday night
that this is where the Celtics are, because this is
where teams that play this way for ninety nine games
are going into Game one hundred.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
No, it's totally true. I think I wrote it in
the second round. It's all hazy now. I can't remember yesterday,
but totally agree. In the NBA, this is always the
way it is. We doubt you until we see you
do it, and then we probably believe in you too much,
which is kind of what happened with the Nuggets that
we just thought, sure, now they've done it, They've gone
(07:58):
to a new level. And it was out right shock
when they lost three games at home in the second round.
That series with Minnesota was such a roller coaster, and
it was shocked to see the Nuggets and Nikola Jokic
exit the way they did.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But I totally agree with you that, no.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
This Celtics team did not make a run at seventy
three wins, but apart from that, their regular season resume
literally has everything. I mean, it is a historically great season.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And I remember doing a podcast at midseason basically saying,
you know, what if I think people were picturing if
they ever got to the championship that it would be
similar to these playoff runs they've had in each of
the last couple of years the Celtics. In the last
two seasons, Mark won eight elimination games. They faced elimination
and won eight times. And now I remember saying a
(08:55):
midseason what if it's not going to be like that,
what if it's going to be just relatively easy. What
if they cut the same swath through the playoffs that
they do in the regular season, and your mind can't
really picture it. And yet here we are in this
night where they're fifteen and two in the playoffs, and
the real mystery isn't that they're historically dominant to how
they lose the two. Like that second game against Miami,
(09:15):
you play that ten times, they're probably gonna win it
out of ten. It's more amazing if they lost the
two than they that they haven't even come anywhere close
to lose.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
It was total sky is falling after both losses.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Which was the way this season was. So we all
have our own relationship with social media and what it
is and how it's affected our life. At this point,
I've always tried to use it to engage or whatever,
but for the last year or two, I've gone to
some degree on occasional to kenbe mc tumble block parties
(09:47):
where I just can't take it anymore. Where essentially I
would call a game and use I use Twitter as
sort of a supplement to the broadcasts, and as I
use that's my game prep. I do my game prep
getting ready for the next game, and I'll share it
on social media. Because there's people that aren't always listening
or watching or whatever hour I'm calling the games, so
that's where the information is going to be. And here's
(10:08):
what would happen this year. Call a game and he'd say, well,
the Celtics did this thing tonight that's never been done before,
hasn't been done in sixty one years, whatever, And invariably
a thousand people would like it, but there was always
those three people that would reply, it doesn't Well, they
haven't won the championship, so it doesn't matter to which
I would make the point. I'd make a couple of points.
Number One, there's no championship to be won on December twelfth,
(10:31):
so that's number one. Number Two, I'm somewhat aware of
how many championships they have won. A nut one seeing
is how I've done every game for the last twenty
three years, so I kind of know. I was there,
Like I'm the guy that was there when they won
the last time, so I know. But I think the
combination of that skepticism and also what's happened because of
(10:52):
the near misses, because of the heartbreak the last few years,
and as a hockey guy, you will appreciate the Bruins
last year played into this regular season because they had
one of the greatest regular seasons. I'm not going to
be old man, get off my lawn. It wasn't the
greatest regular season ever because overtime losses were not a
thing back when we and the world were young. So
it wasn't the they weren't the seventy nine Canadians. But
(11:13):
it was a great season that ended in the first
round that all played into the psyche in Boston where
people were a little bit afraid. But the swagger to
fear ratio I thought among fans this year was way
too low for a team this dominant. That people didn't
you know, Boston's known for sort of sticking your chest
out and you know, we're the best team that were
(11:36):
the Celtics, And I didn't think there was nearly enough
of that because there was just so much fear that
what was going to happen to this team happened the
last few years when nothing we saw. There was no
evidence in twenty three twenty four that this team was
going to have the same slip ups that it did.
They won all of these games at home, they were dominant. Yes,
they would have thirty point leads get whittled down to
(11:58):
twelve because that's human nature. They were taking thirty point
leads that the numbers you would see and not just
scoring differential in net rating stuff. You know, we've been
doing this alone. We're old study. We've been doing this
a long time. We've seen a lot of things. Tell
me if you've ever seen this. The Celtics this year
took more thirty point leads than they had ten point deficits.
(12:22):
It's things like that. They had twenty point leads in
literally half of the games they played, they led by twenty.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
And that is why, that is why your Twitter feed
is so good, because you're constantly tweeting all this research.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
That's I mean, well, it's almost like you live long
enough and you like things resonate. And that's why when
a season comes up like this, you know that it's special. Listen,
you're trying to do the same thing and you say, hey, listen,
Delante West. That's the most steals that a second year
player has had for a Celtic on a Tuesday night
since what episode you have to fill whatever job you're
(12:55):
being called to describe. But I've had the chance to
be I was with the two thousand and eight Celtics
and I was with this team. Here's your sound bite.
This team's from better Listen to twenty eighteen fits better
in the twenty twenty four social media hot take world
(13:18):
in which we live, which, by the way, I sometimes
come across like a I'm looking down. I love hot
take theater like I love I went to a barbecue
place tonight. Will all my fancy ESPN s other friends,
they either they go to Morton's or Ruth c No.
I wanted to go to a barbecue place because I'm
in Dallas and I'm in Texas, so I want to
go eat real barbecue where they put the food on
(13:38):
the tray and you're like, you know, you've scored the
barbecue sauce in the tray with a paper. That's what
I want because I like that. So I like hot
take theater, but let's not confuse it with reality. I
call it hot take theater because it is theater. Twenty
twenty fourteen doesn't fit into any of those because they
reject all these narratives. They commit the cardinal sin, which
(13:58):
is that they're boring, you know, they This is a
team that doesn't There is no Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, dissension.
No one is undercutting the coach. No one is chasing
a game ball back in the locker room to make
sure it gets in the right hands. This stuff hasn't happened.
It's just they've just been a team that shows up
to work, beats the living daylights out of you, and
then goes on to the next goes on to the
(14:19):
next town. And so this yea, they have been poring.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
And that's I think, why when they when they've lost,
we've just turned it into such a.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Because you have I get listen, that's that's the name
of the game. But the statistical cop this is just
the end of that long thought. And this is a
you know, occupational hazard when you can use why use
one sentence when you can use twelve? You know, that's
like you're just not trying hard enough if you're in
my line of work. But this, the statistical comp here
is in two thousand and eight, it's nineteen eighty six.
This is the eighty six Celtics. It's not the two
(14:47):
thousand and eight Celtics that have you know, cut this
historic swath by playing the right way. And I don't
want to give away too much of the end of
the game and the broadcast tomorrow night. But the twenty
twenty four Celtics are the perfect They're the perfect Celtics
team to fit in the tradition in the history, because
the tradition Boston Celtics tradition isn't that they have won
(15:09):
the championships. It's how they have won the championships and
what those teams have had in common, which historically is
this throughout the organization. It is players and coaches, broadcasters,
anybody who could probably have bigger roles on other teams,
but they take a smaller role for the sake of
(15:32):
a better team and winning a championship. And this team
is perfect. These are these six dudes would be bigger
stars or bigger numbers, and people complained about, oh, Jalen
Brown didn't make all NBA, which is obviously pretty absurd
if you think about it. Jason Tatum would have been hire.
Jason Tatum called the meeting in October of the six
guys and said, listen, we're all going to have to
(15:52):
sacrifice in order to achieve the ultimate goal here, and
then people would get mad when the award stuff came out.
That was the sacrifice. That's what he was talking about, Okay,
I'm gonna finish fifth in the MBF voting instead of third.
You're gonna finish third team All NBA or miss out
instead of being set. And that's the stuff. And honestly,
nobody in that room cares less. If they win one
(16:16):
more game, they will have done exactly what they wanted
to do. And nobody twenty years from now is going
to care who was third team All NBA or second
team All NBA, or for goodness sake, what Jason Tatum's
body language was when Jalen Brown was named the MVP
in the Eastern Conference finals. Nobody cares now the alone
twenty years from now, they're only going to care about
(16:36):
the eighteenth better.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Well, look, Jalen Brown should have been All NBA one
hundred percent. I mean, look, I thought. I I'm not
an official voter anymore, but I kind of I feel
like I have a pretty good feel of how voting
will turn out. So I didn't think Joe was gonna
win Coach of the Year and I didn't think Tatum
was gonna have a real MVP shot because the Celtics
were too good for that and too deep. But I
(17:00):
did think Okay, this has been the team of the season.
They have to have two guys on the All NBA team.
But look, you know how this works. If Jalen Brown,
if the script continues the way it has gone through
the first three games, and if the Celtics can finish
this off Friday Night, I mean you would have to
say Jalen Brown is the leader in the clubhouse for
(17:20):
Finals MVP. How will that go down? You don't think
that will be thrown in Tatum's face?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
And again, I honestly, when Jason Tatum has Hilario Brian
Trophy and he hands it to his son, I can
assure you beyond any shadow of a doubt, he will
not have any care in the world who the MVP
of the Finals would be. In the fact that I thought,
by the way, Cedric Maxwell and I both thought Drew
Holliday should have been the MVP of the Eastern Conference Finals,
(17:49):
not like it was any kind of robbery. It was
the fact that it's so close. You literally could have
a series if let's say Drew has a big game
in Game four and the Celtics win, and Drew Holiday
somehow ends up as MVP the Finals for the sake
of this discussion, you could make them the perfect case
that the MVP of the first round for the Celtics
was Derek White, there was probably Tatum in the second round,
Jalen in the conference finals, and then Drew Holliday. And
(18:10):
how Celtic twenty twenty four would that be if four
different guys for the MVPs of the four different series.
Because that has been the season it has been. And listen,
I believe firmly we are in chapter two of Luca's
Last Dance, right, and we all know because we're old
(18:31):
and have been doing this for a while. This when
Malika interviews Luca, not today but five years from now,
what she's going to be asking him before he goes
into the twenty twenty nine finals is what did you
learn in those difficult days as the twenty twenty four
finals were going on and you had that meltdown in
Game three. We all know what we're seeing because we
(18:52):
watched it happen on the same floor. I don't know
this for a fact, but I guarantee you had to
be two feet away when Lebron the same thing happened
to him on the scene in twenty eleven, Right, history
is just the same thing breaking over and over and
over again with different guys. This was not Lucas time.
We all know he's going to be one of the
greatest to ever play, but I you know, for ten
days we heard Luca Kyrie, Kyrie, Lucas. People were talking
(19:15):
themselves into Dallas in the series, and all I could
think of was, there's number one, there's two ends of
the floor, number two. This isn't two one, two and
number three. This is a fifty win team that wrote
a great story against a generational team, and this is
what was supposed to happen.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
It's funny you bring up mister Maxwell, because I was
not in Boston unfortunately for the first two games, but
I did see when Dan Shaughnessy posted on Twitter. I
didn't realize that all Cedric Maxwell got the watch as
nineteen eighty one finals MVP was a watch. I'm sure
(19:55):
you've I'm sure you had seen that watch before. But
that is a modest prize for where this league was
forty something years.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yes, but think about this, if it was a if
he got a car in nineteen eighty one, where would
that car be? He still has to watch, literally standing
in the test of time like a like a watch
would But and by the way, can you imagine again,
because it's the world we're in and I'm not a hater,
I love it. But in nineteen eighty one, first take
would have been, did you see Larry Bird's reaction when
(20:23):
Centric Maxwell got MVP of the eighty one? Can you
imagine a fan, a basketball fan in the nineteen sixties
being transformed into twenty twenty four. He would feel like
he was on Mars watching these shows, like you know,
like steven A getting on Bill Russell can't make a
free throw? How can a do you call this man
a great player when he shoots fifty one percent for
(20:44):
the free throw a lot? Because that's the that's the
name of the game. By the way, steven A does
it better than anybody has ever done it in history.
He's awesome. He's the hardest working man in show business.
That's that's the game now. And I think you have
in Brown and Tatum two guys. I think when you
have Luca Kyrie having the issues he's had obviously over
the years, and that whole Bosson story, which is his
(21:05):
own podcast done to itself, what you realize with Jalen
and Jason. How much in alle I have been of
them as young men that you think of the things
that happened to Luca, how many of us would have
had to melt down or a tantrum at twenty five
years old if the world was watching us. I don't
do you want anyone to know what you were doing?
(21:25):
Mark at twenty three years old? Like what if that
information came out?
Speaker 4 (21:29):
And yet don't want them to know it? Don't want
them to know. In my fifties exactly so with.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
These guys said, it's it's extraordinary to be around these
young guys, Like I became a dad in my late
thirties during the infamous I can't wait till one day
what if you have to write the official oral history
of the two thousand and one twenty eleven lockout and
like how that all got settled or whatever, because those
were amazing times at the very beginning of social media.
But my son was born then. He was born during
(21:55):
that time, in October of twenty eleven. I was in
my late thirties. Always tell the story that my first
because we were out, the league was out, so my
son being born in the hospital that week, he won
this like Cutest Baby contest that week in the hospital
and he got a twenty five dollars gift certificate for it.
So he out earned me his first week on the
planet because we were out of work because it was
(22:16):
a you know, the lockout going on. But you know,
it's to be a dad. To become a first time
dad in near late thirties is overwhelming or whatever. Jason
Tatum was twenty and playing in the NBA and he's
just you know, become like that's when we talk, we bond.
We usually are talking about our kids, right, not about basketball.
And it's amazing to watch these two guys and you
(22:38):
just appreciate it when you realize that they should be
the exception, not the rule. And I watched Luca for
all the grief he's getting today and that's the name
of the game. I watched him conduct these news conferences
in three languages and say, as someone who's you know,
I've traveled around the world a lot the last few
years doing MMA, and you realize how ignorant we can
be as America's just expecting everybody to speak English everywhere
(23:01):
we go and we're not even gonna make an effort
like I used to. I travel the Buddapat to do shows,
and there's people like making an effort to try to
speak English, and like, when do we ever try to
speak Hungarian or do anything like that? And I'm in
awe of the of the young talent and the players
in this league and the character and the spotlight that
they have to perform in front of. And that's why
(23:23):
Jalen and Jason they don't buy into any of this
other stuff. They don't nobody cares who the best player
is or whatever.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
They they have had to hear it for years with
the capital s on the end trade, these guys break
it up. And you know, I'm obviously not in Boston
very often, but I've said it for I don't know
how many years. In today's NBA, two two way wings
you never break that up. This is the dream. Every
(23:50):
team wants two two way wings who can guard pretty
much one through five and play at both ends the
way these guys do. And you know this Obviously the
Eastern Conference playoffs convinced no one, but they are. You know,
they are having their moment now, and something tells me,
I don't think they're gonna have to hear a ton
much more about should these guys be broken up now?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
And by the way, the notion of well Halliburton missed
a couple of games and Jimmy Butler didn't play whatever
that is about the Vanish into thin air two in
the midst of this historic season. First of all, as
if it would have made a difference, right, like they're
gonna go said, they go sixteen to two with a
plus eleven scoring differential. Okay, maybe if the competition had
been quote unquote tougher, it would have gone what sixteen
(24:33):
and five sixteen? The Celtics were gonna win this year.
It didn't matter who they were gonna play. And I
include Denver in that, by the way, too, because I
don't think Denver would have beat the Celtics six times
out of nine this year. I think this was Boston's
year and it's historically the way it's always gone. But
I've done this, you know, I've done this sound bite
a few times. But there's no kid in Toronto that
(24:54):
wakes up in the morning it sees the poster and
his pennant of the championship in twenty nineteen in the
world and says, you know, Kevin Durant got hurt in
that series, and I don't really I don't feel great
about that. There's no kid in Denver that wakes up
in the morning and has a poster of Mike Malone
dancing at the parade and says, you know, we did
(25:15):
beat two eight seeds in the conference finals. That's not
part of that will vanish. Twenty twenty four will be
remembered in NBA history as the year of the Celtics,
and it was never even close.
Speaker 5 (25:28):
What was the broadcast like though, when a twenty plus
point lead became a one point.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Lead, different from the last few years in that I
was surprised, obviously, how quickly it happened. You're always expecting
a run I saw in this game. I just mentioned
all these crazy leads Celtics had. They had the most
thirty point leads ever, the most forty point leads ever.
Obviously there's a human nature element. And the Celtics lost
the game late in the year where they were up
by thirty in Atlanta and actually lost the game. That
(25:56):
was a game I still think. I think Joe threw
that the way Chuck Daily through that exhibition game against
the college kids in ninety two with the Dream Team
when like he didn't play like again, I think he
kind of threw that game a little bit because he
was trying to try out certain combinations or whatever. But nevertheless,
you knew a run was coming. I didn't think it
was gonna happen that quickly. Certainly. I just never felt
(26:18):
crazy as it seems. I just I didn't feel the
game was in that much danger. I thought, well, this
could really be calamitous, certainly if they lose, because it
happened so fast. But I'm a believer in the math.
Particularly in this series. I thought this is a particularly
bad matchup for Dallas compared to the other in the
other series, where there was always a guy you could
hide for them to win. My quote unquote analysis for
(26:42):
what that was worth at the start of the series
was Kyrie and Luca were gonna have to be amazing.
We all knew that, but they were gonna have to
be on the floor a lot. You could get away
with Kyrie and Luca on the floor defensively against the
teams that Dallas has played to the first three rounds.
You weren't gonna be able to do it against ninety
percent of these Boston lineups, particularly with Portsngus available, it
(27:02):
was going to be very difficult for them to defend.
So even as it was happening, it was listen, Celtics
were playing the playing the greatest tits right of the
last few years, which is part of the oh my,
just yeah, the Celtics. This has been the year go
up by thirty, win by twelve. Well, if you're up
by thirty and you win by twelve, there's gonna be
some shaky moments in there somewhere. But I'm a believer
in the math in this series, that possession for possession.
(27:25):
I just didn't think Dallas could defend enough to keep
the Celtics at bay. And once the game got close
once once that was a two point game at the
end of the first quarter in Game three, I'm like,
this is this is not good, the same way I
felt in Game two when Dallas didn't have a bigger
lead when they should have earlier. I'm like, this is
not good. And when they look back at the end
of the first quarter and the Celtics were still in
(27:45):
the review, I said, this is this is the problem
for Dallas.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And they haven't lost since May ninth.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It's crazy, is that right is my math?
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Right?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah? In game two. What's really rich more interesting when
you look at Celtics history is that the Celtics did
not own, until right now, one of the top ten
playoff win streaks of all time. That the longest playoff
win streak in the storied history of the most story franchise.
The longest win streak had been eight in the playoffs,
which obviously it's amazing to win a and straight playoff
(28:19):
games and many franchises haven't done it. But I think
it was thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth all time and it took.
It wasn't until now that they won ten in a row.
And obviously this is the second longest road when the
road thing has been crazy because this is two and
a half years now where the Celtics have been better
than any team has ever been on the road for
two and a half years regular season and playoffs, and
(28:40):
it's simply it's just insane. It boggles the mind. I'm
trying to I don't have a number off the top
of my have, but I think it's it's twenty one
and twenty one and seven or something like that. Celtics
have won twenty one of twenty eight road playoff games
tried to pond.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
And they've now won five in a row at home,
which was something I've been writing about a ton over
the last week because it was just astonishing that they
were I think fifteen and fifteen in the previous thirty
playoff games before these five wins in a row. Because
you lived with this team every day, did you what
was your theory on why the home court advantage just
(29:16):
went away for years?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Well, for there is a league wide nothing this dramatic,
But first of all, as you know as well as anybody, yeah,
league wide, it's gone from our childhood was a sixty
five percent home teams win. Now it's like fifty five.
There's a generation. I don't know how much that has
to do with the ease of travel, all the other
things that are that are equal now and guys not
being affected by being on the road. For whatever it is,
(29:40):
there's just more general equality. I don't think there was
a reason to put your finger on other than human
nature of the pressure to win games that you had
to win when you were at home. And this goes
back even into the Brad Stevens years. The Celtics had
this crazy even the first year they made the playoffs
under Brad Stevens in fourteen fifteen, the year they acquired
Isaiah Thomas, there was they were trying I make the playoffs,
(30:01):
and every week towards the end of the year they
had play a Friday home game in a Saturday road game,
and they lose the Friday home game, and I'd end
the broadcast. I said, well, that was probably their best
chance of probably not going to make the playoffs. Then
they'd go on the road to win the road game
on Saturday, and they get right back in it, and
as a result, they made the playoffs and got crushed
by Lebron and the Cavs in that first round. But
it was a pretty remarkable thing because they've been pretty
(30:23):
good home team in the regular season, but in the
playoffs again also home court, and that stuff goes away.
Look at the Boston Dallas series. The Celtics is just
a much better team than the Dallas Mavericks. So at
some point the gym you're playing in cannot overcome this
notion that one team's just better than the other. And
(30:44):
as much as people enjoyed in Boston enjoyed the narrative,
Kyrie is really affected here by the crowd. He's psyched
out playing in Boston and whatever. You know what Kyrie's
problem was in Boston, he had to guard Jalen Brown.
That's the problem. Like eighteen thousand people dooing is not
nearly as complicated as trying to figure out how you
kind of stop Jalen Brown. That they've been out matched,
(31:05):
They've been.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Out better than ever.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
Jalen Brown, I mean, man, his his ruggedness, his physicality,
Like sitting courtside. Obviously I don't see nearly as many
Celtics games as you, but I mean you just I
just feel it, like you can feel it sitting court side,
the impact he puts on the game and both ends.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Now, he's been since fascinating guy. And I think there
was a you have to annoy, whether you're a talk
show or even a fan base, your conditioned to think
you have to have the guy right. And it's always
been Jason was going to be the guy and Jalen's
and it never really mattered to them. But Jalen really
has grown into it because he had more there were
(31:47):
different gaps in his game that he had to close,
you know, more basic stuff. I'm not talking about making
shots and things like that, which is obviously a factor,
but ball handling and just even more you know, basics stuff.
He still gets the advantage of not getting the same scrutiny.
If the roles were completely reversed and Jalen was treated
(32:08):
the way Jason was, we'd be talking all the time
about the free throw shooting, about the other little the
holes in his game. He had what six turnovers in
Game two? That was the point the story of the
series was in Game two, Dallas outshot the Celtics out
rebound of the Celtics. Tatum went six of twenty two
and Jalen Brown turned the ball over six times. That's
a game you have to win. And this twenty twenty
(32:30):
four Celtics, unlike previous years, they found a way to
win that game when we know Celtic teams in the
last few years would not have won that game, particularly
because there was a home game too, which has been
their downfall, right And I think, you know, the improved
Jalen's improvement is a big part of that. But again
he doesn't get the same scrutiny. And now he's sort
of now he's that I don't say the backup quarterback.
(32:51):
But he's that other guy. So now it's a cool
thing to say, Oh, Jalen Brown's better than Jason. It's irrelevant.
They fit together. They play together. These team, this group
all plays together, and they defend together, and that's how
they win games. That's how they stopped the rally last night,
even when they weren't scoring. When it was what was
the run twenty two to two for Dallas, like eighteen
(33:13):
or twenty of those points came in the first few
minutes of that run. Even when the Celtics weren't scoring.
You look at the last few minutes of what we
would call the run, and Dallas wasn't scoring in that
they had the one you know, the Washington hit, the
one shot Cayrie made. A mccovery was amazing by the
way last night, as we as we kind of thought
that he would be. But defensively, because they were the
(33:34):
greatest offensive team in the history of offense this year,
nobody everyone just kind of blew off the fact that
they were the number two team defensively because it didn't
fit the narrative. Joe Mazzulla is an offensive coach, emy
was a defensive coach. So now it's all about offense
and making threes. Celtics were the best defensive team, and
they were like number two defensive team last year, number
two defensive team this year. They're elite on both ends
(33:56):
because they've got elite, world class defensive player. And if
I told you the Celtics would have to move on
from Marcus Smart and acquire the one player that could
possibly fit his spot, which was impossible, and yet it happened,
and that's how you stayed the number two defensive team
(34:17):
in the league.
Speaker 5 (34:19):
I'm gonna let you go after this because I know
you do need your voice tomorrow, win or lose, whether
the Celtics finish this off, complete the sweep, or if
the Mavericks give themselves a glimmer of hope and drag
this thing back to Boston for Game five. You mentioned
Brad Stevens. I'm glad you brought him up because you were.
You covered all his probably covered every game he ever coached.
(34:43):
He's been better as an executive than he was as
a coach.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
I mean, it's what.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Did we have any kind of inkling that this was possible.
I wrote about it within the last week as well.
I mean the run he is on as an executive
is just remarkable.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
And I almost feel in a backwards way, Brad Stevens
the coach is almost getting short changed by how ridiculously
good the first three years of Brad Stevens the GM
has been. And I'd remind you that he took the
job the night after coaching in the playoffs a starting
lineup that included Evan forty eight, Romeo Langford and Tristan
(35:22):
Thompson in the starting lineup that he coached. That's where
the Celtics were when he took this thing over. And
as respectful and deferential as he was to Danny Ainge,
who did an amazing job, and we'll get his number
up there in the rafters of Boston as he should
one day, Brad did it completely the opposite way. Danny
spent all these years collecting first round draft picks, and
(35:44):
Brad got into the first day and started giving him
away like he was Oprah, Like you get a first
round picking, you get a first round picking, you get
a And because he recognized what he wanted to do,
and I for a guy that always preached hitting singles,
he's just driving him into the gap left and right
like extra base hit extra base hit home run. It's
(36:05):
remarkable what he's done. I mean, as a GM ever
had a better three year run than he has had,
and the ability to everyone's like, well, they never moved
down from the jas and they stayed the course. Stayed
the course. They Rob Williams, Malcolm Brogden and Marcus Smart
were huge parts of last year's team that went to
Game seven of the conference finals, and he moved them
(36:25):
all because he had a chance to get marginally better,
incrementally better himself this much a better chance and take
a chance that it was going to go backwards. And
that was what nobody knew. Nobody knew of Brad would
be able to coach NBA players when he got here
because he hadn't done it, And nobody knew if he'd
have the ability to make the tough decisions, not because
he wasn't capable, because he hadn't done it. And doesn't
(36:47):
that sound like here's the broadcaster in me us ending
on the same note at which we began, in which
you couldn't picture things because they haven't happened yet. The
history we're going to look back to what an amazing
GM Stevens was when on the day it happened, people
were like, what, Brad Stevens is gonna be the gn
same way to said the start of a Celtics. Oh,
(37:07):
they'll never win really well, yeah, but something will happen
in the playoffs. Really it's not going to because this
is the way the NBA works.
Speaker 5 (37:18):
Mister Grande, I'm so glad we were able to connect
and do this. Don't tell Bill Simmons I said this,
but there is no one who knows the Celtics better
than you, and that's why I knew I had to
get you on while you were in our city. I
hope Dallas is treating you well and we'll see what happens.
We have certainly been talking throughout this pod as if
(37:38):
it is over, and history tells us it is over,
as everyone who follows the NBA can surely recite by
now teams that fall behind three to zero in a
best of seven series, now, oh, in one point fifty six.
But I have to say I don't think we're taking
a huge risk. It's hard to see the Mavericks becoming
the first team that pulls that miracle.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
The other thing we know about history is that it's
going to happen and in fact, if it was ever
going to happen last year, was when it's going to
happen in a situation like last year with a really
good team as a bad start to a series that
certainly has home court advantage, that has five and seven
at home. The Mavericks here do not fit the profile
in my view of a team. The team that eventually
(38:22):
does this, it's going to be something strange is going
to happen in the series. And listen, I went to
the media availability today just to kind of do that
body language check, and there's a reality to these situations.
The question is can they win the series? The question
is do the Mavericks want to get on a plane
(38:42):
and go back to Boston? Which is the lesson. As
we've said, how old we are I've been doing I've
literally now spent half of my life in the NBA.
So it's my twenty sixth year, and so I've seen
a lot of games, and I've seen a lot of things.
Of the thousands of games I've done, the biggest surprise
result to me remains that the Celtics did not win
in Game five in two thousand and eight and wrap
(39:02):
up the series in LA because teams find a way
to lose these home games so that they don't have
to go on the road. The lesson being the eight Lakers.
You don't win that game, so you can get on
a plane and fly three thousand miles to take the
beating of a lifetime, because chances are if the Mavericks
find a way to win Game four, and by the way,
Luca could go nuts, the crowd could get into it.
(39:24):
There's a lot of individual things. If there were no
emotions or no three to zero choke hold or whatever,
you'd say, listen, no porzingis al on just one day
rest instead of two days rest. There's a lot of
individual things you could point to and say, man, I
really like Dallas in this game. But when you have
the python around your throat three to zero, you really
(39:45):
have to find that inner motivation to get in. Some ways,
the hardest game to get is the fourth to even
say do you want this thing to continue or do
you want to get it over with? Knowing what's inevitable.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
I want to go because I want some soup, I
want some I want a bisk man.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
I have a Dallas.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Colleague who posted, as I told you, top of.
Speaker 5 (40:05):
A cup of bisk from Boston sail Loft, and I've
just been well. I told you well, you got your barbecue.
I did not get anything yet.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
I told you when my son was born. So by
the math you could tell that of all the Celtic
fans in the world, the biggest one is twelve years
old and lives in my house. So I would like
nothing would make me I'm gonna be the biggest Mavericks
fan of the planet on Friday night because I want
to get him a Game five so he could be
there to see it right, so that everyone's got their agenda,
that's mine. So there would be nobody happier, nobody with
(40:36):
the more hidden agenda or non hidden agenda than me
to get that Game five. It's just that I go
as the last forty five minutes to tell you I'm
guided a lot in my history and what we learned
from it. As a guy who you live long enough,
you see everything. You live really long enough, you see
everything twice. For example, the Lebron game in Boston in
(40:57):
twenty twelve. I called that game. I saw it happen,
I saw his legacy change, and then I told my
son about it as he was very young, and then
when he was ten years old, he got to see
Jimmy Butler had the exact same game in game six
like it literally happened again, forcing a seventh game in
the Eastern Conference Final. So History, as our guide, says
(41:19):
that not only can the Mavericks not win the series
from where they are, History is skeptical. That everybody gets
on a plane that I mean, we're going back to
Boston on Saturday, but History suggests that the Mavericks will
not be joining us.
Speaker 4 (41:33):
Enjoy the ride, my friend. This was awesome.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
Thanks to Mil for doing it, and thank you everyone
for listening to this edition of This League uncut I
promise Chris Haynes will be back at my side very
very soon, and we'll be back with you soon for
another episode.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Until then, enjoy these finals.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
And that'll do it for us.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
See you next time.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
This League Uncutta is an iHeartRadio production.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Putting suck a lock up
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Chris Haynes and Mark Stein
Welcome to this League uncut in the world of twenty
four hour NBA news.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is you, Lo.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Chris Hans. It's come time, work's time, It's so time.
This League uncut is underway and on fire. This should
be a good one.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Jalab Brown thirteen points in the corner, switches to the
left hand. Jalen tries right the mail class over Green,
throws it down with the right hand and puts a
signature punctuation.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Mark on a dominant third quarter.
Speaker 5 (00:38):
Everyone, welcome in to another edition of this League uncut.
Mark Stein here operating solo, taping this on Thursday night,
on the eve of Game four in these NBA Finals,
operating solo in terms of our normal cast.
Speaker 6 (00:57):
But I do have a special guest. He is the
play by play radio voice of the Boston Celtics, the
same Celtics who have stormed to a three to zero
lead in these finals. Who can complete the first sweep
in the finals that we've seen since twenty eighteen if
they can win Friday night in Dallas. A hearty this
(01:21):
league uncut.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Welcome to my former One time I can actually say
this and not be It sounds ridiculous, but it is
actually true. My former one time radio partner on a
Celtics A real live Celtics radio broadcast, the one and
only Sean Grandy.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You're on the list, man, You're on the all time
partner list. I granted, I've done twenty two hundred games
of Cedric Maxwell, you and I have only done one,
but it's all. It's if you're on the list, You're
on the list.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
Man, Hey man, I was proud to do it. I
was honored when you asked me. It was four or
five years ago when Max was not on the road
with you, and you were in Dallas high high high
above the floor, in the very unwelcome radio position at
the AAC, and you asked me to join you. And
that was actually the first time I had ever tried
(02:11):
to do radio analyst work. And then this in these playoffs,
I had the same opportunity. I got to do three
games alongside MAVs radio play by play voice Chuck Cooper Stein.
I got to do three games in the Clippers series.
So I'm up to four career games on radio.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And listen this time of the year. And this is
obviously a big dilemma and a big choice I had
in my life. Over the last couple of years. This
is the one of the things about doing radio and TV.
I love doing both, but it's sort of like, you know,
the dark, dirty secret of the NBA with local television
is you don't get to do any of the good games,
and you don't get to do playoff games beyond maybe
a couple in the first round. And that to me
(02:52):
when people were when I was in this dilemma about
TV radio, what are you going to do? It was,
are you really the voice of the Celtics if you're
just doing the four games against Charlotte no offense, and
not doing the you know, the big ABC games during
the year, and then not doing the playoffs. And I
can't imagine if you're the voice of the Celtics, you're
not sitting at home tomorrow night. You know, you're documenting
(03:16):
the history and you're covering the team, and so that is.
You know, radio may have these terrible broadcast locations and
get you out of your special seat right at the
AAC and force you high upstairs, but I just can't imagine.
I was with Mark follow All the other night, I said,
you're handling it better than I would, because that was
that was The choice I made was that I just
(03:37):
couldn't give up. I wasn't going to give up these
games and telling the stories that matter.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
And that's outwardlyaks, I know it is eating them up
inside it.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
Like you said, every every team's local broadcast squad after
round one they have to step aside because in round
two everything goes national. And like you said, radio still look.
I have a as one tweeter once hit me with
and I I didn't I can't find the tweet, but
it was, I mean, it was such a it was
(04:06):
so cutting that I will never forget it. They said
something like Stein, you gotta face, you gotta you gotta
face for print.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
No, you gotta face for radio and a voice for print.
So I do.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
I am not exactly blessed with a broadcast voice, but
I love radio as a medium. So to have my
four career games as an NBA analyst, I am proud
that those are those. I'm never gonna get to twenty
two hundred or whatever the number is. You are, but
I will take my four, and I'm happy.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You're you're also. I mean, when you look at what
team has the best combination of TV play by play
and radio play by play in the NBA. I'm not
sure you beat Dallas, you know, with Mark and Chuck
are just so you know, legitimately two future Hall of
Fame guys. Liken Averick fans have been really lucky for
a really long time.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
They will love hearing you say that let's get to
this series because man, better get so quick. The Celtics
have been just beyond impressive. I guess I'm you know,
I have to put my hand up and say that
I was one of those skeptics who said I still
need to see these guys do it on the grandest stage.
(05:15):
I have questions about their Eastern Conference path was so easy,
what is it going to look like against a Western
Conference team?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
And whatever questions or skepticisms you want.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
To raise about these guys, they have swatted it all
away really, really impressively.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Tell me what you're seeing.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, the reason that you were skeptical and so many
people were, is because you haven't seen it and you've
had so many shortcomings to see on the big stage
for so many years. But I go back to the
forementioned Cedric Maxwell and I during the fourteen to fifteen season,
when Golden State was starting to play. They were the
way they were playing, they were dominating, and they were
(05:57):
doing it with defense. Somebody was paying attention to that,
But nobody had won playing the way they had won,
and that team hadn't won Golden State hadn't been a
historically good team. Nobody that year, as it was going on,
thought they were gonna win. And I kept telling Max
that year they're gonna win, They're gonna win the championship,
and nobody could buy it because you couldn't picture it
because it hadn't happened twenty four hours from now. I
(06:20):
would imagine the way things are going when the Celtics
and this entire group and the franchise and all the
people involved here go through the looking glass to the
other side, which is a different world, as you know
with Dirk. Once you cross over that line and you
become different people in the history of the game, people
are gonna look back and say, oh, people doubt of
this team. May maybe they're gonna win two championships, maybe three,
(06:40):
we don't know. It's not the point. The point is
that you couldn't picture it because it hasn't happened yet yet.
As I tried to document its this year, went on,
I hope people weren't appreciating it the historical dominance as
it was happening, because they just pushed away with this
brain that said, yeah, but they haven't won the title yet. Yeah,
but something will go wrong when they And all I
(07:01):
kept saying is all year is they've checked every box.
And the end of the sentence was, they've checked every
box of a team that goes on to win the championship.
As I said all year, Maybe they won't win the championship,
but I don't think so, because I've never seen a
team play There's no team in history there's played this
well dominated the way they've had and not one. So
(07:21):
obviously I'm the least surprising person through ninety nine games
about to go into Game one hundred on Friday night
that this is where the Celtics are, because this is
where teams that play this way for ninety nine games
are going into Game one hundred.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
No, it's totally true. I think I wrote it in
the second round. It's all hazy now. I can't remember yesterday,
but totally agree. In the NBA, this is always the
way it is. We doubt you until we see you
do it, and then we probably believe in you too much,
which is kind of what happened with the Nuggets that
we just thought, sure, now they've done it, They've gone
(07:58):
to a new level. And it was out right shock
when they lost three games at home in the second round.
That series with Minnesota was such a roller coaster, and
it was shocked to see the Nuggets and Nikola Jokic
exit the way they did.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But I totally agree with you that, no.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
This Celtics team did not make a run at seventy
three wins, but apart from that, their regular season resume
literally has everything. I mean, it is a historically great season.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And I remember doing a podcast at midseason basically saying,
you know, what if I think people were picturing if
they ever got to the championship that it would be
similar to these playoff runs they've had in each of
the last couple of years the Celtics. In the last
two seasons, Mark won eight elimination games. They faced elimination
and won eight times. And now I remember saying a
(08:55):
midseason what if it's not going to be like that,
what if it's going to be just relatively easy. What
if they cut the same swath through the playoffs that
they do in the regular season, and your mind can't
really picture it. And yet here we are in this
night where they're fifteen and two in the playoffs, and
the real mystery isn't that they're historically dominant to how
they lose the two. Like that second game against Miami,
(09:15):
you play that ten times, they're probably gonna win it
out of ten. It's more amazing if they lost the
two than they that they haven't even come anywhere close
to lose.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
It was total sky is falling after both losses.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Which was the way this season was. So we all
have our own relationship with social media and what it
is and how it's affected our life. At this point,
I've always tried to use it to engage or whatever,
but for the last year or two, I've gone to
some degree on occasional to kenbe mc tumble block parties
(09:47):
where I just can't take it anymore. Where essentially I
would call a game and use I use Twitter as
sort of a supplement to the broadcasts, and as I
use that's my game prep. I do my game prep
getting ready for the next game, and I'll share it
on social media. Because there's people that aren't always listening
or watching or whatever hour I'm calling the games, so
that's where the information is going to be. And here's
(10:08):
what would happen this year. Call a game and he'd say, well,
the Celtics did this thing tonight that's never been done before,
hasn't been done in sixty one years, whatever, And invariably
a thousand people would like it, but there was always
those three people that would reply, it doesn't Well, they
haven't won the championship, so it doesn't matter to which
I would make the point. I'd make a couple of points.
Number One, there's no championship to be won on December twelfth,
(10:31):
so that's number one. Number Two, I'm somewhat aware of
how many championships they have won. A nut one seeing
is how I've done every game for the last twenty
three years, so I kind of know. I was there,
Like I'm the guy that was there when they won
the last time, so I know. But I think the
combination of that skepticism and also what's happened because of
(10:52):
the near misses, because of the heartbreak the last few years,
and as a hockey guy, you will appreciate the Bruins
last year played into this regular season because they had
one of the greatest regular seasons. I'm not going to
be old man, get off my lawn. It wasn't the
greatest regular season ever because overtime losses were not a
thing back when we and the world were young. So
it wasn't the they weren't the seventy nine Canadians. But
(11:13):
it was a great season that ended in the first
round that all played into the psyche in Boston where
people were a little bit afraid. But the swagger to
fear ratio I thought among fans this year was way
too low for a team this dominant. That people didn't
you know, Boston's known for sort of sticking your chest
out and you know, we're the best team that were
(11:36):
the Celtics, And I didn't think there was nearly enough
of that because there was just so much fear that
what was going to happen to this team happened the
last few years when nothing we saw. There was no
evidence in twenty three twenty four that this team was
going to have the same slip ups that it did.
They won all of these games at home, they were dominant. Yes,
they would have thirty point leads get whittled down to
(11:58):
twelve because that's human nature. They were taking thirty point
leads that the numbers you would see and not just
scoring differential in net rating stuff. You know, we've been
doing this alone. We're old study. We've been doing this
a long time. We've seen a lot of things. Tell
me if you've ever seen this. The Celtics this year
took more thirty point leads than they had ten point deficits.
(12:22):
It's things like that. They had twenty point leads in
literally half of the games they played, they led by twenty.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
And that is why, that is why your Twitter feed
is so good, because you're constantly tweeting all this research.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
That's I mean, well, it's almost like you live long
enough and you like things resonate. And that's why when
a season comes up like this, you know that it's special. Listen,
you're trying to do the same thing and you say, hey, listen,
Delante West. That's the most steals that a second year
player has had for a Celtic on a Tuesday night
since what episode you have to fill whatever job you're
(12:55):
being called to describe. But I've had the chance to
be I was with the two thousand and eight Celtics
and I was with this team. Here's your sound bite.
This team's from better Listen to twenty eighteen fits better
in the twenty twenty four social media hot take world
(13:18):
in which we live, which, by the way, I sometimes
come across like a I'm looking down. I love hot
take theater like I love I went to a barbecue
place tonight. Will all my fancy ESPN s other friends,
they either they go to Morton's or Ruth c No.
I wanted to go to a barbecue place because I'm
in Dallas and I'm in Texas, so I want to
go eat real barbecue where they put the food on
(13:38):
the tray and you're like, you know, you've scored the
barbecue sauce in the tray with a paper. That's what
I want because I like that. So I like hot
take theater, but let's not confuse it with reality. I
call it hot take theater because it is theater. Twenty
twenty fourteen doesn't fit into any of those because they
reject all these narratives. They commit the cardinal sin, which
(13:58):
is that they're boring, you know, they This is a
team that doesn't There is no Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, dissension.
No one is undercutting the coach. No one is chasing
a game ball back in the locker room to make
sure it gets in the right hands. This stuff hasn't happened.
It's just they've just been a team that shows up
to work, beats the living daylights out of you, and
then goes on to the next goes on to the
(14:19):
next town. And so this yea, they have been poring.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
And that's I think, why when they when they've lost,
we've just turned it into such a.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Because you have I get listen, that's that's the name
of the game. But the statistical cop this is just
the end of that long thought. And this is a
you know, occupational hazard when you can use why use
one sentence when you can use twelve? You know, that's
like you're just not trying hard enough if you're in
my line of work. But this, the statistical comp here
is in two thousand and eight, it's nineteen eighty six.
This is the eighty six Celtics. It's not the two
(14:47):
thousand and eight Celtics that have you know, cut this
historic swath by playing the right way. And I don't
want to give away too much of the end of
the game and the broadcast tomorrow night. But the twenty
twenty four Celtics are the perfect They're the perfect Celtics
team to fit in the tradition in the history, because
the tradition Boston Celtics tradition isn't that they have won
(15:09):
the championships. It's how they have won the championships and
what those teams have had in common, which historically is
this throughout the organization. It is players and coaches, broadcasters,
anybody who could probably have bigger roles on other teams,
but they take a smaller role for the sake of
(15:32):
a better team and winning a championship. And this team
is perfect. These are these six dudes would be bigger
stars or bigger numbers, and people complained about, oh, Jalen
Brown didn't make all NBA, which is obviously pretty absurd
if you think about it. Jason Tatum would have been hire.
Jason Tatum called the meeting in October of the six
guys and said, listen, we're all going to have to
(15:52):
sacrifice in order to achieve the ultimate goal here, and
then people would get mad when the award stuff came out.
That was the sacrifice. That's what he was talking about, Okay,
I'm gonna finish fifth in the MBF voting instead of third.
You're gonna finish third team All NBA or miss out
instead of being set. And that's the stuff. And honestly,
nobody in that room cares less. If they win one
(16:16):
more game, they will have done exactly what they wanted
to do. And nobody twenty years from now is going
to care who was third team All NBA or second
team All NBA, or for goodness sake, what Jason Tatum's
body language was when Jalen Brown was named the MVP
in the Eastern Conference finals. Nobody cares now the alone
twenty years from now, they're only going to care about
(16:36):
the eighteenth better.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Well, look, Jalen Brown should have been All NBA one
hundred percent. I mean, look, I thought. I I'm not
an official voter anymore, but I kind of I feel
like I have a pretty good feel of how voting
will turn out. So I didn't think Joe was gonna
win Coach of the Year and I didn't think Tatum
was gonna have a real MVP shot because the Celtics
were too good for that and too deep. But I
(17:00):
did think Okay, this has been the team of the season.
They have to have two guys on the All NBA team.
But look, you know how this works. If Jalen Brown,
if the script continues the way it has gone through
the first three games, and if the Celtics can finish
this off Friday Night, I mean you would have to
say Jalen Brown is the leader in the clubhouse for
(17:20):
Finals MVP. How will that go down? You don't think
that will be thrown in Tatum's face?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
And again, I honestly, when Jason Tatum has Hilario Brian
Trophy and he hands it to his son, I can
assure you beyond any shadow of a doubt, he will
not have any care in the world who the MVP
of the Finals would be. In the fact that I thought,
by the way, Cedric Maxwell and I both thought Drew
Holliday should have been the MVP of the Eastern Conference Finals,
(17:49):
not like it was any kind of robbery. It was
the fact that it's so close. You literally could have
a series if let's say Drew has a big game
in Game four and the Celtics win, and Drew Holiday
somehow ends up as MVP the Finals for the sake
of this discussion, you could make them the perfect case
that the MVP of the first round for the Celtics
was Derek White, there was probably Tatum in the second round,
Jalen in the conference finals, and then Drew Holliday. And
(18:10):
how Celtic twenty twenty four would that be if four
different guys for the MVPs of the four different series.
Because that has been the season it has been. And listen,
I believe firmly we are in chapter two of Luca's
Last Dance, right, and we all know because we're old
(18:31):
and have been doing this for a while. This when
Malika interviews Luca, not today but five years from now,
what she's going to be asking him before he goes
into the twenty twenty nine finals is what did you
learn in those difficult days as the twenty twenty four
finals were going on and you had that meltdown in
Game three. We all know what we're seeing because we
(18:52):
watched it happen on the same floor. I don't know
this for a fact, but I guarantee you had to
be two feet away when Lebron the same thing happened
to him on the scene in twenty eleven, Right, history
is just the same thing breaking over and over and
over again with different guys. This was not Lucas time.
We all know he's going to be one of the
greatest to ever play, but I you know, for ten
days we heard Luca Kyrie, Kyrie, Lucas. People were talking
(19:15):
themselves into Dallas in the series, and all I could
think of was, there's number one, there's two ends of
the floor, number two. This isn't two one, two and
number three. This is a fifty win team that wrote
a great story against a generational team, and this is
what was supposed to happen.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
It's funny you bring up mister Maxwell, because I was
not in Boston unfortunately for the first two games, but
I did see when Dan Shaughnessy posted on Twitter. I
didn't realize that all Cedric Maxwell got the watch as
nineteen eighty one finals MVP was a watch. I'm sure
(19:55):
you've I'm sure you had seen that watch before. But
that is a modest prize for where this league was
forty something years.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yes, but think about this, if it was a if
he got a car in nineteen eighty one, where would
that car be? He still has to watch, literally standing
in the test of time like a like a watch
would But and by the way, can you imagine again,
because it's the world we're in and I'm not a hater,
I love it. But in nineteen eighty one, first take
would have been, did you see Larry Bird's reaction when
(20:23):
Centric Maxwell got MVP of the eighty one? Can you
imagine a fan, a basketball fan in the nineteen sixties
being transformed into twenty twenty four. He would feel like
he was on Mars watching these shows, like you know,
like steven A getting on Bill Russell can't make a
free throw? How can a do you call this man
a great player when he shoots fifty one percent for
(20:44):
the free throw a lot? Because that's the that's the
name of the game. By the way, steven A does
it better than anybody has ever done it in history.
He's awesome. He's the hardest working man in show business.
That's that's the game now. And I think you have
in Brown and Tatum two guys. I think when you
have Luca Kyrie having the issues he's had obviously over
the years, and that whole Bosson story, which is his
(21:05):
own podcast done to itself, what you realize with Jalen
and Jason. How much in alle I have been of
them as young men that you think of the things
that happened to Luca, how many of us would have
had to melt down or a tantrum at twenty five
years old if the world was watching us. I don't
do you want anyone to know what you were doing?
(21:25):
Mark at twenty three years old? Like what if that
information came out?
Speaker 4 (21:29):
And yet don't want them to know it? Don't want
them to know. In my fifties exactly so with.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
These guys said, it's it's extraordinary to be around these
young guys, Like I became a dad in my late
thirties during the infamous I can't wait till one day
what if you have to write the official oral history
of the two thousand and one twenty eleven lockout and
like how that all got settled or whatever, because those
were amazing times at the very beginning of social media.
But my son was born then. He was born during
(21:55):
that time, in October of twenty eleven. I was in
my late thirties. Always tell the story that my first
because we were out, the league was out, so my
son being born in the hospital that week, he won
this like Cutest Baby contest that week in the hospital
and he got a twenty five dollars gift certificate for it.
So he out earned me his first week on the
planet because we were out of work because it was
(22:16):
a you know, the lockout going on. But you know,
it's to be a dad. To become a first time
dad in near late thirties is overwhelming or whatever. Jason
Tatum was twenty and playing in the NBA and he's
just you know, become like that's when we talk, we bond.
We usually are talking about our kids, right, not about basketball.
And it's amazing to watch these two guys and you
(22:38):
just appreciate it when you realize that they should be
the exception, not the rule. And I watched Luca for
all the grief he's getting today and that's the name
of the game. I watched him conduct these news conferences
in three languages and say, as someone who's you know,
I've traveled around the world a lot the last few
years doing MMA, and you realize how ignorant we can
be as America's just expecting everybody to speak English everywhere
(23:01):
we go and we're not even gonna make an effort
like I used to. I travel the Buddapat to do shows,
and there's people like making an effort to try to
speak English, and like, when do we ever try to
speak Hungarian or do anything like that? And I'm in
awe of the of the young talent and the players
in this league and the character and the spotlight that
they have to perform in front of. And that's why
(23:23):
Jalen and Jason they don't buy into any of this
other stuff. They don't nobody cares who the best player
is or whatever.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
They they have had to hear it for years with
the capital s on the end trade, these guys break
it up. And you know, I'm obviously not in Boston
very often, but I've said it for I don't know
how many years. In today's NBA, two two way wings
you never break that up. This is the dream. Every
(23:50):
team wants two two way wings who can guard pretty
much one through five and play at both ends the
way these guys do. And you know this Obviously the
Eastern Conference playoffs convinced no one, but they are. You know,
they are having their moment now, and something tells me,
I don't think they're gonna have to hear a ton
much more about should these guys be broken up now?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
And by the way, the notion of well Halliburton missed
a couple of games and Jimmy Butler didn't play whatever
that is about the Vanish into thin air two in
the midst of this historic season. First of all, as
if it would have made a difference, right, like they're
gonna go said, they go sixteen to two with a
plus eleven scoring differential. Okay, maybe if the competition had
been quote unquote tougher, it would have gone what sixteen
(24:33):
and five sixteen? The Celtics were gonna win this year.
It didn't matter who they were gonna play. And I
include Denver in that, by the way, too, because I
don't think Denver would have beat the Celtics six times
out of nine this year. I think this was Boston's
year and it's historically the way it's always gone. But
I've done this, you know, I've done this sound bite
a few times. But there's no kid in Toronto that
(24:54):
wakes up in the morning it sees the poster and
his pennant of the championship in twenty nineteen in the
world and says, you know, Kevin Durant got hurt in
that series, and I don't really I don't feel great
about that. There's no kid in Denver that wakes up
in the morning and has a poster of Mike Malone
dancing at the parade and says, you know, we did
(25:15):
beat two eight seeds in the conference finals. That's not
part of that will vanish. Twenty twenty four will be
remembered in NBA history as the year of the Celtics,
and it was never even close.
Speaker 5 (25:28):
What was the broadcast like though, when a twenty plus
point lead became a one point.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Lead, different from the last few years in that I
was surprised, obviously, how quickly it happened. You're always expecting
a run I saw in this game. I just mentioned
all these crazy leads Celtics had. They had the most
thirty point leads ever, the most forty point leads ever.
Obviously there's a human nature element. And the Celtics lost
the game late in the year where they were up
by thirty in Atlanta and actually lost the game. That
(25:56):
was a game I still think. I think Joe threw
that the way Chuck Daily through that exhibition game against
the college kids in ninety two with the Dream Team
when like he didn't play like again, I think he
kind of threw that game a little bit because he
was trying to try out certain combinations or whatever. But nevertheless,
you knew a run was coming. I didn't think it
was gonna happen that quickly. Certainly. I just never felt
(26:18):
crazy as it seems. I just I didn't feel the
game was in that much danger. I thought, well, this
could really be calamitous, certainly if they lose, because it
happened so fast. But I'm a believer in the math.
Particularly in this series. I thought this is a particularly
bad matchup for Dallas compared to the other in the
other series, where there was always a guy you could
hide for them to win. My quote unquote analysis for
(26:42):
what that was worth at the start of the series
was Kyrie and Luca were gonna have to be amazing.
We all knew that, but they were gonna have to
be on the floor a lot. You could get away
with Kyrie and Luca on the floor defensively against the
teams that Dallas has played to the first three rounds.
You weren't gonna be able to do it against ninety
percent of these Boston lineups, particularly with Portsngus available, it
(27:02):
was going to be very difficult for them to defend.
So even as it was happening, it was listen, Celtics
were playing the playing the greatest tits right of the
last few years, which is part of the oh my,
just yeah, the Celtics. This has been the year go
up by thirty, win by twelve. Well, if you're up
by thirty and you win by twelve, there's gonna be
some shaky moments in there somewhere. But I'm a believer
in the math in this series, that possession for possession.
(27:25):
I just didn't think Dallas could defend enough to keep
the Celtics at bay. And once the game got close
once once that was a two point game at the
end of the first quarter in Game three, I'm like,
this is this is not good, the same way I
felt in Game two when Dallas didn't have a bigger
lead when they should have earlier. I'm like, this is
not good. And when they look back at the end
of the first quarter and the Celtics were still in
(27:45):
the review, I said, this is this is the problem
for Dallas.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And they haven't lost since May ninth.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It's crazy, is that right is my math?
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Right?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah? In game two. What's really rich more interesting when
you look at Celtics history is that the Celtics did
not own, until right now, one of the top ten
playoff win streaks of all time. That the longest playoff
win streak in the storied history of the most story franchise.
The longest win streak had been eight in the playoffs,
which obviously it's amazing to win a and straight playoff
(28:19):
games and many franchises haven't done it. But I think
it was thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth all time and it took.
It wasn't until now that they won ten in a row.
And obviously this is the second longest road when the
road thing has been crazy because this is two and
a half years now where the Celtics have been better
than any team has ever been on the road for
two and a half years regular season and playoffs, and
(28:40):
it's simply it's just insane. It boggles the mind. I'm
trying to I don't have a number off the top
of my have, but I think it's it's twenty one
and twenty one and seven or something like that. Celtics
have won twenty one of twenty eight road playoff games
tried to pond.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
And they've now won five in a row at home,
which was something I've been writing about a ton over
the last week because it was just astonishing that they
were I think fifteen and fifteen in the previous thirty
playoff games before these five wins in a row. Because
you lived with this team every day, did you what
was your theory on why the home court advantage just
(29:16):
went away for years?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Well, for there is a league wide nothing this dramatic,
But first of all, as you know as well as anybody, yeah,
league wide, it's gone from our childhood was a sixty
five percent home teams win. Now it's like fifty five.
There's a generation. I don't know how much that has
to do with the ease of travel, all the other
things that are that are equal now and guys not
being affected by being on the road. For whatever it is,
(29:40):
there's just more general equality. I don't think there was
a reason to put your finger on other than human
nature of the pressure to win games that you had
to win when you were at home. And this goes
back even into the Brad Stevens years. The Celtics had
this crazy even the first year they made the playoffs
under Brad Stevens in fourteen fifteen, the year they acquired
Isaiah Thomas, there was they were trying I make the playoffs,
(30:01):
and every week towards the end of the year they
had play a Friday home game in a Saturday road game,
and they lose the Friday home game, and I'd end
the broadcast. I said, well, that was probably their best
chance of probably not going to make the playoffs. Then
they'd go on the road to win the road game
on Saturday, and they get right back in it, and
as a result, they made the playoffs and got crushed
by Lebron and the Cavs in that first round. But
it was a pretty remarkable thing because they've been pretty
(30:23):
good home team in the regular season, but in the
playoffs again also home court, and that stuff goes away.
Look at the Boston Dallas series. The Celtics is just
a much better team than the Dallas Mavericks. So at
some point the gym you're playing in cannot overcome this
notion that one team's just better than the other. And
(30:44):
as much as people enjoyed in Boston enjoyed the narrative,
Kyrie is really affected here by the crowd. He's psyched
out playing in Boston and whatever. You know what Kyrie's
problem was in Boston, he had to guard Jalen Brown.
That's the problem. Like eighteen thousand people dooing is not
nearly as complicated as trying to figure out how you
kind of stop Jalen Brown. That they've been out matched,
(31:05):
They've been.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Out better than ever.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
Jalen Brown, I mean, man, his his ruggedness, his physicality,
Like sitting courtside. Obviously I don't see nearly as many
Celtics games as you, but I mean you just I
just feel it, like you can feel it sitting court side,
the impact he puts on the game and both ends.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Now, he's been since fascinating guy. And I think there
was a you have to annoy, whether you're a talk
show or even a fan base, your conditioned to think
you have to have the guy right. And it's always
been Jason was going to be the guy and Jalen's
and it never really mattered to them. But Jalen really
has grown into it because he had more there were
(31:47):
different gaps in his game that he had to close,
you know, more basic stuff. I'm not talking about making
shots and things like that, which is obviously a factor,
but ball handling and just even more you know, basics stuff.
He still gets the advantage of not getting the same scrutiny.
If the roles were completely reversed and Jalen was treated
(32:08):
the way Jason was, we'd be talking all the time
about the free throw shooting, about the other little the
holes in his game. He had what six turnovers in
Game two? That was the point the story of the
series was in Game two, Dallas outshot the Celtics out
rebound of the Celtics. Tatum went six of twenty two
and Jalen Brown turned the ball over six times. That's
a game you have to win. And this twenty twenty
(32:30):
four Celtics, unlike previous years, they found a way to
win that game when we know Celtic teams in the
last few years would not have won that game, particularly
because there was a home game too, which has been
their downfall, right And I think, you know, the improved
Jalen's improvement is a big part of that. But again
he doesn't get the same scrutiny. And now he's sort
of now he's that I don't say the backup quarterback.
(32:51):
But he's that other guy. So now it's a cool
thing to say, Oh, Jalen Brown's better than Jason. It's irrelevant.
They fit together. They play together. These team, this group
all plays together, and they defend together, and that's how
they win games. That's how they stopped the rally last night,
even when they weren't scoring. When it was what was
the run twenty two to two for Dallas, like eighteen
(33:13):
or twenty of those points came in the first few
minutes of that run. Even when the Celtics weren't scoring.
You look at the last few minutes of what we
would call the run, and Dallas wasn't scoring in that
they had the one you know, the Washington hit, the
one shot Cayrie made. A mccovery was amazing by the
way last night, as we as we kind of thought
that he would be. But defensively, because they were the
(33:34):
greatest offensive team in the history of offense this year,
nobody everyone just kind of blew off the fact that
they were the number two team defensively because it didn't
fit the narrative. Joe Mazzulla is an offensive coach, emy
was a defensive coach. So now it's all about offense
and making threes. Celtics were the best defensive team, and
they were like number two defensive team last year, number
two defensive team this year. They're elite on both ends
(33:56):
because they've got elite, world class defensive player. And if
I told you the Celtics would have to move on
from Marcus Smart and acquire the one player that could
possibly fit his spot, which was impossible, and yet it happened,
and that's how you stayed the number two defensive team
(34:17):
in the league.
Speaker 5 (34:19):
I'm gonna let you go after this because I know
you do need your voice tomorrow, win or lose, whether
the Celtics finish this off, complete the sweep, or if
the Mavericks give themselves a glimmer of hope and drag
this thing back to Boston for Game five. You mentioned
Brad Stevens. I'm glad you brought him up because you were.
You covered all his probably covered every game he ever coached.
(34:43):
He's been better as an executive than he was as
a coach.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
I mean, it's what.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Did we have any kind of inkling that this was possible.
I wrote about it within the last week as well.
I mean the run he is on as an executive
is just remarkable.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
And I almost feel in a backwards way, Brad Stevens
the coach is almost getting short changed by how ridiculously
good the first three years of Brad Stevens the GM
has been. And I'd remind you that he took the
job the night after coaching in the playoffs a starting
lineup that included Evan forty eight, Romeo Langford and Tristan
(35:22):
Thompson in the starting lineup that he coached. That's where
the Celtics were when he took this thing over. And
as respectful and deferential as he was to Danny Ainge,
who did an amazing job, and we'll get his number
up there in the rafters of Boston as he should
one day, Brad did it completely the opposite way. Danny
spent all these years collecting first round draft picks, and
(35:44):
Brad got into the first day and started giving him
away like he was Oprah, Like you get a first
round picking, you get a first round picking, you get
a And because he recognized what he wanted to do,
and I for a guy that always preached hitting singles,
he's just driving him into the gap left and right
like extra base hit extra base hit home run. It's
(36:05):
remarkable what he's done. I mean, as a GM ever
had a better three year run than he has had,
and the ability to everyone's like, well, they never moved
down from the jas and they stayed the course. Stayed
the course. They Rob Williams, Malcolm Brogden and Marcus Smart
were huge parts of last year's team that went to
Game seven of the conference finals, and he moved them
(36:25):
all because he had a chance to get marginally better,
incrementally better himself this much a better chance and take
a chance that it was going to go backwards. And
that was what nobody knew. Nobody knew of Brad would
be able to coach NBA players when he got here
because he hadn't done it, And nobody knew if he'd
have the ability to make the tough decisions, not because
he wasn't capable, because he hadn't done it. And doesn't
(36:47):
that sound like here's the broadcaster in me us ending
on the same note at which we began, in which
you couldn't picture things because they haven't happened yet. The
history we're going to look back to what an amazing
GM Stevens was when on the day it happened, people
were like, what, Brad Stevens is gonna be the gn
same way to said the start of a Celtics. Oh,
(37:07):
they'll never win really well, yeah, but something will happen
in the playoffs. Really it's not going to because this
is the way the NBA works.
Speaker 5 (37:18):
Mister Grande, I'm so glad we were able to connect
and do this. Don't tell Bill Simmons I said this,
but there is no one who knows the Celtics better
than you, and that's why I knew I had to
get you on while you were in our city. I
hope Dallas is treating you well and we'll see what happens.
We have certainly been talking throughout this pod as if
(37:38):
it is over, and history tells us it is over,
as everyone who follows the NBA can surely recite by
now teams that fall behind three to zero in a
best of seven series, now, oh, in one point fifty six.
But I have to say I don't think we're taking
a huge risk. It's hard to see the Mavericks becoming
the first team that pulls that miracle.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
The other thing we know about history is that it's
going to happen and in fact, if it was ever
going to happen last year, was when it's going to
happen in a situation like last year with a really
good team as a bad start to a series that
certainly has home court advantage, that has five and seven
at home. The Mavericks here do not fit the profile
in my view of a team. The team that eventually
(38:22):
does this, it's going to be something strange is going
to happen in the series. And listen, I went to
the media availability today just to kind of do that
body language check, and there's a reality to these situations.
The question is can they win the series? The question
is do the Mavericks want to get on a plane
(38:42):
and go back to Boston? Which is the lesson. As
we've said, how old we are I've been doing I've
literally now spent half of my life in the NBA.
So it's my twenty sixth year, and so I've seen
a lot of games, and I've seen a lot of things.
Of the thousands of games I've done, the biggest surprise
result to me remains that the Celtics did not win
in Game five in two thousand and eight and wrap
(39:02):
up the series in LA because teams find a way
to lose these home games so that they don't have
to go on the road. The lesson being the eight Lakers.
You don't win that game, so you can get on
a plane and fly three thousand miles to take the
beating of a lifetime, because chances are if the Mavericks
find a way to win Game four, and by the way,
Luca could go nuts, the crowd could get into it.
(39:24):
There's a lot of individual things. If there were no
emotions or no three to zero choke hold or whatever,
you'd say, listen, no porzingis al on just one day
rest instead of two days rest. There's a lot of
individual things you could point to and say, man, I
really like Dallas in this game. But when you have
the python around your throat three to zero, you really
(39:45):
have to find that inner motivation to get in. Some ways,
the hardest game to get is the fourth to even
say do you want this thing to continue or do
you want to get it over with? Knowing what's inevitable.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
I want to go because I want some soup, I
want some I want a bisk man.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
I have a Dallas.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Colleague who posted, as I told you, top of.
Speaker 5 (40:05):
A cup of bisk from Boston sail Loft, and I've
just been well. I told you well, you got your barbecue.
I did not get anything yet.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
I told you when my son was born. So by
the math you could tell that of all the Celtic
fans in the world, the biggest one is twelve years
old and lives in my house. So I would like
nothing would make me I'm gonna be the biggest Mavericks
fan of the planet on Friday night because I want
to get him a Game five so he could be
there to see it right, so that everyone's got their agenda,
that's mine. So there would be nobody happier, nobody with
(40:36):
the more hidden agenda or non hidden agenda than me
to get that Game five. It's just that I go
as the last forty five minutes to tell you I'm
guided a lot in my history and what we learned
from it. As a guy who you live long enough,
you see everything. You live really long enough, you see
everything twice. For example, the Lebron game in Boston in
(40:57):
twenty twelve. I called that game. I saw it happen,
I saw his legacy change, and then I told my
son about it as he was very young, and then
when he was ten years old, he got to see
Jimmy Butler had the exact same game in game six
like it literally happened again, forcing a seventh game in
the Eastern Conference Final. So History, as our guide, says
(41:19):
that not only can the Mavericks not win the series
from where they are, History is skeptical. That everybody gets
on a plane that I mean, we're going back to
Boston on Saturday, but History suggests that the Mavericks will
not be joining us.
Speaker 4 (41:33):
Enjoy the ride, my friend. This was awesome.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
Thanks to Mil for doing it, and thank you everyone
for listening to this edition of This League uncut I
promise Chris Haynes will be back at my side very
very soon, and we'll be back with you soon for
another episode.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Until then, enjoy these finals.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
And that'll do it for us.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
See you next time.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
This League Uncutta is an iHeartRadio production.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Putting suck a lock up
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Chris Haynes and Mark Stein
Hosts And Creators
Brady Quinn
LaVar Arrington
Jonas Knox
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