Eastern Conference Playoff Outlook

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Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Bad advice? You talking to me. Kayak. Got that right . Welcome into off the bike. I'm Brian Barrett reporting this part of the pod a little after five o'clock. The Bruins game just wrapped up where they just completely laid an egg at home in a must-win game to tie this series up at two. Just a gutless performance by the Bruins. We'll get into that in just a little bit. Justin Termini from Sirius XMNBA Radio is going to join us later on. We'll get into everything going on with the Celtics and the Philadelphia 76, which was probably hit on some of the other series as well with Terminy. But recording this, as I said, right after 5 o'clock. And by the way, the Chad Tracy era is underway for the Red Sox. They're one and oh with Tracy as their manager, because of course we got the news on Saturday night that the Red Sox were firing Alex Gore. I think they said parting ways, and with a bunch of the guys on the coaching staff as well. So that's where I want to start here. And look, at the time that he was fired, his team was what, ten and seventeen. I under stand wanting to get a new voice in there. Clearly, if you look at it, the manager's not the biggest problem. It's the roster that was put together by Craig Breslau. But with that being said, Cora is not without blame here. The ABS situation for this team has been a joke all season long. They have not figured out how to use that whatsoever. He was the one that needed to clean that up. It has not been cleaned up. If you look at the base running, like Marcello Meyer the other night, when he gets picked off at second base after Trevor Story doesn't tag up, where he shouldn't have tagged up, but the fact that Meyer is almost at third base and the catcher throws it a second and he's out there, that's not on Alex Cora. But the fact that these base running issues keep happening for the team, like that's on Meyer, but the team makes these blunders on the base paths all the time. Even they had a couple today as well. But my point being with that is that looks bad on the manager. So the ABS stuff, the team, little energy at times, the base running blunders, all these things like that reflects poorly on the manager. And I do think when you're thinking about Alex Cora , I think he's a really good manager on a good team, right? I think he elevates a good team. I would even say going back to last year's postseason run where he almost got through that game too, where they had nothing from Bayo, and he went up and down the bullpen to the point that Whitlock just ran out of gas at the end. Like I thought that was a really, really well-managed game by Cora . If you go back to 2021, when they beat the Rays, he's basically doing this thing where they want Meadows out of the game, so they're bringing lefties in early just to get Meadows out because Cora doesn't have many lefties in the bullpen. He was just playing around with Kevin Cash in that particular series. Obviously was great in the 2018 postseason run, pushed all the right buttons there with lineup things. At times you're like, why is it Warner Nunez playing? And then he'd come up with a big hit. So he's been really good. Now, my one critique of him has always been that Astros series where I don't know why you let Chris Hill throw to Alvarez three times. That was a big mistake. But I think Core is good in that type of setting. And when he first came into Major League Baseball, or excuse me, and manager in Major League Baseball. His GM was Dave Dombrowski. Dave Dombrowski was here to win. He's a hired gun. You hire Dave Dombrowski when you want to win a World Series, and that's exactly what they did. So when Korra gets here, he's getting on paper the best team in Major League Baseball. They won 108 games and they went right through the postseason. They were incredible. So that's like how we started. So going through these situations that aren't good, I don't think at this particular point of time, Alex Kore is the perfect guy for a team that at this point, it looks more like a rebuild. Now, that wasn't the intention of the organization, but that's what it played out to be so far. It looks like a rebuild for this team. I don't think when you have all these missing pieces and when you have a flawed roster, it's not a good fit with Korra, and I would say I don't think that Korra did a great job clearly with this team this year. So clearly he is not blameless here. But I think the bigger issue here is, and now we're seeing this stuff come to the forefront because we're gonna get more and more reporting over the next couple days. The biggest issue with this team is they are run poorly from ownership down to Craig Breslo, who's making all the calls. And right now , the ownership refuses to believe that Craig Breslau is wrong. They are behind Craig Breslau. And even you heard Sam Kennedy at that press conference today essentially saying that this is Craig Breslau's decision to move on from Alex Score. Again, like the ownership was just the fact that John Henry's not there. We'll get into that in a second here. But you can tell, like, there's been reporting that ownership really likes Brezzo. And you think about it too, we've seen a lot more John Henry in the building this year with Craig Brezzo. We've seen a lot more of that than we've seen sort of in previous seasons. Like he's been around a lot more. He clearly has the air of the ownership group and this power struggle that it feels like it was between Korra and Breslo. It's Breslau that came out on top when we've known in the past, Korra came on top, came out on top, I should say, when we're dealing with Haim Bloom. So first of all, let's just get to this. John Henry's not there. He's not there to dr to address the media. That is an absolute joke. Okay? Now Chris Catillo, our buddy from Mass Live, reported he was actually outside the Red Sox clubhouse too, and declined to comment to the media at that point in time. You have Sam Kennedy during the press conference with Craig Breslow. And he said it's he and Craig Breslow's job to talk to the media. Well, he's the owner of the damn team. Okay. First of all, we want an explanation, okay? Because even if you say, all right, totally justified to move on from Korra, and like I said, like Korra did not do a great job this year, I still think he's a good manager. He didn't do a great job, but I want to know because clearly they sided with Breslau over Alex Corps. I want to know from the guy that is signing all the checks that this is his team. I want to know why you believe in Breslow's vision. And by the way, say what you want about Korra. He won a World Series for you, right? He was the manager on a World Series team. He was the manager in 18, 19, of course, missed 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026. Like this is a big decision for the organization, and the owner's not even going to address that because most of the fan base does not see it the same way that John Henry sees it right now, where clearly, they believe in Craig Bres lo. So if they believe it, I certainly don't believe in the vision right now. I want to know why the ownership thinks this is gonna fix up. Like the only answers we got from Craig Breslow about this was hey, we uh expect guys to perform similar ly to the way they have in the past. Like it's gonna regress to what they are. Okay, I mean that's the solution, is hope they get back to the players that they were previously. Because if you think about it, what I want to know is what specifically about Craig Breslau or Craig Breslo's plan tells you that this is going to turn around. It's crazy, right? That Cora, they move on from Cora, which isn't in and of itself, but everybody has pointed to the poor roster construction for why this team is so bad, and Breslau's still here. You only moved on from one of the parts. So it's really tough for me to look at this major league roster and say, yeah, I can see the Breslau vision here. Nobody can see the vision, but apparently John Henry can. And you start to think about it. And the thing I keep coming back to with John Henry does not care about the fan base right now. He doesn't. You address the media when you fire a guy like Corr and tell us why this thing is gonna get better, why you think it's gonna get better. But what's happened now with the Red Sox is they just want to be relevant. Okay? They don't care about the paying customer. They just care that the customer pays. So when it gets to that point, like this is what happened when they moved on from B loom. People stopped showing up to the games like they ordinarily do. Remember, eventually they had to say, Yeah, we we the sellout streak is over and all that. But when there's not relevancy with the team, when they're not interesting, that's when the ownership group cares. It's not that they're not winning at a high level. It's not that they're making World Series runs. It's like, oh, we're not even relevant for a playoff spot. And there's apathy that sets in in the fan base. That's when they care. Right? They don't care that they're not winning World Series. For whatever reason they decided a couple years ago, more than a couple of years ago now, that they weren't in the winning business anymore. They were just in the business. That's where they're at right now. This is just another business for the Red Sox ownership group right now, and they've been an amazing ownership group up until a certain point where they stopped caring. Like, yes, they did bring four World Series. They were all in. They were in every sort of race to get the big free agents back in the day. They're just, they don't live in that same zip code anymore. It's just how relevant can we be? So that's why the change is coming now. And clearly what happened here is Breslo sold John Henry on his vision and that he can get this team back to being a competitive product and make sure that there's not apathy at the end of the season. Clearly, I don't think that's going to be the case going forward, but John Henry believes in Craig Breslau. I truly believe that. And so that's why I want to hear from the owner. I want to hear why he actually thinks this. And if you just cause I I don't I can't see the vision. Even if you look at the major league roster, you can't really make the claim. Like what so the additions were Suarez, who I like the signing if it in and of itself, but he has an ERA of four. Gray, four thirty, and now he's hurt. And I like the gray move. Like I think he's a solid pitcher, but these guys are actually worse than they've been in previous places when they come into your organization. And this is supposed to be his specialty, right? We're thinking about Craig Bresla as it pertains to the pitching. And look, he put together a team that right now has 18 home runs, which is tied for last in Major League Baseball. And I posted a video the other day where I said the Red Sox are the Sacramento Kings because at that point they had played 26 games and their home run differential was minus 22. In 26 games, they were minus 22 in home run differential. And the thing is, you would think if you were somebody that's tanking, you'd say, okay, this is a good strategy. Like, hey, if we can hit home runs and we give up a lot of home runs, like this is a way to tank. But the thing is, they were trying to win. They're like the Sacramento Kings. You see Craig Brezhnev today. He still believes in his vision. Like he thinks this team is good. He thinks this team is just underperforming, which is crazy. And I genuinely think he believes that. Instead of recognizing, like, oh man, maybe I kind of fuck things up and try to do things to fix the team. No, his solution is, hey, if we just get rid of the manager, and then of course my guys are gonna perform better, it's just not gonna happen. So I guess the vision that he's selling John Henry is, hey, it's these young pitchers in the pipeline, the earlies who threw the ball well today, totally who threw the ball well the other night, and then guys that are eventually gonna come up down the road, the Witherspoons, the Phillips, etc. But that's it. Like that's the only thing I can think of that they can actually sell to ownership right now. Because remember, they traded away a lot of prospects over the past couple years. And if you look at sort of their pipeline, there's not a lot of talent as it pertains to the position players, which this was once one of the best farm systems in major league baseball with all the position players. But if you look at it now, and I'm not saying this is a terrible thing, but six of their top seven prospects are pitchers. So even it's not even, hey, we're developing young players. No, it's actually the fact that, yeah, you have pitchers in the pipeline, but you don't have position players. So when you look at this major league ros ter and how poorly it's constructed, it's not like you have an answer in a year or two that's going to make this thing significantly better. Like that prospect's already here. Roman Anthony is already here. But what I want to know is why they think he's going to stare this thing in the right direction, meaning John Henry, because the fan base doesn't think it's gonna happen. At least I think the majority of you would agree with me. I don't think he's gonna fix this thing. So I don't I truly don't know, besides like maybe the spark, because we see this all the time: the new coach bump, you see it in the NFL. The boss Bill Simmons talks about it all the time. And look, you you got a bump today, you won, right? You won a series. So maybe this ends up working, and maybe this new voice helps the team. And because it's fresh eyes and he hasn't been going through all this losing with this group. So maybe it does help out. I'm not saying it's definitely just gonna fail. I'm just saying, like the bigger, broader picture here is that the organization is a mess. So what's the vision for this team? Right now , it's a joke. And the guy that apparently believes in this vision in John Henry won't tell us why. I want to know why they actually believe this can work the way that they're operating. And clearly, like going back to the power struggle, this was clearly a huge power strugg le between Korra and Brazil. Just look at the guys they moved on from. It's all Korra guys, right? It's the Kyle Hudson's, it's the Ramon Vasquez's, Pete Fatsi, and I'm defending Fatsy, but you get the idea. It's all the Korra guys. Even Veritek who they are they are so soft that they couldn't say they were firing Veritek. They were gonna reassign him. You think Veritec, like a franchise icon, the guy that was the captain of the team, is going to take a demotion just, fire him. If you're gonna fire him, fire him. Don't do that. That's almost more disrespectful to me. And they're talking about in the press conference like he's gonna take this new position. They didn't even know what it was that they were freaking talking about. That's how embarrassing that was know you don't what the position is and of course his wife just comes on Twitter says yeah thanks for everything like he he's not come he's not taking a demotion just have the balls at least to fire the guy I mean come on that was so embarrassing. It was worse. But think about the guys that stayed. Sorry, I'm getting worked up as I continue to go through this stuff. Think about the guys that stayed, right? Bailey's here. Bailey's a Breslau guy. They actually played together with the Red Sox back in the day. This team is 19th in ERA at 436. Their rotation has been a dumpster fire. Since the start of 2024, they're 15th in ERA since 2024 when he took over. So they've been average to bad for most of Bailey's tenure here. And this isn't sort of just like a Bailey thing. But the pitching has been way more disappointing than the offense. The offense stinks, but you could have saw that one covered as it pertains to like the lack of power in this lineup right now. That was more the fact that the pitching's bad. So if you're telling us, hey, these guys are all gonna start pitching to what they're supposed to be, this guy is is this guy not good at his job because he's your high but he's still here because he's a Breslau guy. So that to me is also perplexing. So and on top of all this, you had Red Sox stats on Twitter pointing out that there is dysfunction from the front office going back for two years. He said the inner circle is like three people, they're slashing departments and pay without any directive to do so. He also said, which is interesting, top players and prospects are not buying into the Red Sox program. And remember, remember what happened with Tibbs? Like it was reported, I believe it was Ken Rosenthal, reported that they were trying to mess with Tibbs' swing, and now Tibbs is in the Dodgers organization with an OPS north of 1,000. Like he's been incredible. But the Red Sox are trying to mess around with their swing. So that is like we talk about dysfunction just between Core and Brazil, but think about that. Up and down the organization. Some of your prospects don't believe in what the team is sort of preaching, which makes sense. I mean, clearly they're having trouble developing, guys. Look at what's happened to Christian Campbell. It was, and like I know he's been swinging the bat better lately, but this is your starting second baseman to begin last year. He was the worst second baseman in the sports defensively. And then he just stopped being able to hit. He couldn't baseball. He wasn't hitting the ball hard. Like you fucked up some of that development. Look at Meyer by now, and he made a great catch today. Look at and maybe Tracy helps him because he's had experience with him. But my point with that is like he should already be an everyday player in major league baseball. I know he dealt with a lot of injuries, but he should already be here. And some of that slow development, yeah, it's on injuries, but it's also on development. Casas, it feels like he's got a new injury every week. All these guys like think about it, it goes down like throughout the organization, there's dysfunction. So like the medical staff of this team. And I'm not saying like I'm not pointing out like individual people, I'm just saying like how they treat these things. Remember, hey, Romy's got a bad shoulder going back to last year. Ah, we'll let it heal. Uh, clearly, he needs to get something done to that shoulder, right? Because he starts the season on the 60 day uh I. Younger guys getting hurt all the time. Remember, Roman has the injury last year. And I know you could say it's a freak injury, but it happens with a lot of the young their young players. Abreyu's finely healthy, but the past couple years he's always dealing with these soft tissue injuries that he talked about the fact that he had to cut out soda. Like, how is this stuff that's not happening with the the it within the organization because guys are legitimately missing time because of these injuries that are happening. Up and down the organization it looks bad. And a couple of years ago, like I alluded to you had one of the best farm systems in the game. What's happened to that? I mean basically what you have to show for it is crochet via the trade and Roman Anthony right now. And like we'll see Tolly and Early. Obviously early's been really good for you, but I guess like a cup that's what you have to show for it. Because I the I referenced crochet because you made that trade of course. But I just look at it and I feel like this ownership group, too, and I don't know how they don't recognize this. They create these poor dynamics between the general manager, president of baseball operations, and the manager. They've been doing this for years because remember , they move on from Alex Corra and he was suspended. So it's not like they had a choice, but Alex Corra gets suspended. Ron Reneke, who, by the way, during the COVID, during the COVID shutdown and then they were playing when like you you couldn't really like you couldn't interview them one on one. That guy was the most boring manager in terms of the interviews you'll ever see. But then they decided to bring back Korra. And that clearly wasn't a Heim Bloom choice. Yeah, he's gonna say it was, but the organization wanted Alex Korra back. They loved Alex Korra. He he was a player here, of course, and he won a world series for them. They won this was not Heim Bloom's decision. That already creates sort of a power struggle in and of itself because the guy's coming here for his first job, like running the team, and he was told, Hey, this is your manager. That's like not a good way to build a relationship. And even this one, you look at it with Craig Breslau, it's not like, hey, Craig Bresla's gonna make it change at manager. It's hey, we're moving on from time bloom. We just need the guy to run the team. Alex Corps is gonna be the guy managing the team. That's two hires in a row that the guy running the team didn't pick the manager. And I like Cora a lot, as I alluded to. And maybe both those guys, maybe Breslau would have said, Yeah, why would we move on from Cora? Maybe he would have said that. But it's just a weird dynamic when the guy running the team doesn't hire the manager. And I that falls on ownership that they create that dynamic. And it's been going like I don't know you didn't learn from the last time this has been going on really since 2022 with Bloom and Korra because even going back to 2021 I know they're it ended up working but I don't think everybody was happy about the Schwarber deal at the time. It ends up being unbelievable, but there's always frustration with those two around the trading deadline. And look, Craig Breslau said today that he told Alex Cora the way he constructed the roster was challenging . You think, man, you had five guys for four spots. Now, to me, this is like another thing that he's bad at. He's selling and he's clearly sold ownership on it that this team is good. Like he still thinks the team is good. He still thinks they can compete for a playoffs, but he said all this stuff, right? Him and Sam Kennedy, who Sam Kennedy is just hey, he's there to carry John Henry's why. He's like a caddy. That's what he is. He's a caddy for John Henry. I mean it's pathetic when he goes out. Nobody freaking cares what that guy thinks. And he's not even really echoing the real feelings of John Henry. I mean he's just a mouthpiece and he's quite frankly he's bad at it. But anyway, like you're admitting the roster's flawed. Why would you do this after saying like you just need guys to perform? I agree with them, but it's a stupid thing for him to say at a press conference. He also said that he likes Chad Tracy a lot. He thinks he's the right fit, but he's not ruling out hiring a manager. Like he's terrible at these press conferences. Why would you and we all know this could be a possibility. He's the interim manager. But why would you say that? Why wouldn't you just say right now all our focuses backing Chad and putting together the best staff we can around him for now? Don't even talk about possibly hiring another manager. When that happens , just hire the manager if you do that. I I don't understand why he would say that. Just give Chad the opportunity. That's all you have to say. I I don't know why he would even say that. But he's terrible in these settings. It just it's like going back to the offseason. It's not his main job, but you do want to sell the fan base on stuff. And when you keep screwing up these press conferences, like going back to the whole thing where home runs are a foolproof way to put runs on the board, and then you don't add power. Like that's you set yourself up for that. You set yourself up for more criticism because of your own words and then you had to turn into the pivot prints and pivot. And then on top of all this, Jen McCaffrey had the reporting that Jaron Duran didn't talk to the media. Okay. Duran didn't the media. Roman Anthony is the first guy in front of the camera. So like Duran is a guy that's in his late 20s, has been with this team forever. In terms of position players. I know it's tech technically story's like been with the team longer, but Durant's played the most games over the past four years or so, and he's not even addressing the media. That's a leadership problem here with this team. That they don't have a lot of good veterans on this group. And Trevor's story , he said he doesn't know what direction the organization is going. Now the one thing I will say with Story, I I quite frankly, I really don't want to hear from him. I get he's like supposed to be the leader of the team, but he's underperformed so much throughout the life of this contract so many times that he's dealing with being on the injured list. I don't want to hear it from story. Like if you're worried about the direction ask for a trade. The problem is nobody's going to trade for you at this point in time. So I I didn't really care to hear it from story. I know that he's trying to show some leadership here, but the Duran thing is the one that sort of aggravated me more. The fact that Roman Anthony is like this 22-year-old kid, and he's having to be the guy that is in charge of the team. He's the guy. Like, this is way too early for that type of player. You don't see this often across the sport. Garrett Whitlock said they made it very clear that we get paid to play baseball and we need to focus on playing baseball. They weren't allowed to ask questions. Like they just fired the manager. Most of them, like Garrett Whitlock's only played for core, and they're not gonna ask questions about what's going on. And that's where the one thing I like what Story said, I agree with. Like he doesn't understand the direction of the team because they're so bad, yet Brezhnev's trying to win. Like, I don't understand the direction of the team. So that's one thing that I do like I agree with what he's saying. I just don't love the messenger there. But the fact that you can't even answer or ask questions to these guys is ridiculous. And by the way, with Breslau won the power struggle. He saw what happened with Heinbloom and he said, Hey, I gotta get out in front of this. So he put it on Korra. And remember, Korra has talked in the past about, hey, maybe he wants to be in the front office one day. So I'm sure Brezhnev, of course, naturally he's aware of that , and he wants to make sure, like, you know, somebody's gonna have to pay for this. So Breslau gets in front of it. And this is the same thing that happened with the Korra time bloom dynamic, except in the opposite way. But for some reason, they believe in Breslau. I just want to know what it is. It feels like right now this is a miserable place for anybody like in the organization. The players don't feel happy. Obviously, there's a lot of reporting people within the organization are not happy. And I I would also add, like, Craig Bruzzo, another thing he's bad at, and like we're talking about all the dysfunction, he's bad with relationships. Look at what happened with the Raphael Evers thing where they just continued to lie to him that offseason, and then eventually they tell him that he's the DH. And then of course he has to pivot from that and make a trade. So this is sort of like part of his issue is communication with players and communication up and down the organization. And just like look at his deals. We talk about the Devers deal. Tibbs, I alluded to this earlier. The OPS north of 1000. Dustin May. You traded for Dustin May for a prospect like that. Why? Because you were all in trying to get Joe Ryan. You wanted us to believe that. So you needed to add an arm. So you just said, Oh yeah, we'll give up this guy. We'll overvalue for dust. Like it was stupid. Kyle Harrison has a three oh six ERA in Milwaukee. You traded him for Durbin because you put all your eggs in the Alex Bregman basket, and when he told you we had a better deal, you didn't. And look, I don't even love the Bregman contract. But my point is their whole offseason plan was coming down to retaining Alex Bregman , and they didn't so it forced you to give up somebody in your organization to bring in Durbin, who's an inferior player, to Alex Bregman to begin with. The process has been wrong. The offseason plan was wrong, and it was all centered around bringing back Bregman and it just didn't work. This is why their whole thing was about bringing Bregman back. This is why I think they didn't really make a serious offer for Alonzo. Remember it was only a three-year deal compared to the five-year deal he got from Baltimore. And I'm saying he's having a great season. But my point being is that sort of was indicating their whole thing was about bringing back Alex Bregman. And so because of that, that forces you to give up Kyle Harrison for Durbin, a guy that you didn't need to trade, but you did it because of the fact that you needed a third baseman because you fucked up the Alex Bregman situation. So his process has just been really bad. And this ownership group, going back to John Henry, not being there , it's just so frustrating that they don't care the way they once did. And going back to what I mentioned earlier about they don't care about the paying customer. They just care that the customer pays. This is why they moved off high bloom, right? Because hey, people were starting to lose interest. This is why now they're moving off Quora because Breslau has sold them the vision that this will work. It just we need to have new voices in there. And it will work. That's the message he's sending right now. So they don't care about winning the ownership group, does, but they do want to get back to relevancy, and he sold them on that vision. But the other thing I would say is the Red Sox they only make changes when it hurts the bottom line, and this is how they operate, right? This is what they care about. It' the bsottom line. They try treat this like a business. And the issue that I have is: okay , this is one of the most historic franchises in the sport. And you saved it. You brought them to four world, one four world series. Unbelievable stuff. And you've had an incredible run. But here's the thing. If you don't care about winning anymore, which clear there's no evidence that points to the fact that they do, they don't care about winning the same way they did. They just want a chance. They just want to be relevant, then sell the team honestly. Because if you don't want to win, somebody else will buy this team that wants to win. So say hey, we had our good run and move on. But the problem is it's way too profitable for them to sell this team. They make so much money on this team that they don't want to do that. So this is where we're stuck right now. And as of now, I feel like just because of what we saw happen with Alex Korra, I think the Red Sox in the long run are gonna be worse for this. Now, not because of just not because of the Korra it the move in and of itself. It's not because of that. And Tracy may turn out to be a great manager. I don't know. He's managed triple. He may be great. I hope he is great. Like I want this team to be relevant. Unfortunately, that'll help John Henry. But my point with that is this means Breslau is going to be running this thing going forward and they fully believe in the guy. So I don't believe they're going to make a change. Maybe I'll be wrong and they will make a change with Breslau after the season, but the reason I say the Red Sox are gonna be worse for this is because Breslau won a power struggle, which is going to enable him to make more moves and he's messed up so many. How can any fan have any faith right now. All right, I do want to get to the Patriots real quickly here. So we got to the first three picks of the draft over the last few pods. But just one thing about the process here. I know a lot of people mate we're talking about them moving up where if you look at that first round, six tackles had come off the board. So you trade it up, make sure that you don't miss on your guy. You get Lomu. So they use a fourth and a sixth to move up to get Ak is, the pass rusher who we alluded to the other day. McShay loves him. A lot of people love him. But five edges went off the board in the second round before that. So you wanted to make sure he got your guy. And then Raritan, I think they fell behind a little bit in terms of the tight ends, because all the tight ends were starting to come off the board. So I think they fell behind there. But the whole idea of the process here where they traded up and they gave away those late round picks, I really don't mind that process at all because all right, now there's gonna be more scrutiny on those players because you sort of gave up assets to go get them. But I feel like okay, if those are the guys you really liked when we're talking about Lomu and we're talking about Akis in particular, I have no problem with it whatsoever. Like go get your guy and you feel like okay, this is a starter for us at edge. And of course, Lomu is going to be a swing tackle and you think at 2027, he's gonna be your starting right tack. I have no problem with that whatsoever if you do that. Like I actually like that process rather than settling, right? Where the guy ends up going in front of you that you really want. So I have no problem with that whatsoever. And it was a really the one thing I have enjoyed about the draft the past couple of years from a Patriots perspective in terms of how different they are from past drafts with Belichick. And this isn't me critiquing Belichick, but they're very straightforward drafts. Like you know what you need. You went into this draft, you're pressing needs outside a receiver, and it feels like that's gonna be solved by AJ Brown down the road, although knock on wood, who knows at this rable situation now. But we know that you needed a tackle for the future, and we knew you needed a tight end. And those are your first three picks. And then you look at so I feel like I kind of like what they're doing. It's like, yeah, they do they're not I know they've mentioned like best of they're not a best available team really. I the one example I would say is probably last season when, or last draft, I should say, where they took Travion, where that wasn't the most glaring need. That was the best available one. But most of these, they're like a need team, which I I don't think that's a a terrible thing, right? Now if there's blue chipper, I'm saying they're gonna pass on it, but I feel I feel like I was totally fine with the way they played the board, even if they had to give up to give up stuff to move up. Alright, they did take the Wake Forest corner. That was their first pick of day three. PFF had him seventh, Prunty, and PFF grade in terms of coverage grade among corners. The only thing that's concerning to me, he's 24, and actually Callahan tweeted this on Saturday when they made the pick. He's actually older than Christian Gonzalez. So day three corner. I don't love the fact that he's 24. I much rather if you're going to take a guy there, I ma much rather you take a guy that's younger with maybe more potential for upsides. That was my critique there. I just don't love taking a player of that age at that point. Uh they took another tackle, crown over, dude is absolutely huge, six seven, three twenty-ish. He was only 2 15th in PFF grade. But clearly with Crown over, this is a potential play because you already drafted Lomo, who you're planning on being your starting right tackle going forward after you move on for Morgan Moses after next season. And he also had a ton of penalties. 11 penalties tied for the six most . But when you look at it from that perspective, I don't like if you look at the tools, right? And I ideally he's a swing tackle for you. Six, seven, three twenty-ish. Like I don't mind a guy that, you know clearly he's got to work on technique, has issues with penalties. I don't mind taking like it's kind of the opposite of what they did at corner, taking a play on like a high upside guy. Obiazzora in the sixth round, the linebacker from TCU, uh terrible in coverage, 235th in coverage grade, and I think they're betting on trades here too. 45, 340, 75th percentile. Bird is in the 82nd percentile, and they even talked about special teams, so I don't have a problem with that one. Uh six around oh, you also took Morton, the quarterback, which I don't really understand this one. Like I he had big numbers a couple of years ago at Texas Tech, thirty three hundred yards, six two, but he's small, two hundred. I I just don't know if he's like clearly does not have a big arm. If you saw him play Texas Tech, you know this. He doesn't have a big arm and you have DeVito on the roster. I just I don't really like using the pick on a quarterback there, to be honest. I just I I don't understand why you would do that. And then Jam Miller, you took him the running back from Alabama, four four two forty, so good speed. He was under four yards of carry this past season. You never see that with the college running backs that are drafted. Part Alabama's line was terrible. Like you saw it with Ty Simpson too. But I look, he's a guy that's got a lot. He did catch over the past two years 16 receptions, 19 receptions. He's a pretty good athlete. He's behind Ramondre and Trevion. Again, maybe this is a guy that you use on special teams. Maybe eventually down the road, he could be like your third down back. So I didn't mind that pick. I just I didn't like taking a quarterback and I don't like taking a 24-year-old corner. But for the most part, overall, really like the first two picks. I liked the third-round pick as well. We talk about this with tight ends. A lot of it is like you're betting on the traits. You're betting on the potential. So to me, that's gonna be like the big bet to see we're gonna go back and we're gonna compare those other third round tight ends that went right before him in that area to see hey, how good is Raritan. But overall, I give it a B. I think it's solid. I think this was like in each or vegetables type draft. So I thought there were I thought it was solid draft for the Patriots. Now it's all contingent on how good these guys end up being, clearly, and we're not gonna know that for a couple of years. But in terms of the process that they used, I liked it. So I'd give them a solid B on this one. Not like any home runs. Like I really liked their draft last year. And I mean, Campbell was like one of my least favorite picks, but I love the Williams pick. I love the Henderson pick. Like the Henderson, I thought that was a home run. He had a really good season up until uh they stopped trusting him in pass protection late in the year. He had a weird season. So good in the middle of the season. Didn't do much at the beginning, then was really not really playing that much once we got into the postseason, but I love the upside of Trevion Henderson's. I really liked like the home run, but you didn't have any of those in this one. Maybe Raridan ends up being that guy. Maybe Akis ends up being that guy, like down the road. A lot of people love that pick, but I feel like really solid draft. Uh the Bruins, I just can't remember. A more embarrassing loss. Just a complete no-show. It's a 2-1 series. And your season is essentially on the line. You're not going to beat this team three consecu tive times, right? They're a more talented roster than you to begin with. And you come out and you completely lay an egg, they were outshot 19 to 5 in the per in the first period. 19 to 5. I don't understand how you're not you're playing in your building, your fans are fired up, you just lost, and you come out with no energy. It was just a gutless, gutless performance. And one of the things that we talked about, sometimes the Bruins just cannot get out of their own way. And that's what the first period was. I know later on in the game they start fighting like great guys. They the game's over. In all likelihood, the series is over. Great. You showed fight here. Why don't you show some fight in the first period when Buffalo just completely took it to you? And it was the same shit we've seen all season, like when this team is bad, it usually has a lot to do with them being sloppy. So the first goal, Krebs who made it one-nothing. It's just it's a brutal turnover . I don't know what McAvoy's doing. It's it's a D to D pass to Aspro, and it's just it's not online. It's not to him. And then right after that, Minton turns it over, and then of course Tuck finds Krebs and they make it a one-to-nothing game. But McAvoy is one of the leaders of the team. One of your best players. I mean, obviously, he was leading the team in ice time. He's obviously gonna be one of your most reliable players. And he has a turnover like that in a must-win game for the Bruins? Just horrible. How about the 2-0 ? Uh, the goal that made it 2-0 , where it's right after the penalty ends, right? Technically, it wasn't a power play goal, but it kind of was. And the reason that you had that penalty is you had a too many men on the ice penalty. I don't understand how that happens. In a game of this magnitude, how do you get a too many men penalty? It's just bad. Like Lynnholm doesn't see McAvoy because McA voy's coming across like in the neutral zone and I forget who he hit, but he hit somebody. Linholm jumps off jumps in too early. You get a penalty there. And then of course you get the goal from uh Dowan gets in front of Mc Avoy, but it was after the it was after a Linholm turnover too. Remember like Linholm just muffs one where he can't clear the zone, they score in that one. And the Byram goal too, whereere Aspro basically pushes Zucker into Swayman. Swayman's like going at the official when he doesn't realize like Aspro just pushed Zucker into you. That's why like you were down is because of your own player. But just brutal, brutal turnovers in this one. Uh yeah, I mentioned the one from Linholm where I he you're on I he just can't clear the zone. Like there's nobody around him and he just he has had a terrible series, but he just can't clear I don't understand. He just like muffed it. Terrible. So all these type of mistakes that you've made, and just the McAvoy turnover, Aspro pushing Zucker into Swayman, the play with Linholm where you just it it it was terrible and they picked like the worst possible time to play their worst game of the season and this is right up there. I mean this to f for two things to happen, for you to completely no-show and for you to be this sloppy, like you didn't bring the necessary effort and the necessary energy to that game. But on top of that, for you to have all these sloppy turnovers and combine them with not having the energy, I don't know. That's a leadership thing. And I know like they don't technically have a captain. They have a bunch of assisting captains. I don't put that on the head coach. I don't Sturm issue. Like, oh I Sturm didn't and he tried to do things. Like he took Hagens out of the lineup. He tried to make some changes to sort of and ironically they tried to do that to get tougher and quite frankly, it didn't work. Like nobody showed up to the game. So I don't put it on Sturm. I think I this is on the players in terms of the leadership within the dressing room. That that to me is the big difference. And I do think, too, when you look back and you say you look at this game and you look at this series, I think some of the issues they had during the regular season have clearly come up. Like, yeah, they've taken a ton of penalties. We knew that was gonna happen. The turnovers have been sloppy as well. But just in terms of just from a pure talent perspective, if you go back to the regular season. Their goals for percentage five on five was the fourth best of the NHL. But a lot of that was good structure and good goaltending, right? Because you look at it in terms of high danger chances for this season. The Bruins five on five were just twenty-six. High danger chances they were twenty-six, yet they were fourth in goals four percentage five on five. A lot of that has to do with the fact that Swayman is second in the league this season in goals save above expected. He was over 29. So that's really part of the reason you're a great five-on-five, because you don't create a ton of great chances. And I think about, with the exception of Posternock, and I'm not saying he had a great series, clearly didn't and I know technically it's not over, but it's pretty much over. But the thing I would say, like , I know that he wasn't great in this series, but if you think about it, with the exception of pasta, how many scary players do the Bruins have? Geeky had another 30 goal season, but he had that huge throughout midway through the year, and he's more of a finisher, not a creator. Like I go back to earlier in the series where he had a wide open net and he can't finish on that particular and there was one where he didn't even look. Like I don't know what he was doing on that one. But Geeky's a finisher and he's perfectly fine in that role, but he's not like a scary player, the way the pasta is. Zaka was tremendous. I'd say that. Like Zaka , he pro he proved this year that he can drive a line. Like he drove good offense, that second line was tremendous all year. So Zaka's been awesome. So he's been great and you know he can carry a line. So you have Postida that can carry a line. Not to say that he was great in this series, but Posti can carry a line. Zaka can carry a line. But then you look at guys like, all right, well, Elias Lindholm, he gave the big contract to he's minus seven during the regular season. And if you look at the fact in game three, they took him on the first power play, that's all you have to know is they don't want him on the power play, the first power play unit. He had 48 points in 69 games. Not saying that's horrible, but you gave him that huge contract that he signed through what 2030-2031, making in terms of the cap it's like 7.8 most of these seasons, and you're just not getting production there. And for him to be productive, he had to basically play with pasta. Like that's how he's productive, is when he plays at David Posternach, and you're paying him to be able to drive offense on a line the way that Zaka does, and he can't do that. So look, and they played mainly Hagen's at wing when he came up, of course. Obviously, out of the lineup today, but I think what you're banking on now going forward is development of some of these young centers that you've drafted over the past couple years because I think the lack of creative players and dangerous players for the Bruins, it was clearly exposed in the series that they just don't have a lot of them. And clearly right now you're looking for sort of development with some of the guys because there's not current guys on the team right now, with maybe the exception, like I said, of Hagens in the future, but it's not like a lot of guys you can look on this roster. I think Minton had a really good year as well. But if you look at this going forward, like you're that's and I feel like we've been having this conversation ever since Bergeron and Craichie retired. We've been having these conversations. And it just feels like right now, they don't have a lot of that. And Lynn Holmes, like, he's not a typical third like he's not like a typical third line center. Like Coyle's a great third line center because of his two-way ability. Lynn Holmes really not that type of guy. Ironically, he could have really used Coyle in the series, although, you know, the mint and trade it worked out for you in the long run. But like that's the type of third line. Like you almost Lynnholm almost has to be a third-line setter because I don't think at this point he can be the setter on one of your top two lines. He's just not any can't like he's gonna be, he's gonna play with pasta a lot. He's just he's not nearly good enough. And that's the one team I the one thing I think this team is really, really missing right now. Alright, coming up next, we'll check him with Justin Termini. Off the pike is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA playoffs are here and everything's on the line. Every possession matters. Every bucket swings the game. And tonight is your shot to boost your bet. That's right, all customers get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits, your win hits bigger. Alright, I'm looking at these games coming up, of course, on Monday night. The Nuggets, I believe they're gonna bo unce back and beat Minnesota, especially with the injuries Minnesota's dealing with DiVincenzo out with the Achilles tear and then Anthony Edwards. Looks like he's gonna miss the remainder of that series as well. So the Nuggets have looked awful, but I think they bounce back. They win this one. I'll take Jokic for 50 points, rebounds, and assists. And without Anthony Edwards, I'm going to take Randall, 30 points, rebounds, and assists. I'll take OKC to close out the Suns and the Knicks to beat the Hawks as that series, of course, moves back to the garden. Lock in your bets, boost your odds, and make the playoffs pay off with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. Head to FanDuel.com slash pike to get started. FanDuel, play your game . Twenty-one plus in select states or eighteen plus in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt in required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Gambling problem, call one-eight hundred gambler, call one eight eight eight-789-7 777 or visit CCPG.org/slash chat in Connecticut . Welcome back into off the pike. Joining us now, host of MBA today on Sirius XM NBA Radio. Justin Terminy. Also, Terminy crashes out, which you can get on YouTube. Terminy, what's going on, man? This is what I wanted tonight. Just a nice, easy Celtics victory. They won Friday, but it was a little too stressful. This is what the doctor ordered for Celtics fans tonight, especially after what's going on with the manager. He gets fired by the Red Sox. He got the Bruins, get absolutely crushed. It was nice to have a nice end to the day here because it was not the best day in Boston sports history. Yeah, I mean I think just uh nice to have that even for just a basketball fan. If you're just a basketball fan, not a fan of Boston sports, and you've been watching all these postseason games, you needed a blowout because it seems like everything has either been close and even some of the games that haven't been close, like the Nuggets Timberwolves game, had all that drama towards the tail end. So it was nice to have a drama-free uh night here and not have to worry about anything tight and giving you uh anxiety or a heart attack. And I think one thing that jumped out to me is and they got him going early, and beat finished this game. We're recording with like two minutes left, but he finished with 26 points. But I almost felt like from a Celtics perspective, it was almost better for them that he played because it became so much about going to and beat, especially early in this game, and you really didn't feel the impact from first of all, Edgecombe's been horrible for three of the four games, but you didn't feel the impact at all from Maxi. Like when that team really got going, especially in the game that they won, I felt like Maxi was really getting into the teeth of the defense, breaking their defense down, kicking it out. They were hitting wide open threes at this point with one forty left. They've hit nine threes in the game. So I almost feel like in Bede playing is better for the Celtics. 100% agree on a couple of different fronts, and one of them is like if I have a concern about Boston and their guards, even though they're tremendous defensively, it's the speed. They just don't have that. So Derek White's one of the great defensive guards , maybe in NBA history, certainly at the shot blocking perspective, but he has trouble keeping up with Tyrese Maxie, right? Same thing with Edgecombe. We have the speed advantage. I do like Jordan Walsh on Maxie a little bit. Think he does a tremendous job. So I do like that little wrinkle that they've thrown out there. But yeah, I think the big issue for Boston is staying up on some of these quick guards. That almost nullified that. Then the thing with Enbeat is they became so focused on getting him involved early that, the other guys maybe don't get the rhythm. And then finally, and this is just something, even when MB's been 100%, we've seen it in Celtic Sixers games, it's almost like you're watching Pedro back in the day go up against the Yankees. Remember? The Yankees were just like keep following pitches, taking pitches. And then by the time you get to the sixth, seventh inning, Pedro's exhausted. And they almost do that with Embiid, where Embiid crushes them sometimes first quarter, second quarter. And then he gets fatigued in the fourth quarter. He's got nothing left, especially coming back from the appendectomy. Yeah, it's the rope-dope, right? He gets so gassed. And even you can tell as this is going on, even when he gets to the free throw line, he'll like put his hands on his knees and they know the Celtics know and they knew whenever they wanted to, they could go at him beat too. They did that multiple times in this game when they went after him. They really didn't answer Philly did for really any of the Celtics, the main three guys in terms of Pritchard, Tatum, and Jalen Tatum was this was his best game of the playoffs so far. Pritchard was ridiculous in this one. And if you're Philly , you got up 33s. The Celtics got up 53. The Celtics hit 24, they hit nine . Like, you just can't beat the Celtics when that's the case. And at one point during this game terminate, the Celtics out on one possession got five offensive rebounds on the same possession. And it ended up they didn't score on that possession. Vucevic ended up missing two free throws after they all missed a bunch of shots. But the Celtics are getting offensive rebounds, and at one point during this game, they had missed thirty-two shots Philadelphia, and they didn't have a single offensive rebound up until that point. The Celtics at that time had missed 22 shots and they had gotten 10 offensive rebounds. So they don't really generate extra possessions. And I really feel like now that we look at it, this is a typical Celtic series where they usually come out of the gates and they're flying. They usually take care of game one. They stink in game two for whatever reason. They have the one competitive game and then they have this type of game. And I just feel like they should go home Tuesday night and end this thing, but I just don't think Philly has enough to make another game competitive. If you're gonna have that distinction in terms of the three-point opportunities when you're the inferior team, I don't know how you win. And I think a lot of that has to do with in B being out there and sort of taking so much of the oxygen because I and the other thing is like in terms of their third scores, they just haven't got enough from Edgecombe or Paul George. Edgecombe's probably too young to be that type of guy at this point, and Paul George is probably just a little bit too old to do it. Yeah, no, I I agree. And then, you know, defensive like offensively, MB can still scare you, and he did put up some big numbers today. I think defensively is where you can easily take advantage of them. And they did that tonight. And again, a lot of like the open threes, the second opportunity. I thought probably the biggest difference in the game was the offensive rebounding, especially in the first half when they when they blew it open. So I think that's the you know the aspect where they really crushed him. And I agree with you. I don't think they have enough. And I think the the most impressive part about today was if you're the Celtics, this is what you should do, right, Brian, is you see everybody else struggling. It's the health issues out west. Denver's about to get knocked out, okay? So they were a championship contender. Then you look at uh Minnesota. Okay, Minnesota's done because of the long-term injuries. Jalen Williams is out for OKC . Uh, we just saw Wem Benyama, now he's back. But the point is that's a young team. You might have the experience over uh from that perspective. Cleveland lost, Detroit is struggling in their series, New York. So if you're serious, like you see all that happening around you, like the path now is clear. Like this is a clearer path than it probably was a week, week and a half ago. So make sure you take, you know, care of your business and uh in advance. Yeah. And to your point, like e in the East, the Knicks are already expending more energy than they wanted to. I I don't know what's going on with Cleveland. I guess they just found out like the James Harden experience, what happens in these big games. I don't know how they're tied to two. They looked like they were gonna run away with that series. Detroit's in just like an absolute dogfight with Orlando, and we've seen it so much in recent NBA history. It's not always, it's just can you get to the finish line healthy? We've seen this so many years in a row where teams go to even last year, and the Celtics would have lost that series, but Tatum goes down, Halliburton goes down in game seven. The Celtics win a couple of years ago when they win the championship. Every round, and this isn't me taking anything away from them, the opposing team had some sort of a significant injury, whether it was Jimmy Butler, whether it was Donovan Mitchell, Jared Allen, right? And Halliburton goes down. The only team they played that was like pretty healthy was the Mavericks. So when you have these opportunities, that's why you got to end these series early and don't risk any more injuries going forward, especially with this team that was banged up, of course, in last postseason. Not just obviously the big injury with Tatum, but Jalen was playing with a knee injury that he needed surgery on and he had no lift. I do want to get to Pritchard here because Terminy, this guy is so fucking good. He goes 12 of 21, 6 of 12, and his threes have been so important. He had five in the last game, especially now. Derek White, it was a good sign, got a couple of go tonight. One, he went back out to the three-point line to hit it, so it was good to see that. But just going through some of the stuff that I he gets this isolation on Barlow, just torches him and gets into the paint right away. He hits back-to-back threes. He's screaming at uh Reggie Miller, hit that one in transition. How about the one footer to beat the buzzer from 28 feet? He hit a one-footer from 28 feet, 34 to 18. It's like when Lamello takes those shots like during the regular portion of the game. It's like the I don't know why he does it all the time, but Pritchard needed to do that. He's able to hit that one. And he was just cooking, guys. He had one drive in this game where it's so impressive because he can get so low and Paul George is guarding him and he just moves George, who's 6'8, obviously heavier than Pritchard. He just knocks him back. And George is looking for a foul. They're like, uh, yeah, we're not going to give you a foul on that one. And then in the sec ond half, they tried to trap him at one point, and he just is so quick. He split the double team and got a layup. And then end of the quarter just he went by. They tried to press him. You can't press him. Drew Holiday said that he was the toughest guy in the Celtics to guard. And I don't I think people are like, yeah, there's no chance that's true. It's true because they do these full court drills, right? He's got two guys on him. He goes by Ubre, he goes by Edgecomb. They catch up, he goes by them again and gets to the free throw line at the end of the half because Edgecomb came back and followed him. He's just such a weapon for this team. Isolation numbers off the charts. One point one one points per possession, which is in the 90th percentile. I tweeted this out tonight during the game because he hit that end of the quarter one. But he's so good late shot clock, making something out of nothing. Like even the other night, he said Tatum threw him a flaming bag. He hit the three. Zero to four seconds on the shot clock termin . He has two hundred and three points this year. Not in the playoffs, obviously during the regular season. 203 points. Number two is Brunson at 175. Nobody scores more between zero and four seconds than Peyton Pridger. 203. And Brunson's at 175. Like, I just he's so difficult to cover because his handle is just so tight. It's not like the He's got almost a double step back. I don't know how he pulls that off, but he was unreal in this game. He really in the first half, Tatum and Jalen didn't get going until the third quarter. He really carried them offensively, and I have said multiple times, he's going to be so critical to this run, especially not just because White's struggling, but they've asked him to do a lot more this year. Yeah, I mean, I got first of all, I got to jot down that stat about the 203 compared to like what 170 something for Jalen Brunson. That's awful stat, zero to four seconds. Uh, but like you can kind of tell just by watching them, and my experience this year. So I've probably gone to about thirty-seven, thirty-eight games postseason, regular season combined. And you're sitting there, and the guy that impresses you the most in regards to at least how different he is than everybody else in the league is Peyton Pritchard. I mean, the guy plays the sport more different than anybody I've seen the last 15 to 20 years at his size, the way he gets into the paint, and he's able to manipulate uh some of the bigger guys, get his shot off over him. So it's impressive watching on a daily basis. And the thing that struck me when he's torching Philadelphia there, and really it was the bench, because like you said, Brown and Tatum didn't get going until the second half is Boston loses all these guys in the offseason. Like they lose four or five contributors in the offseason, a lot of them big names. And they stay and I'm not even saying like they're better or worse. And I think you can make the argument that they're better without some of those guys and better with some of the guys they replaced him with. But the point is, even if you think they're slightly worse, the fact they have this many guys that can contribute after they lost that many guys is it is nuts because outside of Oklahoma City, they might be the deepest team in the NBA. Yeah, it really is insane if you think about all that they lost. And really they were probably better off for it just because all those guys, with the exception of like Cornette missed a little bit of time, but all those guys were missing significant time this year with injuries. Even Drew missed a good chunk of the season after he got off to a good start and obviously playing with his Blazers team of the postseason. But all these guys and Al Horford dealt with an injury. He was rarely hurt when he was here and look he did get healthy for the postseason, but he didn't give the Warriors a ton this year. Poor Zingis, you know the story with him. He they still hadn't figured out the ill ness situation, so he was in and out of the lineup. And these guys have just been unbelievable stepping into bigger roles. And Pritchard, I think's the the guy that did the most because he just went from a really good player to wait, can anybody cover this guy one-on-one? And historically, he has struggled against Philadelphia, but not in this series. He's been awesome. Uh Tatum in this game , 30 points. He had 11 assists, seven rebounds, nine free throws. He's five of ten from deep. I was talking about, I tweeted this out earlier. He was eight of twenty-nine on twos prior to this, 62.1%. His best two -point shooting playoff run is forty-six point four percent some or excuse me, forty-nine point six percent. And he was at sixty-two point one percent last postseason forty-six point four percent. Tonight he got the three ball going. Got a couple of stepbacks, a couple of pull-ups of the drop coverage that Philly was playing. And to me, the biggest thing to hit for me in this game about Tatum, as good as the scoring is, because he'll have games where he shoots like this, he'll have games where of course he struggles shooting the three-ball. But the biggest thing to me was the playmaking. Like he gets into the lane, he gets Shireman a wide open three. And then he had this one pass where they doubled him with in Bede and they blitzed him. Paul George went over. Paul George got the switch like on Vucevich, so he immediately runs over. And instead of just throwing the ball to Vucevic at the top of the key, which is like the easy pay uh pass to make, he skip passes it for a wide open three to Derek White. So I think it was Derek White. But anyway, he made that skip pass. So you could tell like everybody thinks the ball's going to Vusevich. He just throws it across the court. And I've said this. I think he's actually a better passer. And I know we only have what now four nineteen games of it? I think he's a better passer post-Achilles injury. His playmaking has been better. I've heard multiple people say that. I agree with it. Is like the only thing really that hasn't been the same is maybe been the shooting percentage, which he struggled with at times in the past. Like so the shot making might not be where it was prior to the injury. The rebounding is there, if not better. The playmaking is there, if not better. And I was talking about this on my Sirius X M MBA radio show the other day with Eddie Johnson. We were talking about Kevin Durant. Durant is and I saw like Steve Kerr came out in this latest article and was talking about like why he benched Tatum again, even though it's a year and a half later. Yeah, why why is he talking about that? I know it's a whole big article. It's bizarre. But the the reason I bring that up is because he kind of took a shot at the playmaking, right? Like he's like, well, we didn't need him out there because you know, essentially painting him as a scorer, not a playmaker, well then he's miscast Jason Tatum. Jason Tatum is a playmaker. So Eddie and I were discussing the other day that outside of scoring, which is I guess the most important thing, you could argue like making your teammates better is the most important thing. But we we know scoring might be the most important thing or it gets you the most attention. What is Kevin Durant better at Jason Tatum than? All right, I'm not saying that Tatum's even better historically, but name one aspect of the game. If you can, like think, is there one aspect of the game Durant's better at? Because Tatum's a better rebounder, Tatum's a better defender, Tatum's a better playmaker, he's certainly a better leader and a guy that keeps peace within a locker room. So, you know, he beat him head to head a couple of years ago. Now granted that was his first year off the uh Achilles, or the second year, I guess, where he swept him. Uh but the point is, like name one aspect that that Durant's better at Tatum then, other than scoring , uh again, which is probably the most important thing. I can't think of one. Yeah, I think he's the most I agree with you. The Durant is a better scorer slash shooter, that's it. Other than that, Tatum is a much better playmaker. He's a significantly better rebounder. He's I've said multiple times, I believe he's the best non-center rebounder in the NBA. I mean, I guess the other guy you throw in that conversation is Jalen Johnson. That's probably probably the other guy that you throw in that category. I Luca's a good rebounder too, but it's a little bit different than the way Tatum gets him. Tatum gets these rebounds in traffic. He d uh I he's just such a well-rounded player. The one critique on him historically has been the efficiency. Other than that, I mean, that's how they won an NBA championship because they put Tatum on the other team center, which is something that a lot of teams couldn't do. Like he saw you have centers that won't guard centers, right? Anthony Davis historically like doesn't want to doesn't want to play center because he doesn't want to bang with big guys, and Tatum did that in the NBA finals. I totally agree with you on that. And the other thing I'd say too, just sort of the synergy with him and Jalen, they have and look, they've been doing this for years, but there's such a comfort level right now of when this guy goes and when the other guy goes. I thought earlier in the series they should have done a better job like getting Jalen going because it felt like so they were playing so much through Tatum, and now I feel like as the season as the series goes on, they've kind of found like a synergy with that and Jalen wasn't great tonight shooting percentage wise but the thing that jumps out to you in the series is they don't have anybody. I mean he when either him or Tatum get VJ edge comb on him they were just like okay this guy for Jalen, he's probably given up I, don't know, 30 pounds, and he's four, he's three inches shorter with Tatum. Tatum's got all types of height over him, but had a nice play on him where he went through his legs, got to the bucket. Paul George tried to cover him multiple times. He got that mid-ranger over him when Paul George fouled him too. He sh he actually actually shook him too on one play where he like basically shakes Paul George and then he throws up this mid-ranger that he has now where it just like it feels like it goes 50 feet in the air and, it's only thing is it just goes straight down. It just hits the it hits the net, it doesn't hit the rim at all. And the maxi switch, whenever he got maxi on him, he would get to the free throw line. He did struggle at the free throw line a bit in this game, but the isolation numbers, 23 possessions, prior to tonight 22 points, 1.26 points per possession. So a Jason, a Jalen Brown isolation play in this postseason is better than the most efficient offense in the NBA. And he's been around like 1.03, 1.06 , 1-1 the past couple years in the playoffs. He's up to 1.26. And my biggest thing with this is: okay, we know Philly doesn't have a good matchup. Most likely it's gonna be the Knicks, but even if it's not, Atlanta's got some good wing defenders on that as well. I'm really interested to see, knock on wood, unless something drastically happens in the series. The Celtics are gonna get to the next round. I'm really interested to see how this isolation plays throughout the postseason round because he was so good in the run a couple of years ago where he won finals MVP, Eastern Conference Finals MVP. And last year, clearly in that Knicks series, he wasn't himself from a health perspective. Because I do think at times the Knicks are going to make it difficult on the Celtics to score with the wings that they have. And I think they are uniquely sort of built, and they basically built their team to try to match up with the Celtics. That's what I'm looking forward to because I really like what we see from Jalen in this series, but when it gets to a Yeah, and you know, so I'll say just an interesting development in the Knicks series. One is OG and Anobe is fantastic. So the concern is like if the third guy is OG, uh, he's been spectacular. If the third guy's Derek White, you have some concerns, right? And maybe the third guy is Pritchard, he's gonna play like this, but the third guy for the Knicks right now is playing absolutely awesome. That's OG and Anobe, and Derek White clearly is battling some confidence issues. Uh, so that's like an edge. The concern is uh with the Knicks, Mikhail Bridges essentially was benched last game. So he really struggled. They benched him down the stretch of what was it, game three? They come back in four. They still start him, but he only played 19 minutes. He was on the bench uh for a majority of the fourth quarter. Uh, he's one of the guys they're gonna need. They might not need him against Atlanta. They're gonna need him to guard either Jadlin Brown or Tatum, just like they're gonna need Ananobe to guard the other one that he's not on. And they think Ananobi will probably be on Tatum. Historically, he's done a nice job. So if you're gonna put Mikael Bridges on Jalen Brown, like is he gonna play? What's his confidence level gonna be like? Can you keep him on the floor? If New York can't keep Mikhail Bridges on the floor, that's a huge win for Jalen Brown and both the wings for the Celtics. Yeah, I agree. And that is a weird situation. I know Knicks fans are really aggravated about it. You got to keep hearing about the five first round picks, but in the game that they the game that they lost, so game three, I I know they've lost two of the games, but in the game three is just like Mike Brown had had enough. So it's just like, all right, because if you put McBride out there against the Celtics and he's out there with Brunson and Towns, like that's just not going to be viable defensively against the Celtics team. And I do think in a weird way, Atlanta pushing the Knicks at most, I mean, at the fewest games, it's gonna be six. I think if like Missoula's such a smart coach, and I think that Quentin Snyder's a really good like X's and O's coach, they're gonna look at some of the ways like they went at Brunson and figure out ways to make sure that Brunson has to guard because in the games that Atlanta has won, it feels like at the end of them, especially in game three, he just looked gassed. So I do think that's something that the Celtics will because at times they can let Brunson off the hook, but we know in the past the Celtics have been like I go back to the finals. They're just like, all right, Luca, you are gonna guard this entire series. So I do think that's something they can do. And going at towns a little bit more as well. Although it does feel like Missoula would rather have towns on the court than Robinson because Robinson just kills them on the offensive board. So maybe that's a bad thing if they go with Towns too much because it means Robinson's coming in. Although Towns was spectacular last game, and that would be the thing that was make me a little bit nervous from the Celtics, like finally the Knicks. I've been begging them to do it, is to run the offense a little bit through Carl Anthony Towns. They did that actually last game. He had a triple-double, uh, and he was really good. Uh, and he was aggressive. That's as aggressive as I've seen Carl Anthony Town. So I'm a little nervous that they figured that out. But yeah, like Brunson has made CJ McCottum essentially look like he's, I don't know, Steph Curry, right? He can't defend anybody. And Atlanta's just, you know, going at him. CJ 's doing whatever he can to get on him, and CJ's a nice player, but he's not uh, you know, he's not Tatum, he's not Brown. Uh, you know, he might be the equivalent of like Peyton Pritchard at times. I don't want to insult CJ because he's been a starter in the league for a long time. But I think Pitchard can do a lot of the same stuff that CJ does. And they're just going right at Brunson and he's providing no resistance. So obviously that's a weak spot that you would think that they would they would be hammering. Yeah, no doubt about it. I can't wait that to get this series going. Whenever it is. And look, I'd like Atlanta to at least win one more game. Wouldn't mind if they won the series either. If they want to win the series, that's fine. Cause the Knicks do match up with Celti with the Celtics in a unique way. We started the postseason last year. Like that wasn't fluke. They beat him. The Celtics blew games, but you know what? The Knicks ended up beating like the two twenty point leads that they lost, they ended up beating them. Alright, my concern, especially if it is the Knicks. So I thought Vucevic the past two games has given him good minutes. Like he's played solid for them. But the fact that in back-to-back games, he's now played more than Kata . And by the way, like Garza got into this game as well, but that's out of necessity because Kata keeps getting into foul trouble. And I like Garza. Like Garza's brought him good energy this year, but I don't think it's in the plan to be playing Garza much in the series, but he has to come in some of these games. In this game tonight, he picked up two fouls so early on and the second one he picked up on a trip on a bead, which I didn't love that call, but he picked up the foul there. And then I this one I just can't understand. Later on in the game, his fourth foul or excuse me, the was the uh third foul was the one on Embiid when Embiid got a rebound underneath his own basket and his back's turned to him and he fouls him. I'm like, what's the upside there? You poke it away from it, it goes out of bounds off you anyway. I just he did the same thing to Vijay Edgecombe in the previous game. And if you look at it like prior to tonight, in the first three games, he was averaging seven point seven fouls per thirty-six minutes. The guy that led the NBA and follows per 36 minutes, I guess was last. I shouldn't say led because it's bad category. Jonas Valentunis during the regular season averaged 5.5 per 36. Cade is at 7.7 termin us going up. And the thing is, like you saw at Spurts when he was actually in there, he had some nice plays. He had a great help block on Ubre. Tatum's driving, dumps it off to him in the dunker spot. He does some good things when he's out there, but I I can't understand like and even at the beginning of the game, they run that play to him where he gets a dunk. I'm like, all right, they're gonna get Kata going in this game. And then what do you know? You look up and it's like, oh shit, he's got two fouls already again. So especially considering and I know you look at the we were talking about the teams in the East, but most of these teams have bigs. And he was doing this before Embiid even came back where he's getting into foul trouble. So that's like my number one concern going forward. And I said this the other night after the game, this is what I'm paying attention to the most in game four. Can K to actually stay on the court? He just like I don't know what it is. He can't help himself. He just he fouls on like every play. Yeah, I mean my biggest concern is the confidence and outside shot of Derek White, but I agree this this has been a problem in this series . Uh, and you know, you brought up Valentunas. Like, Valenchounas should be fouling at that rate because he knows he's getting eight minutes. Like, he's in minutes, and then he is, and you know, so use your fouls, like teams want you to use your fouls if you're a guy like Valentino who's only going to play eight minutes. The Celtics need Cada to stay on the floor. So uh yeah, that is an issue. Now, again, like today you give him a little bit more slack and that's outside of that stupid file that he had in the backcourt, like you said. Enbead's drawing fouls left and right. He's gonna put any center uh into foul trouble. Uh so I don't think you're gonna be guarding centers moving forward that are causing as much uh foul. In fact, Carl Anthony Towns is more likely to create an offensive foul, right? And then Jared Allen doesn't look like himself. Even Jalen Duran for the Pistons. So some of these other bigs are struggling that they're gonna they're gonna meet up with. But yes, uh Cade's fouling has been an issue. The one that drove me nuts, not from a Cata perspective, but just the officials, is I'm like, is it going to be a night like this? Did you understand how that second foul on CADA or NB tripped like in the first two minutes of the game? Was a shooting foul? How the hell was that a shooting foul? Yeah. He was falling down. I falling down, he was dribbling. He didn't even look at the hoop. They called it a shooting foul. I was like, oh, it's gonna be one of these nights. Yeah, and they missed that one too later on in the game on Embiid, where Embiid literally grabbed Tatum's neck. Yeah. Exactly. Choking him to death. And somehow they missed that foul call. I thought the broadcast was weird too. I Reggie Miller is always weird to me on the broadcast. He went on this like soliloquy about the fact that the Sixers are gonna draft them. Mike, okay, is it is is there anything more to this story? It's just you thought the s 76ers are gonna draft you and you didn't think Indiana was. So that's the end of the story. The other thing that is irritating me, and this isn't unique to the NBC broadcast. Enough with Kyle Lowry. We get he's a veteran on the team that talks to the young guys. How many times do we have to talk about this story? At both during both challenges, they talked about Kyle Lowry, and in the second one, they had to bring in the sideline reporter to tell a story about Kyle Lowry and his leadership. Meanwhile, the Celtics are up like 25 points, and we're talking about the leadership of Kyle Lowry. It's just bizarre. I don't know what the fixation is with the guy. I get he's great a veteran, been in the league forever, but I thought we'd be done with this storyline by the time we're now in game four, and we're still talking about this. And the other thing Reggie Miller said, sorry, I'm going on a complete digression here. I'm always for a Reggie Miller uh rant. At one point during the game, it was like the Celtics in the first quarter, I believe the score was 34-18 or 34-19. He said, The one bad thing about big being up big in this type of game is you let the other team get its rhythm. I'm like, wait, so you rather it I don't understand the point of that. I mean I could see it if you said like you let your guard down a little bit, uh 'cause sometimes that does happen. Like I think it happened with Denver a couple of nights ago where they jumped out to a 39-24 lead at home and then they kind of let their guard down. Uh at Minnesota like storm back, and you see teams blow big leads all the time. But nobody's going to sit up there and say, like, uh, like you don't want a big lead, and then it allows the other team to find their rhythm. That made no sense. Yeah, it was weird. Oh, so I did want to get your take, 'cause you mentioned Eric White's your biggest concern. He was what, five of twenty-five from three in the postseason coming into this one? He finished two of four. tonight So the volume's down with Derek White in terms of three point shooting this game. And it hadn't been down the past couple, but it was good because Tatum got going, Jalen got going in the third quarter, Pritchard carried them in the first half. But there was one one the of the threes he hit, he went back to the three point line where I'm like, Okay, this is a good thing that he's actually gonna take this three. Later on he had a three that made it one twelve to eighty-five. But clearly this is an issue. I ran through catch-in-shoot numbers the other day, like the past two postseason runs, he's well over 40% on catch and shoot threes. One year he was 44% on catch and shoot threes. Obviously, those numbers prior to this game tonight were in the low 20s in terms of his shooting percentage on catch and shoot threes. And it's just been one of these things where we haven't spent a ton of time. We've referenced him throughout the season, but it hasn't been hurting them. And he does so many other things, like even tonight, the chase down block on Maxie, the chase down blocking him beat. Ridiculous plays that Derek White's making. But I wonder at some point if there is going to be, and maybe it's the Knicks in the next round where they're like, okay, we're having trouble. Tatum's going off or Jalen's going off. We're having trouble guarding these guys as they get downhill. Let's pack the paint. Derek White, we're not gonna let Pritchard shoot. We're not gonna let Hauser shoot. We're probably gonna let Vusevich shoot if he's out there. And do we consider like letting Derek White shoot? I I I mean at least true with his head like 'cause that's that guy's confidence level if you leave him wide open and they're thinking like all right like well you know why they leaving me open. This kind of puts pressure on him. I mean, you saw Steve Kurd do it a couple of years ago with Jalen Brown in like a regular season game. It was Brown made him pay. But like you you have to pick your poison, and if Derek White's gonna shoot in the low thirties like he's done all season, uh, then I could see a team doing it. And, you know, Eddie and I, uh Eddie Johnson on Sirius XM NBA Radio, my co-host, been fighting about this all year because he said Derek White's had a bad season. I say he has a uh he's had a good season. He's had a bad shooting season, because like you said, he does everything else well. You saw it tonight, the chase down blocks, the defense. He always makes the right play, always makes the right pass. So I think he's had a good season. Uh, but the the shooting has been bad. And Eddie's contention is at some point he could see him being benched in the postseason. I don't know if I go that far, uh, 'cause they need him for all the other stuff. But, you know, if if he's gonna shoot like this, again, it's not gonna cost him against Philadelphia . Maybe it doesn't even cost him in the Eastern Conference. You're not winning a championship if Derek White uh is going three at twelve from three or three at ten from three, you know, on a consistent basis. You're gonna like you cannot win a title if that's what he's gonna do. Yeah, and it just it's so bizarre, right? Because he's been like a really good shooter for the past basically for the past three years, really ever since Ime left, and Missoula basically just unleashed him. He wanted him to take more and more shots, and he started to knock him down to the point where you go back to the first round series the year they won the championship against Miami. You could argue he was the best player in that series for the Celtics. I mean, you really could make the argument that they had a different best player in each series. Like Drew was probably the best player in the series against Indiana, and Jalen was probably the best player in the Eastern Conference Finals, and Tatum was probably-I know he didn't MVP, but because of everything that he did, he was probably the most important player in the NBA finals and Derek White was just like unconscious from three and now all of a sudden he just can't hit threes. It's just it's it's a really weird thing. But to your uh to the point that Eddie was mak ing. Derek White this season finished fourth in raw post miles. That's what that was pushed back. How about this termy? If you look at on off differential for defense, he was number three in the NBA behind Wemby, like this historic unbelievable defensive player was number two. Rudy Gobert, who's won four defensive players of the year, was number one. He was number three in on-off differential in terms of the defensive rate So I don't think Missoula will I don't Missoula will take him off the court. I mean he even made a statement the other day when some reporter questioned him and he said like you anybody who questions like my confidence leveling Derek White is nuts or whatever, like whatever the quote was. So again, I don't think he's gonna be benched uh like Eddie did. I actually think he had a good season. I just think the shooting could come back to bite him as the uh you know as the competition picks up. Uh so you know, that that's the concern with him. But I listen, I know what he does defensively. I considered them top three on my ballot for defensive player of the year. I ended up putting first team defense. I went with all centers. I went when Banyama obviously won, and then I put Chet and Rudy Gobert as the other guys, but I put Derek White first team all NBA as one of my guards. Yeah, he he had a tremendous season. I would say like he he would have been an all star if he just shot his normal numbers this year. Because it probably means he's averaging close to like eighteen points per game and then everyone's gonna look at all the plus minus stuff, Deion off. He's the second best player on the b second best team in the Eastern Conference. Yeah, he would have made the all-star team. Oh, one other Celtics thing. So tonight in this game, and I agree with you. I thought Walsh had a good game tonight. I don't think he's had a huge impact on the series. He's one of four from deep, but I thought he did a good job defensively in this game. So he played, what did he play? He played 12 minutes. Shire man played 14. He was two of five. I wonder, do you think this is a matchup? Obviously, they it's a matchup for Maxie. They like Walsh on Maxie. But going forward, I'm kind of surprised that we haven't seen more Shireman because I thought okay when Tatum comes back, a lot of people thought that his minutes were going to be cut down a little bit. And actually if you look at the numbers, the minutes per game since Tatum returned, him and sh uh him and Hauser rather were neck and neck. They're both around twenty five minutes , and he's really lost minutes in the series. And every time he's out there, like in this game tonight, he has five rebounds in 14 minutes. He hits two threes in his 14 minutes. I wonder if it's just specific to this team, like if we if it's a Knicks series, whoever it is going forward, do you think we have series where we see him getting more that getting games where he plays twenty minutes? I mean maybe it's not even like the matchup. It's just who's hot. Like if Hauser goes through a three-ameg stretch or Hauser's not hitting everything or anything, then maybe it's maybe it's Shireman. I think maybe it just comes down to that. Uh, because I agree with you, but again, like they're they've had so much depth. I don't know you can complain. Uh, but yeah. Uh I I think it would basically come down to that. Hey, Hauser him and Hauser might be interchangeable. Hauser's obviously get the benefit of the doubt. Hauser goes through a stretch where he can't hit shots. Shireman steps in. I think it might be as simple as that. Yeah, I just like his game. And he's so good and I I think the reason Missoula loves him is like you just look at he he loves to create advantages to win the margin games and he creates so many offensive rebounding opportunities and he's a good three point shooter. So those are two things that Missoula absolutely loves. Alright, before we let you go, these other Eastern Conference Finals, uh series, I should say, we already know, we talked about the Knicks and Atlanta, but you get Detroit down 2-1. They're gonna play on Monday night, and then as I alluded to earlier, somehow the Cavs and the Raptors, where it looked like the Cavs are just gonna maybe at worst come back three-one and finish this out in their home court, they end up going back home two . So out of that group, I think the Knicks are still gonna win. What do you think about Orlando and Detroit? Does Orlando actually pull this off? And is the cat like I think now maybe it's just a seven game series against the Raptors where it's kind of it's like the Celtics back of the day where they won all their home games against Atlanta in the first round and then they just lost all the road games. I may maybe there's something like that in that series, but I think that one's going seven now based on what's transpired. And I'm kind of leaning magic, Termini. Like I I d Detroit just doesn't score enough. Yeah, so that's a horrible matchup for him. And I was here the last night of the season, the regular season, and watched that game in person with the G League Celtics, uh beat the matchup. And think of the like the butterfly effect of that is if the Knicks end up losing, you gave the Knicks a much tougher matchup, right? I mean with Atlanta compared to Toronto. So that could end up screwing the Knicks over. Then it ultimately led to the Magic playing the Pistons, and that could screw the Pistons over. And, you know, the Pistons don't have experience, but they're still a 60-win team. I thought they would win this series, uh, especially because you thought Orlando would quit. Uh, but they just don't match up well against them because everything that Detroit does, Orlando does the same thing. Like they both defend at a high level, they're both really physical. And then, yeah, Cade's the best player in the series, but if you look at the rest of like the group, right, after you get past Kate, especially if Durin's doing nothing, you would say maybe the next four or five guys are all magic. It's Paolo, it's Franz Wagner who looks like he's finally getting healthy. It's Desmond Bain. It's Jalen Suggs. Wendell Carter has kicked Jalen Duran's ass in this series. I mean, just kicked his butt. He's been fantastic. And Duren hasn't done anything. So I could definitely see Orlando winning the series. And then with Cleveland , like it's again the Celtics got screwed just like Denver did. Like Denver was the better team, but Denver got the easier matchup or the harder matchup with Minnesota compared to like the Lakers getting Houston. And the Celtics with the Knicks in the second round, it kind of screws them over a little bit. Because Cleveland, I have major concerns about. One, they can't defend, okay? Two is they're playing horribly against a Toronto team that I think is the worst team in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Three is Jared Allen, ever since coming back from the injury, has no explosion. So he's not able to get up anymore. And he had a great chemistry with Harden, but that's not there anymore because he just doesn't have the same athleticism. Uh and then, you know, Hardens want to disappear. We know that in the postseason. And Donovan Mitchell's been horrific the last two games. I mean, like pitiful the last two games. So Cleveland's got some some some concerns. I I think the Knicks are still the, you know, if you want to say the Celtics are the best team in the East, I think the Knicks are the second best team. I agree. And I think specifically for the Celtics, it's the toughest matchup. It just so happens that it's probably gonna happen in the second round, and of course not in the Eastern Conference Finals, but I'm with you. Like the Knicks, they scare me just because we saw what happened last year. They have a bunch of guys they can throw on your best two players. And Mitchell Robinson, like to Joe Mozilla's defense here, he does kill the Celtics. When he plays the Celtics, he 's everybody. He like if he could stay on the floor, that guy would be an amazing starter. If he played more this year, he could have been the one of the six men of the year candidates. He's really good. Like Missoula is right in what he was trying to do last year. Like we talked about today how Philadelphia got killed by all the second opportunities, like on the offensive glass by Boston. That's what's going to happen to the Celtics when Mitchell Robinson's out there on the floor. He's the best offensive rebounder, I think by a significant Yeah. By the way, you mentioned that Wendell Carter, Jalen Duran matchup. There's some motivation there for Carter. I heard about that. Something with like a female being involved. So Angel Reese. It's kind of crazy, man. It's gone to that level. By the way, I know you got to get going. Watch this uh Rockets Lakers game as it's on right now as we're recording. I think the Celtics made out pretty well in the uh E May Joe Mazzo swap, man. Well, I I've been talking about E May know what offense is. Does he know you have to score points? Like I I don't understand it. Yeah, I saw it like, and again, we're heading into this game later tonight, but I I saw stat was like five and ten in his last 15 postseason games dating back to game one of the finals, and they've scored under a hundred points nine times. Uh so his offense was incompetent in Boston. It's incompetent in Houston. Uh and like he won't play Reed Shepherd. Uh but you got JJ Reddick who's found a way to play Luke Connard and hide him on defense. So you refuses to like hide good offensive players defensively because he's so dead set on that aspect of it. Uh and you're right. I've been talking about it since midseason, how the Celtics won that trade. Uh and like you got the way that even like his idea of an adjustment, Udoka's idea of an adjustment, is just to yell louder at his team. Whereas uh, you know, I mean, I uh it there's no strategy. It's just I gotta yell louder and call them bigger softies or something. Yeah, and then postgame just throw your entire team under the bus. Just blame everybody but yourself. Take no accountability. Well, I mean, what is I mean, listen, let's be honest. Like I said when he went through his little incident here, how could you ask other guys to sacrifice for the benefit of the team when you're not sacrificing and you're not holding yourself accountable. So not to bring in the off-the-court stuff, but that's part of leadership. I mean they're going through it maybe with the Patriots a little bit now in a little bit of a different sense, but it's like you can't hold other guys accountable and not sacr and like tell them to sacrifice, but you're not sacrificing. So I don't even understand how you get the respect of the locker room, especially when you're then gonna yell at them and your big thing is accountability, more than like X's and O's and adjustments. So that's been a disaster down there. And you know, maybe it gets blown up. Maybe he's gone. Maybe Durant's gone. Like to his twelfth team. I don't know they're gonna handle it if they lose, but it's a mess. Yeah, I mean look, Derek White lost his confidence playing for him. Like he was it felt like he was afraid to shoot in that playoff run because he thought Ime was going to pull him right out of the game. But yeah, yell at him and basically rip his life apart. That's what he does. He's like, no, these guys stanky, this guy's you know an idiot, blah, blah blah. I mean, that's you know, you don't see that. I you like a little bit of it, maybe in the first year or two. You can't be doing that for three, four years. Yeah, it is crazy. And it is like you mentioned the the Patriots thing. There's like obviously there's a ton of memes that are coming up now. And somebody like about like there was like a story that you know one of the tweets about Vrabel and somebody like underneath it posted like uh sources say Joe Mazzullah has never interacted with a human outside of the basketball court and it's like this guy could never get in trouble because he's such a psycho . Well I mean Missoula's my fa I had like a on my new podcast I told the story about my interaction with him uh at the finals in two thousand and twenty four uh and they're like somebody in the media is like warning me he could be a little bit difficult. I went in there and it was like one of the best interactions I have ever had and I've loved the guy ever since. He is like a he is a loose he's just like different than any other coach any other person probably in Yeah. He's just like he's such a thinker too, like how he just thinks about basketball. Like I really do think what's that guy's name that uh my producer will know. I don't know if the man man city coach, Pep something. Like he was at all the NBA Finals games that were in Boston. And I really do think he thinks about like how much his offense affects his defense. And I think that's why he doesn't care about getting shots at the rim because the worst thing for him, it feels like, is a missed shot at either giving up an offensive rebound or a missed shot at the rim. You you notice that there was a day game where Ugo passed up a three, drove, he missed it. They went the other way, and he just ripped him out of the game. Like this that really irritates him. Like you better hit it if you go to the rim. And a lot of guys do like because even if you make that at the rim, and I'm I'm not advocating for not shooting at the rim, but you can pull that out of the basket quickly and start running the other way. Like we see the Celtics do it. When a team scores at the rim against the Celtics and they're really good at protecting the rim, they'll rip it out and they'll get going the other way because they feel like they can get numbers that way. So I really do think like he uses other sports to like influence his philosophies. I wouldn't be surprised if he uses uh, you know, third grade uh girls' field hockey or something. Nothing would nothing would surprise me with the guy. Which is again, when you're winning, it's all funny. Uh, you know, who at some point he's gonna stay long enough and you'll see if you're still laughing when they're struggling. But right now you can get away with the quirks and it's it's great. I know, that is gonna be bizarre. Like if Missoula ever has to coach a team that's not good , right? Like down the road, that's gonna be something to experience. Yeah, I mean like you're asking if they got twenty wins and like he gives you a quote, like, ah, it doesn't matter, we're all gonna die anyway. People are like, Well, no, it does matter. I yeah, d I really hope he wins a coach of the year just to see. I voted for him. So uh I voted he deserves it, but he doesn't want it. Yeah, he doesn't want so that's why I f like I was gonna vote JP Bickerstaff then I'm like well this guy doesn't want it. I want to I want to force him to have it. I'm gonna vote for him. No, I was gonna vote for him either way, but uh yes, I do want to see that speech when he gets the award. Yeah, he's gonna be so pissed. All Al rightrig.ht, that is Justin Turbini, host of NBA Today, Sirius XM NBA Radio. Also, check out Turbini crashes out. You can get that on YouTube. Turbine, thanks so much for the time, man. Really enjoyed it. Enjoy the rest of the postseason. We'll catch you up again soon. Alright, bad. Appreciate it, buddy. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zetbound Terzepitide may be able to help. 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Joining us now, producer Extraordinaire Jamie McClellan. Jamie, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm okay, Brian. I feel like I come on here every pod and saying how busy it is for Boston Sports, but it just gets busier and busier. I wasn't expecting uh even more turmoil with the Red Sox after feels like years and years of turmoil. It it really is insane, man. And I did not see that one coming that they would do it this early in the season. And as look, I we'll get your take on this. You know how I feel. I said about it earlier. It's not like Pora had a good defense of like the job he was doing this year. I acknowledge that. I just my bigger, broader thing with this is I just I really don't think this solves anything. Maybe you get a temporary bump from Tracy, but Tracy can't eliminate the fact that he has five guys for four spots. Or Tracy can't eliminate the fact that this team can't hit home runs. That's not something that the manager is gonna fix. He's not gonna be able to fix the roster. So I think that still is the biggest issue with this team. Is yeah, despite the fact that yeah, you made a change. I I just don't I, really quite frankly, I don't know what it solves, is my bigger point here. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people ask me that aren't Red Sox fans, like, what's going on? Why did he get fired, etc.? And I I said back to them. I mean, you you basically alluded to this as well. I just I think there's enough blame to go a round like on all parties. And that that includes Cora, but it certainly doesn't uh it's certainly not uh majority his fault. I think when you talk about what is the solve, it's to me it's the only it was the only possible solution for this season. Like if you fire Breslau, yeah, they can't go back in time and make this a better roster. They should have in the time. And I would say the biggest problem with this team currently is what happened in the offseason, not what's happening on a day-to-day basis. That being said, it's the only thing you can do unless we were about to give up on this season before it's even May, right? Like it's literally been less than a sea uh a month since the season started. I think we've been watching this for a month, and I think everyone's kinda like this is crazy. Like this is not working at all. This is painful to watch. I hate it. So that's the only thing I would say is that it it felt like it was about to slip away for the entire season. So maybe, maybe this helps in that regard, but uh I agree that he's certainly not the the biggest problem. I think Brazil should get fired too. But you've said in the past, Brian, the problem with that is who the hell is going to come in for an interview? I mean they, they going back to to what's it say th Theo, who also kinda got fired and then somehow came back. They mended things. You go to Charrington, Dombrowski, Heimbloom, and now Breslau. They none of them last for more than four seasons. It's like the worst job in sports. So I think you I think maybe Henry believes in him, but I think also Henry probably recognizes we're stuck with him for at least another year, right? Because it's like who else comes in that's going to be better. Yeah well it's the theo thing I think he wanted to get away too and then he's like ah yeah maybe I want to keep maybe I want to do this thing again I'm pretty good at this job maybe I shouldn't give up on it now but hey towards the end of Theo too like he wanted a new challenge right goes to the Cubs and wants to solve another curse, like he needed a new challenge. But yeah, it's true. I mean, I've talked about it a bunch where it's just not a very appealing job because of how pre like David Nobrowski's a world series manager, uh World Series GM with two different teams, including yours , and less than a year after winning the World Series, he's fired. Like, that's that's not a good precedent for a precedent for an organization that Heim Bloom and look, I crushed Haim Bloom for a lot of things that he did here, especially the major league, right? But you told him build up the farm system, he did, and then you showed him his walking papers. Because again, it goes back to what I was saying earlier. They don't care about the paying customer, they just care that the customer pays, and at this point there was not interest in the team. So they realized, okay, yeah, we have to do something to make a change to show the fan base we're doing something, which I think it's this very similar to what happened today, where Br or yesterday, I should say, where Breslau wins by the time some of you Saturday, by the time people listen to this, it's gonna be Monday, they're blah blah blah. But anyway. So the whole idea was he sold ownership on, yeah, I can get this fixed if we move on from Quora. And that's why I'm so irritated that we didn't hear from John Henry. And quite frankly, like I wanna know from Breslo too, like, would he do it the same way again? Like why does he why did he think that approach was gonna work when he pivoted from what he originally said in the offseason to what he changed this thing to do? And it's not like he had to do that because of how much he screwed everything up, like sort of how he was handling the market. And so to me, that's where that's why I want to know from John Henry. Like, what is it that you think Craig Breslow is so good at that, hey, you decided we needed to make the change with the manager, which he sold you, but why aren't you making the change in the front office? What is it right now with Craig Bresla? The moves that he's made that you're that it's telling you, yeah, this is the guy going forward because of what? Like, even I would argue that at the time they moved on from Heimblum, there is more that he could point to than what Breslau can point to right now. Because at the time, now obviously they fucked up some of the development with these guys, but he had those three, he had studs in the and even more. But like at that point in time, we all know like they ended up moving on from Nick to York. It felt like there wasn't gonna be a position for a long time, but he was highly regarded. You had teal in the organization, right? And then you think about the other guy, the the at the time he was called the big three at one point, but I mean it's ridiculous. But you had Meyer and you had Campbell and you had Roman Anthony. Like he could point to all these things. Now maybe Brezhnev could say, Yeah, look at Marcus Phillips, look at Weatherspoon but I mean it's not like they're pitching for this team this year or something and Tolley and early have been good but I would argue that Heimblem actually had more that he could point to than Breslow can right now. That's why I just I don't know why they believe in the vision. I really don't. I think I think two things, not to mention, beyond just the prospects. Heimlum also, you know, he was the GM when they got to the ALCS against the Astros. He's had more postseason success than than Bresley has too, you know. And looking back, like the Abreu trade was really good. They got a couple of months to Christian Vasquez for Abreu, and everybody uh hammered him at the time for that trade. Because it I mean, it was weird optics. He wasn't there, and you were in Houston when it happened. Like it was weird optics but in the long run that was a really good trade definitely and i i think why they believe in breslow and it's probably why they believe in heimbloom too is they they fit the bill in terms of the kind of gems they're looking for these kind of like thread the needle , you know, drive line analytics guys to like we can we can game out a way to field a competitive team for less money than you would have to pay otherwise. It feels like that's basically their strategy,. Like figure out a way to kind of like look, like reinvent the wheel, find new ways to get good pitching, find new ways to find value, which obviously that's a good strategy in general, but again, they just they don't seem to want to do the more orthodox approach what they did for again Theo Epstein's tenure, which you know yielded the most success they've had this entire time. And so it's like they want they want to find a guy that can basically get like whatever a dollar twenty per versus just a dollar elsewhere, right? So they're gonna keep trying this is like, well, maybe this will work with Breslau. Maybe we can figure out a way to scratch out eighty-eight wins and spend fifty million less dollars than the Yankees or something like that, right? Yeah, I agree with you. And it's almost like it's almost like they want to find their new Theo. Like because if you look at Dombrowski , he was a made man when they hired him, right? It's not like, hey, it was the right move to bring a man, but it's not like, hey, look at this guy we found. And I know like they did sort of interview a bunch of people, but or wanted to interview a bunch of people and they didn't do it, but this is almost like think about Heim Bloom. He's this guy from Tampa, very heavy analytics, as you alluded to, like the drive, like with Breslau, the drive on it stuff. But they want to be very analytically friendly. And what what happened with um with Theo is yeah, he made some great trades and great signings, but also like drafted and developed they developed a ton of good young players, right? To eventually do you think about the guys that would eventually become the core of the team down the road. And when you look at what they were hoping, is like that same thing would happen with these two guys. And I think ownership wants to be praised for these guys. Like if they are successful, they're gonna want to be praised for that. And the problem is, I don't think they're willing to do the same thing they did with Theo in terms of the trades, the money that they want to pay all these guys. Now, this off -season they were willing to spend. I put this off season and I I was crushing ownership earlier. So I'm not defending ownership. I put this offseason more on Breslau than I do the ownership group. There's plenty of times you can look at the ownership group and be like, yeah, we know that's fake. Like when you're saying you're gonna be all in, right ? And then you're in a situation where it's like, Oh yeah, we're in on Yamamoto. It's like, no, you're not. You're really not in on Yamamoto. We we kinda know this. You're not in on him. So that's a thing where I would say like, well, part of the reason that Theo had all the successes, he had your support 100%. And maybe they're now giving this to Breslau. I just think they think that Bresla's a lot better at his job than any fan does, and really probably anybody in the industry. That's totally true. I mean, maybe maybe you're right, Brian. I just I can't tell. Again, I just I don't know where this stuff begins and ends between the front office and ownership. Like, is it that Brezhne doesn't think a guy like Pete Alonzo is worth the money that he ended up getting, or is it come from ownership that like we're not that interested in giving out thirty-five, forty million dollar contracts to sluggers that you know don't hit and don't play great defense? I don't know where it starts and ends, so maybe maybe so. And one other point I'll say, you said they were looking for the next Theo. I feel like Ben Charrington doesn't get nearly enough credit for winning probably the most impressive World Series of the four in terms of what he had uh given, of that kind of ragtag group in 2013 . He was Theo's like right-hand man basically. And I feel like, you know, they they fired him and brought on Don Browski to kind of take them to the next level. It did work, but I think he he definitely got shortchanged. We talk about all these uh GMs. He had a World Series under his belt and he also got fired in four years. I thought that was unfair. I mean not that the pirates are great, but he is a GM right now. Yeah, and Hymas too. Yes. Like the thing about him is so yeah, he did inherit a lot of the guys from Theo and he did a great job that year putting together that team that you know it wasn't sustainable, but they I mean they cashed in the one year, and you start to think about like all, right, how much of like his bad moves and bad negotiating, how much of that was him and how much of that was ownership? Because remember, they lowballed John Lester right after he had this unbelievable run in 2013. They were offering him the same contract that Homer Bailey got that wasn't even in the same league as John Lester. And remember, they ended up trading him. It was like this weird three team deal where the Red Sox ended up getting cespitas. Remember that whole thing? It was just yeah. But anyway, my point that is just, and then you think about some of the moves they made after that where they brought in the panda, right? Like so I I I don't know how many of those moves were like, hey the John Henry and Tom Warner just saw him playing the World Series, right? So let's go get the guy that just played in the World Series. So they signed Sandoval. I forgot about that. That was Sandoval under Charrington. I I take back everything I said then. Yeah, yeah, that was twenty fourteen. That was a terrible, terrible or yeah, twenty fifth. Was it going into 20? Whenever it was, I think it was going into 2015. Yeah, it was Pre Debrovski. But yeah, it's I that's where these things like you don't know. It was it, did he want to pay John Lester more in the ownership groups like now? Let's develop our next John Wester in the pipeline. Like I I don't know. Like it that could have clearly been the case. Yeah, I think we can again it's it's hard to kind of completely assign blame between Cora and Craig Breslau. I think everyone on Earth that cares about the Red Sox can put a lion's share of the blame at John Henry and FSG's doorstep, right? It's just like it's clear as day. They're just they just they don't care. They're erratic and like you said, we have to assume things because they won't step in front of the fucking microphone and talk to people. It's like you just fired your World Series winning champ uh manager who was also a former player who won a world series. Maybe like you don't think you owe it to anyone to talk about this? It's insane. The fact that he's also there, he's like, mm-hmm . It's like sack he got some, you know, responsibility and stuff. And like when you're getting sell the team chance, you know how upset the fan base is. Oh, he knows. You know. And most of the fan base is mad with the roster. I'm not saying people aren't upset with Korra. I certainly can see the frustration with Korra, but my point being is most people are mad about how bad the roster was put together. And you're sticking with the guy that put the roster together and you won't even address the media. That too, like in a weird way, I wonder if Bregman part of the reason they were so like they loved Bregman, right? With like as a leader and all that, Cora liked him and I'm sure the relationship at that point wasn't as bad as it is now between Cora and Breslo and all that. But and Brezhnev obviously won over at the ownership group. But remember John Henry had the smoking the cigar like when they said one-year deal. Congrat I wonder if I I really do wonder like if ownership really wanted Bregman back. You know what I mean? Like that that's something that they want like because it's like, oh yeah, look look what happened. Remember it was like after they got rid of Devers they, make the playoffs and everybody celebrate, like, oh, look at Rafi, look at the Red Sox. Like, well, yeah, I mean you could have had both. I mean both no reason both couldn't have been here. But I do think there was an attachment. Obviously Core really liked it. We all knew that from the Houston days. But I think ownership really Well then pick up the phone and say, Hey Craig Bresl. I know usually we don't do trade no trade clauses, but we'd like him back. Like end of story. It's that easy, right? And I I just I don't know. They clearly they don't I don't I don't know what I don't know what John Henry wants and like you said how could we? We we haven't heard him talk in what eight years at this point . Yeah by the way I gotta get the name of it. Did you see the the van that took them? That was like Coach's Hire or something like that. Coach. Yeah, Coaches for Hire. I c I can't believe that was the van that took him to that's hilarious. Oh man. It's been a it's been a field day on Twitter the the last twenty four hours, Brian Yeah, and a day that hasn't been that fun, obviously. Uh although they did win today, so hey they're play they play pretty well today actually. Yeah. They get in the new coach bump or and c early through the ball well. Right? I mean, we saw crochet the other day. He threw the ball really well on Saturday. They had an easy win. That's also funny about this too. Like, I didn't even mention the timing of it. They had their biggest win of the year, 17-1. Why didn't this happen on why did thisn h'tappen before the road trip? They always kind of fucked the like remember Rafi was like in the plane and they had to get Rafi off the plane to go back to Fenway? Like why are they so bad at the time? Like why didn't they tell him this before they took the team to Baltimore. I think that's a decided on Friday, I guess, but I I'm pretty sure you probably decided, like had a pretty good idea before that. Yeah, you'd think I definitely Friday, because that was that was an ugly game too, but I don't know I. guess they needed to get their darks in order in terms of I guess Henry wanted to be there for one thing, right? And actually talk to him. Maybe he does care a little bit in that sense, if not about the fans, then for Cora himself. But um Friday was ugly. I could see that being the the straw that broke the camel's back. Yeah. That was a tough one, man. Well, I think they said they decided on Friday morning though. Well, that that makes less sense. I certainly if it was after the Yankees, it would be the minute the Yankees game ended, but uh again it didn't didn't get any better the first game in that Baltimore series. Yeah, that was I mean Are you counting Brian Caleb Durbin's home run even though it came off position player or he still is zero for your m in your mind. You know, for him I'll count it. Yeah, he started he kinda wound up his swing like you know, before the guy even threw the ball. Yeah. No doubt about it. Well , we'll see going forward, man. We'll see what happens. Because obviously right now , Red Sox minor um nice win today. Minor distraction, but I don't think these problems are even close to close to being solved. No, and again I'm very upset with ownership, but uh still room for the team, so I I I hope they can f I hope they can figure it out. Yeah. It is funny too because it's like I this is clearly gonna be the biggest story on Monday. And the Bruins are almost going to be like let off the hook for their I I started with it today. It's bigger story than the Bruins having a terrible playoff game. But it's not even like the Bruins like obviously it's going to be a subject, but the fact that the Red Sox decided to fire their manager at this point becomes like the bigger story. I mean the Bruins are in the playoffs, so Red Sox could take a page out of their book, right? Yeah, true. All right, Jamie. Good stuff, man. Thank you, Brian. All right, as always, make sure to get your voicemails in 617-396-7172. You can email us off thepike at gmail.com. Thanks to Jamie McClellan for a producer this podcast, and we'll chat in a couple of days.