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Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Giannis Antetokounmpo Trade? Jaylen Brown Unhappy? Fire Joe? - Boston Celtics Mailbag
00:40:57
Boston Celtics weigh seismic moves as Giannis Antetokounmpo trade rumors swirl—would breaking up the Jayson Tatum/Jaylen Brown core actually push Boston over the top? John Karalis of Celtics On SI breaks down the latest trade chatter, the importance of locker room trust under Brad Stevens, and what making a play for Giannis might truly cost—Derrick White and Payton Pritchard included. The mailbag heats up with debates on Bobby Portis’ fit as a small-ball big, Kristaps Porziņģis’ future in green, and whether Joe Mazzulla’s job should be on the line after another early playoff exit. Key topics include the Celtics’ approach to roster continuity versus high-risk overhaul, the value of keeping Jaylen Brown, the logic behind playoff rotation tightening, and what Neemias Queta’s role could mean for Boston’s frontcourt depth. Would adding firepower or stability deliver another banner?
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Existing customers can view their variable APR in the Wallet app or@card.apple.com Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch terms and more at applecard.com up the mail bag to talk about potentially Yanis trade or maybe a trade for someone else on the Milwaukee Bucks. Could Kristaps Porzingis come back firing Joe Missoula and a whole lot more. Hey there. Welcome back to the show. I am John Corrales. We got a lot of stuff here in the mailbag. Which mailbag questions always come in to John corrales.com/mailbag John corrales.com mailbag Tons of questions coming in. So I will try to get a bonus podcast out to answer a few more of the questions. So johncarales.com mailbag to get those questions in. All right, later on in the show we'll get into Joe Missoula. That's going to be the third segment. Joe Missoula, his job, the Celtics falling into bad habits, all of that stuff. The second segment we'll get into Nikola Vucevic. We'll get into Kristaps Porzingis. So those questions are in the second segment, but right away we're going to start with the potential for a Giannis and Tentokounmpo trade, which the rumors have been flying a little bit since the report that the Celtics were among the teams trying to make a move for him, maybe at the deadline, whatever that means. Sometimes that just means the Celtics were interested and saying, yeah, let's talk. What do you got? And. And maybe there was a tiny bit of back and Forth. Maybe that means that they were as close. Hard to say. That stuff is never going to get out. I wish you guys could see some of the, you know, the, the ways that Brad Stevens ducks questions and conversations. It's kind of fun. They just run a tight ship. So a lot of this reporting is. It's tough to get down to what really, really happened. The Celtics do not operate that way. They do not just leak stuff out for the sake of leaking it. I'll tell you why before I get to the questions. They want teams to trust them. That's how you get business done. If, you know, if I'm a GM of another team, pick a team. And I know if I call Brad Stevens or Mike Zarin or anybody in that front office, I know that that guy is not going to run and blab to somebody like me. Be like, guess who I just talked to? The Chicago Bulls. And they're saying, you know, hey, you know, we'll give you this and that and the other thing, right? You know, you can trust the Boston Celtics and that's how you get deals done. We'll talk to you if we can trust you not to go blah, blah, blah. Because a lot of times these conversations happen and they go nowhere. That 90 of these talks. There's always talks, right? Every GM calls every other GM. They all know who the other team might be shopping is. They all, you know, if I'm a GM of a team, I call up the everybody and we're just talking like, hey, you, you know, you run. They're at the combine right now talking to each other like, hey, so what are you thinking? What are you, you know, what are you looking to do with your team? You know, you know, we want to do this. We love to get a big, you know, which is stretch big blah, blah, blah. You know, there's these conversations happen back and forth and it's just like a running conversation. Hey, you know, you, you still thinking about this? You know, how are you feeling about. Blah, blah, blah. Like, those conversations are constantly happening and sometimes they, they get to a point like, yeah, you know what? I would, I would consider Jaylen Brown in this situation. I would consider Derrick White in this situation. And that stuff is in confidence. Because if every time a player's name came up in a conversation, if that was reported, there would be reports daily. That's how often players on every team, every player, you know, minus. Obviously, like, you're not going to call the thunder and get any traction on a Shay Gilgis Alexander conversation. But if you have Something of interest and they maybe there is a conversation to be had. You don't know unless you hear the conversation. That's how all of these things go. So, no, the spurs aren't going to talk about Victor Wembanyama, but you can still call up the spurs and talk trade and talk about what they might be thinking and what might they might be wanting. And are you going to look to consolidate something who. Who's a guy that you wish you could play more but can't? Maybe that's a. Would you move this person in a situation like those types of things happen all the time. All the time. So that's why Brad doesn't say anything, because he wants to maintain those relationships. Because when he needs to make a move, people know I can trust this guy. I'm going to talk to this guy. We're going to have a meaningful conversation. That's how. That's how Brad does his job so well, because he keeps his mouth shut. So let's get into Houston. Houston. B says Giannis, the Celtics have a problem. Celtics have proven. Sorry that we have the chops with the team now to compete, but would Giannis give us the extra oomph? What would we have to give up? Drew asks similarly. My main question is, do you think JB is actually truly unhappy and wants out? And what are your thoughts on involving him in a Giannis trade versus keeping Jalen Brown? So obviously, the Giannis conversation, as far as the trade goes, number one, number one thing, when any of us in the media, we talk about trades, fake trades, you have to consider, what is the other team doing? What do you want from this situation? So I don't know what Milwaukee wants. They will listen on a Giannis trade. Okay, are they trying to win now? Are they trying to stay competitive? Are they keeping other players around and hoping to sneak into a playoffs and maneuver around that? And if they are, then Jaylen Brown has to be part of the conversation for the Milwaukee Bucks. Now, is that something that Brad Stevens is willing to do, or do you throw a package of Pritchard. Pritchard, Hauser and who else? Pritchard, Hauser and I'm going to figure this out. The money. The money has to work. But those three guys have to. Those two guys, I'm gonna pull up the Celtics because all of a sudden I'm drawing a blank. It would be, oh, Sam Houser, Peyton Pritchard and maybe Derek White. Yeah, Derek White. Those three guys would have to be part of the deal to go to Milwaukee in a Non Jalen trade. So that means you're kind of cutting into your, your depth. Obviously, Derrick White, you're losing Pritchard and Derek in that scenario, which means you need a ball handler. You're giving up both of your ball handlers. So a subsequent move would have to be, you got to find a point guard, you got to find two ball handlers, you got to get somebody in here to help in that regard. And maybe in this scenario, you still have your traded player exception because you're not. You can't use that to get Giannis. You still have your mid level exception, but without doing the math, it would be very tough to use both of those because using either one of those hard caps, you have the first apron, you're looking at paying the tax. You're looking at getting. Getting close to that first apron. Very difficult to pull off. So to answer Drew's question about Jalen Brown being truly unhappy and wanting out, I do not believe that Jalen actually wants out. Any frustration. If I'm going back to the Tracy McGrady comments, which he's tried to walk back, and I just don't believe that he is. All of that is, is true. I, I think that Jalen probably said something to him at some point. Any frustration that he had is just frustration and not like, I'm trying to leave. I've said this on multiple podcasts now. I said it talking to Sean Grandy. I said it probably talking to Tom Westerholm last week. I don't believe this is anything more than, oh, God, I thought this was going to be how it went and it didn't. And I'm just, I'm just upset that it didn't go the way I thought it would. But also, where are you going to go? Where's Jalen going to go? Where things are going to be any better. Right? People talk about, like, oh, you wanted to lead a team so bad, go ahead, go lead a team somewhere else. No, it's not. It's. I don't think it's Jalen. I don't think Jalen thinks it's that easy. He. He led the team here in Boston. He. He proved what he needed to prove. And there's no. That was. That was hard to do. And one of the reasons that he won, you know, as many games as you did here in that scenario was because you had all of these other guys and you had Joe and you had continuity. You can go to Atlanta, you can go to Milwaukee and go somewhere else and be the number one guy. But does that get. What does that get you? Does that get you any closer to a championship? I've said this before too, but I'll repeat it here one more time. Jaylen Brown does not need to prove anything else as a player. The only thing that Jaylen Brown needs now to enhance his legacy is another championship. That's it. His numbers are going to be great. He, he has the potential to score 20,000 points. He's won a championship. He's seen at like he'll be an all NBA guy this year. Just depends on which team he makes. He's been an all NBA guy before. He might be one again. He's been a multiple time all star. He is a Hall of Famer. He is a Hall of Famer. Jalen Brown is a Hall of Fame player. He is. If he stays healthy and plays into his, you know, mid-30s, he's already going to be 30 next year. But if he plays until he, until he's 35, 36, 20,000 points is on the table. And that's just legendary stuff, man. That's. That puts you in a very, very rare air. All you need is another championship. And if you can get more than, if you can get a third championship, even better. But all you need is one more and you just become Boston Celtics royalty. So forget all the other stuff. As far as I'm concerned, if I'm speaking directly to Jalen Brown, you've proven what you needed to prove. We get it. You've been able to lead this team and have it be successful. If there's any frustration with that, we're sorry that you're just going to have to get over it because this team, this Celtics team, is your best chance. So I don't, I think he gets that. I think he understands that. So I don't think he wants to be moved and I don't think the Celtics are going to take the risk of moving him. Giannis, obviously at fully healthy. Giannis is a better basketball player than Jalen Brown. That's not controversial to say that he's a former MVP and Jaylen Brown is not an MVP level player. He, he's in that next tier down. That is not an insult. That is just. You're a great player. There's just players who are better than you. Fine. That's how it goes. Right? You just have to accept that. But, but being on this team with this group, continuing everything that you can, like you, you've built, that's, that's your best chance. So just whatever you need to do, do it. You've got five, six more years in the league, whatever, seven years, what, however many you want to play, keep, keep building that resume and just to just do whatever that's needed to win a championship. And when you retire, people are going to be like, damn, 20,000 points, two championships, three championships, whatever. A files, MVP. All of these, all NBA teams, all of these All Stars, man, man, you start figuring out what top number he starts. He, he fits in, right? Like those are some elite numbers. So I don't. I think he gets it. I think he gets it. So I don't think he wants to move. And I don't think the Celtics for everything that Giannis can be. I don't think the Celtics are going to risk the messing with the continuity, taking that, that unknown with the injury risk with him. I just don't see that being a smart way to go at this point. With Giannis at 32 years old with the injury history and all of that, just build around the edges. It's not exactly running it back, but you're bringing a lot of the guys back. It was a 56 win team. So you add a couple of players that enhance a little bit better, that snap some things back into place a little bit better and that's how you move forward. So I don't think, I don't think that's the way to go. I don't think Giannis is the way to go. So whatever. Now could they trade for another big man in, in Milwaukee? We'll get to that when we come back. Today show is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA playoffs are here and every possession matters. If you're looking to get even closer to the action, FanDuel has a great offer to get you started right now. 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Questions come in@john corrales.com mailbag that's john corrales.com mailbag to get your questions in. Edward says count me in on the Milwaukee big man. Yeah, I would love to see Bobby Portis in a Celtics uniform. How possible is that? So Bobby Portis, listen, he's, I think he fits a lot of what the Celtics are trying to do as a, as a power forward who can stretch the floor. Energy guy, even at 31, he makes, he's making 14 and a half million dollars next year. That's something that you can, not only it can you trade for him. You don't have to, you don't have to use the mid level. I'm sorry, you don't have to use the, the, the 27.7 million dollar traded player exception because you have the full mid level at your disposal. That's $15 million. You can use that as a traded player exception. That's a little, a little trick there where the Celtics could if they wanted to and if it was available, if a Bobby Porter's trade was available, you could send, you could send Sam Houser. You listen, Sam Houser going back to Milwaukee would, you know, back to Wisconsin. I think he'd be like kind of cool with that being back In Wisconsin, if some kind of Sam Houser centered deal was available, the Celtics could acquire Bobby Portis, throw him into that, the mid level exception, and that could be your mid level exception guy, and you'd still have the $27.7 million to use. Now you can't use all of that because that would put you over the tax me could use. Depending on how this works out, you could use like over 20 million of it and still standard the tax and find your wing type of player. And with that, you could outbid. Actually, if other teams are offering the mid level exception, you could, you could say, hey, instead of 15, I'll give, we'll give you 18. We'll give you a little bit more than, than the mid level and we'll, we'll bring you in. You can do, you can target restricted free agents, you could do signing trades. So there, there's a lot of possibilities there for the Celtics. So Bobby Portis, I'm in. You know, you can go small ball center with him. You know those lineups that I talk about with Tatum at small ball center, you, you could absolutely do that with Bobby Portis. So he's, he's that type of, you know, I talk about that guy. You need like a little bit of fire and you a little bit of like, you know, kind of a jerk sometimes. Like, Bobby Portis could be that guy. He could be the guy that he's not afraid, like, he would not be afraid to talk to Jalen Brown on the bench and be like, yo, dude, let's go. He wouldn't be afraid to talk to Jason Tatum and be like, hey, let's go. Snap out of it. All right, we, let's go be Celtics like that. I think he's the type of player. So if I'm, if I'm, I'd rather go for Bobby Portis, who's, who fits kind of the dynamic, the, the, the roster while you keep Jalen and Jason. And it just, I think you can do more with him at the price. So call me crazy. Like, listen, I understand how this is going to be received. Giannis Antenna Kubo is obviously an elite player and he, he is a win. Now somebody's going to trade for him and become immediately better. I just don't trust the injury history and I like the idea of the dynamic that we know, the dynamic that's been here for, for years and years and years. I just, I just like that better. So that's, that's where I stand on this. I do think tinkering not Tinkering, but it's a little bit more than tinkering, but it's not overhaul. And I think a Bobby Portis type of move makes more sense in that regard. Adam says, I don't understand why you and others seem to continue to gas up Vuch. You and Grandy made excuses for him. You know, if they only bubble wrapped him or if you hadn't gotten injured. He was on a losing team for 15 years. If. What if he just wasn't very good. So yes, Adam, I understand that he was, but he's better than he was. He's better than what he showed. Or maybe. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe. But when I say, you know, if they bubble wrapped him or whatever, like they could have, if he didn't get hurt, worked him in a little bit more, taken a couple more games here and there to give him a little bit more strategic rest and get him a little bit, you know, ready, ramped up. And also, if he hadn't gotten injured, he would have had time to work with Tatum and you could have at least figured some more stuff out that the, the, the way they use them in the first round was. Some of it was a little bit more hopeful because you were hoping that he would get it and if he didn't get hurt, at least he would have had a few more weeks of will he snap into this role off the bench. So it's not about making excuses. Like, don't. I. I really get bristled by the, this notion that when you try to explain something and talk through these and, and say like you, I want to work through these possibilities and that, that becomes some sort of excuse making. Like it's not excuses. It's. It's not. It's. The Celtics needed to try to get him the way they were going to win. You need him, right? You need him. You needed him and it didn't work out and they lost. Right? He was supposed to be a stretch big. He was supposed to be the guy that pulled Embiid around away from the paint and he didn't. He couldn't. That's a problem. So that's part of why they were able to. The Sixers were able to come back. The Celtics didn't have anybody effective there. With Keda in foul trouble, Vuch had to, had to play. Garza was, you know, there were two, two similar options and neither of them was going to work out great. So that's why I was pushing the Vuch thing. So it's not about making excuses, just the reality of the situation. Right? Like I'm, I get sick of this. You can't explain things anymore. You explain something people like, all right, excuses. It's just an explanation. It's just this is what happened. Right. I'm sorry you don't like it. It's just an explanation. Some things are just true. Joe G asks what are the odds Brad Stevens brings Christophe Porzingis back in a discounted rate? KP clearly loved his time in Boston. Imagine he'd be willing to take a pay cut to come back. The Porzinga situation is so fascinating. I don't know what that I thought for a while last season that he might be just done. He had a little bit of a resurgence with the Warriors. So the question is, is he past the illness thing or is that going to come back? If that, if there's a risk of that coming back, then I don't think you put any like maybe veteran minimum at, at most, I don't think you invest anything significant. And I hate to say this, I love kp. But no, not, not unless it's at the at a minimum. And that you feel some level of confidence that the illness, just the illness part, because you know the injury thing is going to keep him out. He's going to miss time. He's, he's going to, he's going to play 50 games at most for you in the regular season and you hope that he's ready for the postseason. But if the, if the illness thing is kind of lingering, then I'm sorry, no, you can't. I got an interesting what if and that's coming up next. And also people calling for Joe Missoula's job. That is all coming up when we come back. Today's show is brought to you by DoorDash. Postseason is heating up. DoorDash has a way to keep fans in their bag the whole way through. Whether you're watching the highlights the tunnel fits or just your favorite player. DoorDash makes the entire season more fun because every player has their bag. And with DoorDash, fans have one too. DoorDash keeps your snacks stocked, your gear fresh, and the watch party vibes absolutely on point. When the team stresses you out and you want that late night dessert to just drown your sorrows, no problem. DoorDash can help with that. 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See t mobile.com for details. Long thanks for making Locked on Celtics your first listen every day. If you never miss an episode, let's make this official. Join the Everydayer Club and get ad free audio access to our members only. Discord and more. All built for you our most loyal, most loyal fan. Go to lockdown Celtics.Supercast.com that's locked on Celtics.Supercast.com $5 a month or $50 for the year to join the Everydayer club. Let's get back to the mailbag again. John corrales.com mailbag john corrales.com mailbag to get the questions in like Norm who says he's an everydayer. Thanks Norm. Appreciate you. How do you think the playoffs would have gone if we still had Chris Boucher, Josh Minot, Anthony Simons and Xavier Tillman? So he says, I understand and accept the reason why we made the moves, but how about talking about a big what if? What if we didn't? How might it have looked? So let's just pretend that the matchup is the same. Celtics still finished second. They find a way to finish second and they face the Sixers. Now you're facing the Sixers with Keda and Tillman as your backup with Garza and Boucher. So now Boucher still doesn't play. He's that he's not. He's gone. So doesn't matter if he was on the team, Tillman might have gotten some run and try to match up a little bit on on Embiid. I don't think that would have gone well. I think the center situation still would have been a mess. Minot would have taken some of the Jordan Walsh. Let's just it. I just think Minot and Walsh were the same guy and that's one of Those guys would have played and one of them wouldn't have so I expect may maybe a couple more shots. The, the difference here would be Anthony Simons and the, the Simons thing would be super interesting because he probably would have taken Sam Houser's minutes. Would they have felt comfortable doing that? Would he have been able to defend? Hauser still had some, some like it wasn't perfect but he still would rebound and defend where Simons isn't going to rebound but he has the potential to get hot and hit shots. So would I guess this question boils down to would Anthony Simons had, would he have given the Celtics a chance to beat the Sixers? And you can say yes, sure. I, I, I think there's a world where Simons can get hot in game two, right. Or game five in that third quarter or the fourth quarter and hit some shots where the Celtics scored 11 points in the game in the fourth quarter of game five. So I can say that Simon's Simons, let's just say he gets hot in that game five. Celtics win that and they go on to face the Knicks. I still just looking at it, having looked at the, the Knicks the way they, the way they've been playing lately, I don't know who would handle Carl Anthony Towns. I would know it would be, it would be tough. The Celtics didn't really do well against the Knicks. I think the Knicks are on a roll. Kind of feel like they would have lost to the Knicks anyway. So I guess that's, that's how it would have looked. Ultimately it would have depended on Anthony Simons making some shots. Would he have gotten cold like everybody else in game five? If so, then I don't know. I don't know how much changes it, it's not a lot, not a lot changes. And frankly, you play that series again 100 times, the Celtics probably win 80 of those in the, you know, if everything goes the same way and it's just a matter of shots falling, falling or not. So I don't know. I'll just leave it at that. It's Simon's might have made a difference. It would have been a huge, huge difference. Andrew says John, in your most recent mailbag, you insisted that calling for Joe to be fired was insane. Although there is a case to keep him, him being fired is valid option. He underachieved in three out of four playoff seasons. Championship season was an incredibly easy path. I do give him credit and we were not complaining when they were up 3:1. But the fact that they lost A series shows an inability to make the correct adjustments. Ira adds, I don't say fire Joe, but don't you think his playoff record of 63.1% is very much skewed by the 16.3championship season where he had one of the best rosters possible. He's only 2018 in the other three seasons combined. Plus, each of the three exits was egregious in many people's views. So look, there's fair criticism of Joe Missoula. There's a couple of things. Number one, it's. There's the question of. I'm probably going out of order here, but the notion of just firing a coach like this who's won a championship two seasons ago, like, you can say what you want about the. The roster being stacked and they still had to be coached. They still had to be. They still had to have that cohesion. All of the stuff that Joe does still had to work with them. So let's. I don't like the dismissiveness. I really don't like the dismissiveness of a championship season. I am just flummoxed. I am vexed by how easily people just dismiss a championship season. It blows my mind. People just wave their hand like as an easy path as his stack roster. Look what they still had to go do it. So that's. That. That, that notion is. It bothers me. Now, the other, the other seasons you have Joe's first full season as a coach and they had that series against Miami. We all know they felt that all of it's legitimate. Okay. We don't know what would have happened if Jason didn't sprain his ankle in Game 7. Maybe they come back and win that and who knows what happens? The Knicks series. Look, there's always a mitigating circumstance. Yes, Joe. Joe plays a role. But Porzingis was not healthy and he was a huge reason why they were able to beat the Knicks so easily throughout the year. You had no Porzingis. There's a key element to that. Right. And all the Celtics, they had Luke Cornett and then Keda, who wasn't ready. Right. It's not this year's Keda. So, yes. Were there decisions. Yes, they could have in the first two games. They. Something could have been done somehow, some way to win game one, game two, both, whatever. So, yes, totally legit. Totally legit. Right. They. They could have done stuff in this Philly series to. To win this series, but again, they were going to lose. I think they were going to lose to the Knicks. They weren't built. People are talking about, like, okay, they lost the series. Gotcha. I'm on board with you. They blew the series. They botched it. They blew it. They were probably going to lose this next series anyway, and they were never built to make a deep playoff run. So, okay, they lost this one series and it becomes, oh, fire. Joe, like Joe has had this team playing together. Derrick White says, could not speak more glowingly about Missoula. Like, the players love this guy. The players play hard for this guy. Jason Tatum loves Joe Missoula. Jalen Brown, I don't know where he is right now on Joe Missoula, but has spoken glowingly about Missoula in the past. These guys have a good relationship. The players like this guy. They play hard for him. Why are you firing a guy that has the. Do you understand how hard it is to maintain the. All in the buy in from a team year and year and year, you know, year in, year out. Joe has these guys. He's. He gets the most out of them. Okay, yeah, the playoff. There. There are a couple of things here in the playoffs that he could have done better to win this series. Right? He could have done better to. To win that Knicks series last year. But with the injuries and the illnesses and the, the roster shakeup this year, like, you got to be honest with yourself about where this team you. Now that you have all information, where were they going? If this was a championship roster that left, that got bounced in the first round, then maybe we'd have something. This was not a championship roster. Like, we can't treat this like, I understand 56 wins. We can't treat it like a championship roster. Joe. Joe is a great coach. Okay? He's a great coach. It's hard to win. It's hard to win these playoff series when you're not fully healthy and you don't have some luck falling your way. It's hard to do that. And then my final point is, who else? Who? Okay, people say Sam Cassell, all right? Never been a head coach. Give him a shot. Maybe it works. Maybe it works. Maybe. Maybe he's an answer. Maybe. Who knows? But we don't know that for sure. It could flame out. You don't know. Like, I don't want to. I hate this conversation so much because then you have to turn like, you, you have to point out, like, Sam Cassel has been up for other head coaching jobs and he hasn't gotten them. For whatever reason, he has not gotten them. You think Sam Cassel wanted to be an assistant Coach this long. He hasn't gotten head coaches jobs yet. He's wanted head coaching jobs. He hasn't gotten them. Why? I don't know the answer to why, but why? Ask yourself. Somebody keeps interviewing for a job and he doesn't get it. What's the reason? Maybe he's just a bad interviewer, I don't know. But like, look at what the reality is. Like, Joe is a great coach. You're gonna fire him and do what? Like, I get it. Be, be pissed, be pissed at how things went. But like, come on, it's, it's, I understand. Like there, people are like, well, I'm not saying he's the best coach ever, but I don't know. I think it's, it's overblown. Chris asks one general playoff question that's always bugged me. Not just specific to the Celtics, but why does every coach shorten the rotation so drastically and overload the starters in the playoffs? We were a well oiled machine all season long. Did the playoffs start? And then it's like, well, I guess we should be playing a different style now. And that's what teams are supposed to do. Look, I, Chris, I'm with you on that too. So what happens in the playoffs is you're, you're playing the same team that's a good team or a better team than you know, some nights in the regular season. So you got to rely on your best players. You can't go to, you can't go to a. Luca Garza and rookie Hugo Gonzalez if you're not fully confident in them because each mistake they make is more magnified in the regular season. You know, February, March, yes, you're trying to win those games and all that stuff, but the other teams aren't preparing for you in the same way that they are in a playoff series. The, these other teams are working on their own stuff. There's travel in, you know, they fly in and out of the city like sometimes within, you know, the same day they are, you know, within 24 hours, they're like in and out, gone. As opposed to a playoffs where guys are rested, you just, you shorten your bench not because you have to, like, because you feel like you have to. You shorten your bench because your best players are your five starters and your two guys off the bench and like maybe three. And once you get to your 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, man, it just becomes there those, those players have flaws that become just more blatantly obvious and exploitable and you, you can't, you can't just willingly give up those mismatches. That's why all the coaches short shorten their rosters. You don't always have to. If you're a better team than you know in, in a first round series, you can go 9, 10 deep if you want against like Celtics could have gone a little bit deeper into their bench against Philly to run and be ragged. You could have, you could have dipped into 8, 9, 10 a little bit more freely. So that's one of the things that Joe Missoula could have done for sure. But that's why the the rotations get shortened. Finally Tammy says can you discuss Brad's end of season press conference? I heard your question by the way. Thank you. That wasn't a compliment. She just heard it. What are your thoughts, Tammy? I don't know if you missed maybe this question came in before we recorded those shows or what, but Tom Westerholm and I did two shows on Brad Stevens. If you missed those, go back down the feed. Whether you're listening or watching, just scroll on down. You'll see me and Tom talking about Brad Stevens. You got a full hour conversation plus on that. So if you missed those, go check those out. Thanks for submitting the questions. All the questions come in@john carous.com mailbag john corrales.com mailbag fire back your questions. I do appreciate them. I know I get fired up about some of these topics, but I do thank you all so much for submitting them and and contributing to the conversation. I, I do appreciate that. And I do appreciate you sharing the podcast. 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