Do You Believe In Magic, Nuggets Stay Alive & Cooper Flagg Wins Rookie of the Year

Summary

No Dunks Podcast: "Do You Believe In Magic, Nuggets Stay Alive & Cooper Flagg Wins Rookie of the Year"

Date: April 28, 2026
Hosts: J. Skeets, Tas Melas, Trey Kirby, JD
Theme: NBA playoff breakdowns, rookie awards, and league debates—with trademark humor and deep dives from basketball’s most iconic podcasters.

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Episode Overview

This episode delivers a classic No Dunks mix of in-depth NBA playoff analysis, witty banter, and sharp takes on recent league headlines. The crew digs into Orlando’s stunning upset bid over Detroit, Denver’s fight to stay alive against Minnesota, the Thunder’s sweep of the Suns, and the razor-thin Rookie of the Year vote. Plus, they riff on broadcast quirks, mascots, Cheez-Its, and league tanking proposals, all with their signature mix of insight and levity.

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Key Segments & Highlights

1. Orlando Magic’s Stunning 3–1 Lead Over the Pistons

[03:54–25:14]

• Magic 94, Pistons 88—Orlando upsets Detroit, moves to 3–1 in the 1 vs. 8 matchup.
  • Orlando stands one win from being the 7th #8 seed ever to beat a #1 (04:13).
  • Both teams shot 2-for-18 (!) in the final 5 minutes.
    • “This one came down to who wants to lose less.” —Trey (04:58)
    • Last five minutes described as a “bone fight… disgusting” —T.K. (07:17)
  • Cade Cunningham left to do everything, visibly worn down.
    • Pistons’ role players failed, especially Jalen Duren: “They’ve just dared him to make more decisions… He’s been totally neutralized.” —Skeets (09:50)
    • Duren: 9.8 pts/gm, 47% FG, outplayed by Carter Jr., offensively flustered.
  • Late game Pistons’ failures detailed:
    • Turnovers by Cade, missed wide open shots by Harris and LaVine, bench production missing.
    • “Careless pervert” riff about Caris LeVert’s struggles brings laughs (14:42).
  • Desmond Bane had “a good offensive game,” despite banking in a lucky 3—friends Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. courtside “finger gun” reactions are a moment (17:52–18:22).
  • Jamal Kane’s monster poster dunk on Duren electrified the crowd; gets second-highest “dunk score” ever (19:13–19:51).
    • “That is going to be the lasting image I take away from Jalen Duren from this series. Him falling to his butt as if he were one of the Three Stooges.” —TK (19:52)
  • Can Detroit come back? Both hosts agree: Detroit could win Game 5 with effort at home, but a comeback feels out of reach. “I just don’t have a lot of faith in this Pistons team right now…” —TK (22:47)

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2. Nuggets Stay Alive: Denver Fights Off the Wolves

[38:40–48:17]

• Denver beats Minnesota 125–113, avoids elimination down 3–2.
  • Jokic: Triple-double, 27 pts/12 reb/16 ast, aggressive from the tip: “He was just quicker with all his decision making,” —Skeets (43:27)
  • Denver supporting cast steps up (Cam Johnson, Spencer Jones, Tyus Jones), especially during a blistering third quarter.
  • Wolves missing Ant Edwards and DiVincenzo, looked disorganized with 25 turnovers fueling Denver’s fast break.
    • “That’s how you get the best games from Cam Johnson… just running down the court.” —TK (40:58)
  • Minnesota made a late push but couldn’t recover: “I do like the fact that they did fight…” —Trey (42:32)
  • Jokic’s endgame “troll” move—handing and snatching the ball from Baron J—gets laughs (44:33).
  • Outlook: Can Minnesota close at home or will Denver force a Game 7? Hosts waver, split on Game 6 outcomes.

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3. Thunder Sweep the Suns

[52:10–62:40]

• OKC knocks out Phoenix 4–0 behind SGA (31 pts, again), Chet Holmgren (24–12), and strong team play.
  • “This one felt like the first regular season game of the playoffs to me.” —TK (52:57)
  • Thunder's offense best in any playoff series in three years (per John Schumann).
  • A.J. Mitchell’s emergence in place of injured J-Dub highlighted.
  • Suns fought hard despite injuries (especially Mark Williams’s absence), but lack playoff-level depth.
    • “This was a more encouraging sweep… but I think they're looking at a lot more seasons like this.” —TK (60:09)
  • Suns’ future debated: Big payroll, few picks, but a true rebuild after last year’s meltdown.

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4. Lightning Round: Memorable Moments, Random Notes

[30:11–37:39]

• Cheez-Its Guy:
  • Unnamed man behind halftime broadcast devours Cheez-Its, triggering hosts’ snack banter (31:06–32:47).
    • “This to me in our NBA world, this guy taking down the Cheez-Its… is like the jar of Nutella floating in space on Artemis.” —Skeets (32:47)
• Dunks, Blocks, Shoes:
  • Goga Bitadze with two “beach volleyball” blocks (33:34).
  • Paolo Banchero jams foot into untied shoe; broadcast jokes about only wearing “three stripes” (34:09).
• Broadcast Crew Antics:
  • Austin Rivers repeatedly says “hit it on the head, Robbie,” and calls Banchero “playoff Pablo,” drawing laughs (34:43).
• No playoff wedgies yet!
  • The hosts lament the lack of “wedgies” in the postseason (90:28).
    • “We got zero wedgies in the postseason, zero in the play-in games… It’s just weird.” —Skeets (91:16)
• Mascot Madness:
  • Rocky the Nuggets mascot performs dangerous “ladder on ladder” halftime act (50:28).

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5. Up/Down Report: Rookie of the Year, Pat Riley, Draft Reform

[65:07–86:14]

Cooper Flagg edges Connor (Con) Knipple for Rookie of the Year

• Flag wins by just 26 points in a panel vote; Knipple led most of the season but cooled late.
• Detailed debate:
  • Trey: “I would have picked Con… Why can’t Khan, who had the better year, be the guy that they voted?” (69:08)
  • Skeets: “I think some of the voters want to do forecasting… 10 years from now they go, ‘ha, we got it right, we went Cooper.’” (73:01)
• Noted as second-closest race since 2003.

Pat Riley staying on as Heat president

• Riley, 81, says he’ll only trade Bam for “8 picks and Wembanyama.”
• Hosts approve Riley’s refusal to tank (“I do like it… this is my home!” —Skeets at 76:05) but debate whether Heat should adjust their approach to get out of play-in purgatory.

NBA Discussing Draft Reform to Curb Tanking

• Top proposal: Expanding lottery to 18 teams, flattening odds for worst 10.
• Mixed reactions:
  • Trey down: “You can still tank in this format and still be bad for a year.” (81:27)
  • Tas up: “The worst teams won’t be as bad… It will be middle tanking rather than bottom tanking.” (83:45)
• Tangent: Which owner or GM would not know they have a Zoom cat filter on?

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6. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This was a bone fight… It was disgusting.” —T.K. on Pistons/Magic finish (07:17)
• “Careless pervert.” —Skeets, riffing on Caris LeVert’s playoff struggles (14:42)
• “That is going to be the lasting image I take away of Jalen Duren from this series. Him falling to his butt as if he were one of the Three Stooges.” —TK on Jamal Kane’s poster dunk (19:52)
• “The best experience, dumping (Cheez-Its) on a plane.” —Trey, snack philosophy (32:11)
• “Neutered Jalen Duren.” —Skeets, on Duren’s tough matchup (37:48)
• “Jokic didn’t jump [for the jump ball].” —Skeets, on Jokic’s endgame move (90:25)
• "Austin Rivers… he hit it on the head, Robbie, absolutely." —Running gag about the broadcast (34:51)
• "I want 79 wedgies." —Tas, on sticking to traditional NBA numerology (92:19)

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Important Timestamps

• Orlando vs. Detroit in-depth break down: [03:54–25:14]
• Jamal Kane's Dunk: [18:23–19:51]
• Cheez-Its Guy Segment: [31:06–32:47]
• Denver Beats Minnesota: [38:40–48:17]
• Thunder Sweep Suns: [52:10–62:40]
• Cooper Flagg Rookie of the Year Debate: [65:07–75:01]
• Pat Riley & Heat Discussion: [75:49–80:11]
• Draft Reform Debate: [80:11–86:14]
• Wedgies Drought: [90:28–91:41]

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Tone and Language

Fun, loose, irreverent, with a mix of stats-driven discussion and pure basketball fandom. The hosts blend sharp-tongued, rapid-fire analysis with detours into snack culture, TV quirks, and basketball lore.

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Recommendations for Listeners

• Want playoff strategy and chemistry talk? — Dive into the first 25 minutes for Pistons/Magic.
• Love underdog stories and in-game moments? — Check Jamal Kane’s dunk segment.
• Curious about the NBA’s future or enjoy awards debates? — The Up/Down Report delivers nuanced takes on rookies, front office moves, and league proposals.
• Just here for the jokes and pop culture quirks? — Listen for Cheez-Its, wedgies, mascot antics, and more sprinkled throughout.

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This episode is a must-listen for fans wanting to track the NBA’s unpredictable playoff drama and emerging stars, while catching the pulse of round-the-league conversations and enjoying the camaraderie of hoops’ funniest podcasting crew.

Transcript

[Announcer]

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[Trey Kirby]

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[J. Skeets]

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[Announcer]

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[Trey Kirby]

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[J. Skeets]

Good morning, sweet world, and welcome to the no Dunks podcast presented by FanDuel. It's Tuesday, April 28, 2026. I'm J. Skeets here in the classic factory and alongside me, as always, TASM podcast listeners.

[Trey Kirby]

Quince lovers, this one's for you.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, you look good in your quince man Quincy. Next to him, it's my top shot, hot boy Trey Kirby. And over there, making the magic happen, super producer jd.

[Trey Kirby]

Hello.

[J. Skeets]

There he is. Here we are.

[T.K.]

Wow.

[J. Skeets]

How long has that Yoda lamp been behind you?

[Trey Kirby]

Oh, great question. I can't see it because my monitor's not working.

[J. Skeets]

It's been there. Yeah, it's been there.

[Trey Kirby]

I don't know, a week or so.

[J. Skeets]

What? This is the first time I noticed the Yoda lamp was there maybe or late last week. Oh, my God.

[Trey Kirby]

Jack's been doing some, you know, tidying

[J. Skeets]

up and rearranging and stuff, so. Well, it's nice to see the Yoda lamp. I just gotta turn it on. You've been doing Star wars movies?

[Trey Kirby]

That too, yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Yes, yes, yes, yes. It all makes sense now. Hello to everybody on YouTube. Hit the like button. Subscribe podcast listeners, five star ratings and reviews. Really appreciate it on today's show. A little bit later we got the up down report. We're going to throw some thumbs on a few NBA topics, including our rookie of the year winner. But we got the playoff games to break down here. And we'll start with the Orlando Magic defeating the Pistons 94 88. They take the 31 series lead and move one win away from becoming the seventh number eight seed in NBA history to beat a number one seed. One more TAs and the Pistons are out. Despite a 60 win season.

[Trey Kirby]

This feels like it's over. It sure does. That the Pistons aren't going to be able to come back on for three games in this particular one came down to who wants to lose less at the end of the game. And the Magic won that battle. The last five minutes showed how much Kate is relied on and it sort of wore him down in both these Games in Orlando. And you could see it in this one, they scored one point. The last five minutes of this game, essentially one was a garbage bucket. But for K not to be able to do that on some open shots, you could just see how much the focus is on him. I think there's more focus on him as the number one guy than there is in any other playoff series because their rest of their roster is not coming through whatsoever. I think when it comes down to it, we're going to look back at game one of this series and say that's the game they had to win at home. Their role players are supposed to play better. And no one supported Cade's 39 essentially in that game. And people will be asking, I mean, looking up and down that roster, I thought the bench would come through. I thought the replacements of Dennis Schroeder and Malik Beasley would come through. Malik Beasley 1. Why'd you have to gamble, man, if he was out there in game one, I think he hit some shots. But in this one, as a game down, you look at every possession where they only scored one point in those last five minutes. And Cade was just unable to hit open shots. And either were his friends, either were his teammates.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, not a lot of shot making. At the end of this game. I saw that the Pistons and Magic combined to shoot 2 for 18 from the floor in the final 4:50 of game time. The two made shots. By the way, Desmond Bane banked in three. Don't think he meant to do that one from up top. And then, yeah, the meaningless Isaiah Stewart put back right before the buzzer tip of Canoe. That was it in the final basically five minutes in terms of made shots, which is pretty crazy. But yeah, maybe not surprising how this has gone where it's just Kaden, if you can slow him down. It's not like anyone else contributing to

[Trey Kirby]

the joy right now. And just to add in, to win the ugly battle, the Pistons just had to play a little better defense. I thought Assar Thompson didn't get out to Jaylen Suggs with six plus minutes left in the corner. Jaylen Sugs hadn't hit a shot all game. And I saw Thompson just kind of fell asleep a little bit. Great defender, fantastic defender. But these, these games, this fourth quarter where it was 1919, you needed every little ugly defensive battle. And he missed Jalen Suggs, that rotation. Jalen Suggs had a 33 of 19 points just like that.

[T.K.]

Yeah, these teams watched Cavaliers versus Raptors game four. Said, I want that for us. Yeah, they Made it just as ugly. I saw people asking if Cavs Raptors was a mud fight, what could this possibly be? This was a bone fight.

[J. Skeets]

I don't know what it was.

[T.K.]

It was disgusting. And that's been the story for the Pistons this entire series. They get worse when it matters the most. Their offensive rating in fourth quarter so far, 90.5 per 100 possessions. That's not very many.

[Trey Kirby]

No.

[T.K.]

Minus 10.5 on the net rating. Like you're saying they didn't make a shot for five minutes. And I mean, yeah, Kate is missing shots, but he's the A, only one who can get a shot and B has five sets of eyes on him because nobody else is doing anything out there. Their most used lineup in these fourth quarters is their starters. Cade, Duncan Robinson, Tobias Harris, Asar Thompson, Jalen Duran. They need to bench two of those guys. Assar needs to sit on the bench. Duran probably should be benched for beef stew at this point. Stewart's playing a lot better than he is. At least he can shoot a three pointer. I don't know who you bring in for a sar Thompson. He is making plays defensively, but it's like Danis Jenkins hasn't done anything to deserve minutes in fourth quarters right here. Kevin Herder can't even get off the bench. But still, when you're playing Duran and Thompson out there with everybody else, there's literally no space for Cade to do anything. So I don't know what the solution is. The solution is to make a move at the trade deadline. Like literally everybody was saying, you need a second score, you need shooting. They got neither of them. And their second scorer has turned into a complete shell of himself. Like Jalen Durant had his best game of the series last night, 12 points, eight boards. But he looks so timid, he looks so tentative, and he looks like a worse athlete than Wendell Carter Jr. Which I thought was the complete opposite for the entirety of their careers. So I don't know what the solution for the Pistons is. Probably they have to just hope that the Magic continue to be inconsistent and hope that, you know, however many games they played, 88 games this season over the long run, they've had win streaks, they've had losing streaks, they've had bad times. And right now that feels like the easiest way for the Pistons to get a win. Is the Magic playing bad?

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. Or France keeps being injured. That's part of it. I mean, he left this game, only played 24 minutes. He scored 19. Super Effi efficient. If he's injured for game five. That would help the Detroit Met, the Pistons going back home. I mean, that's. That's why I go back to game one. Your role players supposed to play better every single one. The biggest shock, I think, is Jalen Duran specifically.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, my God. Yeah, for sure. The guy is going to be. He's likely going to be on an all NBA team.

[T.K.]

He.

[J. Skeets]

He scored, what, 19 and a half points per game. Obviously did work on the glass all regular season, shot 65% during the regular season. And he's been totally neutralized by Orlando's size, really, that they've thrown at him. And Wendell Carter Jr. Has done a great job on him. They've just dared him to make, like, more decisions than I think he looks comfortable doing. And I think it's just gotten worse sort of as the series has gone on because it's become this story, right? It's like, okay, Cade's getting locked up here and all attention's on him. You know, where's. Where, where are you, Robin? You know, you got to help him out here. But he's averaging 9.8 points per game and he's shooting 47%. He has nine assists to 12 turnovers. This is Jalen Duran here. So, yeah, something here, but I'm with you, T.K. at this point, especially with your backs against the wall. Why not? Maybe, maybe it is. Switch it up and more beef stew. Like, he didn't play a whole lot despite being a positive player in last night's game. And he's at least a little bit more he. More of a threat, I mean, to open up the floor a little bit, obviously. Eight blocks, huge. He's out there for defensive purposes. But I think Bickerstaff might have to try something here.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Because this is bad. You're not getting anything else.

[Trey Kirby]

No, he gave him a few minutes in the fourth quarter because he was playing the way everybody imagines Detroit basketball to be played. Hard. I mean, he was playing ridiculously hard. He has been really good off the bench those eight blocks. That being said, he's not going to score a lot of points. And so, yeah, the collapse around Cade, especially there was that Asar Thompson buck or attempt at a bucket, you know, with a couple minutes left after Cade was stopped, Assar Thompson got the ball and he went directly to the same side where Cade was. Didn't make any sense. And there's so many bodies there. Tobias was open in the other quarter, so I'm not sure why ASR tried that, but, yeah, none of the answers are Coming from the bench, they did know. Know that they needed a score at the trade deadline. So they tried the Jaden Ivey trade for Kevin Herder. He didn't play a ton. He didn't get into the flow here. That didn't happen.

[J. Skeets]

A classic lose, lose, trade. Love to see it. The opposite of the win, win.

[T.K.]

I mean, I still think the Pistons probably won that one.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. For sure. I mean. Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

But could have done maybe anything else at the deadline, maybe helped your chances.

[T.K.]

That's what everybody said. Trade a first round pick for Michael Porter. He would shoot shots. He would stretch the court. He would be out there for a Sar Thompson. At this point, anything would have been better than trading for a guy who doesn't play.

[Trey Kirby]

Get a better package together for I.O.

[J. Skeets]

than Kobe White.

[T.K.]

Like, there's so many. There's so many bulls you could name

[J. Skeets]

that could be on this team.

[T.K.]

Joe's Kevin Herder.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kade's fourth quarter, you could see his legs weren't there or.

[J. Skeets]

Or he just hold on him was garbage. This entire game, though, too. I don't want to let him off the hook too much. He had four turnovers in the first, like, four minutes.

[T.K.]

He was bad.

[J. Skeets]

He was throwing the ball at guy's knees on the fast break.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, he had two bad games in Orlando.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, he had. He had 17 turnovers to 15 assists over these last two losses. And a lot of them are avoidable as much as the Magic are obviously loading up on him and all eyes on him. There's two times in this game. The one that I just said, he threw it at green's knees. That was a. That's buckets. The greens were. Nobody scores. Yeah, the greens knees. I tell you, that should have been two points. And then he had the other. What do you mean?

[Trey Kirby]

He missed free throws. He missed free throws, too.

[J. Skeets]

Okay. And then the other one, it was a three on two. And Cade, he, like, he should have shot it. I mean, in retrospect. And he even did the. My bad. He tried. Like, maybe he was trying to think, like, let's get Jalen Duran going here. He, like, tried to get it to him. There was no passing lane. It was like. It got picked off. He's like. Like, those were points that they should have had. So he's played bad here now. The guy had, like, a collapsed lung like, 40 days ago.

[T.K.]

True.

[J. Skeets]

You know, and got some games under his belt, so whatever. But those were bad. Those were bad. And I hated this. Like, they had to, like, claw Black claw back in this Game after all those turnovers start, they're done 175 or something.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, the turnovers were weird.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Watching such a talented player do that.

[T.K.]

That's his thing though. Like, yeah, they were totally right on the broadcast. Like when Cade has a turnover, it looks terrible. They're so lazy and just like, what are you doing? These are kind of like junior level turnovers that he has and it adds up. Eight of them last night. He's got 24 in his last three games. Like, that's a ridiculous number. Detroit had 20. And Orlando's not a team that's going to score easily. They shot 33% in the game last rounding up.

[J. Skeets]

I love it.

[T.K.]

And you're giving them opportunities. You're just giving them chances to score in the fast break and it just doesn't add up. So I don't know. But also it's like I can't get too mad at Cage, the only one who does anything. Played 13 minutes. He had three points. Caris LeVert played 25 minutes, two points.

[Trey Kirby]

He blocked a shot.

[T.K.]

Who cares?

[Trey Kirby]

He never does that. No, it just looked like he was coming around to being at least the half a version of himself that he hasn't been able to do.

[T.K.]

It's done. It's over for Caris.

[J. Skeets]

Careless pervert.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he's had a bad, very bad season.

[T.K.]

Where's Ron Holland?

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, they didn't pull it out. Or Paul Reed.

[T.K.]

He has energy too.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, yeah, they tried some stuff. Yeah, to see. I watched Carol. Yeah, that block show he blocked Desmond Bayney guarded him on the perimeter and he's throwing his arms out because he's not really great positionally. Just does that. Backed all the way up and he blocked the shot and thought, okay, this is better. But then you watch him. Those last five minutes of the game, I mean, it went. Cade missed a 3 Kara slivert, set a moving screen with 410 left. I tried to look up how many screens Caris Lavert has set because it didn't look like he set screens.

[T.K.]

Yeah, I don't think so.

[J. Skeets]

What do I do?

[Trey Kirby]

And Toby missed twice. Harris missed a wide open 3. I think that was that. That's what sealed it really. If guys are missing open shots like that. Cade then missed a short wide open floater with three minutes left. Again. That's why I sort of say the legs, whether it's the body not being right here. He's did good the first two games. But then a Duran moving screen. Dennis Jenkins couldn't help out. Move missing a 3. Cade missing a free throw. Should probably hit free throws. Then Aar Thompson again. That one where he went to the wrong side, missed in tight. Cade missing a three. A Sar missing two free throws. And Charis missing the widest open three. Way left. I mean, that was.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, there was some bricks in that game last night. I noticed da Silva finally hit a couple shots. His first two shots were off. I thought of your backboard in your driveway with the hole in it. I thought we were gonna get that last night. They were missing so bad.

[T.K.]

Yeah, he had some brutal misses.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, he had an airball.

[T.K.]

And then his next miss was worse, like you're saying, because it smacked off the glass.

[J. Skeets]

He did hit a few.

[Trey Kirby]

And the one that Bane hit, I mean, that was a miss too. Yeah, that went off the glass.

[T.K.]

At least he. At least he put some prayer hands up. You will never see that. Most guys are like, nice.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, yeah.

[T.K.]

Shot it straight as. I meant to do just a little tall, but no, he was literally like, yeah, I lucked into that one.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. Listen, when you look back at it, if it is game one, that ends up being the one that the Pistons lost, I think they're going to look back at the offseason, say we should have resigned Dennis Schroeder, I mean, he was so good in that one series against the Knicks. He was awesome last year. He was the other guy beside Kate that they could rely on till the end of each and every game, essentially. He was really good. And they replaced him with Carousel Vert, who hasn't been himself. Then we thought the two way player of Dennis Jenkins, watching him in the off in the regular season, could be that guy. So I, I always think, who's that fifth guy going to be for the Pistons? It hasn't been anybody. It could have been those two. Kevin Herder, you know, didn't have a lot of games with this team. Didn't have a lot of practice with this team. It never didn't come from there. You just keep on going down. Maybe it'll be Javante Green who hasn't played well. No, nobody really came through. And they miss Dennis.

[J. Skeets]

I guess they do. We're making fun of Baines. Banked in three. But he actually did have a good offensive game in this one, a low scoring game. He had 22.7 of 18. Yeah. Hit three five threes and two straight games, like you said, hitting a bunch of threes in the game prior. So he's come through. He had his buddies sit in courtside. His old teammates.

[T.K.]

I Thought that was sweet in John

[J. Skeets]

Morant And Jaren Jackson Jr. Just sitting there taking in the game. And they, you know, they went to them a couple times on the broadcast, especially after a Bane big shot or two. And we saw some classic John Morant celebrations.

[T.K.]

He can't stop doing finger guns.

[J. Skeets]

He cannot. Man cannot resist.

[T.K.]

He's like, you ain't going to suspend me or find me for cheering from the sidelines, are you?

[J. Skeets]

Nope.

[T.K.]

And he did it every time Bane made a shot, including in the banked one. And then Jaren Jackson Jr's reaction every time they cut to him.

[J. Skeets]

I know. Yeah.

[T.K.]

Oh, sh.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, he's shaking his head. A guy big play in this game, though. And I know we have the clip and hell, we might as well go sound up on it, JD Because a great call from the broadcast crew. Jamal Kane electrifying the crowd with that driving dunk on Jaylen Duran early in the fourth quarter. And he later had a nice tip in dunk too. But this was huge.

[Trey Kirby]

Turns the corner.

[J. Skeets]

A lot of O's there, but got a body from Grady. Good call.

[Trey Kirby]

I think there's even more OC in the replay to see how high it got up. It was a little Tom Chambers esque, you know, riding. Riding the shoulder a little bit. He was propped up a little bit. That was a lot on the dunk score, I'm sure.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, one of the highest dunk scores I did see.

[Trey Kirby]

It's probably the first dunk score I've seen, the only one I want to see. I want to start and end it with a great score because they've had some dunk score problems, but this one deserves it.

[J. Skeets]

121.5. Are you kidding me?

[Trey Kirby]

Wow.

[T.K.]

Second highest ever, Tess. Ever.

[Trey Kirby]

Really?

[T.K.]

Ever.

[J. Skeets]

What the hell does this scale go to? I thought we would. Thought we had determined it was 120 last year.

[T.K.]

It was. I don't know. They said, Jamal Kane, you can go higher than that and you'll catch Justin Champagne someday. That was big time, though.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, yeah.

[T.K.]

And unfortunately for me, that is going to be the lasting image I take away of Jalen Duran from this series. Him falling to his butt as if he were one of the Three Stooges.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, yeah.

[J. Skeets]

He should have just like subbed himself right out.

[T.K.]

Yeah, well, I mean, he basically did.

[J. Skeets]

Well, they did nothing, but yeah, what a dunk. And then. And then Kane had another big dunk on a tip in dunk that put them up 87, 85 with just before the real scoring drought there, like 455 mark. But that was big too. Nobody put a body on him and he went up. The guy can sky.

[Trey Kirby]

He had his best game of his career.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, probably. And I mean he got in there with the Wagner injury in the fourth and he got some minutes and he brought the energy in a game where obviously not a lot of shots were going down. He attacked and that one was huge. It really like it did get the crowd like wake again, you know, like the Pistons sort of had come back and all that. But man, that place was buzzing. I love a dunk so good that like three possessions later there's still like the ooh in and on in the crowd. Maybe as they see it again on the Jumbotron or they see it on their phones or whatever it is. I just love that murmur that you still hear in the Kia Center. And good for this guy. This guy was a two way contract guy. He's done that a couple times for a couple different franchises. Miami a couple times, New Orleans, I think found a bit of a role here with the Magic.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. And all the notes about his past come out when he's got a dunk like that. I didn't realize. Four years at Marquette, then a fifth year at Oakland University north of Detroit.

[J. Skeets]

That's right.

[Trey Kirby]

Just to get a squeeze in a

[J. Skeets]

fifth insult to injury.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Pistons team dunking on them. So yeah, the question is, it obviously goes back to Detroit for Game 5. Now Detroit's been down to the Orlando Magic 31 in a series before. People were saying it was to the

[T.K.]

day yesterday I saw that on that

[J. Skeets]

they were down 3:1 at the exact same date. I guess could be very possible. This is the Tracy McGrady series where they blow the 31 lead there in the first round.

[T.K.]

He says, you cannot find video of me saying that I get to go to the second round.

[Trey Kirby]

Run. Come on.

[T.K.]

Oh, he said that video doesn't exist. I was just joking in an interview. I was like, well, which is it here? Which is it here? You did say it or there's no video of it. Maybe it's both.

[Trey Kirby]

That wasn't an interview. I thought it was at the post game after they went up 3:1.

[T.K.]

I thought, don't you remember? All I know is where you got

[Trey Kirby]

to find that video because he left.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, this is pre show even, man.

[Trey Kirby]

Oh, yeah. But he left the Toronto Raptors and said, I'm going to go be a number one guy with the Orlando Magic. And so there was a little pain for us as Raptors fans. Then he did it in front of

[T.K.]

everybody, Everybody knows that it happened. He's like, it didn't happen.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, so the question is going to be, can Detroit do it again? Unfortunate. To Magic fans come back from 3:1 or like task is saying, trey, do you believe, like maybe they could win a game or two? Of course. But can they? Three games in a row, just score enough and somebody help out Kate enough. Like, what do you think? What's your gut say here?

[T.K.]

I would have to imagine that the Pistons take game five. Feels dumb saying that out loud, but you know it'll be their absolute best effort of the series season. On the line. We're throwing everything at the wall. As we saw with like the Suns, as we saw with the Nuggets last night. Teams that are facing elimination, they'll try anything, they'll play more players. So I think that at least increases the chances that you get a crazy dice roll game from a Ron Holland, from a Kevin Herder. Maybe Paul Reed has 10 and 10 or something. Right. Like a weird explosion from a role player can happen at home. But I just don't have a lot of faith in this Pistons team right now to consistently generate offense against a team in the Piston or in the. In the Magic that plays so similarly to the way they do that wants to take away the things that the Pistons consider strengths like offensive rebounding, turnovers. Those have tilted towards the Magic and that's something that the Pistons need to win. I just don't know if they'll be able to do it three straight times.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, they win game five. Yeah, they can do that. I think they'll say, hey, the Orlando Magic got to play in that play in tournament. They had a flow going. They went on Friday, they play us on Sunday. Us, we had like a week off, so we didn't have a good flow going into game one. That's why everybody was in the single digits in terms of scoring other than Cade and a little inefficient game from Tobias. So they'll come around, they'll win a game. All those guys, they can't do Detroit like they did in game one. They. They obviously recovered in game two. But okay, yeah, they win a game,

[J. Skeets]

but you don't love their chances to win three in a row against this team. I don't think the Magic are good home team in the playoffs here.

[T.K.]

Too true.

[Trey Kirby]

I, I just thought coming into the series, you're going to get four really good cade games and you'd have enough support from their teammates and you got two great ones in the first two, and you only won one. So how much can you expect of Kate to have three more awesome games? I highly doubt.

[J. Skeets]

Somebody has to help them. I mean, Tobias has to hit a corner. 3. Duncan Robinson has to do anything. But they're completely. You know, you just stay attached to him and, like, yeah, he can bomb away, but I don't. I haven't been amazed by, like, looks he's even getting and having to rush it. Great job defensively. Part of their game plan, no doubt. Yeah. These other guys. Jenkins, Sorry. There's been nothing. Herder in his minutes. Nothing. I mean, Isaiah has been awesome. Stuart's been great off the bench, but

[Trey Kirby]

the week off, maybe he tries something else. The week off, it's like that. It's like that division series. In baseball, you can't go in with a week off, so that's what hurts.

[T.K.]

That's very true.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. In baseball, way more important than in basketball. These guys should have won game one. Yeah.

[T.K.]

Imagine this becomes the series that the Magic win. I know they were a fifth seed and, what, maybe they were a seventh seed last year, lost in the playoffs both times, and now they come in as an eighth seed and they're gonna win in. I mean, they could do it in five games. Yeah, that's just. Just a weird, weird stuff.

[Trey Kirby]

One. I just. Tracy McGrady must have got that video wiped from the Internet. If it's. If it's. If it's not there. He must have done an incredible job. Had his PR team. Has new podcast producers for cousins. The podcast. Go out and say, delete all this, because if it's not there, I haven't. I haven't seen it, but I remember it.

[T.K.]

It is.

[Trey Kirby]

We all remember. It's post game 03. He's sitting at the desk saying, you know, we're done. We've won. They should be playing that if they can find that copy in the Pistons locker room. Man. Fiori makes soft, and I'm talking extremely soft clothing. I should know. I bought some before this ad our way. I was wearing my Vuoris and my wife said, what are those? I haven't seen them. I told her, my silky soft Vori shorts. Of course, they look super comfortable, and they are, but I can go out in these anywhere. They're designed to look great beyond the gym. Whether you're running errands, heading to the office, or meeting up with friends, it works for everything. She felt them and she said, oh, they're like the PJs we buy for our kids. So Viori got my partner's approval just like that. I also told her that viori is a Finnish word meaning mountain, so I felt as big as a mountain. She didn't really like that, but you'll like this. For our listeners, vuori is offering 20% off your first purchase. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the [e-mail] no dunks. That's V-U-O-R-I.com nodunx. The offer is for new customers only. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts why

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[Trey Kirby]

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[J. Skeets]

Harmony support from this show comes from Quince. I'm way overdue for a wardrobe refresh. I'm a podcast host that is very important. I drive a Chevy Trax. I'm a man. I'm 45. Clothes shopping in person is simply not a priority for me, so I usually wear the same stuff till my wife calls me out. For these reasons, I'm pumped to say that Quints has been my new go to. I asked Nora to help me pick out a couple of items and it turns out she already had a cart ready of things she was planning on getting me from Quints. So I picked up two of the 100% European linen shirts. One stripe, one solid. The material feels light and breathable and the stitching looks really well done. They're the perfect type of pieces that feel easy and comfortable but still look put together. And the best part is, I didn't break the bank. In fact, everything I purchased was priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. Why? Because Quince works directly with the ethical factories and cuts out the Middlemen. So you're getting premium materials without the markup. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to Quince.com nodunks for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Quince.com nodunks for Free Shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com nodunks some other random notes. How about the. I guess the officials we can blame for not catching Desmond Bain's bloody elbow for a few possessions. Some of the most blood you've ever seen on a guy while play was allowed to continue. Heaven forbid. Like somebody has like a bloody nose. Like, everybody stop. Everybody stop. We gotta get this patched up. Fair enough too. But his arm was like dripping blood and like the game was going on for, I don't know, a possession or two. It felt like, did he go to

[T.K.]

the free throw line with blood dripping on his arm or. There was definitely free throws and they could cut to him. You could see it going from his elbow all the way to his wrist. And then like in the middle game last night, Shaigil Das Alexander had a tiny cut on his arm and they fixed it up immediately.

[J. Skeets]

That's what I mean. That's what I mean.

[T.K.]

Like not for this game. If you're under 100 points, both teams, we're going to let you bleed.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, I guess so. And then this is an extremely random note, but this is why you come to no dunks or listen to no dunks. Halftime. They showed the broadcast crew, Grady Austin Rivers and Robbie Hummel. And behind them, I couldn't stop watching this guy here. Now we only have a photo, but there's a funny clip and maybe we'll turn this into something. There's a guy behind the broadcast crew at halftime just taking down a bag of Cheez Its. And you can never see his face, so you can never see him actually eating them. But at one point he does the old put the bag up to the mouth and just goes, oh yeah, yeah. Dumps them into his gullet. As he was trying to get his Cheez Its in at halftime, I couldn't tell if he worked with the broadcast crew or if he was just a fan standing there because he's got a bag there.

[T.K.]

It almost looks like to read that bag.

[Trey Kirby]

Anyway, it's a little snack bag though. It's not a monstrous bag. It's a little teeny guy. That's what I always do.

[T.K.]

It's a snack sizer for sure. Cheez Its come In a box, of course.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Well, it's definitely a bag. No doubt.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, yeah. But lucky you get a little. I would snack size of chips. It's the same size.

[J. Skeets]

It's.

[T.K.]

It's small. You'd put that in a kid's lunch for sure.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[J. Skeets]

But I've seen smaller bags of those too though.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[T.K.]

On delta flights.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[T.K.]

They give you four cheeses.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, but you gotta dump. I always dump at the end of my bags as well. Like I dump it in.

[J. Skeets]

Do you.

[Trey Kirby]

Do you guys. Are you dumpers? Because otherwise what are you gonna do? Stick your hand in there and grab the little crumbs? You might as well just pour it. Especially on a plane.

[T.K.]

Oh yeah, you gotta dump on a plane.

[Trey Kirby]

The best experience, dumping on a plane.

[T.K.]

Have you heard the hack with Cheez Its? Apparently if there is a K before the serial number on a box or potentially a bag of Cheez Its, they're supposed to taste better because the Kansas City, Kansas manufacturing plant makes the best Cheez Its.

[Trey Kirby]

Wow. Yeah.

[T.K.]

Now you know, I didn't know that. I didn't know that.

[Trey Kirby]

Is it, is it cheesier? Like I taste that little sort of raunchy cheesy more that.

[T.K.]

I'm not sure.

[Trey Kirby]

I think that's what it is.

[T.K.]

I got served up a nice taste of Cheez it content on the algorithm at some point this week. And I was happy to learn that

[J. Skeets]

this to me in our NBA world, this guy taking down the bag of Cheez Its behind the broadcast booth while the game is at halftime. This is like the jar of Nutella floating in space on the Artemis. This is my version of that. Just like. Whoa, was that a commercial?

[Trey Kirby]

Whoa.

[J. Skeets]

Why do I suddenly want Cheez Its? You know, in this case, yeah, so maybe, maybe I got duped. Maybe this is all like. Yeah, maybe like when those guys were

[T.K.]

dressed in all green behind the Hornets bench, it was like the ride share. Guys, this is the Cheese it guy.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, Cheesy guy.

[Trey Kirby]

And he does have a bag there that he could have put it in. Put the Cheese bag in a bag. If he's the. The seller or the promoter of the cheeses.

[T.K.]

Mr. Cheese it himself.

[J. Skeets]

Any other notes on pistons?

[T.K.]

Yeah, I got a handful of quickie quicks here. Gogo Bataze had two humongous blocks. He had two blocks and both of them were like. He had his hand on top of the ball, slamming it down to the point where they thought the second one was going to be a goaltend. But it Was not. I think he would be a great beach volleyball player.

[J. Skeets]

Oh yeah.

[T.K.]

Beach batase.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[T.K.]

Paolo Banchero's shoe came off at one point. He didn't untie it to put it back on.

[J. Skeets]

No, I was jamming his foot in there. Well, he struggled to jam it back in. I thought he then. Did he not play with the laces a little bit? Maybe loosened it to get it back on and then. Yeah, Austin. That was when Austin was going off about those shoes.

[T.K.]

He would not say. He's like, I. I won't say anything nice about him because I'm an Adidas.

[J. Skeets]

That's right.

[Trey Kirby]

Only three stripes.

[J. Skeets]

Only three stripes.

[Trey Kirby]

I do think NBA players, it's become a habit when they put on their shoes again, they don't unlace them. They just jam their foot in there. It's happened a couple times this playoff.

[J. Skeets]

It has easy. Has his came off. Weirdly though, his did come because it wasn't like. Usually a guy is stepped on like back heel type thing. Yeah. But I feel like his came off on his own, like planting backwards or something like that. Yeah. There's a cool. I guess what those like penny colored. Is that what you would call Jordan 40.

[Trey Kirby]

Okay.

[J. Skeets]

There you go.

[T.K.]

Yep. And my last thing is that Austin river said you hit it on the head, Robbie. Like 50 times.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, he had a.

[T.K.]

Get on the head, Robbie. Absolutely. Get on the head, Robbie.

[J. Skeets]

A couple of crazy lines actually said something about facials at one point. And I. He was talking volleyball, but it came across weird. Although who are talk. This guy. We're always talking dumpers and dicks and all that.

[T.K.]

Exactly.

[Trey Kirby]

But that's a good Austin though. That's a good Austin impression.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, he had a. He had a weird moment. Did you catch when he was like. He did this whole playoff P thing.

[T.K.]

Oh, yeah. Yes, he did. Yeah. Can't do that.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. So the whole. Of course, Paul George, he was.

[T.K.]

He was talking.

[J. Skeets]

He was talking about Paulo, but then he's called them Pablo.

[T.K.]

Playoff Pablo.

[J. Skeets]

And then it got like quiet for a second. They're like, ah, crap, I made it worse. Anyway.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, that was the only.

[J. Skeets]

I do like the. I like these three. There's some reason there's. They're like. I don't know, there's something. They're zany for some reason. They're not like polished, I guess the best way to put it, but sort of in a good way. Yeah.

[T.K.]

You hit on the head.

[Trey Kirby]

You hit it on the head. Yeah. Paolo got away with a, you know, pretty poor game. Oh, yeah.

[J. Skeets]

God. Yeah. Yeah, it was horrible.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. So was Jalen Suggs one of 13. So they fly under the radar because they get a wild I.

[T.K.]

A lot of free throws.

[Trey Kirby]

A lot of free throws for playoff.

[T.K.]

Pablo.

[J. Skeets]

But you said. I mean, you said Cade missed one late. Like, didn't the Pistons miss like seven free throws in the fourth quarter?

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, he missed two of them.

[J. Skeets]

They missed a lot. They were always splitting them when they were.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, they're splitters. Yeah. They do not look confident. Just one note. Maybe I'm conflating Tracy McGrady's post game press conference with when they lost. Maybe because when they ended up losing those three games, he does his press conference and that is a famous one. Maybe it's that one that I. I constantly see. So I'm conflating it with when they went up 3:1. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he does. At the end when they end up losing, he says, I tried, man. I tried, man. That's a great question. Yeah. So maybe I'm wrong.

[T.K.]

Maybe.

[Trey Kirby]

Maybe it just was a reporter asking him and the video's gone.

[T.K.]

We're gonna find that video.

[J. Skeets]

He says it's a myth. You're right, it's a myth. But anyway, Doc Rivers was coaching a team up 3:1 and they blew the lead.

[T.K.]

I do remember.

[J. Skeets]

So that's the one thing the Magic have going for me. Mosley in there. I can't get over the fact. Look, we were wrong. I was definitely wrong. I thought this team was dead. They looked like they completely quit on the end of the season and it was just like going through the motions. Didn't even care to get into, like, through the play and into the playoffs. You know, we were joking about the 1, 2, 3, Cancun, but it was like the next step. They already had their swim trunks on underneath their uniforms. You know, they were ready. They were checked out, they were gone. Mosley was fired. He's been unfired. He's been rehired. It's crazy how quickly this has turned. And it's a, I think, a big part of it. Yeah. It's been a good matchup for them getting, I guess, the pistons in the 1 8.

[Trey Kirby]

Absolutely.

[J. Skeets]

But the physicality and that they can match that. And obviously taken and neutered Jalen Duran. Yeah. And nobody else contributing or helping Kate. Wild stuff that they can wrap this up here. They get three chances.

[Trey Kirby]

Neutered Jalen Duran, I mean. Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Am I wrong?

[Trey Kirby]

No. Wendell Carter. Yeah. I guess he used the scapula and neutered him.

[T.K.]

Let's take him to the vet. Let's just imagine, though. Imagine they win that first playoff or play in game against the Sixers. They're going against the Celtics, and the Celtics are bombing threes.

[J. Skeets]

I know, Magic.

[T.K.]

We're like, it's just over for this team. Instead, they could make the conference finals. Like, it's not out of the world realm of possibility. They're going against the Raptors or the Cavaliers, who have both had two good games, two bad games.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, I love that going around. Now people are realizing that the Raptors or the Pistons could be in the Eastern Conference finals. I mean, hell, throw the Cavs in that mix, too. But like, those two teams, one of those two teams could be the finalists in the Eastern Conference finals. That's crazy.

[Trey Kirby]

It is nuts.

[J. Skeets]

Exciting. Okay, let's go to Minnesota. They staved off of the mediation. Yeah, I'm saying it. Way to stave, boys. Minnesota still leads the series 3 2. But Jokic with the triple double as The Nuggets avoid elimination. 125, 113 win against the injured Wolves. No Anthony Edwards, no Dante DiVincenzo. But some role players for Denver obviously helped out. It was Jokic. I thought, we'll get into Jokic and Jamal Murray and all that, but other guys contributing, like Cam Johnson had his best game of the series so far. Yes, he had been bit of a ghost before that, but he had a good game. Spencer Jones coming through. Yeah, had a bunch of threes there in that third quarter. And even Tyus Jones getting dusted off and giving David Adelman, like, at least another guy could dribble and, you know, bring up the ball and play make and take a little bit of the pressure off of Jamal and maybe Jokic with at least just bringing it up. So anyway, he got some contributions there and they survive.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, that third quarter when the threes just started dropping and Spencer Jones is splashing 11 points for him. He went down. I thought, is that an ankle injury? And those andyms that are supposed to support your feet.

[J. Skeets]

Impossible.

[Trey Kirby]

Impossible. It was totally fine. He just got one in the chest area. He was totally fine. Ankles were fine. But yes, the game for Cam Johnson. Grain for Spencer Jones of. Of the series so far. Antius Jones coming through. Jonas Valentunas is most minutes of. He will fight Jaden McDaniels. No problem. They got into it. But I love it. I Love this Jaden McDaniels feud going on. The thing that he can't do. Jay McDaniels can't go to the bench. Two minutes into this game. 9:44 left in the first quarter. He's got to go to the bench because he pushed off with his arm. Dumbfound. You're already thin. You don't have your starting back court. You just can't do that. So here comes TJ Shannon, Terrence Shannon to help out. They're asking a lot either way. The Nuggets won a game. Nothing to be super excited about. I. I don't think. I. I don't quite yet. I. I think Minnesota still has it together. I do like the moves of going to Tyus Jones, another ball handler, to help out. I always thought I would assume he should have been the guy that they go get at the trade deadline to help out. So they. It's. It's good. But no, I. I don't have a lot of faith.

[T.K.]

Well, I have a little bit of faith because I thought that third quarter was really indicative and you could really see the flywheel effect that's kind of created by the Timberwolves not having their starting backcourt. They're really disorganized on offense. They don't know exactly who they should be getting the ball to to attack. So it either turns into a turnover, which they had 25 of them last night, or a long miss, which then ignites the Denver fast break. Denver scored 35 points off of turnovers. They had 23 points in the fast break. That's how you get the best games from Cam Johnson, just running down the court. Nobody's stepping in front of them, getting easy dunks. Spencer Jones getting wide open threes as the defense collapses, and he just trails into a good look that then limits Minnesota's quick attack because they have to take the ball out of the hoop, and then they're just back to playing disorganized offense, turning the ball over and getting it ran down the other way. Denver definitely played with urgency like they played the hardest they have. At least since game one. They played the fastest they have. They scored the most easily they had. And we know that they're not getting the backcourt back for the Timberwolves, so I think it's at least encouraging for the Nuggets. You could definitely look at this game and see the way that the Timberwolves played and say they're just packing it in. They want to take care of business at home for game six. There was definitely that sort of vibe, I thought, with McDaniels fouling so easily early and kind of like just not having the mindset that he needs to step his game up with two guys going down. But I do think it was a little bit worrying for the Timberwolves that they look so bad offensively that it made Denver scoring pretty easy.

[Trey Kirby]

I do like the sign, though. The Timberwolves did make it an 11 point deficit even though they're down 27 in the fourth quarter. They could have easily packed it in and said, we're going back home. A rod. Get the. Get the plane, man. We're going home to try and win this thing. A rod courtside. Get involved. Wants those calls happening. But I do like the fact that they did fight. I do like the fact that even though they had 25 turnovers, they reduced them a little bit in the second half. It was 14 in the first half. So, yeah, ideally that's. That's the worry watching this team. They rely so much on Ant and then Dante to let it go beside him. How can they fix where they go? And I thought Spencer Jones did a good job of taking away Julius Randall as much as possible. Jaden wasn't that great. But I do think the way they fought until the end, until that flight gets loaded and they're going home, I do think that's totally fine for them to give up a game.

[J. Skeets]

And you could see from the start here, Denver intent on making Jokic get touches and score right away or get involved right away. And I thought he was just quicker with all his decision making and his offensive actions. The ball would go to him and he'd make his move right away. So many times you see Jokic and that's fine because he's incredible at it. Get it. Survey. Survey guys are running around all that. But he's like, as soon as it was touch his hand, especially to start this game, he was spinning right away and looking to score. Happened like three times right away on this game. So Gobert struggled in this one with them. You knew Yokic, like we said, was putting up monster numbers all series long, but this was like his, I thought, best game in terms of his touch and his control. Got a few. How many threes did he get to drop? 1. Just one in the end last night. Okay. But. Oh, that was the one right before the end of the half.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. A wild one.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, this is interesting. It feels like. I don't know, it's like a feel. A small part of me thinks like whatever happens in Game 6 will determine the series. Obviously, the Wolves close it out at home or. I like Denver's chances in a game seven.

[Trey Kirby]

Yes.

[J. Skeets]

Back in Their barn. But they have a bit of a break here, I think too, in the sketch.

[Trey Kirby]

It's Thursday.

[J. Skeets]

Thursday would be three days, so I think it's Thursday.

[T.K.]

It is.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, so everybody gets to rest up a little bit. How about Jokic trolling at the end of the game too? Pretty funny. I guess he sort of. He handed the ball to Baron J and then tried to snatch it back right away. And then it was called a jump ball.

[T.K.]

Yep.

[J. Skeets]

Very weird.

[T.K.]

Yep.

[J. Skeets]

Baron J is so confused. If you watch it, he has no idea what's going on. What is going on here? Yeah, what is this guy thinking, buddy? I think he's just trolling. Simple as that. Trying to get a steal.

[Trey Kirby]

That's a rivalry, man.

[T.K.]

I think he's trying to reset the shot clock.

[Trey Kirby]

Right.

[T.K.]

Because there's like 20 seconds left or something like that. So he's trying to hand it to him, take it right back, and then game over.

[Trey Kirby]

Brilliant. That would be a Jokic move or

[T.K.]

just like, you know, take the turnover.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[T.K.]

Shot clock violation. Not a turnover for you.

[J. Skeets]

No. So a team has come back from a 31 deficit to win a series five times since 2015. Denver's done it twice over that span. Both times in the bubble, both bubs down three one. But they've done it before. So try and do it again here. And yeah, obviously it starts with jokicimuri in that two man game. And then got to get some help from these other guys and hit some shots. And it was Spencer Jones. Funny tweet from Luca Evans I saw last night when Spencer Jones was going off. Spencer Jones is going to go on LinkedIn tonight and write what spacing the floor in Aaron Gordon spot taught me about business to business sales as he, you know, melds his two worlds together, the business side and the hoop side. That made me laugh. Good tweet, Luca, but we'll see if he's got another. Does he have another game where he scores 20 points in him? Me, I guess the guy can shoot. He had a good season all along.

[Trey Kirby]

Regular season, he's got the most threes in Stanford history. Yeah, good shooter. I think why they were so good offensively him Cam Johnson was because they pushed it. Defensively, they had the most bounce in their step in this series. They're doubling, they're pushing every ball action out there. So I just think home court will help out for the Minnesota timber bowls. And. And offensively for them, they splashed seven threes in the first quarter. They hit over 50% of their shots and there's still some fight level. You know, they. They hit more threes than, than somehow than the Nuggets in this game. So I'm not too concerned about them going home. We'll see if they still have it.

[T.K.]

Yeah, it's gotta be. They have to keep Randall involved. Like he was really good in the first quarter. He was pretty good at the end of the third quarter, into the fourth, but I feel like he disappeared in the middle of the game. He needs to have the ball almost every single time. Bringing it up. I didn't think McDaniels had a very good offensive game. Being elevated in the pecking order. Like he's maybe the number four option on that starting lineup when they're playing fully healthy. And he was kind of number two for him last night and that wasn't working. I would definitely give Terence Shannon Jr. Another opportunity. He was really had a lot of energy. The size he brings on the wing, the athleticism are things that are going to be problems for the Nuggets bench. So I would give him a shot as well. But like if you, if Valentunas comes on the court, you got to play him off the court immediately. Like he scored six straight. That was a problem for Minnesota. But get him in a pick and roll with Nazrid, make him move his feet out there and see if he can do anything. So I don't know. Game 6 should be exciting though. Oh yeah, because the Nuggets finally look like the Nuggets and it's home court advantage. We can actually take care of business here for the Timberwolves. So we'll see.

[J. Skeets]

And I guess I glossed over it. I mean, I talked about obviously the Wolves missing their backcourt, but there was no Aaron Gordon in this game. Yeah, you know, he's out there in his leather jacket sitting courtside. And of course no Peyton Watson still in the series too. So they are short on their, especially their defensive minded guys on the wing. So, you know, a series of attrition here to some extent.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, you said leather jacket also. Jaren Jackson Jr. Was also wearing a leather jacket. Was it Austin Rivers calling it a Michael Jackson leather jacket?

[J. Skeets]

Yes, he did make that reference. Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Okay.

[J. Skeets]

You know, the movie's out. I guess he. Maybe he just saw it.

[T.K.]

He did say it was out. He didn't say if he saw it, remember?

[J. Skeets]

But he saw commercials.

[Trey Kirby]

It's been released. Yeah, it is.

[J. Skeets]

Michael not getting great reviews from critics, but apparently the fans don't mind it. Hey, do you like Michael Jackson songs? Then you might like this. And it's his. Is it his nephew playing?

[T.K.]

It is.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. Apparently he's incredible as him.

[Trey Kirby]

Wow.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[T.K.]

So 38 critics, rotten tomatoes, 97 audiences. They like Michael Jackson songs. Wow. Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. What about his family? His family probably gave it a 99.9. I think that's what it comes down to.

[J. Skeets]

Anything else from that one?

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. The. The hilarious Rudy Gobert going. Trying to go through his legs and hitting his crotch on the bounce pass in the first quarter. Man, that's funny. I think. I think big men have to stop trying to get fancy.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, in the playoffs, we forgot about Jalen Duran trying. He threw a behind the back pass.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, he screwed.

[J. Skeets]

What the hell are you doing?

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, they can't.

[T.K.]

They can't.

[Trey Kirby]

They can't do it. They just shouldn't do it. There should be a rule going into

[J. Skeets]

the playoffs, I guess.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. But still, Rudy Gobert tried to do it in game one. Tried to go behind his back. Bruce Brown stole it. That was a big part of the game in the fourth quarter. So. Yeah, no fancy fun for big men. They just should stop. Yeah. It hurt Duran and hurt Rudy Gobert. I. I don't really get. Although I. I thought Jonas Valunas was also out there. Speaking of, big man was out there to potentially fight. He was super calm when he got into it with Jaden McDaniels. Jay McDaniels also super, super calm. No fighting. So great sign going forward. I think Jaden McDaniels will have a better Game 6 because I think he's calm. And they're.

[J. Skeets]

They're just going, guys, let's not turn the ball over 25 times. And we're. We're right in this game.

[Trey Kirby]

Yes.

[J. Skeets]

Reduce that by 10 turnovers and we have a game here and that we feel comfortable. We can win. So that'll be the number one thing.

[Trey Kirby]

Last side note, did you see Rocky the mascot get up onto that second ladder?

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

A ladder on a ladder.

[J. Skeets]

Ladder on a ladder.

[T.K.]

You're right.

[Trey Kirby]

And throw it back like 60. I don't know. Like he's 60ft up is what I'm trying to say. And then throws it over his head. A reverse shot like, you know, from mid court. That's nice.

[J. Skeets]

Pretty incredible.

[T.K.]

I like that.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[T.K.]

That's a crazy ladder setup he's got going on.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. It's like the ladder comes out from the middle of the base ladder, just.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

And then he walks on. Walks up on a ladder like he's that guy who does the chairs.

[T.K.]

Amazing. Slide deck or something. Yeah, something like that the scariest halftime act there is. The only one you watch where you're like, this guy could die.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

He's old.

[T.K.]

He might lose it.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. He never does, though.

[T.K.]

No.

[J. Skeets]

Until the end. Well, yeah.

[T.K.]

And I hope I'm there. I hope I'm there to witness it.

[J. Skeets]

All right.

[T.K.]

Also, they did. They were doing some McDaniels sucks chants.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[T.K.]

Hard one to cheer.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[T.K.]

Hard to fit. McDaniel sucks.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[T.K.]

Didn't sound great, but, you know, I did think it had an effect on him. Oh, he's an emotional guy. I feel like you can maybe get under his skin a little bit.

[J. Skeets]

He said he loved. He said he loved it. Of course I believe it. Which, I mean. Well, he had a terrible guy of his level. You know, that makes sense too, for him to get that. That hate from an opposing crowd. I mean, you sort of made it in a way.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[J. Skeets]

Done something to get their attention.

[Trey Kirby]

I think he's been pretty calm. Like he was on Jump Mulberry's back that one time. Totally calm. But they should do a McDaniel sucks.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. That's the way to go.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. Come on.

[J. Skeets]

Okay. Well, they might get another opportunity if it gets back for Game 7.

[Trey Kirby]

That's true.

[J. Skeets]

OKC got the brooms out. They swept the Suns out of the playoffs there with the game four victory. Good fight again from Phoenix, man. They're just. Just a little outclassed when it comes to the talent level. And SGA was awesome once again. You won't believe how many points he scored. 31 points.

[T.K.]

Great.

[J. Skeets]

His go to number. He had eight assists. Chet Holmgren, 24 and 12. AJ Mitchell stepping into that starting role with no J Dub. 22 points, six assists. He had a really good game. Hartenstein two. 18 and 12. So this series went. Suns lost by 35 and then they lost by 13. Then they lost by 12 and then they lost by nine last night. Progress nice. But unfortunately all losses. Any real takeaways from the Thunder sweep in the Suns here?

[T.K.]

This one felt like the first regular season game of the playoffs to me. I don't think Phoenix thought they had a chance to win this game. They played okay and OKC gave just a fine effort like this. They didn't need a playoff effort to win and they did it fine. This is one of OKC's highest scoring games of the season. They scored 131 or more 15 times all year. They allowed 122 or more 12 times this year. This was just a. We're going to beat you. We are a better team and you don't have the dogs to keep up with us. Especially with the lack of Mark Williams. Like you know, he's been out for the entire series and it's had a major effect. Like Chet dominated like you're saying 24 and 12. Hartenstein had 18 and 12. Those guys were just beating up the glass the entire night. Dunking the entire night. I thought it was pretty interesting to see when Shay goes to the bench who takes over. It was just A.J. mitchell and Chet Holmgren pick and roll every single time. And it worked a lot.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, I think great sign for AJ Mitchell that coming off that game three where he filled in for Jalen Williams shot 5:20. Not so good to be thrown into this role again and recovering and playing way better. And they had won those non shame minutes in game three by two, but they did way better in this game. So it's just a good, good little thing for a, a younger guy who hasn't had this prominent role in the playoffs to be able to do this instead of being thrown into it, whether it's round two or round three, to have this, these, these reps where he's awesome.

[J. Skeets]

Fun stuff here from our guy Schumann. I don't know if he's here in the, in the chat this morning, but he said there has been at least one first round sweep in each of the last 23 post seasons. And appropriately it was the defending champ Thunder to keep the streak alive here because they're going to be our only one from this first round to get the sweep. The Thunder scored 126.9 points per 100 possessions over the four games. It was by a wide margin, their best offensive series of the seven that they've played over the last three years. So they took care of the ball and they gave themselves plenty of second chances, as Schumann noted. But that's pretty crazy. Like the Thunder, we've seen them over the last couple of seasons here in the postseason. Obviously going all the way last year. This is their best offensive series against a good defensive team in the Suns. But they're missing some key guys for sure. And look, they, they put up a fight. No one was picking Phoenix to win this thing. Most people were picking a sweep and that's what it was in the end. But besides that game one blowout, most of the other ones, even that Game four last night, it was fun. When Phoenix took a lead like in the second quarter, it was like a seven point lead.

[Trey Kirby]

Whoa.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, they're being tested a little bit. And guess What? They aced the test because they had the lead back by halftime. Right.

[Trey Kirby]

I thought they had the fight level to win one game in the series. So I did pick OKC in five. Thought Boston would be the sweeper in the first round. That didn't happen. Obviously. They like to give away that game too. I think OKC's offense yet looked definitely their best playoff series. Looked the best in game four here.

[J. Skeets]

Oh my God. They shot 54% from the field, 50 from deep and 87% at the line where they went 26 for 30. So pretty good team numbers shooting the ball wise.

[Trey Kirby]

They shot 35% from three through the first three games. And that's the only way you're going to be able to beat okc. If you can hold them to that four out of seven games. And because they're not an incredible three point shooting team, that's going to happen. Maybe, maybe forward out of seven times. But is this route to the Finals easier than last season? Now that they've eliminated the Phoenix Suns, we'll have an injured Lakers or Rockets team. And then they get most likely the spurs in round three up against last year. They sweep the Grizzlies. They had a very healthy Nuggets team that they went to seven games with and then took on the Timberwolves in round three. So, you know, those first three series, it feels like there's a little bit more room for margin than last year, I would say. Especially because they're coming off a win of the championship.

[J. Skeets]

Right. They know they've done it and they. Yeah, they hold themselves that way.

[Trey Kirby]

It feels like they set themselves up nice for the spurs in round three. That's obviously the toughest and maybe.

[J. Skeets]

And I guess with the Lakers we did a little news that Austin Reaves might return here for game five. So they might start to get back there. Guys, obviously different series or a different opponent. If Luca and Reeves are in the Lakers lineup, if that is the team. I mean, the Rockets are going to try and make history here and come back from 3. 0. Anything else though, on this one or on the Suns, like I said on their season?

[T.K.]

TK is this the first. Is this the best team that OKC has swept in the first round? They've swept the last three first rounds. It's the Suns, it's the Grizzlies last year and it's the Pelicans the year prior to that. I think, I would say the Suns.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, I think so too.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, they were a top 10 defensive team all season.

[T.K.]

Well, I'm just thinking the Grizzlies totally fell apart at the end of last season. They fired their coach before the playoffs. And then the Pelicans, they didn't have Zion. I remember that.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, yeah. But I remember that Pelican series. They nearly won game one. The Pelicans did. And everybody was like going, oh, it's a. This is a series now look at the fight they put up. And then they still got swept in the end, but it was more. OKC had a garbage game one.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

And obviously you got their footing.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

So I'm with you. I think it is. This was an amazing season for the Suns. The second most improved defensive team in the league. That's something there. They've got their core. Is there. Now you could debate with me and other people like Booker, Jalen Green and Brooks, like, is that going to work? The three of them together. And they have Colin Gillespie as an unrestricted free agent, Mark Williams restricted free agent. So decisions with those guys. But look, they, they got swept the last time and obviously it was a different scenario because they had a bunch of superstar talent.

[T.K.]

This is a more encouraging sweep.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, it is.

[T.K.]

I will say. Devin Booker has lost 10 straight playoff games.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[T.K.]

And last night was the first night that I noticed he's got a lot of gray hairs now.

[J. Skeets]

Hey, he's what, he's knocking on 30. Or is it 30? Yeah. He. A lot of people are also like, he might just have. He needs to add a three point shot. He's got to get more of that. And Kenny, the way he shoots, he's such a high jumper on in the mid range. Which you want to do is. Can you do that from three? I don't know.

[Trey Kirby]

Yes. As far as the way that the Suns look good or. Sorry. As far as the way the Suns looked in this series, they didn't resemble the team that they had in the regular season because they weren't the same team. I mean, Mark Williams not being there and Jordan Goodwin going down with injury. They were really good defensive team during the regular season, but they didn't have a couple key parts throughout this. So that's a big factor in how they look. But coming into this playoffs, I thought OKC's route would be tougher because you'd have a fully healthy sun steam compared to last year's Grizzlies team. And then in the second round that they set up themselves up pretty well for the Lakers or Rockets, but because of the injuries. It's different now. But we shall see. We shall see what they do in round two. Austin's come back. I've heard Luca. What's going on with Luca?

[J. Skeets]

Nothing that I don't know.

[T.K.]

He's just haven't said anything else. Biting his fingers, getting injections. But it feels to me like the Suns could be a pretty regular playing appearance kind of team. I don't know how much higher they can get. And you look at all the teams that finished ahead of them in one through six in the Western Conference and they're all clearly better, which is why Phoenix was stuck in seven for four straight months and then they played a playoff team and they got ran out of the gym.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. And they don't have a draft pick.

[T.K.]

They don't have a draft pick. They have a draft pick next year. They get the least favorable draft pick in 2027 of Utah, Cleveland and Minnesota. So I mean Cleveland and Minnesota should be pretty good in 26, 27. You're looking at a pick in the 20s. And they've traded all their first round picks. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31. They're going to be paying Devin Booker a ridiculous amount of money for a guy that's not going to make an all NBA team. So this was a better season for the Suns, but I think they're looking at a lot more seasons like this.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, they haven't set themselves up for the long term all that well. Although the turnaround this year was a completely 180 complete 180 from last year with Gregory taken over in the front office. I questioned his lack of experience in the NBA. He's an NCAA guy, all good. Jordan Knott comes into the starting head coaching role. Awesome. They look so good coming out of that locker every single night. They play extremely hard. 45 and 37. Big accomplishment. But because of what they gave up for everybody, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, and they have set themselves up poorly for the long term here. Unless you get a common model watch growth year. That's what you're hoping. It's got to be internal because they've got Booker, Green, Brooks. They're still paying Beal.

[T.K.]

He's the fourth highest paid player this year. Bradley Beal.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. Grayson, Allen, Royce, if they bring back Mark Williams, Malawatch, Nasir, Little, still paying him. Those guys are all paid through next year.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

So yeah, they don't have really great route at all.

[J. Skeets]

So maybe you trade Devin Booker then while you still could. Now he doesn't want to leave.

[T.K.]

He doesn't want to leave.

[J. Skeets]

You don't want him to leave. I get. But he'd be the one that would reset everything. But maybe they're just happy to be back in the conversation of a seventh seed and stuff like that and actually playing competitive basketball. They did a whole reset and they had to and they did it well. We're being honest. Like a lot of people didn't have winning 30 plus games and exceeded that and at least, you know, got into the actual postseason.

[T.K.]

So yeah, they're over there was 31 and a half.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. Yep. A lot of people went on that thinking they'd be one of the worst teams in the West.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

All right, let's take a break and we get into the up down report.

[Trey Kirby]

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[J. Skeets]

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[Trey Kirby]

Hey, I would have picked Con Canip. Okay? But Cooper Flag and fighting through all the adversity they had to go through, it's a huge thumbs up. When you said it was the second closest voting, I thought it was definitely Malcolm Brogdon over Joel Embiid and Dario Sarge finished second. Yeah, that was a Dario Sarge. So I just thought it was the voters saying, hey, we're giving it to Coop in part. I don't want to be a Malcolm Brogdon over Joel Embiid. I don't want to be in a mecca. Okafor over Dwight Howard and Ben Gordon, who actually finished second. Awesome year. Or Tyreek Evans over Steph Curry. Tariq Evans had the better year.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

So why can Khan, who had the better year, be the guy that they voted?

[J. Skeets]

Sounds like your thumbs down on Cooper getting this. That's fine.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, that's who I would have voted for.

[T.K.]

You think Khan had a better year? I think he was on a better team.

[Trey Kirby]

He was on a better team, had an easier job. Lamello was out for A good chunk to start this season and he was awesome. I think that's why they turned around so quickly, because Lamello was either out or he just wasn't himself. He wasn't playing to that capability. When they stunk, I think he was a big reason why they did that and they were able to turn it around, unlike what happened in Dallas where they weren't able to turn it around at all. So, yeah, I'm. I'm anointing him as a reason why Charlotte was able to come out and be a different team. And maybe that's just me being naive, but I think his consistency, 81 games out of 82 and, and yeah, the way he played from opening the opening game, but a. But a better role because in the opening game and the opening weeks, Cooper was playing point guard when he should have been playing point guard, while Khan was in that perfection of a role, playing off the ball. So very different.

[T.K.]

I think they got it right on this one. And I do think there is a little bit of forecasting with this where we're like, oh, Cooper Flag's going to be a superstar. Yeah, give him his rookie of the year. But he also was on two Michael Jordan lists, only Bird, MJ, Luca, and now Cooper flag average 26 rebounds and 4 assists. But I was like, wait a Second, what about LeBron? Of course he was famous for 25. 5, which Tyreek Evans did as well. You gotta hit the glass, LeBron. That's what I'm always saying. Nobody talks about his rebounding. And then of course, MJ and Cooper Flag, the only rookies to lead their team in points, rebounds, assists and steals. Cooper the clear number one guy for the Mavericks as well. He had a bigger responsibility, I think, than Khan did. I think Khan, I'm sure there's been people who maybe like a worldwide wobby does his leaderboard thing and it changes, right? It's like we had Cooper Flag for the first. He probably wasn't. It was probably V.J. edgecomb at the beginning of the season. Then it was Super Flag, then it was con caniple when Cooper was out and the Hornets were firing up. And then it was Cooper at the end of the season when he came back and started like having to get back in the race, having to get back at Khan, putting up 40 point games, 50 point games. So I think ultimately this is the right choice. But you know, if you did this vote the first week of April, that would have been Khan for sure.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, look, I think if you had flip the months where Con Knippel had his worst month of shooting the ball, which was at the end here when we're getting closer to obviously voting on the thing. If that was the first month and not the last month, maybe he's the one with 56 votes to 44. But the same thing can be said for Cooper, who had great timing with this. I'm sorry, he did. He had monster games at the end of the year. He was scoring 50, he was scoring 40. He was having huge games. And I'm with you, Trey. I said this weeks ago, right? This idea of like, I think some of the voters want to do the forecasting where 10 years from now they go, ha, we got it right. We went Cooper. Because guess what? I think Cooper's going to be the better player of the two when it's all said and done. That doesn't mean Concanipple is not going to be a multiple time all star. All time, multiple time all NBA player. That's not that. That means. It's just Cooper's going to have more accolades and looks like the real deal at 19.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. Voters don't want to get, don't want to get the hate. They don't want to be a Brockton over Embiid or a Tyreek Evans over Curry. They don't want that anymore. It's. That's change, I think.

[J. Skeets]

But to finish it, though, like, they were like, they were almost waiting, right? Because it was like, sorry, it probably con canipple is deserving of it for months of its of the season and then when especially Cooper came back from the injury and started putting up the monster, monster numbers, it's like, ah, thank you. Thank God. What, what we felt in our gut was right, we're not going to look silly now because of these huge, huge numbers. They're both deserving. The number one comment that makes me laugh though is when someone's like, should have been a tie. They should have both win. It's like, well, you're not. Okay, I know what you're saying. You are saying they both had very deserving seasons to win Rookie of the year. It's not how the voting works. You can't get to say, I would like to split my vote between two guys. And you can't call up the other. You can't collude with the other 99 media members that are voting and say, okay, okay, you guys go 50 on Cooper. Okay, okay, you guys go 50 on Con. This is not a Survivor vote here, okay, where you're trying to eliminate somebody and Flush an idol? Does Vijay have an idol? I don't know. Okay, we know what you're saying, but that's not how it works, man. If it happens, it happens, and they're both deserving. But you gotta pick one when you're doing the actual ballot.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, yeah.

[J. Skeets]

And as we said, you. When you filled out your ballot, you would have wait, con. When you filled out your ballot, you would wait, Cooper. And that's fine. Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. And part of it is probably tied to what you just said about voters who want to be right. And I made the prediction at New Year's when we made our bold productions. I said, conquer Nipple's winning this thing. And he had a really good January, and it was. We're coasting. And Cooper, what, had that struggle four games until he dropped 49, was injured, and then had even better games to finish the season. So I understand. I understand. Wanted to vote for Coop because in the long term, Cooper Flag will be the guy from this rookie class that

[J. Skeets]

is the best player, which appears to be a damn good rookie class because of Vijay Edgecomb and Dylan Harper are like, you know, whatever, two through four. And then, of course, Cedric Coward even, like, it looks good. Like, obviously some superstar talent here as we move forward. All right, next one here. Miami Heat president Pat Riley made it clear that he is not retiring or resigning and that he remains as committed as ever to leading the franchise to its fourth NBA championship. Riley vowed that he will never change his approach, saying his only focus is on winning and improving the Heat and that he will never tank for assets. He had a lot to say about Bam, too. Basically saying, and by the way, we're not trading Bam out of bio unless. So don't ask me. Unless it's for eight draft picks and one Minyama.

[T.K.]

Yeah, I would do that, too.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, that's smart. That's smart.

[Trey Kirby]

I think he was being open, but

[J. Skeets]

up or down here, TK On. On Pat Riley saying, you know what? I'm not leaving.

[T.K.]

I do like it.

[J. Skeets]

I'm not leaving. I do like it.

[T.K.]

81 years.

[J. Skeets]

The show goes on. This is my home. Sorry, little wolf. Yeah. You got anything else? Well, he's slicked back, too. It's sort of good, right? That's Leo.

[T.K.]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they're gonna need a wrecking ball to get me out of here. Pat Riley doing that would have been amazing.

[T.K.]

You think he can still yell?

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, no, but he could do this.

[T.K.]

Probably would bruise.

[J. Skeets]

So are you up or down on Pat still being Kevin Love?

[Trey Kirby]

Probably. He. He Would have shared that. The Wolf of Wall Street. He would. Yeah. Like Giannis. Did they all check his Instagram, maybe? He probably did. Yeah.

[T.K.]

But I mean, interesting. I think he says, I'm not changing my approach. That basically just means I'm not going to tank. That makes sense to me. The dude's 81 years old. He doesn't want to have his last however many years as a losing team. He's. He's even like, yeah, it's true. I'm aging up. I'm 81. That's aging up. I have to agree with him here. But maybe they should change their approach a little bit, you know, like, get some better players, try not to be in the play in tournament once again. And I think the reason all the Bam stuff comes up is because, like, Bam's a great player. Second greatest scorer in the history of the NBA. But if you're going to make a real impact move acquiring Ayan Asanteokounmpo, Bam basically has to be in the trade from an alluring asset standpoint, from a contract standpoint, like, you would have to trade Bam. But as we know, he's like the figurehead of Heat culture for the team right now. So makes sense to me that and I think, good to hear if you're a Heat fan that, like, you don't want your team to tank. It sucks. It sucks when your team tanks and you don't want their franchise cornerstones to be traded either. So he's saying, don't worry about it. Our guys are coming back. We got a lot of other things to figure out. And he does got a lot of

[J. Skeets]

other things to figure out.

[T.K.]

And they do.

[J. Skeets]

They have a lottery pick for the first time in a long time. 2018, they have Norman Powell will be a free agent. Decisions with him, you've got Tyler hero, Jaime Hawkes Jr. Eligible for extensions, and then Andrew Wiggins has a player option for 30.2 million. So that's obviously up to Andrew Wiggins a little bit here, but there are decisions and they need to get better. And he did the whole thing. Like, I could sit here and give you a bunch of excuses, but we don't do that and we weren't good enough and we're not happy about it. And he said something like, this is the first time over this last little stretch where we have the opportunity to try and improve our roster and make some, some moves with the flexibility and all that.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. So I think he left that open. I think that's what is going to be happening around Bam. And about I think the idea is he doesn't want to trade Bam. And I think he's true to that. Although I do like him being totally open and saying okay I give him up for Wemby but that's about it.

[T.K.]

I hope he gets a tampering fine. That would be hilarious. Tampering fine for saying that you can't name other teams players but I think

[Trey Kirby]

he does have room to retool around Bam. As you said you went through all the potential moves. He was clear. I. I don't want to use the word clear but he did say hero needs to be healthy next year. He wasn't healthy this year. He underwent a procedure, just went on a preemptive procedure that he'll be back for for next season. So I think there's lots of room. Finally that Wiggins deal is coming up. Sort of. I guess it's a player option. It's been a long time coming but

[J. Skeets]

he's picking it up.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I guess it's time to a new deal.

[T.K.]

Unless I think that's more likely.

[Trey Kirby]

Unless this is. Yeah, you're getting. You want 360. Okay now I'm negotiating but yeah, if he's getting longer term deal then he'll stick around. Derry Rosier is off the books, although going through additional issues off the floor. Some new stuff happen around but Pat Riley ain't changing. He's just not. He's Remember a few years ago when he said to a reporter, I'm 77 years old and I can do more push ups than you. The guy's not going to give up. He's never going to give up. And that's what you like about Pat Riley. But again, there's some retooling options here.

[J. Skeets]

Final one. The league and its general managers will discuss methods to curb tanking today on Zoom. That's what they're saying.

[T.K.]

I couldn't believe that they don't have their own meeting service.

[J. Skeets]

Nope, nothing wrong with Zoom. They all pay for it. Got the premium version.

[T.K.]

I'm sure even the Blazers.

[J. Skeets]

He's like, can we, can we wrap this up? My Zoom's about to log off here. I didn't pay for the service.

[T.K.]

I got 45 minutes.

[Trey Kirby]

Make it quick, Adam.

[J. Skeets]

While the NBA has presented a few proposals aimed at changing the lottery, the heavy front runner reportedly involves a draft lottery that will feature 18 teams and altered odds. This is according to Sam Amick at the Athletic. So in that option, just to refresh your memory, 18 teams would be part of the draft lottery rather than the current 14. And the bottom 10 teams would all have an 8% chance of landing the number one pick. So you're flattening the odds for the bottom 10 teams. The remaining odds, 20% in total, would be divided among the remaining eight teams. That's how you get to the 18 teams. But we're talking about teams that are like in the play in and stuff like that. Are you up or down on this, being the front runner here for this draft reform? I know we've talked about this before.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, I'm down. I'd rather have that idea of the two year average of your record in determining where you are in the draft lottery because of two years. I understand why every owner is up because you can still tank. You can still tank in this format and still be bad for a year. Tom Dundon I'm sure is excited.

[J. Skeets]

I'm sure everybody hold on, hold on. Isn't the point of this too fix tanking? I'm with you. I don't.

[Trey Kirby]

No, I know it's not, it's not, it's not going to change anything. Why wouldn't a guy a team in front of and say, you know, 8% chance. That's good.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. Here, here. Let's just lay this out. Moving to an 18 team lottery wouldn't completely solve the tanking issue, which we've said is very tough to completely solve. But the idea is to disincentivize the league's worst teams, the bottom of the bottom teams, from losing on purpose by keeping them in contention for top odds. Because it's going to like change nothing. Right. You're going to have that percentage 8%. The counter argument though, and sort of what you're alluding here to test is like doesn't this give more teams a shot at the number one pick? And maybe you're moving like you're the tanking from the bottom of the league potentially to the middle of the league now. Because teams could be making a calculated decision on like, well, we're just going to get waxed in a play in here. I mean why don't we, you know, or getting into the playoffs, we'll get crushed. So let's just hang back here and give ourselves a. Whatever 2.5%.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. That's why the other, the other possible, the other option of a team getting their record from the past two years determining as the determinant of where you are in the draft lottery makes way more sense because teams can't say, hey, we're going to suck for two years to their fans. But they can say we're going to suck for 30 games for the end of the season to be bad. And I think that's, that's way more acceptable for, for a fan base rather than two years. So if you want to get rid of tanking, I think in some way, shape or form, not entirely because that just doesn't happen this way in the, in the idea of getting a draft pick to make you better. I think it's telling everybody you got two years and that'll determine your draft lottery odds.

[J. Skeets]

Are you up or down on this?

[T.K.]

I think I'm up. I think this was the plan I liked the most.

[J. Skeets]

It was the three.

[T.K.]

The three that were thrown out. Like the two year plan to me mostly addresses a team like the Pacers who are just going to have a down year. So they completely bottom out and try and lose as many games as possible. That makes. So that doesn't happen as regularly. The double lottery didn't ever make any sense to me because you could have the worst record and drop to number 10 like that just didn't have any sort of reality to me. But I think Austin Rivers, I think he hit on the head.

[Trey Kirby]

Skeets.

[T.K.]

The worst teams won't be as bad. Three teams this year won 20 or fewer games. The Nets, the Pacers and the Wizards. I think those teams win like 24 games next year because there is still an incentive to tank. Right now the bucks have the 10th best odds in the draft lottery. They have a 3% chance of getting the number one pick. Now you get an 8% chance. That's a huge upgrade. So why go into the play in tournament? It will be middle tanking rather than bottom tanking. But guess what that means you don't have any disgusting looking records with a one in the win column. That's all it does.

[J. Skeets]

But could still have of course shenanigans between shenanigans. Yeah, well, which is what Silver is trying to address. The only way he's going to be able to do that is just like he did with some teams. It was weird who he was picking and choosing to penalize. But. But it's like you got to come down with the hammer on the franchises that are like blatantly sitting out everybody and really trying to throw games against each other. He did it again for two franchises and the Jazz and Pacers and everybody else. Those two teams or teams of those fans of those teams were going what about the other teams? So I'm with Them. You're right. There were other blatant tanking shenanigans going on. So if you're going to do it, do it. And. But this is the front runner right now. And then, by the way, the order for the league to alter the draft lottery. A total of 20 in order, a total of 23 or more. Owners have to vote in favor for adopting the new proposal. And they're not, they're not like, they're not doing yay or nay on Zoom today here. You know, this is. They're talking it out so they could think, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, yeah. What do you think? Tom? Tom, are you there? Tom, you're a cat. I love that. Clip the judge or whatever. He can't turn off the filter or. He's a cat. God, that's good.

[T.K.]

Okay, which GM do you think is most likely to accidentally have their filters turned on and be a cat?

[J. Skeets]

Wow, great question.

[T.K.]

Cat Stevens. No, it's in a singer. You don't like that? No, I like cats.

[J. Skeets]

Cat Croce. If he was still. I don't know.

[Trey Kirby]

It's got to be somebody, somebody young. Somebody young who has kids, who's like his kid has come over and been like, let me do this and turn it on. Now they can't turn it on.

[J. Skeets]

I would think it was the oldest, oldest guy whose grandkids has been playing on the computer and the old guy doesn't even know how to operate Zoom.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Who's the oldest owner though? I don't know. I don't know.

[Trey Kirby]

The old, the oldest son.

[T.K.]

An old gm.

[J. Skeets]

He's old gm, but we're talking. Oh yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Mickey Harrison.

[T.K.]

Mickey Arison.

[Trey Kirby]

Mickey.

[J. Skeets]

Mickey Harrison. He's on the cruise ship somewhere. You think he's got good wi fi for Zoom?

[Trey Kirby]

Bad signal.

[J. Skeets]

He's the choppy one. He's like goes to talk and everybody stops. Oh crap.

[T.K.]

You think Steve Ballmer's in this Zoom meeting saying, guys, you want to hop on Microsoft Teams?

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, this doesn't work.

[T.K.]

Work well, we got so many great features over there.

[J. Skeets]

You should see all the toilets we have on Microsoft Teams. Okay, let's go to. Woah. That was the up down report. Thanks for playing along. Well, of the night. Sponsored by Christopher Franklin, AKA Hootski. Hootski, long time fan of the show. Hootski wrote in fellas would love to sponsor Whoa boy. On behalf of Kelsey's Hope Foundation. KHF is 100% volunteer based charity that grants wishes for kids with cancer. Raises money for childhood cancer research and grants scholarships for students who enter the nursing field. He wrote, y' all might remember helping us out with an event donation back in the COVID days. I do recall. So that website we're going to have in the show notes if you want to help out Hootski. And obviously this great foundation, the Kelsey's Hope foundation, hit the link in the show notes. We'll get that there. If it's not there already. Probably is already there. Maybe it's almost there. I swear, I'm so hesitant because every time I say we'll get it there, you come back with a it's an already there. And so now the one time I'm like, it's probably there. We'll get it.

[Trey Kirby]

Well, today I give up. Today I wanted to keep looking at the camera and not drop it in. I just wanted to look at that camera and not do this.

[J. Skeets]

Why don't we just put it in before the show?

[Trey Kirby]

Well, you never know. You never know when you're in there. When I'm in there.

[T.K.]

Morning.

[Trey Kirby]

You go to me today. Hey, the. The actual. The time codes from yesterday from yesterday's show aren't there.

[J. Skeets]

I just noticed.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, they were there. Of course they were there there, but because we were in the same time, I got deleted, so I had to go back.

[J. Skeets]

But that would have happened. Note that would have happened yesterday. Probably.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[J. Skeets]

When we were both in there.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Pulling back the curtain here. Eh? Crazy.

[Trey Kirby]

Okay, it's in there.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, good. Kelsey's hopefoundation.com for all you podcast listeners. JD make sure that link is in the show notes for the podcast page, if you could. Is it already there? Okay, do it later. Of course it's not there. The show's not even posted yet. That was a trick question.

[Trey Kirby]

Okay. I'm glad I didn't fall into your trap.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, you nearly did. Love it. There's the music. Jokic, his 23rd career playoff triple double double. Racking up game high 27 points, 12 rebounds, 16 assists as the Nuggets survive. Shot 9 of 15 from the field, 8 of 10 at the line. The guys told me he hit one three. I thought it was two, but they said one. I believe you guys. He blocked two shots though, in 38 minutes.

[T.K.]

Didn't dunk.

[J. Skeets]

He did a dunk. That was big. Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

And one hand hold when he hit that three point shot going into half. There was a quick hand hold hold with Rudy. Go bear.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, nice.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

And then one attempt at a steal, I guess.

[T.K.]

Yeah, it doesn't go down as a turnover for him.

[J. Skeets]

No, it was interesting. Jump ball. Yep, it's a jump ball. That's what they did.

[T.K.]

Great call by the ref.

[J. Skeets]

Two seconds left. Yeah. Jump this up real quick and you won't believe this. Jokic didn't jump.

[Trey Kirby]

No way, man.

[J. Skeets]

Nope, nope, nope.

[T.K.]

Speaking of jump balls, where's all the wedgies? Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Good question.

[T.K.]

Has anybody seen a wedgie?

[J. Skeets]

We got zero wedgies in the postseason. Zero wedges in the play in games.

[T.K.]

It's bad.

[J. Skeets]

We haven't had a wedgie since, I think, the last day of the regular season. I think we got one on that Sunday. Yeah. Or whatever day was.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, it was a Sunday.

[J. Skeets]

Was it?

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. Crazy. Crazy that we've had zero.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. We're still at 73 wedgies. I didn't. Yeah. I didn't even have to do a post on substack to grade the wedgies because there were no wedgies to grade.

[T.K.]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

I think the highest that we've had in the playoffs is six, which is a lot.

[J. Skeets]

That's a lot.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. Considering we played 80 to 85 games, you know, one every. Whatever. Thirteen games, that's. That's a good amount. But so far, you know, 33 games in to the playoffs. Zero. I did some math. Wow.

[J. Skeets]

You're saying we're one third of the way through. Roughly.

[Trey Kirby]

Over. Over one third. Wow. Games wise.

[J. Skeets]

That's weird. Isn't that just weird? Just weird. Right. Because we're only not even through the first round.

[Trey Kirby]

Really? Frontline.

[J. Skeets]

We got one series done.

[T.K.]

Front loaded.

[J. Skeets]

Front loaded.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a year where we only had two in the playoffs, if anyone cares. Nobody cares. So, yeah, I guess we're on that trajectory right now.

[J. Skeets]

Don't say that. They come in bunches. It's okay. We're getting a wedgie tonight. We've. We've talked about it. We never addressed it. I'm glad you brought it up. The wedgie gods have heard us, Desmond Bane style. We forget.

[T.K.]

No, we remember wedgies.

[J. Skeets]

Let's get to some. Let's get. Okay. I wanted 80, but it sounds like 80 wedgies ain't happening. I'll take 75 wedgies at this point because that's a nice number. Okay. What number would you prefer? Wedgies. Let's say we can't get to 80. Do you want 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78 or 79 wedgies? Which one do you think would just be the nicest sounding number for you? T.K. you go first.

[T.K.]

I want wait, I want 79. Wedgies.

[J. Skeets]

You want the most?

[T.K.]

Basically, I guess. I guess so.

[J. Skeets]

You like that number?

[T.K.]

I'm having a tough time figuring out what number season this is of the NBA. The 75th anniversary season was 2122, and I think it'd be nice to have a match up.

[J. Skeets]

That'd be nice.

[Trey Kirby]

That would be nice.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. But good luck. That always does. My head too.

[T.K.]

Four more. I think this is our 79th season.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Of the NBA. Yeah. Yeah.

[T.K.]

Of course. Including the BAA.

[Trey Kirby]

Yes.

[T.K.]

In the history.

[J. Skeets]

Who can forget the BAA?

[Trey Kirby]

Skis in the knickerbockers.

[J. Skeets]

Who can forget the bar?

[T.K.]

79 be good for me.

[Trey Kirby]

I'm rolling with 73.

[T.K.]

None.

[Trey Kirby]

In dedication to Metta World Peace. He had a 73 game suspension back when the mouths of the palace happened. He wore 37. A little flippy. Of the 73. I'm going with 73.

[J. Skeets]

Hey, I got. I mean, this is Wikipedia. It says the 2526 NBA season is the 80th season of the league.

[T.K.]

I'm gonna do some math.

[J. Skeets]

That's what it says.

[T.K.]

I got counted out. Gotta make a spreadsheet.

[Trey Kirby]

So if it started in 46, that makes sense.

[T.K.]

It does.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Okay. 46, 47, I think was the first year. Right.

[Trey Kirby]

I think.

[J. Skeets]

I think the Huskies versus the Knickerbockers in Maple Leaf Gardens.

[Trey Kirby]

Correct.

[J. Skeets]

If you were tall, you got in for free. Cool. These are things we all remember. That's how old our show is. We remember the first game they ever played. All right. It's the 80th season. But. But I'm telling you, we're not getting 80. He wants 79. You want 73. Yeah, I would love 70. Seven is a fun number.

[T.K.]

It is.

[J. Skeets]

I don't think we'll ever forget that number.

[T.K.]

Jameson Battle.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. More than Luka. Yes. All right, we'll call it there. Did I give you Jokic's line? Yeah, I did. Good, good, good. Okay.

[Trey Kirby]

I'm gonna bring in. I'm gonna bring in the court from the first season tomorrow. I have. I have a court.

[J. Skeets]

I know. You talk about it more than anyone. I know.

[Trey Kirby]

I've never talked about.

[J. Skeets]

You've showed it twice on this show.

[Trey Kirby]

Well, if you were looking, my friend, it wasn't from the court from the first season of NBA. That was from the first season of the Toronto Raptors.

[J. Skeets]

Okay. We love courts more than anyone.

[Trey Kirby]

I'm bringing the court from the Toronto.

[J. Skeets]

What is this? A court for ants? That's what I'm gonna say when you show it. That's correct. Yeah. You're talking.

[T.K.]

You got a piece of OG Husky's court.

[Trey Kirby]

Sort of.

[T.K.]

That's correct.

[Trey Kirby]

Sort of. Sort of. It's wood from a basketball court that's repainted.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, so it's a replica.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, it's a replica, but it is from an NBA court that's repainted. So the same thing that NBA Canada gave me from the Toronto Raptors first inaugural courts and the Vancouver Chrisley's inaugural court. It was from the 2012 NBA All Star Game in Los Angeles. They took the floor off the court and they painted it, chopping this thing up. But there's barely any paint on the 45, 46 season. Oh, yeah, 46, 47.

[J. Skeets]

They hadn't even invented paint. They just had wood. They just got wood the year before. It's the 81st anniversary of wood. Happy anniversary, Wood. Embrace the day people. Support from this show comes from Quince. I'm way overdue for a wardrobe refresh. I'm a podcast host. That is very important. I drive a Chevy Trax. I'm a man. I'm 45. Clothes shopping in person is simply not a priority for me. So I usually wear the same stuff till my wife calls me out. For these reasons, I'm pumped to say that Quince has been my new go to. I asked Nora to help me pick out a couple of items, and it turns out she already had a cart ready of things she was planning on getting me from Quint's. So I picked up two of the 100% European linen shirts. One striped, one solid. The material feels light and breathable and the stitching looks really well done. They're the perfect type of pieces that feel easy and comfortable but still look put together. And the best part is, I didn't break the bank. In fact, everything I purchased was priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. Why? Because Quint's works directly with the ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. So you're getting premium materials without the markup. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com no dunks for free shipping on your order. And three stars. 65 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N c e.com nodunks for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com no dunks I'm U.S. transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. We all seem to be in a rush these days. From work to driving our kids around. But when you're behind the wheel, please, please do not speed. A few minutes saved by going faster is never worth the risk. So follow the speed limit, enjoy the drive, maybe bring some snacks for the kids. And know that along the way, you're getting quality time with your family, paid for by nhtsa.

[Announcer]

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[Trey Kirby]

Viori makes soft and I'm talking extremely soft clothing. I should know. I bought some before this ad came our way. I was wearing my Vuoris and my wife said, what are those? I haven't seen them. I told her. My silky, soft Vuori shorts. Of course they look super comfortable, and they are, but I can go out in these anywhere. They're designed to look great beyond the gym. Whether you're running errands, heading to the office, or meeting up with friends, it works for everything. She felt them and she said, oh, they're like the PJs we buy for our kids. So Viori got my partner's approval just like that. I also told her that viori is a Finnish word meaning mountain, so I felt as big as a mountain. She didn't really like that, but you'll like this. For our listeners, Viori is offering 20% off your first purchase. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet. [e-mail] no dunks. That's V-U-O-R-I.com no dunks. The offer is for new customers only. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.

[Announcer]

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