← The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Knicks' Epic Collapse, MVP-Voter Face-Off, and the Free Throw Merchant Debate With Howard Beck
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Ryan Marcillo
You're listening to the Ryan Marcillo podcast presented by FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook has made it easier than ever to get in on the action during an NBA playoff game, even after tip off. Just look for the live SGP tab on the FanDuel Sportsbook app and build your bet slip. Then sit back, relax and track the outcome of your parlay right in the app. And if you don't already have it, download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more the ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 and older and present in select states. Gambling problem? Call 100 GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com and all time game one comeback by the Indiana Pacers I'm going to run through the game and run through the N.E. smith threes. I'm going to point to some things that I actually like for the Knicks and then we're going to talk to a man that was in the building, Howard Beck. His thoughts on the game, what this means for the rest of the series. A couple really good stories in there. His thoughts on the Western Conference Finals. We both have MVP votes. We both voted for different players. We'll talk about that and the free throw concern that is out there in the streets. And we've got life advice. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Business. How can you grow your business from idea to industry leader? Bring your vision to life with smart business buying tools and technology from Amazon Business. From fast free shipping to in depth buying insights and automated purchase approvals, they deliver everything you need to achieve your goals. It's not easy to stand out from the crowd, simplify how you stock up to get ahead. Go to amazonbusiness.com for support. Rarely will I watch a game like last night and know that I've watched it. Like all of you, I imagine most of you watch the Pacers win against the Knicks at MSG and overtime and then get up the next day and read about the game. And then I went back and watched a bunch of the late possessions and throughout the course of reading about it and seeing where this comeback stands historically and actually watching the plays and thinking the Pacers might still lose this game. Even though I watched it last night and already know that they didn't lose the game that they won in this incredible fashion. Something the Pacers are making a habit of here in the 25 playoffs. So to put this Pacers comeback into perspective and we just got flooded with these facts so I'll give you a few from from last night down 14 or more points with 250 left in regulation, teams were 977 and 0977 and 0. Now there's a one down nine plus points in the last minute of regulation or OT since I believe 1998 teams were 1,414 and 0 and now that is a one. Nice. Smith hit six threes in the fourth quarter of a playoff game that had never been done and hit all six of them with 4:47 left to go in the game. His first three of the fourth quarter again at 4:47 left. That was his first three point make since 4:57 was left in the second quarter. So he basically went two full quarters of game action without even making one and then make six of them. So if we go to the end of the game first because there's a few things from this game that I want to kind of look at like the series and not just the result of last night. Some of the thoughts that I had about how this matchup might go if we look at all six of the threes. Look, I shut down. I wasn't playing but the Knicks shut down and honestly I don't really blame them because it like all of these things that I'm going to run through here, you're like okay, we're actually not going to lose this. Like oh that guy made another one, whatever and we've got this. And look, the Knicks just did not play with the the crispness, the intensity, the intent that you would expect. Which is part of why we have some of these results every now and then as a human nature kicks in. And you just don't think if you're on the Knicks that you're actually going to lose this game. You think this thing's a wrap. So at 113.98 the first three for niece Smith, Brunson gets caught on a screen and it was actually really interesting the way they ran this play cause Halliburton had the ball but then they set something for niecemith to get to the top of the key and Cat should probably have come over but Kat's already thinking about Halliburton with the basketball. So this one wasn't really a like a blame on anybody. It was just nice that they ran some other thing once they had Halliburton with the ball going to his side where it looks like he's Going to attack Cat and try to figure out what he wants to do, get him caught in some kind of a switch. But really what they were doing was having Neesmith come underneath it and then Brunson gets caught and then there's no help off of that. And it was just mass confusion. It's just this little simple thing, an extra little wrinkle, believe it or not. And that's the first three. All right, no problem. How about the second three down 116, 102, 323 left. They screen bridges. Cat is late. You know he's going to be late on some of these. He's a big guy and you could make an argument at this point when they're down 14 and there's less than three and a half minutes to go, drive them off. There should have been contest to drive the shooters, in this case Neesmith off the three point line. Like I don't care if he blows by me, but I need to get a contest. And again, Cat was late there. Niece Smith three. Number three down 119, 108, 211 left. This was a scramble. He was wide open on the side. That one to me wasn't necessarily on anybody. Brunson was trailing him late, but it was kind of one of those weird scramble things. Number four down 121, 112 at this point with 53 seconds left. Watching it this morning, I'm like, they lost this game. There was a little bit of a dribble handoff to the left side. OG was late. He was late on that one. Number five. They're down 123, 115, 36 seconds left. N. Smith basically gets screened. N. Smith is working on a screen here where like Cat is screened because it's, it's a part of the game where like Cat ends up with N. Smith. All right, so Cat gets screened off a N. Smith. Oh geez, like five feet below the three point line. But Niecemith's like five feet beyond the top of the three point line. So I could sit here and be like, oh geez, gonna do better there. Nismith's pulling up from 30ft here. So that's one of those where it's like, sure. Me watching this morning like, oh, you should have done this, this and this. It's like, yeah, Niecemith should have also missed that one. Number six. It's 123, 118, 24 seconds left. There's a down screen. Niecemith left corner. Coming up against Hart. Hart actually gets around the screen, but he stumbles after that. And so on this one, it's not so much the contest, it's that Hart stumbles and N. Smith hits another beauty here. So that's 18 points for you. And he also had a couple free throws. So looking at that, when the team is still up two with 22 seconds left after that, make New York misses two free throws. OG missed one, Cat missed one, Niece Smith had made two. And then you have the Halliburton shot. Or again, like everybody, we thought it was the game winning three, and it was a tie. And then they had to do this thing all over again. And the Knicks actually early on had like a nice stretch in overtime. Like they're going to survive this. And maybe we'll forget about the knee Smith threes, maybe we'll forget about the Halliburton shot. We won't forget about the choke sign, because that thing would have been mean to death. If I send you this, it means I thought I was finished, right? I don't even know if that works. You can let your kids know. So, look, a couple things here. When the pacers were up 138, 135 in overtime, Carlisle did not want to foul. And I'm going to give Stan Van Gutti credit on two things that he mentioned in the broadcast last night. One was that he's like, you know, he doesn't always like the foul in the spot. So that's a coach who was coached against Carlisle, knowing the tendency of the opponent there and using that kind of like Ulysses S. Grant, also pronounced Ulysses Grant. So the Knicks got off two really good looks. The Brunson look is contested on the left side, but they are like, all right, I. I couldn't believe it. I was like, you went through all this, you did all this work and you're not going to foul. Now Brunson gets a shot off. I can understand, like a little bit of a hesitation knowing Brunson and how crafty he is of not wanting to. To rush to foul him. I still think the move is to just sprint like you're fouling the guy and then let him think he's going to get the shot off. And then he takes some horrible, horrible three, and then you just pull back psych off of that. Brunson miss offensive rebound and Cat got a great look. I actually thought that one was going in. It did not. Game over. Fourth quarter. I'm gonna go back to the fourth quarter here. At 10:05 of the fourth quarter, New York is up 95. Excuse me, 94.92. Brunson had committed his fifth foul. All right, and so Brunson actually committed it at 94, 91. 94, 92 was the first, I think, TJ McConnell free throw. So it's 94, 92 and Brunson is out of the game. And I'm thinking, all right, this is where the Pacers have a chance. We even had the mic dub audio of Halliburton saying, hey, the non Brunson minutes got to win these non Brunson minutes. I mean, all that stuff sounds really good, but it doesn't mean it's like, hey, yeah, now let's play hard. So I'm thinking this is, this is the Pacers chance here. They're right in this game. It's the fourth quarter. It's back and forth at that point. Like, I probably liked what New York was doing kind of consistently more than what the Pacers are doing. And I'm talking offensively, but I'm thinking, all right, no Brunson, it changes a lot of stuff, right? It changes what five guys have to think about on the floor defensively here. And so this should be a little bit of an easier stretch and maybe that effort will be paid off on the offensive side here for the Pacers. But a funny thing happened. The Knicks went on a 14.0run OG immediately a quick five points. Cat gets fouled on a three after Miles McBride was fouled on a three. I think they ended up getting five of those six free throw points. And so this stretch where I'm thinking, this is the Pacers chance, they give up a 14, 0 run to New York in two and a half minutes, all while Brunson is watching. And he didn't come back until like five minutes. So that's when I'm like, all right, Pacers lost. This will be where the Pacers. If I was, you know, again writing this for a paper, that would have been something I focused on there. This moment that you thought was just handed to you on a platter, you did nothing with it and then kept fouling from the three point line on top of all the other makes and the offense that wasn't clicking for you at that time. Some thoughts on Siakam last night's game is why I'm not the biggest Siakam fan. I know. You know, you're gonna wake up today and see that in the box score. It says he had 17 points. He had, I think, six assists. There was a few there from Neesmith where he Just handed him a basketball and he was hitting threes. But yeah, 17 points on 7 of 16 shooting. Hey, Rye, what's the problem? I counted two shots that he got on his own. Like a couple were layups. One was underneath the basket where no one was defending him. But it seemed like it took forever for him to actually initiate offense on his own. Like, was a complete non factor. And that's the thing with him sometimes in playoff games where I've noticed it before. He got a post up against Mikhail Bridges. Then he had a post on a switch against Miles McBride. You were like, if he doesn't take this shot against Miles McBride in the post. Now, granted, Miles rejected him at the rim too, on that other dunk. It really wasn't until the end one where they were down 14, where it felt like he was actually taking some initiative on his own with the ball. He'll likely have a really good game in this series at some point, but I need to see more offensive initiative with him. And, you know, there's times where they need it. Halliburton can't do it all. Nemhart wasn't really much of a factor at all. He'll probably have a really big game because that's kind of who he is. Matheran, I mean, he was kind of like, I love Matheran, but he had a hard time, like, remembering any Matheran moments. Many offensive Mather moments from last night. So look, he also took zero shots, meaning Siakam here in overtime. The funny thing is, on the overtime possession where Toppin got the tip back dunk on the offensive rebound, Siakam not shooting there led to this. And I think that was the other part. When I thought about Siakam's game last night, that was alarming overall. Nemhardt drives left side corner pass to Siakam, right corner, wide open. That's the play. OG Was playing off of the corner to help on the Nemhardt drive. Siakam has a very clean look at it. He does not want to shoot. He swings it to Neesmith, who then swings it to Halliburton. Halliburton takes the three. What's crazy about Toppin even being able to grab this rebound against Mitchell Robinson, of all people, is that Mitchell at some point sees Halliburton at the top as they rush rotated the basketball. Everybody's scrambling defensively here. Mitchell has like the. It's like an endearing thought. He's on the block, sees Halliburton, and then takes a step towards Halliburton as if he thinks he can cover 24ft and contest whatever it is that Halliburton is going to do. Like his heart was in the right place. The problem is, is he kind of even has this moment of like, what do I, what am I doing? And in that movement and then hesitation, he allows the lane for Toppen to get in there and, and get that dunk, which was huge because at that point, you know, it's a one point game. New York was up 133, 132 miles turn. He's a problem on defense for the Pacers. We ask, and I've talked about it, what we asked the centers to do now in this like contest. No. Do you drop off the screen? You have to like trail and stay in front of the ball handler, but you also have to defend the lob depending on who, what their center is capable of doing. If he's not a shooter and he's just diving down, you know, it's just, it's a lot to ask of these guys. Having said that, Turner looks like he's in cement on some of these plays. I mean, it's, it's bad. If you don't believe me, ask where Carlisle, because he took him out with 7:18 to go in the fourth quarter and then really wasn't back in the game until it was some of the sub in for offense, sub out for defense stuff. He also took him out with 224 to go in overtime. The Knicks should feel good about Turner. Defensively, the Pacers used four defenders that I counted. I mean, maybe there's a couple other possessions, miscellaneous stuff against Brunson. Defensively, it's N. Smith, it's Ma, and it's T.J. mcConnell. The Ben shepherd minutes were brutal last night for Ben Shepard. And Van Gundy did call that. He was like, I, I think he was trying to be nice. He's like, I'm surprised Shepherd does not meet Brunson with the same physicality as the other three guys do. And I know, you know, look, it's always the concern, it's the free throw stuff, but shepherd is just inviting the drive. Thomas Bryan had one of those against Brunson as well, where it's like, hey, I'd almost rather you just stop and make him have to go around you as opposed to you just retreating and matching his straight line drive stuff with that. So that's something I'll look for there again because I too, Stan was shocked that Carlisle didn't pull the plug on the shepherd, on Brunson matchup. Brunson and cat combined for 78 points. This is in Boston's defense, so they got to feel pretty good about this. Now, look, in closing here, I don't know what this is going to mean for New York. I think a weaker team would devastate. It's a lot to say about professionals. We're talking about the conference finals. It means they've probably done some pretty good things to even be here in the first place. But, yeah, maybe a weaker team. We'd look back at this result and go up. That's where it ended for them in their 25 playoff run. I don't think the Knicks are a weak team. I don't. So, you know, who knows? If they had won an overtime, we've. We forget the NE Smith threes. Probably. Yeah. I mean, because if you look at the film today, you look at those Ne Ne Smith possessions and you're just like, you know, damn it, like, can we get one contest on these? And he, as he was making them last night, I'm sitting there going like, wow, this is cute. It's like, oh, he made another one. Yeah, look, I thought that game was over. I'm sure a lot of you did as well. But now the Knicks, you want to talk motivation, they're going to have a painful reminder to not let up. And that reminder should be able to carry them through. I'm not saying necessarily you're going to win this series. I picked the Pacers. I thought this was a coin toss series. But there should be a reminder in those tense moments. Maybe you're up six or eight in one of these other games where there can be no let up. I mean, you can say that, you can think that and be like, hey, we never let up, but, you know, know how people can be. You just had this result. So that should be in the back of their heads throughout the rest of the 25 playoffs. And if they lose this series, this is going to be a lesson that's not just going to stay with them as a basketball team. Like, it's going to be one of those results. It'll be a lesson that'll stay with them for a really long time because The Pacers are 9 and 2 now in the playoffs and three of those nine wins. To run through the scenarios again, Game 5 against Milwaukee, down 118, 111 with 35 seconds left, won the game. Game 2 against Cleveland, down 119, 112 with 47 seconds left, won that game. And of course, last night, pick Which. Which lead that was blown you'd want to have here. How about down 121, 112 again, just over 52 seconds left, and they've won all three of these. I was reading something this morning about this Knicks team, and it said, you know, again, the positives. And there are some positives from last night. You know, we shouldn't ignore the positives because we're talking about a series now and not just the result of game one, but that the Knicks should feel good because they're the better team. They're the better team. That's totally. All right. That's fine. But I remember saying that when the Celtics are down 2 0, FanDuel's turning your bets into bigger wins with a parlay, profit boost. That's right. Build the same game, parlay or parlay, and you can boost your winnings by 30% with a profit boost. You pick the teams, player stats, all of it. Fanduel just adds a little fuel to the fire. Okay, take a look at the board. Minnesota still getting seven and a half points in game two. Honestly, this game one off the game seven previous series thing, that's always a pretty good way of looking at things. That has not worked out this year. And it did not work out in Game 1. Felt like Minnesota was in it and then they weren't and they missed a million shots. And there's a bunch of stuff we could point to in that game. I think defensively, the approach against sga, alarming, the ease with which he got downhill as opposed to how Denver with less talented defenders, again, going to some of that zone stuff that we've been talking about all week. So here's what I'm thinking about doing. Diva Genzo did hit his two or more threes. He consistently is getting great looks throughout the playoffs and he's not making enough of them, even though he did get, I think, three in that game in game one. So we're going divincenzo threes. I don't like going first basket, but if you want to make this really spicy, we go. Chet Holmgren, first basketball. Um, my guess would be the first play is not going to be an SGA thing. So could it be an SGA drive and then kick to Chet in the corner? I don't know. Jalen Williams, 19 points in game one. He has certainly hit 20 multiple times throughout the playoffs. Here. 18 shots for him, only two from three. Only four free throw attempts. But he's gone for 26 times in the playoffs, including game seven against Denver. Where he had 24. So if we want to build this thing out, we could go, hey DiVincenzo, two or more made threes. Jalen Williams 20 plus points. I'm just a little freaked out on the seven and a half again. I'm tempted to take the seven and a half and go with Minnesota, more so than delaying the seven and a half points. That's always kind of the way that I go. So if you go Moneyline Here, Oklahoma City DiVincenzo Jaylen Williams, Oklahoma City. That's + 195. Now if you take out. Well, actually let's just put it back in. Let's put in the first basket thing. Even though I usually would hesitate to do this and I'm talking first basket of the game. Chat's 550. He's plus 250 for OKC. So let's do that. Let's go plus 250 OKC. That's paying out at plus 918. Again, the safer, the more fun one so you can be in it the entire time and not be out of the game 45 seconds into tip. Divincenza two or more threes. Jalen Williams 20 more points Oklahoma City Moneyline. So really, it's a better way of betting OKC on the money line by adding in two things that I think are well within reach. So that's how we're looking at tonight's game two. Whether you're betting three pointers, home runs, goals or birdies, FanDuel's got markets across every sport in every game. And the best part, when you win, you'll get paid instantly. So go check it out. FanDuel's where the parlay gets paid even bigger. Head to FanDuel.com Ryan R Y E and to get started, FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook, must be 21 and older and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC. Optimum required bonus issued as non withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including any token expiration and max wager amount. See terms@sportsbook.fandel.com Gambling problem? Call 100 Gambler visit rg-help.com this episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. If you're in B2B marketing, you want to make sure you're not wasting your ads on the wrong people. I remember when I was younger and I would watch games on television and I thought, man, a lot of ads about retirement. Who's this for? And then I got older and I understood it. 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Their Sunday performance joggers, made with four way performance stretch fabric, are insanely soft and actually look good outside the gym too. Go to vori.comryan R Y E N to get 20% off your first purchase with Vori and enjoy free shipping on all US orders over $75 plus free returns. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Howard Beck was in the building. He has a piece up right now on the Ringer talking about the chaos era of the NBA and considering we had a result like we did last night, perfect time to have him on. Good to see you.
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Howard Beck
Good to see you. It's nice to be right occasionally about stuff. It's nice to write the word chaos and big ass type right before we get more chaos in the NBA. I love it.
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Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, look, I mean this is one of the all timers. Much like Reggie Miller. I know exactly where I was when, when he did what he did in just about eight seconds against the Knicks. And of course there's that huge fourth quarter game that was in the series where New York was able to come back from that. So I think there's some themes here, some resiliency, but just to kind of put it into perspective, to be one of the lucky few that were in the building last night to see this because as I had said in the open, like I was watching it happen, going okay, but this isn't actually going to happen. Then you have the Halliburton shot, then you have overtime, which is still really competitive, but at what moment was like peak insanity inside msg.
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Howard Beck
So one of the things that hit me, by the way Is that I. I've gotten to see some really incredible moments, right? Like I was there for Derek Fisher's point four, which was preceded by Tim Duncan hitting a crazy shot that was literally right in front of us when we were sitting courtside. He's falling to his left toward us. We thought that game was over. Fish hits the point 4. There's a whole other story there involving me in a career turn in that. That same span of time. So I thought of that and I thought of, like, Robert Ori hitting his three after Vladi Divach's tip out in the Western conference finals in 2002. Like, I've just seen some. Some stuff that just, like, blows your mind where you're. You just can't process it. And you're almost laughing like, what the hell just happened? Ryan? Last night, with about four minutes to go in regulation, and it looking like the Knicks had this thing under control. The press seating for most of us is up in this auxiliary area that's referred to as the Chase Bridge. When you see the perspective of where the TNT inside the NBA crew was way, way up there, that's about the same level as where we were. It takes a while to get down to the press room and then down one more level to get to where the locker rooms and the press conferences are. So a lot of us and our buddy Zach Lowe mentioned this without naming names in a tweet last night. We'd all cleared out. I'd gone down because it. If you don't leave your seat and you wait for the buzzer, and especially if it's a Knicks win and Knicks fans are just like, fucking partying in the stairwells and everything else, it can take you a long time to get down. I thought I was doing the smart thing. As a seasoned journalist who's covered this league for 28 years and made my way down. I'm now in the press room, in the press work room. Rachel Nichols, Chris Mannix, a bunch of us are sitting there, James Herbert, trying to remember who else we'd all come down. And we're watching as the final, final minutes of regulation are ticking away. And Halliburton hits that shot. So the roar. The other thing that happens here is you're in the press room. You can hear inside the Bull. You can hear the TV separately because it's a few seconds behind. So what happens is you get this double explosion. If it's a Knicks, great. Something great just happened. You know it's about to happen on the tv because there's a Big roar. If something terrible just happened to the Knicks, you were hearing the. Or just the air go out. So you hear the air go out before the air goes out in front of us on the tv. But when Halliburton hits it, we all thought, as he did, that it was a three. So even the press room, where we are pretty self contained, no cheering in the press box. Everything else but somebody hits a shot like that, it's the same thing. The human reaction for us, anybody else like, oh, and we're all like. The whole press room just went, oh. Like it didn't matter, like where people were from. It was just like, holy shit. And you thought it was over. Zarba goes to the monitor. Wait a minute, what? And then, yeah, real quickly, like the TNT was right on top of it and the show, you know, his toes on the line. Oh, my God, he. He threw up the choke sign. It is not over. So there's a lot of like the same thing you're going through on your couch was basically what we were going through in the press room. And the shame of it, of course, is that I was in the fucking press room watching it on a monitor when I had I 10ft away from the fucking bowl because I walked the three flights down from the Chase bridge trying to beat the foot traffic. Yeah. So then I watched the rest of overtime from the press room. It wasn't worth going all the way back up, but. Incredible. Insane. One of the most amazing shots I've ever seen. And by the way, wasn't it just like three weeks ago that Aaron Gordon threw down the. The dunk at the buzzer in a. In a sequence that we've never seen. So we are like the fact that any given night, we are still seeing things that you and I, having watched this league for decades, that there are still things we can go. I've never seen that exact thing before. Versions of maybe, but holy crap. Like, I still. I was try. I was going through as many replays as I could this morning of everything, just trying to. To get my. My brain right. But wow. Insane.
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Ryan Marcillo
What did Halliburton say to you after acknowledging throwing up the choke sign as an homage to Reggie Miller, but then realizing, okay, I have to, because in that moment I'm thinking, all right, they just spent 10 seconds, 15 seconds just emotionally unloading. And then it's like, no, now you need to mentally reset and get ready back for this deal with overtime. And you're still on the road, like playing that. I mean, I know Halliburton has A lot of fun. He's got a big personality, but there had to be some moment where he's thinking, this thing's going to live in infamy if we don't pull this thing off.
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Howard Beck
So I'm in New York, of course, and I'm surrounded by Knicks fans, and I have a lot of friends who are very big Knicks fans, and they fucking hate Tyrese Halliburton. And they have for years already predating last night, obviously predating whatever happened in. In the playoffs last year with him. There are some people around the league, fans in general, who just don't like his swagger in general, just like he. Like, he's. The guy has got some showmanship in him. And just like with Trey Young, that can. That can go, you know, cut both ways. And one of the things I have loved about Halliburton from even back when he was in Sacramento, like, I like this game anyway, but I like the way he carries himself. I enjoy that. And I also enjoy the guys who don't mind showing some personality. So to the point of the. The choke thing, pretty audacious period. And the potential for that to have just backfired on him was huge. One of the things I appreciate about Halberton is that I think he would have handled this the same way either way, win or loss. It was easier in the win, naturally. But when he was asked. I can't remember who actually asked him the question about, like, choke sign, but, well, you didn't win. He was, like, smiling and like, yeah, like, admitted, like, yeah, maybe, you know, that could have backfired, basically. I can't remember what his exact quote was. And then he referred to something called aura farming.
- [30:24]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah.
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Howard Beck
You and I are of the same generation, so I don't know if. If that threw you, it threw me. I had no idea what the hell he had just said. I didn't know until I saw somebody had transcribed it, because I didn't know what I had heard. Then I had to go look it up. I'm sorry, folks.
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Ryan Marcillo
I'm old.
- [30:39]
Howard Beck
I am. What can I say? Like, I. He didn't want to be accused of aura farming by doing it or then having to maybe do it again so he can't break it out again, because then it looks like you're trying to be cool and you're trying to cultivate something. I don't know. I have never farmed an aura. I have no aura to farm because I'm cooked. But I love that he. That he met that question and that. And that. That concern with, like, just a little bit of humility. Like, yeah, you know, maybe. Maybe too soon, maybe the wrong moment. But who could blame him? It looked like a three, by the way he had driven into the lane and turned around and came back out. Like, even that part of it, which gets lost amid all this because there's a whole overtime after, like. And I don't think he was asked about that part. Like, there's. There's just so much that happened. But Halliburton being a Garden villain is awesome. Halliburton being a Garden villain who counts Reggie as a mentor, who he texts with daily. He told me this last year when I asked about it because he came to the. When they closed out the knicks in Game 7 last year, Halliburton came to the press conference with a T shirt on with Reggie's choke. And that seemed very intentional, of course. And he said it that night, and he probably said it before they text daily so that he counts him as a mentor, that he's carrying on this legacy in so many different ways. They're very different players. But even the Knicks killer aspect of it. Garden moments, Garden villain. This is awesome. Like, we don't have rivalries anymore. There's.
- [32:10]
Ryan Marcillo
There's.
- [32:10]
Howard Beck
There's just not enough of this going on. And as somebody whose early career for me was a lot of Shaq and Kobe and Shaq playing it up and saying that NBA stands for nothing but actors and that it's all. You know, Shaq would just say. He would say all the time. It's all just marketing, brother. Like, the. He would. He loved stirring it up. Sorry, it's a terrible Shaq impression. Apologies to Shaquille. But I. He loved to play it up. He loved getting into that stuff. Halliburton's got that spirit of, like, the 90s and early 2000s, where it's like, yeah, the game is. Is the game, but the showmanship matters. And it's actually kind of cool if we're all pissed off at each other a little.
- [32:50]
Ryan Marcillo
Okay, first of all, not the worst Shaq I've ever heard, because Van Pelt and I, years and years ago, interviewed Dwight Howard, and he basically just did a Shaq impersonation for seven minutes, eight minutes for this phoner that we did for the radio show, and it was so bad, we just didn't even run it, which is insane to think of the time you're like, a top five NBA player, the rarity that you can get those guys on. And then we taped it before the show. And we looked at each other and it's like, was he just doing Shaq for eight minutes? And then we were like, I think that's almost unrunnable. And we're like, Dwight, like, we can't run up like a. He's in an MVP conversation. I was like, it's really bad. It's a bad interview.
- [33:28]
Howard Beck
The problem is Dwight was. Was doing some aura farming. That's. That's the problem.
- [33:32]
Ryan Marcillo
See? Good use of that. Good use of that. I. I get the Halliburton part of. You know, if I wanted to try to think of something like there was a coolness to Kobe, right? There's a coolness to mj. And I think Anthony, whatever that prime coolness is, he has that. Where Halliburton feels a bit more like Carlton, where if Carlton were like an NBA player. And I look and I'm. I'll just give you an aside. I don't know that I've. I think I shared this once. I'm a Halliburton fan for something that he did for me personally. My father went to a Celtics game, and he went by himself, and he was, you know, where we live. So getting to the hospital isn't always the easiest thing and it's not the most convenient. So I was a little pissed that he ended up at the hospital by himself. And since he was stuck in Boston for two days dealing with something, I got him a Celtics ticket. And so because he was by himself, it was a good ticket. And whatever his ticket was, he kind of had, like, access. And he was right near the Pacers bench. And my dad's really tall. He played basketball. And so he ended up talking with halliburton for like, 15 minutes after the game was over. And Halliburton, like, legitimately engaged him. Not just, hey, nice to meet you, whatever. Like, they talk. He asked my dad if he had played and the whole thing. And so then my dad sends me a picture of Ian Halliburton. Like, Halliburton took my dad's phone, handed it to a fan, and then said, hey, let me take a picture with this guy. And then my dad sent it to me, and I was really, like, kind of blown away to think of, like, today's NBA players of just taking the time out of doing that. And I didn't think he knew. You know, I don't even know if he would care if. If he knew that it was my dad or something like that. So I think there's a. You know, my biggest thing on your Personality is, if it's at least genuine, I'm gonna probably like it because at least, like, I would rather just know who you are.
- [35:23]
Howard Beck
Yeah.
- [35:23]
Ryan Marcillo
And the clear, like, lesson in all of this, regardless of what happens with Halliburton last night, is there's this. You know, we try to find these players, especially in this sport, when it's all on you and you have to have this confidence that you think you're going to succeed every single time. And some people wear that confidence in a very forward way. Or sometimes I think we overrate players because they're so intentional about proving to you that they're the man in these big moments where it doesn't even matter if the shot goes in. It just matters that they took it and they're excited to say, hey, that, that's on me. There's a belief that this guy has. And again, we're talking about Halliburton. There's a belief that this guy has that is just off the charts and he has some of the results to also show some of this in a very short span, at least alone here in the playoffs. So let's. Let's talk about some good Knicks things here, too, because as. As absurd as that game is, and maybe again, you can go wherever you want with this. I felt like this morning, watching some of it again, I'm like, the Knicks actually have to feel like, okay, one, we don't have to play against that Celtics defense anymore. There, there are some things that I think defensively are actually alarming here for the Pacers and for all the confidence and swagger that clearly the Pacers have right now, led by Halliburton, I think this kind of result would really. I don't know if devastates the right word, but I. The best way to put it is I think this Knicks team is a very tough and resilient team, and I would not expect them to be shattered emotionally by something as bad as it was last night.
- [37:01]
Howard Beck
No, listen, if the, the thing we learned about this version of the Knicks a year ago, when bodies are just dropping left and right and it's just a war of attrition and they finally succumb in a Game seven where Brunson goes out and they, you know, OG and Anobi had come in to make like a two second appearance and they had no Randall and I think no Mitchell Robinson. Like, the amount of fight in the Knicks, that was their personality and that was what was so endearing or engaging, admirable about them a year ago. And I Wondered if it would last when they swapped out. Not directly, but you lose Hartenstein and you trade DiVincenzo and Randall to get Kat and you get Mikhail Bridges. And there were moments this season where it didn't look like they had that same kind of indomitable will. Like this, this, the, the defense had slipped. Like it was exactly what you would expect on paper almost. You swapped out some defensive guys for some offensive guys and oh, hey, look, you're better offensively and you slip defensively, like exactly what you would expect. But you hope that the resiliency is still there. And I think that that's embodied mostly by Brunson and Hart, who were still there. So, you know, and Anobi to an extent. So that's, that's, that's fine. But there have been times in this postseason, excuse me, there were times earlier in this season where it didn't look like it was there. And then you saw in the Celtics series, like coming back from 20 down and back to back games, everything they did in that series is like, no, these guys are fucking tough as hell. They're resilient as hell. They're not daunted by anything. I saw some of the pace, I was in some of the Pacers press conferences last night post game, I missed the Knicks press conferences. So I don't know exactly what Brunson and company said, but my guess is that especially Brunson probably looked and sounded exactly as he always does because he's pretty monotone anyway, in these, in these pressers, it's a game one at home. You lose home court advantage in a, in a, in a pretty devastating and dramatic fashion. But I don't think that this is going to be the kind of thing where like the Knicks just like collapse from here. Like, hell no. That's not who they are at all. And I do think that there's a lot for them to walk away feeling pretty good about. Including the fact that, you know, Cat had a pretty dominant game. There was some, some, you know, gaffes late, but like, he had a pretty dominant game. Brunson had a pretty damn good game. But I think both teams could walk away feeling like this thing, you know, a correction here or there, like how many Pacers misses at the rim were there in the first half alone? It felt like, or even just in regulation, it seemed like they missed a ton at the rim. The Knicks have missed free throws late. There's just like a lot of little things that this turned on. I think the, the Pacers do have to concern themselves with how to defend Cat going forward. I. I don't. Aside from the obvious, which is the Pacers could walk away feeling really good about stealing home court advantage and in such a wild fashion, I'm not sure that either team can walk away feeling like there's any conclusions to draw about how the rest of this series is going to go.
- [39:54]
Ryan Marcillo
Is there anything you think the Pacers provide, you know, maybe other than the obvious, what you think, Because, I mean, there's even some stuff in the wind that I'd mentioned in the open where I was like, I don't know that I like this from the Pacers moving forward. Do you see something that the Pacers do in particular that you think is a problem for New York?
- [40:12]
Howard Beck
I don't know if there's anything they do that's a problem for New York specifically. The thing that I admired about the way the Pacers play offensively in particular is like, this is a very high ball movement team, right? It's a very unselfish team. And I think to the extent that the Knicks were so, so defensively in the regular season, but were stronger so far in the playoffs, it's been against a Pistons team and a Celtics team that both tended to be a little bit more static in their offense. And I think it was easier to kind of like, all right, we're going to hone in on Kate Cunningham, we're going to hone in on. On Jason Tatum until he went down. Like there's not as they don't keep you off balance the way that the Pacers do. And I think that the Pacers pace, you know, the tempo that they play with, how quickly they get up and down the court and their ball movement. So I do wonder, like this is. We don't have some major age gap. I don't want to make it sound like the Knicks are an old team. They're. They're not. They may be old relative to the Pacers. I haven't looked at the average ages, but like, the Pacers could wear you down on an every other day series. The Knicks don't normally play at that pace and they're having to match it. And what are the Pacers made their first nine shots or whatever it was last night. It was just insane. I think if there's anything broadly it would be that can the Knicks play at the Pacers pace? It sounds ridiculous to say Pacers pace. And with all that ball movement and having to defend multiple actions every time, is that going to wear on the Knicks at all?
- [41:42]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, there were some similarities, at least. And again, New York already understands this, that typically teams are going to default to like, let's get Cat into the action, right? Let's get this guy trying to chase us around a bunch. But I think Boston's so deliberate about it. It's like, hey, we got the switch. We got the switch. And then the other four guys are like, all right, cool, good luck. You got the switch. And now we'll see. We'll see what happens. And I think what the Pacers do a good job of, I mean, there's one nith three where Cats worried about switching into Halliburton with the ball. Nismith cuts underneath them. But then there's another screen where Neesmith is free and Cat's still thinking about Halliburton. But actually, Cat's like, so late. And it's really. It's not one of those. You're like, hey, Cat was late. Cause there's a bunch of stuff in some of the Neesmith makes where you're like, oh, geez, late. Cat's late here. Hart fights really hard on one but stumbles a bit. And I'm sure if Tibbs is watching it, it's. And you just know this part of it. They thought they were going to win the basketball game, and they're like, some of these theories are ridiculous. But what. Like, about what the Pacers do is, even if they're being, well, I shouldn't say deliberate here, but they're deliberate in their attack, but they're not deliberate. Once they get the switch, there still feels like there's something else for the Knicks to have to think about. And I would say, like, in some of the hunting stuff that I've complained about with Boston, is that, okay, fine, you're hunting this guy. He's a bad defensive matchup. But when you consistently ISO against one guy and then everybody understands what you're doing, it's easier for them to help, and you don't really win the matchup probably as much as you think. It reminds me of football in a sense, where it's like, oh, this corner is terrible against this receiver. It's like, yeah, but all of these other things still have to go right for you to be able to. You can't just throw it to that receiver 10 times in a row, because I don't know that you're going to be rewarded that way. So the Pacers do make you play out the possession. I don't want to call it peak warriors, because I don't know that we'll ever be lucky enough to see that again. But just making a team think about where they have to be defensively for the full possession, it's kind of a rarity and it's really hard to stay in locked in defensively. And maybe this is the kind of game where they might have more of a wake up call and more of a lesson where if they had won the game, maybe they're not as tuned up. And I really think this series is going to be one of those deals where it's. The next result is going to be based solely on how both teams feel about themselves from the previous game.
- [44:06]
Howard Beck
Yeah, I mean there, there can be a little bit of a hangover. I tend to think with. Again, I don't think the Knicks will come into game two tomorrow night with this still on, on their backs. I'd like to think that the Pacers though, they, they kind of strike you as kind of like a little young and giddy and whatever. Like you could see them maybe being too high on themselves. Rick Carlisle is their coach. I don't think he's going to let that like the number of times Carlisle in the post game last night said the phrase 13 days, which is a reference to the length of the series. This is of course, this is assuming that it goes seven games. I love when coaches do this, by the way. It's one of the great lies that coaches tell. Well, it's a long series, guys. It's a long series. Not necessarily it's best of seven. It actually can end in four. That's how the math works. It's not necessarily a long series. And if you, if the Pacers were to win game two and you, you're now up, you know, 2, 0 going home, it's not, probably not going to be a long series. But Carlisle's messaging to us was the same as it was to his team because I heard Halliburton then parrot it later in his 13 days. It's 13 days and so he's really trying to hammer home the idea that like this is, this is a long battle. It has just begun. I don't think Carlisle is going to let them be too giddy for too long before tomorrow night's game.
- [45:23]
Ryan Marcillo
Let's do it this way. I want to talk Western Conference finals, but I want to talk MVP was announced with I don't think much surprise that SGA has won his first MVP with Jokic coming in second. SGA received 71 first place votes and Jokic had the other 29 first place votes again, 100 voters. You and I both have a vote. Who did you vote for? What did you think voted for Shea?
- [45:49]
Howard Beck
I was not necessarily as tortured about this as a lot of people were in that vote based on just the framework that I always use. And that's not a, no disrespect to Jokic, what he did. The dude is incredible and he had a phenomenal season. But you know, I've been doing this a long time and at some point in time you try to establish some sort of consistent approach. I don't want to bore your listeners with all of this, but like, I, I, I have settled on long ago the approach that wins matter and they don't always, it's not always the most decisive thing, but it matters because what's the point of being mvp? Let's go to the extreme, because everybody agrees wins matter. They just don't agree on the scale that it matters. So if Jokic had all the same stats, but they had been a 40 win team, there'd be less support for him. There would have been, because some people would have been like, oh, yeah, but they were kind of sub 500 or just at 500. Maybe 68 wins is freaking ridiculous. Like we, there's a handful of seasons in NBA history of a team doing that, and Shea had a lot to do with that. So I've always said it comes down to this. There are two components to mvp, individual excellence and team success. I want you to check both boxes. That's the platonic ideal. It's not a rule. I'm not saying it's hard and fast, but I try to be consistent with it. Because in a year like when Westbrook won it, I voted for Harden that year. And there were people who were hardened supporters who were very upset that you guys changed. You know, the way you do this, you know how wins always mattered. And now you're voting for Westbrook. And how could that. And, and I, I could feel at least good on an individual level that I could say, no, I'm staying consistent with this. And I, statistically, Harden and Westbrook weren't that different anyway. Westbrook had, I think more, maybe two more assists per game or two more rebounds per game. Whatever it was, Harden was way more efficient, Harden's team won, more Thunder fans come back with, oh, but Westbrook's sporting cast sucked. Which, by the way, overstated. Point being, if you're going to have a consistent, defensible approach to voting for mvp, you need to have a framework that you can say, I always View it through this prism. So that's how I looked at it, Brian. I, to me, Shave was dominant individually, box checked. Jokic, dominant offensively, box checked. Carve it up a million different ways in terms of historical aspects of their, of their seasons, fine. But the. It, the. The point of MVP is that your individual excellence, your individual dominance has to matter at a high degree. And the higher degree, the more important it is. That's the V. That's the valuable, so long winded way of saying, after saying I wouldn't bore your listeners, Minish, I probably now have. I voted for Shay and I did not struggle with it that much.
- [48:42]
Ryan Marcillo
I voted for Jokic, and I also did not struggle with it. So we saw it differently, which is why, you know, I think fans get really upset. To your point, it's like, oh, you're changing the criteria for this. And it's like, well, you may have heard two different voters look at it a little differently. Yes. And so, you know, I had heard the SGA argument. As far as, you know, they win that many games, I mean, who knows if they wanted to win 70. I've said that before, they probably could have won 70. I do think it's really funny though, that Thunder fans that would use that argument in 25 completely contradicts the argument that they were using for Westbrook. For Westbrook. I, you know, again, I don't have a polling of or I don't have like historical records of every comment from that time, but doing a show and talking about MVP every single day, I remember what it was, and it wasn't about standings. It was about supporting cast. It's like, so I guess you want me to vote for Jokic this year based on your passionate defensive Westbrook years prior. Look, I think Westbrook won that that year because it was him staying when Durant left. And it was a celebration of Westbrook and his loyalty and some of that. I do think that writers like stories, and it was a really good story. I'm not like putting you in the crosshairs here because you voted for Hardin, but there are moments where I think we get really caught up in the story, and I don't think people get caught up in the story with sga. I just watched that Thunder Nuggets series, and even in the games where I felt like Jokic, if I'm holding him to this impossible standards of, you needed to be a little bit better in a couple of these spots, watching the two go at it, there was never a second where I thought SGA was The better basketball player. And that was what I'd felt all season long, despite the gap, team wise.
- [50:29]
Howard Beck
And that's, and that's fine. And I totally accept all of that. And the fact is, and I try to stress this a lot when I talk about this to people about the voting. First of all, the voting pool is not the same voting pool as it was 10 years ago. Certainly not when it was what it was 20 years ago or 30 years ago. @ one time the voting pool was up to 125, 130 people. It's now consistently 100, but it's not always the same 100. So not only do we have a hundred of us with different viewpoints on how to define MVP or how to process all the, the data and stats that we have, the results, wins this, that, all this stuff, it's a hundred people with a, with a hundred different versions of this potentially. We're not in a room hashing this out behind closed doors in a smoke filled room. Everybody's in their own home filling out a ballot at some point in early to mid April. And again, the voting pool itself is not the same as it was when Malone beat Jordan in the year that everybody always disputes or when LeBron lost to Derrick Rose in another year that everybody disputes. It's not even the same voting pool. I don't know how much it's changed since the year that Westbrook won, but it's probably changed pretty substantially even since then. And so when people try to draw broad, sweeping conclusions about what the voters do or what the media thinks, realize that it's, it's not the same voting pool over time, realize that we're not in the same room. I mean, I might bounce some stuff off of other people I know who are voters. Like that happens sometimes because we're just.
- [52:01]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, I do the same thing. I call on the defensive stuff, I'll call teams just because I never feel good about the arguments for defensive player of the year and then ultimately coming up with 10 guys. And then there's some years with the rookie voting where, I mean, this was one of them where I'm like, second team. I'm like, this is a bad year for it all.
- [52:22]
Howard Beck
Rookie team needs to be, needs to just be five guys. We didn't forget the second team, all rookie, by the way. It's probably the least predictive thing that there is. Like, look at the all rookie teams over time and then look at how those careers have gone. Like, I just, there's a, there's a part of Me that gets defensive as, you know, a 28 year NBA beat writer. And I haven't voted for all of it. The nine years I was at the times we weren't allowed to vote. But I voted mostly preceding that. And since then I get a little defensive on, on our collective behalf when people are doing a lot of mind reading while the voters thought this and then they thought that. Like it's a hundred people who are all very individual and have their own views of this. Like I do think that in this era with social media there's maybe potentially a little more group think because you can see which way the wind is blowing. I think the, the total pool of people who get a vote one through five. Right. There used to be a lot more stray fours and fives and I feel like it's now you only get like seven people got votes at all or eight people. Right. Like, I feel like there's a little bit of that that's happened because nobody wants to be have the outlier votes. Our ballots are public. That's only been the case for the last about a decade. They didn't used to be. That has probably changed things a little bit and maybe caused people to be a little bit more conservative or go with the flow. So there are some forces at work here that I think you could, you could examine. But the mind reading that people do about, well, the voters did it this way because they thought this. Even the. I know you and Bill have talked about it a lot and I will always push back against it. I do not believe in voter fatigue. I wrote a whole thing for GQ Sports a couple of years ago about the myth of voter fatigue. There is like one or maybe two examples in history that are actually valid, but we could debate that some other time. Anyway, I should stop rambling about mtv. I did notice. I think maybe I talked way too much about it.
- [54:10]
Ryan Marcillo
I struck a chord on writers liking stories and you kind of gave me a look. So maybe that's all connected to some of the fatigue thing. Yeah, I guess I would disagree a little on just that. I, I think there are maybe more example. But if you researched it, maybe I'll go back into the archives and you know what, let me go back and read that before I make a fool of myself and present.
- [54:32]
Howard Beck
I'll send you the link to the GQ piece I did.
- [54:35]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, look, every year I send in the ballot. You know, you're like, are you, are you done? Did you get this right? And I'm, I take it, I'm really like I feel this great sense of pride that a few years ago somebody would ask me to take on something that's this important. But there's. I don't know how you could have the vote and then just hit send and be like, nailed it again this year. I don't know who that person would be. I mean, we have, by the way, Harden got a fifth place vote. I think the most shocking thing, because I was not surprised SGA won. Yeah. Giannis not getting all 103rd place votes because he didn't get his second or first, obviously, but that there'd be 12 people that wouldn't have them third this year. I mean, Giannis is going to put together this MVP result run here that is like incredible. And I guess I always feel like I. I've, over the years maybe voted him a little bit higher than the. No. You know, his.
- [55:32]
Howard Beck
How.
- [55:32]
Ryan Marcillo
Where he would finish average out on. On the 100 votes. But yeah, I mean, look, there's, for the most part, this thing's pretty buttoned up and I would say the NBA probably feels even better about this. But it's a bit like the College Football Playoff committee where it's like, well, we, three years ago you guys did this. It's like, yeah. And then this year we did this. And there are different people that are on the committee and whatever the standard is and whatever the history is, there's just like the whole point of us being in society, there's no way there's a hundred people that are going to see this the same way. So if you want to find those inconsistencies, congrats, you found them. Because they'll always be there.
- [56:07]
Howard Beck
And I will just say, like, it's okay, folks, like, it's okay for us to still have the debate. It's okay to have some doubts about it. It's okay for us as the voters to maybe go, ah, it was really close, I went this way. But as long as you've gone through a good thought process to get to the result that you got to as an individual voter, the fact of the reason you have 100 people is there's a consensus in there somewhere that kind of makes sense, maybe. Right. Every ballot's not going to look the same. But at the end of the day, you have 100 people and you, hopefully you as a group got it right collectively. But are there. Are there years that we go back and we still look at and go like, maybe, maybe they got it wrong that year? Sure, that's fine. But that's. That's just fucking sports, man. Like, we debate this stuff to the end of time, and sometimes it's not even a matter of right and wrong. Sometimes just it's a judgment call, you know, Again, I'm not in the heads. I will not mind read my fellow voters. I don't know what everybody's thinking, but I would like to believe that everybody who's got a ballot in their hands treats it as seriously as you and I do, that this is a responsibility and an honor on some level, and there's historical weight to this, and you got to take it seriously and you have to consider everything you possibly can. And I didn't want to be too flippant about it earlier, like, I did anguish over all of this, right? Like, I. Even though I had been leaning Shay and when Bontemps calls about or texts us about, you know, his polls, I had voted Shay in the straw poll a month or whatever it was before the season ended, so I was already going that direction. But one of the reasons I don't like the straw poll, but I do it anyway because I like Tim and I want to help him out. I don't mind it. I don't want to get calcified in my views of this. I always try to. Should not get too dug in because then you start to try to justify your choice. So I think about that a lot, too. I check myself at every, you know, moment here, and I did before I filled out the ballot. I didn't just reflexively do it as Shay. I knew that's where I was headed. I listened to everybody else's arguments about Jokic, and I still came down where I came down, and I'm fine with it. I also just think last thought. I keep saying last thought. Like, yes, Jokic is the best player on the planet, but that's not the award. The award is not best player on the planet. Because if that were the case, Michael Jordan could have won, like, you know, 13 of them and LeBron would have won 15 of them or something like it. It's never that. You know, Rachel Nichols once proposed. We've debated this about maybe we need two. A most outstanding and a Most Valuable player. Because that way the most outstanding would be the LeBron, the Jordan, the Jokic. The guy who's clearly the best player of his generation and year in, year out is the guy that we all agree is the best player on the planet. But that's separate from the season award, which is who had the best season. In the way I look at it, the best season for a team that really mattered and had a, you know, had that kind of impact.
- [59:00]
Ryan Marcillo
So I hated that idea, by the way. Yeah, let's go with this because I have a couple more things. I just want to get a little west in here. Sure. Is Minnesota in trouble?
- [59:14]
Howard Beck
No, I. I think, like, that game was so freaking weird, by the way. The Eastern Conference, Western Conference game. Ones like different sports entirely because it was such a slog in game one of the west until the Thunder just said, okay, we're. We're taking over now to the. The answer to are they in trouble? The Wolves? The yes. Version would be the Thunder are so freaking good defensively and can just absolutely disrupt everything that you wonder whether there's enough there for Minnesota to just get going. Can Anthony Edwards actually find any gaps? Can he actually keep the ball in his hands long enough without having it be poked away? I sat there, this was when I was watching from the couch. And I was sitting there almost like feeling like every time any member of the Timberwolves had the ball in their hands for too long, I was like, you need to get rid of that. Do not hold onto the ball. Stop dribbling with your back to the defender. He's going to poke it away. Like, I'm like, jumpy on the couch on their behalf because the, The Thunder just. You never know where it's coming from. There's an arm, a hand, a limb is somewhere that's about to come in and disrupt. You poke the ball away.
- [60:27]
Ryan Marcillo
Just.
- [60:27]
Howard Beck
They're incredible, the Thunder, but the Timberwolves have had a really strong season. I'm not going to dismiss them after one game. And it was really like, whatever, like five minutes of one game like that. It turned in the fourth, so. Or the third. This is. This is the problem of the haze of the playoffs. By the time we're two days later, I'm already like, I can't remember minute markers, but. But it. But it was a burst late and Minnesota was hanging in pretty well up until then.
- [60:58]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, I think that's one way of looking at this. I mean, I was a little surprised that it felt like the odds. And some of the talk around it was. Was a little too dismissive of Minnesota. But you could argue, hey, Minnesota got a Lakers team that was an awful matchup, meaning Minnesota an awful matchup for la. I think everybody understood that. And then you get Golden State, who had its own limitations with Curry, without Curry. So you run through those games like, maybe that was the wakeup call. I mean, Minnesota played what looked Like a, a really competitive half. You could see the things you thought were going to work. I mean, Randall was incredible, but Randall has been so off the charts. Like, I mean, this isn't really who Julius Randall is. Even if you're the biggest Julius Randle fan, what he has done in these playoffs, you're like, is, is he going to be this good? You almost like wonder if there's a bit of a correction on Julius Randall, which doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to be bad. You know, one of the bench things I always think is really interesting and I'm guilty of this. I'll look at bench scoring. I'll be like, man, look at how good that bench is. And it's like, well, they might just have bench guys. They play like the Pacers are a good example of this, but the bench guys win the actual bench minutes or did they have more guys that play on the bench and for the bench for Minnesota, we've seen this a couple times before. Just disastrous shooting from that entire group. They hit a couple late that made a little look a little bit better on paper. But the defense that's going to collapse on Ant and you know those moments when you start turning the basketball over and it's just a layup line for the Thunder and I'm totally with you like that Randall kind of take a little bit longer, spin back, dribble. He lost one of those. Ant had one in the first half. It's like, you guys can't do this. Like, you can't do this against this group. And then it was very clear that SGA loved not getting to see his own. He's like, this is. Now we're talking. I get back to me and I think Finch was even trying to figure out like, is there a non Rudy lineup here that's going to work. And then he saw a couple straight line drives. It's like, I think I got to go back to Rudy in here. I don't think they want to play zone and you know, I want to talk free throws here. It's not necessarily my favorite topic. And some of the free throw conversation the last couple days makes me want to think like, hey, does anyone take Angel Reese? But I, you know, when SG has seven attempts at 7:30 left to go in the first quarter, you know, it, it impacts the game beyond free throw attempts. And, and I, I've seen all the arguments and at one point I thought it was pretty interesting because I wrote it down at 8677 when the Thunder were up. Minnesota was actually leading in free throw attempts at that point. 21 to 19 was just like, okay, that's. That's one that you would argue for the SGA part of it, but I think the part of it that kind of just gets lost because there's not necessarily the number for it, is that a few of the calls with sga, it's not about, again, points and free throw rate and where he stacks up historically, because I saw a lot of that stuff, it's like, okay, but now what does Jaden McDaniels think the next time he has him on some kind of drive? It's the same thing with Brunson. It may not be free throw rate for Brunson, but it's knowing. Like, I can't really try to close off any angle here. I've got to just sort of backpedal and then hope I get a contest because one, he's great at drawing the calls, and two, it seems like any tie is going to the. The ball handler, not the runner in this case.
- [64:17]
Howard Beck
Also, not for nothing, but we've spent a lot of time over the last year and a half talking about how, you know, the league, you know, shifted some things in the way that they're calling things. And so more context being allowed and especially in the playoffs, usually more context being. So if that's the case across the board or broadly, it stands out even more when one guy with marginal contact at times or contact that he's initiating is able to just kind of bounce off a guy and, and just the mere brush of his arm against somebody's hip is like, oh, well, you, you, you bumped him and that's a foul. And so I would, you know, coaches and players, the one thing that they want is consistency, right? It's. It's never like, we don't like this kind of call. It's like, if you're going to do it, do it both ways, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, does Shea seem to get more than his share? Just like at one point it was James Harden getting more than his share? I. I'm not going to get into the foul merchant stuff, but like, some guys are just really good at drawing contact, initiating contact, bouncing off of contact and still making a shot. Like, there's still. There's a skill to not. It's not just that you're quote unquote fooling the refs. There's a skill to being able to initiate contact, have it throw you off balance or have it impact you physically in some way while still Having the wherewithal and the balance to hit the shot or to get off the shot sometimes. Maybe you're not always hitting the shot. Shay's just really freaking good at it. I understand why. It drives people nuts. Yeah, I cringed at some of those calls too. Of course referees aren't perfect. I'm, I'm fine with that. Like the game is not officiated. Like Adam Silver's not happy with it or I don't mean about Shea. Adam Silver wants perfection. Adam Silver wants replays till, till the end of time. I would love to just abolish coaches challenges and replays tomorrow. Fuck it. Human error is fine. It's just in the game. But we do have it all and we do all have high definition televisions now where we can see absolutely every little detail. And yeah, it makes it more frustrating, I think, when you can see, oh, that was marginal at best contact, or that was a flail or that was just a guy falling down.
- [66:29]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, we're constantly seeing the officiating, having to adjust to some of the stuff. And I feel like, you know, too often over the years, you know, players are smart. They had to like correct the three point contact because certain guys, when they were being contested would land like Harden would land forward on a three point attempt when he was contested and when he was wide open, he went right up and down. And you know, unfortunately for me, because I'm in it every single day, I think it becomes less about the free throws and more about the arguments. And I'm talking from like media members and people. And I'm not just going like randos here, but, you know, you can't, you can't defend the Brunson free throws and then hate the Trey young ones. Okay? Right. You can't.
- [67:12]
Howard Beck
Yes.
- [67:13]
Ryan Marcillo
You can't be a Sixers fan getting mad about Brunson's whistle. And if you're a Knicks fan, you can't get mad about Embiid's whistle. And I'm sure there's a lot of Oklahoma City fans and, and people that have been defending the SGA stuff and look, they were going to win the game without a couple of calls. SGA is terrific even without it. That's all understood, but I'm sure they didn't enjoy any of those hardened years. So it becomes this defense of something that we all hate. Like, I'll see somebody go, oh, you know, did you find some data that tells me historically this SGA stuff isn't that bad? Okay, do you have any data for it sucks to Watch in a huge spot when he falls down. And you could tell that's when Alexander Walker was like losing his mind. And I think the official was mad with Alexander Walker's emotional reaction. So when he made the foul call at the sideline, he's like pushing the back and then, you know, gives the like looking at him a bit, being like. And then you watch the replay and you're like, you just, you let this guy fall down. I am worried. I'll just tell you now, I'm pre worried about an SGA Brunson finals. And I think there's some lessons too with the SGA stuff from game one. And I don't mean this as a gatekeeper like, ooh, I'm so cool. I watch all these games, but it's a little reminder sometimes how many eyes are on the product that aren't really locked in or watching much of the regular season and then they see some of this stuff. So, I mean, it's a bigger picture thing where I don't want to turn into a complaint because I'm completely aligned with you. I'd get rid of all the challenges. I get rid of replay. I would just say, hey, let's go. Because if you're searching for perfect, you're going to be searching forever. This game will not allow you to have a perfect game and there's going to be some stuff that doesn't work out. But if you are allowed as the offensive player to gain the advantage by initiating the contact and the stuff the player can do to flick the defender off them with a bunch of different things, either something really physical or keeping that arm tucked in, you can't then also reward him for that contact. If he wants to embellish the contact that he was hoping to get separation within the first place. So the only way. And look, this is going to be solved these next couple weeks. But I would say there needs to be something where if you want to fall down, I'm going to give the defender the benefit of the doubt and maybe I'm going to miss a few, but if I'm missing a few in favor of him, maybe guys stop doing it less and then just that part of the product is better. Rant over.
- [69:38]
Howard Beck
No amen there. There is absolutely a quality control aspect of this and a watchability aspect. And you needing this, especially at this time of year when, yeah, a lot of more casual fans are watching, there are more eyeballs. That's why there's higher ratings in the playoffs and the deeper in the playoffs you go that's what you want as a league. You don't want people to come to it and go, like, what the hell was that? You know? So I'm with you. I think that's right. I think that they've tried. Listen, they've made any number of measures in recent years trying to crack down on this, right? On various aspects of flopping, initiating contact, foul baiting, whatever. But, you know, at the end of the day, you've got three refs who are human, who have the same eyeballs that the rest of us do, trying to do this in real time, which is a lot harder from where they are than where we are at home watching on TV in high def. So. But it's difficult. And you. You can't get all of this out. Can they do more? Maybe I'll let Monty McCutcheon figure that out.
- [70:41]
Ryan Marcillo
Check out Howard Beck's piece about this age of chaos right now, this era of chaos in the NBA. And it was just a great call because we had chaos last night. Enjoy the game, Twos man. Appreciate it.
- [70:54]
Howard Beck
Appreciate it. Thanks, Priscilla. Appreciate it.
- [70:59]
Ryan Marcillo
This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. When I get into something, I go deep, like seeing how I can improve my sleep routine or finding a TV show that I can get lost in. Prime helps me find everything I need. Plus, offering fast, free delivery, whatever it is. Prime helps you get more out of whatever passions you're into or getting into. Head to Amazon.com prime and follow your obsession wherever it goes. You want details?
- [71:23]
Howard Beck
Fine.
- [71:24]
Kyle
I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet.
- [71:27]
Ryan Marcillo
What's up?
- [71:29]
Worgon
I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.
- [71:32]
Ryan Marcillo
I have every toy you can possibly imagine.
- [71:34]
Kyle
And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible.
- [71:40]
Ryan Marcillo
Let me tell you what's required. We. We have Worgon back in the mix. We have Kyle lifeadvice. Rrmail.com that is our email address. And even if somebody doesn't listen to the show, just forward them the address and say, hey, do you got a question? Who knows? Maybe we'll read it on the show. Wargon, Good to see you. Thanks, man.
- [72:01]
Howard Beck
That's it.
- [72:01]
Ryan Marcillo
All right.
- [72:03]
Worgon
Had some kidney stone issues.
- [72:05]
Ryan Marcillo
Oh, God.
- [72:06]
Kyle
Because I have questions. I'm glad you. You admitted it.
- [72:10]
Worgon
I wasn't hiding it.
- [72:12]
Ryan Marcillo
Can I leave the pod I hate?
- [72:13]
Kyle
Yeah.
- [72:13]
Worgon
Get out of here.
- [72:14]
Kyle
All right, all right, all right.
- [72:15]
Ryan Marcillo
No. Do you have questions for me about kidney stones?
- [72:18]
Kyle
Yeah. I mean, is it just. Is it terrible every time, or is it. You know, this is.
- [72:23]
Worgon
This is my first Time. Not fun.
- [72:25]
Kyle
Not.
- [72:25]
Worgon
Not a good time. I was in a lot of pain Monday night.
- [72:28]
Kyle
Oh, man.
- [72:29]
Worgon
So they gave me all the drugs. I'm all better.
- [72:31]
Kyle
Did you pass it Monday night, or was it like.
- [72:33]
Howard Beck
No, no, no.
- [72:33]
Worgon
I still. Still got it.
- [72:35]
Kyle
Oh, really?
- [72:36]
Worgon
Yeah.
- [72:36]
Kyle
Oh, so it, like. Does it, like, whittle it down if you just. That's what they say. Take your medicine.
- [72:40]
Ryan Marcillo
Okay.
- [72:41]
Kyle
It's not.
- [72:41]
Worgon
It's not even medicine. It's just water is. I mean, the pain medication and water that they've given me.
- [72:47]
Ryan Marcillo
Wow.
- [72:48]
Worgon
Yeah.
- [72:48]
Kyle
Not as technically advanced as I thought. Okay.
- [72:51]
Worgon
No.
- [72:51]
Ryan Marcillo
Okay, now. Damn.
- [72:53]
Kyle
You sitting up a little straighter today. I can't tell.
- [72:55]
Worgon
No, it's. I mean, it's not. It's like a discomfort. Monday was. Monday was rough. Now it's just a little bit of a discomfort.
- [73:01]
Ryan Marcillo
All right.
- [73:02]
Worgon
Yeah. How do we. How do we get Ryan back?
- [73:04]
Kyle
You think he just left the room? Hey, we're done, man. We're done. This. This part figured out.
- [73:09]
Worgon
He'll figure it out. There he is.
- [73:14]
Ryan Marcillo
I had the earbuds in the whole time.
- [73:15]
Kyle
Oh, great.
- [73:16]
Ryan Marcillo
So.
- [73:17]
Kyle
So that's.
- [73:18]
Ryan Marcillo
Are you doped up now?
- [73:19]
Worgon
No, no, no.
- [73:21]
Ryan Marcillo
For the show today, I'm gonna change the topic here. I bought some, like, fancy pens that are heavier, and I felt like that way I wouldn't lose them, but then I would have to replace the ink cartridges constantly. I don't know if it's the salt air, you know, beach life. There's certain. There's certain taxes on this that people don't understand. My rogue. Some of the. The bolts on my rogue squat rack just cannot handle the. The briny mist. And so I went to the pen place yesterday to be like, hey, I'm having some issues with these pens. The guy was like, you know, I didn't get. I don't think I got their number one ink guy. And so I saw a box of Bics. Remember these?
- [74:06]
Kyle
Hell, yeah.
- [74:07]
Ryan Marcillo
Like, this was the high school pen. I got 60 of these for $6.
- [74:12]
Kyle
Yeah, man, it's. That's the way it's like, every time I think I might be a Zippo guy, just. It's not worth the hassle. Totally not worth the hassle. I'll just go ironically enough. Bic. Give me a 10 pack of Bics, and I'll just think about this next.
- [74:26]
Ryan Marcillo
Time I run out, you know, with all the complaints about everything that's going on economically. The fact that you can buy 60 Bic pens for $6. I didn't even know this is.
- [74:35]
Kyle
You know, Yeah, I guess that didn't really hit me. 60 is a lot.
- [74:39]
Ryan Marcillo
And look, I get it. I know Trump's not for everybody, but.
- [74:43]
Worgon
No tariff on these bics.
- [74:45]
Ryan Marcillo
You know, why don't you go pen shopping? Oh, man. And get back to me? All right. Okay. We have some housekeeping to do potentially here. Let's. Let's go with a couple here because we're all in a good mood and we're thrilled. War gone. It's back. Update on the roommate shower situation. I think everybody remembers this one. If you need a quick refresher. Three dudes, one guy's overseas. The overseas guy for a couple weeks apparently has the sickest shower ever, was a really well crafted email and the other two roommates are like, are we wrong for wanting to shower? And at once. And they even added, we're not even sure if you would care. I think the thing was we said go for it, but be careful because then you have to go back to your shower. So six three, 180 pounds. I don't know if those have changed at all since the email a couple weeks ago. Michael Porter, Jr. Cop. Never seen a 3 I didn't like both on and off the court. Kyle, I am the roommate who went to Ireland and the other two were definitely using. Oh, I am the roommate.
- [75:49]
Kyle
Oh, small world, dude.
- [75:52]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah. Sometimes people fire in these emails. I imagine this guy knew or they all listened because of a certain age. I am the roommate who went to Ireland and the other two were definitely using my bathroom all week while I was away. I could tell instantly things were out of place. And then there were empty toilet paper rolls in the trash, even Q tips on the floor of my shower. Wow. Didn't really bother me that they used my bathroom, but they did not attempt to hide their tracks and sort of made a mess. I didn't know the extent of what they were doing until I listened to your pod and pulled a real life little sasquatch meme. That's a good meme attached to this email for reference. I knew it. One of them. We'll call him Andrew is gone for a week later this summer on the west coast trip and I want to return the favor. He did a good job of underselling his bathroom in the last email as his is the only with a true en suite bathroom. The only true ensuite bathroom we have. I stood in there a while he was at work one day and I can comfortably say his is bigger than mine by square footage. He has the most privacy in his bathroom and Now I can't stop thinking about how peaceful it must be to do your business. I want to leave a few hints that I was in there to subtly fuck with him, but nothing that would start a conflict. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. PS Is player Computer warriors. Andre Iguodal, a little bit of a stretch. Plays more like Tony Snell. If you know, you know, other player comp was close enough. All right.
- [77:14]
Kyle
This is screwed up, man.
- [77:15]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, it's like we're living with these guys.
- [77:18]
Kyle
I mean, the original email was like, should we do it? Should we not do it? And then they did it and then also trashed the place that they were, like, worried if they should even, like, be in there for too long. They're taking dumps. They're using all the toilet paper. There's Q tips on the ground. I mean, what's the difference between Q tip in your ears, in your bathroom, and someone else's? I thought they were going to do the. The big money thing, which was check out the shower, and they're taking dumps.
- [77:40]
Ryan Marcillo
I mean, this is the Q tip things. Disgusting. Come on.
- [77:43]
Kyle
You took an inch and then you took a mile.
- [77:45]
Ryan Marcillo
It's.
- [77:46]
Kyle
It's not right.
- [77:46]
Worgon
It went without saying that if you were going to use it, you had to, like, treat it. Well, I thought.
- [77:51]
Ryan Marcillo
I think we understood that because they were so apprehensive about it. But then I guess they decided to just go. But if these guys are in their 20s, they think it's hilarious. They. They didn't do anything wrong, I guess. You know, I. I remember early 20s again, those. Those really dumb years right after college. And, you know, some of these girls who were friends with that were like, they had their. Together. They were actually really cool. And every one of us had, at that point, pretty much ruined it. But we were still friends. They allowed us to still be in their circle as friends. And then, you know, years later, you're like, you know, it could have locked one of them down. Dad's got a place, Rosemary Beach. Like, maybe could play this a little different. A little different. Anyway, good for them. But look, one guy cleaned out his ears and thought it was, like, the funniest thing ever because he hadn't bought Q tips in a while, and it was, like, just repulsive. And then left him. Just. He didn't even. Like, he threw them in the. The waste basket. But I don't really understand a lot of bathroom waste baskets, like, the ones without liners. Like, why would you throw away garbage in your kitchen with a liner? But Then in your bathroom, considering some of the stuff that also could be thrown away in the course of daily bathroom use, that you're like, no, we're good. It's just a plastic bin. Be like you're rinsing that thing out. Probably not enough. Or those wicker baskets that women like where it just kind of piles up and then you dump it out. So this guy went in the wicker basket with, like, two. Used, Used. Like, it was like he had gotten out of Desert Storm and then decided to clean his ears there. And he left him. He just left him. And he didn't even think he did anything wrong. And then the. One of the girls went to use the bathroom. They invited us over. New apartment, post college, really nice part of Boston. And then the girl comes running out. She's like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Like, who? Like, congrats on cleaning your ears. But also. And then he was like, what do you. You know? What are you talking about?
- [79:52]
Kyle
I could see how that guy wouldn't get it at all, though. Yeah, no, that's where it goes, right?
- [79:56]
Ryan Marcillo
I mean, he's like, I'm out of Q chips. I saw him there, you know, and then she was like, you're supposed to wrap the used Q tip and tissue paper, then throw it into the. And he. You know, it's like, you want me speaking another language?
- [80:08]
Kyle
Yeah.
- [80:08]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah. So. All right. Spent too much time on this already. But I think we have another one that we needed to address. Yeah, just a quick gym thing. I got so many emails here. We are. So cool. All right. Am I counting wrong at the gym? So we were talking about counting, right? And the mind body connection. And when the body is being told by the mind that we're almost done, then the body shuts down sooner than it should. This is. Not sure. Smarter people have talked about this. I think Nick Saban has, actually. Anyway, our emailer here is asking, am I counting wrong at the gym? Does everyone else count their reps backwards down to one? This seems like insane behavior. Is there something I'm missing that makes this a better way to count? Wow. I wish this guy had included his weight so I would know. I like to count down. I don't like to go one to whatever. I like to just pick a number and then count down. I'd probably.
- [81:20]
Kyle
I used to do five and then I'd count. I was like, well, I made it to the. Like, I thought I could trick myself. Sort of like what you're saying. Like, be like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. All right. 5, 4, 3. And. I don't know, I don't think it ever helped, but mine was a little unorthodox as well. I think.
- [81:37]
Ryan Marcillo
We'Re gonna have any marathon correlation here.
- [81:40]
Worgon
Not really. Not really a big lifting guy. I got nothing here.
- [81:44]
Ryan Marcillo
But what about miles? Do you tell yourself, like, I'm only gonna go this far and then maybe do you do it differently? No. Nothing?
- [81:52]
Worgon
No, not really. It just sucks the entirety of the way.
- [81:55]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah. Look, not everybody running, not everybody is counting down. But I know I'm not the only one. How about that? I would say most people are going, but I don't think it's insane behavior. However your mind works, whatever you can do to optimize your effort, and for me it works better counting down. There you go.
- [82:15]
Kyle
I'll count to five twice. I don't know who's to say.
- [82:17]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, who's. Yeah. I mean, that's like you did two sets in one. Two set, Kyle.
- [82:22]
Kyle
Dude, I'm like, I've expanded my day like you can't believe.
- [82:26]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, right. I have three days in a day and Kyle's like, I have fucking two sets in a set over the course of a year.
- [82:33]
Kyle
I'm going to kick your ass.
- [82:34]
Ryan Marcillo
They're like, hey, can we get you on our pod? Do you want to come to Austin? So what's building? Dinner?
- [82:39]
Kyle
Yeah.
- [82:43]
Ryan Marcillo
Some people will get that Austin reference. Most of you won't. All right, six foot one Denver guy, game like Corey Brewer. All right, so this guy's talking about buying a new flat screen streaky cutter with a white T shirt under the jersey to hide my noodle arms. I did that. I was St. John's and Georgetown, those big east teams, T shirt underneath the jersey. And I was like, this is great. I've got a couple veins with five fingers hanging off of them. All right, 33 years old, about three weeks away from proposing to my amazing girlfriend. He calls her Haley. So congrats. Yeah, congrats, Haley. Hopefully you don't hear about it from the podcast first. I guess she is mvp. I have a ring and proposal situation all set up. The future in laws have enthusiastically giving their blessing and I know she going to say yes no matter what happens there. Your boy is golden and extremely lucky. All right, we feel good. Six foot one, Denver guy. No. No wonder. 33, been in the game a little bit, little seasoning, but now ready to settle down at the right age probably. That was not personal. Only problem, the engagement is a surprise. We hope so. But she's getting impatient, hard to blame her. We've been dating since 21. We've seen several friends get engaged and married before us. I probably should have prioritized saving for an engagement ring earlier too. But our relationship is strong. We're nowhere near having kids, and all that's going to be taken care of on June 13th. I'm fine with waiting out another three weeks, but our main TV broke right before game seven of Nuggets Thunder. I, being such a rational money person, wanted to immediately drive to Costco and see which 75 inch bad boy we get for around 1200 bucks. Who knows, maybe there's a little gift card promo going on there. Soundbar next. I like this guy style.
- [84:27]
Kyle
You don't even have to try to read this one. This is great.
- [84:29]
Ryan Marcillo
No, but it's kind of like this needs to be done immediately, but it also needs to be done right.
- [84:34]
Kyle
Yes.
- [84:38]
Ryan Marcillo
It's like crashing your car and being like, what kind of Land Rovers you guys got while I'm down? All right. My girlfriend shut down the idea, said we have other things you should be saving money for and propose getting something like a 50 inch TCL for 400. You got anything on TCL?
- [84:53]
Worgon
Damn. You know, I gotta. I got a 50 inch TTL I'm looking at right now. You get the job done.
- [84:58]
Kyle
How do you do it? How do you do it?
- [85:00]
Ryan Marcillo
Unbelievable.
- [85:00]
Kyle
How do you do it?
- [85:01]
Ryan Marcillo
You're not real. Dude.
- [85:03]
Worgon
Dude, I got two TCLs. One in the living room, one in the bedroom.
- [85:06]
Kyle
You're a TCL brand.
- [85:08]
Worgon
They're cheap.
- [85:08]
Ryan Marcillo
Oh, wow.
- [85:10]
Kyle
Holy.
- [85:10]
Ryan Marcillo
It's not about. It's just. I don't deserve you, man.
- [85:19]
Kyle
Crazy.
- [85:21]
Worgon
Hold on. I went to Lion King last Thursday. I'm in the store, we have candy.
- [85:27]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, I know. We needed our Broadway minute. Can you have that for us?
- [85:30]
Worgon
We're doing it right now.
- [85:31]
Howard Beck
No.
- [85:31]
Ryan Marcillo
Okay, yeah, yeah, here we go. And by the way, when you edit this in, can we hear some sort of generic Broadway music? This is. Hey, don't worry, Denver guy. We like you. We're going to get to your tv. We'll get back to it in a second. But yeah, give me a little music intro and the Broadway minute.
- [85:45]
Worgon
So I'm in CVS and I go to text my friend, hey, I got candy. You don't have to worry about it. Totally fine. Intermission. I get a text from Ryan and it just says, great. And I'm like, what's this guy talking about? I go into my text and I texted him by accident, I got candy. And he just responds, great.
- [86:05]
Ryan Marcillo
I Knew it wasn't for me.
- [86:06]
Kyle
But not even the wrong thing tech. Not even wrong tech. Saving some trouble? No.
- [86:12]
Ryan Marcillo
Great.
- [86:13]
Worgon
Yeah.
- [86:14]
Ryan Marcillo
Well, if I had known you longer, I would like awesome dork like you know, not even worgon. Just because it was a random out of nowhere that night. Hey, I just got some candy and I'm at home going great.
- [86:27]
Worgon
Awesome.
- [86:28]
Ryan Marcillo
Give us. That's not what I care about though. I care about your art.
- [86:34]
Kyle
Broadway stadium prices at Broadway.
- [86:36]
Ryan Marcillo
Huge.
- [86:36]
Worgon
Bigger than stadium prices, I would say, my friend. Got a thing of wine. Large. 50 bucks. One thing of wine thing.
- [86:43]
Kyle
What's the thing? It was like a full size.
- [86:49]
Worgon
It was like a regular sized cup, but it was pretty full. But 50 bucks was insane.
- [86:53]
Howard Beck
The show was good.
- [86:54]
Worgon
They sat us. I didn't get anything.
- [86:56]
Kyle
Yeah, with the prices like that, I mean.
- [86:58]
Worgon
Yeah, we.
- [86:58]
Ryan Marcillo
We.
- [86:58]
Worgon
I think we had a bunch to drink tonight, but four. I think it was Nick. Celtics game five carriage over. Can't quite remember but okay. I don't think I need to be drinking heavily twice during the week.
- [87:09]
Ryan Marcillo
Were you hungover on? I wasn't.
- [87:11]
Worgon
I wasn't hungover.
- [87:12]
Ryan Marcillo
No, you worked it out. You ran.
- [87:14]
Worgon
I feel like at my age once. Once during the week is enough.
- [87:17]
Ryan Marcillo
Okay.
- [87:18]
Worgon
Show is fine. Good seats on the lottery. Can't complain. There's your brother.
- [87:24]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, I might want more depth next time you see a show then.
- [87:27]
Worgon
Feedback's always good.
- [87:28]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah, yeah. But I like where this is going. All right, so that's the first ever Wargon Broadway minute. All right. So girlfriend shut down the idea we all that's led us to this whole thing.
- [87:42]
Kyle
TCL. We stopped at TCL.
- [87:44]
Ryan Marcillo
I told her buying one of those TVs is the reason we're currently without one and investing into something. I guess we're not getting a sponsorship from them anytime soon. Investing into something sturdier was worth the extra money. And since I use the TV more than her, I offered to pay for more than half of a nicer tv. I could tell this frustrated her more, but she wouldn't really elaborate outside of quote. Should we really be spending that much on a TV right now? I'm 99 sure she rightfully thinks I'm about to blow money on a TV. This should be putting into 7 savings for an engagement ring. But Haley wants to get a new TV soon too. Just a shitty one that no self respecting ringer bro would tolerate. How do I maneuver this one? Do I convince her to wait in a new TV and put a damper on the NBA and NHL playoffs? Try to Persevere. Persuade her to buy a nicer one. Or should I just buy one and deal with the heat until proposal day? Thanks. Love the pod and table wings. All right, cool.
- [88:31]
Kyle
Really nice job with. With the. What's it called? With the. That TV is why getting a shitty TV is why we're in this situation. Probably not true. You probably would just have a shitty TV for as long as most people would have a tv. But I really like getting out in front of that. It sounds like she didn't buy it, but that would have probably been my first. That would have been my first pull right there. Was like, wow, that's why we're in this situation.
- [88:53]
Ryan Marcillo
Yeah. Yeah. I kind of wish I hadn't said the brand, because I don't think that's fair to do to any brands. Too late now. Anyway. Look, man, I remember I bought myself a Rolex right before I thought I was getting engaged. What the. Because I was like, let me. Let me bang these out. It's my first Rolex. And I'm like. I was. I was already picked out the ring, the whole deal and was like, this was not the other failed one. I couldn't bought a pack of Rolos back then. But, yeah, ring picked out, ready to go, the whole thing. But I started, actually, because of our guy here, I started going, whatever those luxury items were. Like, there's, like, a couple things that I've always wanted. I better get these done now. Because I don't want somebody telling me I can't do it, especially when it's my money, too, which is, again, either you think I'm awesome or you think that's a major problem. I'm okay. I'm okay with all those things. And then, guess what? It didn't matter. Didn't get engaged by all the Rolexes I wanted. So I know where you're coming from here, what I'm telling you to do, because it's gonna suck that I have a tv. Sounds like it's a pretty big part of your life. And it sounds like she's sort of taxing you for not already proposing to her. And you're telling me everything's great about the relationship, but this is kind of the stuff that I don't really love, is that you're right, she would like to watch it from a nice tv. But since you haven't put that ring on her finger, then she's, you know, to all the points that you're. You're laying out here now, it's like, should we really be doing it if this code is like, where's my ring? As if like the TV delays the ring by six months because you're supposed to be saving for this artificial representation of love in the first place, which we can get into. We'll do that another time. You know, imagine if dudes were like, hey, where's my twenty thousand dollar gift? Before I'm taking this seriously, right, dude, Imagine if you were a guy like after dating a woman for two years and you came home to your shared apartment. You were like, having a tough day. And I'd be like, well, to be honest, it's not even about today. You haven't.
- [91:10]
Kyle
I gotta see Todd coming with his new tires, talking about him.
- [91:13]
Ryan Marcillo
I mean, you can't buy me just a bass boat with a little like 20 horsepower Evinrude. Like, I just don't know that I feel like I'm wasting my time. All right, that's gonna go over well with some of the audience. Anyway. The point is, you have the ultimate out, my man. You have the ultimate out. Would you rather watch the NBA and NHL playoffs with a degree of tension for two weeks knowing that once that ring comes out, like you said is happening here shortly, it doesn't matter. This tension was all make believe. Just a part of the timeline in Mesopotamia that we can't even see anymore. Like who invaded who that year. I don't know. It's all shoved together now, thousands of years later. So you might deal with a little stuff. You'll be dealing it while you're watching Edmonton, Dallas. Right? Because you know, you know, like all of it is temporary and it's not real because you already have the ring and you're already going to do all this stuff and it's good to go. So I would rather put up with that stuff for a couple weeks knowing it's all going to be gravy here pretty soon. Because the other side of it is not put up without any attention and not be able to watch the games.
- [92:26]
Kyle
So, dude, count the days backwards. That's basically what this whole pod's about.
- [92:29]
Worgon
Break me to sets of five.
- [92:31]
Kyle
We're counting down from 16 and that's how we're doing it.
- [92:34]
Ryan Marcillo
You don't even have to make it through three full weeks. You're not even like, it's three sets of five. Yeah, that's one after another three times. There you go.
- [92:41]
Kyle
Count it backwards. This is it. We're all. We have to get the tv. We're all on the same page, right, Mike?
- [92:46]
Worgon
Brother, there ain't nothing Wrong with the tcl. That's all I'm going to say.
- [92:49]
Kyle
Yeah, but if you don't, like.
- [92:51]
Ryan Marcillo
You said that.
- [92:52]
Worgon
If you don't like TV, if you want, but love my TCL, they're like.
- [92:56]
Kyle
It'S another $2 to see Lion King. Otherwise we got to go see Cats.
- [93:00]
Ryan Marcillo
You're going to go see.
- [93:00]
Kyle
There's nothing wrong with Cats. Yeah.
- [93:03]
Worgon
Weird fucking show. It's a weird fucking show.
- [93:05]
Ryan Marcillo
Exactly.
- [93:06]
Kyle
But you've seen it, right?
- [93:07]
Worgon
I haven't now.
- [93:09]
Ryan Marcillo
Okay.
- [93:09]
Worgon
I know the music, though.
- [93:12]
Kyle
Got it on Spotify.
- [93:14]
Ryan Marcillo
All right.
- [93:14]
Kyle
Get the tv, man. You're right. Countdown.
- [93:21]
Ryan Marcillo
I mean, you guys are married, so. Well, engaged and married. Sorry, Kyle. I sense you got a little bit more heat perhaps than Wargon did with the TV thing. No, the timeline was like, yeah, yeah.
- [93:37]
Kyle
I screwed it up, too. I like. I, like, dropped too many hints, you know, My jeans were too tight. You could see the fucking box in my pocket. It was like a dead giveaway. By the time we, you know, even left. Almost missed the boat.
- [93:48]
Ryan Marcillo
It was like, but I like you in tight jeans. Thanks.
- [93:55]
Kyle
Yeah, I think it would. The jig was up before we were there, but she thought it was sweet that he was like, oh, we're getting on the boat. We're going to Catalina, blah, blah. But the element of surprise was gone. I probably would have tightened it up a little bit if I had another go at it. So, you know, stay strong. And you might. You might. You might want to, like, in the midst of the tension, being like, it's already taken care of and ruined the surprise. Just don't. Don't ruin the surprise. Don't even drop a hint. I wish I could have taken a hint or two back. I just can't keep secrets, man. Especially when I know she's going to be, like, blown away, you know, I don't think I've given her a birthday gift on time in a while. It's like, you know, immediately it's like, I know something you don't know. Fucking nailed it. Then two weeks early, I'm like, ah, here it is. So I'd say keep. Keep the. Keep the cap on that engagement if you can.
- [94:48]
Ryan Marcillo
Another email Life advice, boss. Ordering for me. Hey, guys. What's up? 28 year old. I know. I already hated 195. Six two. I wish I had an NBA comp. But honestly, I was a six man on a three and three team in college. Not great. Bench 225. All right, though. I changed careers at a pharmacy last year. I've Had a lot of success early, winning the sales comps nationwide. Major imposter syndrome. My boss, let's call him Bob, is about 20 years older than me. Solid dude, really helpful when he works with me. Bob leaves me alone and trust me, so I have a lot of freedom. He travels to my territory and will work with me maybe once or twice a quarter for a few days. When Bob is here, we go for dinner and drinks. Bob is pretty socially unaware of a lot of things, but really enjoys hanging out with me, given I'm one of the only dudes on the team. So here's the weird part. Every time we go to a restaurant, even breakfast, Bob picks two things and asks if I want to split those with him. Ugh, that's brutal, dude. Bob is adamant that we share two things he likes and not just order for ourself. It's always on the company card. So honestly, he could just order both for himself. I personally don't care, but it's just overall uncomfortable. But it's free food and drinks at nice restaurants. If Bob wants the steak and ribs, he orders both, then splits the plates and gives me one. I try to push back the first time. Yeah, I guess.
- [96:05]
Kyle
Really ribs with you, but I don't want half your steak.
- [96:07]
Ryan Marcillo
Come on. Especially because, like on a steak too, if it's a rib eye or something, like, there's going to be one side that's better. I try to push back, I guess unless you split it lengthwise and you're there.
- [96:18]
Kyle
Don't even look. Right.
- [96:19]
Ryan Marcillo
I can't. I try to push back. Really confused why I didn't participate in this and started hard selling me on all the dishes he wanted to split. Maybe he doesn't even like you, dude. Just the only guy that's doing this. How about that idea? Blow your mind. We've even split two different omelettes he wanted at breakfast. Pretty. I have a pretty good thing going and I like my job. What would you guys do? Just keep putting up with the weird restaurants thing. Not to ruffle any feathers or try to change this. I think it's time for you to start making up some allergies, buddy.
- [96:52]
Kyle
Yeah, he said. He said he pushed back in. The guy's adamant, right? Like when he said, can't understand it. Right. He can't understand it. And so this was like 20 seconds of him pleading his case, and then he was just like, all right, the Cajun pasta, it is like what I don't like. I guess I'm having a hard time understanding how much he actually tried because that's what we all want to know. Like, how far have you taken this pushback and when are you retreating? Is that when he looks confused? When you're suggesting ordering your own things and you stop it? There's. I guess it's been unclear to me how hard he's pushed this because this is eating away at him, and it would be eating away at me, too. Quarterly. What's. I mean, that's four times a year, right? So this happens, you know, every couple of months. He's got another go at this, and he's thinking the whole time about wanting to order his. He might even like the thing. It's. Now it's about the principle of having to split with this man. I'd maybe push it a little bit further. I'd maybe push it a little bit harder. Just try to stand on your own, too.
- [97:54]
Ryan Marcillo
There's.
- [97:56]
Worgon
I think you sort of swerve into this. Next time he's there and he suggests two dishes, you say, actually, I really want dish. One just for myself. I don't really want to share. But you pick one of the dishes that he suggests, I think, to sort of make it your own. I don't know.
- [98:09]
Kyle
It kind of seems like a win, but it also kind of seems like it's, you know, you didn't get the full. You didn't pass the full stone. To put it in perspective, I think.
- [98:19]
Worgon
You just got to get it out of the way once. Once you do it once, I think you're out of the woods here.
- [98:23]
Kyle
Yes, I agree.
- [98:24]
Worgon
Yeah.
- [98:25]
Ryan Marcillo
I think this is a great example that we should all just fuck with each other way more. Because it would just be awesome if the emailer, like, tells his friends and, like, he tries to pull this to the next breakfast. The omelette thing's gross, too. And just go, hey, I'm getting pancakes. And if you can't handle it, you can fucking fire me right now, Bob. It's going to alter the relationship.
- [98:44]
Worgon
Bob's just like, no problem. We'll split him.
- [98:49]
Ryan Marcillo
I just hate food pushers, man. I mean, it's a bit like the free throw merchant thing. It's not so much. I hate the bad calls. I don't like those. I don't like the rewarding of some of the stuff. But I hate the defense of the stuff way more than the actual act itself. And I just don't like food pushers. I hate it. I hate family style. I'm always hungry after family style. And people could say, oh, that's because of some social thing. No, it's because I know I'm not going to be able to eat enough and I want to be able to eat enough and I can pay for it. So why wouldn't I want to order the thing that I want to eat Instead of sampling 60% of things I want? And then it's like, oh, you don't want the squid crudo? And I'm like, I don't, I don't actually, like, I'll try a fucking bite, but I'm not craving it and I don't really want it. And I've eaten plenty of squid. It's just, you know, I think people are honestly like, all right, yep, cool, man. Squid. I'll get the chicken tenders. No, I'm not eating chicken tenders at dinner. But I'm just, I remember one place we went, like was an agent thing and then he just decided he was going to order for all of us. And on top of that, family style. And then on top of that started making our plates and it's like, man, I think I switch agency soon after that. And it was, you know, I was like, I never want to have, you know, and there's, I think it's kind of like an upbringing in the social, the family part of it. Like, I can appreciate what family style means to like some people, but if it's like some fancy LA restaurant and it's 10 people, you're just not. And I'm sorry to the person who's listening to this right now that knows what I'm talking about, but he'll laugh about it anyway. I just don't like people like think how insane that actually is. I'd like to share a meal with you, but I want it all on my terms.
- [100:38]
Kyle
Yeah. You know, so the tendencies of maybe one of the paths. Sociopath, psychopath, I don't know.
- [100:47]
Ryan Marcillo
You don't know? I think this is about though. I mean, I would ask the emailer, like, what's your track record with this kind of behavior? Are you so non confrontational that, you know, you're just letting this happen?
- [100:57]
Kyle
I mean, look, this has got to be on the guy. On the guy, the perpetrator. There's nothing about you that would give off like, yeah, this guy would like me to order for him, I think.
- [101:04]
Ryan Marcillo
No, but I do. Well, I mean, look, we've all been there in certain work situations where you go, I'm, I don't want to do anything. Right. I don't want to do anything that could jeopardize because, you know, sometimes you're just dealing with these people that are decision makers, and they're so unhinged on. I'm not talking, like, crazy crazy, but just they're processing of, like, normal, everyday activities. And you'll be like, you think that's normal? I mean, again, that's very. Like, all of us probably have something where the masses would go, that's how you do that, or whatever. But, like, in this case, I think the exercise is for the emailer to learn. Like, I'm. I'm a little worried. Like, are. Are there other things where you allow this kind of stuff to happen to you over and over again? Again, it's Bob's fault, but the. The exercise should be for you. You have to be determined to find a way to alter this course. It could. Yeah, just straight up go, you know what? We've been doing this a little while, Bob. And you know what? It's more like, you know, again, if it's your boss, you can't say, this seems like a better transaction for you. You get to have the two things. Like, we had a roommate like this in college. There's a place that did an awesome chicken parm. They did an awesome meatball sub. And then he was always looking for somebody on the other end. He's like, who wants to go six and six? Like, does somebody want to go meatball, chicken parm? Meatball, chicken parm. And finally after a while, we're like, no. Like, if I want a fucking chicken parm, I want the extra six inches today. And if I want a meatball, I want the. I don't want to. Yeah, there we go. Tight jeans, full circle.
- [102:35]
Kyle
I'm with anything else on this style.
- [102:37]
Worgon
I was already making a note there. I wonder what that was.
- [102:40]
Kyle
Well, this is.
- [102:41]
Ryan Marcillo
This is a. I was talking about Ryan. You golfing today?
- [102:45]
Kyle
Thinking about it?
- [102:46]
Ryan Marcillo
No, I thought about something else entirely. It has nothing to do with anything. We've got just done for two hours, and I wrote a notation down.
- [102:52]
Kyle
It's your curse, isn't it? Yeah. I was just gonna say family style just stresses me out. I'm like, I'm doing. It's a numbers game. There's always gonna be one or two of the items I'm not into, and I'm like, did everybody get the potato skin? Is. I. I don't know if. I don't know if. She looks like. She's not a potato skin type of person. How long do I wait? You know, it's like, when do you. When do you go for seconds at the top of table? I don't know. I don't know how that works. And I. I'd just like to not be involved if I could, but I don't know. There's some family members of mine that really enjoy that sort of style of eating, and I'm just playing a numbers game the whole time. It's like that Galifianakis thing with all the numbers swirling around. I'm like, he.
- [103:28]
Ryan Marcillo
I don't.
- [103:28]
Kyle
I think he likes the green beans more than I do. And I'm pretty sure that that cauliflower dish might be a little too fatty for his taste. So maybe I can. Maybe I can do that. So I'm just. I can't even focus on. On having a good time when it's family style. I'm always, like, just trying to get. Get what's mine, you know?
- [103:47]
Ryan Marcillo
If you think about it, family style is the most selfish way to eat. That'll do it for the pod today. Thanks to Wargon. Thanks to Kyle. What a bar. Who else do we have on the pod today? Was Freas with us?
- [104:03]
Worgon
Yeah, Fre is here.
- [104:04]
Ryan Marcillo
Okay. You want to say hi?
- [104:10]
Kyle
Fix it in post.
- [104:13]
Ryan Marcillo
Hey, guys. What's up, man? All right, cool, cool. That'll do it for us. I'll be on with Bill on Sunday, our Sunday pod. I don't know what time we're taping that one now. I got to look ahead of the schedule. So again, check us out on the Spotify app so you can watch along. You can also, of course, please subscribe to our YouTube page. Maybe Kyle and I just do some sort of YouTube thing here because Seruti is usually the one that's in charge of that, and that's lacking a bit. And as always, thank you for subscribing and listening to the Ryo podcast. Run your Spotify.
- [104:43]
Worgon
They were going to name me Michael Jordan. My dad was like, I don't think he can live up to it. So they named me Michael. Jared.
- [105:03]
Ryan Marcillo
Foreign. Must be 21 and older president. Select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 + and present in D.C. gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050. For 24. 7 support Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE NY in New York.