Welcome in to the newest edition of the Justin Time Sports Podcast.
I am your owner and host, Justin Jackson.
In this week's episode, we'll be discussing the NBA as we are smack dab in the middle
of the playoffs.
We'll be discussing the WNBA as their new season is tipping off and we'll have our
Jax Hot Take.
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This is just a time sports come and get your weekly change
Oh, we have been apart for far too long.
I've been doing a lot of stuff in my life.
Ramping back up and playing football.
Now getting involved with basketball.
And the YouTube show.
Sports media and stuff going down.
Playoffs because it's so weird.
None of that is an excuse guys.
I should have been with you guys a lot more.
My apologies.
I know I go in every year saying I'm going to do 52-52.
It never works out.
I kind of told you guys I was going to build in a few weeks throughout with vacation.
I don't know if you guys have seen it.
I'm going to do 52-52.
Obviously, smack dab in the middle of the NBA playoffs.
Now that I had mine.
However, it kind of did work out and gave us the opportunity to talk.
And I promise, I guarantee it.
It called a jack guarantee that I will not take multiple weeks off from now.
Oh, through the NBA finals.
Probably took a break before the Olympics get started.
But that is the last.
And then of course, we have the NBA finals.
And then we have the NBA finals.
And that is the last.
And then of course, once we're back for the Olympics,
football is ramping up.
And then we'll be every week throughout the rest of the year.
But anyway,
enough of the behind the scenes stuff.
Enough of the scheduling stuff.
Much in advance, we will definitely make sure to be on every single week.
Between now and the NBA finals.
Because you guys want to hear from me.
I want to hear from you guys.
I love your feedback.
I love your interactions.
that I realized I hadn't been on in a few weeks.
Again, a lot of stuff's been going on in my life,
nothing bad.
I don't want you guys to worry about me,
but it has been a lot.
And so with the YouTube show,
I kinda been getting on my opinions with the YouTube show.
I definitely want you guys to subscribe
to the Just In Time Sports YouTube,
as always we'll link it.
And then the JTS After Dark show is kind of where
I've been getting my opinions out.
Definitely watched the last video or the last episode
featuring my guy Mike Bell,
who's a fellow Patriots fan,
so there was three Patriots fans on there,
of course with Jai from Hey Jai.
Show produced by IMS Productions.
It is always a interesting time
with a bunch of Patriots fans on.
It was during the end of the Philly,
next game five, I believe, was the end of the game,
Mike Bell was watching.
But of course subscribe to the YouTube channel.
But again, enough of the behind the scenes stuff.
Let's get into what you guys are here for.
You guys are here for the NBA playoffs, right?
You guys are here for that kind of talk.
So of course you guys know what's going down
so far in round one.
Round one officially ended today.
So I'm recording this Sunday night,
about 10, 24 local time.
So this is all of eight hours-ish,
seven and a half hours-ish,
following the conclusion officially of round one.
Round two tipped off Saturday.
We'll discuss that of course.
But round one officially ended
with game seven of the Cavs and Magic.
And it's always weird these early rounds,
whenever there's one series that goes seven,
or two series that goes seven,
they'll be finishing while the other series are starting.
So that's always pretty weird to me.
I don't know why the NBA does that overlap.
But who knows?
They have stuff timed out with arenas and schedules
and all kinds of other stuff.
So they get really,
they do the best they can with the schedule.
It's always weird to me, like, you can't wait a day.
Or you can't wait two days.
You know, like, it's always weird.
Like, for instance, we played the first game
of the second round on Saturday,
and played the last game of the first round on Sunday.
Odd to me, very odd to me.
But the NBA's been doing it for years.
No one's really, I guess, complained enough to change it.
But regardless, the Cavs and Magic close their series.
Tonight's round one is officially over,
which means I can come in and discuss
a round one that is finished.
Not a lot of prediction here, but a whole lot of recap
until we get into our prediction, of course,
a little bit later, we'll talk about round two.
But starting off round one, of course,
we're gonna go east to west.
Celtics dominate.
I'm not gonna spend much time on their series.
They like the best team in the series.
They like the best team in the league.
One problem, though,
presenting this is down with a calf injury.
And it is very similar to the calf injury
Giannis went through.
As we know now, Giannis did never play in the playoffs.
He got hurt about a week or so out
from the end of regular season,
even with the week of the regular season ending
and the playing time and a week and a half
playoff series, he said after the game,
he wasn't even close.
So, of course, the Indians experiencing the same thing.
Let's say he's down a month.
That puts him June 5th.
That puts him in the NBA finals for his return.
So his season could be overdue or a calf strain.
I mean, like, if it's the same injury as Giannis,
he could be, his season could be overdue or a calf strain.
That is brutal for the Celtics.
So we're not gonna spend much time on them.
We're gonna spend more time on them
and talk about their prediction
in that second round series
and who they're playing and who they're going against.
The Knicks and Philly,
we're gonna spend a lot of time
on definitely probably three series.
And this is one of them.
This was one of those series.
This is a classic series.
It went six.
I wish it would have gone seven,
but it ended up going six.
The Knicks won the series in six,
but they won the series points total by one.
That's to tell you,
these games went down to the end every single time.
There was a whole lot of stuff going on.
That was the famous Tyrese Maxey mugging in the garden
that ultimately the last human in the report comes back
and say there were multiple missed calls
at the end of the game.
There was Joellen Bede hitting shots all crazy.
There's the famous,
there's Joellen Bede injuring Mr. Robinson.
There's the infamous shot of zooming in
on Joellen Bede's knee.
And there's blood coming out of it.
So it's like, it's already braced.
I'm sure it's heavily bandaged
and blood seeping through it.
Like what's going on with them Bede?
There's also the Belles-Palls incident in this series.
There's the Nova Boys, Josh Hart hitting the game,
winning, you're in the game series.
You're the series winning three rather,
after Nick Nurse very clearly strategy
was to leave Josh Hart open, 30% shooter,
from three this season.
It wasn't a Joellen Bronson.
It wasn't a Dottie DiVincenzo.
You know, but the strategy clearly was to let Josh Hart
shoot and burn them in the end.
I mean, this series had everything.
It had the New York media, it had the New York fans.
It had, because the towns are pretty close,
Philly and New York,
a lot of New York fans were driving to Philly.
Especially if you were a Knicks fan
and you didn't want to play Madison Square Garden prices,
it was cheaper to drive to Philly.
And so even in this next series, you guys know who won.
So Philly, New York is gonna play Indiana.
As of right now, instead of getting a lower,
instead of getting a mid-level,
Madison Square Garden ticket,
it would be cheaper to fly to Indiana,
book a hotel room and sit in the lower bowl
than it would be to simply go to the game of New York.
So because of which, I mean, I've been in New York City,
Madison Square Garden is beautiful.
I've been on, I wanna sit outside,
should be doing a facilities tour.
Definitely gonna do it the next time.
The tour dates, the tour times are weird.
Definitely gonna do a facility tour the next time, right?
It's gonna make a basketball, right?
But Madison Square Garden knows a lot of celebrities
gonna come to the game, it's the playoffs.
It's New York City, it's the playoffs.
A lot of celebrities gonna come to the games
where the prices go through the roof.
And so because of which, I'm gonna say, it came out that
if you flew from New York to Indiana,
got a hotel room and sat in the lower bowl,
it's cheaper than sitting in the mid-level,
in saying New York City, sitting in the mid-level.
That's ridiculous.
Baby, look at New Orleans,
speaking of the playoff tickets,
look at New Orleans playoff tickets,
they're getting in prices like $30, $40,
because they didn't out-price their market,
regardless of who's coming in town.
Now, if it was against the Lakers,
the tickets probably would've went insane.
But you know, because the Lakers playing game,
they're getting in prices like 20.
So definitely did not out-price their market,
but New York has priced goused the series.
But anyway, back to the Knicks and Philly itself,
hold on, I'm changing about tickets.
Back to the Knicks and Philly itself.
It was a series where if you're Philadelphia,
and we'll talk about Philadelphia later,
this was a good series for you,
because you proved your number two.
Hear me out.
The reason why Jalen Brunson is not in Dallas,
and Kyrie Irving's in Dallas, and not with the Lakers,
is because Rick Carlisle lost all faith
in Jalen Brunson in the last series.
All of it.
Jalen Brunson was effectively benched,
and that is why he was not really given the contract
that he deserved.
New York, Dallas really didn't step up
for Brunson to New York.
All but stolen was one of their eyes in broad daylight.
That's when Dallas wanted to step up.
By that point, the relationship severed.
Brunson was joining his father in New York City.
That's how we got here.
That's how we arrived at this point.
All the other dominant teams of the fall,
Kyrie and Zuckerman.
Things happened after that, right?
So,
but Philly,
getting back to Philly,
Philly here now has a second coach.
And they know they have a coach called Ty.
His name is Tyrese Maxley.
So it wasn't a bad series of Philly,
but it made for a classic series.
It was a classic B series in physical.
Big shots were made.
New York and Philly don't like each other.
We had F.J. Williams being chanced going,
F.J. Williams and Brunson chanced going.
You had two teams that just battled and competed
in fan base that didn't like each other.
Like, it was game seven again.
You talk about how it's cheaper to go,
if you leave New York,
it would be cheaper of you to leave New York,
fly to another city,
stay there, get a little bowl ticket.
Well, a lot of the Knicks fans,
New York and Philadelphia,
were relatively close.
They were just driving to the Sixers game.
They would get, it would spend a good chunk on tickets,
tickets they could never get in the Mecca,
and they simply just drove to Philly.
So to prevent that,
one of the Philadelphia 76 owners bought like 2,000 tickets
to give out to local people in Philadelphia
with proof that they're a Sixers fan,
by the way,
like on social media, I don't know.
Proof that they're a Sixers fan
to prevent people from New York from buying them.
Because, you know,
X amount of tickets go to the season holders,
and if not college,
who else would X amount of tickets go to the whole team?
But you know, the rest goes to the general admission.
So in order to stop all the Knicks fans
from buying up the general admission tickets,
one of the owners, I believe it was Josh Harris,
bought like 2,000 of the tickets,
and we're gonna give them to local people in Philadelphia
under the instruction,
under the stipulation that they were 76 fans.
And so that's kind of what Series 11 are,
except the total margin of victory by score was one point
from the day with the Knicks.
Insane series, physical series,
they battled hard every game and they closed.
Like it was a situation where they went to war,
but again, it is early to seven.
I will say that, and I will repeatedly say that,
it deserved a seventh game.
I think mainly we deserved a seventh game,
because that game was ridiculous.
But it doesn't matter to me to hear a little bit
from your team, you're saying,
so I'm not that mad.
But continuing to move on, Indiana upset Milwaukee.
And I spent a couple of minutes,
one minute or so on this.
Indiana got the win on Series 11.
They're the first Series 11 since Reggie Melo-Brater.
Congratulations, all right?
Well, maybe it's not, but it felt like it, right?
For all those people who are discussing
Doc Rivers' job future, let's talk about it.
Number one, he's not getting fired.
Let's just go from that, he's not getting fired.
He steps down, whatever, different composition.
He's not getting fired.
Number two, he took over a team in the middle of the season.
Some people have said they were 30 and 11 when he took over.
This is true.
The finish below, they never got to 50 wins.
This is true.
What is also true is De Gea were one of the worst offense
in the league, we know they were 29th in the league
in offense.
Doc Rivers is there, they're 14th and 15th.
Also their schedule drastically improved
from the beginning of the year.
Also, he went into the playoffs without the odds.
He was still fairly out of the cast, right?
He also played two games without Dave winning one.
Was it the master class of coaching that Doc Rivers,
a man of his experience with those guys
was supposed to do?
The answer is no, it wasn't.
Was it one of the hardest jobs in the NBA to do this year?
Absolutely.
He went one and one with Chris Middleton
as his number one guy in the playoff series.
Like, not just a regular old game,
not like it was a couple games
and Chris Middleton won one
because one of them was a Tuesday night in Brooklyn.
No, he won one of those games in a playoff series
with Chris Middleton, Bobby Portis, Patrick Beverly
and Brook Lopez.
I get it, I get it, beating up on Doc Rivers is fun.
I understand, but he does not deserve that slander.
It actually to me takes away the viability
and the likability and the notoriety of the Indiana Pacers.
Those guys went to work.
That was a great series by them.
They lost a game they shouldn't have,
but they won a game they shouldn't have.
So, it's an eight and a six either way.
That pace seems good.
They're young.
They play decent-ish defense.
Ever since the movement of Buddy Hill,
granted it's not like they're the 96 Bulls.
They're still highly torchable.
But they play good-ish defense.
Rick Carlisle's always been really good
at getting an offense going
with Tyrese Halliburton and the rest of that crew,
Miles Turner.
And the rest of that crew, they look good.
You know what I'm doing?
I think they're gonna get their head kicked
in the next round.
Nah, probably.
But they look good.
So, that's gonna be a very interesting series in New York.
Halliburton gets the mech on the big stage.
I always thought that's a big thing for a younger,
for any player really, is to get that New York playoff game.
Now, even if you're not a Knick,
especially if you're not a Knick,
like Trey Young became one of the biggest villains
in the NBA, because of what he did to the Knicks in New York.
So, to get that space, to get that mountain,
to get that eyeball attention is gonna be huge
for the New York Knicks, Jalen Brunson,
and the rest of that crew.
And then of course, Cavs and Magic,
as I said, finished today.
A series that not many people, myself included, watched.
I mean, I watched a good part of game seven,
but for the most part, kind of from under the radar.
They usually played in a odd time,
played during a lot of the bigger matchups,
played off TV.
What I mean by off TV, I don't mean like literally off TV.
They played on like NBA TV, true TV.
They didn't even get, I think they got ESPN until game six.
When they got ESPN, game six, and game seven.
In which case, it's actually a pretty good series.
Paolo Bancaro is real.
He's gonna, he's congratulates Orlando
for the next race of the franchise.
He is going to carry them for a very long time.
Donovan Mitchell, kind of exercising
a little bit of those playoff demons.
I thought it was gonna get dark for him in this game
and the clear Cavs organization,
and that he will be looking to elsewhere.
He still might, but it's gonna be a lot harder
to get him to move, just opposed to if they had lost
in the first round to Orlando.
Cleveland, you deserve all this comeuppance.
You tampered with the standings to try and draw Orlando.
Instead of just getting Milwaukee,
oh man, you ended up in a seven game series.
So you deserve the fact that you gonna have
little to no rest, little to no game planning,
and you get the boss to sell this in round two.
You deserve that.
You deserve everything that happens to you in that series.
No, because again, they tampered with the record.
We spoke about it in the last podcast.
Like, that's so messed up.
Like, we're talking, this isn't, and I don't like when,
you weren't trying to get the number one pick, right?
Where all of a sudden, you, oh, we're gonna
purposely play terrible teams,
and we're gonna purposely not have our best players play,
and anybody with a pulse has an injury or a sickness.
And all these G League guys that hadn't put all season,
they're gonna get 35 minutes tonight.
Like, that's sort of an affairs activity.
Well, I don't like it.
Tanking's been a part of the game for a long time.
There's a generation prospect out there,
and the team is bad, and they realize they have a chance
at said generation of prospect.
They begin to do things to maneuver for that prospect.
Again, tanking has been a thing for a very long time.
While I don't agree with it,
it's almost one of the ancient arts.
It's almost grandfathered in acceptance.
Like, all right, it's just part of the game.
Purposely maneuvering the standings in the playoffs
is vile.
It's absolutely vile.
Like, it can't be allowed to stand.
It can't one of those things
that you try to grandfather in later,
because it was so messed up.
You purposely maneuvered the standings to avoid a team
that ultimately you would have beaten easier.
And so you'll come up and say,
is you went in a dog fight, seven full games with the Cavs.
At no point were you wrestling with your Lords.
At no point did you have off time.
You're gonna have a day off, which would be Monday.
And then I think you're playing game one on Tuesday
against Boston.
Congratulations, you're gonna either get swept up,
sent home in a very quick five,
and all your maneuvering will come up
into ultimately netted you one playoff series.
Instead of, you could have went on the other side,
played Philly, I'm sorry.
Battle on indeed would have been a struggle.
I agree.
But then you would have not had Boston in the second round.
You could have drew New York in the second round.
I mean, you could have drew New York.
Not New York, you could have drew, at that point,
would have been, yeah, New York in the second round.
Had to take that third round.
But didn't have the world ball to the third round.
But instead you get them in the round too.
Say everything that happens to you Cleveland, you deserve.
But hey, you got round one, right?
But let's move on to the West.
Now again, with the West,
the number one seed are absolutely dominated.
And the Thunder really didn't dominate the Pelicans,
my Pelicans in the first two games.
They didn't dominate us in game four.
They got us in game three.
We said to Charlie Barkley,
getting into it with the city of Galveston
and Beyonce's mother.
Talking about driving Galveston down to that dirty water.
But Pelicans are out.
Hopefully, Daddy, oh, I don't have that in my notes.
Hopefully that's the end of the Zion, Beyond,
Beyond, Zion, B-I, CJ era.
Cool with Zion, one Zion in my franchise player.
What I saw in the playing game
was enough to convince me of that.
Please hand the keys over to him.
One of, if not both,
a CJ McCollum and Brandon Ingram's time in New Orleans
needs to be over.
We've seen enough of it.
David Griffin has agreed with me.
He's seen enough of it.
It's time to move on, right?
You've got disgruntled guys all over the league,
star players, Charlie Young,
in different locations that I think,
Donald and Mitchell, I think could be huge
to partner with a Zion.
I think he's a great point guard.
Trae Young, as I said, would be the ideal person in my mind.
He can shoot, he can dance, he can pass.
He's a 29 and 10 guy, 29 and 11 guy rolling out of bed.
In my opinion, he'd be perfect to play with Zion.
And then of course you would have Trae and Herb in Zion.
Then of course you'd fill in your fifth,
either with George and Zion Children's on a great contract
or maybe another good center pops up in the trades
with you're gonna see them a couple, who knows, right?
But that iteration of the Pelicans is over.
OKC into that.
Kudos, OKC, they're rolling around too.
Minnesota ended Phoenix.
And we're gonna speak a lot more about Phoenix later.
But Minnesota, Anthony Edwards has arrived.
He, my guy, a lot of this thing has been
changing of the guard in the NBA.
The old guard officially handing over the crown
to the new guard.
We had Steph Curry, of course, not even making the playoffs
and lost to a younger team, lost to Sacramento.
You see in this series, Kevin Durant almost like nodding.
See Anthony Edwards like, it's yours now.
And Anthony Edwards, being Anthony Edwards,
on the DX sign, yelling at Kevin Durant,
a lot of verbal stuff back and forth.
He was being himself.
Part of what makes Ant-Man, Ant-Man,
he was absolutely enjoying his time.
And he said, dethroning one of the legends in the game,
one of the living statues.
It was pretty spectacular, honestly, to watch.
And you got Rudy Gobert every day showing
why he is worth the money.
He's not a regular season numbers guy.
You gotta see eight, six, and three in the box score
and go, disgusting.
And then you're gonna see he was a plus 24
because his defense rating in the game was something insane.
You know what I'm saying?
And that's why he's there.
And they show the Biden playoffs.
He gave to Nerkus Fitz,
because Nerkus couldn't do anything under the rim
because everything had to come to him.
That's kind of a blessing in the curse of Gobert,
is the fact that if he ever under the rim center,
he's gonna torture you because he's so tall,
he's so long, he's like, it's amazing,
he helps out the defender.
He can now guard two people at one time.
He can guard on every drive,
and he can get back to you
because you have to get to the rim to score.
That's why certain people torture him,
torture him, because, torture Gobert, rather,
because if he tries to help on that drive
and leaves Anthony Davis,
he could shoot a mid-range shot.
Yokey could shoot a three,
or Kat who could shoot a three,
or Kat's on the team,
but Kat back in the day could shoot a three.
Trying to get some other,
Embiid can shoot the middie,
like he leaves that mid-range open,
you kill him all day.
It's like when the Clippers, a couple years ago,
I believe, went small,
and so they went small with five out around the perimeter,
and Gobert was in a torture rack
because his instinct was to two-nine the paint,
and he'd kind of keep blocking the paint,
watch for the drive, whatever,
and he kept kicking the tennis man,
he was just running in corner three.
It's not so bad that he played Gobert off the floor.
It was insane.
And so that's what Gobert wants to do,
but the big three in Phoenix
did not come through.
Can I get a I told you so?
Can I get a, am I allowed,
as a personal point of privilege,
to say I told you so?
I actually gave them too much credit.
Some people were responding under my old posts
about the big three.
I actually gave them too much credit.
I said they were second round and out,
they were first round and out.
They very well could have been swept in and out.
Oh no, they were swept.
Right?
I don't recall Phoenix winning a game in that series.
If they weren't swept, it was effectively a sweep.
Let me look that up because,
let me look that up.
It's been a while to bracket.
I'm on the ESPN app, hope it doesn't take that long.
Nope, first round.
Nope, it was a sweep, yep.
Yeah, no, so they got swept by Minnesota.
Oh, it was a painful changing of the guard.
Kind of reminds people,
reminding me rather, of when Kevin Ramsey was in Brooklyn
and they had that team and they got swept.
And Minnesota swept them this time.
I mean, absolutely brutal ending to this season for Phoenix.
Shout out to all this hope and laughs and greatness
and it ends in a sweep.
It ends in pain.
You fight to get to the sixth seed to get swept.
It's like, at least it's in New Orleans,
so I got the sixth seed.
Zion would have been healthy.
He loves playing against Minnesota.
We'll see what happens, but,
Phoenix, when I was a whimper,
and we'll talk about Phoenix a little more later
when we start breaking down individual teams.
The Nuggets, I have in my notes, escaped the Lakers.
And yes, you're thinking four-one escaped?
They won the series by a total of 12 points.
And we spoke about how the Knicks
in a battle of six games won the series by a total of one.
The Nuggets won the series by a total of 12.
They lost the time in the lead by,
like a hundred and something minutes,
start that in the series.
The Lakers had double-digit lead in every single game,
including a 20-point lead and an 18-point lead
in different games and lost them both.
Now, if the Lakers simply were able to close out a game,
so if they play a good third quarter,
they have a chance of sweeping the Nuggets,
if not beating the Nuggets by four-one.
But they said they could do neither of those things,
so now they're at home,
watching the Nuggets play the Timberwolves in round two.
Because that is the breaks, that's the breaks.
Different stuff that happened in the series
kind of tilted its way to the Nuggets.
They took advantage of it when they had to.
If the game was close to five minutes left,
you know it's gonna be the Yokes, Murray, Pick and Roll,
and go in the dunk spot,
look out for Michael Porter Jr. and KCP on the wings
for shooting threes.
I mean, that is the offense.
And so the Lakers couldn't do anything about it.
Kind of ran out of gas, LeBron and AD were playing
so many minutes to keep them in it.
Kugdianzler Russell was useless for most of it.
Austin Reeves was useless for most of it.
Rear Hasewer was useless for most of it.
So you got LeBron and AD,
who should not be doing that at this stage of his career,
specifically LeBron,
playing so many heavy minutes just to keep the Lakers in it.
And then of course, we needed them to do that sort of thing,
they were out of gas.
And of course, none of the others were hitting,
so yeah, it was a cluster mess.
But now Denver gets absolutely to go play the minutes
with the Timberwolves,
should be a really, really, really great series.
I expect that to go seven.
And then the Mavericks.
Oh, the Mavericks, the Kyrie and Luca led Mavericks.
Finally, and I do mean this,
finally expunged or got the Clippers monkey off their back.
That felt like, it almost felt therapeutic
when the game was over.
Like, the Dallas organization breathed.
Cause the Clippers were like the grim reaper
to their success over the past couple years.
Like, oh, Dallas had this amazing run, this amazing season.
Clippers in five.
Like, oh, Dallas is finally gonna make a move
and Luca's gonna enter that upper echelon of winners.
Clippers in six.
Like, and it just kept feeling like the Clippers were,
like I said, the grim reaper of the Mavericks organization.
Like, they're gonna, like,
if anybody's gonna beat the Mavericks,
it's gonna be the Clippers.
And Kyrie amazing shots, step backs from Luca
and Derrick Lively playing great center minutes
and Cole Island, of course, being hurt again.
And Paul George, not playing with,
he had like one foot out,
but definitely not his most engaged series.
Pena Tucker was useless.
Evita Zubats would've felt like
he ran out of gas every game.
And ultimately the Clippers get the series win
and they move on.
Now, we're gonna talk about round two for the second time.
Not nearly as many in-depth analysis
as we have been going by round one.
But in round two, we have Sultry versus Cavs.
Spoke about it, spoke about the Cavs segment.
Congratulations Cavs, your victory's getting
punched in the face by the Celtics.
I heard the Sultry's in the series in five games.
The best player in the series is on the Celtics.
The second best series playing the series
also arguably on the Celtics.
And the fourth best player in the series is on the Celtics.
The Celtics are gonna run away and hide with this series.
It'll be five.
The Closers in Boston.
Cavs will win game three out of pride
and then get smoked in game four and five.
Celtics are gonna absolutely dominate this series.
Congratulations to them on being
in the Eastern Conference Finals.
And then they will play the New York Knicks.
The Knicks are gonna play the Indiana Pacers.
The Knicks are a better team.
Jalen Brunson's a better than Tyrus Halliburton.
Miles Turner won't be as big an issue
for Hardenstein and Mitch Robinson
as he was as Joel Edd was, obviously.
So that being said, that being the advantage,
the Knicks are to me the better team.
They have the better coach.
They have the better home court advantage.
If Knicks fans are willing to drive to Philly
and they find out how cheap they can get tickets in Indiana,
they might fly to Indiana.
So I don't expect the Knicks to be,
I expect it to be a good series.
Sixth Gamer, I didn't expect the Knicks
to be in control for most of it.
Indiana has great shooting.
They can get hot when they get out.
Tyrus Halliburton can win the game.
You know when I always do series,
I would think about how many ways you can win a game.
Pace to get hot from three
and Tyrus Halliburton just flat out winning you a game
are the two ways that I thought about were even possible.
And then of course, an awful Knicks shooting night.
But the two main ways were two main ways about,
you know, those are the ways they can win a game.
And so that being said,
I've got the Knicks winning in six games.
Minnesota, destroying Denver.
This is a series I had been in one game
Anthony Edwards went ballistic in it.
38 points I believe, absolutely insane
what he was able to do in game one.
And they defeated the Nuggets in Denver in the ball arena.
So now they have flipped home court into Minnesota.
Of course they're gonna try and go 2-0 in Denver
and really put the Nuggets behind the eight ball.
A lot of the Nuggets,
the game looked so similar to a Laker game.
The Nuggets started off really, really slow
and slowly but surely they called their way back.
And in the end, Anthony Edwards was just too much.
He was able to overcome the Nuggets
even though they fought and fought and fought
late in that game.
Anthony Edwards was just too much.
Of course Michael Jordan comparisons are out everywhere.
A lot of the moves, they look very similar.
I admit that.
They do look very similar.
And Anthony Edwards is just an absolute treasure.
But I expect Denver to come back, go to war.
That they're defending chance for a reason.
I saw they bounced back Mr. Lakers.
They didn't have the sole start.
And Michael Malone spoke repeatedly to his team
about the slow starts.
Like, you're not gonna always be able to come back.
Minnesota's better than Lakers.
So the odds of Denver just deciding midway third quarter,
all right, let's start playing now.
And charging back from 18, charging back from 20,
it is not something that I expect them
to be able to do on Minnesota.
And so the Nuggets are to compete for a title.
They're gonna have to beat Minnesota
and have to sign away the slow down Anthony Edwards.
Especially the way he's playing right now.
He's playing like a man possessed.
So they're gonna beat Minnesota.
But they're gonna have to find a way to slow him down.
I don't know who's gonna guard him.
KCP, honestly, isn't strong enough.
Gordon has to worry about the two bigs.
Cause there's Caroline Hintz-Haus and there's Rudy Gobert.
So that leaves Michael Porter Jr., KCP,
or Jamal Murray to guard Anthony Edwards.
I haven't heard a good solution yet.
This would, Bruce Brown would have been huge for them.
If Bruce Brown would have still been a Nugget,
he would have been absolutely massive for them right now.
Guarding Anthony Edwards.
But he's not there, obviously.
There are four that are gonna have to, I guess, go with KCP.
And it was a lot of help defense.
Michael, my mom's gonna have to protect KCP at any and all
cost.
And Yoki's gonna have to be aggressive scoring the ball.
He put his career high up in order to go bare.
When he was just decided I'm gonna be aggressive
and I'm better than you and I'm gonna drag him
up to these waters.
He's gonna have to do it again.
Can't play point guards.
You have to be a dominant scorer going to try and win
off his scoring ability.
And then lastly, OKC versus Dallas.
A series that has taken a bit of a turn
with the injury of Maxie Kliebler.
I still think Dallas pulls it off.
SGA, Igeluka kinda cancel.
Kyrie's the next best player.
Jason Kidd and Mike Dagonal.
Slight edge to Dagonal.
But I have the Dallas Mavericks winning.
I think Kyrie Irvin and Luke are gonna average combined
75 and night in this series.
Who's gonna come with 70 and night in this series?
Who's gonna come with SGA to be that next great scorer?
They really didn't score the ball well
against New Orleans.
New Orleans are a pretty good defensive team.
Dallas has been increasingly good on the defensive end.
But OKC really did not shoot the ball well
against New Orleans at all.
So they do that against the Mavericks.
The Mavericks are going to absolutely annihilate them
because just like New Orleans, unlike New Orleans,
they can actually shoot the ball consistently off the dribble.
Lou Dort's gonna be massively important to this series.
But who does Dort get?
I guess he guards Luca.
But in that case, are you making SGA or Giddy guard Kyrie?
Decisions on J-Dub maybe against Kyrie.
Interesting decisions all the way around.
We're definitely gonna keep our eye on that series.
Again, I have the Dallas Mavericks winning the series.
All right, so some quick hitters.
The Philadelphia 76ers control the offseason.
Why?
Because they have $55 million in cap space.
The only person they have to bring back truly
is Tyrese Maxey.
Everybody else of importance is on the contract.
Why is Tyrese Maxey gonna get a max contract?
Why are you not counting that in?
Because they don't have to.
They can sign a full max free agent,
plus use the full MLE, mid-level exception,
plus sign Tyrese Maxey,
because Maxey can sign last and use his bird rights.
He has little to no effect on the $55 million
they have available to spend to them this offseason.
Huge offseason for Darrell Moore in the 60s.
LeBron James could be on the move again.
He is widely expected to opt out of his contract
and may explore his options.
Some people have stated he's gonna wait
till after the draft to see where LeBronny goes,
and if LeBronny goes in his favorable location,
he may move to said location.
If he opts out,
I'm sure the 76ers are gonna want a meeting with him.
I'm sure he'll be on the phone with them,
because LeBron and Maxey win a title.
LeBron passed, I believe in 2016 or 2018,
before he was going to the Lakers,
he ran a lot of then semis and open runs
and passed ultimately on going to Philly.
Maybe he changed his mind this time with him beating Maxey,
but we'll definitely keep our eye on that.
Speaking of the Philly, Philly on the 66ers,
the Clippers era is over.
It's painfully over, thankfully over, really.
Paul George is expected to be moved this offseason.
Koala Luthor's knees are a joke.
And like I said, Philly has some mass contract spot.
You heard it here first, Paul George to Philly.
It would fit perfectly.
Remember when the Warriors became the Warriors, right?
What happened?
They presto-chain-jolted Harrison Barnes
and the Kevin Durant, and nobody else even wins.
Like the whole team was back,
and they just took the weakness
and made it the biggest strength,
because in that calf epic three-one,
Harrison Barnes had a lot of open three he missed.
And so again, they presto-chain-jolted Harrison Barnes
and the Kevin Durant.
I think the 66ers are going to attempt to presto-chain-jolt
to bias Harris into Paul George.
If that is the case, and I truly believe it's gonna happen,
if that is the case,
the 66ers are gonna win the title, Barnes-Kelf.
Maxey's a star, and B's an MVP candidate.
Paul George's gotta be the best number two in the league,
probably the best number two in the last 15 or so years.
True number two, not like a number one being a number two.
Not like Dwayne Wade was number two to LeBron.
Like no, no, no, like a true, like he's not a one.
He's a two.
Paul George was probably the best two
in the last 15 or so years.
And so that being said, the Clippers area's over.
It was kinda fun,
sorta, like it had its moments.
But now going into this big, beautiful arena,
you have no superstars.
Kawhi, like I said, his knee's a mess.
I think Paul George is gonna get out of that deal
or get traded to Philly.
Because to me, that's a great line-up for him.
He can just do everything to buy his hair done,
but you know, actually a composite.
And oh, that is the situation with the Clippers.
And then Phoenix is screwed.
Planting some old chopping screws,
somebody called T-Pain, they are in dire trouble.
Like to the point of,
cause they're in on second tax April,
and they didn't win a playoff game.
So in order for you to maneuver this roster,
you gotta go playoff player dollar for dollar.
They can't do that.
They don't control their own pick for like six years.
They can't even use second round picks on the trade
or the buyout market.
All I'm saying, trade Bradley Bill, you can't,
because he's old 50 something,
he's got a million dollar thing, Shane.
You gotta go player for player, dollar for dollar.
So you can't even say,
oh, we're gonna get four or five players
cause we're gonna make 50.
Doesn't work.
You have to get four people.
Like the bigger trades are gonna be very impossible
if you're in the second apron.
Cause again, you gotta go player for player dollar for dollar.
So there's hardly anybody that can maneuver
that many stipulations
and that many rules all at one time.
But Phoenix is screwed, no draft control till I believe 2030.
Way, way, way into the second apron.
So you can't really maneuver your roster.
It's brutal in Phoenix right now.
But up next, we're gonna transition to the WNBA
and talk about what's going down there.
What's going on in the WNBA?
Welcome in back into the show.
Pretty long winded NBA segment.
Kind of realize I had a lot to talk about.
When I looked up, I thought we had 30 minutes in block A.
Promise your block will be gonna be that long.
The goal again is to keep these shows about an hour.
Kind of when the average attention span kind of phases out,
especially from hearing one voice.
But we're gonna jump into the WNBA
and just kind of touch quickly on what's going on.
So the WNBA preseason is opening up.
We're getting our first look at a lot of the rookies.
Caitlin Clark, Kimena Cardoza, Rekia Jackson,
Cameron Prink, Angel Reese, Jalen Brown.
We're getting our first look at that 2024 rookie class,
the draft class.
Not necessarily, I'm gonna speak about Jalen Brown in a second,
but not necessarily her.
But again, your Caitlin Clarks, your Cameron Brinks,
your Camila Cardoza, your Rekia Jackson,
your Angel Reese, your Nick Emuels.
We're getting that group.
We're finally seeing them on the WNBA court.
They all look really weird in the WNBA uniforms.
Like, Caitlin looks like she belongs in Indiana.
Cameron, like she belongs in a Sparks jersey.
But like, seeing Angel Reese in like,
Sky Gid was a little weird.
Cause I watched her so heavily at LSU,
seeing her in different jerseys, it was like, odd.
Right?
But all in all, the game translates to the end of the games.
So, speaking of Caitlin versus Angel,
first off, we know that's gonna be the rivalry.
Like, the NBA had Magic versus Bird.
And it kinda saved the NBA, and then it propelled the NBA.
For a lot of reasons.
Number one, white versus black.
Then it was the 80s.
Then both sides of the argument had a star.
You had black guys that loved Lady Bird,
you had white guys that loved Magic.
But both guys had a star.
It was East Coast versus West Coast.
You know, it was like everything that was, it was perfect.
You had rough, tough, physical Boston.
You had Showtime Lakers.
I mean, it was like, it was a perfect rivalry, right?
And in college basketball, you had something similar
with Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark.
A lot of the same lines that were drawn in the sand
were drawn again in that rivalry.
Again, black people from black people loved Caitlin Clark.
Some people were team manager Reese.
But regardless, a lot of the same lines were drawn.
Though, so similar to what the NBA wanted to happen
and then as they were coming into the league
and then that championship game, the NBA entered the league,
the NBA wanted Larry Bird to be the face.
Magic had to earn it, right?
Like the NBA wanted Larry Bird to be the face.
The NBA wants Caitlin Clark to be the face.
Who wouldn't be in the face of the NBA in the 80s?
Magic.
Yeah, Larry, like Larry had a great success.
It was Magic that was the face of the NBA.
Magic and Larry, Magic and Larry.
Magic's name was always first.
Magic was the face, Magic was the A side.
You know how you talk about a fight?
There's an A side, there's a B side.
Magic was the A side.
You need both for the fight.
You need both to have the purse.
You need both to, whatever.
Magic's the A side.
In the 80s, Barry won three, Magic won five.
I'm sorry, between 79 and 90.
Barry won three and Magic won five.
Out of the 11 years span, Isaiah Thomas Sprinkle
won, Dr. J gets one in the 80s.
But, I'm sorry, two, I'm sorry.
Magic gets one in the 80s, regardless.
Dr. J gets one in the 80s, I'm sorry.
Regardless, you needed both people to be successful,
but it became clear who the A side was.
The NBA is in football infancy.
Or, not football infancy, Jesus.
They're in sports league infancy.
The thing about that is,
they've only been in business 27 years, right?
Like, they haven't even gone anywhere near
they're gonna go, right?
But the WNBA needs a superstar.
The WNBA hadn't had a transcendent star in a while.
And I think that transcendent is that crosses
into non-sports, into different communities,
into different cultures, into different platforms.
They haven't had that in a while, right?
And so, Kayla Clark became the poster child, became the face.
Because of which, they are protecting her.
She had 21 points to her WNBA debut.
Not bad at all, pretty impressive.
I believe the leading scorer last year
was in the low 20s.
As this is not the NBA, the NBA has 40 minutes out of 48.
The game is naturally slower, not out of bomb three.
It's a slower paced game, right?
And so, Kayla Clark had 21 points.
And all the pages were going crazy about her.
Oh my gosh, she's amazing.
And who says she's gonna struggle in the WNBA?
Blase, blase, blase.
Bing a deep dive.
She shot six to 15, including four for 13 for three.
Not great, not great.
And she, and what makes it worse is
she made her first four shots.
So her last 11 shots, she only made two of them.
Again, not great.
Look, I get it.
I understand.
Kayla Clark's what you need to sell.
I understand.
I'm not against it.
It actually is gonna help.
But also, elevate your other stars as well.
There's another rookie in the game,
Jalen Brown, who scored 21 points on the wings.
And the wings actually won the game.
Blase, say this is not safe,
stop promoting your other stars as well.
For instance, Lycan Angel Reese.
And I saw this online, broken down,
with the WNBA had Kayla Clark's game
in as many places as possible, right?
They didn't even have the league pass access
to the WNBA game with the Chicago Scouts.
That was Angel Reese.
However, the ticket counter would tell you
that Dallas sold 6,200 tickets
for the debut of Kayla Clark.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Sky game had 7,000 people in it.
A random Twitter account who decided to stream the game
hit like two million views,
or something insane like that,
behind the game, behind the Angel Reese game.
Kayla Clark's number didn't do that.
So, it's kind of where the WNBA has to see and see quickly.
Look, we get it.
Kayla Clark's gonna appeal
to a certain part of the country, very strongly.
However, the rest of the country
is huge fans of the game, but Angel Reese.
Don't be like the NBA.
When they realized that they had a A side,
that wasn't the A side they planned, they pivoted.
And he became the A side.
He became the star attraction.
He became the main piece.
So, the WNBA's watching.
Kayla Clark needs to be on the CD,
but she ain't gotta be the A side all the time.
Because to be honest, she's not yet.
She started off great.
She started sixth of 15,
and a vast majority of her shots still going left.
Yeah, the one time she went right and made it,
she came to a complete dead stop
at the mid-range levering before shooting a jumper.
She's the queen of fading and falling and twisting.
She came to a complete stop, like a stop sign.
She just froze and then calmly shot a jumper.
I mean, incredible, absolutely incredible coverage
by the WNBA media, not the WNBA itself, LeapHack sucks.
But there were 17,000 fans sold out again
in the Canada game, which is why I think Toronto
has a good WNBA team.
They show out every single time the WNBA's up there,
sold out, I mean, 17,000 strong
for the debut of Cameron Brink with the Sparks,
Cameron and Rekia Jackson with the Sparks
against the return of Scott O'Diaghan Smith
for the Seattle storm, along with several others.
Including Jewel Lloyd and Nneka Gumake
is now on the storm as well.
So huge, huge moment for them in Canada,
again, with the 17,000 fans.
Candice Parker's retiring.
She retired a few, a couple weeks back.
The Aces had this funeral for her at her locker.
She's the reason I started watching girls basketball,
you know?
She really got into it.
I won't dive too far into it, but I used to try
to spell out her moves and I learned.
I taught myself how to shoot like her.
So kind of a sad day for me, it's kind of a sad day
for me, it's kind of one of those men
you're getting old moments.
I don't think I'm getting old.
I'm turning 27 on Wednesday.
Like I don't think I'm getting old,
but it is one of those man you're getting up there moments.
Like somebody you remember clearly at Tennessee in college,
played an entire 16 year career and then retired
and you're like, yeah, I remember that, like all of it.
I remember the Rekia of the year and the MVP.
Like I remember the dunks.
I remember finally getting through with the LA
with Nekka Gumake.
I remember the epic finals run with Chicago.
Like I remember all that, right?
I remember one of the daughters being born.
Like, you know what I'm saying?
I remember all that and it's just kind of like,
now it's over, right?
So pretty sad, but congratulations on a hell of a career.
No doubt first ballot, Naismith Hall of Famer.
She's going to do great on TNT, wherever she decides to be.
I can see her in the front office of a team one day,
Chicago specifically.
I can see the way we bring her in the ownership group
of Chicago Sky.
But again, tremendous, absolutely tremendous career
to Candace Parker.
Kudos to you.
I wonder if it's slanted how badly it has been so far
in this segment because Candace deserves more than that.
So kudos to Candace Parker again on a spectacular career.
You did it your way.
You're now it's at your way.
You didn't want some pump tour.
You just put out an Instagram and that was it.
So again, kudos to Candace Parker on an amazing career.
But up next, we're going to jump into Jack's high take.
It's going to be a chat about Dion Sanders.
Welcome
back into the show.
And now we're going to talk about Dion Sanders
and his recent social media activity.
So apparently in his words, he had time one day
and a former player came out, former transfer came out
and spoke about how basically Dion,
if you're not one of his kids or one of his chosen ones,
basically, he doesn't even know your name.
He didn't know my name.
And at one point, he took off the social media handle
because Dion allows the practice jerseys for the Buffaloes
to have their social media handle going across the back.
NIL stuff, marketing stuff, whatever.
But it allows it to go across the back.
So your player was saying that one point after it was mentioned
he could enter the portal, he planned into the portal,
he was there practicing.
Dion took off the social media and put the transfer
portals, social media on in the nameplate instead.
You know, and the person that did it,
somebody put the stats on him, was like, yikes.
And then he, the guy who they were talking about,
who was the whistleblower, ended up putting on,
putting the stats up of Shador.
And so he had more past deflections.
Somebody then went in and kind of started.
But anyway, so it ultimately ends up at Dion on Twitter
saying that, hey, son's going to be a top five pick.
Where will your son be?
And then saying, so go online, I got time today.
Dion's standards are so good for college football.
Ridiculous.
At every level.
For one, for one, he is a guy that you can tell has a reserve
amount of confidence, right?
He truly believes if you show it to me, I can do it.
And so I need to be shown the path.
And so he's so great for college football
because that kind of attitude doesn't exist often
in a college game.
And a lot of it wants to be handed to him or whatever.
But Dion wants to work for everything he's got.
He ended up going back and forth with a couple fans,
didn't necessarily love that, but that kind of interaction,
that kind of closeness, that kind of I'm able to reach out
and talk to the Colorado head coach on Twitter
is the kind of thing that is so good for college football
in this new era.
He's embraced NIO.
He's embraced the transfer portal.
He has been very openly about how
he likes this era of college football.
I think it's huge.
I think it's going to help usher a lot of the old guard out.
He's going to be seen as a real OG of the newer
generation of coaches coming in college football that, OK,
that's how the portal's high works now.
Cool.
NIO's the name of the game?
Great.
You know, like, they're able to just maneuver and come with it.
And I think that's going to help usher out
a lot of the old guard that still don't really
embrace any of the other stuff.
Nick Saban got out because he didn't embrace it, right?
Brian Kelly talks about the fact that he
has to kind of alter how he does business because of NIO
and the transfer portal.
So that is definitely something that has changed every day.
Deion Sanders is great for college football.
He's about to show otherwise.
Can't kiss a butt.
He is doing absolutely spectacular things in Colorado.
And I can't wait to see them this season.
But that's all I have for today.
Like, rate, and subscribe to the Just In Time Sports podcast.
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I hope you guys enjoy the show.
This is your host, Justin Jackson, signing out.
And I'll see you guys next time.