On this episode of The Heat Check, it's NBA Cup Season two teams, one Cup, and we're underway in Adam Silver's Great experiment Lots to cover Clay's return to the Bay.
Jannis goes insane.
Almost fucks around and loses to the Detroit Pistons. Wemby goes crazy, and the Portland Trail Blazers. My Blazers are fun and healthy. Anthony my man dropped that motherfucking beat that should be Rihanna. So the NBA keep balls, and it's kind of banging. It's kind of banging despite the fact that I think we can all get behind how much we hate these courts. I hate them. I hate the gray, I hate the loud, bright colors. I hate them, I hate him. I hate them. But what a bunch
of wild fun games. Teams are taking this shit seriously. They really are more than the normal regular season, and I think the value of the I guess like prize money for the winners is even more than last year. Huge improvement over regular games in November, for sure.
Some fascinating performance we gotta get to.
We gotta get to Eric Spolstra booting in a whole entire game when he pulled a fab five literally calling a timeout in one.
Second left and a tie game.
Hey bro, you don't have a timeout. Walst On Free Hawks beat the Celtics on their home court one seventeen win sixteen because by the way, Dyson Daniels is getting like ten steals a game, and the Knicks blew out the Sixers by twelve.
But the one.
Cup game, I just don't like calling it that. The one, the one in season tournament game everyone was tuned into, was by far the most interesting one of the year. Mavericks and Clay Thompson go back to the Bay visiting Golden Steak for the first time since Clay told them
to kick rocks and did this game have everything? Oh yeah, there's tea spilling everywhere, Warriors literally rolling out the red carpet giving every fan a captain's head, which the photo of Clay looking back at that was pretty insane, an Oscar worthy video. Four hundred employees greeting him with cheers as he came into the arena, a planned speech at half time from his bestie Steph, and things did did
not turn out like expected. Clay got his video, he did, he got teary eyed, crowders reacting roars they love Clay Clay and the Bay fans got those Captain hats, who, by the way, like Clay just kind of got famous because he decided he was gonna be a fucking hipster and literally his mode of transportation to the arena every day was his boat, which is so rich. You can now get your own eBay Clay hat for the low
price of one hundred and sixty dollars. But Draymond of course spill a little tea before the game by letting people know that Clay has basically ghost face killed Steph Curry since signing with the Maps. No calls, no texts, nothing, and you know who took that person, Steph Curry, that's who. Steph Curry said, Yeah, I was supposed to speak, called Clay, texted Clay nothing and I said, you know what, fuck Clay.
Basically here the half dis speech canceled.
Steph waited in the tunnel until Clay's tribute video was over, which is cold bloodied, and then the two went to war with each other and it was a blood bath. Clay had his best season game of the season twenty two points six or twelve from deep but Steph did Steph things, put on that assassin persona didn't. He took down the MAVs, took down his former bestie Clay, took him back, out back, put him down like old Yeller.
Steph had thirty seven.
Points, single handedly ended the MAVs in clutch time, and it peaked with thirty four seconds left, Warriors up one. Steph shakes Luca, gets Dereck Lively on the switch, long ass arms isol above the three point line, shake bake three, night Night sleep Mask literally did the night night celebration in the Bay. But it was what Steph did afterwards that was the most telling about the incredible game. He turned to the cameras and screamed, this is.
My house, this is my shit.
And he said that with a full base, full base in his voice. You could tell he meant that. That felt like Olympic Steph. The amount of I don't want to say anger, but passion with like a slight negative connotation to it was maniacal. No one was really.
Quite sure what he said. Some said some.
Thought Steph screamed, you were supposed to stay here. That's what Marcus Thompson thinks, which Marcus Thompson does have like a straight line to Steph Curry.
Clay was pretty quiet after the game, very.
Moved by the outpouring of the emotions. Not happy to be on the other end of curry shooting spree. I get the feeling that this is maybe the beginning of not.
Bad blood, but like a rivalry. I guess Clay left Golden State.
Was very clear that he left because he wants to win another chip, right, That's what he wants to do, Steph Stay, He's very clear he wants to win a chip. He signed an extension because he believes this team is capable of for a big run.
Who is right?
We'll find out. But I learned a long time ago. You cannot bet against Steph Curry. Boy, No, you cannot. Just when you think our dubs are down, they picked themselves back up and they win a championship. All right, Moving on, We gotta get back to the full slate of NBA Cup games on Friday. But Wednesday night an astounding evening in the association. We gotta start Milwaukee first because they've been down bad. They've been really down bad. Things have not gone Swimen Dame left the game with
the concussion. He has been having dizziness, had a blow to the head in the third quarter against Boston. He's still out, So now the Bucks just have one option, Yannis. So they're playing against the pesky Pistons, who have actually been kind of like low key fun playing a bunch of close games. Jannis was a one man reking crew. One man regking crew scored twenty two of the bucks first twenty four quarter points, pretty much carried them in a game against a Pistons team that's been pretty fun.
It was a very back and forth game all night long, and then this like crazy ass thing happened. They're tied one eleven, one eleven with one tenth of a second left on the clock. Piston's rookie, who I'm not super high on. By the way, Ron Holland, fouled by Yannis sending him which was kind of a suspect foul. I'm not gonna lie sent him to the line for two shots.
Either one would have just won the game. There's like a second left, and I say, with awe seriousness, I have never seen someone who wanted to shoot free throws less than Ron Holland. You know how I knew that Ron Holland wasn't about this life. Ron Holland was more comfortable on a basketball court in swayed bell bottoms. No lie, then he was with a full uniform on the very
next day in summer league. Ron Holland was looking like a Harlem globetrotter in the nineteen seventies, in his swayed bell bottoms, in his little boots, his little like Chelsea boots on. On the basketball court, you put him in a jersey, you get him bodied up, and all of a sudden, he's short arming free throws in clutch time, literally almost air ball.
The first one.
The second one was also just so bad. He looked you could see the veins throbbing in his head, you could see the sweat dripping from his forehead. It's like he he just looked like he was not ready. He was short, marmon, he was bricking. Overtime we got and of course you know what it is with the overtime. Overtime is where the dogs go to die. Jannis takes over. We get one twenty seven, one sixteen for the Bucks.
As someone on read it said, statement when for the monkey, Bucks gave us the worst three point celebration in history they're calling it the swinging Dick. That's disgusting. Like I there's sometimes where I just I just wish I hadn't heard things, you know, like I just wish I'd never heard that. I think they should call it the big swinging Greek. That's what I think they should call it.
Jannie's stat line fifty nine points, fourteen rebounds, seven assists, five stocks, and by the way, he was the only Buck starter with a positive rating, so that's great.
The Bucks had to play.
A tight ass playoff rotation to beat the Detroit Pistons, so things are going exactly like they were hoping. Cad Cunningham was seen saying that Yannis, he's fucking unstoppable. Nike Basketball direct shot, because you know how Nike is with Jalen Brown. They never miss an opportunity to go after Jalen Brown. Nike Basketball tweeted out nothing childish about him fifty nine for the Greek freak. Oh boy uh Brown tweeting at Nike, y'all got weird energy? How co might
didn't do a TikTok about this? This is like a good one if you recall, by the way, JB and Nike they have serious beef dating back to many years ago when Jalen Brown basically was like Nike, you guys are exploiting children and in Asia to make your shoes. Basically, that was basically along on the short of it, back to honest, you can't expect them to be Superman every night. You're gonna need something. This was also some postgame team after the game, the Pistons were just steaming because of
this stat. Giannis took thirty four shots, ended up with seventeen free throws. Cad Cunningham, who probably shouldn't be shooting thirty four times in a game, went to the line four times. The entire Pistons team shot thirteen free throws for the game. I mean, I know what it is with Gianness, Like he's just a bulldozer. He's just running downhill as fast as he can, bowling people over, and he's probably gonna get foul like Zion, but he's gonna
get more foul calls of course than kid Cunningham. But the truth is this has been an issue for the Pistons the past couple of years. They are not getting whistles. Why are they not getting whistles because they're the Pistons right, like they're the Pistons. They had the most consecutive losses in NBA history. Is anyone wanting to do anything nice for the Detroit Pistons.
Absolutely fucking not.
You take your flint water and you fucking like it.
That's basically what the.
Refs are saying to the Detroit Pistons. And because kid rarely gets whistles, his turnover rate is higher than it should be. It impacts winning and losing, especially for a team that's playing a bunch of close games. I'm gonna keep my eye on these Pistons. The last five games, as a fun stat have all come down to the final possession at the end of the game. There's just like this fascinating little combination of players that I can't really figure.
Out why it works.
Really, they're like cast offs. You got Toby Tobias Harris, you got Malik Beasley, you got Paul Reid. Like these are not great players, they're not. You got some fascinating young players, players like Jalen Duran. You got Marcus Sasser, who, by the way, is like short king five to eleven. Isaiah Stewart also short king for a center. And then they I think.
They think they have a superstar and kid.
And maybe je Nighty, but he's got to get a whistle. The NBA Cup, by the way, returns tonight. We will report on the fun stuff Monday morning. Moving on, we haven't talked about Victor women Yama a lot this year. He's been kind of like bad from three. He's had some couple of stinker games, and I think a lot of that is just the Spurs haven't been a particularly
watchable product. Devin vassal Vassel has been out. I never really remember how to pronounce his name, and they the Spurs faced off against a Wizards team is actually pretty shockingly pesky, and so Victor goes bananas against a team that had Alex Sar who was the number two overall pick last year. Victor had the game of his career, the best game that I've seen in a long time from a rookie. Fifty points eighteen for twenty nine, and he had he shot fifty percent from three, eight for
sixteen from three. Why is the seven to four dude who can dunk literally on his tippy toes taking sixteen threes, Well, he's making half of them. Uh?
And so mas School is why.
He's averaging eight threes per game, which right now is seventeenth in the league. No other center on the planet has his top fifty in attempted threes. What a night. Fifty points, six rebounds to assist with four stocks. That is unfathomable for a guy that's seven feet four tall.
He's pretty much unstoppable.
When you lose. One thing you lose when he's beyond the perimeter is that he's like, isn't when he's not rebounding like he could if he was down low. His offensive and defensive rebounds are also down this year, so he should probab probably expect like a lot more six rebound games and sixteen to three type games in his future. Also, Jordan Poole. The resurrection of Jordan Poole has been incredible.
I watched him on opening night play against the Boston Celtics in person, and I was like, wow, first quarter, first quarter, Jordan Poole had seventeen points and he was shaken and Bacon slap slap, slap bottoms. So Jordan Poole in that game against the Spurs, and I know it was against the Spurs, but still forty two two and six fifteen for twenty two, shooting six for nine from deep. That's silly. He's averaging twenty two points for rebounds and
two assists right now. This is doing a lot. This is doing a lot, a lot to salvage his trade value for a team that probably like desperate to trade him and move him at some point. If you can get forty points out of Jordan Poole off the bench, Jordan Pool on a contender, you kind of gotta think about doing it. We'll see what happens with the Pool and the Wizards. Moving on, we gotta talk about my Blazers.
Oh my god, what, oh my god. Did my Blazers as eleven point underdogs beat the shit out of the Minnesota Timberwolves, not once, but twice in two days?
Yes we did, Yes we did.
The way they won those games has me so fucking fired up. So you saw like this effort for the NBA Cup on Tuesday from the Blazers bench, four non starters. You had Denny Abdia, you'd Rob Williams, which, by the way, Rob Williams, Rob Williams, Delano Banton, and Scoot Henderson combined for sixty two points. Non starters twenty three for thirty eight, shooting sixty one percent and a combined net rating of thirty one. My man, Shade and Sharp, Baby Kobe, He's
finally like there, he's healthy. I think he's back. I think he's back.
He had his first good game of the season.
He had seventeen three and three with three steals plus three and thirty three minutes. So we won one twenty two went away. But then Wednesday night that was the game we probably should have lost. Right, you beat a really good team that went to the Western Conference finals. That's a little bit of fairy dust. Hopefully if you're thinking you're the Minnesota timber Wolf, you're like, this is an aberration. Okay, this is a bad team. They shot five percent from three a couple of days ago. Things
will find its level. No, no, sir, they did not. Shaden Sharp, oh my god, thirty three six and one twelve for twenty three, thirty three points. Guys, Shandon Sharp, who hasn't been healthy, who was the seventh overall pick a few years back, a guy that we're just hoping develops into Kobe, Like literally, that's his athleticism is just so raw and untapped. You had multiple highlight circus stunks, you had layups. He was a walking highlight film. Two
minutes of shaden sharp basketball porn. The Wolves no ability to stop them, went directly out go beer, looked like he was gonna throw it down, did a little shimmy shimmy in the air in for a layup one nearly every one of those battles. But if you can imagine it, Shaden trip wasn't even like the most impressive dude. The most impressive blazer on the floor was my Man Yukon legend national champion, two times national champion, Donovan Klingon, who
they are now calling cling Kong. I think he's like better as Klingon. They are calling him kling Kong. Though, Donovan Klingon Commemorative Beer Night, I think there's like gotta be some sort of new trend how players do on commem of beer night. Because he went crazy seventeen points, twelve rebounds, one assist, with eight blocks, eight of them eight blocks. He was erasing shots around the room.
Eight blocks.
Don't even register how impactful he actually was because he.
Was shutting down the lane all night long.
Too. He played thirty one minutes and he was a plus fifteen. All the other Blazer starters were net negatives. So this is actually like kind of an interesting team. I think you gotta kind of keep your eye on them. The vibes today, let's just say this, the vibes today were starting to feel a little better. The return of Shaden, the return of Rob Williams, and the benching of Aton and Anthony Simons. I don't know, dog, I don't know, guys,
kind of feels like we gotta keep doing it. Blazers already have five wins, which, by the way, we did not have until the seventeenth game last year. I mean, I don't even know why anyone would think we're thinking.
About being a playoff team.
We are not. But like, you're gonna trade Anthony Simon's, You're gonna who does not fit on this team. You're gonna trade Jeremy Grant for sure, You're gonna trade Aton. You're gonna have some picks, guys, You're gonna have some young players. You're gonna have some picks. This team can load up on assets and maybe we can get like Ace Bailey, maybe we can get like Cooper Flag, maybe even get like VJ.
Edgecomb.
I'm thinking, I'm thinking, Yes, the Golden age of Portland basketball is on its way. And I'm not talking about the WNBA team. I'm talking about the Blazers.
Rip City.
All right, that's all the time that we have this episode. The Heat Check come back Monday for an all new episode. Check out the feed for past episodes and many episodes What's Shop Unexpectedly Like Jake Paul on a Friday night. Hopefully, do not forget to follow the Heat Check throughout the
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