Nuggets Crush The Heat In Game 1

for maybe the most ridiculous reason you've ever heard. It's incredible. Actually, Plus we have coaching and GM updates from Detroit, Washington, and New York. We even give you an update on the Lakers and the MAVs. You should get charged double for this episode. It's so loaded like a baked potato baby. Come on, let's get into it. Nick. Drop that motherfucking

beat that should be riata. So as a lot of people predicted the Denver Nuggets beat down the Heat, they gave them a good old Kurb stomp in Game one. You could say the little bit of it is a hangover from the long series that the Heat had against Boston where they let that sweep slip away. You could say it was that insane difficult to breathe altitude in Mile High City. You could even say that the heat were just got off of from three and that was

the reason. Probably all three have a bit of truth to them, really, but the reality of the situation is, for at least tonight, Denver was just better. They were just much much better than Miami. Because, by the way, they're a better team. They have better players, they have a better star, they have a better second star. They are the superior team. What do we like about Miami. They're cockroaches, That's what we like about them. And you

know what happens with a cockroach. Blow up the home that the cockroaches in and see what's still lives the cockroach. That's the only narrative we have really to go off of. Score one oh four ninety three was never really that close. Caleb Martin was a trocious Duncan Robinson, max Sjuice all together shot an astounding two for twenty three from the field. Yep, you heard that right. Three of Miami's snipers from three shot the ball twenty three times. They came away with

check notes six points total. That's bad. That's really bad. The Nuggets held Jimmy Butler to He was not himmy. He was more like I don't know. I mean, he was more like forgimme, like because you forgot about him. He had thirteen points. The heat will not beat anyone if their four snipers shoot a combined eight for thirty seven. That is twenty one points six percent from the field, nineteen total points for a quartet that averaged sixty seven

points per game in the Celtics series. The only player so the entire team with a positive plus minus is a shocking, shocking Kyle lowryeta plus two, which, let me be honest with you didn't see that coming. But really it was really just all about the Denver Nuggets and what they did right. You know, their starters they scored ninety points compared to Miami sixty one. They played all a minimum of thirty six minutes. The only player on the starting five that didn't score in double figures was

Kentavious called woll Pope. Jokic pretty much was able to do whatever he wanted, dimed everybody up like he was selling rock in Inglewood in Snowfalls twenty seven, fourteen and ten. He could add forty twenty and twenty. Honestly, Jokic can score whenever he wants. Against bam Adebayo Murray twenty six

along with ten assists, he was incredible. They looked like the team that everybody built them as they nullified much of what Miami does really well, managing to be exactly what they were supposed to be, and their identity of the team was on offense. It was really fun to watch if you're a hardcore basketball fan. It was really fun to watch if you're a Denver Nugget fan, and if you're anyone else, probably was horrible. Actually, specifically if you're a Miami Heat fan. I'm sure Dan Lebtard and

them boys are shaking in their boots. The thing though, about this win, the Nuggets just really didn't do anything extraordinary. They didn't need a fifty point game from Jamal Murray or Yokic. I'm sure Yokic though, could have given them fifty at any point in time. In the fourth quarter, he decided, oh, I want to score now, and he

just made everything. They played their starting five pretty much the entire game, and they said, listen, see if you can beat our starters, and they could not not in the first quarter, not in the second quarter, not in the third quarter. The only time Miami got traction was when the starters for the Nuggets were not on the floor, when it was our man Christian Brown and Jeff Green getting minutes. So now the heat are They're facing a deficit for the first time in this playoffs. I think

even they might have potentially expected this. We have no Jimmy Butler press conference footage, but I'm sure he's gonna say they remain confident and to be fair, if Miami comes out and they compete well in Game two, I think that's a big victory for them to split it in Denver, or even just compete in Game two. Spolster is going to counter. We know that. The question is can you attack the Denver Nuggets and make your offense

the primary thing that they need to counter. Are the Nuggets gonna go with their starting five nearly the whole game? Once again? Are we gonna see Miami shoot some fucking threes? What is Michael Malone aka Mike Malone going to cook up? What a fun start to the finals. It is almost midnight and I am still juiced, so ready for Game two, which comes Sunday. Let's move forward though somber news from

Adam Silver in front of the NBA Finals Game one. So, as you know, Adam Silver takes the podium before the Finals every year, takes the mic just before the NBA's most important event, and he gives a speech on you guessed it, jaum morant and let's just be honest. When I watched it, I did not come away thinking, well, that's good news for jaw. My guy came away thinking oh fuck. It had the tone of the conversation in Adam Silver's pause and cadence, and just the entire tenor

of the vibe we'll call it vibe check bad. Had all the gravity of a president in a sci fi movie standing up in front of the American people and saying, we got ourselves. Unfortunately, we have miscalculated and we have an alien invasion. That's what it felt like, folks. He looked so sad to be announcing this news. He looked even almost menacing, like he was about to hand down two years of suspension, like a Mormon father who catches his daughter sneaking into the house drunk at four am.

That is short of it. Really, as I call him, now Darth Silver. He basically said that we were investigating Jaw as we do, and we found some shit, and we're not going to tell you what that shit is right now out of respect for our premier event, the NBA Finals, And honestly, he's already indefinitely suspended, so it's not gonna change much. I was like, holy shit, he said, he's already indefinitely suspended. Here if you don't want to believe me, I've got obviously receipts. In terms of the.

and given that recourse in the offseason. He has now been suspended by the Memphis Grizzlies and definitely and so nothing would have changed anyway.

Stay tuned, because shit's got to hit the fan and the t Morant Jah Morant household. We might be losing one of the biggest stars, a player who now everyone is wearing his shoes for a half a season minimum. Maybe the whole damn year. Wow, bad for business. If you follow my rep reports on social media, then you know the name Eric Lewis. If if you don't know the name Eric Lewis, you probably don't care about the NBA because he is no stranger to the REP reports.

He's one of the NBA's most respected refs. For the first time in ages now Lewis will not be working in the NBA Finals, and the reason is not because he's missing calls. It's not because the body of work is so bad. He is being told host it down because he got caught with a burner account on Twitter. Let me just say that again, one of the most respected refs in the NBA is not reughing the premiere event of said league because he has a burner account on Twitter and is spending all hours of the day

defending his brethren and him on social fucking media. Yes, he seemed if you look at the receipts there, he seemed at it's tim to be spending all of his free time defending his calls against angry fans, which if you follow NBA Twitter at all, you know that's probably like seventy eight percent of NBA Twitter, So it was probably like a second full time job for mister Lewis The truth though, from what I can see is that there really wasn't a lot of stuff in there that

you can get mad about, just him and his little burner account and his Twitter fingers defending himself and other refs. So why is this a big deal? I mean, it's kind of a big deal because Adam Silver knows that you don't want to mess around with the perceived propriety, the reputational integrity of NBA refs. Why Because it's already been damaged. There was a guy and he like took money and he changed calls. His name was Tim Donnie

and there was an old documentary about him. And you don't want to have a controversy, especially a controversy cloaked in secrecy like secret burner accounts, because it makes other fans wonder what other refs are using burners. If they're using burners, are they coming after players with those burners like Fred van Fleet who criticized those refs by name, and does that translate into ref retaliation? Are we gonna get a full scale KGB versus the CIA ref versus

player interaction here? Are we gonna get some espionage? That's a can of worms that the NBA just can't have, it does not want to open. According to my guy, Mike Bass, he's longtime NBA spokesperson, had a communications regarding Eric Lewis and the social media posts. We are continuing to review the matter and he will not be working the finals. Shity, you are not gonna be seeing Eric Lewis this year, maybe never in the finals again, all

because he couldn't stand being criticized on social media. NBA refs they also put on their pants one at a time, NBA ref. They also defend themselves on Twitter. They're just like us. Let's move forward. I almost open this segment by saying now that the Lakers have been safely eliminated from the playoffs, but I thought that would be I thought that would be a little rude. I thought that might be piling on a little bit, even though I can't stand them. As you know, the Lakers, if you remember,

were swept. They took no games from the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals. They as if they did not win one game at all. But really, ESPN now has stopped its week long freak out over whether Lebron James is going to retire. So I did want to take a quick moment to survey how things are going in Purple and Gold laker Land, because the Purple and Gold Kingdom is having some trouble, mostly because they're a victim of their own success. What do I mean, Rot Palinka,

I've said some mean things about Roy Plink. I'm not gonna lie. Some of it's warranted, most of it's warranted. But he also made a ton of great moves. Let's be real, what he did to get rid of Russell Westbrook at the trade deadline, was nothing short of David Copperfield. Two guys that he ended up picking up at the deadline, incredible Ruiyachi Mura, but then picked up as an undrafted

free agent two years ago Austin Reeves. And now that they've played really well down the stretch, now that they played really well in the playoffs, it just might cripple the Lakers franchise to the point where they're deep into the luxury tags, which Jenie Buss does not want to be and like, truthfully, they're kind of having a hard time keeping him for the long term. Let's start with Ruiyachi Mura. He was jettisoned, largely given up on. I think he actually asked for a trade out of Washington.

But he looked really good for the Lakers, like really really good Lakers inside. Jovon Booja noted that the Lakers have stated on multiple occasions that they are going to match any offer for Ruey Hachimura, since he already turned down fifteen million dollars from the Wizards. The market for Ruey is rumored to be in the fifteen to eighteen million dollar range, but could go up to twenty million dollars per year. That's anberony Simon's money. Anything over fifteen

is a problem for LA. So this is what Booja wrote. I think where it gets a little dicey is if there's a team that sells themselves on Ruey and offers three years sixty million or four years eighty million. The impact though, of having to overpay for Rui has ripple effects and a one hundred percent impacts how the Lakers deal with what do they call him the the Arkansas Bird or whatever they call him the Nashville I don't know when no one has played themselves into a bigger

contract than Austin Reeves. As you know, he's from Arkansas. As I just said, he's become a real two way threat this past season. And the Lakers problem with Reeves is that you have an undrafted rookie. They signed him to a two year, two and a half million dollar contract, but unlike second round draft picks, he became a free agent after two years because they were stupid, doodo dumb about how they negotiated. And the bigger problem now is that the Lakers have his bird rights and they can

technically match any offer for Reeves. But let's be real, they can only offer him four years fifty two million dollars, as Mark Stein and others believe, There's going to be multiple offers for Reeves as high as twenty million dollars again for him. Again, another problem for the Purple and Gold. So here's what could happen. A team like San Antonio could offer Austin Reeves four years eighty million dollars, certainly plausible.

The Spurs would be on the hook for twenty million dollars per year, but if the Lakers choose to match, there's all kinds of ramifications here. The Lakers will get Reeves in his first two years of his extension of eleven point four million and twelve point two million. Then here's where it gets interesting. The final two years become a bomb on their cap sheet, and Reeves will make more than twenty seven million dollars per season after that. This is what the folks and the biz call a

poison pill for a reason. Michael Scoto notes Orlando, Houston, and San Antonio will all have their eyes on Reeves in the offseason, and others may be watching and waiting as well. So to recap the Lakers are in a precarious situation with Ruey and Reeves the cornerstones of the

depth that Braun and Anthony Davis need. Let's be real, it will cost them dearly in the first two years, probably around thirty million dollars per year, and could balloon to fifty million dollars a year for both of them the final two years of their contract, which will get make it very difficult for the Lakers to do the things that the Lakers need to do to compete. But hey,

probably retired by then, right, it's only two years away. Well, they still also have to find a point guard, and now rumors are that they're either going to have to sign d lo In as sign and trade or try to get him to take a team friendly deal, which, let me be honest with you, our guy was sitting on the bench getting straight no minutes in crucial playing time, and so do you think he's gonna want to be

a team friendly to the team. No, I sincerely doubt that Delo is going to sign any deal that is not worth his market, even for the team that treated him so well AKA drafting him and then jenisitting him out of town the first time which weave is the point guard option as Fred van Fleet, who they will not be able to afford and to just start signed with Clutch Sports. Clutch has used the Lakers like a piggy bank for a long time, so we'll see how that goes. So don't expect to be Fred van Fleet

to be giving the Lakers a discount either. The Lakers are at a precarious crossroads. A lot of it has to do with them being victims of their own success and just mismanaging the roster. Funny how Rob Polinka might lose again.

did your job. You understood the assignment. Last week, though, Eric Pinkus of Leasher Report reported that the Mavericks and Kyrie Irving have a some sort of handshake deal before the trade with the Brooklyn Nets took place, and that Kyrie wouldn't have said yes to the trade without this handshaked deal to anything less than the max. Turns out that was a bullshit report, there is no handshake deal according to Michael Scoto, not to say this is what he said, not to say that he won't be back

in Dallas. They certainly have all the motivation to keep him after training for him. They have the financial resources to make him the best offer available, but nothing is done as of yet. The question is where will Kyrie Irving go? What is Kyrie Irving worth? Will Lebron get his way? Kyrie Irving is probably gonna have to take a team friendly deal in order to get his ass to the Purple and Gold. The question is whether Rob

Plinka wants to make it so. The MAVs would be insane to give him a super max over like a long period of time. I'm sure the years are gonna be the big sticking point. Who wants to saddle themselves to Kyrie Irving for four years. I don't even know what he's gonna do in the next four months, let alone like an entire presidential cycle. Can't imagine they'll be having to outbid anyone on a long term contract. As always, no one knows what the fuck is going on, not

even Kyrie Irving. Let's move on. We got to do a little housekeeping. We gotta update you on a couple of important moves in the NBA front office market. The first is a bit of a shocker, I think, not if you're a Knicks man, but probably if just you're a casual NBA fan. The New York Knicks are now looking for a new GM. Scott Perry did not have his contract renewed, which means there's going to be some major changes going on in the Knicks organization. Ooh, is

Massaio's year. He going to be the Knicks GM. He's been rumored for that gig for a long time. Moving forward, Moving forward, moving forward, stay on task. Perry joined the Knicks in twenty seventeen, and like that team was really bad. Let's let's be honest. That fucking team was atrocious? How bad when he took over the Knicks and it's cantor

excuse me, I'm sorry. Enis Freedom was the highest paid player on the roster at twenty one million dollars per year, and Ramand's sessions it's a real name, that's not a creative player name was the starting point guard for the team. They also had Jokim Yo, Noah, Tim Hardaway, and Courtney Lee for a combined forty six million dollars. In the books, it was a train wreck. It was horrible. Today, of course, we know that the Knicks are much better off than

they were when he got there. So although his tenure as the GM saw the Knicks go one hundred and ninety two and two seventy four, it's hard to call it exactly a failure. They are They lost a hard fought second round series against the Miami Heat, who are now in the finals. They have a bright future, but let's be real, some of this success is due to Worldwide West and our man Leon Rose. What did our man Scott Perry do? What was his track record? What

kind of decision making quality did he have? He made some awful moves, to be honest. He signed Evan DNP Fournier for four year, seventy three million dollars. That's probably the most egregious thing he did. Evan Fournier was supposed to come in and replace Reggie Bullock, who was also not very good to be there a three point sniper,

and what did he do. He became unplayable. He became a guy who really is there to take up space on the bench and make twenty something million dollars per year, a deal that nobody thought was a good deal then and nobody thinks it's a good deal today. He's also not a great drafter, our man, Scott Perry, trading away a lot of the capitol in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, coming out with one decent player in

Quinton Grimes out of four draft picks. He also, as you might know, remember, drafting in twenty eighteen, Kevin Knox at nine when mckal Bridges went ten. You know, Mikal Bridges, he's the guy that is untradeable for the Brooklyn Nets. That the team that turned down four first round picks from the Memphis Grizzlies to take him off their hands. So yeah, I'd say that's a miss, a huge miss. He also took RJ. Barrett at three when Darius Garland

went five. Scott Perry was a holdover from the previous administration. The Knicks are now one hundred percent on roses team, So that means that Scott Perry, You're just lucky your ass didn't get fired before your contract was up. He will hire a GM before the draft, But let's be real, it's probably not gonna matter. It's it's all Leon and Worldwide West all the time. We're gonna finally find out whether New York and Leon and Wes can live up to the hype. A lot of work to be done

in New York moving forward. Another GM news comes out of Washington, because holy shit, the Washington Wizards made not one, but two consecutive smart moves in a row. Yes, I don't. I don't know what to say, really, I mean, it's kind of it's kind of like seeing like a like a two year old learn how to play chess. Like the baseline of of that is when they just keep putting stuff, like they keep from putting the pieces in

their mouth. Like that's the wizards, like just don't put just don't swallow the rook, you know, just don't put the I know it's a little horsey, but like, don't don't sit on the horsey. Now, all of a sudden, the Wizards of like castled on the queen's side, putting the opponent in check moves in front of moves, Like what the fuck? I'm not ready for this? Do you had the rook in your mouth? Last summer, Tommy Shephard was mister rook in the mouth. Now you have one

great off season move. With another good off season move, you hire Clippers GM Michael Winger to head up basketball operations for Monumental. He will oversee the Wizards in the mystics. I like Michael Winger. He's a good he's a good GM. He's a good front office guy. As president, his first order of business, of course, was to hire a GM. Who did He hire one of the most respected guys in the league, who you may not like very much because he got sullied. His reputation got smathered slathered up

by the Atlanta Hawks. You add multiple folks seating bad stories about Travis Schlank, and now it's like he's nobody. He was considered one of the best gms in the league, almost one GM of the year when he made those moves to try to surround Trey Young with talent. To me, this is a home run. And I don't care if you think about the de Jontay Murray trade. Travis Schlank tried to prevent that from happening. That's why he got fired.

He was like, no, I'm not paying multiple first round picks for Dejhonte Murray and they were like, all right, we'll see you later. Former president of basketball Operations of the Atlanta Hawks. I think he helped build them into a winner. He was very good about developing picks into real players. He wanted to trade John Collins. They didn't want him to do that. A lot of it was an issue with the ownership and them wanted to take control. When Travis Shlank wanted to take control. There were real

reasons that he got fired. There were two words, apparently, Trey Young Trey Jung, who marked two coaches and one GM in the past two seasons. It's incredible the Wizards did this. It's incredible that ted le owns is a step in a side considering their history is filled with one terrible decision, make making move after another. Schlank, of course, has his work cut out fro him. He's got a roster that's a mess, a player who's a diva, a new head coach, lot to do. What are you gonna

do with Kuzma and Chris STAPs being free agents? One thing is for sure. The adults are in charge, and for the first time in ages, Wizards fans have a reason to be optimistic as long as his first word of business is trading, Bradley beal If Bradley Beal so makes it so, let's moving forward. Also, we have a

new coaching hire to discuss. After the Bucks hired Adrian Griffin, after the Sixers snapped up Nick Nurse, the Detroit Pistons put their nuts on the table to the tune of six years, seventy eight million dollars seventy eight and a half? Really for who? For Monty Williams. Wow, Moni Williams got the fucking bag. Huh. Detroit has pushed all their chips in the middle. The hand that they're going all in on is three card money, mister culture himself. Thirteen million

dollars a year for Monny Williams. That is what freedom gives you money. Williams was ready to be like, nah, I'm good. I'm gonna sit it here out. We'll see how things go. Detroit. It's been nice. We had a nice little chat. I'm good. And they were like, well, how does eighty million sound? And he said, when can I start? He said, when can I start? Thirteen million dollars is so much money he couldn't win in with a loaded team in Phoenix. I like him though, what

other choice did they have. He is a culture creator, he is a players coach. You're gonna get young guys, guys who learned to play professional basketball under Monni. It's a really interesting team. They have a lot of athletic talent. They have Kid Cunningham, they have Jade and Ivy. They have Jalen Duran, they have James Wiseman. They have Marvin Bagley Junior, both former number two picks in the draft. They have ten first rounders on this team, including five

top seven picks. Talent is not the question, kind of like it was in Phoenix, will Money Williams took over. Is trying to get the most out of said talent. The problem, though for the Pistons is they went from the number one pick in the draft in twenty twenty two to three games worse than the year before. That is called regression. Troy Weaver and company, they knew they needed to see Dwayne K Casey's ass out. That was just not gonna work. They saw the riding on the wall.

Another trip to the lottery this year and that would be a disaster. So we need to see like thirty five wins. We need to see like thirty two, like Monny Williams what he did the first year with the Suns, Like I think they went from nineteen wins to thirty two wins to forty five wins to sixty something. That's what you need from Manni. Fortunately he has six years to turn things around. They gave him a long deal like that will Hardy money that Utah Jazz just slowly

but surely developed these guys. But Moni turns teams around fast too. He took Phoenix from the dregs of the league all the way to the NBA Finals in four years, less than four years. The good news for Pistons fans he didn't hire Kevin Awllie. That's start right there. The only direction available, though is upwards. If anyone can get these guys to buy in, it's MANI. Will the Pistons be a winning franchise soon? I don't know. Maybe will they be in the lottery next year? I don't know.

Maybe will Monni win in Detroit? I don't know. Maybe if they give them six years, though, anything's possible. Like Kevin Garnett said, we will see. But it is a fascinating hire. That is all the time that we have on the Heat Check it is midnight on Friday morning, so this episode will come out early. Scorely. We'll be back Tuesday with an all new episode. As we are now in the midst of the finals, hopefully it's not

too zero by the time we talk next. Check out the feed for past episodes mini episodes they drop regularly. We are now coming to the close of the season. Shit moves fast. Please please do not forget to download. Please do not forget to subscribe, and tell your friends, Tell any NBA fan that you have yo. Check out the podcast This Bitch is Funny and follow us on SOCIALI add this heat Check and Actress to Grit on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter.