179. LeBron’s great performance wasted in embarrassing collapse

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to today. We're gonna break down the Lakers game in its entirety. After that, we're going to get into that crazy intense game between Phoenix and Philly that got a little out of hand late but had some interesting stuff going on. James Harden had another really really bad night.

We're going to dive into that a little bit. And then for those of you guys who stick around for the end, we're gonna talk about the Timberwolves getting get enough another opportunity to try to prove to us that they are the real deal, and struggling against the Boston Celtics. And then at the end, I want to talk a

little bit about the standings. We have some couple of really really interesting standing situations at the top of the Eastern Conference and at the bottom of the Western Conference that will be extremely important to watch over the course of the next couple of weeks. But let's start with the Lakers. I understand that it there's a desire to

to paint one picture about this game. You know, blown twenty point lead at halftime, and while on the surface that looks really ugly, and I do get that, I don't want to undersell that at all by any stretch of the imagination. I think that people have to understand that these types of games are almost always a war that's not about one battle. There's ups and downs, and

they're usually swings in momentum one way or another. And the New Orleans Pelicans have a lot of advantages over the Los Angeles Lakers because of the injuries to Anthony Davis, because of things like Dwight Howard. Suddenly you know this is he whatever he was in he's not that anymore. He used to be a guy that the Lakers could depend on every single night to be a pretty darned dominant backup center. Not that guy anymore. Even when he has days off like this, he just looks really slow.

There was a hilarious play in the first half where I believe when you actually wasn't the second half when you Gabriel through a push ahead pass to Dwight Howard and you see Dwight like try to hit the jets to try to catch up to the ball, and you're like, oh man, he just looks like he's one season too long in the NBA. When you look at down the roster some of the personnel shortcomings of the Lakers, it's inevitable that they're gonna have long extended stretches where things

go poorly. And today was exacerbated by the fact that Russell Westbrook, even though he had a good first half, started to struggle in the second half, and then a lot of those athleticism advantages started to wear the Lakers down. In the first half, Lebron comes out game busters. We're gonna talk about him in a second. Another good, not even good, amazing Lebron game. That is something that we should take as a positive with this team moving forward. But the Lakers also battled and a lot of the

physicality areas of the game. To start, the Lakers out rebounded the Pelicans in the first half. They that was an example of effort that's coming in with a feel of intensity and an understanding that uh uh, there was in the beginning of the game when everything was going in the lakers favor. You saw the Pelicans didn't shoot the three ball particularly great to start the game. Lebron's

making thirty footers contested off the catch. There's a lot going on in the early parts of that game that was advantageous to what the Lakers were doing, and so you knew over the course of the game there was gonna be a point where that turned on them a little bit. And in the second half, all of a sudden, a lot of those rebounding issues went towards the Pelicans way. And when you look at the roster down the line, there's an athleticism advantage there that's kind of insane. You've

got like, especially towards the end of the game. You notice this. This is something I talked about a lot with the Boston Celtics. So when the Celtics are running out their lineup with Marcus Smart, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, Al Horford, Robert Williams or or or whoever it is that they have out there, there's not really a weak point for you to attack. Everyone's tall, everyone's fastone's athletic.

You have to have something that you can go to. Uh, you have to have somebody that you can attack, and there's just it's just hard to find an option. And you saw with the Lakers tonight at the end of that game, brandon Ingram had great options. He's like, let me attack Austin Reeves here along the left wing on a big possession and I'm gonna just shoot over the top. Okay, next possession down, I got Molik Monk on a switch. I'm eyeballing him at the free throw line. I'm facing up.

I like my chances in that scenario if I'm brandon Ingram. But on the other end of the floor, the athleticism advantages that the Lakers are going to aren't as great. They're running out there with the lineup with Brandon Ingram and Herb Jones and Trey Murphy all on the floor at the same time. When you've got three dudes that are between six eight and six ten was super long arms that run really fast, and they've got Valanciunists underneath the basket doing so well as like a back line defender.

It's just tough. And there's again they have somebody you an attack, right, it's C Jim McCollum. You've got this guy and C Jim McCollum that you can attack. But that's the one guy in the lineup, and the overall lineup has so much length that it's too hard for them to It's too hard for them to find easy opportunities. You know. That's why I was talking about the difference between Jason Tatum and Kevin Durant matchup and how for Jason Tatum, he's attacking easy matchups, but Kevin Durant's coming

down and he's attacking difficult matchups. Even though Tatum is not as good as Kevin Durant, that matchup advantage is something that will manifest in that head to head matchup. Same for night with lebron In Brandon Ingram. Lebron James didn't even have a chance. D uh. Lebron James didn't even have a chance at the end of the game to attack matchups because they threw a ton of length at him and at the end of the game ended up being a lot of the Leak Monk and a

lot of Russell Westbrook. That was the example of that defense and the their ability to make the Lakers do something they didn't want to do, while on the other end of the floor, the Lakers were giving good matchups to the Pelicans to attack. That would That's always an interesting phenomenon in these games. It's not it's not just did your star make shots and did their star make shots? A lot of it's who are they attacking? Are they

getting one on one opportunity? So you'll notice on those late possessions with brandon Ingram and Malik Monk or brandon Ingram on the Leak Monk, or brandon Ingram and Austin Reeves, the Lakers did not send help. The Lakers did not dig in and double team and try to force someone else to beat them. They let a very good offensive player operate on an island against shorter defensive players, and no matter how hard they try, it's gonna be an issue. I was a little concerned with that at the end

of the game. I would have preferred to see the Lakers at least do something to try to get Lebron on CJ mccollumn. I know it's hard because if you run ball screens sometimes they'll trap. But there are other ways to work around that. You can set off ball screens to try to get a switch. You can move the ball in transition to try to get the ball quickly so that you're not walking into a set defense. There are a couple of different things that I wish

I would have seen the Lakers do better. But in that second half, you saw all those advantages that New Orleans had kind of come to roost, and a lot of the disadvantages from the Lakers come to roost. Right Like the Lakers are not a very athletic team, that started to hurt them. Russell Westbrook has been playing well. I had him in my notes as a major positive after that first half because of that little flurry he

went on in the second quarter. That's just like vintage Russ And but as we know this season, you are what the whole season says you are not what just one little short stretch of basketball is. And in a little short stretch of basketball, Russ was really good. But for the vast majority of the season he's been bad, and he wasn't very good in that uh, in that second half. I can't look at that as some sort of outlier performance. That's kind of what you're getting with

Russ this season. So if if the old Lakers manifest, meaning you know, it's all Lebron on offense, Malik Monk and Taylor Horton, Tucker, Yeah they can make plays, but they're also volatile and they're gonna do silly things like steak takes, stupid show spots, and and make mistakes and things along those lines. I get I totally. I totally understand why things went the way they did. So I'm not gonna be as much of a doomsday sayer in

this case. Now when we're looking at the standings and we're gonna talk about this, uh with the Eastern Conference as well. But as we get down the stretch here, the Pelicans, the Spurs, and the Lakers are all kind of buying within there. This could go either way here down the stretch, and so there's a lot at stake here. So for starters, the Spurs are only a half game

back of the Lakers now. So if the Spurs are a half game back of the Lakers, with the Lakers upcoming schedule, they gotta play Denver, they gotta play Phoenix. There there there's a bunch of tough games just in this next week. There's a chance before Anthony Davis gets back, that the Lakers actually slip out of the playoff picture entirely. And that's tricky. I don't know what to make of that. That's gonna be That's gonna be something where you're gonna

have a lot of pressure down the stretch. If Anthony Davis comes back and the Lakers have like five games left and they have to go four and one or three and two or whatever to get into the postseason, that adds a whole other element there. So obviously today hurts. But there's one gigantic footnote. The Pelicans announced the other day that Zion Williamson is out for the season. Zion Williamson is not coming back. There are no reinforcements there.

What you see with the Pelicans is what you get, and They're gonna be tough to beat at home, which is why this stretch in the standings is so important. This game was important because any chance the Lakers have to get to nine instead of ten is the difference between making those young athletes from New Orleans come two Staples or to the Crypto dot Com Arena and win

a huge road, single elimination playoff game. That's a different deal than you going to New Orleans where young players especially feed off the crowd, or athletes especially feed off the crowd, and that becomes a really dangerous environment in a game that you can very much lose. So that that that's what makes this so important down the stretch. But again, the Pels are not adding anybody, and the

Lakers are adding Anthony Davis to this. That's a huge reinforcement. Now, we were talking about how over the course of that game, advantages for the Pelicans took over right and it ended up swinging the game massively. Russ declined at the same time as a lot of the Lakers athletes declined, and Brandon Ingram started making shots and c. J. McCollum started making shots. Next thing you know, you blow a twenty

point lead. That happens. But how does that same progressive fatigue, how does that same wearing down, How do those advantages materialize if Anthony freaking Davis is on the court. For instance, the Pelicans, until the last few minutes of the game, when they were getting the ball out of Lebron's hands, they couldn't do anything with Lebron James. There was a lot of talk this week about herb Jones and his athleticism, whether or not to be able to bother Lebron. We

have an answer, no, it does not. On at thirty nine again and it was seemingly getting to whatever shot he wanted. Okay, so we're not worried about any specific athleticism matchup with Lebron Anthony Davis. It's gonna be the exact same thing Anthony Davis has taking taken these traditional plotting centers, guys like Jonas Valentunas. He's eating guys like

that for lunch for years. Okay. So that's another example of where when this matchup, they play the Pelicans again later this week, I believe on Friday, and let's say they play him again in the plane that the next time these teams face each other, there's gonna be a whole different physical dynamic. And this is where that dying,

that that concept of slotting becomes so important. As soon as Anthony Davis gets plugged into the Dwight Howard role where Dwight Howard was playing tonight, especially in a bigger quantity, because he's gonna play like thirty five minutes. Right as soon as you slide Anthony Davis there, that takes Dwight and either kicks him out of the rotation or puts him in a very tiny backup center role. So now you took a ad player who is actively hurting, who's

actively hurting the situation. You're taking that guy and getting him out of the lineup. That's a huge plus. Now I'm now taking Lebron out of having to play center for massive minutes over the course of the game, and I'm getting him into a role where he's playing center in small mint you know, maybe in fifteen minutes, and to where when he's in that situation, he can really devote his energy to the defensive end of the floor because he doesn't have to stress out about having to

do it for thirty minutes. And then he'll still have those opportunities in the open floor to do everything that he's been doing so successfully offensively. Now you take when you in Gabriel instead of when you in Gabriel having to basically be your athleticism on the back line. Now he's alongside Anthony Davis. Now that Anthony that that athleticism instead of him trying to jump over Jonas Valentunas, Anthony

Davis is eating up Jonas Salentunas. And when you Gabriel is now trying to jump over forwards and other players that are not way bigger and way stronger than him. That's what the concept of slotting is, and that's what's so important about it. You have to have people that are in their proper roles. And right now, with Anthony Davis out, everyone's batting outside of their outside of what they're capable of, and it's causing it's causing a slotting

issue for them. Right now, Anthony Davis is coming back. It'll make that matchup more interesting for those of you who are just joining us. This is Lakers Tonight, presented by FanDuel. Here. At the volume, we were just talking about the uh um. We were just talking about the Lakers situation in the standings. I wanted to talk about Lebron for a second because this is getting absolutely crazy.

So we talked about this right after he decided to sit out the Filly game, about how he needed ammunition for a stretch run, how he needed to recharge the tank to recharge the batteries refuel for this stretch run. He got a nice little six day stretch here to get his legs ready this, like I talked about, these are wars like this game tonight, there's up and down,

long forty eight minute battle. Well, it's gonna get even crazier here down the stretch with even tougher opponents and with even higher stakes first fighting and jockeying for position in the standings and then potentially a playing game. But what is exciting is he looks physically ready for it. There were several stretches in this game where when things were teetering, when Lebron was able to hit the gas physically to start to get stuff around the basket. He

was one of the big advantages. Like I talked about the the Pelicans have an awesome athletic front court of wings. Right, you have herd Jones, her Jones, you have Trey Murphy, you have Brandon Ingram, all these lanky six eight to six ten guys that are athletes, but none of them are strong. There's there's a huge difference between the wing and the NBA that's like a Jay Crowder p J. Tucker hold their own with like a really low center of gravity and a ton of strength to fight you

off of positions. Those kind of guys can wear guy like Lebron out over the course of a series with physicality.

It's gonna be the opposite as he's going against these thin wings, He's going to have the advantage to shove them around and when it gets to a big pivotal moment, even if it'll be completely exhausting in a playing game against New Orleans, Lebron is going to be able to bully his way to whatever he wants, which is a huge weapon that they can go to it like a you know, you know, push this button in case of emergency type of offensive option for the Lakers to be

able to manufacture offense in those really really uh like high stakes, a single elimination type of environment. The rusting is what in Bonus site played well for a little bit. All you have to do there was this one kind of sketchy little making. He was making over half his threes in that stretch. I think he shot total from three over the course of that three game span from jump shot the course that three game span, and actually it was the vast majority of his field goals made.

I think he had like four field goals made in a three game stretch. Of them were jumps. Russ is not at shooter, just wasn't making shots to make things tough. It was the reality of that situation was he was making shots he doesn't usually make, that was spreading things out for him and making things easier for him. Inevitably he was going to aggress. Well, here you go. He made some jump shots in the first half, but they're

in the second half. He was struggling, and over confidence got the best when he took the really dumb, bad three out of a trip threat on the right wing that didn't make any sense. That's the thing that scares me with Russ is the when you when we consider the good stretches of Russ text to be these games where he makes jump shots and we all look at each other, even in that locker room, and go, hey, this is what we need this is what Russ is doing. Well,

this is what we've got to defeat into. Let Russ cook. This is the way he's gonna play. Okay, well, that actually doesn't work really well in the long run. And a large sample size and a large sample size, he's not going to make those jump shots. And a large sample size, he's gonna fade in and out of games defensively. In a large sample size, he's gonna struggle to finish over length and athleticism around the basket. And so that's where I get concerned. And then guess what Anthony Davis

is coming back, probably this week. Russ is gonna get shrunk back down into a smaller role again offensively, and we'll see how that affects his rhythm. You know. That's why you know, there was a lot of Russ optimism over the course of this last week. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. A lot of that was made jump shots. A lot of that was Anthony Davis being out, a lot of that was him having an easier offensive role,

more space to operate. Things along those lines. I'm still concerned, but at the end of the day, and it it is the last thing I'll say about the Lakers. This is a process. I told you guys when they had this good stretch last week. The only way that this works out is if they treat this next three weeks like a training camp. They have to steadily get better. Frank Vogel just said in the postgame pressure a press or,

time is running out for us, and he's correct. This team does not have a ton of time to get from where they're at to where they need to be with their habits and all of the details of their identity. By the time the season starts, they're running out of time. They just have to continue make incremental to continuing continue to make incremental improvements, because this thing doesn't happen overnight.

If I took your men's league team and we were like, hey, we're gonna learn a five on five defense, and I was gonna have you guys do these rotations and these double teams and things like that, there's no chance in hell, even if you study the playbook inside and out, that you would be able to do it tomorrow. You have to build habits. You have to. If you are a bad defensive team in the n b A and you

want to establish a solid defensive identity. It can take games and games and games and practices and practices and practices to establish all of that. That's what they have to do. They looked a little better for ended stretches tonight. Their defense in the first half was excellent. That's a longer stretch of good defense than they've had in a long time, so that's a positive. But they have to continue to build on that over the course of the next couple of weeks. All right, let's move on to

the Sixers and the Suns. So this is a game that I'm really really excited to dive into the film tomorrow. Every time I see these straight up like battles of Titans in the NBA and the regular season, there's always all these little details that you can get into when you dive into the film the next day. Like I'm really excited to look closer at the embed eight and matchup. I'm really excited to look closer at how the Sun's attacked James Harden on the defensive end of the floor,

specifically Chris Paul and pick and roll. Those are little details. Will probably have a video coming out about that tomorrow. But one of the most interesting things to me about this game has to do with a glaring flaw in Philly struggling at this point in his career to be the same James Harden that he was in two thousand eighteen with Hugh Houston. He's two for eleven again tonight he had fourteen and seven and nine, which as a stat line doesn't seem horrible, right, only two turnovers, you're

getting nine assists. Like, technically he's in a playmaking role. But guys, when we're talking about the top of the East, when we're comparing Philly to Milwaukee with Janice and all the defending champion pedigree, when we're talking about Brooklyn and everything that they've got cooking. They destroyed Miami yesterday. That's a game that we're not gonna get to tonight, that I'll get to later this week. That's the Brooklyn's got

something cooking right now. Okay, and then Miami's in a down slump right now, but they're not gonna be an easy out. Boston looks freaking incredible. So in order for Philly to have a chance, James Harden has to be a superstar. James Harden has to be the James Harden from Houston in two thousand and eighteen. That's how good he has to be, and he simply has not been.

I've talked about a lot on this show. What is so important with James Harden is his ability to beat people off the dribble and get all the way to the basket. Everything else in his game depends on it. If he has you off balance getting to the basket, that's what allows him to get sufficient separation on his step back so that he can go straight up and down, have good balance and knock that shot down him. Getting straight line drives to the basket is what opens up

all of his high end playmaking game. That's how he gets his fifteen sixteen assists nights when he's living in the paint. That's what gets him to the foul line. That's how he ends up with those thirty thirty five point point totals is getting to the foul line, getting to the basket. Everything is predicated on that. But for whatever reason, and again, Phoenix is a very good defensive team with a lot of length, but they have some

guys you can attack. They have guys like Lander Shaman and Devin Booker and Campaign and even Chris Paul with the size advantage. There are guys on that team that you can attack and James Harden just is not capable

of breaking them down. That's an issue. That's something that scares me for that team for a playoffs here, Like I always say, when you're talking about the next level, the top tier teams, which are the guys you're gonna play in the second round of the playoffs on and if you struggle in the regular season, you might face them early see see the Lakers. But when you're facing those high end defensive teams, you have to have somebody

who can warp the defense. If you let five good defensive players stay home and you play one on one all game long, you're gonna get your butt kicked. That's like what's going on with the Celtics. You have to have somebody who can get that first defensive rotation, that first team, that help side, because the only way you're gonna succeed against those types of defenses is by getting

them in rotation. And if James Harden can't beat people at the point of attack, if James Harden can't do his thing up on the top of the key to break down the defense, they are going to struggle to score against Milwaukee. They're going to struggle to score against Brooklyn, They're gonna struggle to score gainst Miami, and they're say, sure as hell, are going to struggle to score against Boston.

That's a huge issue. If it's a hamstring issue, then maybe it gets better over the course of the next couple of weeks and he can get into a peak physical condition and restore this by the postseason. If not, if this is a decline, if this is what the new James Harden is, then Philly can't win this thing. They simply don't have enough perimeter talent. The irony is

Chris Paul still looks amazing. Nineteen points and fourteen assists against tonight, only one turnover, nine for fifteen from the field. It's wild because after the Houston Rockets experience, I bet you if you gave a bunch of truth serum to James Harden, he would have telled you so long, Chris Paul, get rust in here. He's the younger, better version of you. You can go right off into the sunset with the

Oklahoma City thunder. Fast forward a couple of years. Here we are in two Chris Paul's arguably the better player. He's taken way better care of his body ever since a hamstring injury in two thousand eighteen. Allegedly, Chris Paul's gone vegan. That's been a huge part of his recent

physical kind of renaissance. Chris Paul is a testament to maximizing this phase of his career, while James Harden is a testament to minimizing this phase of his career, and as a result, a significantly better player in James Harden is arguably below Chris Paul is a basketball player right now, which is absolutely insane. One last note on the Phoenix Suns. Devin Booker talked about him a lot over the course

of the m v P rais. I don't think he's the m v P. I don't think Booker, Morant or Tatum can be the MVP because how good their teams are overall, they're just better players, having better seasons, having nearly as much success with less talent around them at the top. That's why I don't think they're in the running. That said, Devin Booker is playing unbelievable basketball right now. He's starting to look like a bona fide top ten

ish player in the NBA. He's putting himself with Moran and Tatum in that conversation for being right around the ninth tenth best player in the league. In his last twelve games, he's averaging thirty one points per game on sixty five point four true shooting. Just unbelievable stuff from Devin Booker. A huge part of this is him developing as a three point shooter. That was always one of

his weakness is relative to the rest of his games. Obviously, a dominant mid range score has all sorts of crafty finishes around the basket, but he's become so dynamic from the three point line that he's getting comfortable shots everywhere on the floor. Devin Booker is amazing again. I still think the Phoenix Suns are the favorite to win the title at this point, all right, moving on to the

Wolves and the Celtics. So once again, the Minnesota timber Wolves lose to a team that's at full strength, that did this a video about this yesterday. In their previous twenty six games since January, the Timberwolves were nineteen and seven. That was the third best win percentage in the entire NBA over that span. They were third in offense sixth in defense. A huge part of that was what they

were doing in transition. They lead the league in pace over that span, their second in the league and fast break points per games per games. So they're getting stops and they're getting out in transition and running and they finally got a signature win. They beat all these good teams, but there was always one of the best players on the other team sitting out for whatever reason. Well, they finally got a chance to beat a team at full strength in the Dallas Mavericks the other day, and they

did so. They controlled the game throughout and they gotta win. Problem is, Dallas is a good team. Boston is a great team, and they absolutely utterly dominated them. What have I been telling you, guys is my biggest fear with the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's their guard play well. Any Anthony Edwards played well tonight. Kudos to him. He showed up athletically against the very athletic team. He rose to that occasion.

D'Angelo Russell four points on six shots tonight. It's just they're not gonna be able to get enough out of their back court, in my opinion, to consistently break out, breakdown these top tier defenses. I wanted to talk about just how dominant the Boston Celtics had been in March, so they completely they uh the month of March. March starts with them dominating the Hawks at home. Then they play the Grizzlies at home, beat him by thirteen, dominant win.

Then they play the Celtics at home and win. That's the game where Tatum out plays Kevin Durant. Then they go into the into Charlotte and dominate the Hornets. Then they come home and blow out the Pistons. Then they lose that really close game to the Dallas Mavericks at home. OK, did a video breakdown of the game, really really close game. At the end, they were double teaming Jayson Tatum all over the floor. Tatum, Uh, their teammates just missed some shots.

Tatum actually got a couple of decent looks and he missed those as well. Whatever, they lost a close game to the Mavericks. Then they go right back to beating the crap out of everybody. They beat the Warriors by two, Then they beat the Kings on the road by twenty nine. Then they went into Denver blew out the Nuggets by twenty. Then they gotta win on the road in Oklahoma City against the thunder Then they utterly demolished the Utah Jazz

by twenty eight the other night on national television. And then today they take that Timberwolves team that again has been the third best winning percentage in the entire NBA over the course of the last two months and beat the ship out of him and beat him by twenty two. I keep telling talking to you guys about how they were winning all these games. When I did our first power rankings and I had the Celtics that close to the top, I told you guys that Jalen Brown and

Jayson Tatum weren't even shooting well. And in the time from that power rankings to the next one, Jayson Tatum got hot and they were bowling everybody out. Well, guess what, Jalen Brown last five games twenty eight point four points per game from the field from three from the line on five point four three point attempts per game. So now Jalen Brown's cooking too, and they're kicking everybody's ass.

This is gonna it's gonna be really really interesting to see what happens here in this post season because there's this other element here too that I think people look over. This team has a ship ton of playoff experience. Jason Tatum has gone toe to toe with Lebron James in Game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals and was making big plays in the fourth quarter. Jalen Brown has been in a million playoff games over the course of this span. Al Horford has been in a bunch of big playoff games.

Marcus Smart has been in a bunch of big playoff games. This team has a ton of of of of pedigree in that department, and everything that's telling everything that this season is telling us, is that they should very well could be the favorite. Now. I don't think they have nearly as much offensive talent as a team like Phoenix does. So I have to go with the team like Phoenix when I'm picking the NBA champion, because I think they're

a little bit more versatile. I think they have a few more punches, a couple a couple more directions they can go. So I'm leaning towards Phoenix as my favorite, But every single day Boston just inches a little bit closer, and I'm there's this question I keep having, is there a chance that We're going to look back at this thing in the middle of June and go like, man, how do we not know the Celtics. We're just gonna run over everybody. They have the best defense in the league.

Nobody can score on them in the half court when they get set, and then on offense, they've got these two big versall forwards that can attack mismatches all game long. Look at that down the stretch of that game you saw you saw, or in the first half of that game, especially late second quarter, you saw Jalen Brown just picking on these small Minnesota guards. That's the advantage that they have. They have these their offensive players are big and can

rely on physicality in those environments as well. Boston looks incredibly good really quickly. Before we get out of here tonight, I just wanted to, uh, just talk about that race at the top of the East because I think it's important over the next couple of weeks for on a couple of different fronts. So as you can see Boston as the one seed at this exact moment in time, Miami's right there, Milwaukee's right there, Philadelphia is right there.

They're all within half game of each other. So it's it's essentially could go either way here down the stretch. Boston has the third toughest remaining scheduled by opponent winning percentage. The Bucks have the seventh toughest remaining schedule, my Amy has the nineteenth toughest remaining schedule, and Philly has the second easiest remaining schedule. Now for Boston, that just doesn't

seem to matter. They're beating anybody anyway, everybody anyway. So Boston I would probably make the favorite to get the one seed. But keep an eye on Philly because I talked about in my video that I did on Saturday that are on on Friday, that the m v P was kind of up for grabs there for Johannice. If the Bucks could get the one seed. But the Bucks have a tough schedule remaining, and they lost again yesterday.

They are struggling to to uh a Drew Holiday was out for that game, of course, but which has been an issue this entire season. But the Bucks have a chance, but they have a tough schedule. Look at Philly if they if they have an easy schedule here down the stretch and they just clean house on those games, you could see Philly get the one seed, which is important for a couple of different reasons. The same case I made for Janice for m v P getting the one

seed also applies for Joel Embiid. So if the Sixers can eat out enough wins over this easy schedule down the stretch and they get the one seed, I could see a very strong case for Joel MVP Joe Joel Embiid for m v P. And then home court advantage.

I talked all the time about how these playoffs series is are decided by the smallest of margins, and one mismatch here, one guy gets hurt, here, one role player goes down there, one pivotal game on a home floor versus on the road could be the difference between one team advancing and another team advancing. And obviously this is second round home court advantage on on at stake here. If Philly finishes first, they get home court in the

second round and in the conference finals. If they finished fourth, which is where they're currently sitting now, they have to go on the road to Boston in the second round. Now they have to play potentially the Milwaukee Bucks. With Milwaukee having Game five and seven at home. That gets a lot tougher, so just keep an eye on that down the stretch. Could go either way, and I think it's really relevant for both the end VP race and for home court advantage over the playoff run. All right, guys,

that is all I have for tonight. I sincerely apologize for the technical difficulties there at the beginning. We'll get it all sorted out and edited for you guys later today. We will be back on Tuesday for the next Laker game. We'll be going right after the final buzzer then. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys support, and we'll see you guys in a couple of days. Volume