Welcome to this League Uncut in new world of twenty four hour NBA news.
This you, Chris Hans. It's time, work's time. It's so time. This League Uncut is underway. It on fire. It should be a good one.
Friends, Hello, thanks for joining us for the latest edition of this League Uncut. Had to get on the mic this Monday night after what we just witnessed late on this Memorial Day. Gotta put a bow on the wildest Eastern Conference Finals roller coaster. Anyone can remember my pal Chris Haynes. He's in transit tonight as I record this, So this is going to be a rare solo mission.
And just man, when it was over.
When it was finally over, Miami's Jimmy Butler handed the Larry Bird MVP trophy in Larry Bird's City on the Celtics floor, And it just as easily.
Could have been Caleb Martin.
That turned out to be the close call in this improbable game seven Jimmy Buckets winning ECF MVP in a narrow five to four vote over his undrafted teammate Caleb Martin. Twenty six clutch points for Martin in this clincher, The game itself not close. Jason Tatum tweaked his left ankle on Boston's first possession, The Heat took control early, never relinquished it, and Miami ends up winning by nineteen that fourth quarter.
Let me humbly say, didn't feel that close.
Just a Game seven masterclass from Miami clinching a sixth trip to the Finals under Eric Spolster as coach. Six trips to the finals for Spoe have to give infinite credit to the heater. Seriously, I picked them to win this series in six and I remember a lot of readers at the time telling me I was crazy, but I ain't gonna act smart now.
No way.
I was going out on a limb and predicting them to take Game seven in Boston. After the way the guys from South Beach, the way they lost that absolutely soul crushing Game six. What is it about number eight seeds from South Florida?
This spring? The Boston Bruins.
I'm a Buffalo Sabers fan, so even saying those words hurt me. The Boston Bruins, they were the best regular season team in NHL history. They go out in Round one to the Florida Panthers the same Florida Panthers now in the Stanley Cup Finals and then in the NBA seated Miami Heat. They take out Mighty Milwaukee in five games in Round one, and they follow that up by winning three of four in Boston for the East Crown.
The Heat they summon this steal. They glued themselves back together after losing three games in a row, and they looked in serious danger. It looked like Miami was going to become the first team in NBA history in one hundred and fifty one tries to fail to advance in a best of seven NBA series after taking a three
to zero lead. Remember, and this was only the fourth time that we got to a Game seven from three to zero after a three to zero start in a best of seven series, and this was the first time that the team coming back from three to zero down had the home court.
Advantage in Game seven. Not enough for Boston.
I have to say, though, and I really want to be careful here. I do not want to diminish Miami's night after a pomplishment like this, because you can't overstate how huge of a win this was. But let's face it, people, Monday Nights co winners, maybe the winners of the evening are still the Denver Nuggets. Yes, the Nuggets are going to have to chip away nine full days off without a basketball game of rust when they play host to Game one of the NBA Finals on Thursday night.
You're going to read a zillion.
Rest versus Rust stories on Tuesday and Wednesday into Thursday. But the Nuggets now have home court advantage in the championship round because it's the Heat in the finals, not the Celtics. The Heat the lowest scoring team in the league during the regular season, a forty four and thirty eight team with a negative nightly point differential during the regular season. Miami made it this far inspite of all that, but the Heat al so squandered multiple chances to end
this season earlier. I mean, at three to zero with a Game four at home, I was sitting there. I couldn't stop thinking about Miami and Spoe and pat Riley and plotting how soon would they get to Denver to get an early jump on getting used to the famed Rocky Mountain altitude.
Incredible opportunity. If they win in four or even finish.
Us off in five, the Heat, I fear they will lament dearly lament missing out on that prep time. However, if we are going to talk about regret, that focus has to stay squarely on Boston. This is two straight springs now where the Celtics were not just deep and versatile and dangerous, but they looked like they had such an inviting pathway to a championship.
And now after.
Failing to beat Golden State in last season's finals and fumbling this golden opportunity with the Bucks out of the way, early.
Chances are in this new NBA world.
That's coming, the Celtics are not going to be this deep, this versatile as we've seen these last two seasons. All the questions about rookie coach Joe Missoula and Joe Maz's future when the Celtics went down three to zero, it's all shifted. Now it's all on the pairing of Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown. Does Boston elect to keep this duo together?
Tatum and Brown they've gotten.
As far as the conference finals four times in their six seasons together, one trip to the NBA Finals, but no championships. And now, as we've talked about on this pod, as I've written about on my substack numerous times. It's going to cost the Celtics six hundred million or in that neighborhood to keep these guys together. Jalen Brown eligible for five years and nearly three hundred million this summer. The following off season, it's Tatum six hundred mili to retain this tag team.
In the new NBA, We've.
Got a much more onerous labor agreement coming in. It's going to be tough, much harder on the league's biggest spenders to put depth around him. It's going to be more important than ever once this new labor deal takes hold on June thirtieth, and the most onerous restrictions will be phased in over two seasons. But it's going to be more important than ever for teams to get their two star tandems right. Three star constructions are going to
be really hard to afford. Teams are going to be focused on getting that twosome right and building around it smartly, and the questions about the Tatum and Brown ceiling now are going to be louder than ever. On one hand, we're talking about two way wings, all NBA ers who play at both ends, and we are in an era in the NBA two way wings have never been more valued. But there is just no escaping that Tatum, Yes, bad ankle cannot overlook that the man was hurt on the game's very first possession.
We can't overlook that.
But fourteen points in this game seven, well shy of the fifty one that he put up against Philly in Game seven in the last round. And you know, Brown, I'm a huge Jalen Brown fan, but I mean, he shot a miserable sixteen point three percent from deep in this series, and I do have to respect him for saying after when it was over, I mean, Jalen Brown took a lot of the onus, a lot of the blame onto himself.
Quote we failed. I failed. We let the whole city down end quote.
The Celtics as a group, they were I'm just so three happy in Game six, in Game seven, sixteen for seventy seven from deep in the last two games. They miraculously win Game six on Saturday night because of the Derek White follow basket at the buzzer.
That is still hard to fathom now. I was actually in San.
Antonio on press row in nineteen ninety nine, long time ago, many years and pounds ago when Shawn Elliott found a way to stay in bounds sink the shot known in South Texas. That's the NBA's original Memorial Day Miracle, Elliott shot beating Portland, keeping the Spurs on course for the first championship in franchise history. I was not in Boston in person on Monday night. I was nowhere near the
very despondent looking Bill Simmons in the stands. I'm guessing you've seen the photo by now of Bill that's already all over Twitter with the Memorial Day miracle. This time it belonged to Jimmy Spoe and Co.
And the aforementioned pat Riley Ryan.
I was going to the finals for a nineteenth time as an executive coacher player, and doing it at the Celtics expense. I'm sure Riley can hardly contain his glee this league, as those of us on this podcast have been known to say, I mean tonight again, we're recording this right after the game. Derek White getting repeated MVP chants in this Game seven as he tried to keep
Boston in it. Caleb Martin again, Caleb Martin almost beating out Jimmy Butler, for that Larry Bird Eastern Conference MVP Trophy, this league, this series, this season, this postseason.
I guess when you really think.
About it, Miami winning a Game seven on the road after squandering three chances to close this thing out, it's actually a fitting outcome to slam home yet again, how form my seat. I can't speak for Chris, but for me, this has been the strangest season of my thirty seasons
covering this league, the strangest results wise. If we have to throw out the unprecedented COVID imposed logistics of the twenty nineteen twenty twenty season that had to be completed in a Walt Disney World bubble in Orlando, where Chris and I were both residents of the bubble, if you allow me to throw that out and the conditions, this really has just been a circus of a season unlike
any other. All Right, everyone that will do it for this solo audio dispatch, Chris and I promise we're going to be back together soon, back for more later this week, and I should pass along how mister Haynes reported on Twitter tonight after Miami clinches its place in the NBA Finals. Chris is reporting the Tyler Hero remember the broken hand he sustained very early in Miami's Round one against Milwaukee.
Chris reports that Hero is ramping up his workouts and targeting a Game three return in the finals when that series with Denver shifts.
To South Beach.
Chris and I will get into all of that in our next episode of This League Uncut, and I promise we will also get into all the latest from the coach in carousel. Since we last potted, Milwaukee has hired Adrian Griffin as its new coach. Philadelphia has hired Nick Nurse as its new coach. Detroit, Phoenix, and Toronto all still with openings to phil On Tuesday, Warriors president of basketball operations Bob Myers is meeting the media at three
pm Eastern noon Pacific. I wrote Monday that my prediction the vibes I'm getting, I think this is it. I expect Bob Myers to walk away and take a break from the front office world. We'll see if I'm proven correct with that prediction. In the meantime, everyone please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to This League Uncut via Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. We'll be back in short short order NBA Finals Thursday night in Denver,
Game one, Jimmy Butler Nikola Jokic. Which of these guys wins their first NBA Championship rank?
Let's hop and that'll do it for us. See you next time this league. Uncut it and iHeartRadio production. Christine Good march tyme