NBA Finals Series Preview, Porzingis Returns & Chef Wright

Bobby Canavali. Watch Unstoppable now exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

tackle any project with ease. Whether you're looking to spruce up your backyard or undergo a major home renovation, Angie's got your back. And their pros are locally based, often running small businesses right in your community. And here's the best part. Angie makes the process seamless, from researching and comparing pros to scheduling services at your convenience, Angie's user friendly platform puts you in control, so why settle for anything less than perfection When it comes to your home.

With Angie, you can trust that every project will be completed with the utmost care and professionalism. So get started today at Angi dot com that's ANNGI or download the app today and discover why homeowners across the nation are turning to Angie to get all their jobs done. Well. All right, So here's the deal. We have a massive show today. We have some breaking news from overnight. The NBA Finals start, and I barely slept last night because

i have some weird head cold going on. So I'm gonna try to power through today because I actually I feel fine, but I'm obviously I've got something going on. But today's a big show, and we had news I did not expect to be coming. And if I wasn't demands already hyped about the finals, I'm gonna throw a curveball at you. A bit here. Guess who the first one is gonna be very hard to guess, but once you hear the answer that you might be able to

get to the second one. Guess who the Boston Celtics had narrate their hype video that they posted last night. It's an all time great athlete from the region basketball.

or the Celtics. Patrick's doing the MAVs. I think maybe do they both show up. I mean, Patrick's definitely showing up court side for the MAVs games in Dallas? Does Tom show up courtside for the Celtics games in Boston? Is he there tonight? I don't know. I just I couldn't be more excited. But somehow WOJE stole the show. So we can't even start the show with that. But first, quickly, what missed the cut? Travis Kelce does not watch Grey's

Anatomy with Taylor Swift. That should have to be honest, guys, missed the cut? For missing the cut, FX is clipped premiered Tuesday. I won't watch a second of it. And this is sucks. But Novak Djokovic hurting the French Open but demons, let's start with the breaking news overnight from WOG go ahead.

landing this plane. Do where I said I owe the audience honesty. Do I honestly think that it is on the board that the Lakers are floating. This not that dissimilar to, Hey, they'd love Jason Kidd, who's under contract coaching a team in the playoffs, and then he gets an extension. Hey, they'd love of Tylou who's under contract coaching a team with the richest owner in sports. And that this is to play kate the fan base that

is underwhelmed by JJ Reddick potentially getting the job. Yeah, I think that's on the board, and I so I am not taking this report to mean Dan Hurley is the next Lakers head coach. However, if he is the next Lakers head coach, that's a great hire, a great hire. And when the other candidates were James Brago, who did a nice job with no talent in Charlotte but is a little underwhelming. Sam Cassell would be a first time head coach. JJ would be a first time anything coach.

And then you have a guy who was built a dynasty in Yukon and is young, and is sharp, and is great at developing players, has a brilliant mind for offensive basketball. All of that is exciting. It is not in the Genie Bus Lakers history that they are going to pay a lot of money for a head coach, that they are going to have long term commitments to a head coach, So it would be going outside of

what they typically do. But I have been very critical of Rob Po Lincoln, Genie Buss for a lot of things, and for how they hire coaches, how they lowball coaches, all of it. This would redeem a massive amount of that, and this would be spending real money, making a big commitment. I also, you know, call it because I think I Lakers folks have been burned in the past by well timed leaks of ah, we just quite didn't get it done. I am a little skeptical of how close this is

to being a done deal. If it is. If it does get done, it's a great hire, great hire for the Lakers independent of Lebron. AD's young enough and under the new CBA, as WoDES talked about, you really do have to develop players. He's shown a great track record of that at the collegiate level. I like everything about the Dan Hurley hire I would like for the Lakers.

I am walking with some trepidation on whether or not they actually think they are going to hire Dan Hurley, or whether or not they simply want that to be out there. So if they at some point hire JJ Reddick, no one can accuse them of not shooting the moon, not going not being willing to spend money, all those things. So I the that is the to me, the Lakers have front office has earned that level of skepticism. But this would be a hell of a coup. And if

they get Dan Hurley, that's an excellent hire. Do you have anything you want to follow up there on, demondsay? Or do you want to get to the finals? It's your call.

you're out of your mind. But there's a bit of a boiling frog paradigm going on here, where the temperature has just been raised a degree at a time. Do you know the boiling frog is frog's.

be great. We will see, we'll see what happens there. And I didn't mean to be rude when I said, are you familiar with the boiling frog things? Sometimes I use these kind of a arcade.

Here's how game ones have gone for the MAVs. They lost game one his first playoff series against the Clippers. They then won game one the next year against the Clippers. Then en route to the Western Armence Finals, they lost game one to Utah, They lost game one to Phoenix, They lost game one to Golden State. This year, they lost game one to the Clippers. They lost game one to OKC and then so it's not the last couple rounds. And then obviously they dominated the Western Roumage Finals and

they won that. So there has always been with Luca an element of the Lebron feel out game to game one, which is obviously you're trying to win, but you are diagnosingting what's going on? Yeah, exactly right, and you feel like it's a long series and I don't have now. Another factor of that is this is and this is remarkable. Lucas played one, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight. This is Luca's ninth career playoff series. Eight of those nine times he has not had home court. They have

been the road team. The one time he had home court advantage in a series, he missed the first two home games. It's when he was injured against Utah a couple of years ago. So the other thing that happens in these games is it's also less critical for the MAVs in Lucas career to win game one because they are the road team. You know, I know it's cliche, but it's true. You take care of your home games and then try to steal one on the road. So I just I so I think there will be overreaction.

Here are the things, and I hope I'm not stepping on the rest of the show, but here are the things I am watching tonight. Who is the primary defender on Kyrie Irving? I personally think it should be Drew Holliday if I were the Celtics. And that's for two reasons. Now, you could say we can have Derek White do it, right, because Derek White's a good defender. If you have Derek White do it and you do a Luca Kyrie pick and roll and Derek White ends up on Luca, you're

in trouble. If you're Boston. You're in a lot of trouble if you're Boston. Now, I don't think that Drew Luca, Luca and Derek White. Oh, I just think Luca's too big. I just think Luca would just back him to Dre. Drew is way more and Drew's way more stout, and I think Drew is a good enough defender that he can really I don't want to say eliminate, but really hamper Kyrie really hamper him and so, and you don't

really need Drew's offense. So I want to see what that matchup is, and then I want to see in the front court. Okay, so this is a little X's and OZ and I will leave this typically to Zach Lowe of Zach Lowe's and Kevin O'Connors of the world, but it's the finals, so we can do it. For a moment. I think that the Celtics are going to put Chris STAPs on whomever they believe to be the Mavs'

least dangerous offensive player, so probably Derek Jones Junior. That way, if Luca is trying to get Chris STAPs involved in the action on a pick and roll, then his pick and roll partner, instead of being Lively right or instead of being PJ. Washington, is Derek Jones Junior, who is probably the guy you least want to be operating offensively. So I think that's an interesting one to watch. I'm also curious who do you think demon is gonna be

guarding Luca? Jason Tate? And again, there's gonna be switches, there's gonna be I understand all of that, but his primary assignment, who do you think it's gonna be?

But now, all of a sudden, this is where it really does. There is some I don't want to say ego management because that's because Tatum has been such a great teammate and Tatum has conducted himself so well, but there is this is I thought that the whole Oh did Tatum celebrate Jalen's Eastern Conference Finals MVP enough was ridiculous. I thought the idea that there is some battle between

Tatum and Brown, I haven't seen that. The only thing I've seen over the years is maybe Jalen Brown being understandably annoyed with yes that every offseason he's included in trade rumors and zero off seasons Tatum is you know what I mean? So I think there is there, but I don't think between those two guys there's any issue.

With all that said, if you're Jason Tatum and you're tasked with guarding Luca and all of a sudden that leads to your offensive numbers being depressed, and then Jalen Brown one Conference finals MVP, Jalen Brown is having the best offensive series, you know, in the finals, that could be a tricky spot, and so I'm really intrigued by that. I'm also really intrigued by how I am not worried

about Luca in his first finals at all. This guy was playing in EuroLeague tournaments with guys setting flares off in the crowd when he was a teenager. He's not gonna be intimidated. Kyrie is not going to be intimidated everyone else on the MAVs. These are the biggest games of their entire lives by a wide margin, wide margin.

The Celtics meanwhile, every single one of those guys except for Chris STAPs was playing in these games two years ago, and so so how does and I guess for Drew it was three years ago, but still they've all been there. How does that impact it? And then the last thing is porzingis, which you know we'll get to in a bit, but uh, all right, let's get to the next question. Demanse.

that dissimilar from Lebron twenty fifteen against the Warriors. The ball is just always in his hands and he is making every decision, with the distinction being this Celtics team is not quite as good as that twenty to fifteen Warriors team, and Kyrie Irving God Willing isn't gonna break his kneecap in Game one, and that when Luca needs

to take possessions off, Kyrie can go cook. But I think that you are going to see Luca dissecting a great defense, as he has throughout his entire playoff career. So that is the other aspect of this that I think is noteworthy on a Luca history standpoint, Luca has only played against great defenses in his postseason career. In his first ever playoffs, and this I think an underrated fact about him first ever playoffs, he's playing a fully healthy Clippers team that that season was the number five

defense in the NBA. His second ever playoffs, he's playing against a fully healthy Clippers team that was number eight in the NBA and Chris DAPs got hurt in it. His third playoff season, in round one, he's playing against a Utah team that has the now four time Defensive Player of the Year who was the number nine defense in basketball, then a Phoenix team that that year was the number three defense in basketball, then a Warriors team that that year was the number two defense in basketball.

This year in the postseason, he has gone and I'm doing the per one hundred, I'm doing true defensive numbers. In the first round for the first time in his career, he got a break defensively because the Clippers were below average at number eighteen. Then in round two they played the thunder who were the number four defense. In round three they played the Timberwolves, who were the number one defense.

So Luca has gone up against in his postseason career, and now they're playing Boston, who's the number three defense. In nine series, he's gone up against eight top ten defenses and five top five defenses, and he has put up his historic postseason numbers. And so I listen, I listened to you know legend of the podcast game Bill Simmons tried to talk himself into the idea that we should just throw away what the MAVs did against the

Timberwolves for reasons that never really got explained. Everyone needs to remember the way the Timberwolves were being discussed and the way that defense was being discussed from a historic standpoint during and after the Nugget series, and Luca eviscerated them, absolutely eviscerated them, and now he gets a chance to do it against Boston and the Thunder and Boston had a lot of similarities this year. This year on defense, Boston three, Oklahoma City four. On offense, Boston won Oklahoma

City three on three point percentage. This season, Oklahoma City won Boston two very similar teams, and Kyrie in that series averaged sixteen points per game and the MAVs won in six, and that included giving Game four away. So I understand what the Vegas odds are, but for me not to take the best player in a series, it needs to be a very lopsided situation that is not this. It appears to be this because Boston had sixty four

wins in Dallas had fifty. But once Dallas got these players at the trade deadline and started running with this starting five, they have the top defense in basketball. They have a record of a sixty five win team. So I think the matchups dead even. And if it's dead even and one player has a guy who's going to go down as one of the greatest offensive players in the history of the sport and he is seemingly getting

healthier and peaking, I'm gonna go with them. I know that this is, you know, not your thoughts on the finals to Monday, your your so I'm curious before we move on to anything else, your thoughts on your Celtics, your confidence level in this series compared to the last finals they were in, and what you think needs to happen for Boston to win.

team isn't tired. I think, like I said before, I just think we're way too deep defensively for Luke to be able to keep that up and beat us in a seven game series, and the and Porzingias isn't injured anymore. So like, honestly, with that, I felt pretty fine without him, but with him there, that's that's just that much more icing on the cake. But uh, but yeah, I'm not nervous.

twenty eight point four. Now there's a few other guys who would be on that list if they had played more than four or five Finals games, like Iverson's at like I think thirty five, but he only played five games. Uh. Giannis is I think in the mid thirties, but he only played six games. Right, Uh, how many points per game do you think? And well, we're gonna get to this later, but I'll just ask you here, how many points per game do you think Luca is going to average in this series?

career in that next bucket right beneath it. Uh, Jalen Brunson, I guess you, out of respect him, put him in that bucket, all right, He's somewhere in there, right Like, if somebody said he's better than Embiid, I would say, Okay, I understand what you're saying. I that Embiid he doesn't have the regular season accolades of Embiid, But Embiid's health plus his postseason issues, you want to say that that's fine? Right? So if you now, if somebody said he's better than Shae,

I would listen to him. I think Shay was better this season, but you can, you know what I mean, you can make that argument. So my point on it now, if somebody said postseason stuff, be damned, Embiid average thirty four a game, won the MVP, then had a better season, I think Embid's better than Tatum, even if you disagreed with it. That's a credible argument that people are allowed

to have that opinion. And if somebody said Shae's younger than him and better than him and had a better season this year than Tatum's ever had, that's an allowable argument. So my point is this, Jason Tatum, and maybe folks don't like to hear this, but it's what I think is honest, is at best the fourth best player in the league, at absolute best, and at worst the eighth best player in this league kind of no matter what happens in these finals, like, he needs to do more

for multiple seasons to change that. And that is not an indictment, that is not being unfair, that is not shortchanging him. And so I just feel like that's who he is and where he is now. There is a different We had this on the show yesterday, which is guys stars to lose their first two finals and you know then what it looks like for them. Other than Lebron, none of those guys ended up being the best player

on a champion. You have Clyde Drexler who lost his first two finals then went and joined the keem and by the way, the Clyde comp and Jason Tatum comp career wise, accolades wise. There's a lot of I think fair similarities there. And then there's a Jerry West, you know, lost his first nine finals or eight finals and then won a championship at the end. It's also a little weird. You look confused by that demonse. They just kept running into the Celtics fan. Yeah, yeah, they just kept running

in Yeah, Jerry West kept running into the Celtics. It's a wild situation. Poor Jerry West. A quick Jerry West, little history lesson if we may. Jerry West lost finals under the following circumstances. He lost the nineteen sixty two finals in seven games, averaging thirty one and five. He lost the let me go to the next really brutal one for him. He lost the nineteen sixty six finals in seven games, averaging thirty four and six, and by by he lost two finals in the between those, by

the way, when he was just good but not unbelievable. Also, it should be noted that nineteen sixty six finals that he lost in game seven, which was his fourth consecutive finals lost. Game seven was decided by two points. The nineteen sixty two finals, which he lost, which his first

finals lost, Game seven was decided by three points. He lost then the so here's West finals career if I made just quickly nineteen sixty two, lost in seven, nineteen sixty three, lost in six, nineteen sixty five, lost in five, nineteen sixty six, lost in seven, And I'm not saying who he lost to, because every single time the answer is Bill Russell. Nineteen sixty eight, lost in six, nineteen sixty nine average demonse. Jerry West in those finals averaged

thirty eight, five and seven. Lost in seven, and yes, you guessed it, Game seven was decided by two points. Nineteen seventy lost in seven to the Knicks after Russell retired. That was the famous Willis Reid comes limping onto the court game. And then finally Jerry West nineteen seventy two one an NBA Finals against the Knicks. In those finals, he averaged twenty points per game. In his previous seven finals losses Screw, he averaged thirty five points per game.

I mean, that's isn't that brutal? Can you imagine being that great Demons and every year you make the finals and every year you just lose to the same team and it's usually in seven games, in a one possession game. Yeah, That's how Jerry West's finals career went one in eight in the finals, lost his first seven trips. With that said, Tatum's not up against a Bill Russell, and he's not Jerry West, and he's he's not gonna make sense. He's

not gonna get nine opportunities there. And so that Jerry West is also the guy who took a shot at JJ Reddick. It was so funny when JJ did the plumbers and they were all plumbers. Oh yeah, fireman back there.

I was a badass. At some point. You need I need you to go ahead and actually have some accolades before you say we were all plumbers and firemen because you know, I my name's Jerry West, and I once hit a sixty foot shot to force overtime of a finals game that happened down down two because there was no line inbound the ball with one second left and just heaved from the right path the free throw line net. Let's go to over, tim, I mean yeah, I mean he's ah and so I don't know why we did

all whole Jerry West retrospective, but we did. But point is, losing your first two finals is the best player traditionally does not bode well. Lebron turned it around. Most guys haven't. Also, I said I was gonna do a fast show and I just did ten minutes on Jerry West.

can stretch the court. He suffered that shoulder injury that you suffered Demons, and then came back for a few minutes in Game four against Minnesota and then more minutes in Game five to knock the rust off. So I do think that is a tricky, interesting wrinkle of what will Christaps look like? All Right, I don't even want to do the Lebron Kyrie thing because this unless that's a bummer for you. Do you really want me to do it? I'd rather the go ahead.

likely just the truth. Maybe it is attempting to set the groundwork for them playing together again one day, but the MAVs I think had too much success for that to be realistic. If the MAVs had gotten clipped by the Thunder, then I would have thought Lebron joining the MAVs was like on the board. But I don't think Lebron's going to join a team that either just won the championship or just made the finals, you know what

I mean? And then I don't even know what the what if is, But so I just I don't think. What if Lebron goes and joins the MAVs. I suppose, but I don't think that's gonna happen. Go ahead.

all competing. And I think if that would have happened if Kad would have just picked the Celtics. My guess is from seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, Lebron and Kyrie get one more, Stephen Clay get one more and Durant figures it out some way and gets one. But then all also, the ring math for that era makes so much more sense. It's like, oh, in this you know, in this time, Lebron got to Steph got uh, Steph got to right, Yeah,

Steph got to Durant got one. For their careers. You know, up until this last five years it had been Durant one, Steph two, Lebron four, which is really what the hierarchy probably should be, all of those things. But Steph and Katie coming together, to me, threw the whole thing off. But whatever it is, what it is. All right, We're gonna do some gambling and play some games next What's Right? All right? Welcome back in What's Right with Nick Right?

Episode two forty two Demons? What are we doing here?

is like the sharpest WNBA better that's ever existed. He we have a group chat me, him and Danny Parkins, and he just sends these WNBA bets and never I mean, he's got to be at seventy ats on these WNBA like player props. It's unbelievable. And I don't I may or may not bet the Olympics. So there'll be some things.

of in conflict with Dallas and five. Uh, but then if he has one huge, yeah, I think this. If I'm being honest, I think the smart bet is under two and a half three pointers made per game for Kyrie. So that's the one I would bet there.

a half points per game in these finals. I think that, yeah, what's up?

twenty two, seventeen twenty five. That's round one, round two, thirty two, nineteen twenty eight, twenty seven eleven, Round three twenty six forty twenty four to twenty nine. That makes me like the bet even less because he hasn't had a down game in a while. So no, the plus three fifties not good enough odds for me to like him to be able to hit twenty plus in every game.

be a huge Lucas scoring series. I don't think he's going to average a triple double. I think he'll come just short of it. But I like him to have Finals MVP at plus two oh five A lot, all right?

same odds, I'd go Lock. But Lock is only plus two seventy five and Fields is plus four fifty. So I will go with Fields at plus four fifty as a little early season. I'm Zach Wilson's not. I mean, it's gonna be bon Nicks. It has to be Bonnicks for the Broncos. I don't love Bonix, but it's gotta be Bonicks. All right, We've got listener questions. Plus, there is an F one race this weekend, which means we have our F one minute coming up. That's all next,

do you have something else to monsay? I saw you put your finger up? Was that for F one? Okay? Got it? All right? That's our F one minute and your questions next? What's right? All right? Welcome back in If you didn't see us last week. We are introducing a new segment on Thursdays before races and Tuesdays after races, called the F one Minute. My goddaughter, Sierra is an aspiring sports journalist. She loves F one. I know nothing about it. I was told we need to incorporate F

one coverage, so I had her do it. Now. The way we are doing this is you guys are going to see her evolution as a journalist as we go. So she sends these in I give no no notes, We play them, and then I give notes after the fact. So the notes I gave her after her last one were the following one is introduce yourself. You didn't say who you were. The second one was because of how

you're recording it. iPhone does the mirror image, so don't have words on a sign behind you, because it can be distracting to the audience, like it's weird if you record on your iPhone sometimes it shows I don't understand why. But the reverse and she had a sign, she had a poster or something on the wall, but behind her last time, and we saw the backwards and the last thing I said was don't be afraid to show personality

and give your picks. So we will see how she took those notes all together as we get ready for an F one race this weekend. That I'll be honest, I don't know where it is. I do know I said I I picked a favorite driver. I forgot who my favorite driver was that I said I picked. Maybe Ker can help me out. Uh, Carlos sains that's my guy. I'm a Carlos Saines guy. Uh. And because we know that the one guy dominates the F one circuit h and so it felt like, you know what, it's not

really fun to root for him. So here is F one minute number two with Sierra hit it.

Red Bull all the way until twenty twenty six. But on the other hand, we had Subon Akoon who actually has decided to part wiz with the Alpine team at the end of the twenty twenty four seasons, so there's a lot of things, you know, up in the air, you know, especially with Carlos Signs and Lewis Hamilton taking

a seat in FERI for twenty twenty five. But as far as racing gets concerned, I think we're in for a real treat this weekend with long straights, three day raisons, the tight chit canes, the slow speed corners, but there's also a high chance of rain for pretty much the

entire weekend. So with all that being said, we'll definitely be on the edge of our seats watching this race this weekend, and I think they'll definitely be a battle towards the front of the field, especially with Max Verstappens leading the Constructors Championship starting to dwindle and the gap is legging tighter and tighter. I'm really excited to see some overtakes happening, especially with last year's race we had a total of twenty on track overtakes, so I'm sure

there will be a lot of action this weekend. And as far as my predictions go, and no specific order, i think I'm gonna go Carlos signs Max Staffing and Charles the Clerk as our top four finishers on the race this Sunday, So we'll see where that goes. But that's all I've got for the F one minute this week. I'll see you on Tuesday.

And Sierra said in this race last year there were twenty overtakes during the race, so I guess they don't happen that often. I don't know. I'm learning along like you guys, and it's in Canada, so the time zone won't be a problem. I'll watch this weekend. And she had my guy Carlos in our top four.

all of that. That was exciting. That was great. All right, let's get to these questions.

just not gonna do it. Like, hey, like anyone got a thought on the guy who was driving to the to court or did a zoom call with an expired license. Oh wait, he didn't have an expired license. Oh wait, he never had a license. I don't give a shit about those things. I think it is actually it is part of the ruination of all of us. What'd you say?

our country apart. And then it's like, hey, here is the most revolting food item I can ever think of. I'm gonna say this is a family tradition of mine, and it's gonna get sixteen thousand quote tweets and then Steve and A's gonna rip it apart on his show. I'm not interested. I understand that's why this show is not as successful as others. I'm okay with it. I think they're playing me off.

still here, do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button, then hit the bell so you can be notified when we have new episodes. After you've done that, one more favor, go to your favorite audio platform of choice and subscribe there as well. Don't forget we're live every Tuesday and Thursday ten thirty am Eastern Ish ten thirty five, ten forty. It sometimes changes, but that's why you hit the bell. You hit the bell so you're notified. You subscribe so

we can get to two hundred thousand followers. We're right around one hundred and fifty thousand. We'd love to get to two hundred thousand. Get de Monday another plaque, so like, subscribe rate, send a rond to do all that cool stuff. Thanks guys,