00:00Well, I told you I'd never lie to you, so I gotta say something nice again about somebody I don't
00:04like saying nice things about.
00:06Oh yeah?
00:06But it's part of my promise to the audience 35 years ago, when I started in radio, that I would
00:11never lie to the audience, right?
00:13Because there's a mantra I used to live by, you lie to women and children, you don't lie to men,
00:18alright?
00:19And that was a mantra that I lived by for many, many years, and then I stopped living by that,
00:24and just started lying to everybody.
00:25And then I decided, you know, let me get back to who I really am, and no, I'm not going
00:31to lie to anybody ever again, and that's how I do this show.
00:34Well, last night, while the Trailblazers were beating the Spurs by three, while the Sixers were beating the Celtics by
00:4014, there was another game, a later game, if you will, out in Los Angeles.
00:47And again, no Kevin Durant for the Rockets, and they're not a playoff team without Kevin Durant.
00:51No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Kevin Durant played.
00:52Didn't play at all last night.
00:53Yes, he did.
00:54Allow me to tell the story, please.
00:56Well, you can't tell that part of the story.
00:57Yeah.
00:58Come on.
00:58I want to say it the right way, and the only way I can say it is, Kevin Durant must
01:02not have played last night, alright?
01:04Because without Kevin Durant, they're not even a playoff team, they're not even a play-in team.
01:08They're out of the playoffs altogether.
01:10So again, without Kevin Durant, the Lakers beat the Rockets last night, and LeBron James at 28 in, played really
01:20well, and he's a really good basketball player, and the Lakers are going to win that series now.
01:23And now if they get Luka back, they might actually go to the Western Conference Finals, and I don't like
01:26the Lakers at all.
01:27Screw LeBron James, but he played really well.
01:29In other news...
01:31Hold on, wait, wait.
01:32I'm sorry?
01:33No, no, no.
01:34For people that maybe didn't stay up late last night...
01:37Yeah, Durant didn't play, Thompson didn't play, Sangoon didn't play.
01:41Nobody played for the Rockets last night.
01:43Durant had 23 last night.
01:46What?
01:46Sangoon had 20 last night.
01:48What?
01:49Thompson had 16 last night.
01:51Yes.
01:51LeBron just happened to have 28, 8, and 7.
01:54LeBron James played his ass off last night.
01:56He's playing at a high level right now.
01:58He is?
01:58And it's back to his comfort zone.
02:00Now, he played...
02:01And you gave him credit weeks ago...
02:02Yeah.
02:03...about how he changed his game to defer to Luka.
02:05He deferred to Austin Reeves and Luka.
02:07Yeah.
02:07He became the third option all of a sudden.
02:09They were winning a lot of games.
02:10And he started playing better ball.
02:11And now he had to shift back to his regular...
02:13His role he had basically since he was five years old.
02:16Yeah.
02:16And he's very comfortable in it.
02:18What this speaks to is...
02:18Pisses me right off.
02:20What this speaks to, though, is...
02:22Yeah.
02:23He can still help a team win.
02:25This team's not winning a championship.
02:27Agreed.
02:27But LeBron James, who has enough in the tank, to, in the right situation, he still plays
02:33winning basketball.
02:34He can.
02:34Period.
02:35He is.
02:36Yeah.
02:37He is.
02:37He definitely can.
02:38He is.
02:39Playing winning basketball at 41 years old.
02:43Yeah.
02:43And forget the Jordan and all that stuff.
02:45We've never seen anything like this before.
02:48I mean, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did play to his young 40s.
02:51But not like this.
02:51But at that point, he played no defense at all.
02:54And he relied on kind of a gimmick, like just the skyhooks, really all he had, to be fair.
03:00But he at least did play into his 40s.
03:01He did.
03:02But look, yeah.
03:03We've never seen anything like this.
03:05And I'm a basketball guy, but first.
03:07I'm a LeBron hater second.
03:09I'm a basketball guy first.
03:11I'm a LeBron hater second.
03:13LeBron James is money, man.
03:15LeBron James was great last night.
03:17You know, LeBron, now look.
03:18They were five and a half point underdogs, I think, last night.
03:22Because we never expected Durant to come back, which he did.
03:25And Durant played well.
03:26Yeah.
03:27He was only a couple points below his season average last night.
03:30But they didn't have an answer for LeBron.
03:33And that's what's crazy to me.
03:34Because the Rockets, I think, have one of the best defenders in basketball in Thompson.
03:39Yes.
03:40Like that dude and his brother as well.
03:42They are top elite defenders in the NBA.
03:45And there was no answer to stop LeBron.
03:49Like LeBron should not be that easy for LeBron to score damn near 30 points if you're at full strength.
03:57Right.
03:58He's 40-something years old.
04:00He's almost twice as old as Thompson.
04:02And Thompson's an elite defender.
04:04Both Thompson boys are, right?
04:06Mm-hmm.
04:07And LeBron James was unstoppable.
04:09They didn't have 50 last night.
04:10He didn't need 50 last night.
04:12Right.
04:13Now, they got to go to Houston now.
04:15And Houston's going to be very good at home.
04:17I would say Houston probably wins game three.
04:19Yeah.
04:20And then game four becomes the pivotal game in that series.
04:23If the Lakers lose game four, I do think they lose the series.
04:27Because I don't think Luka's coming back in this series.
04:29But I'm going to play out the other side of it.
04:31If somehow, someway, this fountain of youth that LeBron has once again found gets them through Houston,
04:39Houston, the biggest problem for them, then, is even if Luka comes back for the next series,
04:44you're playing the Thunder.
04:46You're not going to beat them.
04:46Right.
04:47And that's the rub here, which is why what he's doing is great.
04:50And what the Lakers have done in the first two games, one without Durant, one with Durant,
04:55to be fair, is great.
04:57And it's great for basketball.
04:58Right?
04:59Because the Lakers now, if the Lakers get to the second round, we're going to want to watch that.
Comments