00:00I watched the last 30 minutes, which was from when the Pistons started missing their shots
00:05all the way till the end of overtime, and all of a sudden it relit the fire,
00:10and I've been riding on a high ever since.
00:12It was one of those games where you're like, I don't understand how people don't like sports.
00:15You leave that game, and you're thinking to yourself,
00:18there's so many things that we love about sports and so many moments we love about sports,
00:21but those are the type of games.
00:23That's why we do what we do.
00:24That's why we invest so much.
00:26That's why we put so much of our time and our energy into it.
00:28The payoffs of a sporting event like that, where you think the game is all but sealed and done
00:33to erase the nine-point lead, to go on a 13-0 run,
00:36to watch them go five minutes of scoreless basketball between that and overtime
00:41is just a chef's kiss of why we do this.
00:44It should be noted that there's also parts in that game where we thought,
00:49why do I do this?
00:50And that is the marker of a great game.
00:52Oh, more points than not.
00:54For 43 minutes, you're sitting there thinking to yourself, this is unbearable.
00:58Oh, see, I felt for like 43 minutes, I was like, this is just a good basketball game.
01:02It is, and now when I say good basketball game, I mean it's competitive.
01:05There was a lot of ugly basketball.
01:07When they went on their 16-2 second quarter run, when they were up 15,
01:10there was a couple different points where the only thing we had to hang on to
01:13was that James Harden was having a good game.
01:15The only time I actually really lost faith was within the final, what, three minutes?
01:20Where the, no, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm actually thinking farther back.
01:24Midway through the fourth quarter where they just made a mini run
01:27and you couldn't get a stop to save your life, and you were down,
01:31I think it was more than two baskets.
01:32At that point, we'd already started the fourth quarter, 0 for 8 from 3,
01:35couldn't hit a shot to save our life.
01:36They were starting to make those little silly mistakes
01:38where there's just needless creativity that turns out to be just kind of lazy passes,
01:43stupid turnovers, and the techs start flowing in.
01:46And, like, why do we do this to ourselves?
01:48What are these guys' problems?
01:50Why can't they just figure it to bleep out?
01:53And then no sooner does that happen.
01:55And, again, that felt like 30 minutes of my life.
01:57It was probably 10 minutes of my life.
01:59Yeah.
02:00Before the, all of a sudden, they just turned it on.
02:02And it's funny.
02:04Like, big shots, big plays, big offensive things happening.
02:07They just started getting shots.
02:09Sorry, they just started getting stops, which was like good defense,
02:13which I just have not seen in the fourth quarter, mostly from the Cavaliers.
02:16And then that's really when we really started on every possession
02:21pinging back and forth between I don't want to do this
02:24and I don't want to do anything else.
02:25Well, in real time, you're measuring with yourself.
02:28Like, even in that last sequence, 45 seconds left, tie game,
02:31you get to stop off Detroit.
02:32How they have a shot clock violation in that moment, I'll never know.
02:36Couldn't be my favorite team, I'll tell you that much.
02:39And then you're sitting there like, what is Atkinson going to do?
02:42Is he going to have Donovan take the shot?
02:44Donovan said he's been ice cold, all things considered.
02:47Like, is he just going to give it to Harden and tell Harden,
02:49go get a foul and get to the free throw line and win this?
02:52Like, all these little games within the games.
02:54You're watching JB vomit all over his shoes.
02:56Like, just has no control of the game in the slightest bit.
02:59And you know what it reminded me of, Nick?
03:01It reminded me of game two against the Pacers.
03:05That's the Halliburton game, right?
03:07You're down, you're down, excuse me, you have the seven-point lead
03:10with about a minute left in that game, and you watch the Pacers come back in
03:13and win that game.
03:14This time it went our way.
03:16Like, just watching a team just have the soul sucked out from underneath them
03:19in real time.
03:20Like, the moment we went to overtime, there was no way the Pistons were winning that game.
03:23Oh, see, it's interesting.
03:24I texted my good buddy, Jim Costa.
03:26I texted him going into the fourth quarter, just vibe check,
03:29where's your confidence?
03:30We were both, I was more confident in the Cavs,
03:33he was more confident in the Pistons.
03:34At that point, we had a lead going into the fourth.
03:35And then once we got to OT, I tried not to text him as much,
03:39because I was like, they have to know they're going to lose this.
03:42Oh, I don't know why I had so much confidence.
03:43There was just no way.
03:44Once we made it to overtime, I just thought there was no way
03:46they were going to lose that game.
03:47Oh, no, no, we're in agreement.
03:48Yeah, yeah.
03:48No, once they got to overtime, I'm like, yes, that was the worst position,
03:53that was the worst possession of Donovan Mitchell's life.
03:56But everybody else is like, that was actually my prevailing take in real time
04:01when Donovan in the fourth quarter was just getting in the way of everything
04:05and making simple, goofy mistakes and bad decisions
04:09and waiting for 20 seconds to dribble the ball into the court
04:12with four seconds to go, he hoists up a dumb shot or turns the ball over.
04:16My whole thought is, how are you going to waste a performance
04:19that was so good about everybody else?
04:23Yeah.
04:23Very few people were flawless, by the way.
04:25It would have been easily explained away, right?
04:27It's like, that's why you have Donovan.
04:28That's why you need Donovan.
04:29It's one of these games where great Mobley game, great Harden game,
04:34great Allen game, all things considered.
04:36But to have a Max Struess game like that, oh boy, is he pretty.
04:39To have a Max Struess game like that, what else can you say?
04:43You can't blow that type of game.
04:44Exactly.
04:45For the last four years, all we've been asking are, well, if Struess does enough,
04:51if Jarrett does enough, if Evan does enough,
04:53if whoever the secondary creator is does enough,
04:56and they all did enough only for Donovan to have so many whoopsies in that game,
05:03and specifically in the second half, that it, again, it felt like it was fate.
05:07That, well, this is how you lose, and this is how you have lost.
05:11And I get that then, because they win, you go, well, how real?
05:15No, bleep that.
05:16It's real.
05:16No, we don't care about style points.
05:17We went into yesterday saying, style points don't matter.
05:19None of that matters.
05:20You needed to walk away with a win.
05:21You need to find a way to get a win, and to do so while Donovan was knocked out of
05:24that game,
05:25and obviously had a big three.
05:26I mean, you don't win the game without that big three.
05:29But, like, that's big-time stuff.
05:32And that's the way it was going to have to happen.
05:35The way that was confusing and nauseating and awesome and awful and evil and genius
05:42and everything that happened in that,
05:44that's the only way they were going to get over their road bugaboo,
05:47given the way they had given away games on the road and at home previously in this playoffs.
05:51It just had everything.
05:52It had everything you could have wanted.
05:54You're pacing in your living room, going back and forth,
05:56and you're just watching it all unfold.
05:58And I don't know.
06:00It was just a fantastic night of basketball.
06:03216-474-0092.
06:05Are you still riding high from last night?
06:07Because just in talking about it with JP,
06:09I feel like we just plugged into, like, a transfer station.
06:12Like, I am, like, getting, like, physically jittery because I'm just –
06:16and it was also the coffee.
06:17But because I'm also thinking back to last night,
06:19and, I mean, Struis' steal on Cade Cunningham in overtime.
06:24Everything.
06:25The hardened rebound off the missed free throw,
06:27which is just – for some reason he started missing free throws late,
06:29which is something he doesn't do.
06:30It's because the basketball gods heard the announcer on last night's game
06:34go a little too hard in the hole.
06:36Mentioned how he was 32 for 33.
06:38He's about to be, you know, X out of X.
06:40And I was like, why would you do that?
06:41Why are you doing that to me?
06:42Every little thing like that just broke their way,
06:44where previously we saw it just would collapse them.
06:47Even that idea of, like, the inbounds pass getting to Harden
06:50and then making JB's burr brain self melting down and –
06:53he didn't want to foul Harden on that play.
06:55I don't know why.
06:56Like, that's not the right basketball play in any world.
07:00YMCA, none of that is, like, that's the right basketball play.
07:03Also, when he used the challenge, what in the hell was that?
07:06Is JB just bad at using challenges?
07:08Yeah.
07:08Well, here's the thing about the challenge system when Tony Brothers is the ref.
07:12I would say don't.
07:13I would – that's the way –
07:15Well, certainly not in the third quarter.
07:16Tony Brothers is sports talk radio host level of I will not admit I'm wrong.
07:20So, you're going to have –
07:21His name is Anthony Lima.
07:22He hosts the morning show.
07:24He's very good.
07:25You're going to have –
07:27You're going to have the replay.
07:28The review is all going to be there.
07:29And it's going to be, like, not going to happen.
07:31We even saw that with Harden and the challenge that Atkinson had,
07:34which, by the way, that was a worthy challenge.
07:36That was in overtime.
07:37Would have made it a seven-point game at the time.
07:38That's when you make that challenge.
07:40It was the – and, by the way, he got fouled on that as well.
07:42Like, all obvious, but you're not beating a Tony Brothers challenge.
07:45Yeah, why is it hard for Pistons fans to understand the landing zone?
07:48I don't get what part of them was thrown off by James.
07:51By the way, James Harden's been in the league for 17 years.
07:53Yeah.
07:53Have you just now seen James Harden play basketball?
07:55I know, by the way –
07:56How many people just never watch James Harden play basketball to be like,
07:59oh, whoa, that's how he gets his fouls?
08:01Also, he's made a career out of it.
08:02He can be a foul merchant, and those can be fouls.
08:05And it's also –
08:06Both things can be true in this case.
08:07That's why I always say, like, being a foul merchant, there's a skill attached to it.
08:10He's got the skill down of what that takes.
08:13And, yes, would it bother me like crazy that he can just – he gets a foul on command?
08:18Yeah.
08:19Yeah, if he wasn't on my team, yeah, I'd be pretty pissed about the idea that he can just do
08:23that.
08:23It did bug me for 16 years.
08:25Now it doesn't bug me so much.
08:26The man one-week MVP based off that ability, though.
08:29It's funny.
08:30I've heard the word trust thrown around a lot.
08:32And I do think – it's something you and I have talked about.
08:34Everybody on this station has talked about this.
08:37That we're swinging violently from, you know, extreme to extreme with every one of these games.
08:42And that's the best part of this.
08:43That is the fun of this.
08:46Last night, they did not earn all of my trust.
08:48Because all of my trust cannot be gained with one game in the second round of the playoffs.
08:54That said, last night is as much of trust as you can own given the circumstances, given what the story
09:02was going into last night.
09:04That is as much trust as you can earn from me in a game that isn't an NBA Finals game
09:09or like a Game 7.
09:11Yeah.
09:11I mean, that's a big-time game.
09:12And now, obviously, you've got to close it out in Game 6 and Game 7.
09:15And so, like, part of the reason – or part of the thinking behind this is, even when it comes
09:19to James Harden, Games 3, 4, and 5, fantastic.
09:21Well, Game 6 is where a lot of people – Game 7 is where a lot of people try to,
09:25you know, get on you a little bit.
09:26So, like, this is where this momentum that they've built up and what they've done and how they've kind of
09:30found themselves.
09:30By the way, Joe Varden had a report like an hour ago.
09:33I guess everyone's dealing with an illness.
09:35Or Atkinson is sick.
09:37I guess Sam Merrill was, like, violently ill in between Games 4 and 5.
09:41All right, fantastic.
09:42Just keep laying it on.
09:43It doesn't matter.
09:44They're winning these games.
09:45By the way, this totally explains the difference between winning and losing.
09:48If they had lost and that report came out,
09:50the I don't care that I would have responded with.
09:54But now when I hear, hey, they won last night and they're dealing with maybe the Hantavirus, I don't know.
10:00I'm worried about it, okay?
10:01Hey, maybe the Hantavirus is what they needed to get over the hump a little bit.
10:06Move over, Cavalanche.
10:07Well, you know it.
10:08Hantavirus.
10:09You know it.
10:10It's just a hashtag.
10:11It's just a bad hashtag.
10:13Or even, like, I don't know, let's say, like, 90% of yourself, my give a damn at least just
10:17gets busted.
10:18Yeah.
10:18Like, I just, I just.
10:19I'm 100% healthy and some days I just don't give a damn.
10:21Right?
10:22But, like, if I'm the slightest bit sick, I'm like, oh, you want to fire me today?
10:25Go ahead and fire me.
10:26What do I care?
10:27It's like, all right.
10:29So maybe the Cavs needed that.
10:30So if you, like, stub your toe, you're going to walk down and crotch grab at Keith?
10:34Basically.
10:34You want me out of here?
10:35You can kick me out of here, you bastard.
10:37If I'm, like, 80%, basically, my whole world can melt down and I'm like, I don't even care.
10:41It doesn't matter to me at all.
10:44Finally, leave.
10:45So maybe that's what they needed.
10:45I just asked what you wanted for dinner.
10:47Maybe I just was on you or fish.
10:49It was an easy question.
10:50But maybe that's what they needed.
10:52Maybe they just need to get a little Hantavirus.
10:54And then all of a sudden, they're like, they're like, they're give a damn, got busted, screw these Pistons, and
11:00we're just going to go out there and play our basketball.
