 What's the word y'all? Hey man, we back with basketball, man. I like the all-star break, but the worst thing about it is the three days after when there's no basketball. I can clearly understand these players been playing 50 plus games on the scene, so they deserve a little break. But as a fan of the game, I didn't really know what to do for the last couple nights, but it was back and I tuned in and I watched as much basketball as I can and I'm here to get y'all to recap. I like to look at this channel as one big old family. Just a family that is nothing but enjoys a basketball. And when you have family, you're willing to tell them things that you probably shouldn't tell the world. So I'm gonna tell you something. I don't think I'll get fired for this, but I might get in a little bit of trouble but I'm gonna tell y'all anyway. A couple weeks ago, I was on inside the NBA Tuesday night. They said, Kenny, we wanna give you a two-minute segment to talk about the Bulls, say whatever you want. And I was like, two-minute segment? That's it? Because you know if it's the Bulls, I can talk about them for 50 minutes at a time, whether they was really good or really bad, right? And they enjoyed that so much and I'm so excited that they asked me to do it again. And I was a little bit afraid that they were gonna try to pigeonhole me as the Chicago Bulls fan and we only call him when we want him to talk about the Bulls, but no, they hit me up and said, Kenny, we wanna give you a two-minute segment where you talk about sleeper championship teams. And I was like, yeah, because I wanna be on TV, but that's a lot harder than you think. At least in my mic, because here's why. I believe that a lot of people have a set number of contenders, right? I'm just gonna go through them, like the legitimate people or teams that we believe can win a championship. Out East is like the heat, the 76ers, the Bucks and maybe the Nets, we're gonna see, I guess Kari Irv is gonna be able to hoop soon, but I think that out East, those are the four teams that I feel like NBA fans consider contenders. And out West, it's like the Suns and the Warriors. Every other team is either tier below, two tiers below, so when you asked me to give you a sleeper, it's hard. So this is what I told them and they agreed. I might not be able to give you a sleeper team to win a championship, but I might be able to give you a team that can go on an Atlanta Hawks type run. This year's Atlanta Hawks, where they might not be legitimate contenders, but they might surprise some teams to get out of the first round, get out of the second round and get to the conference finals. And well, they agreed. And that team, a team that I said I wasn't gonna talk about for the sake of the city because I might be a jinx is the Boston Celtics. This video is brought to you by, of course, prize picks. Hit that link in the description to use Coke, Kenny, because they're matching up to $100 deposits for all new players. Shout out to the thousands of people that have already used Coke, Kenny, but for you newer guys that don't understand it. And it's just you versus the numbers. You pick some of your favorite players in the NBA and you decide whether you wanna go over or under on statistics. They have like points, assists, rebounds, you combine the three, there's three pointers, there's a lot of different options. There's basketball, there's soccer, there's college basketball, there's MMA, tennis, Euro, women, Euro basketball. Like if it is a sport, it might be on prize picks and you might be able to make a decision whether or not you wanna put somebody into an entry. They've been a presenting sponsor for the entirety of the 2021-22 season and hopefully they come back for another season because it's been a lot of fun and I love seeing y'all be engaged. Hit that link in the description, download the prize picks app, use Coke, Kenny, because you're matching up to $100 deposits for all new users. Now let's get back to talking about basketball. So I haven't actually filmed that video for Inside the NBA, so I'm gonna give y'all my first draft of it and you tell me if it's good or you tell me in the comment section other things I could say because this will go on national TV and your parents might be watching because those are the only people I know that watch TV. I mean, if you look at this Kenny for Real channel, first thing you'll notice is that I don't have a verification check for some reason, but if you look at all the videos we made about the Boston Celts this season, it has been a whirlwind of different emotions, right? It started off the first video we made dedicated to the Boston Celts was when the Chicago Bullets came back on them in the late third quarter and the fourth quarter and everything would arrive. There's players only meeting, people were calling each other out. E-Mai Udoka in the first half of the season was going to podiums and calling out his players. People were calling for the heads of E-Mai Udoka and we made another video later in the season. Name this might be the most toxic thing in the NBA and I went to the subreddit. After a game with the Boston Celtics loss and all hell was breaking loose where people were just talking crazy and I don't blame them because the first half of the season the Boston Celtics didn't look like this team. This has been a tale of two halves. It got to the point where on the Celtics subreddit we had people legitimately ranking the worst losses on the season and they got to like top 10 worst losses. That's how bad it's been. Either blowing 20 point leads late in the game or letting players like Greg Morrow who ain't played basketball in three years come in and dominate, it was bad. But a lot of things have changed. You're asking what has changed? They haven't made any significant roster moves. So how can we see that flip or that switch get flipped? And that's legitimately what I'm trying to figure out. I'm trying to figure it out myself because I need to have an answer to that question before I go on TV to talk about it. But let me just tell you some of the things I have noticed while watching. 28 games to the season. They were sitting at 14 and 14. They had the eighth best defense and the 19th best offense. And since then the offense hasn't got that much better. It's still very staggering. It's still kind of an eyesore sometimes. But the defense went from number eight to number one by far. And it is strictly the current Lyon which is nine in the last 10. I think it's like 12 in the last 13. I'll give my fact check before I go on TNT. But I'm just, I'm talking to you the Kenny Freer viewer, not you the TV watcher. And the starting lineup of Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jason Tatum, Al Horford and Rob Williams is the best five man lineup for a team that's playing X amount of minutes. Their defense is on fire. If you score less than 105 points against the Boston Celtics, you're going to lose games. They are 25 and five when they hold teams under 105. The defense is incredible. And a lot of that, I'm not giving all the credit to it but Marcus Smart is out there just playing quarterback. And then Rob Williams on the back end has been great as well in the in between. Jaylen Brown is one of my favorite young players in the NBA and I've always said because I love how engaged he is on defense specifically when it's like one-on-one matchups. I know his off ball defense has been a lot to be desired but when it's like a one-on-one me guard to you, Jaylen Brown is one of the better in the league. So you got Marcus Smart at the point of attack and you got Jaylen Brown who can also handle his business. And then Marcus, Rob Williams being the rim protector and Al Horford plugging all the holes and Jason Tatum can just do Jason Tatum things. It's been working. Right now they are the six seed and they'd go against the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round and I know these two teams have a lot of animosity towards each other but the way the league is going and just one game can put you from the six seed to the three seed, who knows who they'll actually go up against in the first round? But this seems like a team that has got to the point where they probably have put themselves a level over the play-in, which is good. There's this dominating teams out here. Now this is probably the easiest stretch of their season. In the last couple of games, they beat Washington, they beat Sacramento, they beat New World as they beat Miami without Jimmy Butler and Cal Laury. They beat Charlotte, Detroit, Orlando, Brooklyn without anybody, again, just like tonight, Brooklyn didn't have anybody, Denver, Atlanta and then Philly, they won by like 75, well I don't know, they won about a ton of points. So this is the easiest point of their schedule but I am believing some of the things that they're doing. Do I wanna do that segment now? Do I wanna switch up the topic? I didn't feel very confident in having those conversations. I'm not normally a dude that's gonna break up advanced stats and I don't feel like people that are watching TV would wanna hear you say, this team has a net rating of blank, blank, blank. Let me know in the comment section. All right, that's enough for the Celsius. Talk about the next game, which is the Bulls winning against the Atlanta Hawks. Good win, man. It had me a little bit scared early in the game. The Atlanta Hawks came out very lethargic and I was like, I completely understand why y'all are below 500 after that big run because y'all don't really, y'all don't look like y'all wanna play and I know they missed some players but regardless, they didn't look like they wanted to play and then McDonovan started to turn up and then Gala Nari couldn't miss a shot and but who is there? It was DeMar, DeRose, and Io, Desumu, my MVPs for today. I made a tweet and y'all know me. I'm a hyperbolic person and I think just in general when we're watching something live, we're very exaggerary, like we exaggerate quite a bit. So I made a tweet that said DeMar, DeRose, it might be having the best season ever for someone who will finish fourth or fifth in MVP. Obviously, I don't know who finished fourth or fifth in MVP in 1996. So I can't really say definitively that he's having the best season for somebody to finish fourth to fifth, but that was just me trying to show my love to the amount of great players in the NBA right now. I think that is pretty much a consensus with the top three in MVP is in one way or another. It's like Yo-Kids, Joel, and Giannis. Then after that, you can have a conversation about DeMar. You can have a conversation about Luca, but the fact that this man, DeMar DeRose, is breaking Will Chamberlain records and doing it even more, he didn't just break it by the skin of his teeth. He's still actively on this Will Chamberlain, oh, it's not even Will Chamberlain record anymore. It's DeMar DeRose's record, it's insane. And I don't know of any NBA player that has had more clutch moments than DeMar DeRose. And I think that has a lot of people really questioning why he's not in top three. I don't know if I wanna be that guy because anytime I try to do something like that, people say I'm a homer and it's just because he's on the Bulls regardless. He's probably had the clutchest plays of the entire season. I don't even know who would be in second. Back to back buzzer be the game winners between December 31st and January 1st. Today he had a game clenching, game winning shot against the Atlanta Hawks. And I think I could go on and on or if you were watching the film or watching the Bulls, you will see how important this man has been to closing games. Even if he don't hit the game winning shot, bro is killing fourth quarters and clutching up wins for us. So shout out to him. Just watching the Bulls is such a pleasure nowadays. I couldn't have said that for five years or so. The Timberwolves beat the Grizzlies. A huge win for them. The Grizzlies dropped their second in the road. Zymerang got injured but came back but he ain't look great when he came back. Either way, the Minnesota Timberwolves are just making I think every NBA fan a proud because I feel like just have some of the more likable players in the NBA, Carthony Towns, Anthony Edwards. I don't know how you can watch Anthony Edwards interview and not smile and then even D'Angelo Russell, even though he's been a very low key since the Nick Young thing, I think he's a likable dude as well. And today it was D'Angelo Russell and this is what pisses me off. And I mean that very lightly. We've had games this season, last season where D'Angelo Russell would be the guy to take the last shot and he'll miss. We'd be like, why didn't you get it to Kat? Or why didn't you get it to Anthony Edwards? Games like this is the incentive for Bro to just take over. At one point in the fourth quarter he scored like 13 straight points by himself. I don't remember how many points he finished with in the fourth quarter but he was doing his thing and the ice was in his veins. So I understand while time in and time out he's the guy taking a big shot but like Bro, sometimes I want to see Kat do it. Today it was D'Angelo Russell and he deserved every single shot he took today. Shout out to him. This team won a game where they got dominated. I mean dominated on the boards. They got dominated on 50, 50 balls and they just ended up winning. D'Angelo Russell teed up. The sun's beat the thunder. It is very rare that I watch an NBA game and I see somebody on the court and I think to myself, who the hell is that? Veet Creejci. I'm mispronouncing his name 100%. He's from the Czech Republic. Legitimately, I know he's played four games for OKC but that just lets you know I haven't been watching OKC especially since Shay Gildesada's handle was a hoop and he just came back today. I've turned this game on and watched this man play 20 minutes and he wasn't terrible. He wasn't terrible. So I guess I got to tune in and actually learn bro name because he might be a player. I don't know. Maybe I'm exaggerating off, you know, 20 minutes of footage but this was the Devon Booker show. I'd love to see this man. Chris Paul goes out with a hand injury and I think a lot of people are questioning what will happen with the suns when they be able to hold on to this number one seed of Chris Paul is out for six to eight and games like this, though it was against a weaker opponent showcases that, yeah, I think that they can hold on to the one seed and it might be a blessing in disguise because him being injured right now Chris Paul is who I'm talking about could be better for them in the future. I mean, the bro has had like seven hand surgeries. So I can't say, oh man, he gonna come back and not look the same because he's been through it six other times. He's been through it six other times. So him getting that little bit of a breathe that might be good, but Point Devon Booker was out here showing us, showing us, you know what today, 12 assists, six steals was set to career high and it's just so crazy that just like three or four years ago he was laid with his ball, Hulk, empty stats guy and now you see him as the guy since the other guy has been injured and he comes in and immediately showcases like, oh, I can pass the ball with some of the better players in the league and I guess I can get six steals, set out to him. The other games of the day, I couldn't get myself to watch Warriors vs. Trebley's after the first court. It was close in the first quarter after that to turn it off because it was just a domination. And then I see Yoko said another MVP type of form is either watch this game, the Kings after the first couple of games of them looking really good after the trade deadline they have fallen three games in a row. So for a team that was trying to go buy all in to get a play in spot, not looking amazing. You know, it's also not looking amazing. The Deere Fox thing, the Deere Fox scandal that came out if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's revolving around NFTs. I am an anti NFT guy. I don't understand it and I'm not gonna try to preach to you why you should invest because I would never do that because I would not do it with my own money. But apparently Deere Fox put together this NFT project and he pulled the rug under it. I don't know the extreme specifics but somebody said something along the lines of $1.4 million were taken from the fans and it's wild. And I've heard a lot of stories about NFT or people like scamming in the NFT market but I never would expect to somebody in the light of Deere Fox, especially since he signed a max deal with the Sacramento Kings. And I would go out on the limb and this is not reporting anything but I would guess that Deere Fox trusted the wrong people. Somebody saw the NFT thing booming and Deere Fox got in and they told him, all we'll take care of all of this. And then eventually they dipped. And now since Deere Fox is a celebrity, promoting it and it's his coin or what I don't know how NFTs work, it's all gone and now he's got a safe face. And I don't know how he will or if he will make a statement or anything but not the greatest look. That's why you'll never see a KLT for Q, Kenny Beachum, NFT, even though it has been thrown out at me a couple of times because I don't understand it and I would never try to put myself or y'all in that position. But 1.4 million dollars seem like something my brother would like but I wanna earn it the right way. Not pulling away from people that trust me. I was scattered brain here. My apologies. I'll see y'all tomorrow.