 What's the word, y'all? It was so good to say those words, man. I am finally home. We were just in LA for a big shoot. It went really well, but I'm finally here to make some content, man, because this video is a lot different than like the main channel or any other channels that I own here on YouTube, because on the main channel, I can record videos and bulk schedule them and nobody would even know I was away in LA doing a shoot. But on this channel, because we talk about NBA Topics, we talk about games, everything is pretty topical. If I have a trip, I basically can't upload. So I feel like I've been neglecting y'all, man, but I'm back, man. And when I'm going on trips, I basically lose my NBA fandom because obviously I'm going for work, man. I ain't taking a vacation day in my entire life. So we was just in LA and it was all work. So I basically went two to three days without watching basketball. So today I was kind of a degenerate. I don't think I'd be using that word right. I watched a ton of basketball today to kind of make up for all of the lost days. Like if you asked me two days ago, who had the seed or the game high, the most points in a single game that night, I could not tell, I can even tell you played two nights ago. That's how locked in we are. I feel like Jimmy Bull. I'm stupidly locked in when I'm away on shoots because I want to be efficient. I am so lucky to be partnered with a company like House of Highlights because that's my last travel day for some time with my baby girl being here in a couple of weeks. They accepted my plea to basically say I'm not traveling for the next couple months. And that's a luxury, man. I know a lot of people out there don't have that luxury where they don't have companies that give them paternity leave or anything like that. But I'm lucky, man, so shout out to House of Highlights. And now I can be the most fatherly figure imaginable because I don't have to fly to LA for three days, you know? I want to talk about today's slated games because like I said, I watched a lot of basketball today, man. And I'm excited to talk about some things. I think I want to start off talking about the Phoenix Suns because today they ended up getting a win over the Minnesota Timbers. They've been one of the hotter teams in the league. And this game right here, when it comes to the officiating, again, I'm not a dude that normally talks about officiating but this one I have to say, I think there were seven technical fouls given out throughout this one. The whistle was either super strict or too lenient. There was no in-between in the Phoenix Suns and I'm having a big comeback. And again, we're like, we see this for the Minnesota Timbers all season long. The Patrick Beverly thing has rubbed off on this core. Anthony Avers, he used to wear swagger a million times a week ago in an interview. The swagger slash the grittiness of those two players have combined and rubbed through the locker room, right? So in the second quarter, Kat got this crazy poster. He's saying baby to J Crowder, then they get into it with some scuffling. The Minnesota Timbers are yapping and yapping and yapping. They going to halftime. Phoenix Suns like, oh, we might be missing Chris Paul still, but we are undoubtedly the best team in the entire NBA. It don't matter how much we're down by at one point, we believe that we can win. And I saw a statistic that was something along the lines of when they are down going into halftime, they have the record of 16 and 15. But you know what? I gotta fact check my stat lines because on this game, in this game, the Phoenix Suns broadcast like to everybody. You know what? I'm going to get my own tweet because I cannot believe how they lie to me. I don't like being lied to, man. So I'm watching this game and I watched it after it was over. I went back to watch it because I was very interested in this one is they put up this graphic. The Phoenix Suns are 125 and 35, including the playoffs since August 14th, 2019. And I saw that stat and I took the picture. I'm like, yo, that's a ridiculous win percentage. They almost a hundred games over 500. That's insane. Then I started to think a little bit more. And like two minutes after I sent this tweet, I'm like, you know what, let me, let me go fact check this one because I just took it at face value because why would the Phoenix Suns broadcast put up a misleading statistic? So I went to go look and it was cap. And I was like, you know what? Maybe there's a big typo because 2019 they were not a good team. You know what I'm saying? That was not a good season. It was the year after that. They hit the bubble. They go undefeated in the bubble. Chris Paul comes in and now they're one of the top teams in the league. So I was like, you know what? Maybe they meant August 14th, 2020. Even that is not true. So where did they get this number from? So now let me say that they are 16 and 15 or whatever it is when they're down a half. I'm not, oh, is it down after the third quarter? It was down after the third quarter. Not halftime because halftime, that's not a good statistic. Down at halftime or after the third quarter, it said it was 16 and 15. I'm not even taking that face value no more. The stat that I know is true is that when they are leading going into the fourth quarter they're like 44 or no. So they don't lose game. They don't lose games often. They are 59 and 14. And I think the title of this video has something to do with, are we overthinking the playoffs? Are we overthinking it? Are the Phoenix Suns superior to everybody? Are the Phoenix Suns the team that everybody should be betting their money on? I feel like we've heard a lot of conversations about Milwaukee, Philly, Brooklyn Steel, Miami is still getting buzzed even though today it was not back to back games where they struggled. We're gonna talk about that a little bit later. Even the Warriors are getting buzzed and people are talking about Dallas. Are we overthinking it? And should the Phoenix Suns be undoubtedly the favorite to win at all? Now I noticed an easy question to answer because Kenny, they got the best record in the league by far, but I still feel like a lot of people aren't looking at the Phoenix Suns as the overwhelming favorite. And I guess I can understand it a little bit because last year we were up 2-0 in the finals against the Milwaukee Bucks and ended up losing four in a row. But I would argue that this team is better than last year's team. I watched McKell Bridges and I can say to myself he is a more impactful player this year than last year. I can say that even Devin Booker, though statistically it might not say it across the board but you look at the counting stats of percentages, he feels like a more composed, better basketball player. Chris Paul has been out for some time now. And I'm watching Devin Booker throw some crazy pocket passes to Deondre Aiden. I'm watching Devin Booker legitimately take over this game tonight specifically. We're at one point, I think going into the fourth quarter he had like, I want to say 15, 16 points. He had the crazy dunk, he had a heavily contested three. He had two back-to-back assists, a huge body up on Carl Anthony Towns where he flexed on his homie. This team is ridiculous. And I wonder if in a few months we're gonna be looking back on it and the Phoenix Suns had just went on this crazy run we thinking like, should we have saw this coming earlier? Should we have bet our whole house on this earlier? Because right now, I don't see many holes in what they do. Again, last year they did go up to on the Milwaukee Bucks and lost four in a row. And I think that's something that a lot of fans are looking at is like, that's why they aren't the favor because they were two games away from winning it all and they choked it. And I can definitely understand that. But when I'm looking at, when I'm watching them play basketball, there's not many holes in their game whatsoever. The only thing that I might just be a little bit reserved about about the Phoenix Suns is if you look at all of the NBA champions in recent history, the MVP, the best player on the court is typically a top five to seven player in the league. The Phoenix Suns don't have that. They have two players with Chris Paul and Devin Booker who you can argue for being top 15. You might even argue one of them being top 10. I'm not gonna argue with you. But they aren't like a top seven talent in the league right now. But maybe the collection, the cohesion between them could be the thing that gets them over the hump. I don't know. I don't know. They're the number two offense in the entire league throughout the season. They're the number two defense in the entire league throughout the season. And occasionally you have performances like this from their center in Deandra Aiden. Now they don't expect Deandra Aiden to give them 35 a night. There's actually a career high night for him. So I'm not, I'm not looking at this as like, oh, this is who he is because he's not been this, this effective or this crazy efficient overall when it comes to the volume and everything. But occasionally you can get a game like this. They don't ask him to do this often, but I feel like you can get a playoff game like this every once in a while. The defense is elite. They got, they got big Cajones players, players that hit big time shots. They have the clutches backcourt in the entire league. They have a wing defender that is in conversations for defensive player of the year. They have a player in Cam Johnson when he's healthy. He should be in conversation for most approved slash six man of the year. They have the gritty punch you in the face guy in J Crowder who can go four for four or over four. There was a point earlier in a week or so with Tori Craig didn't miss a shot for a week of basketball. I don't know. I'm just saying when I watched this team play there is not a team that impresses me more than them, all things considered. How much would it translate to the playoffs? We're going to see, but there is a possibility that we're overthinking this slightly and they should be the overwhelming favor. Hey, but them Timbers, they was talking and then that second half hit and everything switched. The book just went ridiculous. Landry Shem, it was going crazy. And of course, like I said, DeAndre Aiden was such a big performance going against Kat. Hell Kat's only 15 points, which is a feat in itself because Kat has been one of the more dominant centers, one of my all NBA centers this year and held him to 15 points. Crazy. Another very important, but maybe not so important game this season, the Miami Heat end up losing to, I don't want to say to G League Warriors because there are a lot of good players playing for the Warriors tonight, but it was no Draymond, no Steph Curry, no Clay Thompson, and the Miami Heat who are practically completely healthy, they were missing Tyler Hero's a huge blow to them because today they basically had no bench scorn whatsoever, but other than Tyler Hero being out, they were pretty healthy and they should win this game. You know what I'm saying? Even with Tyler Hero not playing, they should win this game and they didn't. And even on the sidelines, there are some things that I'm definitely sure you're aware of at this point because it went viral between, Jimmy Butler says something to Coach Spostra and Yadonis Haslam being the coach that he is, the locker room guy he is, he set up for Spoe and told Jimmy Butler, I will beat your ass. I like that, I like that from you, you don't. I like that. And this is kind of a fake important win for the Golden State Warriors because their last couple of games, they haven't been playing good basketball so to beat the number one team in the Eastern Conference in this fashion is really good for them, especially since people were speculating they might be falling down to the four C with Steph Curry being out for probably until the playoff start, but of course you have the pool party guy Jordan going crazy, Wiggins hit 20 points for the first time in a minute. I forget what they said on the broadcast, but it had been some time since he'd done that and John the Camino's breaking records being the only teenager in Dub's history to have five 20 point games. And he was going against them like really good players that they were comparing them to. I'm like, yo, that player didn't ever hit 25 times. John the Camino did that. But the real question is, is how concerning of losses are these to the Miami Heat? And if this was just a normal loss, I don't think I talk about it too extensively. I say, hey, some nights is yours, some nights is not because Cal Lauri gave you a good performance, Bam gave you a good performance. Jimmy Butler hit two threes was his tightest season high for a single game. I'm like, good performances from the start began, no bench points whatsoever. This is not a game I would talk extensively about, but with the things that happened on the sideline and with their last game being another stinker that they lost to a bad team, the worry meter, where are we with the worry meter for the Miami Heat? This is like me asking you as a fan of basketball, where would your worry meter be on the Miami Heat? Again, they're the number one seed. They only have a game and a half above the teams beneath them. And the 76ers just won their game. And I'm looking at these standards. I don't know if it's upgraded. So maybe it is just a half a game at this point from the 76. I'm not completely sure. What are the odds that they fall from this one seed? Is it beneficial for them to fall from this one seed? Because right now, if all things stay the same, carry over and it's going to be able to play, you know what I'm saying? Home games, which is good for him and the organization, they could potentially match up against the Brooklyn Nets in the first round. And though I love Miami and I think that their defense is elite and they are the best three point shooting team in the entire league, that's not a matchup nobody wants in the first round. It might be beneficial to drop a little bit, but what I will say, this has been something that has been researched before and this is to give y'all, he fancies a little bit of breathing room. The way you finish your season is not indicative of how you perform in the playoffs. So if a team goes into the playoffs losing, I don't know, six of their last 10, seven of their last 10, that doesn't mean once we get to that first round in the playoffs, they gonna still be that bad team. It doesn't make sense to me, but I've seen multiple papers written about this. So I'm saying this facts, where would you worry me to be on the Miami Heat? Let me know in the comment section. Let me get some quick hitters out of here. RJ Bear drops 30 as he and the Julius Randall Liss, New York Knits beat the Charlotte Hornets. RJ has been very, very good recently. There's an article by the Athletic from, this is maybe a month ago now, so I don't even know why I'm bringing it up, where they were ranking just players under 25 and RJ Bear did not even get a mention at a 40 something players under 25 years old. Nobody mentioned the name RJ Bear, which is crazy to me. Is there's no way you can convince me that 44 players under the age of 25 are as good, or is actually 24 are as good or better than RJ Bear? There's no way he's not in the top 44, you know what I'm saying? And I just can't wait to the point where the organization realized that RJ is their centerpiece. He is the guy that they should be building around and getting him some shooters because he is a downhill player. And though his shot was very good last season, it hasn't been that this year. He's definitely a downhill player and it's hard to be a downhill player. I guess yesterday they played against the Atlanta Hawks and it was like Todd Gibson and Mitchell Robinson down low. What the hell is he supposed to get? How are you supposed to get the best version of RJ if you don't build the team that allows him to do the best version of things? I understood you wanted to build around Julius Rand, who's an all NBA player last year, but now we're seeing I down, back down to Earth. So let's pivot a little bit and build around RJ, big game from him, 30.3 rounds and three assists. Next quick hitter, K Cunningham with a big performance to beat the Atlanta Hawks. Again, the Atlanta Hawks just played last night with the New York Knicks. So again, there's a team that's probably the 10th seed this season. I ain't got nothing else to say about the Atlanta Hawks, but I'm still, every single game that I watch, K Cunningham, I'm impressed. I won't lie to you and say I watched his entire game, but it was one of the first ones that launched up. So I watched the first quarter and a half before I went on to watch Boston, Utah, who we'll talk about, because I'm so disappointed in that game. But every time K Cunningham did anything, the broadcast, oh, they had a, now I was seeing it all day. They have a very specific way of saying his name. And I just completely forgot. I was watching the Detroit broadcast for the first time ever. And they said his name very, very specific way. And he's just making this Rookie of the Year race just so much better for the majority of the season, for me it had been Evan Mobley, Evan Mobley, Evan Mobley. Since basically the very start of things, K Cunningham has put his name in there. I like his response to all of these questions, basically saying it's just a trophy at the end of the day. It doesn't matter, but it's a real race. If you told me that Cade was your Rookie of the Year, I can't tell you that if, even if Evan Mobley is mine, that you're wrong, because both of these players have been phenomenal the Pacers continue to do their tank, man. I'm so invested in the way teams tank. A couple nights ago, I actually have the tweet a couple nights ago, the Pacers accidentally intentionally fouled and gave up some free throws and then lost the game. Tank job. Today, Buddy Hill dribbled off his own foot and nobody on, and then they, okay, so there I think they're up by one at that point. Buddy Hill dribbles off his own foot, goes out of balance, it's 20 seconds to go. I'm maybe 15-ish. They come down court. The Sagamina Kings come down court, get an open look from Trey Lyles. Nobody crashed the glass from the Pacers. Tim Dunk, I think it was Damian Jones game over. Another elite level tank job. I'm very impressed. I'm extremely impressed. You know who else I'm impressed by? Davion Mitchell, second game in a row where he put up 20 plus. And you know what? Let me clear the waters on some things because a lot of people lose context of the things you say, and it bothers the hell out of me. During the NBA draft, I was very adamant about saying that the Sagamina Kings are one of the losers in the draft. And you wanna know why? First of all, I hope you realize that Davion Mitchell was actually the homie. And the reason I said that is because they already had De'Aaron and they already had Tyrese. And now you just drafted another guard? It wasn't necessarily about the ability of Davion Mitchell, even though him being older scared me too. I won't lie about that. It wasn't about the ability of Davion Mitchell. It was like, where are the minutes coming from? For all of these guards to blossom into your cornerstones? And what they did, was they traded one? So now it is what it is, you know what I'm saying? The context of me saying they were the losers where I didn't see an opportunity for Davion to blossom or get the PT to blossom because they had two lead guards already. And they traded one of the lead guards and the other lead guard didn't play today and boom, 25 and seven for Davion. And he was getting down hill at will. You would have thought that him and Tyrese had some type of beef in their locker room because any time Tyrese's in front of him, he was like, I'm going straight at you. I'm stronger than you. I got a bigger body than you. I'm putting that shoulder into you and I'm going to get to the basket and get a bucket. And he did that. Shout out to Davion. Shout out to the homie. The Celsius beat the Utah Jazz, man. This is the game that I was looking for to the most out of any game of the night because we have one of the most elite officers in the league with the Utah Jazz statistically speaking versus one of the most elite, the most elite defense in the league and the hottest team of all basketball since the turn of the calendar year. So I was like, you know what? I'm here for this. You know, Bogey is not playing. That's okay. Or Bo-Yan is not playing. That's okay. It should still be a good. It wasn't good. Donovan Mitchell put up the like eh. The eh is 37 piece. You hear me? He put up the eh is 37 piece of my life because this game was a blowout from the very beginning. And you can argue he was the only person that was like putting in baskets. So what do I expect them? For sure, for sure. But like, man, I just wanted this game to be better. The Celtics just came out and they put that foot on the throat of this team and never gave it up. Now one second watching this game that I think that the Utah Jazz is about to go on the run. After the first quarter, they had two rebounds as a team. Two rebounds as a team. It was insane. I was like, you know, I had to Google. What is the least amount of rebounds someone got in a half, a team got in a half. And I think it was nine. Actually, this season by the Houston Rockets had nine rebounds in the second half of the game. And the Bulls had one where they had 10 rebounds. Basically means that, hey, we're not getting any stops. The only reason, the only way to get rebounds is get stops or I guess offensive rebounds, but get stops. And they were getting stops in that first quarter. And after the game, Rudy Gobert was asked what went wrong. He said, it's the same thing. It's defense and sharing the ball. And he ain't lying, bro. He ain't lying. Rudy Gobert is their defense. And that can only get you so far. As the lead of a defender, Rudy Gobert is, it can only get you so far. And what we've seen is it's got them to the playoffs, getting higher seats, but not enough to do what the ultimate goal is. And that is advancing the playoffs and winning a championship. You can't just funnel your defense through one singular player. And the same could be said about the offensive side of the ball. And that's what Donovan mentioned. Your offense can't be tunneled through just one singular player. You need other people to step up. You need other people to become threats. And I agree, Rudy Gobert. I legitimately believe or I guess I want to see Rudy Gobert be on a team where he has two, give me two above average defenders in the starting lineup. And I just want to see how it looks. You know, they got Royce, Royce is great. He's good. He's above average. My colleague, he's older now. He's not the same defender as he was in Memphis. It's legitimately the Rudy Gobert showing the defensive side of the ball. He can't guard everything. He's not the one guarding Jason Tatum allowing him to start off the year or the game four for four from three. They ain't got nothing to do with Rudy. Somebody else got to step it up. And Royce O'Neill, he picked you up 94 feet just to get hit with a three pointer in his mouth. What's happening? So I've set this on our podcast before. This has to be the last season of this like version of the Utah Jazz if they don't make significant noise. I still haven't decided for myself what significant noise is. Like, do they blow it up if they make it to the conference finals? Probably not because that would be the furthest they've got with this team. And they probably think, oh, we could do it. But if this is a first round exit team or second round exit team, you got to make a decision. And the guys are like, man, trading Rudy Gobert might be tough. I don't think it would be tough whatsoever. There's, as we've seen throughout history, there's no such thing as an immovable contract. Even John Wall's contract right now was movable. The Lakers offered something for it. They just didn't want to trade it. There's no such thing as an immovable contract especially from a guy who's an all NBA duke. You know, he might not be all NBA this season because you have, you have Yokos, you have Embiid and you have Carthage Townsend. Even Yokos and Embiid is a little bit difficult because one of them might be afforded at the end of all. He's been an all NBA guy for the last half a decade. He's been in the physical area three years counting. Right, three times, three times. Moving this contract won't be hard. It's about what is your return that makes it difficult. You know what I'm saying? Because I would guess that you'd rather keep Donovan Mitchell, but who knows? Dono might be the one. It was like, I gave it X amount of years. I'm ready to go home. Y'all know where home is, right? Yeah, I think he's from New York. I think, I ain't Googling it. The other game was the Grizzlies winning one without Jamerant and it was a statistic. They were like, man, without Jamerant they got the number one offensive in the league, the number one defensive in the league, the number one record in the league. You're like, dang bro, relax. Like how Jamerant strolling Twitter or seeing that and thinking. Now he's probably happy. That's what a good leader is. He's super happy. He even made a tweet afterward that you just saw the coach of the year. You saw the defensive player of the year. You saw the most approved player of the year, something like that. All have great performances this season. And though all of those people will be in conversations for those awards, they not winning those awards, man. Coats, if mighty Williams don't win coach of the year it's the most rigged thing of all time. I would assume, Jai, you are the most approved player. Did you not consider yourself the most approved player and defensive player of the year? I think it's a coin flip at this point. I think Jamerant isn't in that conversation but I don't think he's going to end up winning. But what a game, man. It got to the point where Rick, Kairi and Katie start to dominate. I mean dominate. And they took over this one and brought it back because early on it was like all Memphis all the time. And Kenny for all started the Anthony Melton. Kenny for all starting Anthony Melton. Come on, man. Ended up with 23 of them things. And a lot of them was very early on but help ice the game later on. They got no bench production, literally whatsoever. I think it is a blessing and a curse being this young and this good. I think it is a blessing and a curse. Let me say it again. Being this good while being this young. Because it just continues to raise the expectations for you and your organization. It might put you in a position where you want to make the big time splash. And I'm not saying that's the way the Memphis Grizzlies has been ran because it hasn't been. The Memphis Grizzlies team with the people that are in charge there have been very slow grind, draft well and improve the players that's in our camp. But it can be, you know what I'm saying? We've seen teams have very early success with a young core and like you know what? Let's just go for it. Let's just go for it. And that doesn't work well. And having a super young team also makes it super hard for me to kind of project how good would you be once playoff time comes around? You know, with your top player being 21 or however old John Merritt is, your second best player being around there, your third best player being around there. And then the only guy with some like decent experience is Stephen Adams. And he not even though, even though it feel like he 40, he not even that old. Those are the only games that I watched today. I saw the LeBron wasn't playing and I was like, I'll set that one out. I saw that the Trailblazers were playing and I was like, I'll set that out. And then Luca wasn't playing and I told myself I'll set that out. But I see SpicerDivity had a big game and Jalen Brunson, I saw it statistic that they are six and one or five and one in the last couple of games where Luca hasn't played and Jalen Brunson has and his statistics look great. Go get your bag, big fella, because you deserve it. And I think that's it. Don't subscribe to my other channels, man. Baseball sees around the corner and I will be making baseball content that sounds like something that's interesting to you. I'm way less knowledgeable about baseball than basketball so keep that in mind if you subscribe to that channel. But it's for entertainment. It's strictly for entertainment.