 What's the word, y'all? All right, man, today was a great day. The Miami Heat advanced to their second conference finals in the last three years. The Dallas Mavericks are all by 15 points with two minutes to go and the Suns put their starters, but more importantly than all of that, Kendrick is dropping. And I mean, like, oh, it's 11-01. Kendrick dropped. So I'm gonna be late to the listening party, but it is what it is. I gotta shift the clock here. Let's talk about these games. First of all, at the top, I only get a lot of love to the Miami Heat. They did exactly what they're supposed to do. I hate when teams go up in a series when they need just one more game and they go out there and they play around with a fool, try to make it a close game. No, no, no, no, no, no. They went out there, they stepped on the next. They sucked the atmosphere out of the crowd. They had the crowd booing their home team in the first half. Jimmy Butler ended up with 32, 84. Max Drews ended up with 20, 11, and five. And I love Max Drews. He's a, actually, I don't know if he's an Illinois boy. I know he went to Lewis, which is like 15, 20 minutes away from me. But then he went to DePaul and he played for the Bulls. Did y'all remember that? He played for the Bulls and we let him go. And now in the closeout game, he had a 20 point game. He's the MVP, but I'm giving my secondary MVP because you know, Kenny Ferreo, we don't give MVP's to star players around here. My second MVP goes to PJ Tucker because even though he only had four offensive rebounds in this game, I swear all four of them caused the opposing crowd to boo their home team. It was all hard, all hustle while the Philadelphia 76ers seemed like they forgot that if they don't win tonight, the season is over. So I will give a lot of love to Miami Heat. I cannot wait to preview their next round series, see if it's gonna be bosses, see if it's gonna be Milwaukee. We might figure that out tomorrow. We will see. Shout out to them, man. Cultures are a huge thing. And two conference finals in three years under the Jimmy Butler name, makes me feel great and warm on the inside, but it also makes me feel terrible because he was a bull and we traded him away because they were afraid that he wasn't gonna get better than what he was at 27. And now here he is at what, 30? 31, I don't know how old Jimmy Butler is. And he is still getting better and he can carry an entire, not a carrying entire organization, but be the leader of an organization that can make it to the conference finals multiple times. At the end of the day, will they win a championship? It doesn't really matter at the grand scheme of things. Jimmy Butler is the star player, is the leader of a team that made it to the conference finals as a Bulls fan. Shit, I wish we had that, even if it don't result in any championships. You know, conference finals appearances, I take that over nothing any day. So shout out to the heat. I will admit the majority of this video will be focusing on the 76ers because, well, their season is over and I do not envy Deer Mori. I do not envy anybody over there that has to make some decisions because, well, there's a lot of decisions to make. Again, I have my notes. And if you go back to look at my initial reaction to the Ben Simmons, James Harden trade, one thing that was very prominent in that video or in that podcast, something I said, it seems like a million times because I really meant it, was this trade for both teams was not supposed to be just a this year trade? It wasn't championship or bus for the Brooklyn Nets if Ben Simmons came back and they didn't win. It wasn't champions to the bus for the 76ers if he came in and they didn't win a championship because in my mind, based on all the rumors that we had seen, their goal is to get Joe Allen beat and James Harden together, trade Tobias Harris to a team, free up some salary cap and go ahead and make some more changes around the edges. One thing I remember saying that the 76ers need more shooters, they have Terry's Max, he was like top five in three point shooting percentage. Danny Green is a wishy-washy three point shooter but he's still a positive there. But other than that, they didn't have a lot of catch of shoot shooters. So I was thinking, boom, you dump off Tobias Harris which might be hard to set the dump but whatever, you dump off Tobias Harris. Now you got some money or maybe you trade him for some shooters and now you got James Harden, you got stretchability, you got Joe Allen beat and boom, there's your recipe for greatness. But what I did not think was gonna happen, what I did not take it to consideration was James Harden basically falling off a cliff. Today, a lot of the focus is not just on Philly as a whole, it's on Doc Rivers and it is on James Harden. James Harden in his closeout game played 43 minutes. He shot four from nine from the field and attempted two shots in the second half and he ended up hitting zero. This is James Harden. When he was traded to Philly, DeRamory and the entire team was like, hey, we got another guy that could come in and help closeout games. Bro, didn't even take a shot until... It's unacceptable. So when I was saying this was a championship, but in my mind, I was still thinking I was gonna get 85% of what James Harden was and right now it might be close to the 65%, which is insane. And after this game, everybody hit their hit piece. I don't even wanna call them hit pieces. Everybody had their articles ready because I think the writing was on the wall for the 76 even though they made it a series after being down 2-0. I think the majority of us realized that they probably weren't going to win this series, right? So it was Tim Bontems over at ESPN. I'm gonna read you some excerpts from his article that he dropped just a couple of hours before I started filming this video. Now, obviously we know that one of the main reasons why James Harden doesn't look the same is because he's had all these hamstring injuries and it's been like two seasons, two and a half seasons where he's been dealing with it and here are some statistics about it, right? 2019-2020 per second spectrum, Harden blew by his defenders on 44% of his drives. The percentage dropped to 30% last season and then 29% this season. So James Harden, who had been a guy, again, we already, we always talk about him getting past his defenders and that's what makes him so dangerous. That's how you can average 35 points per game because when you get to the basket, you're all fouls, do what you want. You got that double step back. We're gonna talk about that double step back. Harden's offensive efficiency has taken a dive. His efficient field goal percentage dropped below 50% for the first time since his rookie year. Among 71 players who attempted at least 300 layups and dunks this season, per second spectrum, only two. Harden and Nick's RJ Barrett shot less than 50% on them and I just watched ESPN video about a week ago that said RJ Barrett was the worst finisher in all of basketball, so guess what? James Harden was the second worst finisher in all of basketball this season. He only shot 44% in the paint in the postseason. He made 32 field goals and committed 29 turnovers against the Miami Heat. That is ridiculous. That's just, I didn't even realize that my screenshot at this part, he had only three more field goals than turnovers this series. And I don't wanna make this as a James Harden hippie because that's not exactly what this is. I'm just showcasing how hard of a decision the 76ers have to make this year because I think they're kind of like, you remember early on we were like talking about James Harden not putting his paperwork in time for to get that player option and they were like, oh, that's not the big of a deal because they just gonna bring it back. I know they wish that he put that paperwork in so you can only get a one year buff for James so you can figure out, is it this hamstring or is this really the James Harden we gonna get? And James Harden's post game interview was asked about all these things. He's gonna take his player option, he's gonna sign an extension and he smiled and said, I'll be here next season. That can mean a lot of different things. That can mean he's trying to take his player option or that could mean that he's going to try to get this max contract or whatever it is and try to pitch an old 76ers to give him that contract. But Mariana was just checking to the game so that's dope. I love to see that. And the White Sox just lost their game 15 to seven. It was seven to seven going into the eighth and then the Yankees put up a million runs. So shout out to them. So Harden shot 40% overall in this series and he shot 43.8% on two pointers which marks the lowest in his post season career which is eight years and he posted the highest turnover rate of his career while having a far lower usage rating than any of his Houston seasons. Wow. So he turned the ball over way more than usual and his usage rate was way lower. There's not a lot of great things you can take away from James Harden's post season run right now. And I've been seeing a lot of people make the jokes that the 76ers traded one guard that wouldn't shoot for another. Cause there's no world where James Harden should be attempting two shots and they close out second half. I don't care how many defenders they send at him and I know there were possessions where they sent a lot but come on man. And James Harden going to his post game interview and said the ball never found me is bull word that I don't say on this channel. It's BS. How about that? It's BS. You are James Harden. I'm not trying to hit that coach and call my number, bro. You are a former MVP. You were an all, you've been an all star player for a decade now. You averaged 35 for a season. It don't matter if the coach did call your number, you call your number, you are the ball handler. If you called your own number and you ended up scoring 10 straight points, what doctor if it's going to do? Bitch you, he's already on the hot seat. So the ball didn't find me thing is crazy. Especially when I was watching this game and bro was bringing the ball to the court and passing the B ball pole immediately. Passed the Tires Maxi immediately. Ball didn't find me. That's some BS. James Harden in the second half and the five out of the six games. Game one, he had four points. Game two, he had four points. Game three, he had two points. Game five, he had four points. Game six, he had zero points. And I ain't about to do the math to see how many minutes that is. It's a ton of minutes for him to be playing and only putting up 16 points in fourth quarters out of six, five out of the six games. The only silver lining is that you get the one vintage Harden game. But if you get in one vintage Harden game at a 14, it's not worth nothing. It's not worth it. And now you got to make the decision. If you're Daryl Mori, if you're the Phoenix of you the 76ers or what the hell do we do with James? And there's just so many gyms. There's so many gyms and these aren't really officially exit interviews but there's so many gyms between Doc Rivers, Joel and Bede and James Harden when it came to this post game interview stuff. And the thing that probably is assaulting to the wounds if you're a 76ers fan is after the game, Jimmy Butler says, I wish I was still playing with Joel and Bede. And then I had to write in my notes and had to remind myself that the 76ers chose coach Brett Brown and Ben Simmons over Jimmy Butler. That was a real storyline. Now did Jimmy Butler want to go to Miami? Probably, but still that was a storyline that they chose Ben and Brett Brown over Jimmy and the Bulls chose Fred Hoiberg over Jimmy. He continues to make these opposing teams that let him go look foolish by continuing to be amazing at his job. This off season for the Philadelphia 76ers go a ton of different ways. And I'm not think, I don't think anything is off the table. I don't think this off the table that he's not a 76er next season. I don't think it's off the table that he gets a max. I don't think it's off the table that he takes his player option. I don't think it's off the table that Toby's back this season or next season. I don't think it's off the table that he's gone. There are so many different ways they could go. And we just go sit back and just see what happens. But overall this season has been whatever for the 76ers and they got to capitalize on Joellen Beats greatness because he's been top three or top two in MVP for back to back seasons. And in back to back years, he had somebody else fail him. Now of course with his thumb injury and him having an orbital fracture, he couldn't play to his MP performances this post season run but we know what he can be. And let's talk about the Dallas Mavericks because they forced a game seven. I've been waiting for a game seven all playoffs long and they did it in a very convincing fashion. It wasn't more than three minutes where this game felt not a competitive game. Luca continues to do lucrative type of things. Ended up with 33 points, eight assists, 11 rebounds. But the big thing is of course when you got the shooters to hit their shots this time it was Maxi Cleveland three, Reggie Bullock with five. And guess who came out of nowhere? Spencer Denwitte. Yes, sir. We called him the X factor for the series. This is the first time bro came up. He, it was a graphic they say, yeah, I think it was seven points per game this series on 29% efficiency. And today he shot 71% from three, five for seven. That's big. The defense looks great, but so far it has been home team, home team, home team, home team, home team, home team. And thank God. And if you were Chris Paul that the next game is at home. Now at the end of this game, he fell awkwardly on his hand. So hopefully that's nothing because I want to see both teams as close to full strength as possible. So losing Chris Paul be a detriment for the Phoenix Suns. But in all three of the games that they've had in Dallas, Chris Paul has been terrible. And I would not expect it that I even looked up what does Chris Paul usually average in Dallas? Is this one of the places this sit something about this city make him trash? The answer is no. He actually averages his second most points per game across the 30 organizations played against. Dallas is number two. He has just 20 plus points per game against Dallas in his career. But for some reason in this series, he's been struggling. I guess not for some reason. It's great coaching from Jason Kidd and great defense from the Dallas Mavericks to prevent him and Devin Booker from doing what they do best. But overall, it's these games. At home, he looks like Chris Paul. On the road, he hasn't. And they better pray. And I'm talking about the Phoenix Suns. They better pray that you get a good Chris Paul game in this game seven. Because it seems like Chris Paul's success it immediately impacts the rest of the team and which makes sense. He's not NBA player. But if he has a terrible game, so do they as a unit. All I hope for is that game seven is close. Because these games haven't been extremely close. We got double digit games, 30 point game, 10 point game, nine point game, 20 point game, seven point game. If game seven is a blowout, I'm gonna be so very disappointed because that's not what we want from game seven. I want it to be down to the last two minutes of the game. I want it to be down to the last possible shot of the game, you know? And we will find out what day is that? I need to see what day is that? The 15th, which is on Sunday. We got to wait all the way to Sunday to get this game seven? I mean, I guess so. Luca in this playoffs, this series is averaging 32, 9.8 rebounds and seven and a half assists. Insanity. They were talking about in the broadcasts. This is JJ Reddick, a company we're talking about. They're actually comparing Luca Dante to James Harden when he was in Houston, trying to figure out if his heliocentric basketball can work to win a championship. And I think it's an interesting conversation. But I will say that I have been extremely wrong about the Dallas Mavericks and general disease. And I can, I can say that with confidence. I've been extremely wrong, you know? Talk sports, you're gonna be wrong. I was extremely wrong because I did see this as like heliocentric Luca only basketball and of X and Y player don't hit their shots and they're gonna struggle. And I mean, I guess that can still be said, but X and Y player are hitting their shots more likely than not in this series. How long would it last? I don't really know, but I'm enjoying watching Luca basically pick apart opposing teams. And remember, he's only, what, 23, 24 years old. So we got years and years and years of this as NBA fans. And I cannot wait to see what game seven holds.