 What's the word? Y'all welcome back to the call game recap. I know you feel it. It is in the air basketball. Everybody is talking and feeling basketball right now, whether it be the NBA or Colchubes, because selection Sunday was today, everybody cares. You know what? I don't watch college ball. But of course, I feel it out of bracket. And of course, I will be watching March Madness, because it hits a little bit different. I feel it out of bracket, you know what I'm saying? I'm the same guy to pick Loyola Chicago to make a big time run a few years ago. You know, you know. But either way, I'm here to talk about the thing that I do know, and that is NBA ball. Leave a like, subscribe if you're new. I'm going to open up today's show talking about this man that is on my left, on my poster here, Jimmy Butler. Because why is it Jimmy Butler right now? It is, of course, bittersweet. I am a huge Jimmy Butler fan. Obviously, I wouldn't have him on my wall if I wasn't. But he was on my team not too long ago. And of course, my team traded him away because they didn't think he'd get better. And he has got better. And today, he had another ridiculous performance. Somebody tweeted at me that he scored 27 plus points in the last Yachty Outta Games. Today's stat line was 29.7 rebounds. Ninus says five steals. And one of those steals was a game clenching game, putting away steal that ended in a layup. Jimmy Butler, hooping, hooping. And after this game, I actually got a decent amount of tweets of people asking me, Kenny, what do you think about Jimmy Butler's MVP candidacy? The team really struggled when he was out and he's come back, he's got them back on track, even without being able to buy you out with them dealing with health and safety protocols, with them missing players because of injury. He's got them back on track. And now I'm going to look at the standings. They are sitting at the foreseat after basically being like, what? They were like the 12 C, like a couple of weeks ago. They were nine and one in their last 10. They are really out there hooping and got some very, very quality wins. What do you think about his MVP candidacy? And the short answer is, I understand you wanting to think Jimmy Butler is an MVP candidate, but in reality, he's not going to give votes, right? This is a war that was between Joe Ellenbead and Nicole Yolkens. And now that Joe Ellenbead is out, it's probably going geared more a little bit towards Yolkens and advanced stats. Really, we show that Yolkens is the guy this season. But I understand the candidacy for Jimmy Butler, but if we're breaking down the actual words, most valuable player and thinking about single players' importance to their team or single player importance to their organization, Jimmy Butler is like top three, top five, bro. Without him, the Miami Heat are bad. It's just straight up, straight up. He is the, I feel like a broken record when I say this is, I think I've mentioned it on the last three to four episodes of this show, how Jimmy Butler is able to take over a game in the fourth quarter when his team needs him to and get them a win. And he's done that a crazy, a crazy amount of times over this great stretch that they're going through right now. And you would think a guy with his story, right? Think about his story. Pick it up by a secondary family. Juco, Marquette get drafted last pick in the first round by the Chicago Bulls, plays on the Tom Thibodeau for a year, doesn't really get PT, slowly works his way into the starting lineup, then slowly works his way to an all-star appearance, and it slowly works his way to being the number one guy, and it slowly works his way into his first final's appearance. You would think there will be plays that he's like, I don't know how to play defensively. I'm Jimmy Butler, I'm a top X player in the league. I can take a couple defensive plays off, not Jimmy Butler. And what I can say about Jimmy Butler, and the reason I really like watching Jimmy Butler is his love of the game is so infectious. Obviously, majority 99% of the people that are NBA love the game of basketball, they probably wouldn't make it this far without it. But he has this infectious feel to it where we're like, you can really see that he cares not only just about the game of basketball, but he cares about this game, this game against the Orlando Magic who it feel like they played against each other 12 times a season. He cares about this game. He cares about the next game, like it is his last. And those type of players just make me love watching them play. Jimmy Butler's just one of the do's. I don't think he'll get any votes for MVP right now or anything like that, but most valuable player to a single organization, Jimmy Butler's that. And when he ended up in Miami, I think everybody knew that he was perfect for the culture, you know what I'm saying? Ray, the Miami, he had been advertised to us fans over the last decade. He was perfect for that. But I don't know how many of us expected him to take what he had built and he was already an all-star caliber player and even get better. Right now he was a player that didn't make the all-star game because I would guess mostly because of games play because when he was playing before the all-star break, he was still hooping, hooping. So it's probably due to games play. Not making the all-star appearance, but he's an all-NBA player easily this season. No offense or buts about it. He's all NBA second team at this point, if you ask me. He is a top three, top four in the league right now. That's the way he's playing and that's the way the Miami Heat are playing even without their guys. Oh, the Orlando, okay, it is the Orlando Magic, but I'm not just talking about today specifically. The Orlando Magic, if you look at that box score, it is Vucovic, it was Terrence Ross who always destroys Miami Heat. And that's literally, it's a G-League squad. And Vucovic was asked about the process of being a rebuilding team and he's cool with it at the age of 30, which is hard to believe. I'm gonna have a player on the called game show, which we will appear on this channel eventually, that is a veteran on a weaker NBA team, like a vet. And I always wanted to ask, why is you signed to a rebuilding team instead of trying to go get that ring? What is the satisfaction about being there for the process, even if your amount of years left in the league are probably limited, or your amount of years being elite at your play is kinda limited? Like, Vucovic would be so perfect to end up on a contender, but I don't think he wants that. I think he's okay with being with the magic right now, which is loyalty. But at the end of the day, bro, we wanna see you play, because this man is having the best year of his career and nobody really cares because you're letting no magic or trash because of injuries and everything. Okay, that's enough, Jimmy Butler talks out to Jimmy. Jimmy, if you ever wanted to come on the show, please just hit me up. It will be an instant yes that we can record whenever you want to. Four o'clock in the morning, I'm here for it. Next game we want to talk about, Thunder vs. Grizzly. Two teams that I am low key, very, very jealous of as a fan of a team that is currently doing a rebuild retool, because these two teams have done it the right way. The Grizzly's had that one season where they really, really sucked, and it was because Mike Connolly was missing a lot of time. Mark Asall wasn't as good as he was the previous years, and that's how they ended up with some of the top picks that they have. But other than that, they've been able to build a competent team while still being young and still trying to grow. Okay, C's roster today specifically made no sense for them to get this win. Let me read you all some of the players that did not play, that are real rotational pieces. Lou Dort, Darius Basely, Theo Maladom, Al Horford. Those are four really good rotational players that didn't play today. They have Moses Brown and Pokushepsky, who has gotta be the skinniest front court of all time, playing with each other, and nice. Pokushepsky's the youngest player in the NBA, and he put up a 23, 10, and four, and not even just that, he was playing guard. He was being a facilitator, and I'm like, yo, Pokushepsky's got a nice little future. But I can't talk about them getting this win, of course, without talking about Shea Gills Alexander, a ridiculous game. I have a whole video about Shea, if you missed it, go watch that, if you wanna hear a bunch of Shea Love. But just the pace that he plays at, so many timely buckets in this game. It made no sense for them to win this. But the reason why I'm jealous of them and the Memphis Grizzlies, because they have this built-in winning culture that you cannot teach. And a team like the Bulls, my team, don't really have that. We've been so bad for so long that you get these kind of lazy, you get these lazy habits with players because we've been on rebuilding teams for five years. This is all we really know. But OKC has a way of taking a player that maybe was in a bad situation, bringing a man like a Justin Jackson, bringing a man like a Cambridge Williams, who had another good game today, and building this culture of just winning. It doesn't make sense. The teams shouldn't be as good as they are. The Grizzlies went cold. I just want to see Jaren Jackson Jr. back on the court. I still don't think there's a timetable for it. But I'm very highly invested in Jaren Jackson Jr. as a player, and I need to see him back on the court. The Warriors got a win against the best team in basketball, who are slowly struggling a little bit. In the last five, I think they are two and three after being so, so very dominant. The Utah Jazz are slowing down a bit. And a lot of that is due tonight. They missed a bunch of shots. Some players that they normally have his shots didn't. Rudy Gubair had his best statistical game of his career. And a lot of that is because he was going to get Kevin Looney, who doesn't really play. He was going to get Sir rookie and James Wiseman, who jumps at every pump fake. And then when those two guys were in the game, he was going to get Kelly Ubr and Drey Montgomery, where he just towers over. So he finished with a stat line of 24 and 28, and they lost. They lost that game. Donovan Mitchell is, and the last three or so games, I would say, he's kind of reverting back to the older Donovan Mitchell, which is not a bad thing, because older Donovan Mitchell obviously is still really good. But the reason I really enjoyed Donovan Mitchell's season this year is because he wasn't really forcing up shots. He was giving what the offense or the defenses gave him. In a game like this, he was kind of forcing shots. Maybe that's because other players weren't hitting them. So he's like, I got to do it myself or whatever. But that would be one of the main reasons why they lost. And Wiggs, Andrew Wiggins coming in the clutch with a 28 point performance. And they had this thing. And I was listening to the commentators for once. And obviously they have this rotation where the first six or seven minutes or so in the fourth quarter, it's like the Benz players plus Wiggins. And the commentator is like, you got two minutes until Steph Curry in the game. Just hold it down, hold it down until Steph gets back in the game. And Wiggs was the one to hold it down. And it was great. You got to see James Wyman's offense potential again after being disciplined for missing his COVID test. He comes in and plays quality minutes. Nico Manion, who was getting minutes in that game, they lost like 50 the other day. And everybody was upset that Nico Manion was getting minutes. He played well today. Jordan Poole played well. This team can go from really good to really bad in a snap of a finger. So I don't really know what to think about them. Jordan Poole got closing minutes against like Rudy Gobert as a center because he was playing better than any other center that was on the roster. So they played small. And they got the win. They got the win. Steph Curry. Oh, I should mention his name. Good performance, of course, by Steph Curry. Next, we talk about the 76ers getting to win over the Spurs, a crazy 35 point win. And one of the main things people have talked about about the Philadelphia 76ers and one of the reasons why maybe some people don't believe in them as like contenders or believe in them as a team that can take out the Brooklyn Nets or even get to the championship was their lack of depth. And what we are seeing over the past three, five games is what they actually have depth. They just do. The team that you are seeing play right now is their depth. No Joellen Bede is their depth. Matisse Stiball has played really, really good over the past X amount of games. Hitting shots. And Matisse Stiball is hitting shots that he played against the Bulls. And like he did today, being perfect in the field. He's a scary player because you know he's in passing lanes every single time. Tobias Harris, his mindset over the past couple of weeks has been so, so brilliant. Of course, being snubbed of an all star appearance. You know, the mindset he has of like, OK, I'm just going to go at the coaches that didn't vote for me. And if you believe I'm an all star, that's all I care about. You know, those type of things, if the Philly fans believe I'm an all star, then I'm an all star. He's been so tremendous this season. Ben Simmons playing with the pace that he normally does. This is depth. It just is. They didn't just beat a team. They beat a good team, bro. The Spurs are no chumps. They're no chumps. They were missing DeMar, but they're still no chumps. They got to win here. They got to win against the Bulls without their star players. You're seeing that depth. And I think Daryl Moore is super happy with the way they're Ben's is playing. The Hawks are undefeated. And the Nate McMillan era. This is what I like about it, though. This was a close game into the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter opened up. And then the Cavaliers, I don't know what the hell they was doing. They just changed up everything they did for the first three quarters. But this guy, this guy, hold on, hold on. What is his name? The name of Nathan Knight. I think it was the second episode of this show in its entirety. I was talking about Nathan Knight because I had never heard about him before. And no, this is the first game of the season because they beat the Bulls. I remember that. And he played very, very well. He got hit on the bench because they wanted to give Bruno Fernando minutes. And that was Lloyd Pierce is doing. Nate McMillan was like, no. We don't give Nate Wright those minutes. And Nate Wright put up 16. He dunked the ball. They got blocked and dunked it while it was getting blocked over one of the best shot blockers in the entire league. They did this without their true center. Clegg Appel was been really, really good for them recently. The Atlanta Hawks are putting it together, man. They're putting it together. And I don't know if it was. I mean, I would guess it is a simple coaching change because it's typical that a team changes coaches. And then the morale in the locker room just gets significantly better. I forget who it was on this team. Somebody said they felt like they were getting picked on by Lloyd Pierce. And I guess Nate McMillan's not picking on players at his own locker room. And they are doing it low key, though. And this is a team win. Trey Young didn't even do much this game. As far as statistically, this is a great, great team win against a bad team. But hey, a win is a win. It don't matter who you're going against. I didn't watch the Rockets get beat up by the Celtics. So I don't know about that. But I did see a lot of people on Twitter talking about how bad Victor Ladipo is as a player. And that's very interesting to me. His stat line looks all right, but I need to go back and watch. What about what he did today was bad. We did get to see Kevin Porter Jr. who didn't play great tonight. But I did watch him his first official game or first official start. And I'm super excited about what he can potentially be, especially considering they gave up nothing to get him. We got Kmart Jr. coming in and getting the big time game. I'm going to rewatch this game. I'm going to go back and watch this game because I really need to know how they lost again. Finchie Era. Oh my God, I am running really long. Finchie Era for the Minnesota Timberwolves is here that is their first win streak since the first two games of the season from Namaste. Oh, no, they lost the other night. They lost the other night. I wanted this to be a two game win streak for them, regardless, they get another win. And those have not been coming very often for them. So to have it again is a beautiful thing. Damian Lillard graced that line. But we want to focus on the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Finch Era because it is here. Anthony Eris is fearless. Who is hitting the three in the legend face and Carmelo Anthony face and doing the three to the dome for him? Not like in a joking, like I'm coming. I think Lamello did the exact same thing early in the season. Regardless, the team just looks more fluent right now. I couldn't tell you if it was X's or No's or it's the same thing that I said when it comes to the Lloyd Piercing that once a coach gets fired and somebody else is new there, there's a boost of morale. Everybody wants to play better. They know that they have a chance to maybe get minutes when they did it before. Carthony Towns took nine shots. I didn't even realize he only took nine shots this game. Didn't matter. They got a win. They got a win. And the last game that I watched, I'm sorry Pelicans fans, I didn't get around to watching your game because I was watching the Bulls who decided to make some lineup changes. We were the youngest lineup in the entire NBA, starting to line up in the entire NBA all of this season. And we changed that. We took Kobe White and put him to the bench. We took Wendell Cardin and put him to the bench as we were going against Cal Laury and we were going against Cal Laury and Norm Powell and then a bunch of G-League players. But hey, a win is a win. And I like that Wendell Cardin came out and he played with a lot of heart. It's not about who you're going against. He just needed a little fire under his butt. I'm curious to how, if he will keep this up. Because me and my friends have talked about this before. When a player gets benched and then comes out and performs very well off the bench, it's a weird spot for the coach because now do you put him back in the starting lineup or do you think that he's playing well because he's coming off the bench? So let's keep him as a bench player. You know what I'm saying? I think Wendell Cardin played well today and he's playing motivated today because he wants to start. But I guess Billy Donovan's like, you know what, him coming off the bench actually worked pretty well today. I think we're gonna keep it like this. But I would like to see this line up, the smaller lineup that we did run today versus an actual big man. Cause the Raptors don't have those things right now at least. And that's the episode. Thank y'all so much for watching. Be looking out for a March Madness video on all my other channels cause that is coming. And that's it, call game.