 What's the word, y'all? Welcome back to The Recap. Now that the called game show is officially out and you should go watch that or listen to it on audio platforms, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts, now that that is out, people who have been asking me heavily, Kenny, is The Recap dead? No, as long as I have something to talk about in the NBA world, I will. And I know y'all want to see The Recap's way more often the way they're dropping, but sometimes I just don't have nothing to say. Today's not one of those days. Other than Jason Tatum dropping 60 and leading his team to the third biggest comeback of all time, the rest of the games were me, like not super fun to watch. I mean basketball is fun in itself, but like not super intense, competitive games. But the reason I'm making these videos is because I want to remind everybody that the playoffs have unofficially started. Unofficially. Because when you just look at today's Slater games alone, there are a lot of playoff implications. Of course things are in flux so things can change immediately, but with the 76ers winning and the Brooklyn Nets losing, the 76ers are now half game away from taking a once. That's big. That's home court advantage for the entire conference play. That's big. The Celtics winning and Latterhawks lose. Now they're tied in the win and the lost column, potentially trying to fight for that five seed. The Spurs lose. That's a big time for the Grizzlies who win. The Wizards win and now they got like three games above the 11 seeded official. It's done. I'm calling it right now in Bulls fans. I know you already came to this realization, but it is official officially from me. We're not making a playoffs this season because the Wizards are better than us and we suck. The Trailblazers win. Which is funny because last time we talked, we were talking about the Trailblazers being bad. And I think at the end of that rant about them being bad, I was like, but you know what? Damien Lilly can turn it on. And then they immediately win a couple of games. And that's exactly what they did there in the three game Winner Streaks and Step. And then the Suns take the one seed from the Utah Jazz. Like I said, all of this is in flux, but this is what I'm just saying to you with little runway left with the season being wrapped up in just a couple of weeks. These games matter more than ever. So you should be tuned in and really paying attention to your favorite team because, amen, one loss can put them in an unfavorable matchup once playoff time comes around. Now, I don't have to worry about that because my team's not working in that playoff. So I can watch objectively again because like I said, I'm canceling the Bulls for this season. Let's start off talking about Jason Sainton. Talking about the Boss of Souths because I'm giving you homework or I'm giving you a chore, y'all. Because the way I watch basketball when there are so many games at the same time, once one game is a blowout early on, typically I stop watching that game because in my mind, when you're down by 35, the game is over. Like traditionally, you know what I'm saying? But if my homework to you, if a team has started to put together a comeback after being blown out, please tweet at me, let me know. Because I was completely unaware of what the Boss of Souths were doing until the game was over. I got a Bleach Report notification saying that the Celtics won the game. And I was like, you know what I got? So I did go back and rewatch it. I rewatched the second half specifically. Well, what a surprise the heck out of me watching. I knew that Jason Tatum was ending with 60. I knew that the Boss of Souths was gonna win this game, but I was still at the edge of my seat. But what was surprising me, and listen, I will never tell Greg Popovich how to coach a basketball game. He is the greatest coach of all time, if you ask me. But I don't know how the heck this man, Jason Tatum, has what? He at the 45 point mark. And he is still in man to man coverage. He ain't throwing no doubles. And it's not even just that he was a man to man. He was a man to man with like, I don't know, Lonnie Walker, who ain't a bad defender. But I feel like I did not see many times, at least in the second half, when Dejante Murray was had the Jason Tatum assignment. Dejante Murray was all defensive player like two, three years ago. And he don't get no assignment on the hottest man on the team right now, especially since it was really the Jason Tatum show. Jalen Brown could not score, other than that one big time dagger in the fourth quarter. And Aaron Eastmiff had so many, so many, so many great plays, so many big hustle plays. Shout out to him. I love that he's carving his way into the rotation. Cause when I talked to him after draft night, I knew for a fact that he was an NBA player and I can't say the same thing about every rookie that I've talked to. I knew he was an NBA player. I just didn't know how much of an impact he would be able to make on his rookie season. And now he's slowly finding his way into rotation. And today he was their second best player. He was their second most impactful player other than Jason Tatum. But I don't know how Dejante Murray don't get that assignment, especially since Dejante couldn't score in the second half. So I was thinking, hey, if he not going to contribute offensively as far as scoring the ball, let me put him on their best player. But nope, the only time it felt like Jason Tatum was being double team was like on a pick and roll when it kind of did this hard hedge situation. And it was just like nothing. I mean, if you're gonna single handedly let Jason Tatum destroy you, go ahead by any means. But it was just, what a comeback, bro. What a comeback. And you know what the fans boo. Southest fans will, no, no, no, 76ers fans will tell you that booing your home team can work out, bro. It can. You know what I feel like every time the 76ers have been booed by their own fans, at least when it comes to last season when fans were with plenty full, they end up winning that game. And it's just so, now the Bulls fans, once we can finally get in there on the seventh, just boo them from the beginning and that's how we get back in the playoffs. Somebody on Twitter is like, Katie, you only talk about the Spurs when the Spurs are bad and how are you going to talk about the Spurs? They blew a lead. They blew it historically. I don't even know what to say about it. You know what I'm saying? One thing I did take away, I heard on the broadcast that in the month of April, DeMarco Rosen had been the clutchest player in the NBA. And that was something I wouldn't have known. The Spurs are always under the radar, man. They just always are. And it's unfortunate they were the team to give up this historic night. But I'm gonna leave it at that and we'll talk about the Spurs again later when they're in the play-in because it seems like, it seems like the Western Conference 10 is set. I don't believe that the Pelicans have it in them to take it. So the Western Conference 10, it says it's a matter of who's the sevens, who's the eights, so on and so forth. Shout out to Jason Tatum, man. Big time game. Because when I was watching this, if I'm not mistaken, he scored like the first 12 points for the team. And so I knew it was a Jason Tatum day. It just felt like nobody else was gonna show up. And I guess that skill kind of was the case, and but they ended up getting the win. Great defensive performance by them to completely shut down the Spurs in that second half. The next game I wanna talk about, again, not a lot to even talk about other than the games mattering. I wanna talk about the Suns. Unfortunately for NBA fans, you got the two top teams in the Western Conference going head-to-head and a battle for the one seed. It is what this was, essentially. And a down of a mental can play. It's unfortunate because without down of a mental, obviously Utah Jets are nearly as impactful of an offensive team, and they lose. They lose dramatically, or not dramatically, drastically, because Devon Booker drops 31, had Rudy Gobert in a blender. And I understand people don't like Rudy Gobert because he doesn't score the ball often, and he did the mic touching thing right before the league got shut down. People don't believe he's a great defender, and I just don't understand how they can say that without watching. You know, that just tells me they're not watching games. Of course he can't guard Devon Booker in a one-on-one situation. I don't know how many people can. I don't know how many seven-foot-one people can stay in front of Devon Booker. It's gotta be a league of one, or a league of zero, and Rudy Gobert's not one of them. The Suns take the one seed. And I've been seeing over the past couple of weeks a lot of talk about Christopher Emanuel Paul being in MVP conversations. And obviously, as the biggest Christopher Paul fan on the planet, I love the idea of him being in the conversation of course. It just helps his legacy long-term. I mean, I guess he don't need his legacy to be helped because he's a bona fide hall of famer. He's a top five point guard of all time. But I also see some people pushing back on the idea of Devon Booker, I mean, of Chris Paul being in the conversation. And I'm here to break it down to you. He's not gonna win the award. Yolkich has that award on lock if you ask me. No offense or butts about it. But when I say Chris Paul being in the conversations, I'm kind of thinking about it like, he's number five on the ballot. Is that crazy to think about? Here's why. People who are looking at what the sons did in the bubble of them being eight and all and be like, bro, their breakout year was gonna happen. You saw what they did in the bubble and you know what, that is facts. Their breakout year was coming. But you can't tell me that they were gonna be the onesy without a Chris Paul trade. I think without Chris Paul, they could have been the playoff team. But Chris Paul is the best ceiling raiser or best floor, I guess you can give them both, floor and ceiling raiser in the NBA, one of them. You know, they could have been on the road to the playoffs, but Chris Paul put them not on the road to the playoffs, but on the road to contention, on the road to being the one seed in the entire NBA. So that's why Chris Paul deserves to be in this conversation. And not even just that. I mean, in the last week alone, he has had big moments to close out games. I can think of off rip. I can think of five games of Chris Paul has closed out. Now, that's not like, I've been seeing some people think that, say that since Chris Paul is in the NBA conversation, it's taken away from what Devin Booker is doing, it's taken away from what James Jones is doing, it's taken away from Mighty Waves. And I don't think that's the case at all. Because of course you need all of them to be good for this team to be the one seed. But again, it's about the floor and the ceiling raising. And that is Chris Paul. This team moves differently this year. That is Chris Paul's imprint. This team is moving dramatically different this year. And that is because of Chris Paul. Devin Booker deserves a lot of love too. He's not gonna be in the MVP conversation. But if we talk in top 10, top 11, top 12, Devin Booker deserves to have some love as well, obviously. Because he's that punch, that firepower. But the leader, in the moments, a lot of those go to Chris Paul right now. I love watching the Phoenix Suns. I've said that many, many times. I just wish that Devin, I wish that Donovan Mitchell was here. Because I do want to see these two teams play against each other when they're completely healthy. Because last time they did, before today, it was like a bonafide classic. And today it wasn't. And when I'm looking at tomorrow's Slater Games, I'm super excited now. Fortunately, I'm gonna have to miss a lot of these because my mom is getting married. I wanted to make a video yesterday about like Kevin Porter Jr. dropping 50. Tim Hardaway Jr. had like 42. Alize Johnson had a 2020 game. There was a lot of big games yesterday and it got overshadowed because the NFL draft was happening. And I wanted to record a video, but hey, that second COVID shot took me out, bro. The vaccine shot took me out. And I just, I didn't have the energy to. I'm just kind of rambling. Go watch Call of Game, bro. Every Wednesday, next episode is Metal World Peace. I don't know if I'm supposed to tell you that, but I'm gonna tell you that anyway. So when I drop the teaser on Twitter or Instagram and say guess who, y'all act dumb, please. Don't tell my manager so I told you, okay? Call of Game.