 What's the word y'all? All right, for the first time in the 2022 NBA playoffs, I am bringing out the Kenny for Real Panic Meter. And I'm trying to figure out where we should be landing on the Phoenix Suns. Are they on the one? Should we not be panicking at all? Or is it at a five? Cause we only go up to five. That's my panic meter, but they are decimals. So it could be like a 1.6, it could be a 4.8. Either way, where do we sit with the Phoenix Suns because the number one team, the team that dominated the regular season, and for me was the favorite to win this championship or in a 2-2 series to the team that was the 9C, but 1A2 playing games and look at them right now. They are tied with the number one team in the entire NBA. Now I'm bearing the lead a little bit. Of course, you know, Devon Booker has not played in the last couple of games, but still Devon Booker would not be back. So they got to figure this out. So I'm trying to figure out where we are sitting on this panic meter. You know what? I've watched a ton of Phoenix Suns basketball over the last two seasons. If you did not know, Chris Paul is my favorite point guard of all time. So wherever Chris Paul goes, I'm watching that team very attentively because I enjoy the way Chris Paul plays basketball, right? And today's game felt very different than any loss I saw in the regular season for them this season. These guys were flustered and they looked like they didn't deserve to be there. That is wild to say about the number one team in the league, even with Devon Booker being out this injury. This is the first time where I felt like these boys was not prepared for a game. They lost the mental game in this one. Listen, I'm not normally a dude that would go like, oh, they didn't feel mentally tough enough because I think a lot of that's like cliche BS, but today it felt like they lost the mental battle in this one 100%. And now it is a 2-2 series and a 2-2 series of course is now the best of three and with Devon Booker not coming back on the horizon any time soon, they have to figure out how the hell do we say face to get to the point with Devon Booker's back potentially? We don't even know if Devon Booker's completely gonna be back next series or what version of Devon Booker will get. What percentage of Devon Booker are we gonna get? So that's the more I talk, the more I'm eased in my way up that panic meter because this is a team that was built to win a championship. And anything less than that, I would say would be a disappointment. And some of that is not by our own doing. Your best player, your all NBA first team player if you ask me is down with a injury. And first of all, a day like this basically showcases you. I love Chris Paul again. That's my favorite of all time. There has never been a question for me this season who the best player on the Phoenix Suns was. That's why on my all NBA list, Devon Booker was on the first team and Chris Paul was on the third team. Like there's that much of a gap. Devon Booker has been the most impactful slash best player for the Phoenix Suns and you saw that today. If this team wants to win this series, you cannot get a performance like this from Chris Paul, bro. We just witnessed one of the bottom three. Chris Paul playoff individual performances of all time. Now I understand Chris Paul got a lot of critics, a lot of people that don't like him. And I'm not here trying to convince you to become a Chris Paul fan. But Chris Paul doesn't have these, this much of stinkers. Of course he has, he's been on teams that've blown three, one leads or he've had bad games in there. But a game like this two for eight from the field clamped up by two rookies. And you know what? They did an amazing job. We're gonna talk about the pelicans for sure because this is not all about whether or not we should be aware we should be on the panic meter but we also got to start love to the pelicans. They still gotta win these games, right? But a lot of love to Herb Jones and Jose Alvarado. They did an amazing job on them. But Chris Paul had plenty of opportunities in this game to take open looks, but he didn't do it. I don't know why the hell Chris Paul just figures out like, hey, I just do it in the fourth quarter every time. And if he can't turn it on the fourth quarter, then he's got three and a half quarters if you like just being passive and playing lob guy. For them to win this series, Chris Paul has to do more than take over a fourth quarter every second game. He needs to go out there and play the ball that we know he can still play at the age of 66. So I have the hell oh he is. He put up a stinker. And well, this entire series, this entire series, we've been getting stinker performances from the supporting cast as well. Actually in game number three, they, man, they were so lucky that Chris Paul took over the game. They were so lucky that DeAndre Aiden was dominant because everybody else on that roster was putting up stinkers. Hold on, I know I had to stat. Hold on, I read down the stat in my docs because when I do watch these games, I try my best to have these documents with my notes. And sometimes it's as simple as just going to Reddit and just seeing what other people have said and be like, oh, okay, I found it. This is from Destructive Optimism on Reddit. McKell Bridges, J-Crow, The Camera Pain, and Landry Shaman are combined four for 48, 10% from three this series. 10% from three this series. So it is more than Chris Paul having a stinker. It's the other people not hitting their shots as well. And if I had to guess out of the 48 three pointers, I would guess at least 42 of them are wide open, non-contested shots. And the backup point guard, the guy that you expect to play a little bit more minutes because in the regular season, they had this tandem where Devon Booker was off the court, Cameron Payne and Chris Paul playing together. Cameron Payne has not done a damn thing in this series whatsoever. Today he was three for 10 with eight total points and game three, he had three points and game two, he had six points and in game one he had two points and he's shooting like 30% from the field in the entire series. And I got a lot of love for Cameron Payne because I know what he has gone through in his NBA player. He went from Russell Westberg, Hype Man, dancing with Russell to being traded to the Bulls in his first day of practice. They say this guy's not an NBA player and he used that as fuel to become an NBA player and was one of the better backup point guards for the last two seasons. Right now he does not look like that. They're about six or seven backup point guards in the playoffs right now that are destroying the production that Cameron Payne has given them. And on the other side, when you talk about the Pelicans, everything was clicking for them today. You know, you had the two rookies and Herb Jones and Jose Alvarado who played amazing defense on anybody that they were assigned to. But you know, like I said, you have to get a ton of credit to coach Willie Green and the neurons Pelicans because in this game, everything that you needed to click, I can't even say everything. Majority of the things that you needed to click to win this game did click. Before this game, Jonas Valentino's average is just 11 points on the series. He was averaging 11 points on 30% shooting for your starting center. And in this game, well, he got back to the normal version of himself putting up about 26 points. He hit a big, big three. A big, big three down the stretch and 15 rebounds. And this was a battle of the bigs, man. In the last couple games, Deondre Aydin were going at him and dominating him and dominating him so much so that they had to go super ultra small ball where Leary Nance was on the court and then Leary Nance is gonna dominate it as well. But it was better for the offense for Leary Nance. Leary Nance is about there. But now, yeah, Deondre Aydin gave him some buckets but he was giving it right back to him and ended up winning that matchup. That was a plus. Brandon Negrum has put up 30 plus points. And I think in every single one of these playoff games so far, he's been amazing being able to take over the game. He is so poised. I love when we see these younger players that have zero playoff experience come in and be like, oh, you didn't know I can hoop national or everybody else in the media, everybody else that's an NBA fan. You didn't know I can hoop. Fuck, I'm Brandon Negrum. I was just, oh, start two years ago. But to see them do it in the stage like this is great because there's one thing to be a really good regular season player and there's another thing to do it when you only have a couple games to prove yourself. And Brandon Negrum has proved that he is still really that nice. Because I don't even think Brandon Negrum got that much playoff buzz this season, even though he had pretty much identical stats across the boards for the last three seasons. He didn't get much playoff all-star buzz. I mean, but he was amazing in this one. They didn't even get a crazy CJ game. CJ had been killing the entire series. That was like the one consistent thing. He didn't have a crazy game, but it was a lot of grit. There was a lot of heart and there was a lot of great defense, man. There was a lot of great defense. And you can tell that they wanted this game more than ever. The fans were packed out and it was just a good game. It was an overall great game. Also a thing that I like and again, people gonna take this the wrong way, but so be it. I like when younger players come into the league. And of course you want people to respect the elders, even maybe that's even an old thing that nobody really cares about. But when you're on the court, you're just another dude to me. You're not Chris Paul, the legendary point guard. You know what I'm saying? You're just my opponent right now. So I might have so much respect for you, but when we between these lines of these 48 minutes, we can't be homies. We can't dab up until after the game. And I like that these two teams do not like each other right now. Of course I can do without some of the extracurricular activities, whether it be Jackson Hayes pushing or Chris Paul going up for the block. I could do without that because that could just lead to some things down the line that we don't want to deal with. We don't want to deal with more injuries than we already have. The Pelicans are missing their best player. If people didn't don't remember, the Pelicans don't have Zion Williamson. They have not had Zion Williamson. And then the Suns are also missing their best player. You know what I'm saying? We can't add more to that fire by having more people set out games. But I do like that these boys are in each other's face and they understand what is at stake because you cannot convince me that the Pelicans are scared or don't believe that they can win this series. And that's what we want. So to get back to it, where would I be on my panic meter for the Phoenix Suns? I think I would go at a 2.8. I still do believe that the Phoenix Suns will pull out this series. Like I said, the shooting forward, the others have been God awful. And I don't expect that to happen for these last three games. No, I don't expect J. Crowder to turn into Steph Curry. But I also don't expect them to be this bad. You saw her that percentage. They have been God awful from three. And I don't expect that to last forever because a lot of those shots are very open. I don't expect Chris Paul to put up another four point game. You know what I'm saying? There are like a lot of things that I don't think is going to last for the next three. But hey, I said the same thing about Kevin Arant after game two that he won't have another sneaker and then he did. So I don't know. You can't really make that prediction. But I still think the Suns can pull out this series. Either way, whether the Suns win or the Pelicans win, bro. It's been amazing so far. But it is cool to see, it is very, very cool to see a lot of people hopping on a Herb Jones bandwagon. Not even a bandwagon, because I hate that word. A lot of people recognizing the greatness that is Herb Jones. Before you even move on to the next game, there's an article that was put together by on ESPN Plus. So maybe I can't read you the entire article. But the name of the series, the Phoenix Suns are the best team in the league right now. And this was created like two days before Devin Booker's injury. And I'm gonna read you these 10 things and you tell me how many of these things have stayed true to this day, okay? Number one, the never ending brilliance of Chris Paul. I can't say it's never ending because today was a terrible game. But it's still brilliance for sure. For the most part of the series, he has been brilliant. But today I can't say it's never ending. The scoring of Devin Booker, that's out of the way. There's no more scoring of Devin Booker in this series. The crunch time greatness. Now I think crunch time is classified as five point game within the last X amount of minutes. So I don't even think this game had a crunch time to even talk about the statistics revolving around crunch time. But in a lot of the games, at least in game three, when it was down to the crunch time, they dominated and that was the Chris Paul. So maybe the Suns should just keep it close and then boom, they win the series. Number four says office of efficiency and we just talked about them not being efficient for three. So overall the office of efficiency has not been there. Defense of evolution. I'm still trying to figure out are the Suns defending well or not? I still don't know, I still don't know. It's higher than my expertise, if you want to call it that. One of the deepest rosters in the league, well we just talked about how a lot of their backups have not been producing. So maybe that is scratch right now as well. The rest of the West is questionable, sure. Mighty Wimps is on the sidelines. I don't think Mighty Williams is coats the bad game or bad series. Deondra Aiden in the paint still stands true. He's been great. And the last one says they're defending Western Conference champions. I think Bro only had nine things and he needed the 10 things. So he's like, they were there last year. So plus one, let me know. If you were, where's your panic meter for the Phoenix Suns after watching game four? I think I said 2.8, I'm gonna stick at 2.8. I was good to the other close game, which is the Denver Nuggets, preventing themselves from being swept. Yo, this is the only thing people want to talk about about this entire game was Yokech, preventing himself from being the first MVP to be swept in the first round. Or something crazy like that. He wouldn't be the first one to lose in the first round for show, but he'd be the first one to be swept, which means that everybody's already given Yokech the MVP because I think a lot of people realize that the media has voted Yokech as the guy. And they won this game. And even though it was a close one and a good one, I don't really have that many takeaways. I just think the Nuggets played a better game. It was cool to see Yokech actually do stuff down the stretch because in the last game that they lost, Yokech didn't even attempt a shot within the last two minutes. And then he was getting hunted by Steph Curry. And even in this game, he got hunted by Steph Curry down late, but he got a couple stops. I can't even say he got a couple stops. They got a couple stops and that was what they really needed. Hold on, here are my notes. I'm gonna read you my notes and we can move on to the next one. Close the game. Oh, because that had been a thing. They had been struggling down the stretch and that has to do with Yokech not taking over in the last two minutes. Boxing one, the Warriors continue to run as Boxing one against Yokech. And nobody else in this series has stepped up for them. But today, they actually got their production. Aaron Gordon had a second really solid game of the series. He ended up with 21 points. Monte Morris with 24 points. Bones high enough to bench, hit like three 30 foot bombs. And then you also got Boogie giving them quality minutes. So the Boxing one didn't really work because finally he had some people to kick it out to and shout out to Will Bard. He didn't have an amazing game. We hit the biggest shot of the game and that was generated by Yokech. Next one finally has some help. Oh, too much fouling for the Warriors. There you go. That's why you lost this game, Warriors Nation. Too much fouling. Can we move on to the next one? Okay, cool. And the next one won't be any more in depth either because the Atlanta Hawks got absolutely decimated by the Miami Heat. This was the first game that I could say I walked away from. Yep, it was Sunday and I had just watched the other two and I'm like, you know what? I can go without watching this one. And yep, I walked away. Here's my notes. These are verbatim what I wrote in my notes. How the hell did Nate McMillan not call timeout? 20, 26 to four run, no timeout, WTF. So there's that. And I think that was the first half. I think that's like towards the end of the first half. I don't know how the opposite team can go on a 26 to four run and you decide, let the boys play and they've done a great job. Similar to what we talked about with Yokech in the Boxer when the Miami Heat are doing the exact same thing. I hate how reactionary we have become as NBA fans. This is what my time like is set up today. Trey Young is not built for the playoffs because he's struggling against the Miami Heat. One, Cavadal Rant can't be a leader of an organization because he's struggling against the Boston Celtics. Two, Chris Paul is wise and he not blank all time because he struggled in this game. Three, the Bulls suck. I'll give you that. I'll give you, hey, you can have that. You can have that. The other ones I will not tolerate. I think we've just gone too much in the reactionary. It wasn't even a full year ago where Trey Young was in the conference finals. Yeah, he put up a stinker and the Miami Heat has clamped this boy, I think Kevin Knox has outscored Trey Young two out of the four games, which is disgusting. It's facts, it's disgusting. But he has showed that he could produce in the playoffs. But one thing that was happening in last year's playoffs is that he had other people to take some pressure off. Listen, the New York Knicks team that he beat last season was one of the best defensive teams in the league last year. I don't know if you forgot or not, but what happened? Yeah, other people step up, it means they open the game up more for him because oh, we can't even double off Voguey. Oh, we can't even double off this play. Oh, Clint Capella is killing on the line. None of that has happened in this season. None of that has happened in this season. This is what I saw in this game. Kevin Knox had 12 points in four minutes, broke it to you to come in and he shoots the hell out of the ball. That is more points than a yacca congle than Galanari, than DeLon Wright, Bogdanovich, Trey Young, Kevin Herter, Clint Capella. Matter of fact, let me do some goddamn math on this iPhone like 10 or whatever. I ain't upgraded my phone just yet, but I swear one day I will. That's about 167 minutes worth of basketball and in Kevin Knox's four minutes, he outscored all of those people. 160 something minutes played. Kevin Knox came in for four minutes in four threes and became more productive than everybody else I just named, Insanity. The Miami, he can afford to run a boxing one and when a screen comes, we double the screens, blitz in the screen because we don't trust that Bogdanovich is gonna have another hot game like he had in game two, I think it was. Oh, we don't trust DeLon Wright to do anything to play solid defense for them, but we don't even trust Galinari to hit his three porters anymore. So yeah, Trey Young put up some stinkers, I mean some really bad stinkers for a guy that you wanna build your franchise around or you haven't been in your franchise around, but you haven't done a great job building your franchise around him, it's all I'm saying. Even Trey Young admitted that the last playoff run was like lightning in the bottom. Everything perfectly happened for them to get to the conference finals and I think at the end, whenever teams get eliminated from the playoffs, I'm gonna do like a retrospective and then what's next for them. So I can't wait to talk about the Atlanta Hawks because I'm still trying to figure out what the hell they do once they lose this next game or the game after that or the game after that, I don't know. They not winning the series. Then lastly, the Bulls. And at the end of yesterday's video, I was talking about how my pops was coming over to watch game four with me. Thank God we rescheduled you to game five and I don't think game five is gonna be any better honestly, but at least it wasn't this one. At least it wasn't this one. I don't have, I legit don't have anything to say. The Bulls just can't score the ball. They can't get to the paint. The paint is on absolute lock. Like I think we shot our first free throw on the second half and that was the second game in a row, something like that happened. Nobody can dribble, penetrate to get to the basket. Demonda Rose and can't really get mismatches cause drew holidays fighting over every single screen. Nobody else is really stepping up. There's been no bench production. It's just like the better team is winning the series. I don't know a single sane human being that picked the Chicago Bulls to win this series at all. The better team is winning, but I will say I'm happy to win the playoffs but they're happy to be here as shit is done after this year. You know what I'm saying? The Bulls are just the playoff team next year. That's disappointing to me. It's steps to this, right? It's missing the playoffs, which was last year. It's making the playoffs. Oh, we might be a first round exit and next year it's like, let's make some noise. Is it the second round? Is it the finals finals? Is it the finals of the goddamn championship? I don't know, but it's gonna be more than I'm happy to be here. Right now, listen, the Bulls game is on and we lose about 30. I hate it for show, but it's not rowling me up next year if this same circumstance or the same outcome was happening maybe it'll be a little bit different. All right, well that's today's slated games. Tomorrow, the Brooklyn that's having opportunity to not be the only team in the playoffs to be swept in the first round and that's a lot of pressure. And Ben Simmons said, I'm good, bro. My back hurts. I'm actually not gonna play tomorrow. So that rubs some people the wrong way and I don't really have an opinion one way or another. Like I said in my video yesterday, I didn't think that him coming was gonna really improve anything like that anyway. So it don't even matter to me. Eventually he will who? But we gonna have to wait another, what month are we in? April, May, June, July. Oh, we gonna wait another three to four months before we see Ben Simmons. Maybe, maybe we don't even really know.