 The Celtics falling to the Denver Nuggets 115 to 109 and Eddie, a very physical matchup just like it was back in January between both of these two teams going back and forth in this matchup. Eddie, what's your overall takeaway after seeing these two teams go at it? Denver's damn good. That's a damn good. That's a damn good basketball team and they can beat you up in a different so many different ways. Yolkage at the end stepped up, whether it was with a scorn or making the right play, making the right pass. But it's one of those games, you know, a makeshot here, take care of the basketball there and you got a W. But when you're playing the best of the best, you're playing the defending champs. I mean, if you look at all the numbers and all the margins, they're right there and it's just one or two plays, you know, just the attention to detail. Aaron Gordon, Dunk, you know, and Aaron Gordon, Aaron Gordon twice, you know, at the end of the game. And so it's just the small margins and the small attention to detail. I think Drew Holiday did a fantastic job of stepping up and knocking down threes. But and they did a good job of controlling Jamal Murray at the end of the game. It really wasn't Jamal Murray, the guy that was killing us like it was in the first game. I thought they did a really good job of that. But the takeaway is when you play in a great team, these are how these games go. And it could be one play or two plays that end up having you on the short end of the stick. I talked about it in the pregame show. Aaron Gordon just coming up at the right time for that Denver Nuggets team down the stretch in the fourth quarter. And speaking of that fourth quarter, let's take a look at how it all went down and how things unfolded for this Celtics team in this rematch against the Denver Nuggets. Let's start at 107-102. Denver up right here in the Joker. He gets around Kristaps Poznan and like I mentioned, Aaron Gordon in the right place at the right time throws it down at the basket right there. And then Drew Holiday says not so fast trying to get the Celtics back in it, cuts the lead right here to 109-106 with that three. And then look, you can't stop Niko Le Yokech when he gets going. Here's a look at him in the fourth quarter, gets the hook shot, having his way. Niko Le Yokech in this game. And Drew Holiday coming up big again for the Celtics, takes that corner three, makes it, cuts the lead 111-109. And then the Celtics on this next play right here, they're trying to get something going, force the turnover. KP gets it to Jason Tatum, gets it over to Jalen Brown, not quite ready. Then Jason Tatum with a wide open three, misses the three to get the Celtics really back in this game. The Joker, he's going to get Aaron Gordon again right here. And this is where the game kind of runs away from the Celtics. You know, Eddie, what did you see in the final moments of this fourth quarter when the Celtics were trying to get back in it? And the Nuggets, they were just able to hold them off. We had our opportunities. And that's really it. You talk about our defense, defense stepped up. You talk about Jalen Brown playing solid defense on Jamal Murray, turned him over. Jason Tatum having a wide open shot in the corner. But it's the two plays that we show with Aaron Gordon. It's just, you take your eyes off of him for one second. He's never just standing still. He stays in that low dunker spot. And for people that don't know what that low dunker spot that's not, that's like just maybe two or three feet away from on the side of the block on the baseline side. So you're right around the basket. You could float and you could do a lot of things in that particular area. And the minute you look this way or that way to go help, he's cutting. Either he's cutting to the basket to go for the lob or he's cutting the basket to catch the ball and be right at the rim. And we just fell asleep a couple times defensively with that. And it's hard to be super, super disciplined like that because you have a player like Nicola Jokic who is going to put pressure on your defense by getting an interior. So your natural instincts is to lean in and try to help because you see him and you're paying attention to him. Your antennas is up because you know you have to focus on Jokic. But you lose sight of a guy like Gordon and he's able to get either at the rim for a dunk or he's able to get right there and lay the ball in. So I think that at the end of it all, right? This is a good learning experience. Like not that game against Cleveland. These type of games to me is a good learning. It's not when you blow big leads or anything like that. But when you lose a game like this, like the free throw discrepancy, right? We shot 64% for the free throw line. We got to the free throw line 25 times. We just didn't make our free throws. Well, they went 22 times. They went 21 out of 22. They made their free throws. Their fast break points. They pushed the ball when they got opportunities. They ran at us when we was thinking that we should be running at them. So you got to give credit to a championship caliber team. This is what championship basketball looks like. This is what high level basketball looks like. And you hate to see the Celtics on the losing end, but that was one hell of a basketball game to watch. Let's bring in Drew Carter right now who's live from Denver and Drew. Let's circle back to that play. Jason Tano wide open in the corner to get the three to get the Celtics really within striking distance of this Denver Nuggets team. What was your reaction to him not making that shot, especially because of the conversations he's been having about the Celtics in crunch time? First of all, I mean, I'm going to spread out here because Scow's not with me. It's the first time I've been solo on the post game show. So I got plenty of room. Scow's off to catch his flight. But yeah, I'm glad we're talking about that because I think it's easy to forget about the good looks a team gets when they lose. That shot was for the lead. I mean, I couldn't even tell you the last time the Celtics had the lead until that. I remember we're sitting right here. I'm standing up and I'm yelling for the lead. And I could have sworn that thing was going to drop because the Celtics, everything was going right for them. Credit D White for making a great pass. Such a good look for Tatum. I thought he played a pretty good game, a pretty balanced game where he wasn't forcing it. He was letting it come to him. I think he was mature all night and he finally got a really good look at it. And sometimes they go in and sometimes they don't. And I think, you know, each of these last two games, I know it's our job to analyze it and read into it. And people are going to be talking about it on the radio and writing about it in the newspaper and on their blog. Sometimes the shots go in and sometimes they don't. Now free throws, that's unacceptable. And I think anyone on the team would tell you that defensively, though, I thought pretty good job against Yolkic and Murray. Those were tough shots. Those guys were hitting. And then at the end of the day, you got a chance to take the lead with with under a minute left. Go back to the Cleveland game, guys. The Celtics missed their last eight shots and the Cavs made their last eight or something like that. You know, sometimes that's what it comes down to. And tonight they had a chance to take the lead. And I think they deserve a lot of credit for that comeback. Eddie, a lot of people will look and say that this is a make miss league. However, we're talking about Jason Tatum. And although he did have an off night where he had five turnovers, only 14 points for rebounds and eight assists, you know, you take a look at a guy like Jason Tatum taking a wide open three. Eddie, I feel like you got to make that shot. Yeah, you want him to make that shot. But we'll live with that. I live with the best player on the team getting that wide open shot. Now he does got to make the, he has to start making those type of shots in those type of situations. Right. I will see that that's probably the one thing that if anybody wants to nitpick at Jason Tatum's game, that's the one thing that somebody could possibly say. It's like, yeah, in the last seconds, you know, he, he, he might not deliver it. You know what I mean? But at the same time, it does never, it doesn't come down to that. You know what I mean? Like we, when we break the game down, if you really break it down and I will put my coaching hat on, it's a million things that we could talk about. The free throws, that's number one that we could talk about putting them on the line and, and, and knowing that they're a good free throw shooting team, losing sight of Aaron Gord, knowing that he's going to be around the basket all the time. Like that's a guy you got to make sure that you're always keeping contact with. You can't lose contact. You can't lose sight with him. So it's a million things that we could break down when you want to say this game. But at the end of the day, you know, I'll live with that shot. I'll take that shot 10 out of 10 times, a wide open corner three for Jason Tatum. Denver, they sweep the season series against the Celtics. Drew, just watching how both of these teams match up throughout this entire regular season, does that make you reconsider or maybe put into context just what the Celtics could be up against down the line? Well, I just want to real quick just to wrap up the thought on Tatum. I'm totally with Eddie. I mean, you get that look. You take it, you take it 10 times out of 10. What would bother me more, honestly, if I were coaching or if I were Tatum himself, is the fact that Gordon had that backbreaker from the low dunker, where I think Tatum was probably the guy who should have cracked him. That's, I mean, that's a mental error. Missing a shot, it happens, right? And if you look at the numbers, Jason Tatum in the last minute of a game on potential go ahead or game time baskets has not been very good. But to me, that's just a small sample size thing. I think the guy has proven that he has a clutch gene in the biggest games he's played in his career.