 That was a nice little seggy there. I know, did you see what happened? The Bucks with Dame Lillard leading the way, 141-29. They didn't even have Giannis in this one, but he did have 31 points. A career high, tying 16 assists. That's his first big game like this since joining the Bucks and in Bucks history. Bobby Portis, 31-10. They hit 24 of 41-3's. And Kevin Durant, weird night, 11 points, nine rebounds. But let's concentrate on Dame Lillard for a second here. 30 points and 15 assists. That was his first game of those numbers at least since joining Milwaukee. How do we make that happen more often? I think it comes with time. Even Dame said he came into the Milwaukee situation not trying to step on toes and kind of trying to find his rhythm and place with that group. He has to be the lead guy. I think out of him, Middleton and Giannis, he's going to be the guy that you put the ball in that can absolutely go get your bucket and can score. So with that being said, why not play through Dame? Why not give him the basketball and allow him to be himself and everybody else figures it out? Giannis to me has always been the type of player where he can put his head down in an open floor. Nobody can stop him. But now that they've started playing that two-man game together where he's a picker, he's a roller, he's giving them different looks, that makes them dangerous. And now Middleton back for his first game, then to have 22, we talked about all his chemistry. That's not a Chris Middleton problem. Chris has come in and that first game back, it looks seamless to me. And Giannis is their, I think Giannis is their best player, right? But that doesn't mean you have to play through him. I think they play through Damian Lillard and that opens up the entire floor for Giannis to even be better offensively. Because when you surround him, who like Lou said, with his head down, he attacks, he gets out in transition, that opens up the floor so much and allows these other, because you have to help when guarding Giannis. No one's going to guard him one-on-one, especially in transition. So when you have a team like this, who had 18-3s in the first half last night, they should only get better with Giannis. But I think they have to play through Damian Lillard, continue to let him do what he does, and that's going to open up the floor and make Giannis's game even easier. Lou talked about Chris Middleton with the 22 points. Look, he missed 16 games and then just jumped back out there like nothing had happened. And that's not easy. That can't be easy. But title chances, where is he in the importance? Well, he's the key. He was huge in their title run before and he's huge now. And obviously they add Damian Lillard. And I think Chris Middleton and Bobby Porters are so important to this team. Every time someone's gone out, Bobby Porters has stepped up and had a great game. Chris Middleton, he's been in and out. He's been on a minute restriction. This game last night, this was the first time I've seen him almost just healthy and fresh and getting to his spots and looking like he did a couple of years ago. So it's a great luxury to have because this is another guy. He was their closer when they won the championship. The ball was in his hands. He was the one to go get a bucket. And now, so you see him kind of get back to his old ways, doing things like this, hitting step bags, posting up smaller guys. It's just another dynamic that they have when they have Giannis going downhill. They have Dame stretching the floor as defense. Now you have this guy who can kind of do a little bit of everything. It's huge. I was looking down and that this topic just took me to a dark place. Oh boy. Whoa, whoa. Game seven, I was on Atlanta Hawks and we had an opportunity to beat the Bucks. And Giannis was out and Chris Middleton put that team on his back. It had a 20.4th quarter and sent us to Cabo. And I'm thinking how important is this guy? Like he literally said, Giannis, no problem. I can go beat these guys by myself. And we had a joke. It was like he turned into Kobe Bryant out of the blue. Like he just, he woke up Chris Middleton and went to sleep Kobe Bryant. And that's what he did. And that's the look that he's gonna give this group. You know, if Dame doesn't have it, if Giannis doesn't have it, you have a guy that can go out and get 30 or go get 20 points fresh out of bed and hadn't played in 16 games. That's what Chris Middleton is gonna give to Milwaukee Bucks. I still like Boston, but if there's gonna be a team that's gonna challenge him for that title coming out of the East, it's gonna be the Milwaukee Bucks. And Chris Middleton's gonna be important. It's true. We've talked to all year long, Boston, Boston, Boston. It's not gonna be an easy series against the Milwaukee Bucks. This team is complete. This team can shoot. This team is defending better, which you gotta give credit to Doc Rivers. But this team is deep. They have a lot of shooters, Malik Beasley. They have a lot of ways they can hurt you. But with Chris Middleton playing the way he did last night, if he can have those efficient nights and go get buckets, it's gonna be a dogfight when they play Boston. He's the X factor. And I will say, we gotta give Doc Rivers credit. Yeah, I think Chandler spoke a lot of before. The ball being in Damon Lillertan's, that was Doc Rivers saying it and making sure that they preached it and they practiced it. I think Adrian Griffin, just for whatever reason, could not get that across the team, could not get that across to the Yanis and to the Kumpo and Damon Lillert as far as the, yes, Yanis and Kumpo, I think everyone can say he's one of the best players in the league, probably the best player on this team, of course, but Damon Lillert, when the ball's in his hands, when he can be the closer, when he can be the lead ball handler, that's where this team thrives and is successful. All right, so with the Yanis thing and the hamstring, is that a big deal? My sense is, listen, he's been, the fact that he was at least able to warm up or try to play, you know, you just wanna make sure, especially this late in the season that he's 100%, especially with a hamstring. So I expect he's gonna continue to test it out every single week. And the hamstring is something that you don't wanna mess with because it can linger and it can get worse, but Doc said last night, this isn't an injury, they're just taking his time. Well, we saw, was it last week or the week before, like he warmed up and then he had the issue. And he made a weird movement. And then they just sat him and then he played the next game. So this late in the season with a player that good with the stakes this high, as far as I can understand, like it's really, like let's call it, like it's Milwaukee and Boston right now. How dare you? Can you? I'm not callin' it. No. I mean, Cleveland has to say about it, but can a team do an upset? But I think going in, you have to look at them too as the favorites. They can't. How dare you in the month of March say an upset can't occur? And by the way, with the production that they're getting from Chris Middleton and Bobby Portas, this is just giving them even more confidence to not rush Yannis back because they know they can still win games against teams like Phoenix. I'm not sayin' it can happen. I'm sayin' that they're the favorites. Somebody's goin' upset somebody. But in March, with that said, teams start to separate themselves. You're startin' to see who's dead serious about tryin' to win a title and who's tryin' to stay above water. Barring a bad, bad injury from one of these guys is going to be Milwaukee, Boston and the Eastern Conference Finals. Or they might meet up in the, could they meet up in the, no they can't. Hold on, so are you offering a bet where we get to take the field in this thing? I would like to take that. Yes, I'll take those too. I would like to take that. You get anybody else. Okay, thank you. What's, what are you betting? Whatever you want. Whatever you want. How about you pay me 10 grand, I pay you 100 bucks. Boom. I like it. All right. What about us? These are bad, bad odds. You're like, wait, hold on, how did that math work out? I don't know. Somehow I still wanna take it. There you go. If you feel confident. Friend of the show, Isaiah Thomas. This was a fun tweet he had, Shoms. I got very happy when I saw this one. So he's got a gig. Isaiah Thomas, 10 day contract with the Phoenix Suns, 183. We know the numbers now. Nice tweet, that's a nice 10 days. Number $183,000 we'll make on this 10 day contract. The plan is for him to sign Tuesday or Wednesday. It's a 10 day contract, but that roster spot is gonna be his barring anything happening. I mean, he averaged 33 points and 45% three point shooting in the G League. All four games, he had 30 points or more. You think about shooting, playoff experience. He's been a part of the title chases in Boston. The veteran leadership, even if he doesn't play, I think that's a guy you can look at in the locker room as well. I got a great text statement from Danny Ainge over the weekend. Obviously their relationship when Isaiah Thomas got traded from Boston, we know there's a little bit of a grudge held there. There's a little bit of cold skin in that relationship. Then Danny Ainge brings Isaiah Thomas back to the Utah Jazz Organization. He plays for the Salt Lake City Stars that leads to this call up now. Danny Ainge told me, he's special as driven as anyone I know. He made a difference to everyone he was around in 10 short days in the G League. I couldn't be happier for him. Good pickup by the Suns. A lot of things accomplished for Isaiah Thomas, that relationship with Danny Ainge, being patched up is one of them. He's a good server. And anybody that knows IT knows he's the greatest guy. He's not going to come in there. He's going to be zero distraction. And last week, we could just see he's not given up. He's going to continue to try and not to do my own Homer show, but I did call Phoenix Suns because it makes sense. They have no point card. This kid has, and by the way, forget him being a great guy because he was killing. What did you say his numbers were? 34 and 44%? Like his first game, right? 33 points again. Yeah, like the guy, he deserves it. He went, he did his stint and now he, and I hope he gets an opportunity here in this 10 day stretch. Cause the Phoenix Suns, by the way, need a point card to set up that offense. And it can be a guy that's more deserving of the opportunity. You know, when you talk about veterans and how hard it is to get back in the league, get back on a team. For three years, IT has been consistently talking, tweeting, manifesting his way back into the NBA. So the Charlotte stint was a great one for him. Now he has an opportunity with Phoenix. Two compete for a championship if they can get it together. I don't know if they needed another scoring punch, but if you're going to add a scoring punch, Isaiah Thomas is one of the guys to go and get. I'm extremely happy for my friend. I shot him a text when he got picked up. This is great for him, great for his family, great for his career. This was a good one. But the Suns thing is weird, cause you know, he heard the KD numbers. This is a loss to a Bucs team with no honestly. At this point in the season, March, how concerning is that? You know, that game isn't concerning to me, cause they lost to a better team. Yeah, but no, Giannis, like how? Yeah, but listen, a Dame Lillard and a Chris Middleton have beat a lot of teams by themselves. Yeah, Bobby Portas playing by himself. Listen, that team, that team is, they're turning into an old machine. That team without Giannis can beat a lot of teams. So it's not really concerning to me. Like I said, them not really limping into the postseason, but we just hadn't seen, it's flashed without the fire right now. And at any moment they can turn into the one of the worst nightmares in the Western Conference. I just hadn't felt it. I hadn't seen it in, you know, I'm a groove guy, I'm a vibe guy and I hadn't felt the vibe. So I don't really, I don't really take that game to be too much, but you know, they gotta figure it out very soon. The concerning thing to me is how in the hell does Kevin Durant play 41 minutes and take 10 shots? I don't know. That's unacceptable, and he's gotta know that. He's got to be more aggressive. I don't care if they're bad shots. You're Kevin Durant, you have to be aggressive. You have to set the tone. And you're the best player on this team. You've been the best player everywhere you went, whether it was the Warriors, the Thunder, the Nets. Everywhere you went, you've been the guy. So don't ever play 41 minutes again and take 10 shots. That's ridiculous. That was an odd KD night.