 What's the word, y'all? I have no way to prove this, but this feels like the best race to the end of the NBA regular season ever. With a weak left and ball, the only thing we really know for sure is that what we know all 20 teams is gonna be in, but we only know that the Celtics are the onesie. Everything else technically is up for grabs as we get through the last two to three games of the year. And that is unfathomable. Is that the right word? That is something I cannot believe. Adam Silver has been one of the better commissioners amongst the major sports. The best thing we gonna look back on Adam Silver's career and say he did right was enforcing the plan. It was a crazy idea at the time. NBA players such as LeBron James and so on and so forth said it was a bad idea. And now I can't even imagine the NBA without it no more. The one thing that we sacrifice is like crazy trade deadlines, but hell, two years ago, we saw Kevin Reckon trade it, you know what I'm saying, at the deadline. But for the most part, teams are pretty okay with competing. And that's how we get to the point that we are now. About two weeks ago, I was going through this on my podcast and I said, hey, we don't know for sure what's gonna happen, but let me make some predictions. And what I said in that episode is that the Milwaukee Bucks have practically secured themselves as a two seed. That was before they decided against winning. Lost to the Knicks, that's excusable, even though they had a pretty big lead. The Knicks are a good basketball team. Actually, it's not excusable anymore. They lost to the Raptors who had one of their better games in the last month and the Raptors were losing what, 15 in a row before this. They lost to the Grizzlies. They lost to the Wizards. I thought they were secured at the two seed though they're still there right now. And anything can happen if they play like this. And at the end of the year, they got Celtics. Uh-oh, they got Magic. They got Thunder and they got Magic. Anything is in play because the Magic are the three seed. And they play against the Bucks two times for the remainder of the season. Again, I would still probably bet money that the Bucks are gonna end as a two seed, but it's not secure anymore because these teams face off two more times. And that's just if we care about the Magic because the New York Knicks are here too. And now they have not been playing phenomenal ball as recently, they even lost to the Bulls, which is not ideal. But they still have to play the Bulls two more times this year. And again, the Bulls are not a very good basketball team. Also, they do have the Celtics and that game's gonna matter a ton for the Knicks. The Cavs also haven't played bad basketball of recent, but still they're in play to host the three game, the 360 game. They're in play, the Pacers are in play technically. This all makes no sense. And I cannot express to you how important it is for some of these teams to end up as the three seed. Because the last thing you wanna do, and I know majority, if not majority of people, there are a lot of people that are dismissing the Boston Celtics, oh, we've seen them be good before. They always come up short, so on and so forth. I'm not one of those people. If I am one of these teams fighting for seeding, I am trying to stay away from the four or five matchup because that means I have to play against Boston more likely than not in that second round. I want everybody else to beat up on Boston before I get a chance to, so they can be depleted or whatever, whatever. So finishing as the three seed can be super great for your outlook to make a conference finals appearance, to even make an NBA finals appearance. But I say that, that you wanna get the three seed, but hell, the three seed could potentially get you to 76ers who ain't lost a game since Joel had been back south of Tavis, Maxi for that massive class yesterday. Like there is no easy route. And this is one of the first times in the Easter Conference at least that we can say that for the majority of my life as a guy that's been following the team in the Easter Conference. The Easter Conference has been a cake walk for the top team. It was LeBron majority of the time, but since then it's been pretty much a cake walk. This is not one of those years. Though even though the Celtics are 62 and 16, the third best net rating in the history of basketball or something like that, there is no easy path because they could potentially see the 76ers in the first round if they stay in a plan. They could potentially see the Miami Heat in the first round who beat them last year. And though the Heat have not looked amazing, I'm not gonna discredit that completely. So there is no easy route anymore. This is one of the few times where the Easter Conference feels as competitive as the West. I mean, maybe. Maybe the Boston Celtics has dominated everybody because again, they do have a 15 point, so 15 game lead against everybody. But again, at least we got people talking about the first round of the Easter Conference and that has not been the case since 2018. Every single other year, every single one of those series ended up in four or in five. At least over the last five years or so. 2018 was the first time we saw, or the last time we saw a seven game series in the first round for the Easter Conference. At West, they always fight. They always fight. We ain't had that out East really. Speaking of West, I mean, wow. What could we really say? The Lakers ended up losing last night to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Anthony Davis left with an injury and then LeBron James wasn't playing at all. So yesterday they were at the seven, eight matchup, which is huge for them. I do wanna say the Lakers need to do everything in their power, which, and they've been playing great basketball. They've been one of the hottest teams in Hoops recently. They need to do everything in their power to finish as a seven, eight. Because again, you just don't wanna have to win two games, get in. It's a tough, tough route to do that because they're not trying to just get in, right? The Lakers have notoriously been a team that's trying to compete for a championship. So getting in is not enough, but having one game to get in and potentially going against, I don't know if the Lakers fear any team here other than the Denver Nuggets, right? I don't know who I would pick in any of these series. I'd probably go with the higher seed in most of them. But it makes me think, if the Lakers go against the Timbers in a seven, I'm thinking about that. If the Lakers go against the Thunder in a seven, I'm thinking about that. Considering the Thunder are beat up right now, I don't think anything has been like a long-term injury and the Lakers have played them very, very well this year, right? The Pelicans had a huge win last night against the Suns and the Suns were playing good ball over the last couple. The Suns are out of the 20 teams. They're the most confusing team to me because obviously with the top-end talent, they should be looked at as contenders. But then again, I've watched them a lot and then they don't and then they go out and they beat two really good teams back to back. You're like, oh my God, here they go. And then they lose desire on the company. Now granted, the last time they played against the Pelicans the last couple of times, it was the Devon Booker show. But still, I don't know what to think about them that's hard to say with a week left for the season. But it is. The 5-4 matchup is not set in stone just yet, but is as close to set in stone as it can be. Nantay Exum hit a huge shot last night. Kaviru and Luka Danj is both for a phenomenal. And then the Clippers, Paul George, fourth quarter takeover kept them right there and they're on the three game streak. And they haven't looked great lately, but they're starting to turn it up a little bit. Here's a site called playallstatus.com as it says that the Celtics are 100% the one seed and then it's got the buck to 41% chance to keep the two seed. Again, that makes sense to me. The Magic still have a 26% but it's saying that they're assuming that the Magic gonna end up probably three, four range. The Nick still have a 12% chance of the two seed. It's unlikely, most likely ending up at three, four, five. Like everything is still up for grabs. Even this one, even though it says that the Hawks have a 92% chance, for a lot of this, the Bulls last Hawks matchup over the last two weeks have been flipping back and forth where the Hawks were a half a game behind the Bulls a ton and they look like the Bulls are probably gonna end up with that nine which means they can host a play a game. Congratulations. Their center's an 18% chance for the 76ers to get up to six which again is something that they want. Especially if they can see the Magic, a young team that's still trying to prove themselves in the association. Like you're drawing the beat of a company probably wanna see that even though their defense is phenomenal. And I ain't even looked that out on the West side yet. Here we go, here we go. Let's see what they say. Yeah, nothing is really safe. 55% chance of the 10 Bulls keeping it because I think they have the tiebreaker against a few of these teams so they're probably gonna end up as that one C but again, it's not set in stone. The only thing that we say for sure is that again this Clippers slash Mavericks matchup is probably gonna happen at a 98% chance and a 97% chance they keep it. The Lakers Athena we talked about earlier has a 23% chance or you add that they have a 35% chance to end up as one of the top teams in the playing which is interesting. And the Warriors look he still got a chance to get that nice C because they've been playing good ball. The tough part about this is that if you are the Lakers or even the Mavericks or anything like that you winning eight of your last 10 or nine of your last 10 hasn't been able to hoist you up because everybody's winning. The Wolves are 73 in the last 10. The Divinaga 73, okay see again no shade, no J-dub for a lot of this so five and five and then you got the Sun 73 in the last 10 and the Warriors 73 in the last 10. So it's not like the Lakers are like we wanna get to the seven, eight match up but the Warriors are still winning basketball games too and they write on our tail. There's no wiggle room for anybody and I love it. Tonight we have zero games because the NBA hates to compete with the national championship game. It's smart because are you watching the national championship game? I'm probably, I'm probably am. I quickly wanna go through of the last week of the season the most important games and then we'll call it an episode. This game right here for the Bucks huge. This is Tuesday night huge game on national television. This game right here is huge for the Kings and the Thunder technically. Like all, like even this game versus the Wiz I won't call it huge because they are 16 point favorite but like a big game. You cannot lose that game but this one huge game that you need to be watched. Sun's Clippers huge game for the Suns to stay out of that play in and then Warriors Lakers huge game as well. And I didn't even look at like like both of these games are important. I wouldn't say huge because a big favorite to the, to the better team but you cannot lose these games. All the three of these games you cannot lose them if you're the top team but it's basketball Wednesday. This is the game right here that I've been talking about. Boom, you gotta see that one. You gotta see this one and you gotta see this one. Three back to back to back bangers on Wednesday. Thursday has Pelicans versus Kings which is important in this game. All the, all the remaining Bucks games are important. Okay. Every single one of them is important. And then another Suns versus Kings game. Saturday we got nothing and there's Bucks versus magic. And that's kind of it. So again, I have never been as invested in the last week of a season as I am right now. It's been a beautiful thing for our game. Cannot wait for the play and cannot wait for the playoffs. Let me know what you think. Give your predictions of the teams that are going to stay, they're going to leave.