 What's the word, y'all? Last night, we got an NBA Finals preview. Maybe, I don't know. Boston Celtics versus Denver Nuggets. I had this game circled on my calendar since the last time I played against each other because that was a banger. Last night in general, actually, every single one of those games was a banger in their own right. Anthony Evans dropped 44 and had a Superman block to win the game. The Pistons are no longer the worst team in basketball court in the record. Sorry, Wizards fans. The Dallas Mavs get a much-needed win against a thrive in Miami Heat. The Suns versus Raptors game wasn't as amazing as some of the other ones. But some cool stuff was going on. Is that yours, truly? On a set with Nike and the NBA doing a simulcast when we interviewing the Matrix, talking about Devin Booker, even though he obviously didn't play last night. And we got to do our own simulcast of this one. So it might not have been, it might have been the worst on-court game, but damn, was it a fun experience. Shout out to my friends over at Nike and the NBA for setting this up. Then we get a game that was gonna be too close for comfort for Kings fans, but the Montessabones just showcases why he should be on an all-NBA team this season. The Bulls are three and 0 on the West Coast road trip. Get well soon, Steph Curry. I hope it's not the major. And then we get to this one. And this, again, maybe an NBA Finest preview. So because I was doing the thing with Nike and the NBA, I missed the first three quarters of this game. I got in back to my hotel room, back in New York, and I, of course, got back home immediately because I wanted to make videos and stuff. But I got back to my hotel, watched the fourth quarter and on my flight home, I watched the first three quarters and man, man, man, this is the reason why the Denver Nuggets feel like head and shoulders above most of the competition. Now I don't shy away from it. The moment that Drew Holiday ended up on the Boston Celtics, I said on my podcast, both of them, that Drew Holiday is the missing piece and the Boston Celtics is my favorite to win the championship. By the way, those podcast's numbers on the board used to be known as through the wire. So if you missed out that we switched names and companies and stuff, numbers on the board, link is in the description. And then you got the Kenny Beecham podcast. I mean, if you like this video, then you're gonna like the Kenny Beecham podcast. It's basically a 50-minute to hour-long episode of what we do here. Anyway, enough of the plugging. When Drew Holiday ended up on the Boston Celtics on those podcasts, I said that they are my favorite to win the NBA championship. And I'm not gonna let a two-game sample size sway me away from that. Like their loss against the Cavs was dreadful. 20 points blown late enough in the game is ridiculous. And then of course you lose to the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets are ridiculous and they're still my favorite out West. But who knows? Who knows? A game like this showcases why Nicola Jokic is the best player in basketball. Like you might disagree and that's fine. But I don't know if there's an argument you can give me to convince me that Jokic is not the best player in basketball because when the lights are the brightest, when we get down to the clutch, this team, Nicola Jokic, is gonna do the right thing. And that is one of the major differences between the Boston Celtics and the Denver Nuggets. Like if they do eventually meet in the NBA finals, I would probably pick the Denver Nuggets to win that series, right? The main difference is the shots that are created and taken in the clutch. And we saw that a couple nights ago when they played against the Cavaliers and they went 0 for nine from jump shooting in that fourth quarter. And then we see it again in this one that the shots generated in the clutch for the Celtics can be rough. And on the other side of the things, because Nicola Jokic is the best player in basketball, they do it so easily. We said the same thing a few days ago when they played against the LA Lakers. The both games that they played against the Lakers recently, the Lakers have stayed in the game for 44 minutes. And then the last four minutes come around and boom, you look at this like it's a 10 point game just like that. They have a way of generating the best possible looks and a lot of that is the big fella in the middle. Because if he needs to get his shot, his signature shots, the shots that he's gonna create in the clutch are typically gonna be seven feet or closer to the basket. And that is where he dominant. And if it's not him creating that shot for himself, it's him getting as close to the basket as you can and watching Aaron Gordon skedaddle down the baseline for Aleu Blop. And boy was Aaron Gordon phenomenal on that in this game. They just have a way of making things work. And you may have seen the report that they're saying, they're not even going to the White House. You don't have an NBA team when an NBA championship and they go to the White House to do some type of celebration with whatever sitting president is at the time, they were supposed to do that in a few weeks. I was invited, I was invited to go to the White House y'all to be there for the different nuggets. And they said, we don't actually give a damn about that because we want to go for the one seat. And if the Denver Nuggets get the one seat, it's gonna be almost impossible to beat them four games out of seven. Because when they're at home, this team has the advantage of the altitude. They have the one of the best crowds and basketball. And they're just not a team that loses at home regularly. Now getting in the one seat, it's very close for them but it's gonna be hard because the teams above them are still winning. Now I know Carl Anthony Townsend's out with a meniscus, get well soon. I feel so bad for him. He's gone through the most over the last four years or so. So get well soon. Let's hope that he gets back in time. But you saw Anthony Edwards, what he could do, okay, see them like they're slowing down. So getting to that one seat might be a struggle but we still got 20 games left for the season. And one of the major things for the Denver Nuggets, a lot of people looked at when they were thinking about how they would perform this upcoming season was the fact that they lost Bruce Brown, they lost Jeff Green, they lost a few different players that were very important pieces to them winning the championship last season. Last night we saw P-Wat play a phenomenal game. And I'm not expecting P-Wat to do that a bunch in a seven game series. But if you have a game, two games out of a series where he can provide exactly what he did today, again, this team is gonna be hard to really stop. And boy, do they have the tools to make it tough for your starters. Jayden Brown had 41 in this one. He was cooking Aaron Gordon. But they made it so tough on Jason Tatum, whether it be P-Wat, whether it be KCP, even Michael Porter Jr. on the Switch because Michael Porter Jr. is nearly a seven footer. And though he does not move as good as some of the other people in their lineup, he's still a big ass body that you can throw at opposing teams best player occasionally. And they really put Jason Tatum in a torture chamber. Now Jayden Brown held his own, hell, he just missed a bunch of free throws down the stretch, or I guess throughout this entire game. But they have a way of defending and they have a way of making things so easy for themselves. And if they get their home court advantage again, it might be wraps. And that Western Conference is deep. Like, you're not getting one easy series for any team out there. But if they have their home court advantage, it's gonna be tough. Now I wanna flip it and talk about the Boston Celtics. I talk about how and what the shots generated were for the different nuggets, how they made it so easy. It's at the basket, it's an alley-oop. It's a wide open KCP three-point shot. When we get down the stretch for the Boston Celtics, I know the numbers say that the Celtics are one of the better clutch teams of basketball. I think they were fifth after last night, which is still amazing considering there's 30 teams of basketball. These last couple nights, these last couple games kind of showcase how difficult it can be when the shots are not falling. And one thing that had seen, and the numbers have proven this over the last five games, is that as of recently, they have been getting to the basket at an amazing rate. And that's different from the Boston Celtics. For the majority of this year, they ranked from 25th to 30th in rem attempts. And you're just like, oh, can a team win a championship if they don't get to the basket? Can a team win a championship if they don't draw a lot of fouls? But in their last couple games, this is their frequency of getting to the basket. As you can see, I mean, there was times in this season where they were in the blue, which means that, I mean, 19 of your shot attempts in this game were at the rim. And now it is the Minnesota Timberwolves, and they got the DPOL, Rodrigo Berde, and Rodrigo Berde is one of the best returns at basketball. But this is a ridiculously nasty stretch. But they won majority of these games because they were hitting their threes in everything. Now recently in their last five, now this Dallas game, they still won even if they didn't get to the basket. But this game against New York, huge, almost half of their shots were at the rim. This one against Philly, half their shots at the rim. And we're seeing it go higher and higher and stay around this point. If they can stay around this, I feel good about them come play off time, right? We can't get a bunch of 17%ers, you know what I'm saying? But in the clutch, in the clutch, I can't really show you the footage, but in the clutch, it's a jump shot from Porta Zingas. It was in the paint, I don't mind that one. A rebounded goal for Jaylen Brown again, he was phenomenal in the season. This is when Yolkets got teed up and then Tatum hits the, hits the technical free throw, Jaylen Brown gets hit and won. This is the play where Drew Holley put his shoulder into Yolkets and bodied him and got a bucket. Drew Holley had a couple shots in this one. They were amazing. This one was self-created. Then we get to a pull up for Porta Zingas. You'll take that and then we get three-point shot. Three-point shot and again, Drew Holley hit this one, right? And I think this is when he was on the baseline and hey, Yolkets looking kind of foolish. Three-point shot. Oh no, this is the one that was on the baseline. But like, as you can see, the shots generated are just significantly different than what the other teams doing. Again, Drew Holley made these shots, but like compared to what the Denver Nuggets are doing, there's a dunk, there's a layup that they missed, there's a three-point shot that was an open look. A easy shot for Yolk. The alley-oop with 20 seconds to go and then they result to three-point shot, three-point shot, three-point shot, three-point shot. And their last four shots are three-pointers when the three-point shot was not falling, you know? So we've seen them be better at this, but in the clutch of these last two games, they do revoke back to, oh my God, we gotta get a three-point shot up. We gotta get a three-point shot up. And that's not always the way you want them to play the game, especially if the game doesn't need a three-point shot in the moment. So I don't know if I would say that I'm necessarily concerned about these type of things, but with 20 games left, you would want them to get more reps in these clutch scenarios and get to the point where the offense is more fluid. This is not a specific Boston Celtics thing for sure, but a lot of the times when you look at these teams, the shots that they create in the clutch are like, give it to our best player in ISO. And typically the best player can make something happen because that's why they're the players that we pay $50 million to annually, but the easy shots, the stuff that gets you into the game and stuff I like to see teams continue to run. But anyway, let me know what you think about this game. Is this the NBA Finest Preview? Is there somebody else that could be doing it? I don't really know.