 What's the word y'all? Every single Playoffs series has played at least one game and I'm here to talk all things Playoffs ladies and gentlemen. My original schedule was to drop a Playoff Prediction video the day before the actual Playoffs, but these came up. So I couldn't record that video, but now I can. So I do still have my original predictions. None of that have really changed, but I will be talking about some of the things I saw in the Game Ones around here, but I will be honest with you. Some of these games I got close to like no eye time with in the live setting. I did watch some condensed versions, watched some highlights and stuff, but this weekend was a very eventful one for me. Became a father, still very weird to say it out. So obviously, you know, we're in a hospital for 82 hours or whatever it was. You got this tiny human you gotta care for. Basketball was one of the last things on my priority list, but I did get around to watching at least a little bit. Like I said, my overall predictions for series were not swayed based on the one single game, but I just wanna talk some hoops with y'all, baby. Get back in the swing of things. All right, so I'm actually gonna start off with today's games because those are the ones that is on my mind, like Chris Paul just took over fourth quarter and I'm super excited about that. Sons and fives is my prediction for that. It's not a lot to really say about this series other than the Sons are just a more complete better basketball team. And you saw a lot of that in the first half of this where Pelicans put up 32 points in the first half. The defense was locked in. And the third quarter, the Pales made that run though, it turned into like from a 20 point game to a single digit game. You got some CJ, you got some Brandon Ingram. And then Chris Paul was like, oh, I'm gonna do my thing and take over this game. I love the players. We talked about them extensively after they're playing games. I love a lot of the players and the Pelicans, but I don't believe that they have enough firepower to make this a super interesting series. But I do give them one game mostly because they do have a bunch of bucket hitters. I can see Brandon Ingram having a 35 piece and then CJ McCullum also having 30. And then Jonas Vallon soon as also has a really big game and boom, they just stole the game. But overall, the likelihood of this series going any other direction other than the Sons is like 2% it feels like. Let's get the bullsmen out of the way. People are like, oh, this got the feel of a good old fashioned 90s. No, it didn't. Just because the score is low don't mean it feel like the 90s. In the 90s, they steal his shots. No, nobody could do anything today other than Jonas. Jonas looked like a guy that was an NBA player going into the YMCA. And now if you look at the stat line, he finished running 27, but I promise he was the most dominant 27 we've seen in a very long time. Ah, I wanted this one so very bad. You know what I'm saying? I got my C rare shirt on. I put my daughter in a shirt that say, watching the bulls with daddy or something like that. It was fire. I'm like, oh, first playoff game in half a decade. Let's go Chicago. Even though I believe that majority of people on panels are like bucks and four, bucks and four, bucks and four, which I completely understand. The bulls haven't beat the bucks in the last 13 times when Jonas is playing, which is a crazy statistic in itself. And then on the broadcast, they said something like the bulls are one in 18 in the last 19 games against the bucks. I'm like, bro, we get it. You feel me? People understand the bulls can't beat the bucks. We get it. You don't have to keep rubbing it in. So my initial prediction was like, can I get the bulls to win one game? This was the game, y'all. This was the game they should have won. The bucks struggle in game ones. It's just a fact. They even talked about it on the broadcast. The only reason they won last year's game one is because Christmas doesn't hit a buzz be there. They struggle in game ones. And both of these teams, a lot of the teams you've saw select some somewhat bad basketball because a lot of these teams haven't played in a week because we had to wait for the play in, then wait for travel. We got to do all of this stuff. And you can tell the bulls, big three, got awful. 24%, 33%, 32%. That's bad. But if you look on the other side, the bucks, big two, or the other two other than Yanis, 30%, 37%. This was the game. If there was going to be a game for the bulls to win, this was the one. I don't see a scenario where Chris Middleton, Andrew Halle continue to shoot 30% from the field. But you can also say on the flip side, you don't see a scenario where DeMar DeRosa shoots 24%. Or you see a situation where the starting center is shooting 33% for the bulls. I can see that happening again. I can't because I've seen it happen a couple of times. I've just seen something similar. And exactly in this first playoff game, there was a lot of nerves for this bulls team. And they have this reputation against good teams. Obviously, everybody knows statistics because StatMuse tweets it every damn day when the bulls lose a game. They struggle against good teams. Like, really, really struggle. Historically bad against good teams. And in those games, they always struggle out the gate. And they did that. I think it started off 9-0 run. I'm tweeting live, tweeting games again. It's so much fun because I believe that majority of people understand when I'm joking and when I'm not. And I say majority of people because it can't be everybody. This just felt like the one that they could win. But they started off very, very slow. The nerves are probably at an all-time high. You got to think about it. Some of these players have never played playoff basketball at all. And Zach Lavigne just broke a record of, or I guess not the record. He was the longest active NBA player to not appear in the playoffs. It's over. I hope that next game, we get more Iowa DeSumo because he played a big part in this season. And I know for the second half of the season, he wasn't as good as the first half. Regardless, he provides some defense. And I think that the defense for the bulls was pretty solid today. Again, a lot of people were just missing shots, too. But I thought the defense was better than what I think a lot of people expected it to be. I would love Patrick Williams to not pass up wide open three-pointers anymore and just let it fly homie. Nobody else on the team was in the shot. So I'm not mad at you if you shot one more extra one. We shot 19% from three. 19%, 32% from the field as a team. But my miss you thing was bucks and five. But since the bulls didn't win this one, where it felt like the bucks were bad, I don't know, bro, I'm going to keep my original thing. But I would not be surprised if it was a real life bucks and five. I'm probably the best, not probably. The best game of the day was bucks, I'm sorry, Boston versus the Brooklyn Nets. Wow, wow, wow. I think I've mentioned this a few times on the channel and on the podcast. This has been my most anticipated series because we got two teams that I honestly believe have enough talent to make the big run and we're getting it in the first round. A two seven nonetheless, in the first round. And like I said, I'm somewhat of a net skeptic. I do believe that they have the talent to do it, but would they be able to do it? I always bit iffy about that. And this game they ended up losing on dramatic fashion. What a possession for the Boston South. Shout out to E-Made for not calling time out. I love when coaches understand that their players run off these things and like, they had been running with the Brooklyn Nets all day long. He's like, let them run this break, let them run this break. And listen, Draymond Green made this tweet during the game or after the game. And me and the homies literally said the exact same thing it was watching. Hold on, let me find this tweet. So his tweet says, and there's the difference in the Celtics team. Last year, Marcus Smart would have taken that shot. E-Made got him to buy in and be the Marcus Smart everyone loved out of Oklahoma State. Beautiful. Looking like a true point guard again. That's what made him special. And me and the homies, of course, we'd be live watching a lot of these games. We all say as something along the lines of, I cannot believe Marcus Smart did not take that shot. Not just because it's Marcus Smart, but considering, you know how much awareness you have to have to see two people sprinting at you. And you obviously know that the time is going down to see two people sprinting at you and to make the extra pass. No, and damn well, you might have 1.2 seconds to get that pass off and get it up. And again, it is Marcus Smart too. I mean, he was having a very good game for him not to let it fly. It's just beautiful basketball. Tatum said afterwards, hey, that was just a layer for me. I didn't really have to do much. This was a dog fight. This was a great game and I cannot wait to get six more of these because my prediction has been Boston and seven. And I know a lot of people pick Brooklyn, I'm not mad at you. Brooklyn had to tell me. We saw today, carry Irvin, basically be a perfect basketball player on the offense side of the ball. Defense is always gonna be if you would carry, but I can't even be mad at him. If you give me your team about 40 points or 60% shooting, I can't be mad if you take some possessions off. But I will be mad if you take the possessions off if it is the last two possessors of the game because Jaylen Brown got a very easy bucket late in this one. And that last possession, I know they were throwing doubles at everybody, because they were trying to either get the ball out of the hands, make them force a turnover, make them think that the time is running out enough that they got to jack up a shot. But the defense for the Brooklyn that's down to stretch was not as good as you want it to be, obviously was rounded a lot of yapping and these interviews before this series started, then do a damn thing. He actually in his 36 minutes, he felt somewhat of a liability, which is crazy because for the last three months, he has been very, very good for them. And listen, I saw some people had a nerve. Oh my God, I'm not, I would never say something like, I felt like I sounded like Stephen A. Smith and I would never want to do that. People who have the nerve to say, ah, I don't know if Ben should come back. Hello? I love Bruce Brown, bro. I like, I've been on the Bruce Brown bandwagon since Detroit. I understand how good he can be. But in a game like this, this is where you need Ben Simmons. The defense was skeptic, the defense was bad. The defense was bad and the rebounding was worse. Brucey, love him. He's a plus rebounder, a six for guard, power forward center, but Ben would help on that glass and they let Al Horford do his thing on that glass. Then you, Tyce, was not bad on the glass. I cannot believe there are people that I really believe in that Ben Simmons would not be upgrade over the four minutes you got of Kessler, I was no disrespect to the Rook. But like taking a couple minutes away from Brucey, taking some minutes away from drumming or even clacks who had a good game, but he just can't hit free throws. It's crazy for me to think that that won't be the case. And I also would love to see some Lamarcus algeous minutes in game two. I'm not saying he got to play 40, but I would love to see what he may decide to do with Lamarcus in the game. He's slower, he's worse on defense than a lot of the players on the team, but his little mid range jump sides, offensive firepower could help a little bit. Open the game up a little bit more for Kyrie. If there is any silver lining for the Brooklyn United they lost in a buzzer beater in the game where Kevin Arrant might have had his worst playoff basketball game of all time. One of his worst games of all time. So there is some bright spots like, hey, we were in this game where we really only had Kyrie Irvin going against the entire city of Boston, literally the whole city of Boston. I'm still rockin' my initial pick, which was Boston in seven. Did I tell you that I'm just a dude with a microphone so you might disagree with everything I say, but that's completely okay, cool. The last game for today was his Heat vs. Hawks game where I probably got five minutes of watch time on. And it was mostly because we were getting discharged from the hospital, you don't care about the type of stuff. So I didn't get to watch this game. But when I saw this box score and saw that Trey Young was one for 12 with six turnovers and that Bogey, Bo Young, no Bo, Bogdan Bogdanovich was over eight, I almost lost my mind. You cannot tell me these two dudes shot one of 20 from the field. You can't tell, you could not have convinced me that was even possible. And I know that Heat defense is one of the best in the league and I commend them for that. But I would even, I didn't even think it was gonna be eight points for Trey Young is wild. Him score under 10 points in a playoff game is wild. And I did watch the first two minutes of it maybe. And him and Jimmy Butler got into each other's face. And people on Twitter was like, oh, I love villain Trey Young. And look, I do too, but the villain got packed up today. If he a villain, the movie ended with him getting arrested, it's over with. You know what I'm saying? He's in Gotham Asylum right now. Kevin Knox, give Kevin Knox real minutes. Shout out to the Miami Heat, man. Debo going out there and hitting eight threes is crazy. I doubt Debo's gonna do that again. He is a very good player, obviously, one of the greatest shooters in the league, even though this was somewhat of a down year for him. I don't expect him to hit eight more next game, but who really knows? Maybe Debo's has found that spot. I don't expect Trey Young and Bogey to shoot one for 20. And I think that the travel thing was big for them too. I think they got into Miami at 3.30 a.m. the day before and a lot of stuff. And I don't know, I still, my initial pick was Miami in six because I still do believe that Atlanta has enough to maybe still a game or two, but not having a Clint Capella is real rough. But I still believe they can win a game or two, but regardless, Miami's probably gonna win that series. All right, let's get to yesterday's Slater Games. Ooh, yesterday's Slater Games was kind of solid, bro. And I'm going in the reverse order, too. The Warriors win 123 to 107. And then you know who we gotta talk about. You know, the splash nephew, the boy that took Steph Curry, started spotting his plan. Steph Curry had to come off the bench in like a decade. And they were cool with him not even having a good game because Jordan Poole is that guy. And Clay Thompson hitting some of his first shots of the game after missing playoff basketball since 2019, bro. It was so wild. There's so many stories here. And my initial thing here says, Warriors in six, I did believe that Yoakich can wield them to a couple victories. And even during my green set after the game that he wouldn't put past that Yoakich might have a 40 point triple double next game because he's angry at the performance from his team. But I like the way Steve Kerr and Dremont Green decided to do this thing, bro. I love the way they did it because listen, there's not a lot of people in the league that can stop a guy like Yoakich, right? Dremont could slow bro down. And he did. They packed up this paint and they realized that the supporting Cavs was Montaimors. Will Barnes had a really good game for his tennis. Defense was good. He hit his shots. But Montaimors, Will Barnes, Aaron Gordon and Jeff Green. Okay, we're gonna let y'all try to beat us. And if y'all do, perfect. That's okay. But the likelihood of that happening is very low. So we're gonna pack this paint. Yoakich has not hit a three pointer in like a month, it feels like. I mean, he's a good three point shooter. But in the last month, I think he's shooting 15% from three. He can't hit those. So they packed the paint and was like, Yoakich, if you're gonna beat us, you gotta get super physical. And Dremont Green is all about his physicality. And they had a good defensive game plan and then they had Jordan Poole turning into the player that he is. They actually had the top three candidates for most improved player come out today. So surprised that Jordan Poole didn't make top three. I understand even my own personal battle they had like seven different players on this. I understand why, you know, some people can't make the cut. But performances like this is why I'm just like enamored by the amount of effort and work that goes and that went into Jordan Poole. Whether it be him by himself or the Warriors organization as a whole, he has blossom, bro. He was in the G. He was in the G last year. Think about that. He was in the G league last year and he's starting in a playoff game and dropping 30 confident 32 meme in the whole way. You know what I'm saying? He's going to be a lot of people's favorite player based off that alone. Whenever the cameras on him, he got a face. He's making a face. You know what I'm saying? And you, you got to love that. So I'm still going with the Warriors Grinch game. Oh man, let's talk about this four or five matchup out East and this is 76 versus Raptors. This one right here was a tough one to make a prediction about. Mostly because I thought that the, that the Toronto Raptors matched up very well against the 76ers. You know what I'm saying? Everybody in the team is like six, eight massive wingspans. They get in the passing lanes. I think Gary Trent and Fred Van Vleet, both were top five in deflections. They got Scotty B. They got Pascal and they got, even though they don't have a single person that can stop Joel and B, they have so many different looks that they could throw at them. But even with that being said, they still, the 76 still have Joel and B. And though James Harden might not have the step that he had two years ago, three years ago, he still can play at a high level when he did that. So I saw a lot of people making the, I don't even want to call it a hipster pick because it's more than that. Because the Raptors are actually a really good team. There's a reason it's a four or five matchup. So it's not a hipster pick if you thought, or you think that the Raptors will win this series. But I still went with the team that I thought had the better top-end talent. And that would be the 76. But I did go all the way to seven with it. I don't know if it will be seven because now Gary Trent is questionable or doubtful. Scotty Barnes tweaked that ankle and oh my God, I hate it to see that, bro. Because I did believe this was going to be a series that's going to be pretty solid, but it didn't end up being. I actually, let me look at my notes because I actually watched this game in its entirety. One of the big things, this is in my notes. Look at me, Kenny. And this is not anything new. If you listen to any podcast, it probably says something similar. In order for the Raptors to win this series, they have to destroy the 76er when Joellen B was on the bench. And they didn't do that. Actually, when Joellen B was on the bench, the Raptors lost the game by four total points and that cannot be the case. Any team that's going to beat the 76ers in a series has to win the Joellen B list minutes because that's when they're at the most dominant. Obviously, he's an MVP caliber player. That's when they're at the most dominant and they don't have the extreme amount of depth of some of the other teams that they will be facing. So when Joellen B hits that bench, we got to play our best basketball because that is the only way. I believe that the series against Toronto where Kawhi Leonard hit the shot, Joellen B had, he was positive in his minutes. Whenever Joellen B was on the floor, they were good. They won the matchups. It was the minutes when he wasn't on the floor. And I think that might be the case in the Atlanta series too. Regardless, the way you beat the 76ers is dogging them when Joellen B was not on the court and they didn't do that in game number one. We got to give a lot of love to Taris Maxi, bro. You got, and we gonna talk about this game next. We got Anthony Edwards, Jordan Poo, Taris Maxi. Just so many young players just like, and I don't know how many of these dudes are gonna blossom into superstars. It's kind of irrelevant, but so many people that are just so very, very talented at the game of basketball. And I'm missing some names too. I'm sure there's some people that were tonight that's not on the back of my mind that are young that killed it today. You know what, I'm not even gonna waste the brain power. You know that there's talent in this league. Taris Maxi was electric in this one, bro. Doesn't matter what it was. And one of the main reasons why I had him is one of my top seven most approved player candidates is that he turned into one of the best three-point shooters in the entire NBA out of nowhere. If you look at his pre-draft report, it was like, ah, he's cool, but can he hit threes? And now he took him a season to figure out, yeah, he can't, whether he catch a shoot on the move it didn't matter. And I just like that any time the ball is rebounded by his team, he is shot out of a cannon. He is down the court. He is running. He is running. And that type of energy is electric. And I think that when people are predicting the series, and again, we're only saw game number one, so anything can happen. I believe that people were over-complicating the Matisse Thaibu thing. Matisse Thaibu obviously is a great defender and he can help your team out when he's on the floor. But he played 18 minutes and he ain't really do much today or yesterday. So him not being able to travel to Toronto for those two games might hurt, but it might not. It legit might not. We talked about the playoffs here where the best of the best are probably gonna get 40 minutes, especially if it's a closed game. They might get 44, 45 minutes, depending on which game it is. So could it hurt? Hell yeah, but it ain't hurting game number one. We even got some B-Ball Paul minutes. I'd love to see that, even though in those 10 minutes he had four fouls. I still gonna stick with my original pick, which is 76ers in seven. Man, it's unfortunate that we get to this point and in game one, Thaddeus Young gets injured, like I said, Gary Trent and Scotty Barnes all get injured. It's super, super unfortunate because we won't get the full experience of what this series could have been, you know what I'm saying, because of that. But I hope that maybe these are one-game injuries. If that, only time will tell. Timberwolves with the upset. Oh boy. Did the higher seed win every single game other than this one this week? The higher seed won every single game. NBA Playoffs is mid. We get one upset out of eight games? That's crazy, bro. Okay, Minnesota Timberwolves came out to play in the grind house. They was the one doing the grinding balls. They looked very, very good. Another, I don't, again, I don't like giving excuses for teams that lose, but like the Memphis Grizzlies are similar to some of the other teams when I say that they haven't played basketball and 10 days, like a week's time, plus a little bit, you feel me? You could definitely see that. My original thing in my notes said Grizzlies in six, and I'm gonna stick by that, even though they lost game one. This is a perfect storm for a guy like Anthony Edwards, who has been incredible in his first playoff game. And I'm counting the play in as a post, in his first postseason, he has looked incredible, which is great. Carthony Towns with a big comeback after, of course, we know the type of stinker that he put up in the play-in game. He showed the world, listen, that ain't the real version of me. This is really me. And having a guy like Malik Bees come off the bench and hit his shots, and having Jada McDaniels hit his shots just increases the amount of value to a guy like Anthony Edwards, who could just legitimately take over games. You feel me? Who, was it Patrick Beverly? Somebody in his team told Anthony Edwards that his ceiling, somebody said that his ceiling is Michael Jordan. And because of that, everybody got all these photo shops of Anthony Edwards as Michael Jordan. And you know what? I don't hate it. Why can't he be Jordan? With a little bit, I can't even say with a little bit more swag, because though Jordan wasn't like a flashy talkative dude in the media, there's a lot of swag behind Michael Jordan, bro. I'm keeping it a bug. The Grizzlies had a guy, Steven Adams, who had been a very impactful player for them this season, basically be non-existent. He was non-existent in this matchup. And actually the only reason he played 24 minutes is because Jared Jackson Jr. was in foul trouble. You know what I'm saying? Coach Taylor Jenkins found out very early, oh, this might not be a good matchup for Steven Adams. So let's yank him and let Jiren run the full five and then he got into some foul trouble. He ended up with seven blocks of school. We got yam don't a couple of times, but I don't believe that the performance that we got from Desmond, the performance we got from D'Anthony, the performance we got from Jiren as far as shooting the ball is going to happen more than maybe one more time in a series. But I got to show a lot of love to Minnesota, bro. I didn't even realize I followed so many Minnesota Timberwolves fans on my Twitter. You see that I follow a lot of the ones that I do follows just retweeting everything because I saw nothing but Minnesota Timberwolves' memes and gifts on the timeline. And I didn't hate it. I got a lot of love for the city. Never been there before, but when you think about a franchise, it's been through turmoil, that's been through six flips, firing the G here right before the season started, trading away players for less than the value that they probably worth. And for them to be in the spot, in the playoffs and winning a game where they were the underdog is a dub. But you know what? It's not completely crazy because legit, I did see some people, and I'm talking about the higher regards, some ESPN writers or whether it's Bleach Report, picked the Minnesota Timberwolves to win this series, which would be super intriguing. And which will be a failed season for the Gris? You understand why? I ain't gotta tell you why a first round elimination for the number two seed will be a failed season, right? Cool. Even though you did have progression of jaw like that, but like you were a playoff team last year and if you losing the first round, you ain't really... Anyway, I think those are all my predictions. I think those are all my predictions. I'm excited to like actually be able to sit down and watch tomorrow's Slater Games like front to back. Sleep schedule is so wild. I know it's been two days since baby Aves was born, but like sleep schedule is so crazy that maybe I'm not watching these games front to back because I might be in this chair. Those and all, bro, that's how I'd be. But I appreciate all the support. Let me know in the comment section. Was your initial prediction on the series changed after watching game number one? Let me know, I'll see y'all soon. All right y'all, so it's the next day and I realized that I did not talk about Dallas versus Utah, which is funny because if you ask some Utah fans, or you ask some Mavericks fans, they're gonna say, Kenny, don't like talking about us. And the fact that I completely forgot to talk about their series and trying to deep dive into the playoffs is ironic because I don't have any ill will against any organization. Game number one was a very fun. It was another one of those games where nobody gave a shot and not having Luca just completely ruined the fun for me originally. I was like, man, okay, let's say Luca loses one game. He doesn't play one game. I still feel confident saying Dallas in six. And I feel like a lot of people have turned an eye on Utah because they just, I think a lot of people are just ready for them to make those changes, whether it is Rudy, whether it is Donovan or Mike Connolly. We've seen this version of the Utah Jazz for like four years now. I think a lot of people just wanted to end in the first round so we can have a shake-up in the league. That's not the way I'm thinking when I'm predicting the series though. I would love to see a little shake-up. And even if they keep in Donovan or we go bare, I would love to see them have shape-up, whether it be the rest of the starters, the bench regardless. But when Luca went down with that injury, I was thinking to myself, okay, it's a calf strain and those can take like three weeks. And that's coming from some of the doctors I follow on Twitter, the sports doctors I follow on Twitter, three weeks. So that means that he might be back for game two. So when I made my prediction of Dallas in six, it was mostly because I thought that Luca might be back for game two. And well, they said that he's questionable slash doubtful and that completely changes some things. Can I see a world where, you know, the Mavericks have Luca come back in game three and they use the last six games to win four? Sure. But the Utah Jazz are still a very good basketball team. You know, this is not a series that's like a 1-8 matchup where even being down in two games is not that much of a deal. It actually is a deal because the Utah Jazz, as much as weird they are, they're still a solid team. They're still a good team. They got Don Vimiccio a playoff performer. Game one by Donovic came out to play. I will say though, they watched condensed version of this game and Rudy Gobiar has to be better offensively, something that we've said for a half of a decade at this point. The defense for Rudy was great this one. I can say that with confidence. Of course, I'm not expecting him to stay in front of Spencer Demwitty full-time or even Jalen Brunson full-time. But as far as being the epicenter of this defense and holding it down low, he did that. And they actually destroyed the rebound battle in this one, which is a big part of this win. They still need him to be better on offense because I saw a trending on Twitter, a clip where he had Jalen Brunson on his back and nobody gave him the ball. And that's partially his fault because they don't trust him with that ball when he has a 5-11 dude on him. He's gotta be better. Anyway, I haven't changed my prediction for any series going into this. So I'm gonna keep my initial prediction, but it don't feel good after game one and knowing that Luca probably won't play game two and even is still questionable for game three. It's just the worst possible timing. It's just unfortunate timing for one of the best in the league. All NBA first team player, Luca Dodgers, to go down and maybe another first round exit, which would be bad.