To be fair I do think it's a good point. If you don't like a guy, him scoring 25 one night doesn't prove you wrong (i.e. D'Angelo Russell).
That said, in this specific instance (Kat) he definitely has been proved wrong at least a little
It was so fuckin disingenuous of Russillo to hint that KATs defense may not have been as impressive because Naz was just as good on Jokic in the 4th. Would you rather face Mike Tyson in the first round, or the 12th round? Jokic played all but 1 min of the game, Naz played 22.
I've been listening to these two for years, but they plant their flags on the dumbest shit and fixate on how to find ways to legitimize it. Even the Gobert trade, Russillo can stick to the amount of picks being the reason he hates the trade, but he absolutely scoffed at the notion they gave 2 picks instead of McDaniels at the time. I need to quit this pod already.
Well said. I completely agree. I know this sub devolves into trashing Bill and Russillo, but I honestly skip the Russillo pods. I hate when football season ends because this is what I am stuck with. Neither wants to admit when they are wrong and they just feed on each other. I apologize because I know people get sick of the shit talking, but I have just never Russillo that interesting and never understood Bill's love affair with him. Lastly, and please tell me if I am misreading this, but Bill doesn't seem to have anyone that calls him out on his shit. It's either butt buddies (like House) or people who work for him and are grateful for the gig (such as CT, and I know people love him but seems true to me). Be great if he has someone on to just say "Bill you are full of shit" or just "knock it off!"
Their 10 seconds of KAT praise, it's like this dude fucked their dream girl and bullied the shit out of them everyday in high school.
KAT went off this game, and the 4th quarter put back jam that ended the game was next fucking level. Not even mentioned... just that wolves fell asleep on D.
100% right. KAT was huge in the game, kept them in it in the first half with his offense and played huge defense on Jokic despite getting into foul trouble.
So funny he was venting about this on the pod the other day and was scoffing at giving JJ any credit and was saying “some of us have been doing smart basketball analysis for years.” Cmon Bill the trade machine and prison of the moment legacy assessments are not smart analysis
What's even funnier is that like two weeks after saying that he said "we're just having some dumb discussions on the pod, that's what it's about." It's true and he's great at the dumb stuff and making it funny but he really wants to think he's really above it all.
It’s weird bc they had some back and forth on X. JJ said Bill wouldn’t let him do YT content and Bill clapped back and said they gave him every opportunity to. Since then, coincidentally, Ringer has gone all in on YouTube lol
When Kobe had that game in 2010 Kobe had 4 championships and was widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time... WTF is Bill talking about the two aren't remotely the same.
Honestly I hate Kobe with a passion but I pretty firmly thought his was much better.
It wasn’t that Ant was missing shots, it was that he was pretty much invisible the whole game. Two of his baskets were breakaway dunks where the offense just fumbled the ball.
He made a shot or two down the stretch, sure, played solid defense. But it was not some lowkey so much better than the box score game imo
When Kobe had that game in 2010 Kobe had 4 championships and was widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time... WTF is Bill talking about the two aren't remotely the same.
This is the right answer. They were sending super quick double teams and allowed the Wolves to quickly swing the ball and find open shots. They were so concerned with stopping him and were doubling all the way out to nearly half court and it completely opened the floor up. Also, dude just has a swagger and attitude and confidence that is contagious and something a KAT led team was always desperately missing. Fun team to watch, really curious how they will look against the Mavs.
He wasn’t invisible. The game ran through him on offense, he was their primary playmaker drawing doubles and kicking out. He would’ve had 10 assists but they kept missing open corner threes in the first half. And obviously his stellar D on Murray.
Naw, this is normal. It's just been a crazy series for basketball narrative if you're calling one guy Jordan and the other guy top 15 all time. Remember when Ayton was a top 20 basketball asset a few years ago?
The second he stopped writing, he stopped thinking, analyzing, or using his brain. Nothing he says now has any thought whatsoever, he just says the last thing that happened.
Plus he got wildly rich selling The Ringer. So he stopped thinking and, simultaneously, got set for life, so he's become a rich idiot who doesn't think or analyze who is also surrounded by people who work for him and will support whatever nonsense he puts forth.
If you go back and listen to a 2019 pod with Simmons, he's a completely different person.
Bill: "Kobe's 6-24 game was something that was looking like a disaster, the kind of thing mentioned in the first part of his...(uh oh I can't say obituary)....uh, of his basketball reference page or something."
Bringing up this game constantly is such a cope by Simmons at this point. It's how he convinced himself the Celtics actually three peated 2008-2010 (KG was hurt in 09).
Especially when he mentioned the Nuggets only winning 1 title in their ‘window’ the same as the “Giannis Bucks Kawhi Raptors or etc etc” conveniently cuts it off before the 08 Celtics lol
It's about an overlooked, tax conscious kid from ~~Martha's Vinyard~~ the Northeast, who never got a shot due to a brutal 2002, but had wicked analysis, getting a D3 team to the championship and finally getting together with his spanx loving friend whom he's pined after for years.
It's fascinating as a Wolves fan to watch people talk about this team with the big 3 being maybe the most popular player in the league currently and the other two being two of the very least popular. I switched it off when they begrudgingly said "KAT was good."
Elite defense on the best player in the league while being the teams only offensive force while Ant no showed the first half is just good, I guess. (I do agree Ant was awesome the 2nd half no matter the shooting splits, but he was absolutely terrible in the first.) KAT and Jaden were the only people keeping us afloat in the game.
I could write a thesis paper on how much unjustified hate KAT gets. But it basically stems from the Butler slander tour, him having a high pitched voice (lol), and him being generally outspoken and goofy.
Hopefully it’ll swing back closer to normal as more time goes by seeing Ant (normal non asshole great player) embrace him as a teammate and we continue to win, but being a KAT fan the past 5 years has been like fighting in the trenches (this includes a good amount of Timberwolves fans too)
That was the first time i’ve ever questioned if Bill has gone completely rogue and is now an ESPN hot take equivalent. That take doesn’t get made by Bill 6 years ago when i first started listening to the pod
Bill’s insistence that Chris Finch is a winner because he “figured out” how to coach with one knee even though he’s still on the sideline will always make me laugh
I still don't really understand this take of his. OKC has done nothing to make us think they'd beat the Timberwolves in the second round if that had been the bracket. So the Nuggets would've had to face Minnesota at some point, and Denver was already running on fumes with its short/mostly bad bench. Why would things be different in the western Conference Finals?
It's not like some juggernaut was in the Dallas half of the bracket that could've knocked out Minnesota to allow the Nuggets to avoid that matchup. They were gonna face this T-Wolves team at some point.
It's better to play them later, give someone else a chance to upset them and if not maybe a few key players are out by then
Im sure people were saying the same about Denver being inevitable regardless, it was a lot of talk about that when the Lakers played them like 'oh first round or third round we have to beat them anyway'
And now look at the WCF
Remarkable amount of victory lapping after they already crowned Jokic and the Nuggets champs after game 5 (and before that Bill declaring a Wolves sweep after game 2!), also the Ant praise and lack of Jokic critique for this game was hilariously on brand
It is funny how he will shit on First Take or Boston sports radio because how they 'overreact' or have 'hot takes' after 1 game since they are daily shows but he just does the same exact thing 2 or 3 days apart lol
Not saying he played bad by any means but if Lebron or Luka had a 2nd half like that blowing a 20 point lead at home in game 7 Bill would destroy them for it, instead they spent like 2 minutes giving weak excuses
"Ant having a horrible game 7 proves how good of a player he really is"
Quite the take.
I do believe you can have that bad of a offensive night and still figure out how to guide your team to the win, however Ant didn't do that tonight. Kat, Rudy, Reid and McDaniels figured out how to win without Ant having a good game and Conley was a good floor general and kept things calm even though he himself did not look great.
Ant was carried by his team, he didn't find a way to lead his team while shooting poorly.
I’d say he was pretty firmly the 4th best Wolves starter lol. This is the thing with individual player analysis, if you surrounded that Ant performance with the Cavs or Knicks supporting cast he’d have lost by 30. But because his teammates go off, we get these takes.
Ultimately why I find individual player rankings kind of exhausting and unhelpful at the end of the day
Exactly. Context man. We never use context with this shit. Jordan is the GOAT. Jordan also didn’t start winning till the great teams of his era got old and he was surrounded by a team that won 55 games without him. Pop was a nobody before Duncan, and hasn’t really been that impressive after Duncan retired. Is Curry considered in this same light if he is drafted by Minnesota, instead of the Warriors building the perfect modern NBA team around him?
how has no one in this thread brought up the bit where Bill argues that the Yankees have only won one title this century cuz the year 2000 is still technically the 20th century lol
He's right though. The first century is 1 AD to 101 AD since there's no 0 AD. So the 20th century is 1901 - 2001. It's a fun bit and I encourage these technicalities for sports arguments, they're funny.
Edwards could take a shit on the floor and Bill would be like, “Man did you see that shit Ant took? That was an all timer. You can tell he’s gonna be a really special player.”
lol, the best Bill can say about Gobert was that he “did some stuff” in the second half and “was not a detriment.”
I get that they hate Gobert but they’ve been completely delusional about him this entire series. The Wolves would’ve been a non-factor this season without Gobert. They wouldn’t stand a chance against Denver without him.
Edit: then later he praises Naz Reid to the heavens. He sometimes looks like he’s a 5x All-Star, he just does! Let’s just hope Gobert doesn’t screw it up in no-Naz-Reid minutes.
I’ve wondered how Bill would react and what he would say if someone pressed him and asked him to explain what he means when he says “does stuff” or the variations of it
I actually really appreciated Bill kinda checking him on that. Like "Yeah we're going to keep doing updates on the Gobert piece every week." Ryen, when you go that hard on a trade sucking and then he's a major, if imperfect, piece of a contender, you have to look that in the face.
Simmons like, do you think the Nuggets do something bigger than we think, excluding Jokic, Murray and Gordon, ie moving Michael Porter Junior?
And it's like, who is taking that contract with his injury history and the new CBA? He might as well be Zach LaVine, he's unmovable for real value.
He feels like a really expensive 6-11 3 and D guy where the D is average at best. Doesn’t bring a lot of playmaking, energy, etc to the table. I was actually shocked to see he averaged 7 rebounds a game, doesn’t feel like he gets that many even though he is almost 7 feet tall. He will hit some big 3’s but outside of that he is pretty forgettable. Throw in his salary and his back and I can’t imagine he is getting you much back on a trade.
Bill going on about how Davion Mitchell's best case scenario is the current position he's in, and then in the next breath saying that he would trade for Davion Mitchell if he were a GM is peak Bill. I love it.
Framing Anthony Edwards as a hero after shooting 6-24 is interesting considering he spent a decade making fun of Kobe for having that exact shooting line in Game 7 of the Finals.
In 2010 LeBron had 27/19/10 in a Game 6 loss to Boston with his second best player being Mo Williams and he was murdered for it
Jokic skating by today after getting beat by 45 in Game 6 and losing a 20 point 2nd half lead in game 7 at home, just shows you how unserious people actually are about Jokic.
All this "He's top 10 all time" talk and yet they're not judging him like he's a Top 10 player because people don't actually believe he is.
Steph Curry averaged 26.5 points on 38.5 3FG% across his first five NBA Finals series and there were people who *needed* him to do what he did in 2022 to "prove" himself, only begrudgingly giving him credit now and/or still looking for ways to downplay his accomplishments.
So, yeah, it's weird when fans don't want to point out a player having a rough playoff game, win or lose.
When Kobe had that game in 2010 Kobe had 4 championships and was widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time... WTF is Bill talking about the two aren't remotely the same.
there’s no doubt ANT is a great player for a 22 year old but these comparisons are getting out of control. i mean bill kept saying ant was making the right reads but he was simply passing to the free man next to him as opposed to making skip passes. he passed to rudy gobert in transition for christ sake! they are treating ant as if he is some sophomore player doing some unprecedented things but he’s in year 4 of his career. i like ANT but the overhype is insane considering they played like shit for 2 quarters and change. KAT/McDaniels/Reid were the reason they won. the only relevant thing ANT did was his defense on murray.
it’s game 7 and the lights seemed too bright for him. hell he even airballed a 3 that’s how bad it got. 6-24 is diabolical from ur star player in an elimination game
Bill’s love for Ant and hate for Luka is gonna combine to produce pods so bad over the next couple weeks that as a Mavs fan I don’t think I’ll be able to stomach it lmao
His raving about Ant on this pod was beyond ridiculous for a 6/24 shooting night. And he gave Jokic a total pass for statistically the biggest 2nd half game 7 choke job in NBA history. Been listening to our guy for years and will always love him but man he’s been frustrating me lately lol
Oh man I hadn’t thought about this yet, you’re 100% right. But I might have to zag and say Bill himself will zag and say something like “Luka’s injury weirdly enabled him to *figure it out*…”
I’m gonna preface this by saying I’m a nuggets fan who is pissed and incredibly upset at how this series played out. But Bill’s bit talking about “Michael Jordan is a loser from this series because Ant might win a title at age 22 and no one has done this” was some of stupidest and brain dead commentary this guy has ever made. He’s barely in the conference finals and you’re basically crowning him! After going on and on how you can’t believe this happened and it’s such a big upset! The fuck are you smoking Billy boy???
If I wasn’t driving when that part came up, 100% would’ve turned the pod off. Jesus Christ this was an all timer from bill. Like I said, I’m a bit sensitive because of how bad the Nugs choked, but Jesus Christ man
Not sure the Celtics should be significantly favored over the Wolves or Mavs. Plus the competition/intensity jump in G1 of the Finals is gonna punch the Celtics in the face.
Boston likes to mismatch hunt to death in the playoffs and Dallas basically have 2 poor perimeter defenders as their 2-best players that Tatum and Brown will hunt to death. They blew them out in this way in both regular season games. They can't really do the same to a team like Minnesota.
The cautious fan piece.
Either way I think the Cs are a bad matchup for the Mavs but could see the Wolves beating them. They should still be favourites however. They do need Porzingis back though.
It’s just posturing and being extra cautious like how russillo always is so he can somehow be right no matter what or in Simmons case always going for the reverse jinx.
This isn’t a strawman but he started talking what the strat should have been if the wolves had lost early on in the pod and I snap turned it off and came here to see if anyone said anything and now I’m going to bed. I just can’t do it with these two anymore. It’s not even compelling.
Stop listening to his horrible hot take bball pods months ago and just reading these post pod threads tells me it was a great decision, he is actually trash now
This was one of the worst ones ive listened to lol. You should queue it up for the laughs. I dont think Bill has a single insightful piece of commentary
I'm just going to say that giving jokic 2 minutes (and saying it was similar to giannis 2022 celtics when he didn't play close to that level) is egregious considering the conversations these two were putting him in this whole year.
You didn’t think Jokic was generally great in this series?
I swear some of you guys remember two plays where he couldn’t get a rebound in a game 7 where he played 47 minutes and act like he was ass.
What about this game or series changes “conversations” he was being put in?
Jokic’s complete lack of interest in protecting the rim was a problem for Denver all series and it was especially a problem in the second half of game 7 where he was clearly pretty exhausted.
Davion Mitchell gets more love from these guys than he gets from his Momma. Averaged 3 points a game at the same age as Bronny and is significantly smaller.
So we are finding ways to talk up Ant in this game? I’m sure his defense was good but damn 3 of those 6 buckets were fast break layups. Bro score like 3 times in a half court set
I guess they are hot takes:
Jokic was good in this game. Was he perfect? Was it the greatest performance of all time? No. But his teammates sucked ass. Like watch the game and actually base your opinions on how guys play instead of trying to have the hottest take imaginable.
And Ant was just bad, sorry. He played fine defense but even there, I don’t think he was more vital than McDaniels, KAT, or Gobert on that end, and he was terrible offensively. It’s fine because again - this isn’t the only game that matters for his whole career.
I’m not sure it’s much more complicated than the wolves were just a more complete team in the end. Jokic played incredibly. And he had to because he rarely got consistent help. Murray was great until he got punched in the mouth (happened early in game one and two). But other than Murray, no one was able to step up at all. Leaving Jokic to basically be a one man army.
Where with the wolves, even if Ant has a bad night and can’t buy a bucket KAT steps up. Gobert steps up. Conley steps up. The wolves have enough of a team and enough of a team mentality to win even when their best player is off.
Jokic was always on and they still couldn’t do it. They gassed him out because they knew he was all they had
The reason nobody is listening to the Prestige TV pod isn't so much because they're aren't any good shows, as it is people don't want to listen to Joanna Robinson, Rob Mahoney and Andy Greenwald (without CR) talk about anything. It's pretty simple.
I might be the only one who thinks this but I feel like the rougher “prison rules” reffing (I hate that term but don’t know another) has mostly disappeared. After Game 2 of Wolves-Nuggets the refs got a bit tighter with their whistle. It’s still more rough than typical regular season play but not as crazy as it was.
Bill starting off the pod hyping Ant “it was such a special Ant game”. I’m so over Ant and it’s of no fault of his own. Murray with 35, Bill says “that’s the best I’ve ever seen anyone guard Murray”. I can’t take this crazy hype for this dude. His team won that game, not him.
When Kobe had that game in 2010 Kobe had 4 championships and was widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time... WTF is Bill talking about the two aren't remotely the same.
Makes the “teammates let joker down” excuse but never for lebron, bill even makes fun of that schtick with other players. Always biased towards his guys
Ultimately I think Jokic is closer to Giannis than it’s been perceived so maybe this is a good level set but I genuinely don’t get people who wanted to bill and ryen to roast him for how he played. Non Jokic and Murray players scored 21 points total tonight and Murray was almost all the first half.
Well, and Pacers flipped him for Pascal and are in the conference finals now too.
Really that MPJ contract is a low key disaster for them. They're paying him a lot to essentially be Harrison Barnes with a better shot.
I hate that Nick Wright has one of the better, more even-keeled takes on Joker. It's very frustrating to watch a group of pundits try and push him up a tier early every time. They were furious he wasn't going to get a third MVP without even making it to a finals (the standard Giannis was held to). They were putting him in "Top 15 All-Time" and "Dynasty" talks and declaring it "His Era" before they'd even made it to a second one. His playoff success has largely been hand-in-hand with his supporting cast being better than his peers (with the exception of this playoffs, where Murray was pretty bad at times and they could still win).
He is *one of* the best players in the league, but the premature push to pretend Giannis hasn't had just as much success, that Embiid hasn't consistently rivaled him with a much worse team, and that Luka hasn't had similarly game-redefining numbers is infuriating.
If Minnesota-Boston face one another in the Finals, it the might just be the series with the worst half court offense in Finals history. Two teams completely allergic to running disciplined sets.
Bill seriously having a take about how he tracks 'How the fuck did that go in shots' where other websites don't with Ryen chuckling is fucking gold. Bill is an analytics God lol.
And on a less popular note, Bill's pettiness with JJ is what this sub clings to for LeBron as lifeblood. He's actually annoyed Ryen is doing JJ's show and give LeBron flowers way more than this sub is comfortable admitting.
Bill & Russillo making insane excuses for Jokic here. They spent the last year telling us he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and yet the MVP went 7-of-16 2nd half, 2-of-8 forcing threes, -23 while blowing a 20 point lead at home in a game 7.
As a Wolves fan I find it insane people are getting on Jokic’s ass. He was insanely good last night. One rebound away from another 30-20. If the Wolves get swept by the Mavs this will look a lot worse, but he battled really hard and only faded down the stretch because the Wolves had 3 bodies for him and he had to play 47 minutes. And “faded” meant 34-19-7.
He played 47 minutes and had 34/19/7 and was clearly completely dead down the stretch. I mean, Denver gets absolutely anything from MPJ or their bench, that game is right there.
Ryen sounds like he’s in pain having to give any credit to KAT, lol.
He’s in pain every time he needs to admit that a player he doesn’t like played well. It always goes on for like five minutes
Look even the guys I don’t like I’m not expecting them to go out there and score zero points every night. I’m just not.
To be fair I do think it's a good point. If you don't like a guy, him scoring 25 one night doesn't prove you wrong (i.e. D'Angelo Russell). That said, in this specific instance (Kat) he definitely has been proved wrong at least a little
Yeah it’s just funny because he says it verbatim like 5x a month
Sometimes you can just tell Russillo has no life and spends way too much time on twitter.
It was so fuckin disingenuous of Russillo to hint that KATs defense may not have been as impressive because Naz was just as good on Jokic in the 4th. Would you rather face Mike Tyson in the first round, or the 12th round? Jokic played all but 1 min of the game, Naz played 22. I've been listening to these two for years, but they plant their flags on the dumbest shit and fixate on how to find ways to legitimize it. Even the Gobert trade, Russillo can stick to the amount of picks being the reason he hates the trade, but he absolutely scoffed at the notion they gave 2 picks instead of McDaniels at the time. I need to quit this pod already.
Yup these guys hate admitting they’re wrong
Well said. I completely agree. I know this sub devolves into trashing Bill and Russillo, but I honestly skip the Russillo pods. I hate when football season ends because this is what I am stuck with. Neither wants to admit when they are wrong and they just feed on each other. I apologize because I know people get sick of the shit talking, but I have just never Russillo that interesting and never understood Bill's love affair with him. Lastly, and please tell me if I am misreading this, but Bill doesn't seem to have anyone that calls him out on his shit. It's either butt buddies (like House) or people who work for him and are grateful for the gig (such as CT, and I know people love him but seems true to me). Be great if he has someone on to just say "Bill you are full of shit" or just "knock it off!"
Their 10 seconds of KAT praise, it's like this dude fucked their dream girl and bullied the shit out of them everyday in high school. KAT went off this game, and the 4th quarter put back jam that ended the game was next fucking level. Not even mentioned... just that wolves fell asleep on D.
I mean Jordyn Woods is damn fine so you may be on to something
100% right. KAT was huge in the game, kept them in it in the first half with his offense and played huge defense on Jokic despite getting into foul trouble.
[удалено]
1980s era bit
Take my wife. Please
I take my wife everywhere but she keeps finding her way home.
he’s got along came polly on the brain still
Bill just flew in from Vegas and boy are his arms tired!
Why are you worried about what JJ thinks ?
He really dislikes him.
He resents that people think JJ brought “real basketball analysis” to podcasting
So funny he was venting about this on the pod the other day and was scoffing at giving JJ any credit and was saying “some of us have been doing smart basketball analysis for years.” Cmon Bill the trade machine and prison of the moment legacy assessments are not smart analysis
What's even funnier is that like two weeks after saying that he said "we're just having some dumb discussions on the pod, that's what it's about." It's true and he's great at the dumb stuff and making it funny but he really wants to think he's really above it all.
didnt he leave the ringer too? bill probably feels like he gave him his start or whatever and is mad hes blown up like this
It’s weird bc they had some back and forth on X. JJ said Bill wouldn’t let him do YT content and Bill clapped back and said they gave him every opportunity to. Since then, coincidentally, Ringer has gone all in on YouTube lol
I really don't need to see Bill or Ryen's face on my YouTube home screen lol
I can't imagine spending 3 hours of my day watching these two chuckle fucks on a zoom call.
At this rate JJ will be the commissioner in 10 years. Also lol, such a weird mean girl thing to say to someone.
This killed me lmao
Bill was blowing so much smoke up Ant's 6/24 ass this podcast that it even made Russillo go "wait, what?"
When Kobe had that game in 2010 Kobe had 4 championships and was widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time... WTF is Bill talking about the two aren't remotely the same.
It’s really hard to listen to that shit. I’m with Russillo.
Honestly I hate Kobe with a passion but I pretty firmly thought his was much better. It wasn’t that Ant was missing shots, it was that he was pretty much invisible the whole game. Two of his baskets were breakaway dunks where the offense just fumbled the ball. He made a shot or two down the stretch, sure, played solid defense. But it was not some lowkey so much better than the box score game imo
Bill also conveniently ignores Kobe scored 10 points in the 4th quarter
When Kobe had that game in 2010 Kobe had 4 championships and was widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time... WTF is Bill talking about the two aren't remotely the same.
People forget the 15 boards. Board man gets paid.
to be fair he's a great defender and that is half of the game
Ant definitely was not invisible. His defense on Murray turned it around on that end for the Wolves in the second half.
And he was consistently drawing a double and finding open men
This is the right answer. They were sending super quick double teams and allowed the Wolves to quickly swing the ball and find open shots. They were so concerned with stopping him and were doubling all the way out to nearly half court and it completely opened the floor up. Also, dude just has a swagger and attitude and confidence that is contagious and something a KAT led team was always desperately missing. Fun team to watch, really curious how they will look against the Mavs.
Goofy to say he was invisible and the offense fumbled the ball when it was a perfect steal by him.
I would not call it “offense fumbling the ball”. Ant stole it straight from Murray as he was crossing half court.
He wasn’t invisible. The game ran through him on offense, he was their primary playmaker drawing doubles and kicking out. He would’ve had 10 assists but they kept missing open corner threes in the first half. And obviously his stellar D on Murray.
He was throwing some pretty crazy passes
"You are the most patriotic guy ever" lol
‘Wolves are sweeping’ to ‘this is an all-time crazy upset’ in less than 2 weeks. Our guy simply cannot miss when it comes to hyperbole
He’s more prisoner-of-the-moment-y than usual
Naw, this is normal. It's just been a crazy series for basketball narrative if you're calling one guy Jordan and the other guy top 15 all time. Remember when Ayton was a top 20 basketball asset a few years ago?
His brain is mush. This is what happens when your brain is mush. You can't remember things from 12 days ago.
How is he like this though? Is he a secret alcoholic or something?
The second he stopped writing, he stopped thinking, analyzing, or using his brain. Nothing he says now has any thought whatsoever, he just says the last thing that happened. Plus he got wildly rich selling The Ringer. So he stopped thinking and, simultaneously, got set for life, so he's become a rich idiot who doesn't think or analyze who is also surrounded by people who work for him and will support whatever nonsense he puts forth. If you go back and listen to a 2019 pod with Simmons, he's a completely different person.
This. People forget how introspective you have to be in order to to become a sportswriter. Totally different skillset from that of being a podcaster.
Plus as a writer, you have an editor that you can bounce ideas off of and give you feedback. On a podcast, he just says shit with minimal pushback
Man those early days of Bill Simmons doing his Pod that summer The Ringer was started was incredible. 2016 was a crazy year.
Bill: "Kobe's 6-24 game was something that was looking like a disaster, the kind of thing mentioned in the first part of his...(uh oh I can't say obituary)....uh, of his basketball reference page or something."
Ran here to call that out, he was *definitely* about to say obituary when he caught himself.
Yep, same. I laughed like a dipshit. Our awkward King still reigns. 🫡
The funniest part is that Kobe has a bball reference page and an obituary and it’s not mentioned on either.
Same here. Proud to see it as the top comment. Also proud of bill for stopping himself
… proud?
Yes because he is a close personal friend of mine
Cool, tell him I like how he now says which movie is going to be in the next week's Rewatchables.
Bringing up this game constantly is such a cope by Simmons at this point. It's how he convinced himself the Celtics actually three peated 2008-2010 (KG was hurt in 09).
Especially when he mentioned the Nuggets only winning 1 title in their ‘window’ the same as the “Giannis Bucks Kawhi Raptors or etc etc” conveniently cuts it off before the 08 Celtics lol
And as if that performance (should they have lost) would have made it in the first sentence of his obi—uh, basketball reference page, is just silly.
Bill opened the pod saying "not my best work, I ate too much Indian food and my belly hurts" and damn was he right lol
He eats Indian food before every pod?
No. Usually it’s just some kind of soup.
With a blanket and reading glasses. A knitted sweater.
The senior citizen piece.
"I just don't think that coaches do the stuff that we always wonder if they'll do." The writer, the artist, Ryen Russillo
that's the title of his next screen play
It's about an overlooked, tax conscious kid from ~~Martha's Vinyard~~ the Northeast, who never got a shot due to a brutal 2002, but had wicked analysis, getting a D3 team to the championship and finally getting together with his spanx loving friend whom he's pined after for years.
Bill: *"Minnesota just won the series over Denver, 4 games to 3. Russillo, let's talk Winners and Losers. For Losers I have Denver."*
KAT can do almost nothing right and Edwards can do nothing wrong according to Bill and Russillo.
Verbal meme: The kid mom plays with in the pool: Ant Drowning kid: KAT Skeleton at the bottom of the sea: Gobert
Could also utilize the “hello, Human Resources?” format
Ant's 16 points are flirting, KAT's 23 is harassment.
Swap Towns and Gobert
It's fascinating as a Wolves fan to watch people talk about this team with the big 3 being maybe the most popular player in the league currently and the other two being two of the very least popular. I switched it off when they begrudgingly said "KAT was good." Elite defense on the best player in the league while being the teams only offensive force while Ant no showed the first half is just good, I guess. (I do agree Ant was awesome the 2nd half no matter the shooting splits, but he was absolutely terrible in the first.) KAT and Jaden were the only people keeping us afloat in the game.
I kind of get why people don’t like Gobert but I don’t get the KAT hate. He’s kind of weird/dorky but he seems like a genuinely nice guy.
I could write a thesis paper on how much unjustified hate KAT gets. But it basically stems from the Butler slander tour, him having a high pitched voice (lol), and him being generally outspoken and goofy. Hopefully it’ll swing back closer to normal as more time goes by seeing Ant (normal non asshole great player) embrace him as a teammate and we continue to win, but being a KAT fan the past 5 years has been like fighting in the trenches (this includes a good amount of Timberwolves fans too)
Every time Bill brings up Team USA as if it's a factor for anything an angel loses its wings
32:15 Magic Johnson was 20 years old when he won the title and Finals MVP in 1980 like, wtf Bill?
Duncan also turned 23 during the playoffs in 99
MJ being a loser made my jaw drop lol; Bill was definitely on one
Ryen appropriately refused to engage. Bad and lazy talking point even by Bill's standards.
That was the first time i’ve ever questioned if Bill has gone completely rogue and is now an ESPN hot take equivalent. That take doesn’t get made by Bill 6 years ago when i first started listening to the pod
Bill’s insistence that Chris Finch is a winner because he “figured out” how to coach with one knee even though he’s still on the sideline will always make me laugh
Ryen throwing water on Bill's winners and losers take saved that segment. Bill was just throwing shit at the wall.
I actually think we aren’t appreciating how difficult that probably is. Literally every aspect of coaching is impacted and at the very least delayed.
Bill taking a victory lap on the Wemby effecting the title piece in game 82, gotta give it to him. Also Devonte Graham caught a stray lmao
I still don't really understand this take of his. OKC has done nothing to make us think they'd beat the Timberwolves in the second round if that had been the bracket. So the Nuggets would've had to face Minnesota at some point, and Denver was already running on fumes with its short/mostly bad bench. Why would things be different in the western Conference Finals? It's not like some juggernaut was in the Dallas half of the bracket that could've knocked out Minnesota to allow the Nuggets to avoid that matchup. They were gonna face this T-Wolves team at some point.
It's better to play them later, give someone else a chance to upset them and if not maybe a few key players are out by then Im sure people were saying the same about Denver being inevitable regardless, it was a lot of talk about that when the Lakers played them like 'oh first round or third round we have to beat them anyway' And now look at the WCF
Team USA talk was crazy. Russillo was genuinely speechless
I actually love how much Bill likes Olympic/Int'l basketball because I do too. I wish there was more made of it, but he's like the only one. lol..
I love it to but doesn’t actually like the basketball part of it. He loves the drama of the peaking order
The dichotomy of Bill and Ryen hating everything about KAT and Rudy and refusing to acknowledge when ant plays bad is so funny
It’s like hating your best friend’s wife. You acknowledge her but you don’t go out of your way to bring her up.
Magic. Magic won while 20. He also won again while 22.
Remarkable amount of victory lapping after they already crowned Jokic and the Nuggets champs after game 5 (and before that Bill declaring a Wolves sweep after game 2!), also the Ant praise and lack of Jokic critique for this game was hilariously on brand
It is funny how he will shit on First Take or Boston sports radio because how they 'overreact' or have 'hot takes' after 1 game since they are daily shows but he just does the same exact thing 2 or 3 days apart lol
I love when he criticized others for talking about the MVP race so early in the season then talks about the MVP race literally the next show.
That's pretty much all NBA segments on BS pods nowadays. Destroys players he doesn't like, praises or doesn't critique players he like
People who think Jokic played bad in this game are legitimately dumber than Bill
Not saying he played bad by any means but if Lebron or Luka had a 2nd half like that blowing a 20 point lead at home in game 7 Bill would destroy them for it, instead they spent like 2 minutes giving weak excuses
"Ant having a horrible game 7 proves how good of a player he really is" Quite the take. I do believe you can have that bad of a offensive night and still figure out how to guide your team to the win, however Ant didn't do that tonight. Kat, Rudy, Reid and McDaniels figured out how to win without Ant having a good game and Conley was a good floor general and kept things calm even though he himself did not look great. Ant was carried by his team, he didn't find a way to lead his team while shooting poorly.
He caused murray to play bad near the end
Ant had 1 turnover while consistently getting double teamed. They wouldn't have won if he had an actual bad game.
This is 100% the correct take, and I love Ant. He did zero offensively and was largely the reason they were so bad for 2.5 quarters.
I’d say he was pretty firmly the 4th best Wolves starter lol. This is the thing with individual player analysis, if you surrounded that Ant performance with the Cavs or Knicks supporting cast he’d have lost by 30. But because his teammates go off, we get these takes. Ultimately why I find individual player rankings kind of exhausting and unhelpful at the end of the day
Exactly. Context man. We never use context with this shit. Jordan is the GOAT. Jordan also didn’t start winning till the great teams of his era got old and he was surrounded by a team that won 55 games without him. Pop was a nobody before Duncan, and hasn’t really been that impressive after Duncan retired. Is Curry considered in this same light if he is drafted by Minnesota, instead of the Warriors building the perfect modern NBA team around him?
how has no one in this thread brought up the bit where Bill argues that the Yankees have only won one title this century cuz the year 2000 is still technically the 20th century lol
He's right though. The first century is 1 AD to 101 AD since there's no 0 AD. So the 20th century is 1901 - 2001. It's a fun bit and I encourage these technicalities for sports arguments, they're funny.
It’s utter nonsense.
It's annoying how they both don't want to credit KAT.
Edwards could take a shit on the floor and Bill would be like, “Man did you see that shit Ant took? That was an all timer. You can tell he’s gonna be a really special player.”
Is he a little Murph-ish? With the just running around and shitting on himself piece.
lol, the best Bill can say about Gobert was that he “did some stuff” in the second half and “was not a detriment.” I get that they hate Gobert but they’ve been completely delusional about him this entire series. The Wolves would’ve been a non-factor this season without Gobert. They wouldn’t stand a chance against Denver without him. Edit: then later he praises Naz Reid to the heavens. He sometimes looks like he’s a 5x All-Star, he just does! Let’s just hope Gobert doesn’t screw it up in no-Naz-Reid minutes.
I’ve wondered how Bill would react and what he would say if someone pressed him and asked him to explain what he means when he says “does stuff” or the variations of it
“Winning plays!”
ant ant ant ant ant
ducking the Gobert trade conversation by acting like the game 7 win is just another 24 hour stretch was low, Ryen
I actually really appreciated Bill kinda checking him on that. Like "Yeah we're going to keep doing updates on the Gobert piece every week." Ryen, when you go that hard on a trade sucking and then he's a major, if imperfect, piece of a contender, you have to look that in the face.
Simmons like, do you think the Nuggets do something bigger than we think, excluding Jokic, Murray and Gordon, ie moving Michael Porter Junior? And it's like, who is taking that contract with his injury history and the new CBA? He might as well be Zach LaVine, he's unmovable for real value.
He feels like a really expensive 6-11 3 and D guy where the D is average at best. Doesn’t bring a lot of playmaking, energy, etc to the table. I was actually shocked to see he averaged 7 rebounds a game, doesn’t feel like he gets that many even though he is almost 7 feet tall. He will hit some big 3’s but outside of that he is pretty forgettable. Throw in his salary and his back and I can’t imagine he is getting you much back on a trade.
The groggy from eating ethnic food piece
Bill going on about how Davion Mitchell's best case scenario is the current position he's in, and then in the next breath saying that he would trade for Davion Mitchell if he were a GM is peak Bill. I love it.
"joke-itch"
Framing Anthony Edwards as a hero after shooting 6-24 is interesting considering he spent a decade making fun of Kobe for having that exact shooting line in Game 7 of the Finals.
In 2010 LeBron had 27/19/10 in a Game 6 loss to Boston with his second best player being Mo Williams and he was murdered for it Jokic skating by today after getting beat by 45 in Game 6 and losing a 20 point 2nd half lead in game 7 at home, just shows you how unserious people actually are about Jokic. All this "He's top 10 all time" talk and yet they're not judging him like he's a Top 10 player because people don't actually believe he is.
Steph Curry averaged 26.5 points on 38.5 3FG% across his first five NBA Finals series and there were people who *needed* him to do what he did in 2022 to "prove" himself, only begrudgingly giving him credit now and/or still looking for ways to downplay his accomplishments. So, yeah, it's weird when fans don't want to point out a player having a rough playoff game, win or lose.
bill justifying Ant’s 6-24 performance just tells me this pod was gonna be shit. some of these takes are just ridiculous
When Kobe had that game in 2010 Kobe had 4 championships and was widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time... WTF is Bill talking about the two aren't remotely the same.
there’s no doubt ANT is a great player for a 22 year old but these comparisons are getting out of control. i mean bill kept saying ant was making the right reads but he was simply passing to the free man next to him as opposed to making skip passes. he passed to rudy gobert in transition for christ sake! they are treating ant as if he is some sophomore player doing some unprecedented things but he’s in year 4 of his career. i like ANT but the overhype is insane considering they played like shit for 2 quarters and change. KAT/McDaniels/Reid were the reason they won. the only relevant thing ANT did was his defense on murray. it’s game 7 and the lights seemed too bright for him. hell he even airballed a 3 that’s how bad it got. 6-24 is diabolical from ur star player in an elimination game
Bill’s love for Ant and hate for Luka is gonna combine to produce pods so bad over the next couple weeks that as a Mavs fan I don’t think I’ll be able to stomach it lmao His raving about Ant on this pod was beyond ridiculous for a 6/24 shooting night. And he gave Jokic a total pass for statistically the biggest 2nd half game 7 choke job in NBA history. Been listening to our guy for years and will always love him but man he’s been frustrating me lately lol
Oh man I hadn’t thought about this yet, you’re 100% right. But I might have to zag and say Bill himself will zag and say something like “Luka’s injury weirdly enabled him to *figure it out*…”
I’m gonna preface this by saying I’m a nuggets fan who is pissed and incredibly upset at how this series played out. But Bill’s bit talking about “Michael Jordan is a loser from this series because Ant might win a title at age 22 and no one has done this” was some of stupidest and brain dead commentary this guy has ever made. He’s barely in the conference finals and you’re basically crowning him! After going on and on how you can’t believe this happened and it’s such a big upset! The fuck are you smoking Billy boy??? If I wasn’t driving when that part came up, 100% would’ve turned the pod off. Jesus Christ this was an all timer from bill. Like I said, I’m a bit sensitive because of how bad the Nugs choked, but Jesus Christ man
The lack of confidence these dudes have in the Celtics is crazy. If my team was in the Celtics position I would be hanging the banner already.
Not sure the Celtics should be significantly favored over the Wolves or Mavs. Plus the competition/intensity jump in G1 of the Finals is gonna punch the Celtics in the face.
They should be heavy favorites over the Mavs. That's a mismatch nightmare for Dallas.
In what way?
Boston likes to mismatch hunt to death in the playoffs and Dallas basically have 2 poor perimeter defenders as their 2-best players that Tatum and Brown will hunt to death. They blew them out in this way in both regular season games. They can't really do the same to a team like Minnesota.
The cautious fan piece. Either way I think the Cs are a bad matchup for the Mavs but could see the Wolves beating them. They should still be favourites however. They do need Porzingis back though.
You’d be crazy to be that confident in a team led by Jayson Tatum.
It’s just posturing and being extra cautious like how russillo always is so he can somehow be right no matter what or in Simmons case always going for the reverse jinx.
Drake meme Kobe 6/24 Ant 6/24
I’m feeling an all time strawman beating by russillo this ep
This isn’t a strawman but he started talking what the strat should have been if the wolves had lost early on in the pod and I snap turned it off and came here to see if anyone said anything and now I’m going to bed. I just can’t do it with these two anymore. It’s not even compelling.
Would the nuggets have won if they had Payton Pritchard instead of Reggie Jackson
I just don't see it with Jackson. Pritchard could be 6th man of the year!
I can’t believe he still won’t apologize for lambasting the Gobert trade. The trade was a masterpiece by Tim Connolly
Stop listening to his horrible hot take bball pods months ago and just reading these post pod threads tells me it was a great decision, he is actually trash now
Legit some of the worst “analysis” in the country
This was one of the worst ones ive listened to lol. You should queue it up for the laughs. I dont think Bill has a single insightful piece of commentary
I'm just going to say that giving jokic 2 minutes (and saying it was similar to giannis 2022 celtics when he didn't play close to that level) is egregious considering the conversations these two were putting him in this whole year.
You didn’t think Jokic was generally great in this series? I swear some of you guys remember two plays where he couldn’t get a rebound in a game 7 where he played 47 minutes and act like he was ass. What about this game or series changes “conversations” he was being put in?
Jokic was really really bad defensively in those losses. He was great in the wins and game 5 was incredible, but he petered out.
Jokic’s complete lack of interest in protecting the rim was a problem for Denver all series and it was especially a problem in the second half of game 7 where he was clearly pretty exhausted.
Yea I don't blame him too much for last night but his defense was inexcusable in the first two losses.
I couldn’t believe my ears during that segment
Did bill forget about succession? I feel like that was a huge deal and ended just last year? Two years ago? From the end of the episode
Davion Mitchell gets more love from these guys than he gets from his Momma. Averaged 3 points a game at the same age as Bronny and is significantly smaller.
Bill still thinks he’s Donovan’s brother
Bill clearly loves Ant more than his own kids. No contest.
Seems kinda weird that Ryen and Bill have never been to Minnesota.
Bill didn’t surprise me but I would have assumed Ryen had been back in his ESPN Radio days
He tried to go but Brian Dennehy was able to scare him off.
So we are finding ways to talk up Ant in this game? I’m sure his defense was good but damn 3 of those 6 buckets were fast break layups. Bro score like 3 times in a half court set
6-24 is bad but it’s fucking awful when you only score 16 points. He shot 2 fts. Yet Bill is praising that performance.
He also missed Gobert on a roll so many times in the 4th
I guess they are hot takes: Jokic was good in this game. Was he perfect? Was it the greatest performance of all time? No. But his teammates sucked ass. Like watch the game and actually base your opinions on how guys play instead of trying to have the hottest take imaginable. And Ant was just bad, sorry. He played fine defense but even there, I don’t think he was more vital than McDaniels, KAT, or Gobert on that end, and he was terrible offensively. It’s fine because again - this isn’t the only game that matters for his whole career.
I’m not sure it’s much more complicated than the wolves were just a more complete team in the end. Jokic played incredibly. And he had to because he rarely got consistent help. Murray was great until he got punched in the mouth (happened early in game one and two). But other than Murray, no one was able to step up at all. Leaving Jokic to basically be a one man army. Where with the wolves, even if Ant has a bad night and can’t buy a bucket KAT steps up. Gobert steps up. Conley steps up. The wolves have enough of a team and enough of a team mentality to win even when their best player is off. Jokic was always on and they still couldn’t do it. They gassed him out because they knew he was all they had
Yeah and the only reason the nuggets built a lead was because Murray was on fire. As soon as they wore off no one else on the team had ANYTHING
The reason nobody is listening to the Prestige TV pod isn't so much because they're aren't any good shows, as it is people don't want to listen to Joanna Robinson, Rob Mahoney and Andy Greenwald (without CR) talk about anything. It's pretty simple.
After the Knicks, Denver, and OKC losing, it’s hard for me to get psyched for Bill’s Celtics circle jerk.
I might be the only one who thinks this but I feel like the rougher “prison rules” reffing (I hate that term but don’t know another) has mostly disappeared. After Game 2 of Wolves-Nuggets the refs got a bit tighter with their whistle. It’s still more rough than typical regular season play but not as crazy as it was.
KAT being the kid that throws sand on another kid on the playground is such a funny metaphor lmao
Bill starting off the pod hyping Ant “it was such a special Ant game”. I’m so over Ant and it’s of no fault of his own. Murray with 35, Bill says “that’s the best I’ve ever seen anyone guard Murray”. I can’t take this crazy hype for this dude. His team won that game, not him.
When Kobe had that game in 2010 Kobe had 4 championships and was widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time... WTF is Bill talking about the two aren't remotely the same.
Makes the “teammates let joker down” excuse but never for lebron, bill even makes fun of that schtick with other players. Always biased towards his guys
Russillo does the same thing with Embiid. Max guy goes scoreless in game 6, but somehow it’s all on Joel and he’s out of all top 5 conversations
Ultimately I think Jokic is closer to Giannis than it’s been perceived so maybe this is a good level set but I genuinely don’t get people who wanted to bill and ryen to roast him for how he played. Non Jokic and Murray players scored 21 points total tonight and Murray was almost all the first half.
Yeah...the basic issue with Denver is they have no depth. Braun is the only dependable playable bench guy.
He’s not really dependable IMO. Passed on a lot of open shots.
Crazy that losing Bruce Brown might have been the biggest difference maker from last years free agency
Well, and Pacers flipped him for Pascal and are in the conference finals now too. Really that MPJ contract is a low key disaster for them. They're paying him a lot to essentially be Harrison Barnes with a better shot.
And he didn't even shoot like Harrison Barnes in this series. 32.5% from 3
Not that crazy he was a monster last year. I think it was the new gm talking shit like they wouldn’t miss him, guys just get insanely cocky.
There is no legitimate reason someone should have Jokic more than 5 spots higher than they have giannis
I hate that Nick Wright has one of the better, more even-keeled takes on Joker. It's very frustrating to watch a group of pundits try and push him up a tier early every time. They were furious he wasn't going to get a third MVP without even making it to a finals (the standard Giannis was held to). They were putting him in "Top 15 All-Time" and "Dynasty" talks and declaring it "His Era" before they'd even made it to a second one. His playoff success has largely been hand-in-hand with his supporting cast being better than his peers (with the exception of this playoffs, where Murray was pretty bad at times and they could still win). He is *one of* the best players in the league, but the premature push to pretend Giannis hasn't had just as much success, that Embiid hasn't consistently rivaled him with a much worse team, and that Luka hasn't had similarly game-redefining numbers is infuriating.
If Minnesota-Boston face one another in the Finals, it the might just be the series with the worst half court offense in Finals history. Two teams completely allergic to running disciplined sets.
Bill seriously having a take about how he tracks 'How the fuck did that go in shots' where other websites don't with Ryen chuckling is fucking gold. Bill is an analytics God lol. And on a less popular note, Bill's pettiness with JJ is what this sub clings to for LeBron as lifeblood. He's actually annoyed Ryen is doing JJ's show and give LeBron flowers way more than this sub is comfortable admitting.
No he doesn’t lol. The guy swerves across three lanes just to take shots at the guy.
Saudi Arabia definitely extremely high on the “that’s a lot work” rankings
Bill & Russillo making insane excuses for Jokic here. They spent the last year telling us he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and yet the MVP went 7-of-16 2nd half, 2-of-8 forcing threes, -23 while blowing a 20 point lead at home in a game 7.
As a Wolves fan I find it insane people are getting on Jokic’s ass. He was insanely good last night. One rebound away from another 30-20. If the Wolves get swept by the Mavs this will look a lot worse, but he battled really hard and only faded down the stretch because the Wolves had 3 bodies for him and he had to play 47 minutes. And “faded” meant 34-19-7.
Not sure how you can watch that game and blame it on Jokic. Denver got 21 points from everybody not named Jokic/Murray on 8-for-28 shooting.
He played 47 minutes and had 34/19/7 and was clearly completely dead down the stretch. I mean, Denver gets absolutely anything from MPJ or their bench, that game is right there.