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00:00You need to expand on what you just said. So, start with Define Rivalry.
00:05Rivalry is a matchup among teams where there is history, and some bad blood, and a game that rises above the level of a normal regular season game.
00:17Okay, and then earlier today you said to me, and I want you to explain this, that this, the Warriors and Celtics are a reverse Chiefs Niners.
00:26Yeah, and the Chiefs Niners is, the Niners are the little brother, where they have not gotten over on the Chiefs, and the Chiefs have won, what, three Super Bowls now?
00:35Including two over you, and so, you are the little brother in the relationship.
00:40And in this one, I think that Boston is the little brother, even though they are defending champs, and they've got their neat little cute little one title in this era.
00:50I know they have many, many more, going back to Bill Russell, and Paul Pierce, and the rest of it, but I think that they still look at this Warrior team as being the big brother.
01:00And maybe not coming off of last year, but in general, you look at the Warriors, and when the Warriors come to your town, and you've got Steph and Draymond, you get up for that game.
01:11And Jason Tatum, having been mostly snubbed by Steve Kerr in the Olympics, I do think he has a chip on his shoulder.
01:19And so, if you're Boston, and you also think about the owner, Joe Lacob was a minority owner with Boston, and then he broke away from there, bought this team, and the rest is ongoing history.
01:30So, I do think that Boston looks at the Warriors a little bit like the Niners look at the Chiefs.
01:36I love this. I think you're probably right. I can't get my mind around being a Boston fan, and I mean that in about 18 different ways.
01:45I am never, ever, and this isn't me being a coastal elite, but I'm never going to wear a t-shirt that has another human being's name on it that says, that person is a B.
01:56That's just not really in my personality, but if that's you, have a great time, get a beer, get a dog, scream and yell, have a great time.
02:08But I think you're on to something, which is that, I don't know if rivalry is the right word, but what you sort of said when we were talking about this earlier,
02:19is when these two teams get together, no matter the scenario or the backdrop, it feels big.
02:26In other words, this is Game 8. Whatever. It's Game 8. There's absolutely nothing on the line.
02:35But there is, just because. It just feels big.
02:41Sunday Night Football two weeks ago was a 3-4 team against a 3-3 team, and the 3-4 team we think might be good.
02:50The 3-3 team we all thought stinks. Guess what? Spoiler alert, they do, and now they lost their quarterback.
02:57But it felt big, because you had big brands and big history, and so on that level is where I'll agree with you tonight.
03:06Yeah, and I think that when these two teams get together, at least for the time being, it is elevated.
03:11Like, you want to go Friday against Cleveland, it's an elevation sensation.
03:16I was going to say. Like, my God. Thank you.
03:19I'm like, he's not going to miss this one, is he?
03:21And you should actually play the Tim Roy when the original gets orated. It's an elevation sensation.
03:27Does it even count anymore? He even admitted to us last week, he barely uses it anymore.
03:32No, but when he does, it's so magical.
03:34It's a big deal.
03:35And I love it when I hear it, and it makes me smile, because it makes me think that he's doing it for me.
03:39Because I've asked him time and time again, and you did it too, can you please, can you use it more?
03:44Can you just do it, please?
03:45I mean, come on, Tim. If somebody dunks, can you just do it?
03:48Oh, I mean, it's like going to a concert of your favorite group and they won't play the best song.
03:52No doubt.
03:53Like, come on, man, give us what we came for.
03:55That's exactly it.
03:57I feel like it kind of cheapens his overall acumen as a broadcaster.
04:01And I get that.
04:02I don't want to pressure him.
04:03He's trying not to overexpose it.
04:04Right.
04:05And that's fine.
04:06But we're going to be here to encourage him to do exactly the opposite.
04:09No doubt.
04:10And I think that when these two teams get together, it does become elevated.
04:14Like Friday against Cleveland, LeBron's gone, and Cleveland's good.
04:18But it doesn't feel like, oh, hey, Warriors-Cavs, it's a finals rematch.
04:24No, it's really not.
04:25Because they don't have anybody remaining who played.
04:28Kevin Love is gone.
04:29Kyrie's gone.
04:30LeBron's gone.
04:31Tristan Thompson is somewhere.
04:33And you get the point.
04:34I think he's actually in Boston.
04:35I could be wrong.
04:36Who knows?
04:37The point is.
04:38Whatever.
04:39Like an OKC.
04:40Yeah, we can all hearken back to game six clay and that was cool.
04:43But that team is totally different as well.
04:45But when you get to Boston and it's just a couple years removed from the NBA finals.
04:51And remember that series where the Warriors were in trouble.
04:54Draymond went there after a split here.
04:57And it was F-you Draymond.
05:00Draymond's a B.
05:01He played poorly.
05:02He got flustered.
05:03They lost by 16.
05:04You're down 2-1.
05:05Yeah.
05:06Facing a 3-1 hole on the road.
05:08And then da, da, da, da, da.
05:10Da, da, da, da.
05:11Here comes Steph.
05:12Yeah, dude.
05:13That was.
05:14I'll still.
05:15You and I have talked about it so many times.
05:18That was one of my top five favorite Bay Area sort of championship or late playoff moments that I can remember.
05:26And brought the boys and did the watch party inside Chase Center.
05:30Oh, that's right.
05:31Where Chase Center opened up and we watched that game there.
05:33But you remember the 48-hour news cycle leading up to that game?
05:37Dude, it was a death march.
05:38Yep.
05:39The Warriors were done.
05:40And Boston was the better team.
05:42And they were going to clearly do this, that, and the other.
05:45They never won another game.
05:46No.
05:47They never won another game.
05:48Steph went 14 of 26.
05:497 of 14 from 3.
05:51He had 43.
05:54Clay was 18.
05:56Wiggins was 17.
05:57Thank you, Andrew.
05:58That's the Andrew we need again tonight.
06:00I remember that, Andrew.
06:01107-97.
06:02The Warriors snatch it back at Boston.
06:05And they didn't lose again.
06:06They never lost again.
06:07And I do think that even though Boston had their title last year, which was great.
06:11They were, again, a very good team.
06:13And they handled their business.
06:15I still think when Golden State comes to town and the chef in that building,
06:20there still is that feeling of, oh, we've got to get this guy.
06:23And now that Steve Kerr has disrespected Jason Tatum by not playing him in the Olympics,
06:30P.S. they still won gold, I think that there's layers to the rivalry.
06:33Our buddy, Anthony Slater.
06:36Anthony Slater said this earlier today with regard to Kerr facing Boos tonight.
06:42He knows what's coming.
06:43The good thing for the Warriors is, to me, that's the best guy in their organization.
06:48He loves to take that stuff and kind of get the spotlight off his players.
06:52Draymond in the locker room the other night was joking that he won't be booed as hard
06:57because the attention is shifted away from him.
07:00This is a place that always loves to go after Draymond.
07:02Not that they won't have some venom for him tonight,
07:04but I don't worry about how Steve Kerr handles a situation like that
07:08because that's literally probably what he's best at at his job.
07:11Just kind of like shoulder pressure and handling that.
07:14That stuff doesn't seem to faze him.
07:16Steve doesn't need to shoot the ball tonight, so that's perfect.
07:20If I'm a head coach and I can get the opposing fan base to focus on me
07:26as opposed to heckling the players on my team, that's a win.
07:30Perfect.
07:31What the hell is that going to do to Steve?
07:33He's just going to smile and sit in a chair.
07:35Yeah, and maybe call a play or two and argue a call and challenge another
07:40and clap and basically hang out.
07:43Steve's not going to be too deterred, I think, with his four titles.
07:47Joe Mazzulla, great coach.
07:49His winning percentage is bananas since he took over.
07:52He's got the one title, and he might have the best team in basketball again,
07:55but this is just one game.
07:57So if they want to boo Steve Kerr, I think he's going to pull through.
08:01Yes, he will.
08:02But listen now to the differing takes that have come earlier today from Boston
08:08with regard to what this means to the little brothers of the Warriors,
08:13the Boston Celtics.
08:15So you guys were talking about in the crossover, the visit with Cornbread Maxwell.
08:21This is with Stein and Goo, but it's with Goo and Evan.
08:24And this is what he said about Steve Kerr sitting Jason Tatum
08:28and what it means tonight.
08:30Well, here's the thing, and I talked to Jason Tatum about this
08:33and asked him, you know, I said,
08:35people want to say you're upset, you didn't play.
08:38But Steve Kerr's job, and I might be one of the few people in here,
08:41his job was to win an Olympic gold medal.
08:44Not to make friends, and he did his job.
08:46He won a gold medal.
08:48Now, Jason Tatum wasn't playing well,
08:50and I don't think he deserved all that time that people wanted to give him.
08:55That's a big-time take now coming from somebody that's so embedded in Boston.
09:00But Bonte and Joe earlier today talked to Gary Washburn,
09:05who covers the Celtics, and listen to how different this answer is.
09:09Kerr will get a lot more vitriol from the fans than he will from obviously from Tatum.
09:14I mean, the fans are going to remember they have long memories,
09:17so Kerr is going to get family booed when he's introduced as the head coach.
09:21And I think Tatum privately has had this game circled.
09:25He hasn't said much about it.
09:27He's not going to say much about it.
09:29Of course he wants to play well in front of his Olympic coach.
09:32He wants to show that he should have played in both of those games against Serbia,
09:35that he shouldn't have been benched.
09:37He wants to show that he's a top-five player at the national TV audience.
09:41Obviously it's the Warriors, it's Steph, it's Draymond,
09:44the team that beat him in the finals two years ago.
09:46So there's a lot of motivation for Tatum and for the Celtics,
09:49but I think Tatum is ready for this game.
09:51Perfect.
09:53Get up for this one, Jason.
09:55Circle it.
09:56Let them know.
09:57This one's bigger than the others,
09:59because when the game's bigger than the others, you shrink.
10:05That's been his history.
10:07I'm not calling him a choke artist.
10:09The guy's had a lot of games played in the playoffs.
10:12He's had some good ones, but he's a lesser player in the playoffs,
10:16as evidenced by the hardware on Jalen Brown's shelf.
10:21No doubt.
10:23You look at what he was doing in the finals, and he was good,
10:27but he wasn't as good as Jalen Brown,
10:29and they win that series mostly because of Jalen Brown,
10:32and not so much Jason Tatum.
10:35You look at those games in the Olympics,
10:37and they beat Serbia, and Steve played 10 guys,
10:41and then they beat France, and Steve played 10 guys,
10:44and it was Halliburton, and it was Tatum,
10:48the two guys who didn't play.
10:50Kevin was right about the math of it, because you don't have 240 minutes.
10:54You only have 200 minutes because they play four 10-minute quarters,
10:58so the minutes are harder to dole out,
11:01but KD and LeBron and Booker and Steph and Anthony Davis,
11:05they didn't have a hard time playing big minutes,
11:07nor did Holiday, who played 19 minutes.
11:11So there were minutes that could have gone around
11:14if he was going to be an impactful player, but he wasn't at that time.
11:17Let me count this up real quick.
11:191, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, plus 14, plus 6.
11:26That's 20.
11:2730.
11:2810 plus 14 plus 6 is 30.
11:31No, no, no.
11:32That was an aggregation sensation.
11:34That's a buck, and it's 20.
11:35I was doing 10 plus 4 to 4, so this is 20.
11:38He played 20 playoff games last year.
11:41How many times?
11:42Game show music, please.
11:44How many times do you think that Jason Tatum went over the 25-point mark
11:49in his 20 playoff games just last year?
11:55I would guess, and I should probably milk this a little bit
11:59because this is kind of a big deal.
12:01Yeah, this is a really big deal.
12:02I'm just remembering in the finals
12:04where he might have gone over that number once in the five games,
12:09but earlier series, he probably got there at least once a series.
12:13I'm going to say five out of the 20 times he got over 25 points.
12:17Time out.
12:18Time out.
12:19Stop the darn music.
12:20No, no, no.
12:21Okay, I found it.
12:22I found it.
12:23I lost it, and then I found it.
12:24You're saying five?
12:25Five of 20 is my guess.
12:26Five times.
12:27Okay, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
12:321.
12:33Over 25, you're saying?
12:34Yeah.
12:351, 2, 3, 4, 5.
12:37Okay, 8.
12:386, 7.
12:398.
12:40I got 8.
12:42Yeah, 8.
12:438 of 20.
12:44There you go.
12:45What is going on here?
12:46Yeah, it's all right.
12:47NBA Finals, maybe here's a better way to say it.
12:50Three times in a five-game series, and I know they won.
12:56He didn't even get to 20.
12:57He didn't even get to 20 in three of the five games in the NBA Finals
13:02against the Dallas Mavericks last year.
13:05Right.
13:06One of those games, they lost by 38.
13:07Yeah, okay.
13:08So, I mean, he had 15.
13:10They lost by 38.
13:11And he was a minus 38, so he's out there for all of it.
13:15Yeah, minus 33.
13:16Yeah.
13:17No, I got him at a minus 38.
13:18Anyway, whatever.
13:19It's crazy.
13:20Yeah, numbers are numbers.
13:21But those are my numbers.
13:22Oh, no, no, I see now.
13:24You're right, minus 33.
13:25So he's out there for a good portion of it.
13:27He's out there for a good portion of it.
13:29The greater point is that Jalen Brown was better than he was,
13:33and when you got to a spot where the 12 best players in America
13:38were fighting tooth and nail for a gold medal that wasn't guaranteed,
13:42he played zero minutes and zero minutes in the two biggest games
13:46our country has faced in decades.
13:49That, to me, is the biggest takeaway.
13:51And actually, for me, sometimes this does get whittled down to a small sample.
13:57I'll tell you the one that really got me on this,
14:00and it's not last year, it's the year before.
14:02So this is the year after the Boston Celtics have been beaten
14:06by the Golden State Warriors for the NBA championship,
14:09and Jason Tatum is the best player on Boston,
14:12and they were supposedly the best team in the East,
14:15and they were out to avenge their loss against the Golden State Warriors.
14:19And they went all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals
14:22against the upstart eight-seed Miami Heat,
14:27and Game 7 was on Jason's floor.
14:32That's when an NBA superstar steps forward, right?
14:37Game 7, your floor, you're favored,
14:41you're avenging a loss in the NBA Finals the year before.
14:45And this guy went out there and scored 14 points
14:50and watched his team get blown off the floor by 19
14:55so that the Miami Heat could go to the NBA Finals
14:58and lose to the Denver Nuggets.
15:00That's, to me, that's the stuff that we've seen happen
15:04multiple times in the past when Jason Tatum circles a game.
15:07So I hope he circles tonight.
15:09Go ahead, circle it.
15:11Go out there with something to prove.
15:13Show Steve Kerr that he's a jerk.
15:15Do it.
15:16I hope that's exactly what happens from Jason Tatum tonight.
15:20Yeah, he had 14 points in 41 1⁄2 minutes as they got blasted,
15:27but to his, I mean, not to his credit, but to his case,
15:31they all were bad.
15:32They shot 39% as a team, and Miami took it to them.
15:36There wasn't a one Celtic outside of maybe Moccas Smott
15:41who was even halfway decent in that game.
15:43I feel you.
15:44But that was a home game, and Miami came in,
15:47and Jimmy Buckets took your soul with 28 points
15:52in a pretty lopsided, comfortable win.
15:54Yep, yep.
15:55So I look at Jason Tatum as a really, really good player
15:59who still has a couple of things to prove.
16:03Oh, yeah, look at this.
16:05FS1 right now.
16:06Is tonight, this is their question.
16:08You know how the debate shows do.
16:09Yep.
16:10Let's put a silly question on the board and then yell at each other about it.
16:13Here's the question.
16:14Is tonight a Tatum revenge game against Steve Kerr?
16:20And below that is my favorite.
16:22Kerr benched Tatum twice in the 2024 Olympics.
16:26Did he?
16:27I didn't know he put him in in the first place.
16:28That's my point.
16:29The whole word benched.
16:31He was not benched.
16:33He just was the 11th man, and they were playing 10.
16:36So was Kaminga benched because Steve chose to play him more,
16:40but not at the start of the game?
16:42No, of course not.
16:43Now, was Tatum benched, or was he just the 11th best player
16:47in a rotation where you're not even playing 10?
16:50I'd argue Kaminga was more benched than Tatum
16:52because he was a starter and got moved to the bench.
16:55Tatum was never in there in the first place.
16:57No, he played group play minutes when he was playing everyone
17:01knowing that you were going to beat South Sudan.
17:04888-957-957 is the number.
17:07Here's the other thing we really want to get to on this,
17:09and that is what are you, the Warrior fan, looking for tonight?
17:15Because we thought this was one of the more interesting things
17:18that Steve Kerr said to us yesterday,
17:20and if you want to listen to the whole thing in full
17:22because Steve is also, and always, fantastic.
17:25You can go to the Odyssey app.
17:27You can find it on YouTube, the full interview with Steve Kerr
17:31from yesterday right here on Willard & Dibbs.
17:34But I threw out to him this next three-game stretch.
17:37You're 6-1. That's fancy. That's fun.
17:40But people will look at it and go, yeah, but you haven't played anybody.
17:43So a lot of fans are thinking, hey, this next three-game stretch,
17:47I'm waiting for that before I assess this team.
17:51And I said, Steve, what would you say to fans who feel that way?
17:56In the course of 82 games, the schedule can go back and forth.
18:00Your health, lots of stuff can happen.
18:03If you win 6 out of 7 in February,
18:06it doesn't get on the radar as easily as it does
18:10when you win 6 of your first 7 to start the season.
18:13So I know everybody is singing our praises,
18:17but the schedule has been kind to us to this point,
18:20and we're about to play probably the three best teams in the league
18:24the rest of this week.
18:26So great test for us. No matter what happens,
18:28we've got a ton of work ahead of us.
18:30I'm excited because when I watch the tape,
18:32I see all kinds of growth ahead of us.
18:35But it's going to take a lot of work, and it's going to take some time.
18:37Okay. So Steve is like, yeah, the schedule has been easy.
18:42So now we're going to see what we're made of.
18:44A, I think he's talking to his team, and that's fine.
18:48And I am very aware that professional sports fans do not like moral victories.
18:54They don't like talking about it. They don't like acknowledging it.
18:57But what do you consider success for the remaining three games on this road trip?
19:02Win one game. Just win one of the three.
19:05And tonight's going to be very difficult
19:07because Boston was 37-4 at home last year.
19:11Boston beat you last year when you played in Boston.
19:14And I do think that they're going to be all kinds of ready
19:18and agitated and fired up for this game.
19:22And the Warriors are too.
19:24And I think that Boston's got some injuries they're dealing with.
19:26Jalen Brown won't play.
19:28And Chris Stapps has had surgery.
19:30He'll be out for who knows how many years
19:32because that guy always gets hurt. You feel for him.
19:34But Boston still is very deep.
19:36They're good, and they're tough at home.
19:38So this game for me is a difficult one.
19:40But if you can win one of the three
19:42and then come back for clay night next Tuesday at 7-3,
19:47that to me would be a moral victory.
19:49I would argue and then win that one.
19:52So in other words...
19:53Yeah, but I'm just focused on the next three games of the trip.
19:55Fair.
19:56And if you go 3-2 on this road trip...
19:58That's fine.
19:59We talked about it last week, like 3-2 would be awesome.
20:01I agree.