React Pod: The Raptors simply aren't good enough for the playoffs

Hello and welcome. I'm your host Lou. You are listening to the Raptors reaction podcast, which is a presentation of Tony Bet online sports book and casino. Raptors lose 115 to 101. This was, uh, perhaps the most predictable outcome possible. Um, would really advise you to bet the house on the Celtics to win. Um, and yeah, the Raptors are now 1 and 10 on the season against the top three in the Eastern Conference. Uh, they still do have one more loss coming up against the New York Knicks. Uh, they will probably lose that as well. So they'll finish the season 1 and 11 against the top three in the conference. And of course, uh, Raptors are in this play-in playoff race, whatever. But most likely they will be seeing one of these top three teams. If they get the sixth spot, if they get through the play-in and get the seventh or the eighth, they're going to see one of these top three. And we're going to see a rerun of a game like this.

Um, I really want to preface this by saying that even after last game, uh, against the Grizzlies, when we looked ahead to this one, you know, I, I told you exactly what's going to happen. Um, everyone knows that I'm not some sort of mind reader, not a fortune teller. I think I just watch Raptors basketball and I watch a lot of Celtics basketball as well. Again, you, you could bet anything on the Celtics taking this game. I don't know what circumstance would have needed to happen, uh, for Toronto to potentially steal this. Um, the simple fact is that the Raptors are not good enough for a playoff team. And the playoffs are a week from now, two weeks from now. We'll see if they're even good enough to advance in the play-in, because some of these play-in teams are quite frankly getting quite good. Charlotte, um, you know, Philadelphia, Atlanta, I guess some of those guys have actually jumped the Raptors in that stretch. So maybe they're not playing teams, but, um, yeah, the simple fact is the Raptors are just not good enough for the playoffs. And, you know, we, we can fight like hell to get to the playoffs. I want them to, you know, if it's a lie, you got to fight on this lie. Um, but we all know exactly what's coming. And we've known for months now, right? This isn't a surprise. This isn't a one-off. You can't find an excuse for this. I'm sure Darko will find a silver lining. I promise you. Just like how, you know, you could see that the Celtics are going to beat the Raptors the entire way. I, I can promise you that Darko will go to the podium and say some version of, "I thought we fought hard and, you know, we didn't make shots and this other team made shots." You know, like, I, I, I promise you he will use the good effort thing. And honestly, it was a good effort, 'cause if the Raptors brought this level of effort consistently, then they wouldn't have lost to Sacramento last week, right? You can't lose to Sacramento and expect to come into Boston and get anything. But if they played like this, which they played very hard against Boston, if they played like this against Sacramento, we wouldn't need this win as much. But again, the situation is what it is. And again, I, I circle back to this. I'm going to say this a hundred times in this episode. The Raptors are not good enough for the playoffs. And this is a thing that applies to pretty much everybody in the team and pretty much everybody in the organization. And this is not me coming personally at anybody. This is not me being negative on the team. Um, you know, my job as a reporter is to accurately report what I see. And if it's just my, my opinion, I'm going to try to give you my most accurate opinion. So again, this is about everybody on the team. And this is not a reaction to this game, because again, this game confirms what 11 other games have confirmed. One and 10 against the top three. Raptors are not good enough for the playoffs. And this starts from top down.

Okay, look, I, I'll give Scotty Barnes a lot of credit for how he guarded. He fought like hell. Um, certain moments he really anticipated what Boston was going to do and get steals and get the Raptors on the fast break. The fact that he has 10 points on five of 18 shooting, all of three from three, six rebounds, eight assists, three steals, four turnovers. It's, he wasn't the problem in the sense that he's not the weakest point in the team. In fact, he's one of the strongest ones in the team. But when you're looking at, "I'm going to go into battle against Boston, can my top guy play anywhere close to their top guys?" And if not, then can my top guy stop one of their top guys? Jaylen Brown 26 points. Jason Tatum 23 points. They were both in the positive. Scotty minus 15. And I would say I was, I, I'm a little disappointed, but I'm not. Um, Scotty's had so many points in that 10 to 15 range. Nights like this have been very consistent. It's a constant, really. And you could point to, you know, he might be banged up or he might be exhausted or, you know, like the spacing's not good. You know, one thing I don't want to make excuses for is the stars. The, the stars set the tone. Um, if you come in every game and you're looking to attack and you're looking to score and you're forcing the defense to break like how Tatum and how Brown do, or even how Peyton Pritchard does, then you wouldn't have these kind of games. And I understand most stars aren't tasked with this much defense. Okay, but at the same time, 10 points when you're getting single covered as a lead guy, not playoff quality.

Moving on, Brandon Ingram, the other All-Star. Look, I'm happy for Brandon that he turned it on towards the fourth quarter. Had a stretch there where had a turnaround jumper over Brandon Ingram. Uh, he had a couple driving assists, which was nice. Had a spin move, spun through three defenders and finished it on the glass. And, you know, I was like, "Wow, okay." Like, you know what? He, he can score, right? Because my mind's not playing tricks on me that, you know, Brandon Ingram can't score. Brandon Ingram can score, but he cannot score at will and he gets taken out of the game. Um, first half, Brandon Ingram had made like one shot on like seven attempts. And yeah, Boston was doing clever things like stunting an extra guy in the mid-range so that he couldn't, you know, pull up for his, you know, signature mid-range jumper. He couldn't really hit the mid-range jumper either. Um, you know, they didn't really send a double team at him necessarily because again, they have strong wing defenders, but, you know, they, they often stunted a second guy at him, um, you know, forced him to give up the ball. I mean, yeah, guess what? That's, that's what most stars face. Every star in the league faces that. You think teams just go into games like, "Hey, man. I'm not going to have a game plan against your star player, your leading scorer. I'm not going to, I don't have a game plan against him. I'm going to let him play single coverage on whichever defender." Right. Um, no, there's a game plan and often that game plan beats Brandon Ingram. Brandon got her to go in late, you know, had a nice block at the rim. That was encouraging. But again, in a game like this, you need Scotty and Brandon to go toe-to-toe with Tatum and Brown. Scotty with 10, Brandon with 15. The two of them shoot 11 for 27, go 0 for four from three, only shoot three free throws. Luckily, they made all three. And on the other side, Tatum and Brown combined for 49 points. They combined for three threes. They combined for 10 free throws made. Uh, they combined for 19 rebounds and 10 assists. Not good enough. Not playoff quality.

We keep moving down. Yaka Purle. Don't be deceived by seven of nine from the field for Yaka Purle. 'Cause Boston was pulling Namias Kada to guard anybody else other than Purle. Okay. Joe Mazoula, who was once so enamored with Purle, I think he like went out of his way to be like, "Wow, is that the best player ever in Yaka Purle?" Because Bak really a couple years ago had like 38 against the Celtics. I'm not even kidding. Look it up. It's inconceivable, but it was 38. It was 19 push shots that he made. Um, fast forward a couple years and by that time, Kada was like in the G-League. Couple years later, Kada, I would say dogging Yaka, but that that feels offensive to dogs. Um, the way he was pushing him around, winning rebounds, rolling to the basket, watching Tatum turn the corner downhill at Yaka Purle and Yaka Purle's deciding, "Well, okay, I got Kada rolling towards me and I can't jump with him and I can't bang with him. And then I also got Tatum coming down against and I can't really contest him or guard him one-on-one. I'm just screwed." Literally the entire game, the Celtics had to run one play. Jason Tatum, Nimas Kada pick and roll. And I mean, it's almost laughable that the Raptors were guarding it with RJ Barrett and Yako Purle. But I'm not kidding when I say they scored every single time and they got every single thing that they wanted. Okay. And yes, Jacob goes seven of nine. He had two rebounds tonight. Um, he played him 20 minutes. Darko, at least limited his minutes. Mercifully limited his minutes, but it was all negative. Completely negative. Every time he was on the floor, Boston attacked him. He made no contribution. And yeah, he got a couple, you know, put in, you know, put backs and, you know, little push shots here or there. It had no effect on the game. Not even close.

RJ Barrett, R.J. just praised you a lot in the Memphis game. Gave you a lot of credit. So, this is not personal when I say he was the worst of the five starters, even worse than YaKob. Granted, you probably is not ideal to ask R.J. Barrett to guard Jason Tatum. I don't care how many times Tatum has gone under the knife. Jason Tatum is a future Hall of Famer, first ballot, NBA champion, um, when healthy, MVP level player. Guarding him with RJ Barrett is, it, it's almost smacks of desperation. But you know what? If we're going to, we're going to try to, we're going to go ahead and try it. R.J. getting lost on coverages defensively. Um, RJ unable to fight over the big screens of Nimas Kada to stay with Tatum. Again, that became a two-on-one every single time. Um, especially against YaKob. But again, to a certain degree, you expect that. We know R.J.'s, you know, um, difference isn't going to be coming on the defensive end. It's going to come on the offensive end. And I'm happy for R.J. that he got a couple buckets to finally drop in the second half. But similar to Brandon Ingram, the, the impact is what they do offensively and it was a little too little too late for R.J. R.J. had a frustrating first half to the point where he picked up a technical on a play where he got, you know, ripped the ball ripped away from him. It was a foul. Like 100% I agree with R.J. It was a foul. He drove Tatum like ripped his shoulder off, then took the ball, and R.J.'s got a bad shoulder at the moment. So I can totally see why he's frustrated. But to not run back and instead run to the referee and throw an air punch towards him. I mean, air punch in, in the sense of like frustration. He wasn't anywhere close to punching him. But yeah, he picks up a tech 'cause the referee said, "Okay, I'm going to play on. I'm going to allow the Celtics hit this three. I'm going to hit the tech on you." And now it's a four-point play. And granted, the Raptors were able to respond. But it was just not good enough for RJ. There was no, no place on the floor for RJ Barrett tonight.

I'm going to leave the young guys out of this because my most impressive thing was watching Jacobe Walter, Colin Murray Boils, and at least in the first half, Jamal Shad operate. Second half, Jamal obviously got exposed. Um, but I, I liked how the young guys fought. I loved especially C&B and Jacobe. I mean, Jacobe missing the three free throws at the end. Don't take it to heart, man. You were going to lose this game regardless. But you were playing an excellent game, especially getting guarded by Derrick White, back cutting him, getting open threes, knocking them out, being confident, playing great defense, tying up Jaylen Brown, forcing jump balls, winning that jump ball. Um, C&B, you know, everybody was begging for you on the timeline. You know, Yakob, get out of here. C&B, come in. This is C&B's first year. He's undersized. He's, don't, I don't even know what position he's supposed to be, four or five. But that guy, he can just hoop. He can battle. You know, my big, my greatest compliment to both Jacobe and and C&B is they would actually make Boston's bench. A lot of these Raptors wouldn't make Boston's bench, let alone the starters. They would make Boston's bench. They're very, very good players. I'm happy for these guys. And Jamal, first half was good. Second half wasn't so good. At least he had a good first half. Um, so that, that covers most of the players, right? When I say it's a top-down issue, I mean it also applies to the coaching and it applies to the front office as well.

Let's talk about the coaching. Look, if you're going to have any hope of coming out of this game against Boston, you're going to have to, you're going to have to coach a hell of a game, okay? You're going to have to do every little thing possible to outwit your opponent, which means coming in with a better game plan than them. Adjusting on the fly quickly in a timely manner, using your timeouts in the most strategic ways, using your substitutions and your lineups in the most, uh, um, strategic ways. Coming out of timeouts with execution, the mental preparation to get a team ready to play. Um, you know, to, to recognize the urgency of the situation. You know, small things like how to use the challenge in the right way, taking an intentional foul, right down to the tiny details of who you substitute in for a jump ball. I, I cannot tell you with honesty that Darko does that.

Let's talk about the mentality going into this game. Okay, you know, you've been beaten by Boston, right? Everyone should know how urgent the situation is. It takes one second to open whatever sports app, right? ESPN, The Score, whatever you want to do. Open the app, check the standings. Huh. Okay. So, we need every game. All right. Cool. Uh, you're going into Boston. Your only hope is to punch first and hold on for dear life. And how do the Raptors open up? 10-2 for Boston. Darko has to call the first timeout. And how were the 10 points scored? Five layups, all uncontested. Raptors can't hit anything on the other end. Okay, credit to the Raptors for punching back, but you cannot tell me that Darko and the and the staff prepared them to play from the start of the game, because what I saw after the first four, four minutes when they were down 10-2 was the right way to play. Fight, punch back, resilient. You can't open like that. That's already a strike one. Strike two. You go into this game and you're like, "Okay, it, it, it already kind of sucks that I gotta intentionally guard RJ, uh, guard Tatum with RJ Barrett, right?" But I can see the gamble. T Brown's been better this year. I'm going to use Scotty on Brown. Um, and unless I'm going to use BI on this matchup, and I guess I need BI to conserve his energy so he can miss some more mid-range jumpers. Uh, I guess I got to sacrifice RJ for this. Fine. Okay. But you know going into it that this is going to be a real problem. So you need to both plan A, plan B, plan C, everything across the board for this. So if that's the case, um, and you come in the game and you see that Tatum and Kada are immediately working every pick and roll and scoring buckets. And again, this is literally from the first minute of the game to the middle of the fourth quarter. How do you not make the adjustment and say, "I got to go to plan B," which is clearly C&B is going to come in for Yakob. And I understand you can't play C&B, you know, the entire game, you brought him off the bench, so you've already limited his minutes. But you already see after the first, let's say the first quarter, okay, let's not even say the first, like shift or whatever. Let's just say after 12 whole entire minutes, you look at it, you're like, "Man, Yak can't really play against them right now. Yak's really bad tonight." Then you go into halftime. So, you played two entire quarters, 24 entire minutes. You go in, you have 15 minutes, you have your whole assistant coaching staff. Not one person was like, "Yo, man, we need this game. It's a five-point game at halftime. C&B is clearly better than YaKob in this matchup. They're clearly hunting C&B, like Yakob in that pick and roll with RJ. Let's change it up. Come out of the half, let's put C&B in." And don't say it's a novel idea. Oh, I can't break these eggs. I can't, I can't hurt somebody's feelings. We saw C&B start in the second half against the Kings earlier this week. So it wouldn't even be unprecedented. It's literally with precedent from this week. Okay. So you start the third quarter with the same problem. Boston goes on runs again, and then you finally take him out, and then in the fourth quarter, after the Raptors, you know the Raptors are weak in the fourth quarter, right? So Raptors are giving up the fourth quarter, and again, the Raptors during this time were punching back and forth. I was impressed. Trust me, I was entertained watching this. But there was a play where Mamu gets on an island with Jason Tatum, ends up, you know, getting crossed up, has to close the gap, ends up jumping into Tatum for three. Initially, the green lights are on. It looks like it's a challenge. Uh, the broadcast says it's a challenge. They come out as a timeout. Turns out, just kidding, it wasn't a challenge, which is good, by the way, because that was 100% a waste of a challenge, but the Raptors did call timeout. I was like, "Okay, interesting. So, we burnt, we only have two more timeouts to the last 10 minutes of the fourth quarter. That feels a little shy, right?" But okay, if Raptors use their timeout, but at least if they use their timeout, they can make substitutions. And I turn on the game and I'm like, "You know what? Jason Tatum's out there. Nas Kada is out there. They're hurting us with the exact same thing all game. And C&B is still not out there." You have all the agency in the world to make that adjustment. I'm sorry. Amateur coaches could have made that adjustment. Uh, you could grab a, you grab a random father from Hoopdom would have made that adjustment. Are we kidding me? And you know what was funny is I saw C&B sitting on the scores bench with Darko. So the intention was to sub him in. You just used the timeout. How is he not in the game? Right? And, and that's, and that's not even accounting for all the other stuff, right? Because I understand I'm not expecting, I'm not evaluating Darko on how can you beat Joe Misoula. Okay? You know, your team's worse. I'm saying even if your team is worse, even if you are the leader of an, you're the general of an army against a much bigger army, how do you outmaneuver them? How do you find advantages? How do you make your players play up to the standard? I promise you, if Joe Misoula and and Darkovakovic switch spots, the Raptors would not have been swept 4-0 this year. And the Raptors would not be fighting desperately, hopelessly for a top six at the end of the season. They'd be in that already because if you want to talk about development, which is the other aspect that Darko has brought in for, let's look at the development. Yeah. Okay. C&B and Jacobe played well tonight. Great. You know what Boston's de been developing? Payton Pritchard four picks ahead of Malachi Flynn. Malachi is getting into fights in Turkey. And Peyton Pritchard is putting your team on skates. For the entire four or five seasons, I've seen Peyton Pritchard, this demon, wearing 11 for the Celtics, getting low, crossover, bump, fade away. They've seen that for five years, six years now. Okay, so that's four picks apart. Pritchard and Flynn. Okay, how about when the Raptors had the advantage in, in the picks? They take Grady Dick 13th overall to become a shooter, to become a reliable game-changing shooter. And tonight, Sam Hower didn't really hit threes that much. What did Hower hit tonight? Hower was three of seven. Acceptable. Eight points, plus nine. You know, not, not great, but not bad, right? They got this guy undrafted. They just signed this guy off the street. Anyone could have had Sam Hower. He's better than Grady Dick. You know what? Baylor Shyman, he's better than Grady Dick. Okay, how about development of the other guys? How about this? The Raptors needed to pay 30 million for the next three, four years. They locked themselves into a subprime mortgage into Yakapurto's contract just so that they can solve the center problem. Meanwhile, Boston says, "All right, okay, we're capped out. You know, we just made a championship run that's going to cost a lot of our assets. Guys get old." Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis, you know, Raptors know what that's like, you know, you know, when Serge Ibaka got old. It sucks sometimes. You got to adjust. They're like, "Okay, bring in Namias Kada." Anybody could have had Namias Kada. Let's bring him in. Keep him on our system for a couple years. Couple years later, he's 18 points, nine of 10 shooting, seven rebounds, including four offensive, four assists as well, and is a plus 30 in the game. Arguably better in terms of impact than both Tatum and Brown were, and better than Derek White was. Right? So, when you want to talk development, it's not close. Boston's developed a lot of guys out of nothing in a short amount of time. Which also brings me to management. Also, not as good as Boston's management. Also not playoff-level management. When you look at your top one and two, offensively, they don't play like a top one and two, okay? There's just no debate about that. When you look at how many extra picks you have, at least the Raptors have all their own firsts, but they don't have any surplus firsts left. And this is after pivoting off of Fred, OG, Pascal. You're going to have to make a decision soon with Brandon Ingram. Are you going to keep him going forward? You are in a situation where Yak's contract's going to jump. You barely have enough for Mamu and a first-round pick. Probably can squeeze it in, but you know, no real adjustments there. RJ's going to want an extension. You're probably going to have to say no. Now you're going to have to, you're going to sell. Everyone's going to know you're going to have to sell. Grady's turned into nothing. And yeah, you got a couple hits in there. C&B, Jacobe, let's say that. Let's call that a double and a single. You know, Jamal's like a bunt, a sack bunt. Where's the home run? Got to hit a couple home runs, right? Ask the, ask the Toronto Blue Jays. They got to hit a couple home runs. They got shut out these days. You got to hit a couple home runs. Who are your home run hitters? You know what, Scotty? At four, that was a home run. But what have we surrounded him with since? And has the coach of the team, which was the most important hire at that time, was who can you bring in that's going to bring out what you believe Scotty is? What you believe pivoting the entire organization around Scotty is. Is is that guy going to bring that, that demon, that stated face of the league out of him, or is it going to be five years into this conversation and we're still like, "Sometimes I feel like he's not aggressive enough, sometimes like, why can't we get more of this? Maybe we should play him at point guard." Five years in. Look, I'm not saying that there is some sort of magical solutions out there. I'm not saying the Raptors skimp. I'm not saying the Raptor staff doesn't work hard. The players don't work hard. They work hard. Honest people, good people. Hurts me to say this because I'm going to have to see them in person and if they hear this, they might not like me. Tough. It's the truth about the team. They're just not good enough for the playoffs.

All right, enough of me ranting. Let's take a quick break and, uh, we'll get to your turn ranting about the team.

>> Hey, Will, how are you holding up as the seasons start to shift here in Toronto?

>> Honestly, I'm feeling pretty refreshed, man. We had a great time at NBA All-Star.

>> Oh, it was so great to get some sun on the West Coast. Me, and Jerome got to hang out together because we found the perfect place on Airbnb.

>> Yeah, you already know the deal, okay? For all these road trips that we got, for all these personal trips that we got, first place we start is by looking for a great place on Airbnb. And there's always lots of options to pick from.

>> Yeah. Quick drive to the arena, so it was perfect for work. We were able to get back home pretty early every night, hang out in the living room together, watch old NBA All-Star games, and when we got sick of each other, we just each went to our separate rooms, which was just perfect.

>> It was perfect. But I got to say, some of these old All-Stars, they were a problem.

>> Hey, back in the day, they took that game real serious. But, you know, I think for us this time, we found a great spot where it was in a great neighborhood. Um, we got to find our local breakfast places, which was huge. Huge. I mean, some of those smoothies just kept us alive on these trips, but we near some bars as well. And I think for what we wanted out of the trip, you know, both from a work and leisure perspective, it was, it was absolutely perfect.

>> Yeah. And I've got some vacation days. So, definitely going to be booking a couple more trips here. And I'm definitely going to be using Airbnb, especially their guest favorites feature, which is going to show me the highest rated homes on Airbnb.

>> Oh, hold on. I hope you got a room for me, 'cause after all these trips, I got separation anxiety, man.

>> Of course, bro.

>> Whenever we book a place to stay on Airbnb, we know that we'll find something that works for us.

>> Hey.

>> All right. So, um, with the loss, the Raptors are now back in the play-in position. Again, you knew this was a loss the entire way. Um, their title once again with Philadelphia. Uh, Philadelphia, um, lost to Detroit, so, uh, that's nice. Embiid, I think, was held out of that game. So, um, yeah, I think the rest of the schedule for the Sixers. So, they play, uh, four more games on the year. They play San at San Antonio, at Houston, at Indiana, and then versus Milwaukee. Um, I'm, man, it would be really great if they lost to two in Texas, you know, at San Antonio, at Houston. Um, we'll see sort of how that goes. I guess San Antonio still in the chase for, uh, the top overall spot in the West, even though they caught an L in overtime yesterday. Houston, you just never know with that team, but you just, whatever. I mean, honestly, Indiana has actually done us a huge favor, uh, many times. They are playing Houston and Indiana back-to-back nights, both on the road. So, you know, maybe we won't see Embiid or, um, PG. I think they'll probably try to force it and go, which is considering the fact that, you know, they're, they're fighting for that top six. But in any case, I think they'll probably go two and two is the most likely outcome, which means the Raptors would need to go three and one in the remainder of their schedule. The Raptors return home for, uh, two games against Miami Tuesday, Thursday, go to New York on Friday. So that's a back-to-back, um, and then close it out at home versus Brooklyn. If the Raptors play like this, that they did tonight, they probably can go three and one, but you will still need Philadelphia to go at least two and two in that stretch. So, um, that's sort of what the, what the playoff picture looks like at the moment. Anyway, we're going to take your questions as promised. So, let's take your comments in the chat. KM, give me the serious ones first. All right, no jokey ones. Let's, let's, let's stay in the serious mood for a sec. Barry sent in eight bucks. That whole game was all I could hear is Alex saying, "JT 43." Jacobe and C&B should be the building blocks for the future. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing. Jacobe and C&B are really good, you know, building blocks. I, again, I would categorize them as, um, a double and a single. Maybe you want to say a triple and a, and a double. I, I would, I would fight you on that, but I, I would definitely believe in both of these guys. Think they're, they fit what the Raptors want to do. They're two-way. I think it's been interesting watching Jacobe get more comfortable offensively. Even at times tonight, he was like turning the corner on dribble handoffs and shooting little mid-range and little floaters and stuff like that. Just like more dynamic than his typical three-and-D and, and, you know, cutting under the basket type of thing. Um, defensively very solid. And then C&B, man, C&B was like, honestly, C&B might have played as good as any Raptor tonight. And like, dude, considering you're the fact that you're in Boston doing this, but he's trying to rip the rim off with a, with a torn thumb, um, or with a sprained thumb. I mean, I, I mean, he's just, he's just impressive, man. And, you know, he was defending well. We got multiple stops on Jaylen Brown. Um, just, yeah, I mean, obviously the limitations like, you know, clearly, uh, if you're getting guarded on triple handoffs, you know, 10 feet off, you need to be able to shoot the three. So, you know, there should be some improvements there. Um, you know, there should be a lot of things, but ultimately for the ninth pick, which, you know, and there's no guarantees with the ninth pick, for the ninth pick, the Raptors really did a great job with C&B. So, yeah. So, I'm really excited for those guys and I was very gassed for them playing so well in the first, um, well, pretty much the first half and, and pretty much the entire second half for C&B as well in Boston. The East is going to be twice as good next season. Team is going to need some pretty major changes if we expect to be competitive. Um, yeah, I mean, East will be pretty tough. Uh, I guess we'll have to see what happens with Giannis. If Giannis ends up going to the Knicks, for example, that makes them even more, um, bun, like bunched up at the top of the conference. Boston's clearly going nowhere. Um, you know, Detroit's going nowhere. So that, that top three is going to be pretty unshakable. Honestly, Cleveland's probably going to still be a regular season, like, not juggernaut, but a very good team. Um, you know, this year they had a lot of injuries. So we'll see sort of, you know, once they bring back T, um, uh, Harden and stuff like that, like what they look like. Honestly, Atlanta, I'm, I'm curious to see how this sort of carries over because I'm, I'm still not 100% believing in Atlanta, but this, like, really uptempo style that they played with since trading Trey Young, having all sorts of shooters, playing like 10 guys on the rotation, multiple drivers and attackers, it is a hard team to guard, especially in the regular season context. Philadelphia, you got to presume that they're not healthier than they were this year because I don't think you can really assume better health for, uh, PG and Embiid, but they obviously were a little snake-bitten with those two guys. If you want to say that they're going to be good next year, Charlotte's going to be a problem next year. Orlando, Miami, they're probably going to stay where they are. Orlando's probably due for a big trade. Uh, Milwaukee is due for a big trade obviously with Giannis. Um, and then Indiana should make a jump up the standings as well, considering the fact that they're 18 and 59 this year. I think they lean in hard into tanking basically after their terrible start to the year. And with Haliburton coming back and Zubac added to the team, they still have a really, really formidable group, right? Um, so East will be harder, I think, on the whole. Um, so Rap's got to decide where they want to be 'cause they're decidedly a middling team. You know, they're not good enough for the playoffs, period. Right.

So, uh, when do we start flopping instead of fighting around screens? This team's a joke. No game plan on offense, no intensity on defense. I think, well, I, I honestly think that the intensity on defense was there, but honestly, like some of these guys, like RJ is just not good at navigating a screen. Like, ideally, you're hiding RJ defensively, not featuring him defensively against Tatum. And I guess what's the option, right? So, you could have maybe put, um, Jacobe on Tatum, and Jacobe is a much better defender, but he's a little bit weaker than RJ. Um, definitely will be more in position, but then you're opening yourself up to Derrick White raining threes. Like, basically, it's pick your poison, right? You, you only have two strong defenders in the starting lineup, uh, between Scotty and Jacobe. You have two, you have three threats for Boston in Brown, Tatum, and White. Plus, you have Kada on the roll. It's the difference between a really good team, a great team versus a good team.

Let's just ignore drop coverage when Kada is just rim running. Yeah, I mean, it's so usually if you're playing drop coverage, right? Um, you're asking your person guarding the ball handler to fight like hell around the screen and try to really prevent that pull-up jumper, which will again, really require you to fight around the screen. I can acknowledge that Kada is an excellent screener. Huge body moving the, you know, like, basically no, no fouls were called in this game. I, I love the way the game was officiated, by the way. That was my favorite part of the game was how it was officiated. Um, loved it. No free throws basically either way. You gotta like really get banged at the basket for a free throw. It was really fun to watch that playoff-type game. It got me excited for the playoffs. So, thank you to the refereeing crew here tonight. Um, but yeah, if you're playing drop cover, you need a guy guarding the ball to really, really be attached to the ball, fight around screens, and then you really need your big dropping back to be able to take away and play a cat-and-mouse game between, you know, staying close enough to the roller, but basically gapping the two where you're either both stopping the roller and you're preventing, uh, a layup or an open shot for, um, you know, the guard coming downhill at you. Again, the Raptors commit did neither of that and, and they did none of those things and they didn't rebound either. So, it's, uh, yeah, again, Kada just thoroughly dominated YaKob in a way that felt not just demoralizing for now, but demoralizing long-term.

What do I think the Raptors could get for Scotty in the offseason trade? Is it worth considering? Maybe this the only way to make something. You know, I'm not going to lie to you. I think what the Raptors are going to do in the offseason is pretty clear. They're going to declare this season a win and a step forward. Objectively, they have taken a step forward. Whether they finish with, I don't know, like two more wins or three more wins. The Raptors are going to finish with like a plus 13 to like plus 17, like win jump from last year. Okay, that is a step forward. I'm not going to say that it isn't. Raptors were non-factor last year. This year they're, they're kind of a factor. They're a play-in factor. And, you know, you'll probably hear some sort of platitudes like, you know, run, claw, you know, um, crawl, walk, you know, run, you know, basically one of those, um, you know, Senator Klay Davis trying to string along, you know, uh, Stringer Bell being like, you know, first you got to crawl, then you got to walk, then you got to run, take your time. We were, we were bad and now we're going to play-in level. Next year we're going to get to post, uh, you know, playoff level, and after that we'll be championship level. And you're just going to hope that that, that that sells people. But I do think that the realistic thing that the Raptors are going to try to do is they're going to try to take the expiring contract of RJ Barrett, which is I think making 28 million next year, throw that to slap that together with Grady, who's already on the books for seven, right? Take those two big contracts, shop them around with like two first-round picks, and see what type of upgrade you can get. Somebody that can start for you in the back court and that two-guard position. Um, maybe, maybe you get something good with that. Like I think we can again, when the season is over, we can explore that option and do that exercise ourselves and and try to see what that can get you. But I think they're going to try to keep going with this group. And I don't really foresee, uh, I mean, that's already a big trade, but I don't foresee like some sort of tear down around Scotty. In fact, I think Scotty's more than safe.

So, Jacobe has been awesome and it's going to waste. Not really having IQ sucks because the PG Scotty thing, it's looking awful. Put him in the damn post. Uh, the thing is if PG Scotty can put himself into the post, um, that'd be great. But of course, a lot of times it's much easier to fight to the position, um, playing off the ball than it is on the ball. So that's why, and I've, I've described this many times, but most people, you give them the ball more, they're going to score more. Scott, you give him the ball more, he's going to score less because the way he, the spots he needs to get to are very hard to get to off the dribble. And it's better for him to sort of screen and roll to those spots, post up, duck in off of those spots, and then get the ball delivered to him. Um, yeah, not having IQ sucks. It does. Okay. You know, you could, but again, like I, you know, IQ wasn't going to make the difference in this game. All due respect, but come on now.

Honestly, if we didn't blow the Sacramento game, I wouldn't have hated this loss. Seen some good stuff from the squad lately, quarters 1 through three, but that Sacramento loss holds heavy weight as the season ends. Yeah, for sure. And by the way, the Sacramento loss is not the only bad loss they've had along the way. Okay. Um, I know again, people didn't like it when I, when I was coming on here every single night and I was lamenting some of these tougher losses that the Raptors should not have given up. Uh, and a lot of the time people are screaming like, "Will, they're a young team. They're, you know, they're in a playoff spot. Why are you sort of being so hard on the team?" But I got a whole list for you. In fact, I have it ready actually. April 1st against the Kings. Precious Achiuwa 28 to 19 and the Sixers jumped them in the standings. Okay. Demar DeRozan 26 points in the second half. March 20th against the Nuggets, up nine points, lose the fourth quarter. 36-21, lose that game against the Nuggets. February 25th, they're up 12 in the fourth quarter against the Spurs at home. They start the quarter without Scotty and Brandon. The, um, Spurs immediately hit three-threes. Now it's a bad game. Now the Raptors lose the fourth quarter, 32-7, to lose in the fourth quarter. February 4th against the Wolves, up 12 at the start of the fourth quarter. Lose, uh, by two at the very end. They go five minutes straight without, uh, scoring, uh, in that stretch. January 16th against the Clippers at home, up eight with three minutes left. Three minutes left. No Kawhi Leonard in this game. They lose in overtime. Jan December 31st against the Nuggets. No Nikola Jokic. Raptors lose by three because Ingram's miracle banked-in fadeaway is ruled out because he saw a fingertip on the ball. Raptors lose that game. Again, no excuse to lose that game when there was no Jokic. December 26th against the Wizards. They lost by 19 to the Wizards. Yeah, that happened. The excuse was, well, you know, first game after Christmas, that's dangerous. Wasn't for the Wizards. December 21st against the Nets, only scored 81 total points against the Nets. Lost 96 to 81 against Michael Porter Jr. December 4th against the Lakers, snapped LeBron's 10-point streak, literally dating back over a decade. They lose on a game-winning assist from LeBron to Reahachimore in the corner. And Austin Reeves had 44 points that game. Again, no Luka in that one either. And then November 29th, up 12 points with five minutes left. Literally scoreless the rest of regulation. Miles Bridges just keeps posting up IQ over and over again. No adjustments. Hornets win in overtime. Raptors lose their nine-game win streak. So, lots of episodes. You can go back. People were like, "Will, you're being too hard on the team?" This is a clear pattern. That's like 10 losses that you shouldn't have had. And if at any given moment you snapped one or two of those, Raptors would be in a good spot. But they're not.

Five bucks, uh, from Awesome Sauce. This team is just all Messiah Bobby. No bench, no rebounding, and my mom was your best three-point shooter. What does that say? All the starters making 100 million. All right, well, I, I, I went through the whole team, right? You can't, you can't tell me anything. I went through the entire team and, you know, so yeah, I agree though. Not sure if IQ is part of our top three, but Scotty Barnes, RJ, and BI all below 40% going into the fourth quarter and only BI hitting a couple, uh, in the fourth stop that. Um, yeah, I mean, look, Boston's defense is quite good. Um, it's very physical game as well. A lot of guys had to play through the physicality. RJ missing layups, I think, you know, comes down to, you know, physicality. RJ trying to foul bait. Come on, dude. I mean, yeah, the rip through. Yes, like you were hit, but like the whole game they weren't calling anything. So you, you can't be intentionally trying to shoot a bad jumper for the rip-through call. Like stuff like that. It was just like you're not playing through the contact. You're not playing through it. Versus you look at Brown, Tatum, those guys took tons of hits too. Raptors fouled the [ __ ] out of Brown multiple times. They didn't call nothing, but they just came keep coming back. They didn't give up a technical. They didn't stay back and, and, and just try to do nothing. They didn't throw away, you know, hit-ahead passes. Like there's a, there's a level of seriousness and detail that this team just doesn't access. And honestly, I think a lot of that comes down to not just the players themselves, but when I see everybody on the team struggling with this, I think of coaching in-game adjustments is important and Darko is mid at best at that. Yeah, I, I'm, you know, man, I, again, Darko was a fantastic human being. Dark, Darko has done a great job in terms of getting this team to take a step forward to build some good habits along the way. And I believe that there's more he can get out of this team. But there's things that even dating back to when he was in his first year, and I understand how hard that first year was because Messiah, you know, was, you know, the, the whole ongoing situation with Pascal, OG getting checked out, Fred just walking, Dennis Schroder coming in the team, you know, Scotty coming off a

Pretty bad sophomore year. Like, I understand it was a lot to walk into. Plus, like, you know, the team was pivoting to a tank, plus Jonte Porter, plus the team signing random guys. Plus, this is his first time coaching as a head coach in the NBA, you know, again, all sorts of different priorities. You're taking over after Nick, you know, like you got to really acquest the management at that point. Like, I understand how hard that first year was even going to be.

I was even going to be willing to throw out the first year, but I think tactically, as someone who watches every single game, I just find myself underwhelmed. I just do. There's lots of little things that I don't feel like we're getting better at, and I don't think that the coach is winning us possessions to whatever degree that they have. So, Darko should have run instead of Yakman. Holy crap.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, everybody. Yeah, everybody should. Everybody saw that. I think even to a degree Darko saw that. But like, man, yeah, I don't know if this was really do or die. Like, if this were a playoff game, CB should have played 35 minutes and Jakob should have played 12. Darko has no edge. He gives you a great job to Missoula post game, and Missoula looked at him like he had two heads. Yeah, I'm not going to lie to you, that was kind of funny, man.

I mean, um, a lot of controversies this week, obviously, between Gino Arama and Don Staley about handshake gate, which, by the way, Gino, she did shake your hand, so come on now. But, um, yeah, Darko in the game. Sometimes coaches would just give it a little, you know, wave. Darko decides to go over, give him the firm handshake, said good job. And Joe Misula legit looks stunned. He was like, "Huh? What?" Like, it kind of snapped Joe out of his like trance into like, "Oh, a human's interacting with me and he's physically touching my hand." And okay, shake that hand. Okay, say goodbye. Yes, happy Easter. Okay, you know, like it was it was odd. It was odd watching that interaction.

Brad Stevens plus Misula better than Webster Darko. It's not close. I'm sorry. It's not close, you know. It's objectively it's not close. Nurse would have done it differently. I mean, I guess to be honest, I don't think Nurse was the answer either. I think if you can find a coach with the best of what Nick does tactically and the best of what Darko does in terms of man management, that's probably the best bet. Hard to do that though, but I guess that's the NBA, right?

I want to see a new coach first. I don't objectively I don't think I see it happening this year. It's going to be very hard to justify letting go of Darko. Um, even though I think there's an avenue to improve, but I think actually what's going to happen is he's going to get extended this year. Just telling you that now. Um, our developing staff has been underwhelming.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, look at Boston, right? Like, I think, you know, even Alvin said it, right? It was like the Celtics were up like 15. Clearly, they're going to win, and Alvin's like starting to move from like the play-by-play to like more of like the macro, the big picture. And he's like, "Look at the Celtics, you know, they take on the identity of their head coach, Joe Misula." And I'm like, yeah, they do. They play like crazy hard. In fact, the worst no-name players that they bring off the bench, the harder they play. Jordan Walsh winning them like five minutes in this game with the steal and a dunk and bringing up the crowd. Um, they didn't like Shai gets a chance. You know, if he doesn't do well, they bring in another guy. Hug Gonzalez plays great. He didn't even play today. I don't know, was he healthier? I don't know. But like these guys fight like crazy. I think like Misula was like benching every single person who gave up an offensive rebound early in the game, early in the season, and now every single Celtic, even though they're kind of undersized when you really think about it, outside of like um Porzingis, like even though they're undersized, those guys fight like hell on the glass. In fact, a lot of how Boston won this game was on the glass. Boston didn't shoot the three that well today. You didn't even hear that many like, you know, JB 43. Like, you didn't even hear that much, right? They made what, eight threes tonight, 29% shooting. In fact, the Raptors shot better from three. Eight of 20 for the Raptors, eight of 29 for or 28 for the Celtics, but they got on the glass. You know, the good teams have multiple ways of beating you. And then them getting 12 offensive rebounds to Toronto's six makes a big difference. Adds up.

This team needs a coach like Van Gundy. I guess which one? I'm still advocating for both Gundy's to come back. Okay, we'll love both Van Gundys. Uh, this is what happens when you trade off first round picks for multiple years to get mid players. Now, just poor asset management. I mean, look, the thing with the Celtics is like, obviously they made some like very fortuitous trades, right? First with the KG and Paul Pierce trades to Brooklyn that gave them the pick capital to take a Jaylen Brown and all. Even though it wasn't the pick that got them Tatum, they actually got the number one pick, but they traded down from that pick to get Tatum. And by the way, the number one was Markelle Fultz, who is no longer with the Raptors. But, um, yeah, like at a certain point, you either trade for these guys and they have to be really, really ready and they have to hit your timeline perfectly. Like when the Celtics, for example, traded for KG and Ray Allen that summer in 2007, that was the right time in the right place, and you made two beautiful trades, and that team clicked and it worked, and they obviously won the title and had a great title window. Um, when that title window ended, they moved off of those stars at the appropriate moment. They found a sucker in Brooklyn that was willing to take them on and give you so many picks. They were able to get a little lucky because honestly, that that Paul Pierce KG trade to Brooklyn, that was basically the Harden trade before the Harden trade, right? Cuz you now also get these top picks and Brooklyn goes completely in the tank, and you're able to do really well with the drafting. So they essentially exported their tanking to another team, but they didn't really skip the tanking step. They just didn't suffer the tanking themselves. And then they got Tatum and Brown. And of course, like after that, it's still hard to put the right pieces around them, right? Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving, remember that? That wasn't the right pieces to put around them. But at least they're a big market and they can attract stars like that. And then they realized, okay, maybe we got to build it in a different way. You know, they made some hard trades, traded the heart of the team, and Marcus Smart, you know, got better, you know, fleeced the Spurs for Derrick White. I don't even think they gave a first for Derrick White. You know, I think the Raptors might have got given, I think the Raptors gave up more for Jakob Poeltl than the Spurs gave up for Derrick White. Meanwhile, you cannot give up Derrick White for, you know, Jakob Poeltl in a trade anytime soon. It's nowhere close to equivalent. Um, and yeah, then they develop around the edges. Like the Celtics straight up haven't missed on transactions for like five, six years. You know, you're seeing the product of that right now. Um, and for Raptor fans, like we saw the product of that previously because the Raptors from like 2014 to 2019 hit on a bunch of like small, small, like, you know what I mean? Like imagine a Blue Jays run, right? And obviously right now you got to imagine because they're not doing it in real life, but it's a single here, it's a walk here, work the count, move the runners along, a sack bunt, and then a, you know, a big double. Ernie's on second base doing one of these little hand waves, then another walk, then another single. Loaded the bases, then it's a home run, and all of a sudden, you know, you've smoked the Yankees and the Yankees lose, right? Like that's how these runs happen. That's how management for the teams happen, too. Like once in a while, you get the home runs. Like you get, you know, you get Tatum at three. Meanwhile, you traded off from one, right? Uh, you get Jaylen Brown at eight, home run. Um, you know, you get Derrick White from the Spurs, that's a damn triple, right? You lagged out a triple on that. Just like how the Raptors when you, you know, you go out there and you get Kawhi, or you get Pascal at 27, or you get Fred VanVleet undrafted, or you get OG at 23rd overall because you traded, you know, Greivis Vasquez to the Bucks, which also got you Norman Powell at 45. Those are like that's a rally, and eventually that's how you win the game. Raptors recently looking like the Blue Jays offensively recently. So, there's a lot of good things today. You guys don't see it. I saw them. I saw them again. Like this was a good effort. I was expecting them to lose by way more than this, but I hear you. This guy likes to be a contrarian. I understand.

Uh, we need multiple diamonds in the rough like Boston and a lot of their contenders. Yeah. I mean, you know, San Antonio pivoting to a rebuild at the right time, getting very lucky, right? No one's gotten more lucky in the draft than San Antonio, but it's almost pre-ordained that San Antonio is going to get Wemby. Then they get Wemby, but then they keep making these like smart moves across the board, getting in the right players, not overpaying for them. You know, I thought Fox was a very good value trade, getting lucky again, moving up to two, getting, you know, Dylan Harper. Um, you know, the development of Champagnie, Julian Champagnie, anyone could have had that guy, you know, turns into a guy that has now broken the Spurs single season record for most threes. Like seriously, Julian Champagnie has a single season record for most threes made. And by the way, he had like an 11-three game the other game, like last month. Uh, just finding the right pieces, the right coaches, you know, now they still have extra picks and you know, they have just like a really, really nice young nucleus. You know, even going out there and look, man, Luke Kornet is not that much worse than Jakob Poeltl. I would even say Luke might be slightly better than Jakob. They paid Luke Kornet like $10 million, like, you know what I mean? So, and they got him for free. They didn't have to trade first round picks, you know, or second round picks or whatever. They just they just went out there and signed him on the mid-level, right? So, um, you know, OKC, how did they get so good? Well, they tanked in the right moments. They made a fleece of a trade with the Paul George thing. Um, obviously they got Shai in. They developed around that idea. And obviously Shai hitting this peak level is incredible. When you got an MVP level player, everything falls into place. All the other trades you made, getting Caruso, getting Hartenstein, those again, like that's how these rallies happen. And the Raptors did it. That's the thing that's like it's not too dissimilar. The Raptors were the ones doing this stuff last decade, you know?

So why did Darko call Scotty a Finals MVP MVP DPI after beating the tanking Pacers? Was a joke of a franchise? I just think that like, honestly, the media strategy isn't even particularly, like, what's the upside, right? Even if he gets that level, we would all be thrilled. We'd all be cheering. We'll be carrying him through the city, right? Like how we carried Kawhi through the city, you know? But like, even when we got Kawhi, we didn't get that level of hype, man. And like I just, I don't know. And then of course, like you put that in your back of your mind again, that's still the most viral Darko moment ever. The overpromotion at certain points, like it just, you're writing a check that someone else got a cash. You're writing a check that someone else got a cash, you know? So, at this point, might as well just fall to the AC seed. Pistons is really the best matchup for the Raptors. Uh, sure. Would you guys consider it a win if we made the play-in, lost the first game, won the second game to get to the AC? Because that's the only way you can get to the AC seed, really. Um, and then you play the Pistons, you took like one game off of them. Is that a success on the season? I don't know, man. Pisses me off when we can win a game, but the coach gets outclassed. I don't know if we could have won this game, necessarily, because I think Boston had different gears to hit, and we didn't even see crunch time against Boston. I think they would have hit another level. But, um, yeah, ultimately this is a team that, oh, just got the alert. Uh, the Toronto Raptors will not practice. Details on our next availability will be shared later tomorrow. Okay. No practice tomorrow. Great. Um, I guess I have the day off. But, um, yeah. Anyway, um, yeah, I don't know. I don't think that, uh, I don't think coaching was so positive on this one here today. Sorry. It just wasn't spicy chat today.

Yeah. I mean, look, I don't think people should be like upset. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not upset. I just think that like, I don't think people should be surprised. I think everyone, in their heart of hearts, we are nowhere close to this level. We know that, right? So, Jakob with two rebounds, $10 million per rebound. Hey, it's going to go up to $15 million per rebound soon. So, don't worry, man. Say trade portal for Miles Turner. Oh, man. You want you honest? You want less rebounds? Trade for Miles Turner, bro. This guy would have got, oh, man. I don't know. I guess Pritchard always used some up to. Oh my god, bro. Peyton Pritchard, man. Like, you see this guy in my nightmares. A little crossover, low crossover again. Raptors trying to pressure the ball. They can't reach it. They can't get to him. He gets into the lane. He bumps you. He fades away. Don't forget Peyton Pritchard had like a, think like a 17-point quarter. Like last time the Boston Celtics played in Toronto, Peyton Pritchard was like carving up everybody one by one, man. Like honestly, Peyton, I will trade two first-round picks to get Peyton Pritchard just so that I don't have to see Peyton Pritchard. I'm serious. One of them will be worth the value of the four wins against Boston, and the other one will just be for Peyton Pritchard. And I would start him, too. And this is their bench guy, too. This is crazy. Yeah, he's so sick, man. Why is he not Sixth Man of the Year? I don't understand.

Y'all need a BI to get 30 plus to have a chance. Yeah, every team knows that. And so they throw a double team at BI, and BI's like, sometimes will back down from the pressure, or he won't pass well enough out of it. You know, there's two ways to beat a double team, right? A, if you're able to score out of it. I mean, that's the harder way, right? But if you're able to score your way through a double team, then maybe I don't know, they throw a triple team at you. But the best way to beat a double team is you make the right passes early on time, and everyone's hitting shots around you that they're like, "Damn, we got to change it up and we got to go single coverage against you." Yeah, Brandon doesn't quite do that, you know. So, it's a 500 team. That November was one of the wildest fluky streaks ever. I hate to argue against this, but literally outside of that one month, the Raptors have been a 500 team, you know. Uh, by the way, we're going to take a quick break from the questions. I wanted to bring you Darko's press conference. And, you know, again, just restating my prediction here. I think Darko is going to try to spin this like, we had a good effort. Shots didn't drop tonight, but he's going to try to put on a brave face. And this is, I haven't seen it yet. Okay. I haven't seen it. I'm just, this is my prediction. I just want to see if it's right going into this. So, oh, he's smiling. Okay. Certainly points a game offensive rebounding again. Were you trying to do that? Or go between CBB and Jakob at different times to sort of neutralize K. >> Yeah, we were trying to definitely try to match up the right way with with K to have more rebounding there and, uh, you know, try to keep matchups. Uh, you know, he was really helpful today. He did a really good job with rebounding, but also I thought that Keta did a really good job of playmaking today as well. The, um, and you, between Scotty, BI, and RJ, not the typical production. >> Where does that lie? Is that on to find better opportunities or execute better or >> To be honest with you, I thought that we were getting good shots. I thought I thought that we got a lot of at the rim. Uh, you know, in the paint, we were shooting 29 from, uh, 53. You know, they got to the paint pretty much the same number of times, but they made 38 shots there. I thought that we just missed, missed some layups. Um, you know, unfortunately layups there. >> In the fourth quarter, Jericho, is it a matter of like the exhaustion trying to cover a team like that and then trying to execute? Like, what shifted there? You were right there. >> And it was, it was a tight game starting the fourth quarter there. Um, you know, um, I thought that, uh, their, you know, their best players, uh, they made plays that they needed. Uh, was that in isolation in one-on-one? Uh, was that, uh, knocking down knocking down some shots? I thought overall we did a really good job guarding the three-point line. Um, and, uh, at the end there, it was just their drives to the rim and us not doing a good enough job of containing those drives. >> And how big of an asset is it to have a guy like Jakob Walter really rise to the occasion in an instance like this? Really expanded what he can do. >> I love it. Like Jakob is the guy that, uh, he's a two-way player. Uh, he does a lot for us. Those opportunities that he has to start over here are showing us a lot what he's capable of and, uh, obviously all the work that he's putting in knocking down those shots for a young player. It's, it's, it's awesome to see him that he's doing really good in those situations. CBB again getting a little bit offensively, just kind of more of the same with his energy, maybe a little more comfortable with his hand. >> Yeah, I thought that that he did a very good job there, uh, for the most part of the game. Um, you know, we put a lot on him. He's guarding some fives. A lot of times he's switching, ends up guarding point guards. Um, you know, he's still coming back and finding control from that injury. Okay. >> Uh, but overall I thought that he gave us a really good tool there offensively as well in his roles and, uh, and finishes around the rim. >> I mean, a team like Boston, like, do you feel like there is enough there in the team? Times you've met them that you couldn't, you know, the gap? Like, there's enough, uh, sort of things that you haven't tapped into that you could be competitive? >> Yeah, absolutely. I think every game is an opportunity for us to learn something. We tried, uh, some different things tonight as well over the course of the game. Uh, um, when we had good execution, it looked good. Uh, it was just like, how do we get more of those possessions? And it was just like, couple of situations, some lucky, you know, we are two on one in pick and roll, you know, we don't catch the ball, we don't finish there. It's just like small things that led to easy points on the other side, you know. So, uh, and they, they did a good job as an experienced team. They, they for any small window of opportunity that you give them, they're going to take advantage of that. Uh, you know, that team is is really, really good team. Um, but I think every time when we play them, we're finding ways to close the gap.

All right. Um, yeah, I mean, that's about what I expect, right? Um, would I would disagree that the gap is just them being a little unlucky and missing a couple layups. I mean, certainly the Raptors didn't make some layups tonight, but, um, he is saying that we're getting closer to closing the gap on Boston. Um, I mean, this was more competitive than the previous games. So, if the bar is on the floor, it's still kind of at nothing, then it is, it is closer, right? Um, but Raptors against Celtics this year. Uh, let's see. Uh, why is Boston not up here? What? Oh, this is Boston versus Raptors. Okay, there we go. All right. Raptors 125, 117. Uh, then it was 112, 96, and then it was 121, 13. So, actually, the Raptors losing by 14 tonight is actually their biggest loss to the Celtics this season. So, I don't even know if they were getting closer. But anyway, um, what do I expect Darko to say, man? Yeah, I got out coached and, uh, you know, the other team's way better than mine, and, you know, Bobby got to get me some better players and my better players got to play like better players. Yeah, fair enough. Honestly, post game starts with a smile, ends it with, you know, it is just got a little unlucky. A couple margins here or there. No accountability for the players under Darko. A lot of the players feel like they can just make mistakes without getting disciplined. Um, not a lot of guys getting benched. I gotta say, um, yeah, also hurts because a lot of the bench guys aren't really bumping up against the starters to make the case to start over them either. So, too scared of calling any player.

Will, would you rather make the playoffs or miss them and have a chance at the lottery? No, I guys, this whole, like, I'm not playing. Okay, let me look at the lottery odds. Hold on. Let me just, cuz it's been, oh man, I can't believe I'm opening Tankathon for the first time all year. It's not even an autofill anymore. Used to be an autofill. Okay, let's look at the, hold on. Let me just, um, what are the odds? What are the odds for? So, as a, yeah, if the Raptors make the playoffs, I mean, right now they're 17th or whatever. Um, so that's the pick that they would have. Um, what are the odds? Why can't I just see the odds? Hold on. NBA lottery odds. Um, I believe it's like a 1% chance or something, right? So, if you're, so if you lose the play-in and get in, um, so if you lose the play-in entirely, I guess you could either, you can get up to, if I'm reading this correctly, like 11th or 12th in the odds. Um, you get a 2% chance of the first overall pick and a 9.4% if the Raptors somehow switch places with Golden State. Again, I'm just assuming this because Golden State has like 15, like 10 fewer wins than the Raptors. Um, but there's a 9.4% chance of the top four. Um, if you lose in the play-in, and I think there's like a 2.4% chance, 0.5% chance. I, I don't like those odds. Do you guys like those odds? Like, that's not, you're most likely you're going to end up with like just where you are, which is like, there's like a 90% chance you're just picking 13th or 14th, that's not changing anything versus materially versus if you make the playoffs and go 17th. So, no, I wouldn't. I think if you wanted to tank, you needed to tank and make that decision even last season. Um, you need to not make the BI trade. You need to sort of shut down your players coming into this season, clearly signal what you're going to do on the year, play a lot of your young guys, you know, do all the intentional losing stuff that the Raptors did last season, you know, rest a whole bunch of guys, not extend Jakob, and ultimately you go into the draft this year with a chance fighting them with like eight other tanking teams. I think there's a real chance the Raptors probably came out of this tanking process with like the ninth pick again. Um, but you need to make the decision last year, not right now with like a week before the year. It's literally way too late for tanking. And I, and I don't like this like, oh, the Raps are going to be in the play-in now, so let's just lose. I mean, no dog, if you come all this way, at least fight. At least fight. I mean, I would honestly say more to me is how much this group doesn't want to win if they try to actually lose at the end here, man. I, I don't know, man. I, I just.

Question. If the best coach in the NBA coached the Raptors, how many wins would they have this year with the same roster? Um, I don't know if it's a wins and losses thing necessarily, but again, I'm going to read you here. I'll just show you the list here. I made the list um cuz I was going to make this into a segment. So, I'll just show you this list. I do believe with better coaching, you are going to see like four or five of these games swapped. Um, and that's not to say that this team is as is a championship team and a coach is going to match coming in or change the circumstances, but I find it disingenuous when people are like, there's nothing people could have done. Um, you pick any of these 10 losses, you switch three of them, you're in a much better spot. And also long-term, you know, what kind of habits are you building? I think that would also have done more for the team. But these are all inexcusable losses for me, you know, and I'm not even counting some of the early losses on the season, whatever. Um, I'm just saying recently. And this wasn't even include the Pelicans loss, by the way. But whatever. Put that aside. Like look how many times we lose in the fourth quarter, man. Like look, look how many times we lose in the fourth quarter. And that's the margin actually. Even if you want to keep the team together, can you win the fourth quarter? Can you even be even in the fourth quarter? Even tonight, like like Darko said, they were tied at in the fourth quarter. Um, what did they, what was the fourth quarter differential? 35 to 24. You're not going to win if you lose the fourth quarter by double digits every time. So anyway, Lake Class, I appreciate the question, but this is, I think I put this list together just to like because I don't feel a lot of people want to push back and, you know, and everything, but I, this is irrefutable to me.

Will, would I rather see game seven L or sweep in the first round because I want this team to get demoralized for action to be taken? No, man. Are you guys fans of the team? I'd much rather see a game seven. Like what? Also, like how you do in the first time going through the playoffs is not going to determine if you're going to get demolished or not, man. I, I actually don't think the demolishing option is on the table, guys. I really don't. It would truly, truly surprise me, man. Um, yeah.

Anyway, can the Raptors ever just find an athletic big? I'm so tired of these slow, unathletic bigs that we've been running for like five years at this point. You know, honestly, this is a good debate actually. Is the Raptors center position the least athletic position in the league for the last half decade? Because the centers we've had in the last half decade, I'm going to put aside Marc and Serge because they were not that athletic at the end of their primes, but they were certainly very good. But we've had Aaron Baynes, which is like, you know what it was. Um, then we went to Khem Birch, who wasn't really a center and got really physically banged up during his time with the Raptors. Had a tricky knee. Um, then we had Jakob Poeltl. Um, then when Jakob was injured, we had some like Bruno Fernando, Orlando Robinson, Colin Castleton, you know, poo poo platter. Um, and now we have CBB, who isn't a center but is playing center better than our center. So, it's a tough one, man.

Scotty needs to be, needs a great scorer next to him. Ideally, someone that can shoot the three well. BI is not enough. Yeah, I agree. I think the thing is the fact that Scotty can't really score on a consistent basis and bend the defense enough with his own scoring, and I know he does so much else. Everyone's always quick to yell that, I understand, but the fact that he's deficient for a star on the offensive end means that we have to make up for that with more firepower elsewhere. In fact, if you, since the Raptors have started rebuilding around Scotty and like rebuilding, they've only really been focused on the offensive end, right? Like BI came in for the score, right? What did Bobby say in terms of the trade? He's like, well, Scotty likes to pass. BI likes to shoot. That's what's happened. Um, even making the trade for RJ and IQ, those guys are scorers. Now we're going to find out, okay, those guys aren't scoring enough. We need to find more scores. Is the answer, can can we, I wish some of the answer could just be Scotty can score more. You know, now I'm asking for a lot. I know I'm asking for a lot, but if this, if the standards are face of the league, then you know what I mean? Like, we're just going to keep asking for more. It's true, right? So, either he scores more or we got to find better scoring around him.

Scotty's motor just isn't there right now. He needs to get right for us to have a chance at anything. He looks so uninterested. I don't think he was uninterested. I thought he was really after it this game. I just think there's some limitations. Like I think like part of it is he's obviously tired at the end of a long season where he's played so hard and I commend him a lot. Like he's the main reason why the Raptors are even in this position. Without Scotty, we'd be not even in the play-in. Um, but yeah, the simple fact is you still need more. The season's not over, right?

So Scotty's offensive skill seems to have regressed. He was better as a rookie. I don't know. I think he was just single covered as a rookie, man. Who gives RJ the privilege to take the most shots out of every single game? They keep finding RJ. It's not like they don't try to actively look for RJ. RJ looks to score. His job on this team is to be a scorer for you. And obviously, he fell very short of that tonight. And he was part of the problem. Again, I listed the entire list of problems, at least the way I saw it coming into this game and why they lost. But like, yeah, I mean, him and BI are out there to score, cuz again, Scotty's not going to do it, right? So, these guys got to do it. And IQ's out, who we wanted to shoot the ball, man. You know, you can't like, yeah. And granted, RJ really did miss a lot of layups tonight. It is tough.

Trade all our shooting guards who can't shoot for a big man that can rebound and defend. Well, that's going to make it harder on offense because now you have an awkward fit with Scotty and CBB. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you see how it's really hard to fit everything together, right? So, yeah. Honestly, at least Scotty put up, at least Scotty put up 18 field goals. I hate when he doesn't even look to shoot, but his shot selection has just been atrocious. From, I think, look, the best thing that Scotty does offensively is when he starts barging in there and starts manhandling people and getting to the basket and, and you know, there are like a lot of, like, honestly, you look at the five buckets he made, they're pretty much five ugly buckets. I don't judge. You know what I mean? Like, if you were strong enough to wedge Porzingis out of the way, then yeah, go ahead and do it. The thing is, he can't really give you the easier buckets, which is like the open jumpers, open corner threes. He had a couple of them tonight. He couldn't knock them down. Mid-range jumpers, open. Couldn't knock them down. It's like, so then he has to do the hard stuff, and then the hard stuff takes more energy, so that makes him less able to do more of it. You see what I mean? Like, it compounds itself, I think, issue-wise, right?

So, build around Scotty Barnes, BI, CBB, and Jakob. I think that's exactly what they're doing already, right? So, um, imagine how horribly Toronto basketball fans would have felt if that Kawhi shot bounced out against the Sixers and went on to lose. And he leaves as a free agent and we lost tomorrow for this is a KM. Don't even give me these questions, cuz what if your mom and dad never met, then you wouldn't be here, you know what I mean? Let's just imagine these things. Like this shit happened, we deal with it. So, we deal with reality, man. Imagine if Kawhi's shot didn't go in. Who cares?

Hard to have much optimism for big moves in the offseason with the immovable IQ and Jakob contracts. I mean, um, sorry. I'm still still hung up on the last question. I'm sorry, dog. I'm sorry. I'm being rude. You are here watching and I appreciate you. I just think that sometimes, you know, when people say there's no such thing as a bad question, I'm like, I don't believe that. There's some bad questions out there, man. Um, you know, sorry, what was the last question? IQ. I don't think IQ is immovable, but I don't think that's plus value right now. The thing is like the contracts, it's not only how the players play, but it's also like how close they are to expiry and stuff like that. Like you would have said RJ was kind of a hard contract to move two years ago. You would even argue the Raptors tried to move RJ in the last couple windows. They couldn't do it. They'll be he'll be much more movable now. You know what I mean? So, um, hot take. I'm keeping RJ, trading Scotty and BI for picks. Okay. Listen, man. I really like RJ, but that's not the right way to go with the world with the franchise. I just, no. Sorry.

Giannis watch 2026 edition. Do I, do I think the Raps could realistically put together a package for Giannis? I mean, I guess they can go big fish hunting, but so what's our team? Giannis, Scotty, BI, IQ. Nah, we're not the team for Giannis, man. We're just not the team for Giannis. He's more gettable, but we're not going to get him.

Hey, Will. This is what happens when Rogers owns all the teams. Media is okay as long as they make money. Honestly, this is the history of MLSE, too, man. Um, I'm going to say, uh, did you see the, by the way, did you see the Athletic article that was out there this past week? Um, hold on, let me look it up for you guys. The Athletic lease, uh, kids ticket. Um, what was the story? Okay, so the headline is, "How the Maple Leafs Changed Under Keith Pelley: From $1,000 Locker Room Dinners to $96 Selfies." This is by Yonas Seagull of The Athletic. I'm going to read you a couple of the pieces, a little bit from the piece. Okay. Um, some of the big takeaways here. How far will the Leafs go to make a buck? Try a price tag of $956 for a young fan, ages 8 to 12, to stand on the ice and wave a flag before a Leafs home game. That, by the way, doesn't include a ticket to the game, which is also required. So, that's $1,000 for a kid to wave the flag, plus the price of the ticket. Now, do you want to hit the Leafs goal horn? Well, you can do so for $64. You want to snap a photo on the ice after the game? That's going to run you $96 per person. A $96 selfie, in other words, plus the cost of the ticket. These quote game day plus-ups are part of the fan access that launched under Pelley's leadership last spring and allow fans of all teams and entertainment properties to enjoy the many benefits, the experiences it has to offer. And it's not cheap. While one tier of fan access is free, dubbed quote Fan, the Super Fan tier ran for $135 last season. The MVP tier is a whopping $1,500 and it includes, among other things, two tickets to Fan Day, which, by the way, should be free. A four-pack of tickets to the Toronto Marlies, a $25 gift card. Wow. For $1,500, you get a $25 gift card for concessions. Amazing. That should be two chicken tenders. Uh, two lower bowl Leafs tickets, one of those plus-ups for pre and post-game, and a dedicated line to enter Scotiabank Arena. And you want to sit down for dinner in a Leafs locker room? The Leafs are selling that quote unquote experience for $1,000 per person, up to a maximum of 10 people. Hey guys, don't get in soon. Okay, $1,000. Get in soon. In other words, access to the Leafs dressing room is literally for sale. And an ultra premium dining experience in the ownership lounge. That's going to be a thousand dollars ahead. And by the way, some of these, um, some of these things also apply for the Raptors, too. I believe the Raptors have a similar game day plus-up experience as well. So, um, yeah, man. Yeah, they're making money. All right. They're making money hand over fist. And honestly, the crazy part is this is the thing I would say for Rogers is actually look, the Jays experience is actually rather cost-neutral. I saw this recently on a Jays corner, but like, I've been to a lot of Jays games to the start of the year, and we got into a Jays game for like $10. So, $15, sorry, $15. We sat first row 500, which is actually a really good view. Um, it was $15 to get in the game. Um, obviously if you're going to buy some stuff at the concessions, it's going to be expensive. That's true everywhere. But you could bring your own food in. Um, you can walk around like if you really want to buy the cheapest ticket and spend all game with a couple pair of running shoes just like standing in the 100 level looking over into the game and effectively have a 100 level ticket, you can do that. Um, you can bring your own food in. Like you could bring your whole family to the Jays game for like $40. Surprisingly, it's not that bad. And they have good giveaways. Like they'll give away like a whole shirt. Like Karem's got tickets for this week, right? One of the giveaways is you're getting a straight up a whole jersey. When was the last time the Raptors gave you a jersey? I know when it was. It was when Pascal Siakam left and then he came back in the after the trade, and it was Pascal through Red Bull, bought up a whole bunch of Pascal Siakam jerseys, and they handed them out free to fans before the game in front of Scotiabank Arena. That wasn't a Rogers promo. That wasn't MLSE promotion. That was just a Pascal Siakam and Red Bull Canada love for the game promotion. And that's why there was an entire section of people wearing Pascal jerseys. It was actually quite beautiful to see that. It's like it's like it's I don't know. Raptor game, whatever. It's rich people making decisions, but dog, Raptors rip you off way more than the Jays, man.

So, uh, by the way, we're going to, I feel like the show's been, Oh, yeah. Here we go from Tala. Happy Easter everyone, including everyone celebrating. Enjoy spending time with loved ones. And of course, it's a good time to pivot because keep this comment up here, KM, because the holidays can't be stressful. You see what I did there? And Coors is the chill choice, and staying chill is the winning play. Look, you're probably gathered together your family today, hopefully. You know, you're about to have dinner, and you know, you're doing other Easter activities. These kids are looking for eggs and stuff like that. And you're like, as the parents, you're like, "Bro, I put in all this effort, taken the whole family to church, driven everyone around, made all this food, got everyone, you know, planned the whole thing. If I got an opportunity, I'm going to try to kick back and open that fridge and see the mountain glowing blue towards me. I'm going to reach for that beer that's cold and as refreshing as the rackets themselves, cuz I need it, man. Cuz you know when the holidays heat up, why not make that chill choice by grabbing a crisp, refreshing. Find Coors Light near you. Visit Coorslight.ca. Celebrate responsibly. You must be of legal drinking age. Bottoms up for Jesus." Uh, no jokes about this. Okay. No jokes about this.

Hot take. Temple wins a chip before the Raps. That's not fair, man. WNBA has much fewer teams than the NBA does. NBA's gonna have 32 teams. I think WNBA has like 18 or something. But maybe you never know.

Y'all remember when Scotty laughed at the presser about his expectation for the season? How he was so sure he would be a playoff team? Yeah. I mean, I don't think that that was arrogance or anything. I think that's like the expectation, you know, and that's why I think it's like it annoys me when people try to have it both ways, right? When then they win, they're like, "It seems amazing." Which honestly, whatever. Celebrate when you win. Absolutely. I'm not saying anything against that. But when they lose, it's always like, "Well, did you really expect them to be good this year? They take a big jump this year." Like, "Oh my god, like they're young." You know what? It's like to a man. Scotty said it at the end of last season's press conference. He said it again this year before the season. Brandon Ingram said it in the summertime. Brandon Ingram said it again coming into the season. RJ, IQ, all the young guys, everyone's preparing for this exact scenario, going to the playoffs. So, yes, it's impressive that they made this a jump, but this is the intention the entire time. This is the plan. We can't then celebrate and just say, "See, you didn't see this one coming." It's like everyone saw this one coming. I think what people didn't see coming was how competitive this like play-in race is. This is, you know, to be fair to the Raptors, this is like the most competitive play-in race in a long time. But what are we really saying, man? No one's competing for the, you know, as Masai said, playing for what? You know, if you're not better than the play-in teams, then it's not going to matter because you're not better than the playoff teams, and the Raptors clearly are not better than the playoff teams.

Herb sends in five. Appreciate.

You, Herb. Very winnable game. I don't know, but wow, what a, what a. Okay, what, what a profile photo. There you go. Uh, only six games left for the Raps this season. There'll be no playoff experience. Are you, are you including the four plus two playing games or something? I guess, I guess that's what they mean. Whatever. I mean, it's a play-in experience. Chat crashing out. Yeah, I can see that. Brutal lineups to start the fourth and Portal should be shipped out with RJ. Yeah, trust me. After every loss, we find two scapegoats, maybe three. Skye's three-point shooting has regressed so much and it's already bad. Yeah.

Well, do I know if Kyle's return is still happening? Is there a chance he plays any minutes for us or is he just signing like in June? Yeah, he's signing a one-day contract, guys. He's not coming back and playing a game for the Raptors. As much as I would love to see that happen, but that's not going to happen. Unless he agrees to like a Garrett Temple type role next year, I can't see that happening. But that'd be cool actually if we replace Garrett with, with all due respect to Garrett, but you know, and he's good friends with, with Kyle, so he understands how much Kyle means to the Raptors. But if we replace K, like Garrett with Kyle, that would be kind of sick. 100% I make that decision. By the way, can Larry be a future Raptor head coach? I love it. I mean, I think he would need to go through, um, all the steps of learning how to coach and hopefully get some experience elsewhere and, you know, comes back to us. But yeah, I mean, I would take Kyle Lowry's brain as a coach any day of the week. Any day of the week, man.

Hey, will are Messiah and Larry sticking it to Ed Rogers for being key owners of the Tempo? Um, I don't know about sticking it to Ed Rogers. I think that, uh, so the, so once it, once the WNBA wanted to expand, right? Um, they wanted to come to Toronto and I think the expansion fee was like 50 million, right? Um, and that's a onetime cost, 50 million. Again, you compare it to the WNBA expansion fee. I think it's going to be like 8 billion or something like that, uh, for the franchise valuation. So, or, or sorry, the expansion fee itself, I think is like 800 million or something. But anyway, obviously magnitude is bigger. Um, and I believe Bell was a yes, Larry was a yes, and Rogers was a no. And that's ultimately why MLSE didn't get in, um, on a joint ownership of the Tempo. Larry's like, that's cool. I got this myself. So he covered it. Now he's the sole owner of the team. Of course, there's like principal owners like Serena and Messiah, but that's nominal. Okay, those are nominal. Um, realistically, the team is Larry's. Um, and I don't want to say they're sticking it to them. I think what's going to happen is it's going to be very similar cuz like, um, back in the day when the lease, sorry, when the Raptors, um, came in, the Raptors were bought by an individual owner. I guess not that dissimilar to how Larry actually Larry was one of the bidders back then, too. All this I read in Alex's book, Prehistoric, by the way. Um, but after a couple years, the Maple Leaf Ownership Group came in and bought it and then they formed MLSE. It was like weird corp. Um, anyway, the whole, the long and the short of it is Rogers didn't see the value in women's sports on a WNBA level in Toronto. And after a couple years, we will know who's right, but I think we already know which way is going to be right. So, I don't know if they're sticking it to Rogers. I think they're making a good choice, as, as, as good investors do, you know.

So, um, five bucks for, oh, appreciate you. Uh, does it even matter who the owners are? I feel like it's just an excuse. It's not like Ed Rogers running the team. Um, look, I'm, look, the, the Ed Rogers toward is unsavory, but if he runs the team with the love and care that he's done for the Jays, then I think that's actually a not a good thing, but that's, I don't, I think that's been a good experience for the Jays. Um, the last couple years, the upgrades to the arena, how much he spends on the Jays, unless that comes out of the same budget as what he might spend on the Leafs and Raptors. And maybe it does, you know, realistically, we've seen multi, um, team ownership groups, you know, around, this is like the common model nowadays where, you know, I think the guy who, the Kronen, the Kroenke family, right? They own both the, the Avalanche of, you know, and also the Nuggets and they own Arsenal and I think they own a football team, like an American football team. Like that's just kind of how it goes. So, um, but yeah, if you, let's, I just hope he loves the Raptors as much as he loves the Blue Jays. By your logic, Bobby should have been fired alongside Messiah then. I mean, no, that's not what I said. Sorry, what, what was I don't know what the context of this is. I advocated for Bobby to be GM after Messiah. So that's, that's, I don't think I would have advocated for that. It would be hypocritical for me to say that now. Um, I think Kyle's lack of patience is low-key exactly what this team needs. Yeah. I mean, I, again, I, I have a love affair with Kyle. I think everyone had a love affair with Kyle here. Oh, I think Robo Jim is responding to someone else in the chat. Okay. Okay.

By the way, we could have had Maxim Renault with our, oh my god, not this man. Okay, we show another shooting guard on Elijah Mahar. Not saying he's a bad player, but Maxine is clearly a better player. Okay. Um, I, I'm not even going to argue with you on that. Like, you know, fine, if you have a big, I don't think Maxim plays this game and is that much, is changing anything, just like I don't think Elijah's changing anything. And I guess I am partial because I do like Elijah, but I just don't think Elijah's got him a chance to play that much, you know? So, Messiah mobile pick. What the hell is that? You know, the cra, the, the funniest part is, um, well, that's not funny, but man, imagine had AJ Mitchell coming off this bench like he, exactly what the guy, what we need, like a scrappy defender and also someone who could score off the bounce and hit a three occasionally. Um, and, and now, and, and now AJ Mitchell's been converted too, right? So I think he's on like a three-year deal and it's like basically no money at all. Um, that's, that's how you again, like going back to how you build, you know, a good team and stuff like that. That for sure is a big single. That's like a Andre Jimenez single in terms of like, you know, um, how, what that does for the momentum of your organization going forward. Like AJ Mitchell this season averaging 14 points, uh, three rebounds, four assists, shooting 49% from the field, 35% from three, 87% from the free throw line. He plays significant minutes for OKC, um, the best team in the league. And he is signed for the next three years at this year, he's getting 3 million. Next year it's 2.8 and the year after that there's a team option for 2.8 million. Um, and he was picked, I believe three picks after, no, seven picks after Mobley was. So, you know, and no one even, no one said a single word about Mobley all year, right? So, again, this is huge. This is huge, man.

Lou, what would the Raps have to give up for John Morant, quickly? And like what else? I mean, that's, I think if you gave, if you offered, if you call Memphis right now and say, "Hey, you can have a menu quickly for John Morant." I think they, they did the deal right now. Not kidding. Booker's a good fit, but Raps should get a center first. Booker, Booker would be a good fit, but he just makes too much money. I'm not saying no to Booker ultimately, obviously. I just mean that like I think it, it really makes everything else quite awkward. Uh, how big is a failure if the Pacers pick falls to five? Brandon Ingram for the fifth pick in the draft, guys. Okay, this argument is kind of moot to me because if the Raptors never traded for Brandon Ingram and gave it that pick back to Indiana, Indiana first off doesn't tank so hard because they have no incentive to tank. And of course, you never knew that Tyrese Haliburton's injury was going to happen. So the pick's probably not going to be that there. And also Indiana also traded their own pick again this year. So that pick's been traded twice now and they traded that for Zubac, right? So this is like a, you can't just have this or that like it would have changed so much of how the decision-making would have happened. Yeah.

Why do we give up on the SAR brother? Um, if we need a center so bad. I, I don't know. I don't think he was a center. Um, I, we also Raptors didn't have like, uh, control over, I guess they did in terms of bringing him to training camp. They could have made him roster. I don't know. He's kind of like at best he like very like top one percentile outcome he becomes like a slightly worse offensively version of Mamou, but a slightly better defensive version of Mamou, you know, so that's, and that's like top one, that's like 99th percentile, um, outcome. Marshall's question, do I think we had a chance to make a move for Fox? I have to trade at least one guard and I feel like it's going to be Fox. Uh, I don't think Fox is nailed down. I think I think you can have a conversation about it. Um, I think I'm just nervous about trading with San Antonio because the last two times we've, uh, traded for Thad Young and Jakob Poeltl. So, I don't know. I, I mean, Bobby does have a good relationship with the Spurs GM. You know, he, he detailed all of that to us, um, in our interview last summer. So, yeah, if they want to go in that direction, they can.

All right, I'm kind of tired of questions. Sorry, I can't, I can't, uh, I, I can't do anymore. I appreciate you guys for for asking them and honestly, a lot of these were quite thoughtful as well, but you know, we, we could literally do this for two hours and I don't really want to. Um, before we handle the three stars, I want to let you guys know that this next segment is a presentation of Tony Bet online sports book and casino. Thousands of slot games and live casino at your fingertips and a sports book made for Ontario. Get your game on with Tony Bet. So, I'm looking across the association and, um, yeah, you know, like there's, there's, there's definitely a lot of NBA games on, um, you know, NCAA tournament is going to wrap up soon. Uh, congrats to, uh, UCLA. I think UCLA just won, um, on the women's side. So, uh, that's going to be huge. Lauren Betts, please become a, a Tempo. I don't think so. I think, I think she's going to be in the first, like first or second pick. Um, it won't be all the way down to six, but maybe. Who knows? Maybe, maybe teams screw up. But, um, yeah, I'm looking around and I'm looking at Sixers, Spurs, I think that's going to happen tomorrow. Spurs are minus 8 and a half point favorites. Spurs, for the love of God, you need to do us a favor. WB, I know, um, Joel Embiid wants to put 70 on your head. It's time for you to put 70 on Joel Embiid's head. Please bounce back. Beat the Sixers for us. It'll be a tough game. I'm not going to lie to you. Okay, it'll be a tough game, but I need to see the Spurs do us this favor. And if they're already favorite of eight and a half points, I think that really signals how strong they are. They're at home as well. Please do the Raptors this favor and please win me some money, too. Make sure you hit up tunb.com for all your sports betting activities. Sports, uh, Tony Bet is licensed and regulated by the AGCO and iGaming Ontario. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

Okay, your three stars for tonight's game. Uh, first star, I'm going to go with C.M.B.B. The first star. C.M.B.B. back-to-back first stars. 12 points, five rebounds, five assists. Thought he played excellent 26 minutes. Um, yeah, just very encouraging that he's, he's a Raptor going forward. Second star is going to go to Jacobe. Jacobe, it sucks that you missed those three free throws, but again, keep your head up. Four or five from three. Got the three-point stroke down again. 16 points, two rebounds, an assist, two steals, a block. He's also just like exploring more of his own offense, which I really enjoy from Jacobe. I wonder if like two, three years down the line if he gets his handle better, he gets more of an ability to sustain contact because he's still on a pretty skinny frame as it is. Um, gets a little stronger, gets a bit better with the handle. I wonder if he can sort of develop kind of the same way OG developed, you know, like, um, OG used to be like a three and D guy, but now you look at OG, he's like clearly more than that. Can Jacobe kind of do a similar thing? Cuz like Jacobe in the first and second year kind of reminded me how OG was back then. Of course, they have totally different body types, but, um, yeah, very promising players. You could definitely tell that both guys are headed for something. And in your third star, uh, I, I'll probably, I'll give it to Scotty. I think 10 points, six rebounds, eight assists, three steals. Um, there was moments in the first half where the Raptors were really able to turn the Sixers or turn the Celtics over and Scotty was, um, you know, reading a lot of passing lanes and stuff like that. It's not, it's a below average game for Scotty, but, um, three stars is, I mean, it's hard to find a third star is what I'm trying to say, but whatever. Uh, your Jared Henderson award. Uh, it's got to be Kolade. What am I even saying? 18 points on nine of 10 shooting plus 30. I mean, that brother dominated, man. Three blocks, four assists as well. He was a problem tonight. So, um, yeah, everybody, make sure to hit the like and subscribe button, okay? Appreciate you guys. Um, and yeah, we'll see. Uh, you know, W to K.M. for having to read all this. I know. I know he K.M.'s had a tough weekend, too, man, cuz he a Jay's fan. He hasn't seen, he's seen a sweep. He's a Raptor fan. He saw this game and he a Liverpool fan and he saw 4-nil, um, at the hands of Manchester City and an early Holland hat trick. So, it's been a tough weekend for K.M., man. But, you know, maybe we'll bounce back next week. Okay. Liverpool versus PSG. Uh, I don't feel so good, man. I don't feel so good. But whatever. We, we hold out hope. Okay. One of my teams got us. So, uh, GG. Happy Easter, everybody. Yeah. Everybody go have a nice long weekend, whether you celebrate or not. Just, you know, enjoy the time. And, um, yeah, we'll be back on Tuesday. Raptors play the two games against Miami. Honestly, they got to get both. And we'll, we'll see where we go from there. So, appreciate it. Thanks, everyone.