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00:00My god, I'm an idiot.
00:02I, I, like, I'm just, I'm a complete and total fool.
00:07I am a complete and total idiot.
00:10Can I get one more rendition of that?
00:12Three, two, my god, I'm an idiot.
00:17I thought that one was a little faster, a little more oomph.
00:19We're good, we're good, I got it.
00:20Okay, you got it?
00:21Thank you, Grandy.
00:22All right, all right.
00:23If you need more, just let me know.
00:24I'm here for you.
00:25If you need a version where I agree, let me know.
00:28Dude.
00:28What happened?
00:29Well, I, I just, I, I watch the NBA every night and I have no idea after all these years
00:41that this is Jimmy Butler.
00:44I have never in my life ever experienced a human being being more opposite of what I told
00:52he was going to be ever, ever.
00:56Right.
00:56Like, even back in high school when everybody's a moron.
01:02Oh, boy, yo, this guy, like, you know what I mean?
01:06This, and, and, and, you know, teachers talk to other teachers.
01:10Oh, watch out for this kid.
01:11Exactly.
01:11Because this kid, right?
01:13Are you got Jimmy Butler in your class?
01:15The advertisement sucks!
01:17It stinks, it stinks out loud.
01:22This guy is supposed to be disruptive.
01:25He's supposed to be a me guy, a malcontent, somebody who blows up a locker room.
01:32Like, by the way, if it happens two years from now, ready?
01:37Who cares?
01:39I don't even think any of them are going to be playing two more years from now, to be
01:43honest with you.
01:43But have you ever seen an advertisement be more off?
01:50And I bought the advertisement.
01:53I was here to tell you, when they acquired him, that was a mistake.
01:57That doesn't feel like the right move.
01:59And I've never seen someone be more of a calming influence on a basketball team than Jimmy Butler.
02:09It's a, it's a match made in absolute heaven.
02:13And, um, I missed every piece of it.
02:18Yeah.
02:19And I think that we all bought into the quote advertisement, which is what the media, the
02:24national media, or in this case, the Miami media has said about a player.
02:29And it's a little bit like buddy healed, not completely similar, but you know, we all
02:34heard about buddy and Oh, beware of buddy.
02:36And then the first two or three weeks, it was like, you guys are wrong about buddy.
02:40This guy's amazing.
02:41All he does is score.
02:42And then when buddy kind of came back to earth and it's like, yeah, maybe you were right
02:45about buddy inconsistent.
02:46But with Jimmy, I do think that the, the press clippings were more about the bad than they
02:53were about the good because you're not going to hear about, you know, Jimmy Butler as a
02:58good, solid player.
02:59Like you heard about him in Miami where, yeah, they were in the plane and they went to the
03:03NBA finals and Jimmy Butler was the best player.
03:06So there was that, but I do think that of late the media was malcontent, forcing his way
03:12out, skipping practices, missing flights, a middle finger, uh, calling his Minnesota teammates
03:18out and all the rest of it.
03:20And I don't think that that is the totality obviously of who Jimmy was as a player.
03:25No, not at all.
03:26Jimmy Butler is about Jimmy Butler.
03:29Well, I mean, maybe to a degree, aren't we all?
03:33You know what I mean?
03:34Of course.
03:34I didn't wake up today and worry about you.
03:36You're an adult.
03:37You can take care of yourself.
03:39And cut that too.
03:40No, but like, you know what I mean?
03:42We were, we're going to come here and we're going to do this outside of that.
03:45You can take care of yourself.
03:46Right.
03:47And I worry about you when I need to worry about you and you worry about me when you
03:50need to, like if something's, you know, a miss or something's off kilter, but you're
03:55right.
03:55Yeah.
03:55I mean, general, Jimmy, Jimmy Butler, um, Jimmy Butler worries about, uh, I mean, I don't
04:02know to what level he goes home thinking about pods or whatever, but you know what I'm saying?
04:06Like Jimmy Butler has not been selfish on any front.
04:10This'll, this'll sound like no big deal.
04:13And I know, Oh, for $55 million, I'll be somebody's, uh, Robin.
04:17Yeah.
04:17Right.
04:18Understood.
04:19I understand that part of it, but I do think there's something to be said in the NBA culture.
04:25When so many people think there are one who aren't, you know, sorry for the stray, but
04:35Jordan pool, for example, that's a stray, so many people who think there are one and you're
04:41not okay.
04:42John Morant, there's a lot of you out there.
04:46And then those people have a hard enough time becoming twos.
04:51This guy has proven that he's a one and he is knowingly and purposefully come here to
05:00be a two that gets points for me.
05:05I, I, I, I, I like that.
05:07And I don't think that's just something that you can snap your fingers and do in the NBA
05:11culture.
05:12There's not that many guys out there who have proven that they can be a one at this
05:18level.
05:18And how many of them would knowingly and purposefully sign up for being a two depends on who is the
05:25one and do it well.
05:26Right.
05:27And I do think that it takes, uh, the individual and you're right.
05:30And Jimmy Butler clearly is cut to be that.
05:33And I don't want to have Kevin Durant catch a stray, but I don't think that Kevin Durant is
05:38as built to be a two as Jimmy Butler and KD came here and he was not a two.
05:44He was a one a or a one B or whatever you want to call him.
05:47But Jimmy Butler comes here and he's like, yeah, if I'm the two, if this is me being the
05:52two, uh, 42 minutes and getting 19 shots and scoring 25 points, then fine.
05:59That man is Batman.
06:00And I love the sound of Jimmy again yesterday in the post game where he's like, that's
06:05what Batman does.
06:06Batman comes out of nowhere.
06:07And that's what Steph does.
06:09Uh, I think it's this one.
06:10Like I always say, Batman comes out of nowhere.
06:13You never see him coming.
06:14Then he just fall from the sky, from a building behind the door.
06:17Um, and does some incredible things, man.
06:19Uh, he's going to be the reason that we do win at all.
06:21We all know that, but, uh, we got to protect him at all costs.
06:23Ooh, that's okay.
06:24That's on TNT.
06:25That's the reason that we do win at all.
06:28That's the reason we're going to win at all.
06:30I mean, comes out behind a door out of nowhere from up above.
06:33And if you think about all the Batman movies you've seen and yeah, Batman just like, he
06:39comes out of nowhere.
06:40I don't know if the Warriors are going to win at all.
06:43They've played one playoff game.
06:45Um, so I don't know if they're going to win at all, but here's what I am convinced of.
06:49They think they are.
06:50And, and, and you may be like, well, of course, Draymond said that months ago, right on national
06:57TV moments after the trade, somewhat for effect.
07:02So that one didn't hit me the same as last night did.
07:06The whole thing started.
07:08You have to do what a road team does in game one, which is just weather your first quarter
07:14storm.
07:15Look how many teams were sort of unable to do that.
07:18And then even if you did, if you weathered that storm, could you then weather the fourth
07:22quarter storm?
07:23I'm looking at you, Detroit Pistons.
07:25You weathered the first half and then you did your thing.
07:29And then you got all the way down to winning time and you just hit a wall, but two road
07:34teams, one, both of them trailed at the end of the first quarter.
07:37And then in the second quarter, they walked out on the court and went, all right, watch
07:42this.
07:42And they flew into double digit leads immediately and then held them.
07:47I know the Warriors got challenged, but they then held them.
07:52That means a lot to me.
07:54Those two wins by Minnesota and the Warriors are clearly more impressive and better wins
08:00than anybody else got this weekend.
08:02And I don't know who believes, but I believe they believe that's step one, isn't it?
08:09No doubt.
08:10And of course they believe because they're 37, 35 and 35, and they've got four titles,
08:16four titles and two finals appearances carrying a team that was mostly undermanned.
08:21And so Jimmy Butler, I do believe, believes in himself and now this team.
08:27And you play with Steph and Draymond.
08:29How do you not have that belief?
08:30And you play for Steve and alongside Kavon and the rest of it.
08:33And you watch the way they've gone about it.
08:35And you mentioned it, even though the game started out really unevenly and Chengun dunks
08:42on Draymond and the crowd's into it and you're down eight.
08:44Of course it's 13 to five.
08:46Who cares?
08:47As expected.
08:47The game's not over.
08:48Yes, as expected.
08:50But at the same time, it's like, okay, this is where we need to, you know, shore it up.
08:54And you go into the second quarter still down and then you exert your will.
08:58And next thing you know, you're up 23 and you realize that they're going to make a run.
09:02And they did.
09:02And you held them off.
09:04Houston never tied it up.
09:06I mean, they got within three.
09:07Got within three.
09:08With two minutes to go.
09:09But even when they got within three, I was feeling a little bit nervous, but I wasn't
09:13feeling like, oh no, they're going to lose this game.
09:15Um, it was a little bit nervy.
09:18The thought crossed my mind.
09:19Yeah.
09:20Yeah.
09:21But I still felt the whole time, like at all moments, you're like, look, you'd still look
09:26at the scoreboard, look at the situation.
09:28You'd rather be the Warriors in this series.
09:30The Rockets are the one.
09:32If you think this feels scary to the Warriors, what does it feel like to the Rockets?
09:36Because they're still trailing.
09:37They're still on their home floor.
09:39They're still 22 years old.
09:40They've never won a playoff game in their lives, and I'm not confident that next weekend
09:46they'll be able to say that they have.
09:48I don't, I'm not calling a sweep, but I'm not 100% confident that it won't be.
09:52I don't know.
09:53We'll see.
09:54I'd probably still bet against it, but I certainly, um, any chance that I thought Houston had in
10:01this series is flickering at best.
10:05I think they had to have that game and they did not get it.
10:08And it was firm enough of a message that they understand that it, I mean, it wasn't really
10:15that close in the grand scheme.
10:18I mean, they were thoroughly beaten, but it was that close because they were able to cut
10:23it to three.
10:24And so by the very nature of it being, and it was a, it was a clutch game, I believe.
10:30Cause it was, yeah.
10:31Three point game, three point game.
10:32Well, actually it was a three point game before the five minute mark.
10:35So it actually doesn't go down as a clutch game.
10:37Well, but it only needs to be like a five point game, right?
10:40Yeah.
10:40It was, uh, seven points at the five minute mark and never got closer.
10:44Seven, nine, eight, seven.
10:47Oh, four.
10:47There we go.
10:48Yeah.
10:48Van Vliet.
10:49I'm pretty sure I heard Tim.
10:50Finally made a bucket.
10:51Yeah.
10:51I'm pretty sure I heard Tim Roy say, uh, on the, uh, on the after broadcast that it was
10:56a clutch game.
10:56And so there's another one.
10:58So how are you digesting this?
10:59Cause you're on the air.
11:00And so you're like, I was only on, I was only on the air until, until about halftime.
11:05Okay.
11:05We were on the air until about two minutes into the third quarter.
11:07Okay.
11:08And then I was like, I'm leaving now.
11:09Okay.
11:10And I'm going to go watch it.
11:11It's all yours.
11:12Exactly.
11:12I actually said that when the game started, I'm like, all right, here it is.
11:16The first ever solo broadcast for Ephraim Salaam.
11:19Take it away.
11:19Ephraim.