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00:00Buddy! Dude, so many buddies. That man eats for free. Dude. Listen. Buddy! I made a promise last night. Oh my god, buddy. And I'm gonna keep it, even though I know it's gonna make me just nuts, but I'm gonna keep my promise. And I wonder who wants to make this promise along with me.
00:19Buddy, Mr. Heald, wherever you are, Minnesota, wherever you are listening right now, I hear Mark Willard promise to never let you frustrate me ever again. Ever? Forever, ever? Forever, ever. The Buddy Heald experience this year, which started out so amazing. Amazing.
00:46We've had all of us asking everyone in Sacramento, why are y'all so nuts about Buddy Heald? Don't you get it? He's wonderful. Why are you pulling hair out of the sides of your heads? And then, we discovered why. But then it led to this. And today, I am willing forevermore to deal with the dribbling out of bounds, to deal with the bad passes, to deal with the awkward smiles at the wrong time, to deal with all of it.
01:14Where, if it comes again, I kind of expect that it will, and I am okay with it. You cemented, you cemented yourself as a warrior last night, and that will never, ever change.
01:28Nope, never. It's a game seven win on the road, and Buddy did something that he's only done 11 times in 725 games, which is score 33 points.
01:37And you needed, probably not every last one of them, but if you look at the first half and what he did, he was the reason why you had the lead.
01:45No doubt.
01:46He was the reason why you were able to go into the third quarter and feel a little bit more confident about where you were going to be as a team.
01:53And Buddy was spectacular. And with every shot he made, it just got to be more and more, like, amazing.
02:01And, you know, Steph Curry was being harassed and guarded, and Draymond was good early.
02:05And then, you know, Draymond went cold, and Jimmy couldn't score.
02:08And all of the rest of the role players, it was, like, Pods and Moses Moody.
02:14He needs a GPS for the basket.
02:16Moses, I love Moses Moody.
02:18I'm not sure, like, I mean, at least Pods was just off.
02:24You're like, oh, that, right, in and out, whatever, off the back iron.
02:27You just, you're not locked in, your shot's not hitting tonight.
02:31Moses, I'm like, well, that was in the general direction of the hoop.
02:34Right.
02:34Like, good Lord.
02:36But, you know, Moses has done really well this year of doing other things on the court when the shot's not falling.
02:42And as we just detailed, the Warriors, they kind of just need one.
02:45They just need someone else to knock down shots.
02:49And obviously, Buddy did it at an unbelievable clip last night.
02:53And so here we are, on to round two.
02:57Few things that we want to throw out there, because I really do get excited to hear how people sort of consume a night like last night.
03:08So what's your game seven story?
03:108 at 8, 9-5-7, 9-5-70.
03:13And then, like, I also think it's a great day for, like, okay, look back at the series as a whole.
03:21And what's your takeaway?
03:24Nobody's coming on the show today except for you.
03:26That's it.
03:27Just you.
03:288 at 8, 9-5-7, 9-5-70.
03:30We will take your calls now.
03:32We will take your calls in the 3 o'clock hour.
03:34How about the 4 o'clock hour and the 5 o'clock hour?
03:37We are here for you and your response all afternoon long.
03:418 at 8, 9-5-7, 9-5-70.
03:44What's your game seven story?
03:46And what's your takeaway?
03:48Look back on this one.
03:49I got one for you.
03:51But what's your takeaway?
03:52When you look back on the seven games, what grabs attention first as your takeaway?
03:59Well, the word that I don't want to use is an L word because they weren't that.
04:05But they were.
04:07Yeah.
04:08Open up.
04:08They were not.
04:09Cheers.
04:10They were not lucky to win.
04:12But they.
04:13Things, I think, were of a fortunate nature.
04:17And they made their own good fortune.
04:19Interesting.
04:20But if you look at the series in totality, it was a very even, tight, close series.
04:26And I think about, like, when it came down to the games that really mattered.
04:30And I think about game four, one of the best games I've ever been to.
04:33And the Warriors won that game.
04:36Houston got down to the final three or four minutes.
04:38And they made three or four mistakes.
04:41And the Warriors didn't.
04:42And the Warriors won.
04:43So it's not to say the Warriors were lucky.
04:45But this series, to me, came down to game four.
04:49Like, game five, fine.
04:51You went to Houston.
04:52Yeah, game five won.
04:53You're going to lose that.
04:54Game six?
04:55Wow.
04:56Houston was awesome.
04:57They were fantastic.
04:58They were great.
04:58And you lost.
04:59And then you got to game seven.
05:00And you won the game.
05:02So for me, it's not that the Warriors got lucky.
05:04They didn't.
05:05But you got down to the moments where the series was going to be in the balance.
05:09And you had more experience.
05:10And you had more execution.
05:12And you won the tight moments.
05:13Don't disagree at all.
05:15But I'm fascinated that your mind even goes to that idea.
05:19Okay, fine.
05:20Not lucky.
05:21Fortunate.
05:21Whatever.
05:22Let me throw something at you.
05:23This didn't even really occur to me until today.
05:26Because you're in it.
05:27We're in it.
05:28We're like, we're fans.
05:30We're watching this thing.
05:31It's a whole journey of back and forth and ups and downs and all of this.
05:35And it never really occurred to me until this morning.
05:39What adversity did the Rockets face in this series?
05:45Well, they were down 3-1.
05:47Okay.
05:47But that's like not adversity.
05:49Is that not adversity?
05:50Well, I mean.
05:50Only 4% of teams come back from that.
05:52You could look at it that way.
05:54But you arrived there because you lost.
05:56I mean sort of like the things that are maybe a wee bit out of your control.
06:03What adversity did the Rockets face in this series?
06:07I would argue it's about as little as a team could face the entire series.
06:15They had no injuries.
06:17They had.
06:18I mean, I'm sure there's all kinds of things that I don't know about.
06:21I'm not going to act like I know.
06:23Right?
06:23Amen Thompson.
06:24He had a calf lock up at a pretty bad time actually last night.
06:28He let Steph Curry just walk over to the right side of the wing and hit what eventually felt like a dagger three at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
06:35So there are little things.
06:37But what if I remind everybody that Jimmy Butler essentially missed two basketball games?
06:45What if I remind everybody that Steph Curry had a golf ball in his right hand?
06:50What if I remind everybody that Pods got sick and essentially was a non-factor, non-playable for a game?
06:58Same with GP2.
07:00What if I remind everybody that Houston started with home court advantage in this series and finished with it as well?
07:06Now, there are other things that I could add in there that aren't, quote, out of your control because the Warriors made their own bad luck here, such as Draymond Green having six technical fouls in seven basketball games.
07:22That's largely on him.
07:23I think he had a tech in every game after game one.
07:25So, all of these things happened in the series and they still won.
07:32They still won.
07:33So, I'm not even, like, I don't argue anything that you just said.
07:37I'll buy all of that.
07:39But the Houston Rockets had no injuries.
07:42Like, the biggest adversity they faced was in game six.
07:46Dylan Brooks got in foul trouble and had to sit out for most of the game.
07:50All right.
07:51So, there's that.
07:53But all, I would argue, all of the major out-of-your-hands adversity in this series kind of got directed at the Golden State Warriors.
08:02In a series where they did not have home court advantage and they still won.
08:07So, to me, that's probably my biggest takeaway because one thing that we never, ever forget with the Golden State Warriors,
08:15the medal of this team is just, it's insane.
08:19It is absolutely otherworldly.
08:24The mental strength that this team continues to show year in and year out.
08:29And it took Buddy Heald having a 33-point performance to get it done.
08:33So, to think that an older team would not face that adversity, you know, whether it's Steph Curry, 37, with a thumb that is, you know, flaring up,
08:43and Jimmy Butler with a tailbone, and Draymond Green, who is, you know, heating pads and icing up every time he goes off the floor.
08:49These are things that you would expect in terms of adversity.
08:52Yep.
08:53To a degree.
08:54I mean, I don't look at Jimmy Butler's injury and go, well, that's because of age.
08:57Like, that would have snapped just about anybody's tailbone.
09:00That was a hell of a fall.
09:01That was a hell of a fall.