Latest / Bleacher Report / Why 2020 Lakers Need to be Respected (ft. Danny Green)

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Why 2020 Lakers Need to be Respected (ft. Danny Green) · Bleacher Report

0:00
Speaker 1: This is Danny Green.
0:01
Speaker 2: It was by far the hardest championship that I had
0:03
Speaker 2: to achieve.
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Speaker 1: Twenty twenty NBA Champion With the Los Angeles Lakers.
0:07
Speaker 2: We weren't just playing for ourselves.
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Speaker 1: He's going to take you through their entire championship run
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Speaker 1: presented by Stave Farm.
0:13
Speaker 2: This is the run.
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Speaker 1: The twenty nineteen to twenty twenty Lakers were built to win.
0:18
Speaker 1: Labron James was entering his second season in Los Angeles,
0:21
Speaker 1: and after missing the playoffs the previous year, the front
0:24
Speaker 1: office snapped into actions, acquiring free agent Danny Green and
0:27
Speaker 1: trading for superstar Anthony Davis. But across the hall at
0:31
Speaker 1: Staples Center, another contender was forming the Clippers that added
0:35
Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, creating what many believed was
0:38
Speaker 1: the most talented roster in the league. The Lakers wasted
0:41
Speaker 1: no time for proving they were serious, starting the season
0:44
Speaker 1: with the thirty six and seven records, but about halfway
0:48
Speaker 1: through the season, tragedy struck. On January twenty sixth, Kobe
0:53
Speaker 1: Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash, devastating the city
0:56
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles and leaving the Lakers organization grieving in
0:59
Speaker 1: the middle of the championship pursuer. All eyes were on
1:03
Speaker 1: the Lakers.
1:06
Speaker 2: It might have been the only year that I was
1:08
Speaker 2: a favorite to win it, you know, San Antonio, we
1:10
Speaker 2: might have been favorite to go to the finals, but
1:12
Speaker 2: Toronto we were not favorited. San Antonio, like Miami was
1:15
Speaker 2: like they were the favorites to win. As a Laker
1:18
Speaker 2: with that magnifying glass and that microscope on us throughout
1:21
Speaker 2: the whole year, brought a lot of heat and a
1:23
Speaker 2: lot of attention. And being the number one seed and
1:25
Speaker 2: all the guys that we signed, you're expected to win,
1:27
Speaker 2: You're expected to do it. Everybody's critiquing you, from the
1:30
Speaker 2: major media to the small market media to people with
1:33
Speaker 2: fake accounts. There was definitely a, i wanna say, a
1:36
Speaker 2: huge amount of pressure, but added pressure following Kobe's death.
1:40
Speaker 2: And then of course when they brought in the Mama
1:42
Speaker 2: jerseys and wearing that Mama jersey. It was sleek, it
1:44
Speaker 2: was nice, It was one of my favorite jersey of
1:47
Speaker 2: all time, fire jersey, but it came with a little
1:50
Speaker 2: bit extra pressure on top. And then from that point on,
1:52
Speaker 2: it was like we weren't just playing for ourselves.
1:55
Speaker 1: In the month following, the Lakers would lose just two games,
1:58
Speaker 1: and by March they were sitting Home're really a top
2:00
Speaker 1: the West. But everything changed on March eleventh when Rudy
2:04
Speaker 1: Gobert tested positive for COVID nineteen, and then just hours later,
2:08
Speaker 1: the NBA suspended its season indefinitely. Is the world shut down,
2:13
Speaker 1: the league search for a safe way to continue play. Eventually,
2:16
Speaker 1: the NBA created a quarantine campus inside Disney World in Orlando, Florida,
2:21
Speaker 1: and nearly four months after the shutdown, players began being
2:24
Speaker 1: notified that they'd soon be entering the bubble to restart
2:27
Speaker 1: the season. In isolation.
2:31
Speaker 2: I was still working out, so I was making sure
2:33
Speaker 2: I was running the beach. I was making sure I
2:35
Speaker 2: was lifting to make sure I did lose any steps.
2:38
Speaker 2: And they were like, Oh, we're finally going back in
2:39
Speaker 2: and we're going to do it this way in a bubble.
2:40
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, And it was kind of interesting.
2:42
Speaker 2: We all got to fly to this place. I'm wondering
2:44
Speaker 2: how it's going to be, and it was very limited
2:46
Speaker 2: a plane and we were on the plane. It was
2:47
Speaker 2: spaced out seats you have to be six feet apart.
2:49
Speaker 2: I mean, how we were living then, and I remember like, oh,
2:52
Speaker 2: we can't have certain staff. We only bring one or
2:54
Speaker 2: two staff members. We were kind of I feel like
2:56
Speaker 2: every team was understaff. We didn't have enough people or
2:59
Speaker 2: hands to make sure guys were getting the treatment that
3:01
Speaker 2: they needed.
3:02
Speaker 1: Twenty two teams injured Orlando, knowing they could be there
3:05
Speaker 1: anywhere from a few weeks to nearly three months. Players
3:08
Speaker 1: started arriving on July seventh, but after weeks of quarantines, testing,
3:12
Speaker 1: and settling, in basketball finally returned on July thirtieth. In
3:17
Speaker 1: that first night, back in action featured a marquee matchup
3:21
Speaker 1: Lebron James and the Los Angeles Lakers versus Kawhi Leonard
3:24
Speaker 1: in the Los Angeles Clippers.
3:28
Speaker 2: Clippers are really good that yet this is where the
3:29
Speaker 2: rivalry was like at his peak. This is the matchup
3:32
Speaker 2: that everybody wanted right in the playoffs, we never got it.
3:35
Speaker 2: Here's George, he's John shot. That's I remember Bron cussing
3:41
Speaker 2: me out for that possession. You know, I could argue
3:44
Speaker 2: we were supposed to switch. He could argue that, you know,
3:48
Speaker 2: I was in the way or whatever happened. But Pauldos
3:50
Speaker 2: probably had six or seven If I remember he had
3:52
Speaker 2: a couple threes before this point. He's already hot. I'm gardener.
3:55
Speaker 2: I'm trying not to give up any space. But if
3:57
Speaker 2: him and Kawhi, you know, coming together, it's like and
4:00
Speaker 2: I don't know for sure because this is six years
4:02
Speaker 2: ago now, but most of the times like size as
4:04
Speaker 2: we switch or he's hedging, Bron decided to hedge go
4:08
Speaker 2: under his hedge, kind of throw off from his communication
4:11
Speaker 2: of you know, my movements, and it gave him that
4:14
Speaker 2: much of an inch just to see freedom. I mean,
4:16
Speaker 2: this angle looked like great defense. I think still was
4:18
Speaker 2: good defense. But in this league, you give a guy
4:21
Speaker 2: a hair inch can cost you three points. And it did,
4:24
Speaker 2: and you know, we talked about it. I remember him
4:26
Speaker 2: not being too happy about that possession. But Bron does
4:29
Speaker 2: what Bron does. He continues to make plays. He knows
4:32
Speaker 2: how to move on to the next play, his sense
4:34
Speaker 2: of urgency of making getting back into the play set
4:37
Speaker 2: point one seconds, one tenth of a second, he's right
4:40
Speaker 2: to it. So he got as a buck if you needed,
4:43
Speaker 2: the fan noise was not enough, Like I was like
4:47
Speaker 2: a player that I thrived off of the energy in
4:50
Speaker 2: the building, even the road teams like that energy that
4:53
Speaker 2: even that negative energy kind of pushed me the adrenaline
4:55
Speaker 2: even home, like to get a block shot, to knock
4:57
Speaker 2: down a shot. It wasn't the same feel. I felt
5:00
Speaker 2: like we were in La Fitness, you know, with just
5:02
Speaker 2: some some random background noise. Subconsciously, those things do take
5:06
Speaker 2: a toll in them. There's a lot of guys on
5:07
Speaker 2: our team. I think Bron is a guy that feeds
5:09
Speaker 2: off the crowd, and I noticed that when we first
5:11
Speaker 2: got into the bubble regular season, I don't think he
5:13
Speaker 2: played his best basketball either, like he was struggling to
5:15
Speaker 2: try to find it. But he's a great, so he's
5:17
Speaker 2: a chameleon. He could adapt it just any situation. So
5:20
Speaker 2: he did, but you could tell if you watch some
5:22
Speaker 2: of the regular season games. I don't think he played
5:24
Speaker 2: his best basketball, and he was trying to find his
5:26
Speaker 2: rhythm too.
5:27
Speaker 1: The Lakers finished their regular season with the best record
5:30
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference at fifty two nineteen, narrowly ahead
5:34
Speaker 1: of the number two seed Flippers. Meanwhile, the Portland Trailblazers
5:38
Speaker 1: battled through the NBA's first ever play In tournament behind
5:42
Speaker 1: a scorching hot Damian Lillard to secure the eighth seed,
5:45
Speaker 1: and in Game one, Damn stayed hot. Lillard scored thirty
5:49
Speaker 1: four points as Portland stunned the Lakers in the series opener,
5:52
Speaker 1: the first sign of a trend that would follow LA
5:55
Speaker 1: throughout the playoffs.
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Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it was a panic, but you know,
6:00
Speaker 2: hear how the media is, when you win, you're the
6:01
Speaker 2: best in the world. When you lose, like, oh, they're
6:03
Speaker 2: in trouble, they might they might be going home. And
6:06
Speaker 2: I remember that happening in the Portland series. I remember
6:08
Speaker 2: that happened in Houston series. That was a wake up call.
6:10
Speaker 2: We had a great group that could score, but I
6:12
Speaker 2: feel like offense wasn't that smooth because of we were
6:15
Speaker 2: trying to do certain things, make sure Lebron ad got
6:18
Speaker 2: us touched with too many options and it's only won basketball.
6:22
Speaker 2: And you know, we went like twelve deep, which is
6:23
Speaker 2: hard to do, especially in the playoffs. But they played well,
6:27
Speaker 2: they got the game one, and after that we kind
6:29
Speaker 2: of just had that sense of urgency to not let
6:31
Speaker 2: him get another one. And same with Houston, like they
6:33
Speaker 2: both kind of shell shocked us a little bit.
6:36
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just Lebron who found his rhythm eighty
6:39
Speaker 1: was showing that he was one of the best players
6:41
Speaker 1: in the league too. After the disappointing Game one lost,
6:44
Speaker 1: ad dominated. He led the Lakers to victory in Games
6:47
Speaker 1: two and three with thirty one and twenty nine point
6:50
Speaker 1: double doubles. Even when he wasn't scoring as many points,
6:54
Speaker 1: his impact was undeniable. In the Lakers twenty point Game
6:57
Speaker 1: four win, eighty dropped eighteen points but was a team
7:00
Speaker 1: high plus thirty five.
7:04
Speaker 2: This is pre Anthony Davis, healthy Anthony Davis. This is
7:06
Speaker 2: where it got him in the top seventy five. That
7:08
Speaker 2: was a top seven five player in the history of
7:10
Speaker 2: the game because of what he's capable of, what he
7:12
Speaker 2: could do, and what he did. He had a great
7:14
Speaker 2: series throughout the all playoffs. Yeah, he was great. Hit
7:16
Speaker 2: game winners for us, change the game, blocking shots, protect
7:19
Speaker 2: the room like it's easier for me kcp al screwsso
7:22
Speaker 2: to guard those guys in perma knowing we got Javel
7:25
Speaker 2: Dwight and Anthony Davis blocking shots at the rim. It
7:28
Speaker 2: may not be the smoothest thing, but in the pick
7:29
Speaker 2: and roll, damned unstoppable him and the post. Trying to
7:32
Speaker 2: figure out the hardest thing for him was like getting
7:35
Speaker 2: out of double team, you know, finding guys. But when
7:37
Speaker 2: you have so many threats and so many weapons around you,
7:39
Speaker 2: it opened up the floor for him and all of
7:41
Speaker 2: us too. But yeah, he was a force and he
7:44
Speaker 2: was demonstrative and every fashion and everything that he did.
7:48
Speaker 2: And I'm lucky that I got a chance to play
7:50
Speaker 2: with him pre you know, the injury is happening. Just
7:53
Speaker 2: unlucky turned for him after that. Yeah, he was amazing.
7:55
Speaker 2: Nothing short us. He's doing the jokes thing now. I
7:58
Speaker 2: don't know if you see he's doing the pranksters thing.
8:00
Speaker 2: He was locked. I mean he said that. During that
8:01
Speaker 2: time in the bubble, they had their little football league.
8:03
Speaker 2: So he did play video games. But they like to
8:05
Speaker 2: joke around a lot. You know, gamble shots have to practice,
8:08
Speaker 2: you know, who can beat who in what shot games?
8:09
Speaker 2: Shooting games. But yeah, he was playing the video games
8:12
Speaker 2: at that point. Talk a little trash here and there.
8:14
Speaker 2: They had the little football tournament going on. They hung out,
8:16
Speaker 2: they kicked it. I want to say it was Xbox
8:18
Speaker 2: at the time. It was you know him, duds, Quinn Cook,
8:22
Speaker 2: Brown I think Jr. Maybe, and Cheese theon waiters. We
8:26
Speaker 2: killed Cheese won that tournament. I don't know, but I
8:29
Speaker 2: know they were. They were big on said he said.
8:31
Speaker 2: Bron was big on making sure we were together and
8:34
Speaker 2: kicking kicking it off the court. You would think he
8:37
Speaker 2: was a guy that went to college because he operated
8:40
Speaker 2: in his like he was a true leader. And I
8:42
Speaker 2: can say that because I've been through multiple organizations and
8:45
Speaker 2: I've seen some really good ones and I've seen some
8:47
Speaker 2: bad ones, and you know, he is a true definition
8:50
Speaker 2: of in all aspects of the sense of leader. Like
8:53
Speaker 2: we're doing team dinner, we're going here, we're gonna go
8:55
Speaker 2: to the movies, we're gonna go paintball, and we're gonna
8:57
Speaker 2: do this. We're going out tonight. We had a team
9:00
Speaker 2: you know, function and on court, make sure we walk through,
9:02
Speaker 2: make sure it's this person's you know, he's big, goofball,
9:05
Speaker 2: cracked a lot of jokes and at a certain point
9:06
Speaker 2: he always turns it up and gets a little more serious.
9:09
Speaker 2: Once playoffs comes around. After we lost Cod and being
9:12
Speaker 2: in the bubble, you know, he knew was at stake,
9:15
Speaker 2: but he just raised his level of players, level of focus,
9:17
Speaker 2: and his level leadership.
9:18
Speaker 1: As the Lakers prepared for Game five against Portland, the
9:21
Speaker 1: playoffs suddenly took a backseat to something much bigger than basketball.
9:25
Speaker 1: Following the police shooting of Jacob Blake and Kenosha, Wisconsin,
9:29
Speaker 1: the Milwaukee Bucks made the decision to boycott their playoff
9:31
Speaker 1: game against the Orlando Magic.
9:33
Speaker 2: I have not seen anything like this in my life,
9:37
Speaker 2: an NBA team boycotting.
9:39
Speaker 1: The rest of the league followed. Games were postponed, and
9:42
Speaker 1: for a moment it was unclear whether the NBA season
9:45
Speaker 1: would continue at all.
9:49
Speaker 2: Players were very serious about leaving. There was real heavy consideration.
9:54
Speaker 2: There was not much else going on in the world.
9:56
Speaker 2: It was mainly the movements of what was happening in
9:58
Speaker 2: our communities. So we talked about it every day, and
10:01
Speaker 2: then of course when the shutdown happened, it was all right,
10:03
Speaker 2: where do we go from here? Like, if we're gonna
10:05
Speaker 2: stop playing and we're gonna make a stance, we need
10:07
Speaker 2: to come up with some solutions. We need to figure
10:09
Speaker 2: it out. When we had our meetings and all the
10:10
Speaker 2: groups came together and it was figuring out who wanted
10:13
Speaker 2: to play. I remember certain coaches that spoke and this
10:15
Speaker 2: is before I actually got a chance to play for Doc,
10:17
Speaker 2: and I was like, you know, DoD Damn Doc got
10:18
Speaker 2: some good stuff. You know. He talked about the league
10:21
Speaker 2: when he played and how different the world was then
10:25
Speaker 2: and it was not easy, you know, growing up as
10:27
Speaker 2: an African American man during those times, of playing basketball
10:30
Speaker 2: during those times. So sharing that and shedding that light
10:33
Speaker 2: to us on those times, I think put a lot
10:35
Speaker 2: of things in perspective for us moving forward and what
10:38
Speaker 2: we needed to do. Lakers played a huge role because,
10:40
Speaker 2: I mean, everybody's following what we were doing. Lebron James
10:42
Speaker 2: been the face of the league for twenty years, and
10:44
Speaker 2: whatever Lebron says he's gonna do, you better believe a
10:47
Speaker 2: lot of people are going to follow. I'm not saying
10:50
Speaker 2: what he said or what he did in the bubble,
10:52
Speaker 2: but he was on the verge of like he wasn't
10:54
Speaker 2: sure they were looking at us. They were looking at
10:56
Speaker 2: the Clippers, they're looking at Kawhi, they're looking at certain
10:58
Speaker 2: head coaches. But you know, people looking at Bron and
11:01
Speaker 2: was like, what are you gonna do? And there was
11:03
Speaker 2: some serious consideration there.
11:05
Speaker 1: After three days, the playoffs resumed. The Lakers closed out
11:09
Speaker 1: Berlin in Game five, advancing to face James Harden and
11:12
Speaker 1: the Houston Rockets in the second round, and once again
11:15
Speaker 1: the Lakers dropped game one, but just like before, Lebron
11:19
Speaker 1: and ad responded immediately. The two superstars combined for sixty
11:23
Speaker 1: two points in Game two to even out the series.
11:26
Speaker 1: Then in Game three, another veteran stepped up, Rajon Rondo
11:30
Speaker 1: gave the Lakers a huge lift off the bench, finishing
11:33
Speaker 1: with twenty one points in nine assists in a one
11:36
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve to one oh two win. And in
11:38
Speaker 1: Game four it became clear the playoff Rondo had fully arrived.
11:45
Speaker 2: The biggest best players in the world shine when the
11:49
Speaker 2: stage and the lights of the brightest. He's an example
11:51
Speaker 2: of that. He knows every play the other team is running.
11:54
Speaker 2: He's gonna watch film, watch the game three times and
11:56
Speaker 2: tell us what he saw. Morris across court, Rondo had
11:59
Speaker 2: just hit it better go to handout root stirred made
12:03
Speaker 2: three of the night, and he's he's gonna get steals, deflections,
12:06
Speaker 2: He's gonna make it happen whatever needs to happen for
12:08
Speaker 2: us to win. When people ask me, like who would
12:10
Speaker 2: I love to play with? That never got a chance
12:11
Speaker 2: to play with I got a chance to play Rondo,
12:13
Speaker 2: but I wanted to play with Boston. Rondo. He grew
12:15
Speaker 2: up in that Boston culture where like it's from that
12:17
Speaker 2: era where MJ used to talk trash to himself to like,
12:20
Speaker 2: well I took that personal. It's like that guy never
12:21
Speaker 2: said that. You just made that up in your mind,
12:24
Speaker 2: like KG, I think he used to talk to himself. Rondo,
12:26
Speaker 2: he didn't need anybody else to get him up. For
12:29
Speaker 2: get like he was just a trash talker and a
12:32
Speaker 2: lot of times to himself to get himself going. And
12:34
Speaker 2: you know he talked to other team talk a little trash,
12:36
Speaker 2: and he always found an angle. Even if we were
12:38
Speaker 2: playing competitive games, he's gonna find an angle to mess
12:41
Speaker 2: with you. He might cheat a little bit, but that's
12:43
Speaker 2: who he was. I don't think he played anything honest.
12:45
Speaker 2: He's gonna I'm always find that edge, and it's whether
12:47
Speaker 2: it's cards, whether they're shooting games. He might value. That's
12:50
Speaker 2: why people hate, you know, Pat Bev, Dylan Brooks. I
12:52
Speaker 2: got a chance to share a lot of them with
12:53
Speaker 2: both those guys, and even Rondo's like he's a paying ass,
12:56
Speaker 2: but when he's on your team, you're like, we need
12:58
Speaker 2: this guy, we need.
12:59
Speaker 1: That as hell from playoff Rondo. The Lakers closed out
13:02
Speaker 1: Houston in five games in advanced to the Western Conference Finals.
13:06
Speaker 1: Waiting for them was a Denver Nuggets team quickly becoming
13:09
Speaker 1: the story of the playoffs. After making history by coming
13:12
Speaker 1: back from consecutive three one deficits against the Jazz and Clippers,
13:17
Speaker 1: Denver had emerged as a serious threat in a brutal
13:20
Speaker 1: Western Conference.
13:22
Speaker 2: I mean, Yogis was still a very good player, but
13:24
Speaker 2: he wasn't three time MVP Yokic at this point, and
13:27
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray was just Bubba. Murray was on another level too.
13:31
Speaker 2: I remember playing great defense on him and him still
13:33
Speaker 2: hitting shots and I'm like, god, damn it, Like this
13:35
Speaker 2: guy just won't miss. So that was a tough series.
13:37
Speaker 2: It was a lot closer than what the series showed,
13:40
Speaker 2: and with sometimes a score showed, and a lot of
13:42
Speaker 2: them came down to the wire because of how well
13:45
Speaker 2: not only how good Yokich is, but how well Jamal
13:47
Speaker 2: Murray played, and he didn't miss many shots and he
13:50
Speaker 2: just thrived in that environment. But Jokic was also a
13:53
Speaker 2: tough assignment. We had Dwight for that. You know, obviously
13:56
Speaker 2: Javel and you have multiple bigs. You can put on him,
13:59
Speaker 2: it makes it tougher. I mean, Dwight was our and
14:01
Speaker 2: he was one of our cornerstones. Man. Physicality set the tone,
14:03
Speaker 2: set good screens, rub some people up, uses fouls, use
14:06
Speaker 2: them wisely. And also this series, he had to play smart,
14:09
Speaker 2: so he knew how to guard Jokic and he made
14:11
Speaker 2: a physical for him. So I think that also pushed
14:13
Speaker 2: Jokic to be even better, Like he knew he had
14:15
Speaker 2: to make adjustments, and playing against d White and playing
14:18
Speaker 2: against us, it was like he definitely went back home.
14:20
Speaker 2: And people think he just goes watches his horses. I'm
14:23
Speaker 2: pretty sure he watched the clips in that film and
14:25
Speaker 2: was like, all right, I need to be better at this,
14:27
Speaker 2: this and this, And I think that's what kind of
14:29
Speaker 2: made him so great.
14:31
Speaker 1: The Lakers controlled Game one behind thirty seven points from
14:34
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis, and early in Game two it looked like
14:37
Speaker 1: more of the same. Midway through the third quarter, LA
14:40
Speaker 1: led by sixteen points, but the Nuggets refused to go away.
14:44
Speaker 1: Denver stormed back, cutting the deficit to just four entering
14:48
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter and turning Game two into another bubbled classic.
14:54
Speaker 2: Was this ad game winner? Man, it was a close game.
14:58
Speaker 2: It was tight, and I'm like, I don't know if
14:59
Speaker 2: we get out of his If they won that game,
15:00
Speaker 2: they would have changed the whole series round. I don't
15:02
Speaker 2: even know if we had a play drawn up for this,
15:04
Speaker 2: like Rono's just like, yo, just go, you go. I'm
15:07
Speaker 2: trying to cut Davis four to three in the wind.
15:13
Speaker 2: Let you see how frustrated punched the ball with that
15:17
Speaker 2: game winner gave us the momentum, the confidence, everything we
15:20
Speaker 2: needed and also kind of put them in a like
15:22
Speaker 2: that's a devastating play to experience on the other side,
15:25
Speaker 2: and when you lose by a game winner, it's really
15:28
Speaker 2: hard to bounce back from it. That was a play
15:29
Speaker 2: that pretty much I think won us the championship. Like,
15:32
Speaker 2: no one respect to Miamami is a very good team,
15:34
Speaker 2: but I think this was the hardest overall team that
15:37
Speaker 2: we faced throughout that playoff.
15:38
Speaker 1: Runt Denver took Game three, but the Lakers answered in
15:41
Speaker 1: Game four to regain control of the series and take
15:44
Speaker 1: a three to one serious lead. In a close out
15:46
Speaker 1: Game five. For the Lakers, Lebron delivered one of the
15:49
Speaker 1: defining performances of the Bubble playoffs, thirty eight points sixteen
15:53
Speaker 1: rebounds in tennis is to send the Lakers to the
15:56
Speaker 1: NBA Finals. But even if the stakes got bigger, life
16:00
Speaker 1: inside the bubble remained surreal.
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Speaker 2: I remember Brian having his bike riding around as if
16:07
Speaker 2: he needed to do it. Just they wanted to feel normal.
16:10
Speaker 2: Some guys golfed, some guys fished. You know, a couple
16:12
Speaker 2: of us went to the same breakfast spot every day,
16:14
Speaker 2: and you know, Joel did his vlogging. I just walked
16:17
Speaker 2: around sometimes. Some guys went to the pool. But you
16:20
Speaker 2: needed some normalcy. It's like Groundhog Day every day. You've
16:23
Speaker 2: seen the same thing, same people over and over every day.
16:25
Speaker 2: So I've been a league long enough to where there
16:27
Speaker 2: was back to backs in the playoffs, and we had
16:28
Speaker 2: back to back to backs during the regular season, but
16:30
Speaker 2: most playoff years we'd had, especially the earlier games, we'd
16:33
Speaker 2: had days in between. I think it was shorter during
16:36
Speaker 2: that time. We didn't have many days in between, even
16:38
Speaker 2: in the earlier rounds, like people were playing so as
16:40
Speaker 2: much as they thought were getting rested. It was a
16:42
Speaker 2: lot of wear and tearing the body too. I remember
16:44
Speaker 2: coming out of there and my body feeling like a
16:45
Speaker 2: newborn baby deer. When I got off the plane, and
16:47
Speaker 2: I was younger than but it was a tough task
16:49
Speaker 2: playing every other day, so the days off do stuff
16:52
Speaker 2: to get your mind off was mos so get off
16:54
Speaker 2: your feet and trying to avoid other teams, which also
16:56
Speaker 2: made it awkward because you don't want to hang out
16:58
Speaker 2: with the other teams. You're supposed to be competitive, so
17:00
Speaker 2: having to beat a team, a loser team, and then
17:02
Speaker 2: see them right after or share the same restaurant with them,
17:05
Speaker 2: it's like, man, what the hell are we doing here?
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Speaker 1: But there was one star who seemed to thrive in
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Speaker 1: this bubble environment, and the Lakers were about to face
17:13
Speaker 1: him in the NBA Finals. Jimmy Butler's playoff intensity had
17:16
Speaker 1: powered the number five seed he threw the Eastern Conference
17:19
Speaker 1: and into the finals against the Lakers behind dominant performances
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Speaker 1: from Lebron and ag La controlled games one and two,
17:27
Speaker 1: but in Game three, with Miami desperately needing a win,
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Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler delivered one of the greatest performances of his career.
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Speaker 2: For to shoot Butler drives, flips him up, Jimmy Butler
17:38
Speaker 2: playing nearly the entire game.
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Speaker 1: Butler finished with a forty point triple double in a
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Speaker 1: win to bring the yee back into the series. Jimmy
17:46
Speaker 1: Butler was hustling on and off the court, launching big
17:49
Speaker 1: Face Coffee where he up charged fellow NBA players for
17:52
Speaker 1: cups of coffee.
17:55
Speaker 2: I'm not a coffee person, but even if I was,
17:57
Speaker 2: I'm not paying twenty dollars. I think it was like
17:59
Speaker 2: forty dollars. Like he was charging like forty dollars a
18:01
Speaker 2: coffee cup. Yeah. Cool, Jimmy's cool. I think he's great.
18:04
Speaker 2: I'm a fan. I'm not that much of a fan
18:06
Speaker 2: in Bubble Jimmy. God, damn, he just looked like a scruffy.
18:09
Speaker 2: He didn't shave his face. He was just gritty, grimy
18:12
Speaker 2: and just didn't care by anything but basketball. And he
18:16
Speaker 2: killed us and he killed everybody. And I feel like
18:18
Speaker 2: he's one of those guys that again, like like Rondo
18:20
Speaker 2: turned into a different player when the playoffs start, Like
18:23
Speaker 2: he's a guy during the regular seasons, like, all right,
18:25
Speaker 2: we can guard him to where you make him shoot
18:27
Speaker 2: jump shots. You can't do that in the playoffs against Jimmy.
18:29
Speaker 2: Like he's hitting jump shots, he's hitting threes, he's hitting fadeaways,
18:33
Speaker 2: he's getting fouled. He was doing it all and for
18:36
Speaker 2: some reason, I guess when the playoffs and the lights
18:38
Speaker 2: get brighter, he turns into an all around like player athlete,
18:42
Speaker 2: like he is a great athlete, but he just turns
18:44
Speaker 2: into an unbelievable like star. And I think part of
18:47
Speaker 2: it is also the way he plays, the way he
18:49
Speaker 2: approaches the game and empowers his teammates, or what he does,
18:52
Speaker 2: it raises the level player everybody around him. And that's
18:54
Speaker 2: why you can take a playing team and go to
18:56
Speaker 2: the finals. You know, you can take a lower seeded
18:59
Speaker 2: team and beat the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round,
19:02
Speaker 2: because not only is he playing great, but everybody's around
19:05
Speaker 2: him has the same attitude and the same mentality of
19:07
Speaker 2: you know, f them, we don't care. We're gonna come
19:09
Speaker 2: out here nothing to lose. You know, they're fearless.
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Speaker 1: Even with injuries piling up around them. The heat refused
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Speaker 1: to go away. The Lakers knew they needed to respond.
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Speaker 1: In Game four, Lebron took control early, finishing with twenty
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Speaker 1: eight points, twelve rebounds, and eight assists, but Miami refused
19:26
Speaker 1: to back down, cutting the deficit to two, which is
19:29
Speaker 1: over three minutes to go. Then in the final minutes,
19:32
Speaker 1: Ada not only played incredible defense, but hit the dagger
19:35
Speaker 1: three to steal in one hundred two to ninety six
19:38
Speaker 1: Lakers victory. The Lakers were now just one win away
19:42
Speaker 1: from an NBA championship. LA broke out their black Mamba
19:46
Speaker 1: jerseys for Game five, hoping to celebrate a title that
19:49
Speaker 1: night in honor of Kobe Bryant, but the game turned
19:51
Speaker 1: into a neck in neck battle led by Miami's past
19:54
Speaker 1: and present superstars. Bron delivered forty points. Jimmy answered with
19:59
Speaker 1: a thirty f five point triple double. The Lakers trail
20:02
Speaker 1: by one point. Is the cloth wound down? That's when
20:05
Speaker 1: Lebron attacked the defense and found Danny Green wide open
20:09
Speaker 1: at the top of the key for a potential title
20:11
Speaker 1: winning three.
20:14
Speaker 2: I don't remember how it began. When you haven't played
20:17
Speaker 2: like this happened, you don't remember anything but this play.
20:19
Speaker 1: Green coming up to set a screen, James goes the
20:22
Speaker 1: other way, drives down a.
20:23
Speaker 2: Lane, back out to Green, Green for three off the line.
20:26
Speaker 2: I could get that one back again. Why was there
20:28
Speaker 2: a shot clock on that or No, there was no
20:30
Speaker 2: shot clock on that, right, I had a lot of time.
20:32
Speaker 2: Holy shit, damn, I thought it was like four seconds
20:35
Speaker 2: when I caught it, like three or four. So even
20:37
Speaker 2: after I saw it and replay, I thought there was
20:40
Speaker 2: still like less time than that. When I caught it,
20:44
Speaker 2: I thought it was like two or three, like two seconds,
20:46
Speaker 2: so I rushed it sooner than I should have. And
20:49
Speaker 2: even after watching it, I still remember being eight seconds
20:51
Speaker 2: when I shot the ball, like I thought for show
20:53
Speaker 2: when I shot it was like four seconds. But it's
20:55
Speaker 2: like I definitely had time to pump, fake or take
20:57
Speaker 2: a dribble or get my catch my gather. But the
21:00
Speaker 2: plan was to get Lebron James the switch right. I
21:02
Speaker 2: had Duncan Robinson guarded me, and the most of the
21:05
Speaker 2: times I had the weaker defender guarded me most games,
21:08
Speaker 2: so a lot of games my like, I would set
21:11
Speaker 2: screens for Lebron get the switch on him so he
21:12
Speaker 2: can go to the post. Either set a rip screen
21:15
Speaker 2: or a flare screen. They trapped him. I tried to
21:17
Speaker 2: sit on the outside. I thought Bron like he likes
21:19
Speaker 2: to get to his left hand. Fans don't know that
21:21
Speaker 2: or not, so I tried to set it to where
21:22
Speaker 2: he rejected the screen and had two guys on him,
21:24
Speaker 2: threw it back me not knowing the time I catch
21:27
Speaker 2: it drop and I see a guy running at me.
21:28
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to get the shot off fast. And
21:31
Speaker 2: then we actually had time for another shot and Keith
21:33
Speaker 2: got the rebound and I was like I was right
21:36
Speaker 2: behind him, like, yo, if I get another look at this,
21:39
Speaker 2: I'm wide open. This one's going. But he shot it again.
21:42
Speaker 2: Not ideal, not the shot. In hindsight, it's easy, like yo,
21:45
Speaker 2: I could have had more time. I could have took
21:46
Speaker 2: my time, but I rushed it, didn't get a good
21:48
Speaker 2: catch on it, and it was short. It was ugly.
21:51
Speaker 2: You know, you're live and you learn from again your
21:53
Speaker 2: biggest failures and the toughest losses. I remember after the game, wife,
21:58
Speaker 2: he was like, just turn your phone off, or like
22:02
Speaker 2: get don't go on Instagram. And I wouln't even think
22:04
Speaker 2: about that at the time. I was just thinking, like, damn,
22:05
Speaker 2: I keep up. Missed the shot. And then she was like,
22:08
Speaker 2: just turn your phone. I was like, oh, damn. People,
22:10
Speaker 2: actually they're gonna come for me for this one, and
22:12
Speaker 2: they still do to this day. But I don't give
22:14
Speaker 2: a damn. You know, I mean this basketball game obviously
22:17
Speaker 2: we still won. You know, we ended up making it happen.
22:20
Speaker 2: Of course, I would like love to have made the shot.
22:22
Speaker 2: There's been plenty of shots I've been a part of
22:24
Speaker 2: that were big moments, and I made something I miss them.
22:26
Speaker 2: That was one of them. Is unfortunate, but it helped
22:29
Speaker 2: build character within me and within us. Before the game
22:33
Speaker 2: even started, I was like, we're gonna get the next one,
22:35
Speaker 2: and I think everybody had that same confidence. I think
22:37
Speaker 2: they just ran out of gas. But they've been playing
22:39
Speaker 2: shouldn't say above themselves, but you know, they've been playing
22:41
Speaker 2: at their their peak potential as a group. But you
22:44
Speaker 2: don't get that for me every person on the roster.
22:47
Speaker 2: You might have two or three guys peeking at a moment,
22:49
Speaker 2: or you know, three or four, or maybe one or two.
22:52
Speaker 2: It's hard to have your full rotation of eight guys
22:55
Speaker 2: on the same page and playing their best basketball the
22:58
Speaker 2: same time. They took us to six in ten different series.
23:02
Speaker 2: Nine of those series we probably win in five games.
23:05
Speaker 2: It was like all of thirty people, there's just our organization.
23:07
Speaker 2: And also the worst part is the rest of the
23:09
Speaker 2: resort does not like you or wants to be like
23:11
Speaker 2: all leaving and it's just an empty place. And I
23:14
Speaker 2: guess in perspective, like I had to think about it
23:16
Speaker 2: in retrospect after the fact, Like you have to go
23:18
Speaker 2: through all those days, and like Miami is probably sick
23:21
Speaker 2: to lose. Like if you have to go through all
23:23
Speaker 2: those days and lose and then be there and watch
23:25
Speaker 2: a team at a restaurant like thirty feet away celebrate, it's
23:30
Speaker 2: it's kind of awkward. And it was by far the
23:32
Speaker 2: hardest championship that I had to achieve, it said, making
23:35
Speaker 2: that adjustment, playing through COVID, having your family and friends
23:39
Speaker 2: not really there, not being able to even celebrate it properly.
23:42
Speaker 2: We went to the same restaurant that we go to
23:44
Speaker 2: every day and celebrate as a team, but after that,
23:46
Speaker 2: no real parade. So it was just different. But you know,
23:49
Speaker 2: in the bubble, like there's a lot of different things
23:51
Speaker 2: going on with the walls just start closing and on
23:53
Speaker 2: you mentally and emotionally, And it was a hard fallt
23:56
Speaker 2: and again also the physical task of every other day playing,
24:00
Speaker 2: which wears on you by far like the hardest because
24:03
Speaker 2: again mentally taxing. I think people understand most of it,
24:08
Speaker 2: but I think there's a lot that went into play
24:12
Speaker 2: for us to be there and get there and win,
24:15
Speaker 2: and I think they most fans do. The real fans
24:17
Speaker 2: appreciate it as an iconic, legendary team, and I think
24:20
Speaker 2: we would have run regardless of as a bubble or
24:22
Speaker 2: not