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Wicked Sports Weekend · Newsradio WGAN

• 0:00
  How are you, Merchant of Death? John Tomasi?
• 0:03
  How are things? I'm I'm still not over.
• 0:07
  Last weekend, I got over the Super Bowl faster than this,
• 0:10
  Maybe because the Patriots overachieved.
• 0:12
  And yet. But yet you you expected this,
• 0:14
  Sir. You predicted it.
• 0:16
  You knew. You knew.
• 0:17
  Yeah, well. After Game 6, I did, but
• 0:20
  certainly before the series I didn't feel that way, and I
• 0:22
  definitely feel that way after Game 4 when they're up three.
• 0:25
  One, we're talking about the Celtics.
• 0:27
  Obviously I, I have so many issues with where this team is
• 0:32
  headed right now. It's depressing.
• 0:35
  Hey, where's the team headed net right now?
• 0:39
  I will tell you what, I have Joe Missoula in my sights right now.
• 0:42
  If if I'm the because I I he's going to win coach of the year
• 0:47
  and it would be weird to win coach of the year and then get
• 0:50
  let go like immediately. But I would be fine with that
• 0:53
  because what I have realized is Joe Missoula as a regular season
• 0:56
  coach. That's what I that's the
• 0:58
  conclusion I have come to. Nick Nurse coach circles around
• 1:02
  him in this series and just go back his last three playoff
• 1:05
  losses to the 8th seeded heat. When you're down 3 O in a series
• 1:09
  you should have won easily to the Knicks last year when you
• 1:12
  kept blowing 20 point leads before Jayson Tatum got hurt and
• 1:17
  now to a seven seed when you had a 3-1 lead and it took It all
• 1:20
  comes down to play style. I've been one of these people
• 1:23
  who defended their play style. Listen, the Mathworks threes
• 1:26
  work. They want a title, shooting
• 1:28
  threes. But now you look at it and you
• 1:30
  say, you know what, if you were to play 1000 games in this
• 1:33
  style, you're going to win most of them.
• 1:35
  But in A7 game series where there's too much variance that
• 1:39
  the idea of relying on threes, they're harder to make in the
• 1:43
  playoffs. That's some, I think Missoula
• 1:45
  acts like this math happens in sterile lab conditions, and
• 1:51
  that's not how the playoffs work.
• 1:53
  You see less of opposing benches, so there's, you know,
• 1:57
  fewer opportunities to exploit bad players.
• 2:00
  There's this thing called pressure.
• 2:02
  You get guarded harder, all of that.
• 2:05
  So I just look at it and say, you know what?
• 2:08
  Their talent was too good this year to lose to the Sixers.
• 2:11
  Maybe they would lose to the Knicks.
• 2:12
  I think the Knicks are a good team.
• 2:14
  They were too good to lose to the Sixers that way.
• 2:17
  And we haven't even gotten to Game 7 yet.
• 2:20
  And how he coached there. Yeah, which I do have to ask you
• 2:23
  about, of course. But I, I do wonder though,
• 2:25
  whether or not like the best Boston sports analysts that we
• 2:29
  are, we do not get a little bit captured by the, you know, the
• 2:32
  prisoner of the moment situation too, Because if you go back in
• 2:34
  the beginning of the season, right, you expected nothing out
• 2:36
  of the Celtics. You thought this was a
• 2:37
  rebuilding year. I mean, so did I we all did
• 2:40
  thought it was a rebuilding year.
• 2:41
  This is not something where they're going to win a
• 2:42
  championship. I mean, did they even make the
• 2:44
  playoffs? Maybe if they do, they're not
• 2:46
  going to go very far. I mean, that's kind of exactly
• 2:48
  what happened, right? They just had a way better than
• 2:52
  expected regular season and we were like, Oh my God, this is
• 2:54
  actually a nice little bright surprise.
• 2:57
  Isn't that fun, right? Maybe it was all a little bit of
• 2:59
  a mirage and they were who we thought they were.
• 3:01
  Danny Green a little bit. Yeah, I can't.
• 3:06
  I thought there was a Danny Green in the studio.
• 3:07
  I missed that. Come.
• 3:09
  On that's a great reference. I I get the reference.
• 3:12
  It took me some like, is there a Danny Green to an update?
• 3:15
  So I need to let him weigh in. So it's possible you're you're
• 3:19
  right. But This is why I'm less
• 3:22
  inclined to say prisoner of the moment because it's been a week
• 3:24
  now. I still feel this way after a
• 3:26
  week. And as I said, this has been a
• 3:28
  recurring theme in the postseason.
• 3:30
  And I understand these guys had issues closing out series when
• 3:34
  e-mail was coaching and even when Stevens was coaching.
• 3:37
  But for this group with its pedigree and Jason Tatum coming
• 3:40
  back and to watch how they lost, that's that's the thing that
• 3:43
  gets me. Yes, Philly played well, but
• 3:45
  they didn't adjust at all. They didn't make Joel Embiid
• 3:48
  move like the Knicks have, and the Knicks are now taking care
• 3:51
  of business in that series. The starting lineup in Game 7
• 3:55
  was a joke. I mean, imagine the message you
• 3:58
  could have sent by simply sending out the starting five.
• 4:02
  Who won all those games without Tatum this year?
• 4:04
  You know, Brown, White, Pritchard, Kata, Shireman, and
• 4:08
  you tell them you're the ones who got us here, now go finish
• 4:11
  the job. That's a man Instead you, Luca
• 4:13
  Garza, Ron Harper. It's just like that was a
• 4:17
  desperation, panic move by a coach who has consistently, I
• 4:22
  know they want a title but has consistently come up short in
• 4:26
  the big moments. I mean, was that just a, a
• 4:29
  factor of him attempting to be too clever by half?
• 4:32
  Like, I mean, knowing him after watching him this much, this
• 4:36
  much time, right? You know, my impression is that
• 4:39
  sometimes he's trying to like prove that he's innovative or
• 4:42
  different or creative or whatever else.
• 4:44
  And it just is a very inopportune time to do that in
• 4:47
  game seven in managing the way that he did that game.
• 4:50
  I just, it's, it's inexplicable. I'm trying to find some logical
• 4:55
  explanation for why you would go about it that way.
• 4:58
  Yeah, I think the logic is these guys played hard at the end of
• 5:00
  Game 6 when we were embarrassing.
• 5:03
  And so I'm going to give, I'm going to reward the guys who
• 5:05
  work hard. I have no problem with that.
• 5:06
  But how about you bring them off the bench in the second quarter?
• 5:09
  You don't start them, you fall behind 9, nothing.
• 5:11
  And 17 to 6, whatever it was not only because those guys can't
• 5:15
  score and none of them scored. They had a bunch of offers.
• 5:18
  I think they were the first team in history to have three playoff
• 5:21
  starters score 0 points. So that tells you all you need
• 5:24
  to know there. But it wasn't even about their
• 5:26
  offense. They had no idea what to do on
• 5:28
  defense because they had never played together.
• 5:29
  And you watch Philly is just backdooring them for Kelly
• 5:32
  Ubreak dunks like multiple times.
• 5:35
  That's because they just had never played together.
• 5:37
  They didn't know how to play defense together.
• 5:39
  And you put yourself in that position in game seven.
• 5:43
  Yeah, I I agree. I think it is Missoula trying to
• 5:45
  look smarter than he is. But at the end of the day, I
• 5:49
  don't look at him as a coach who makes a ton of adjustments.
• 5:52
  He has a style. We shoot a lot of threes and
• 5:55
  that's pretty much it. And if you take away the threes
• 5:57
  and you take away their offensive rebounding, they have
• 5:59
  not very much offensively, it turns out it.
• 6:03
  Seems so. So I do have to ask the question
• 6:04
  now that the season is over, about where do they go from
• 6:07
  here? I've already heard about
• 6:09
  breaking up the duo and, you know, big trade, trade
• 6:14
  speculation and blowing up the team and starting over again,
• 6:17
  which is funny. We do that every year.
• 6:20
  What do you think actually happens?
• 6:21
  What do you think needs to happen?
• 6:22
  Is Jalen Brown gone? Yeah, so I don't think he is,
• 6:26
  but I have to admit I have not loved a word I've heard out of
• 6:29
  Jaylen Brown since the season ended.
• 6:31
  This is my favorite season, he keeps saying, and he keeps
• 6:33
  doubling down on that. It's like your favorite season
• 6:36
  is when you got bounced in the first round as an overwhelming
• 6:39
  favorite. That's your favorite season?
• 6:42
  Better than when you won a title and we're Finals MVP.
• 6:45
  Like, how am I supposed to read that?
• 6:47
  Except that you're selfish and only cared about being the guy
• 6:51
  and the year that you got to be the guy was the most rewarding
• 6:54
  for you, even though it ended in abject failure.
• 6:58
  I just, I don't picture Jayson Tatum saying that, for instance.
• 7:02
  So if they were to move on from Jaylen Brown, I'd be OK with
• 7:05
  that. But that's, that's not how the
• 7:07
  NBA works now, You know, like, what are you, what are you going
• 7:09
  to get for him? Who are you going to trade him
• 7:11
  for? I perhaps after a couple of
• 7:15
  sorrowful drinks in the wake of that game, posted something on
• 7:18
  social media about trade Jaylen Brown for Giannis.
• 7:21
  But I wouldn't actually do that. Giannis is at the broken down
• 7:25
  phase of his career, unfortunately, and he's as ball
• 7:28
  dominant as anyone. So to answer your question, I
• 7:31
  don't think they're going to make any changes.
• 7:33
  But Brad Stevens is creative, creative.
• 7:35
  And if you could creatively find a way to move on from Jaylen
• 7:39
  Brown, I would be fine with that.
• 7:41
  I. Don't want to spend any time
• 7:42
  really talking about the Bruins, but they also choked away and
• 7:47
  and failed. I mean, just sort of insult to
• 7:50
  injury for all Boston sports fans to retrospective on that
• 7:54
  series in the season really quickly, yeah.
• 7:56
  I mean, I can't say that they failed.
• 7:57
  They had their expectations were lower than the Celtics.
• 8:00
  I feel like coming into the year, they made the playoffs,
• 8:03
  they kind of put a scare in the Sabres a little bit.
• 8:06
  I mean, third period of game six, they come out on fire.
• 8:09
  If they can just score a goal, that game is tied instead.
• 8:13
  Do they? I mean, kind of this sums up
• 8:15
  their season perfectly. They design A play for David
• 8:17
  Postnock on a face off in the offensive zone.
• 8:20
  It does not go his way. The puck squirts into the Boston
• 8:23
  and he lollygags after it. The little rat guy for the
• 8:27
  Sabres who's like their marsh and beats him to the puck.
• 8:31
  I think it was him and McAvoy, right?
• 8:33
  And then splits them, fires in front.
• 8:36
  There's two guys waiting for it, nobody defending them.
• 8:39
  One of them scores because Swayman can't quite glove.
• 8:43
  Would have been a difficult save, but you're paying him to
• 8:46
  save your season. He can't do it.
• 8:49
  That play was their season in a nutshell.
• 8:51
  Their top end talent isn't good enough.
• 8:53
  Indeed. All right.
• 8:54
  Well, let me turn our attention to the NFL here.
• 8:57
  And I can't believe I have to do it again.
• 8:58
  But I have to ask about Mike Vrabel and his amorous
• 9:01
  relationship with with people, not we.
• 9:03
  Don't know that alleged. Alleged, right?
• 9:05
  Yeah, no, Yeah. I rent boats together with
• 9:07
  people I'm not dating right now with.
• 9:08
  Pregnant people. That was one of the worst things
• 9:11
  I've ever seen. I just didn't even know how to
• 9:13
  react to that. With the with the child being
• 9:16
  named Mike very shortly thereafter.
• 9:17
  Yeah, it's a great look. So I have to ask the question.
• 9:21
  I mean, like, is his job in jeopardy?
• 9:23
  Because, you know, while I don't think that many people would
• 9:27
  assume or think that, you know, extramarital relationships or
• 9:31
  personal issues or problems or whatever is really something
• 9:34
  that affects your coaching ability or on field product or
• 9:37
  whatever else, This is a monumental distraction and it is
• 9:40
  not going away. There's talk of her now giving
• 9:42
  interviews to like, Good Morning America Now, you know, the tell
• 9:46
  all is obviously coming at some point because she's going to
• 9:49
  have to tell her side of the story.
• 9:50
  I mean, all the speculation about that kid, is it really
• 9:52
  Mike Vrabel's kid? I mean, it's named Mike.
• 9:54
  And it was the timing was fortuitous and the boat and all
• 9:57
  that other stuff. I mean, is this getting to a
• 9:59
  point where, you know, Robert Kraft has to be like, all right,
• 10:03
  I guess this is too much. I can't do this anymore.
• 10:05
  And where am I? Yeah.
• 10:06
  See. I don't think so.
• 10:08
  I think the best chance or the most likely chance of Mike
• 10:12
  Brabel not coaching the Patriots next year is because he steps
• 10:15
  down and what we don't know is he's done counseling, he is
• 10:20
  working on his marriage. She is all of that stuff.
• 10:23
  If there are revelations that come out like say the pregnant
• 10:27
  boat ride that she didn't, his wife did not know about, that he
• 10:31
  did, was not forthcoming about, and that puts further strain on
• 10:34
  their marriage. And yes, we are putting
• 10:36
  ourselves inside a situation that we don't have the insight
• 10:39
  details to. But I'm just saying if there are
• 10:41
  more revelations that strain his marriage to the point where he
• 10:44
  says, the only way I can save this is to step away, I think
• 10:48
  that's more likely than Robert Kraft with some of his history
• 10:52
  saying, you know what? The we can't we can't
• 10:54
  countenance this. I don't I we're just, we're in
• 10:58
  that post shame society, you know, and I don't think that
• 11:02
  this even now rises to the level of fireable.
• 11:07
  I could be wrong. Yeah, no, I don't.
• 11:09
  I don't think it does either, other than the fact that it's
• 11:11
  just highly distracting forever. Like if I'm craft, the
• 11:13
  conversation I have with Rabel is, look, buddy, I know you
• 11:16
  don't want to do this, but you got to do one of those stand
• 11:18
  until you drop press conferences for like an hour and a half
• 11:22
  where you literally come clean, answer all the like, get it out.
• 11:25
  Like just finish it. Just stop it.
• 11:27
  I don't want to hear this crap anymore for the next three
• 11:29
  months as they find all the because clearly this is like API
• 11:32
  or something that, I mean, who gets boat records, right?
• 11:34
  So they're everybody's hunting for stuff, right, Right.
• 11:37
  And now, like the way you can stop that is to just say, yes,
• 11:40
  we did. You know, I'm a shameful,
• 11:43
  disgusting human being. I'm working on it.
• 11:45
  I, you know, appreciate that, you know, give privacy and stuff
• 11:48
  like leave me alone, you know, just like actually coming clean
• 11:52
  and doing the answer a few questions about it thing so that
• 11:55
  maybe you can actually get it in the rearview mirror because
• 11:57
  right now it's not in the rearview mirror.
• 11:59
  Yeah, I agree. I mean, honestly, there's a
• 12:01
  lesson in how Trump and the Trump family handle a lot of
• 12:04
  things where they just come out and admit it and there's no
• 12:06
  more. Yeah, we met with the person
• 12:08
  from Russia and Trump Tower or whatever, no big deal.
• 12:11
  And it's like that's that is a path forward in today's world.
• 12:16
  And I agree with you. I don't know why the fact that
• 12:19
  Brabel keeps you, I can't comment.
• 12:21
  Like, how do you feel about Diane or seen he losing her job?
• 12:23
  I can't comment. I understand why.
• 12:25
  Why not? Why can't you comment?
• 12:27
  Is there that that doesn't make any sense.
• 12:29
  And so the more you try to sort of you only respond to things
• 12:34
  when you know they're about to happen, as was the case with the
• 12:37
  whole counseling revelation, that is just letting this story
• 12:41
  live and they have to do something because you know
• 12:45
  there's going to be more photos of God knows what coming
• 12:48
  forward. Undoubtedly, there will be.
• 12:50
  All right, I'm already long, but I got to ask about the Red Sox
• 12:52
  before I get out of here. Quick, quick question, quick
• 12:54
  answer, I suppose. But, you know, they did they
• 12:56
  just sweep the Tigers. I mean, hey, things are looking
• 12:59
  up. I know they didn't win last
• 13:00
  night, but, you know, it's overall.
• 13:02
  How do you think the Red Sox are doing in their post?
• 13:05
  Alex Cora lives so far. Yeah, so last night Junior Cam
• 13:09
  an Arrow hits an absolute bomb. But otherwise, you know, you
• 13:13
  look at the standings, they're only a couple games out of a
• 13:15
  wild card spot, so there is certainly time to turn things
• 13:18
  around. However, big picture, the
• 13:20
  pitching is in shambles because so many guys are hurt and your
• 13:24
  Sonny Gray's back, but you have a lot of issues there.
• 13:28
  Now you have Roman Anthony out, Jaron Duran is hitting, which is
• 13:31
  good. I just feel like they're going
• 13:33
  to be a one step forward, 2 steps back kind of team all year
• 13:37
  and it is what it is. They didn't do enough in the
• 13:40
  offseason to address their offense and so here we are.
• 13:44
  And are they? Just they're just going to have
• 13:45
  to hire a manager in the offseason.
• 13:47
  We do an interim all year. Is that what you?
• 13:49
  I would think, doesn't that make sense?
• 13:50
  You know, I don't know who you. Get through that.
• 13:53
  Exactly. You get because otherwise
• 13:54
  you're, oh, you're going to bring Buck Showalter out of
• 13:56
  mothballs or something like that.
• 13:58
  So. I yeah, Bobby Valentine might be
• 14:00
  available, right? Bobby V That worked out great.
• 14:03
  So yeah, you get to the offseason and and start over.
• 14:06
  Yeah. All right.
• 14:07
  Well, that's going to be fun. Appreciate it.
• 14:09
  John Tomasi, as always. We will talk next week and I'm
• 14:11
  sure I won't ask you any variable questions then, so
• 14:13
  we'll no it. Sounds.
• 14:15
  I look forward to it. Excellent.
• 14:16
  Thanks a lot.