Dan Patrick Recaps The Celtics Game 6 Win, Nuggets Eliminating The Suns | 05/12/23
76ers beat, lost to the Celtics. And I said this yesterday, and I think I surprised a lot of the audience where I said, the Celtics are favored in this game in Philadelphia in a closeout game potentially for the 76ers. And you're watching that game, and you're watching Jason Tatum, and you're going, and he was first team all NBA. And then in the fourth quarter, he looked like he was first team all NBA. You had three points in the first three quarters, 16 in the fourth quarter, and you survive, and you head home for a game seven. And here is Jason Tatum being interviewed by ESPN's Cassidy Hubbard. The struggle through the first three quarters with 16 points in that fourth quarter.
How do you describe the confidence you had to trust yourself down the stretch? I'm one of the humbly, one of the best basketball players in the world. Go through struggles, go through slumps. It's a long game. And thankfully I got some great teammates to help it down. Okay, humbly, I'm one of the greatest players in the world. And he is. But there are times that he just frustrates me when you're watching, and it was a long off season last year.
If they had lost last night, it'd be an even longer off season, just as Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns. That was not close. That was the artist formerly known as, you know, he played really well in the first quarter. Problem is, you had three other quarters, and you played horribly. The Denver Nuggets close out the Phoenix Suns and do so in impressive fashion. Here is Kevin Durant after the loss. Yeah, it sucked.
It was a bad feeling. It was embarrassing. They came on, hit us in the mouth, we couldn't recover. Gotta get him credit for being a disciplined team. I want to be fair to Kevin Durant here, because he was injured, didn't play a lot of games with the Phoenix Suns, and it felt like they needed a little bit more rhythm together. I think that Durant and Booker are just so talented that that overshadowed some things. There's obviously something going on with Deandre Aitin, and if he's going to be there next year, Chris Paul, just turning 38, is he gonna be there? There's already been talk of, could you bring in Kyrie Irving and do a sign-in trade with the Dallas Mavericks? So there's a lot of things there.
Oh my God. Yeah, that'll solve everything. You should have heard the sound in this room when you said that. I know, I know, I know. But this is the situation there with Phoenix. They gave up an awful lot. Mikhail Bridges, Cam Johnson, four, first round draft picks.
You were, you're ready to win now. And we thought with that star power, would that be enough? You didn't have depth, and it certainly showed. And you were going against a better team, a balanced team, and you were going against the Joker. Here's Durant on the Joker's performance. I always knew how great he was, that these guys are good, especially somebody like Yoker, who's I've been watching and playing against him for a minute now, since he hit his peak as a player. So, no, I wouldn't say I learned anything new. Great team, deep team, been together for what, how long might Malone been there, six years? That's a good advantage to have, you know, you know your coach, you know the players on the team, you got a system in place for that long.
So, no, I wasn't surprised at all. Yoker's is an all-time great, gonna go down as one of the all-time great centers to ever touch a basketball. Yeah, and another triple double. It's sort of an oh, by the way, and it's rare, I mean, LeBron has done this, and that is be past first. How many stars, great scores are past first? And Yoker looks to past first. I think he takes great pride in his ability to see the open man find the open man. And it's almost like, I'm gonna look and see if I can find somebody with a better shot.
And if not, then I'll just take it myself. And you saw that, you saw that throughout the series. He has a wonderful ability to find somebody and put them in a scoring position. And then we see him, DeAndre Aitin had no chance against him. And DeAndre Aitin wasn't 100%, but I don't think mentally he's 100% a Phoenix son. It just feels like that. There's still friction left over from last season, the off season as well.
So, the Nuggets advance, they'll wait for the outcome of the Warriors at the Lakers, and then the Knicks and the Heat, you have a lot at stake here. Because it feels like whoever wins the Celtic 76ers is going to go to the NBA finals. I don't know if we look at the Miami Heat and New York Knicks as threatening. And those teams are better than those two teams. But I think with the Celtics going back home, you would think they would have an advantage. I'm not sure Jason Tatum agrees with that. The Celtics fans, they all love to call us out, right? So, I'm gonna call you guys out.
This time, like, energy in the garden has been okay at best all playoffs. Game seven, if you're there, or if you're not there, if you're in your home, if you're watching at a bar, if you're watching down the street at a friend's house, I don't care, I need you to be up. I need you to come with the energy because we don't need every bit of it. No excuses, we need everybody. So, I'm calling you guys out. Let's make sure the garden is ready to go. Oh boy.
You don't need to do this. You don't. Imagine if the crowd, oh, they did. They did call you guys out and booed you last game at home. But you guys deserve that. Now you're asking the Boston fans that I'm calling you out, okay? Well, you guys better play well. Yes, Todd? He's really setting himself up for, we were all screaming and yelling and ready to go.
Where were you in game seven? He's putting all his chips in the middle. Yeah, Paul. That headline where we need more energy, it hasn't been there, that's gonna be the feature. And then the second half of his comments were like, we need you in game seven. Just say the second part. We need you in game seven. Let's all step up, let's all band together.
You don't have to call anyone out. Yes. You don't need to say that phrase. No, no, no, no, no. How was your energy when you left James Harden wide open for that? Oh, sorry, we had a lot of energy then and then that.
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