WEBVTT

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Clippers and Thunder Tonight, we've got
the pregame show six thirty. You're on

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the radio station, The Salty a
Adam Austlin will be behind the mic,

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Salty. How are you? Why
did you take that big side before getting

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to me there? Like, oh, now I gotta get to Adam after

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trying to fudge the numbers a minute
ago, Fred, what's wrong with you?

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There's nothing wrong with me, Adam. I'm just saying, you know,

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it's nine games to go for the
Clippers. I know you're very concerned.

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Yeah, I am concerned. But
I heard you were on one today,

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so now I'm concerned about that too. And I just witnessed it with

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how you treated Kevin exactly exactly.
I just want to get the accurate numbers

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from Kevin. That's it, since
f and Win ratings rogan with accurate numbers,

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Since when you cook the books all
the time. You know what,

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there's an old there's an old line
in research. Tell the secret, Adam.

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You give me a two, I'll
give you four. It's pretty simple.

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You can fix those numbers anyway you'll
want them, all right, Adams,

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let's go Paul George, Boy,
that's a huge loss. And he's

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basically done for the regular season.
Could he come back to the playoffs.

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We'll see, because earlier today I
practiced, Terrence Man said he's in good

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spirits and he's already started a rehab, so I would take that as a

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good sign. Now they said reevaluation
in two to three weeks. The playoffs

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are about a little over three weeks
away, so it's possible if he responds

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fast enough. Who knows when the
injury first occurred. The first thing I

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thought of was Jannas Denna Coopo and
the way he hyper extended his knee in

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the twenty twenty one Eastern Conference Finals. I think that was at the end

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of Game four. He missed a
week now. He's the Greek freak for

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a reason. And I don't know
what their evaluation or diagnosis was and how

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it compares to Paul George. Everybody's
different, of course, but if you

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were looking for a comp that was
the guy. The problem is he's one

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of the freakiest athletes of all time, and he had it when he was

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twenty six. Paul George is older
now at thirty two. Clippers just called

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it a right knee sprain. We
don't know which ligament, but earlier today

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hearing that from Terrence Man was encouraging
and look overall, with how horrific the

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injury looked that night, I mean
the two one three era flashed before my

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eyes. I started to think it
was just going to be defined by major

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knee injuries, first to Kawhi Leonard, then to Paul George, and for

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that to happen to someone who had
been through so much with the compound fracture

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back in twenty fourteen for Team USA, it was scary to see that.

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So considering it doesn't look like it's
season ending necessarily or that it could bleed

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into next year and him not being
able to go to start next season healthy,

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I mean, that's huge. You
just want to see him out there

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healthy. He just had a three
sixty dunk minutes before that happened, at

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about the four minute mark of the
fourth quarter, and it kind of reminded

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me of you know, Kawhi Leonard
had the huge dunk on Derrick Favors in

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Game four in the twenty twenty one
second round, right before he did his

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knee. So there was a lot
of curse talk post game, which I

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don't love but people calling in talking
about that the Clippers being snake bit and

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they've had bad luck. But I
don't believe in those things. And this

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was good news, This was positive. This was uplifting to know that he's

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reevaluated, reevaluated in two or three
weeks. Yeah, and it's it's like

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you, you are, You're rooting
for them to be all in all healthy

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for a change, to see exactly
what they can do. Adam, I

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think that's what everybody's been waiting for, and they haven't been that, and

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then all of a sudden they get
this with Paul George. But prior to

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his injury, there was some inconsistency
with their play anyway going forward, and

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there were some concerns, weren't they. No, there's no doubt coming out

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of the All Star break, you
lose your first five with Russell Westbrook now

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and you're trying to figure out rotations
and lineups and guys playing new roles because

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you brought in Russ and he's been
pretty much playing thirty minutes a night.

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There was an adjustment period there.
Then they won four straight, then they

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lost one one one, and then
lost to Okac and that was a huge

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loss. It was kind of overshadow
of because the game ended up being secondary

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before the health of Paul George and
looking into that knee issue. But that

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was a bad loss, especially the
way it ended in that fourth quarter.

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That was one of the worst endings
to a game I've ever seen where Kawhi

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Leonard doesn't even end up getting a
shot off. There was some miscommunication.

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It looked like between he and Marcus
Morris. Did he want a screen?

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Did he want Marcus just to clear
out and take his man with him so

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Kawhi could go one on one with
Dorton have room to operate. It was

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tough to tell, but they've underachieved
for the most part this season because when

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you look at it this way,
Kawhi Leonard has played forty four games this

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year. That's forty four more and
he played all of last season Paul George

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and I think is at fifty six. He only played a little over thirty

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last year. And they're in danger
of having a worst record at the end

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of the season than they did last
season, an entire year without Kawhi Leonard.

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Now, they're fortunate that the West
is down and they're still just a

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half game back of the Phoenix Suns
for the four season, but they've had

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a lot not go their way.
They've had some missteps along the way,

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and they just haven't built up any
consistency whatsoever. And with nine games remaining,

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they have to find themselves. Now. It's there, the personnel is

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there to be a very good defense, and they have shown flashes, but

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there have been very few games this
season where they put it together for forty

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eight minutes. For example, Tuesday
night against Okay See, they come out

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like gangbusters, They're up eighteen to
four, they go the last seven minutes

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of the first quarter not making a
fuel goal, and somehow they trail by

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one after getting off to that hot
of a start. And that has happened

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a lot this year where teams more
often than not are coming back on them.

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When the Clippers used to be the
team that responded when they faced adversity,

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and nobody's had more twenty point comebacks
than them over the last three seasons

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during this era, so it's been
a little strange to see. But they

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have not built up enough consistency and
that's the most concerning thing for me as

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you head into the playoffs now,
and it looks like you're gonna end the

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last nine games likely without Paul George. You just gotta figure it out now

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on the fly. You just gotta
pay play the best players and hope they

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respond out there. Hey, and
we just real quick for him. Sorry,

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we were talking about officiating in the
Dallas It was the Dallas State game.

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But then I was thinking about that, and I'm going back to to

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the technical fouls that were given to
Terence Man, Like, what do we

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do as a player, How do
you even know what you can do?

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Say anything anymore? When you've got
officials that are wearing their emotions so hard

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on their sleeves, you can't say
anything, You can't do anything. Been

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strange over the last two or three
weeks now it's like officials gone wild.

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We expect that from Scott Foster and
his reputation, but it kind of started

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with him. He kicked out Scotty
Barnes in a game with Toronto, and

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nobody knew it had happened. Even
the other officials are like, wait,

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you just you just kicked him out
of this one. And then you have

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a game the other night where I
thought, and it was about a four

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minute mark of the second quarter,
Kawhi gets a technical for arguing a call

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that turned out or he turned out
to be right about he was fouled on

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that play. The official later apologized
to him. The problem is the damage

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was done because then Terrence Mann said
something and he gets two technicals in the

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span of three seconds. He's not
a guy that's known to be hot headed.

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Kawhi Leonard, that was the fourth
technical he's ever had in his career.

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These guys don't have reputations, so
I thought they overreacted. I haven't

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complained about the officials all season long, but I thought that was one of

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the poorest officiated games of the season
that I've seen with the Clippers involved.

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There was a lane violation called,
There was a double foul called. There

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was that played by Dort where Paul
George got called for an offensive foul after

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crossing him over. Dort goes to
the floor, kicks his legs out and

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they called the foul on Paul George. It was absolutely the bizarre and speaking

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of theazar, Mike Votello on Valley's
Sports had a beautiful rant about it,

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and I thought he spoke brilliant about
the officials injecting themselves into the game,

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overstepping their bounds, taking things too
far, too personal. Because you look

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at the pool report postgame reporters have
a chance to talk with the officials about

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some of these calls. They cited
Kawhi Leonard clapping aggressively at the official in

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his face. Well, clapping aggressively
is already laughable. Now if you do

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do it right in their face,
that is grounds for a technical. The

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problem is he was ten feet away. The videos there, it wasn't demonstrative,

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it wasn't over the top. And
then they said Terrence Man was aggressively

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wagging his finger. It wasn't the
middle finger. But Terrence Man gets the

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second technical what looked to be him
dropping an expletive after getting the first technical.

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So he's upset after getting the first
one and you kick him out right,

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then things escalated far too quickly,
far too fast. The only thing

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I can say is there was some
chirping going on early on in that ball

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game by the Clippers. They didn't
like some of the calls, and there

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were some bad calls, and I
think the rest were just trying to get

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control of things and trying to nip
it in the bud right there. But

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in a game of that magnitude with
two teams that close in the standings,

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and it's still the first half of
this one in Terrence Man just had a

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great run in that second quarter with
eight points, and you kick a guy

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out. It was wild to see. It was too much. Nobody's coming

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to the arena wearing a jersey with
an official's name on the back, unless

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you're me, because I do have
a Lakers jersey with a six on it

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for Game six Lakers Kings two thousand
and two Western Conference Finals that says Dick

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Bavette on the back because he basically
played for the Lakers in that game.

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But I'm crazy. Nobody else is
going to a game wearing a jersey with

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an official's name on the back.
We're not there to see them. Let's

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watch the players and see how things
play out. Didn't it was Ben Taylor,

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I believe the official Ben Taylor.
They'd had so many complaints about him.

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Fred van Fleet made some comments after
a game that they have now basically

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removed him. Yeah, yeah,
from role of crew chief. I've never

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heard that. Well, I never
have seen something happen. At first,

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I raised an eyebrow because I didn't
see the play live, And I just

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saw the tweet from Mark Cuban in
that game between Dallas and the Golden State

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Warriors last night, and I thought, oh, he's exaggerating properly. He's

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probably going over the top. It
went against the Dallas Mavericks, that they

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had won the ball game, he'd
be saying nothing, No, that play

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is egregious for them to just give
the ball to the Golden State Warriors when

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there isn't a Dallas Maverick beyond half
court to contest it. Obviously, they

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had no idea that they had overturned
the call during the time out saying it

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was the Golden State Warriors ball and
they just gave him a free two points

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on the inbounds play in a game
that was that tight down the stretch.

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That can't happen. So that protest
is very much warranted by Mark Cuban the

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Dallas Mavericks. Yeah, but wouldn't
you think at that point when you saw

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that we talked about it earlier,
somebody would have say, hey, wait,

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somebody from Dallas wore on, wait
a minute, stop or what are

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the officials would have gone, hold
on, do you guys do the lead

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official take control. Yeah, that
can't happen. Nobody knew what what the

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situation was. Even the Golden State
Warriors looked a little bit surprised, Like

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looking around, gonna be any Dallas
Mavericks here, We're just gonna get a

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free bucket, Like you wanna talk
about cherry picking. That was insane.

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I've never seen anything like it.
All right, before you get out of

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here, Lakers nine games to go. Austin Reeves played well again last night.

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You don't know anything about Lebron.
Maybe he'll be back, maybe he

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won't. He gave us the update
at least on Twitter, Yeah, which

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is we'll see I'm working out.
I'm working out. Austin Reeves, though,

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really has been a breath of fresh
air for them this year. And

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he's a restricted free agent. Don't
you think they got to take care of

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business with him before he goes out
and starts to listening offers. He's gonna

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get the bag. They're gonna learn
from their mistake. Well, excuse me,

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his name's up in my mind.
Caruso Alex Caruz will go in to

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Chicago, and it sounded like he
just wanted them to match the offer they

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didn't and they could have. That
wasn't a situation where they would have lost

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THHT because they chose Caruso. They
could have kept both those guys. They

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just had to dip into the luxury
tax and they went on the cheap.

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I don't think that's gonna happen again. With Austin Reeves and the way he's

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been playing last ten games, getting
eighteen per game, fifty six percent shooting,

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and the Lakers post All Star Break
without Lebron James eight and six,

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They've they've been able to more than
just tread water. They got a winning

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record over their last fourteen games,
and a lot of that is because Caruso

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went for his career high eleven assists
last night, just had the big thirty

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five point career night. Scoring wise, he's been incredible. He got the

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start. He's been one of my
favorite players to watch. It's just funny

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to see him out there all shooks
and post games every night. He's doing

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something that's a career high for himself
and he's always surprised by it. So

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it's a great story. It's great
to see. But he's a bawler.

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He's crossing guys over. He took
Jannis and Dena Kompo Defensive Player of the

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Year and crossed him into the next
century like he's He's an unbelievable player.

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For his ascension, it's been a
revelation for the Lakers to have a guy

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like that, And sometimes injuries open
up opportunities for other players out there,

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and you see what you have.
So if you're looking for silver linings,

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if you're a Clippers fan or a
Lakers fan, sometimes that is the end

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result. Somebody plays above their head
for a while and you realize what you

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have on this roster. Six thirty
tonight pre game six thirty pre game Freddie

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Clar's Countdown Salt t A Adam Asston
Adam, thanks for hanging Maretta go Adam.

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Glad you got that number of time
right. Roy Sports