The Philadelphia 76ers Just Changed Everything

Dirk told me that Seth told him a story about how they used to make fun of you shooting in the driveway. Oh, yeah. I gotta hear this one. Me and Seth growing up... Seth older. Is he older? I'm older. Oh, you're older. He's two years younger. And we had full reign until my mom, we heard her voice, it's time to come in, but she'd have to pull us off the court. Unless I called a foul on Seth, and he's like, I ain't foul you, and he'd steal the ball, tuck it under his arm, and unless I gave him a call, he'd tell me I was cheating, and he would bounce. Go ahead. And so it was like the little brother, big brother, like, I want to keep playing. So you're like, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, exactly. That's the same as my brother in baseball when we were kids. My younger brother, I'd get him out, he'd be like, okay, I'm going in. Okay, you can go up again. No, man. I go, did you want to play? I want to play. But he was competitive, he wanted to beat me, but he never could. So he'd be like, no, you're cheating, man. No. But that was the part of the healthy brother, sibling rivalry that was amazing. Now fast forward, hopefully I get to share the court as teammates. That's crazy, that's crazy. Soon as you get your dad on the broadcasting team. That part. You got to bring Eric, too, then. You got to bring his counterpart because he is hilarious. There's a clip, a highlight of all his famous calls or whatever, and there's a game where Kemba scores a hit of three in like the first quarter, and they're down like eight, but he acted like he was a game winner, and just the moment of volume he went to. Oh, he's so good. My dad texts us all the time like, yo. He is hilarious. He had some gyms the night before. Yeah, for sure. He's great. I like that guy. How do you do, little lady? No, he's ******* hilarious. That is what sports is supposed to be about. What makes Steph the greatest shooter of all time besides them shits going in? Obviously. Besides them shits going in. First of all, I told you this. I told him last time, I said, every time you shoot the ball, I think it's going in. Every time you shoot, I think it's going in. Every time, still to this day. But his ability to be able to run, pick, and roll, play one-on-one, but more importantly, get off the ball as well, that makes him the greatest. Me and a few of our friends, we had a group chat. We were just talking about old Tiny the other night, and one of our friends, he said, if I sent y'all a message and said that a guy struck out 10 batters in the NLCS, you guys would be like, oh, that was a hell of a game by that pitcher. Wow. And if I sent a separate text and said, in that same game, another guy came in and had three home runs in that same game. No. He said, no. The same guy did that. He did both of those. So, what makes Steph one of the most dangerous players of all time is the fact that you're going to get it in so many different ways. I'm going to come down to semi-transition. If your pick-up point is too low, bang. If I come off a high-screen pick-and-roll and your big is not up to touch, bang. If you cover me well, I'm going to get off the ball, and I don't care getting off the ball. A lot of guys will give in to getting off the ball because they don't, they feel uncomfortable with now moving. And losing control. That's a big deal. And losing control. I want to make every play where I feel like, you know, and not even like I want to make every play, I feel like our team is most comfortable with me making the decisions. Okay. Steph, I'm getting off the ball. And I'm about to, and it's going to find me because the energy, the energy that I'm going to drag out for our team and for the fear of the opponent, it makes him the greatest, it makes him the greatest shooter of all time and one of the greatest threats in NBA history. We got a couple more just because it's fun to hear you guys talk through this, but... Just don't hit me. Wow. To your point, if I ever just stop and give in to the physicality, then they got me, which it happened a lot in the series. But the idea of like always being on the move, you're somewhat of a threat because you have, one guy for sure, maybe two, sometimes three people worried about, you know, what's your next move? What are you trying to predict? And with all that chaos right there with six people in the same area, like me just getting down below the free throw line, it just created the gravity, right? That's the famous line. It also allows you guys to play with two quote unquote non-shooters, which in today's league is almost impossible, but because the constant movement you can play with Loon, you can play with Dre Andremont at games. I think this was one of them where he made a bunch of threes and he's obviously can do that. But those are classic non-shooters on the scouting report. And you still can be a highly effective and efficient offense. You couldn't do that if it was just all pick and roll, pick and roll. Because at some point the defense is going to get, they're going to just shift. They're going to shift all the way to the loader side. It's predictable. Sometimes I think like you're, you know, you're an off the ball player more than a pick and roll player and that's a mistake. You're actually an elite, elite pick and roll player. But because we're used to... You can choose your spots, yeah. So you do both. So now we've gone random pinch post, post to pass stuff, you screening, running off, heading to the rim, taking it off. All of a sudden you go, hey, we need one. They scored, we get in the pick and roll. And now it's a whole other type of coverage and we haven't, whereas when I was playing they're like, he is getting in pick and roll and whether we switch and he's isoing or he's drawing the roll or whatever, they kind of know. There's a template here. Your template's like twice as big. To your point, like in the lineups that I was blessed to play with, that trust was built over, okay, if I give it up, to your point of like what's in the best interest of the team, some teams I get it. If you give it up, you might not get it back because you don't have another primary ball handler that can handle some ball pressure and still see the play. And like me setting the screen on clay. Right, right, right. But the ability for me to be able to set a screen, make a decision and have the energy to do it for 48. Yeah, that's the most impressive, and I know there's basketball savants and guys that know the game, whatever, but like I said, a lot of things that don't get discussed too is your conditioning. I talked about the strength earlier, but the conditioning like never looks tired, never looks defeated, never looks tired. Out there for 48 minutes or however long you're out on the floor is this constant, constant, constant pressure. And that is just deflating for a defense. It's power to your teammates. He's one of the few guys that I've ever seen that can, like I said, get off the ball and turn his back on the ball. You don't see that. And when he does that? He gets on the ball and turns his back and starts running this way. And literally when he does that, that's when, oh ----. So as a defender, as a defender, if my guy gets off the ball and throws it over here and he's running over here, you're like, okay, let me open up because you've been taught your whole life, ball you basket, ball you man, like point him. He starts running away like this, you're like, oh ----, yay. Boom. And he's coming out this way. The ball's fighting him and you're like. He thinks this ----'s funny. I love it. It's my favorite. It's amazing. He's still going for it. Still, guys are still going for it. But the problem is it doesn't really matter. Like, it's nice to get a couple steals. Like, I mean, get that extra yard or two space. He's still gonna, just go, okay, I'll set a screen. What are you gonna do? Okay, I'll come off and I'll curl and someone gets a layup. You can't, it's impossible to defend. You just gotta hope. Yeah. You just gotta hope for some odd reason. Enough of them don't go in. Yeah. And somebody has tightened the rim to a point where that is, it's like an invisible finger underneath the net and the rim. He shoots it and they just keep... Yeah, because you just gotta hope that it goes. Like, you know, just certain players in our league, there's just certain guys over the course of the history of the game. No matter what you do, they still have an advantage. Yeah. And that's what makes, that's what makes, them great. That's what makes Grace great. So just talking gravity. I mean, it's chaos. And this is a set play. This is a ghost screen. Yeah. We ran it last year a little bit. It's just a matter of, you know, inverting, pick and roll. And then I get to decide... Toy screen. ...based on how my defender is, how close the guy's guarding KD here, how much space I have on the weak side, whether I want to set it, get him downhill, ghost screen it out, slight hold and slip late. There's a lot of options and a lot of different timing that I can control as a screener here. But in this particular clip, you saw two things. You saw space to ghost screen, run into, and you felt him climb up... On the high side. ...on the high side. You feel it on your left shoulder right there? I see one bad mistake right now. Run his back. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right to everything that you saw in this clip. And I'm glad this is behind the camera. Why are we this hugged up? So yeah. Yeah. So it's just amazing. And he sees it. We could have ran that play three straight times and it would have been a different coverage. We should never be this hugged up here with the two most dangerous guys on this side of the floor right here. And to your point, the game is adapted now. We're up, we're down four. We're up in the gaps. You're almost saying you can throw the lob, but we'll give you a chance that we're in, we're in, we're seeing. This guy, who's that, K-Love? K-Love's probably two steps to the right so that KD sees a body. He still might go downhill if I set a really good screen on you, but at least he's showing himself already. This picture, you can never show that. No, there's no chance. Too many body-tight defenders right here. Everyone's putting away. But you know, you just never know, too. You look at time and score, you're down four, you know you gotta get a stop, you're down 0-2. That also plays with the psyche, too. It's like, I gotta be the one to get the stop instead of saying, we gotta get a stop. So like, everybody, I'm like, I'm on KD, I'm like, ****. It's loud in here, I don't **** everybody else if I don't get a stop. Boom. I don't know if I'm being talked to right now. Screen coming, screen coming, square, stay square. Obviously, we're not doing anything back here. Everyone's, because, you know, ----, he don't know if he comes off and now there's a wide pin for Clay coming off here. Yeah. We're down four, 30 seconds to go. If we don't get a stop here, the game is definite. So, yeah, we may not ever see this anymore, the game is not taught like this anymore, but you never know when you're inside the arena and the fire's on you. So, everything changes so fast. It's so important, especially like, you can sit here and pick people apart watching games. You're not in the room and you know why we chose this game plan and what player is not capable or willing. That's that Monday morning quarterback right there. It's hard to be that Monday morning quarterback. You're not in the room and why we chose, why the coaches watched 100 hours of film and decided on this game plan with this group. Now, they can be wrong, but typically, they did the work. They did the work and they chose it and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But, it's interesting though, because of both your teams, the way you play, the way you attack the paint, the way that you're always threatening the front of the rim, now the game evolves and defenses are getting in the gaps. You're saying, you can skip it to player three, four, or five and we'll shift over our zone and we'll start again, but the game evolves and I feel like that is one of the evolutions is now people are like There's no quick, I beat my guy and I can get in. It's a lot less prevalent to just have that open space. You see how many teams are running guard-to-guard screens now. OKC won a championship essentially off of putting Shea and shooters around and making what you have to decide. if you want to do the pick-on game, favorable matchup, driving lanes are always there, kickouts or shooters if you need it, but just trying to create as much space as possible with decisions for the defense to have to make. I love what you said the context of the game doesn't matter. We can free-frame it. KD had just hit a shot. OK, everybody's in tennis. If you're in tennis, it ain't gonna be you. Right, right, right. And I just love, that's why we play, that's why we love the game because every possession has some different feel. It's a puzzle, right? It's so much. That's why you love the competition behind it. What about the fitness to run around like that? Do you take that part serious or is some of that natural? You've been doing this for how many years now? This is 17 now. 17 years of... Don't you answer that question. 17 sounds great when I just say it. But it was always a part of, to the point of being on ball, off ball, having to do both, it was always a part of, you can't waste away down the stretch of games if that's gonna be, it's a skill set, right? My conditioning is a skill set. The idea of how you train and the intensity, it doesn't mean I have to be in there for two, three hours on the court. It's just if I'm in there for 45, what am I getting out of this 45 and how much focus, intentionality, and intensity can I put into a drill that's, again, that question when you look yourself in the mirror. I know that this is transferable to a game. It's not just... How much can I simulate this workout into a game situation? It's just how many can you do that over and over and over and over again? The volume of that is carrying me. Granted, we all gotta do our sprints in raw condition, and just can you get that threshold high, but the actual can I shoot when my heart rate's at 170 for a minute straight? Can I still be... Accurate. Challenging yourself in that respect, that's game-like. So purposeful, intense. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I guess also part of the pain, I know you must feel this, is feeling the pain of your opponent. Mm-hmm. My favorite line is when somebody at the free-to-line dead ball is like, yo, stop moving around so much. Got him, got him. When somebody tells me that I love it to the point of, yeah. Because something has to give, right? Yes. Every game, every matchup, every battle, something's gotta give. I think I remember, I think it was... Who was it? Oh my goodness. I forgot who it was. We were playing Indiana in 18. Mm-hmm. We was playing Indiana 18. I think it was Thaddeus Young. And I think it was fourth quarter with like 5 minutes to go, and I had played 43 minutes. I was going with ball 48. And I think I was taking the ball out, and he was taking it out, and he was like, you gonna play the whole game? I said, I'm playing the whole game. And I looked at him, he was like, he basically said, what the ****? Like, the whole game. Right. Like, I'm not getting tired. I'm playing the whole game. I was like, okay, yeah, I got it. I got it. After 18 seasons of NBA travel spanning from Vancouver to Phoenix to Los Angeles, I know the importance of arriving ready to perform. That's why I'm excited about Emirates Premium Economy, which brings a whole new level of comfort to international travel. You know those cramped airplane seats? The wider leather seats in Premium Economy are the total opposite. They come with leg rests that support your entire leg, not just your feet. For someone who's dealt with back issues, the extra recline and ergonomic design make a real difference on those long-haul flights. As a 6'3 guy, I may not be the tallest in the locker room, but on a flight, sometimes that little extra space makes all the difference in getting out in one piece. 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The story at the time, growing up in Charlotte, playing AAU, I played, started at 9, played 10 and under, did 10 and under two years, and then played the next three. And that was kind of the beginning. This is, what, 98 to 2001, 2002? AAU was starting to blow up, teams popping up everywhere. The competition was kind of getting a little diluted, but also I was physically underdeveloped compared to some of the better kids at my age. And the kind of thought process was am I really getting better by just getting physically manhandled at this age? There's a little bit of you got to figure it out. You got to understand what physicality is. But the amount of games that we were playing and just the gap that was there, the idea was, you know, take those two years to really kind of hone in on a work ethic and a physical kind of maturation that could then catch me up so that by 16, going back into travel basketball, that when recruiting would start, that I'd be ready to go. I played school ball those two years, did training and all that type of stuff. Went to there. Even just going to the Y back then, it was like, yeah, like, Roman, dudes coming back from overseas playing in Charlotte. So I got to play against good competition. It just wasn't formalized in terms of travel ball and like, am I really getting something out of this? At the time, it was the hardest thing he could ever told me, like, these four or five months, like, you're not going to be. Especially in the summer, like, I don't get to travel to play ball, that's all I want to do. That's all I want to do, for sure. So you played 36 and hit the range. I did become that kid, like, dropped me off at the public, at Charlotte Golf Links. It's not there anymore in Charlotte, but it was a good counter to basketball, so, you know, you're trash. My AAU coaches, y'all failed me. Coach Drew Joyce, you failed me. Not letting me play. I could have been at the Links, I could have been at Firestone Country Club this whole time. Right down the street. God damn it. I was that kid too, yeah. Do you feel like there's a parallel from golf to basketball for you, or is it just a great release? First, it's a great release. You're outside, you're with the people that you want to spend time with. But, what I've found is tapping into that competitive energy without having to expand yourself as you do in basketball, for me, it's the most healthy way to get away from the game but still tap into what makes me, you know, me. You're always competing against yourself. It doesn't matter, you might lose some money games in your group or whatever, but you know it's shot to shot. It's, can I lock in and conquer this? And if I can't, I can't dwell on it because you got to, you know, you got the next shot coming up. And it's the same kind of mentality with basketball. Not kind of dwelling in the past or getting too down on yourself if things aren't going your way. You just got to figure it out. And that perseverance I found is a good parallel to golf too. Like conditioning your focus. Mm-hmm. And being every year positive self-taught. Like, the idea of it's just you and you get so frustrated at times. There's no, there's no two ways around it. You say you get frustrated and you've been playing since you was 10. I can only imagine how I feel out here. Mm-hmm. I just started a few months ago. But I love what you said though when you was out there with Bryson. He was like, he asked you like, why do you love golf so much? You just like, one word. It's intoxicating. Yeah. That's it. Like just straight up intoxicating. Like, it is. It's just, I never like, Randy been trying to get me to play golf since I was like 18 years old. I didn't know it was that long. Since I first got into the league he was like, bro, we got to play. I'm like, I'm not playing that slow ass game. Can Randy play? Randy, Randy was a caddie when he was like 12 years old. Okay. So he said he would go out, be a caddie, you know, and, you know, obviously when you go to like, they don't really want the caddies playing. He said, but some of the guys will, you know, depending on how far the hole was from the club box or the club house, they will let him go up and hit every now and then from time to time and things of that nature. And, he kind of like, learned the game from there. He could watch it, obviously, they would tell him, you know, how far the ball was from the pin, or from the flag, all these type of nuances of the game. And, he's just been in it for years and years and years. And when you get into the NBA, you know, every team always has this little golf outing every year. So when I played with Cleveland early on, we had this golf outing. We lost the car, we'll be there, and like, you know, Larry Nance and all the guys that be there. And I would go and I would dress apart. One thing about it, I'm going to look good out there. I'm like, I'm not playing this game. I'm not playing this. I regret it. I owe him. I already owe him a lot, but I wish I would've listened for sure. You got time. But I got something to do. You got plenty of time. Plenty of time. You said intoxicating. So what's the lowest score you've ever had on cocktails? It goes either way. We try to find cruising altitude when you're out there. But once you get past that, it's a science. There's a science to it. I had some good rounds. You know, on vacations in the summer, though, I got to turn off the expectations of acting like I'm out here on the PGA Tour and just having a good time. To your point, though, that idea of starting from scratch is something. Golf is like the one thing, no matter how hard you work, you don't necessarily get that return on investment right away. Delayed gratification. Whatever that J curve is, it's that. Like, you're going to be bad for a while, and then something's going to click, and then you'll see the consistency start. And then it's like, all right, now I'm like, how do I actually score on one round, you know, round to round? All right, now how can I get a little bit more creative on short game stuff? Oh, and now I see the whole banana strategy. Like, I need to hit it here. That's why it's a game for life. And it's so much fun once you get through that initial frustration of like, if I spend 4 or 5 hours out here, I might not get that much better right now, like, be able to have something to show for it, but it's all going to pay off. One thing I want to ask you about is, I want to get into a leadership conversation with you guys, but one thing I want to ask you about, having been around you a bunch, is you're always the same every day. And I don't know if this is true, but I want to talk through pressure because, maybe I'll start by saying, because your dad played in the league, does the league not feel so big to you? It still does. But it helped the initial shock factor, for sure. I've been in locker rooms, I've gone on a couple road trips and seen how the team moves and all that. I got to see how my dad interacted with, you know, coaching staff, other players, staff in the locker room, around the arena, around the team, all those type of things. Even fans at times when we were at dinner, in Charlotte growing up, people would come over interrupting dinner. I got to see how he handled those moments. Obviously he played in a different era, and it's 100 times what he experienced, but that shock factor I think was kind of neutralized because I'd been around it, but it's still surreal. None of this makes any sense. But you come in every day with a smile on your face. I think it's really important for fans to understand how valuable that is. When your best player is just happy-go-lucky. Yeah. Every day. That's a gift. But also the hardest worker, the most intense, purposeful, routine-oriented focus, but then you could be right in the middle of focus and someone could yell something funny across the gym and you just start dying laughing. The balance is insane. Can you? I don't know how to... No, it's my personality. I find fun in everything. To your point, I have the killer instinct behind the smile. I want to win every game, but I'm going to have fun. My faith has a big part of it. I'm super grateful knowing none of this makes sense. I know I worked hard, I know I was given a gift, but why? This doesn't make sense to me, and I try to rationalize with that every single day. So I don't want to ever lose that gratitude for what I get to do. And then out of that, basketball's fun to me. This job, there's challenges all over the place. Especially when you're leading a team, a franchise, and trying to win. When you play well and when you don't, it's coming back to you. You have to be able to embrace that, but basketball's still fun to me. When I'm out on the court, happy place. If I lose that, then it's probably time to quit. For sure. But I don't know what... I guess there's a part of it too that's a little bit of intentionality, like don't let... You have to address stuff that happens. Life is unfair at times, and there's a lot of things that you're balancing and all the different roles we play as a man, but I try not to allow that to creep in on the sanctity of basketball, because I know it's not going to be around forever. The way you guys have handled your lives and careers and balance is as impressive as your games. Honestly, the way your spirit, energy, the way he comes in every day, it's almost more impressive than your game. I appreciate that. Someone can be in the storm every day. Everyone's looking at you every day. How's he come in? People stop looking now because they know what they're going to get. That's just a remarkable skill or talent. Tell us about leadership. What's your thoughts and what is your belief in a leadership role? Everybody has their different style. We all know that. I was never the loudest kind of voice in the room, and it took me a while to kind of develop not just the confidence, but you talk about the skill set of your presence, the skill set of timely messages, how to get people's attention, how an audience in the locker room can kind of relate to what you're saying, how you're saying it, what you're trying to get out of them. All that's been built over time. I'm still learning to this day. I've been grateful to have different personalities around me that fulfill a different job as well. Like Draymond for me in that sense has been the fire that we need on a daily basis where he'll tell you you don't know what you get when you come in every day, but you need that to get you through the times where we need a little spark, like we need somebody to say F you, like whoever's in that other locker room, like create an enemy. That's not my necessary nature, but that's his. And I can bring it back to saying all right, let's not go over, our emotions can't get the best of us. We have to kind of find that balance, and that tug of war has always been great over these last 14 years with him, with Steve. Like in our locker room, his leadership is, he's the most personable, like see the human first type of guy that I've ever met, and he always leads with that in terms of the conversations he's trying to have and how he leads. So we all have different styles. We've made space for all of those different voices over time, and that's the only way this thing has worked for as long as it has, and nobody's asked anybody to really change, it's just we all know what we bring to the table and there's value in that. So that's all been an amazing experience and something we'll talk about forever, just how we were able to put all this together. You've become more vocal. Oh, for sure. What was that transition like? Just do it. Naturally? Yeah. Did you feel like I had to, or did it just naturally start? There's definitely an element of that when Mark Jackson was the first guy that really kind of lit that fire in me. He went out on a branch on his own and he called me and Clay the best shooting backcourt duo in the league and we were year 5 and 3 at the time or something like that. He created expectations, so in order to live out on the court, everything that happens, we were doing it, but everything that happens behind the scenes in terms of the team culture and leadership, now there's a sense of urgency on everything. So that was like the first kind of put the battery in your pack and become more vocal there. My style still is more like I'll do the, if we need to have the team-only meetings, player-only meetings. If we need that rah-rah, like the movie type, I need that speech type thing. But mostly mine is kind of trying to connect on the one-to-one to know everybody has a different style. Every player is different. I know some people I might need to give just a little leaning show like how you doing today? Like that type of thing or some guys, I might need to just say everything and don't let them even speak and just walk off. Like that type of thing. You just kind of learn that over time. Again, I haven't mastered that at all. Like I'm still learning that part of, to the point, how you lead by example, how you show up every day. That does matter, but you do need to. Hearing him give speeches and talks last summer, everything was timely and everything mattered and memorable in terms of the journey. Every time he brought it in after practice or after a game, he kind of was able to capture the moment. And that's a skill set that is different than the way that I approach it. And so, you know, everybody has their kind of unique way of leading and that's pretty dope about this opportunity. 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We waiting on one of them Steph games. And Book would be like, oh, it's coming. It's coming. And I'd be like, oh yeah, I can see it. You remember when I was doing an interview against, is that Brazil? No, Puerto Rico. Yeah, Puerto Rico. Yeah. I was doing an interview with one of our local Bay Area guys and they asked me that question like, yo, your numbers, your shots, you feel like one of your marquee games is coming and I was like, yeah, I'm just staying patient. And he was just walking by white when I said it. Hell yeah, it is. And they wrote When the dude heard it, I started dying. The timing couldn't have been any better. That's all the party heard. The whole interview. All right, we said, all right, cut. That's all we need. But it's gotta be tricky though. Like you guys bring like the best players in the league who come together like luckily. In a short period of time. Short period of time. Yeah, for sure. You don't even know sometimes who's getting on the plane with injuries. Like you got a couple of guys drop out. And you guys have to find a way that the room feels right. Right. And the difference between obviously the biggest difference like on the court is that your usage rate is not chopped in half. It's chopped like three-fourths. You know, we all have the ability to you know, we have a bad first quarter or a bad first half. We can figure it out in the second half. Sure. You know, we know that the ball's gonna find us. We know the ball's gonna be in our hands. We know, you know, play's gonna be called. You know, you know, you're playing one with eight less minutes. You know, you're going from a 48-minute game to a 40-minute game. And that's, you don't realize until you're playing in those games how fast those 10-minute quarters go. Them things is rapid fire. But just like the usage rate thing, man, and it's like, you know, sometimes it's hard to get into a rhythm. You know, so the benefit is we, the benefit that we had, you don't always have to be in a rhythm. Mm-hmm. You don't always have to be in a rhythm because you look to your left, you're like, okay, all right, he got it tonight, or, you know, so what can I do that can still impact winning? And that was our mindset. And like, obviously we knew he was like being super hard on himself. Like, what the ****? Like, we knew, we could see it. Were you feeling a little bit? No, for sure. We could see it after practice. First Olympics, you don't want to be the guy that, as a context of numbers to your point, like it's not, you can't compare it to, but you don't want to be the guy that underperforms at a certain moment that could dictate whether we win or lose, especially in that locker room. You see that through every practice. I was grinding. He was on his ass. Yes. And we was like, it's coming. Here it go. It's coming. And boy did it come. Oh, man. Avalanche. One of the funnest, as a Canadian, I say this, one of the funnest basketball moments in the semifinal. Oh, my best 10 minutes ever. Yeah. I was like a kid off my couch, fist pumped. It's one of the best games I ever played in my life. I was like, what am I watching right now? You felt it in the moment? I felt the panic at the end of the third quarter when old buddy had won three. Mm-hmm. And he was like, I'm 15. What's that like? I'm counting the minutes because to your point, how fast, like you felt how fast the games were and you're like, and when it has to go under eight, under seven, in the fourth, and I look, I'm like, what were you down under seven? Probably was eight to 10. Eight to 10, probably still? After Katie hit the three and then Book hit the inbound three. And that's when it changed. It was double digits to that point. Double digits. We was like, what are we, come on now. It ain't go time. It's just like emergency. This is like the president cracking the glass. Like, okay. Like, come on now. Defcon 5. Yeah, yeah. But like, you were great. You carried the team through large stretches. You were awesome the whole tournament, like devastating in transition and all that stuff. But like, what the **** was that? Like, were you like, I'm hot? Were you like, this is the moment? Did it all come together? Like, you were making ridiculous shots. First quarter against Serbia in the semifinals, that was, there was a moment where it was like, everything was a little tough. They were playing out of their mind. Um, and then I found a couple openings. I missed my first three. We got an offensive rebound and kicked it back to the right wing and I made the, the, the second, the two for a dollar. And at that point, like, all right, that's when you start to feel the energy. Like, maybe if I get a couple good looks, I'm starting to feel it. And they just came and pinned down was wrong time, transition, finding me in the point. Like, everything just, you know, I was capitalizing, kept us in it to the point that in that fourth quarter, just give us a chance. And man, like, ten minutes of perfect basketball. Perfect, perfect. Except offensive rebounds. We couldn't, we couldn't get a rebound. Yeah, we could not get an offensive rebound. We couldn't get a defensive rebound. But other than that, it was perfect basketball on both ends. Everybody had their moment. Everybody, you know, playing, you know, the ass off and just the idea, like, it took everything out of us to get it. They, Serbia played an A-plus game. Yeah. A-plus. They still wondering how the hell they lost. Yeah, for sure. For real sure. Yeah. We felt all of that. And then the final, the closing, I mean, the closing was insane. Like, you carried over, obviously, that kind of, you felt now, okay, now I'm here and I'm rolling. But like, what's it like in those moments when you're just, you're like, you know what, I'm not going to mess around. I'm just going to pull. I'm just going to pull from like 28. There was no thought to it. I remember the conversation we had. They had just cut it to three. Mm-hmm. When we hit the putback and I'm like, yo, you get the ball, I'm coming to set a screen for you. I actually wanted him to go downhill, maybe get to the freezing line, like, at least settle us down because I noticed he's great at that, you know, just from killing momentum for a second. When he threw that pass, like, muscle memory just took over. I couldn't even tell you what I was thinking. I saw Yabasele like, bite on it on the left jab. And once you see that, it's just reactionary and you make it. Like, at a good point, I'm just, you're just living with it. And then from there, we had, we had intentionality on the possession. Didn't mean I was going to get every shot, but it's just like, we would get organized and, you know, settle the, the tempo down and obviously they all had to go in, but I'm still laughing at the picture there. You and Katie over there with you. Oh, you talking about when you was quadruple teamed? I can't believe you froze us out like that. You shot that crazy ----. I still laugh. But, Kevin, you had the ball, there was two on you and he was, you looked at him and he was like, he threw it back. He threw it back. And then I was just like, I got to get something going. And I just saw this right here. We both were there like. Oh my goodness. NBA Jam, bro. NBA Jam. We all play NBA Jam. In your mind, like, I'm serious because I love to understand if you can express this. Like, in those moments, what do you feel? Like, are you, are you now not even thinking now? You instinctively playing basketball. Yeah. You just see the rim. The first, the first one was, again, the kind of say like, I'm going to set a screen for you. He made the play, I reacted, whatever. The second one, Batum, he hesitated for half a second. Half a second. Yep. And I got a quick pump. Yep. And the third one, that was, that was great basketball. The third one, I got trapped, swing, swing the book, baseline, that's like practice. Yep. And then it just happens that that's the, the follow through of like, really good possessions after three minutes of horrible possessions. Like, it was just, everybody was just in flow state. And I'm obviously going, you know, finishing the play, but it was, it was just great basketball. The last one, whatever that was. He didn't, you know, he didn't see the rim on the last one. What? Night-night time. Everybody, it's time to go to bed. I forgot about the rest of the time. I lost my mind. Play defense for the next two possessions. No. By the way, he thought they, he thought a timeout happened after the last one. He ran down the whole right side, went around the base side, looked at the, looked at our teammates on the bench. I'm like, yo, we got a guard still, bro. Like, we, this nigga, yo. Yo, yo. Then he got the rebound, then he, uh, passed it. Live, passed the book. Yeah. And then I was like, phew. Yeah, we good. We good. You almost tricked it off with a celly? I went, oh, I covered some ground. Yeah, you covered some ground. Bro, I'm telling you, it was one of the best experiences. Like, it was everything. People ask me all the time, like, you know, finally got an opportunity to play with Steph. Like, what was it? I was like, everything and more. Like, it was, it was perfect. First person I text, he was the first person I text when we, I was trying to assemble the team, whatever. First person I text, I said, bro, he said, good willing, injuries, I'm good injury wise. That's the plan. I said, say no more. Say no more. That's amazing. That's how, that's how it started. What do you think? This is, how old are you guys now? You're 40, 30, 37. I'll be 41 in a month and a half. A month and a half. Yeah, bro. You think you got an L.A. Olympics Wednesday? Is that next, the next one? 28. You already know my answer to this. I know you don't even know. I will be watching it from Congress. You did plenty of Olympics. Yes, man. Plenty of them. You think you might? It is the, the opposite answer to what I told him last year. It's like, God willing, I still have the choice and the physical option to be like, I could actually impact the team. I never say never, but I highly doubt it. I highly doubt it. I'd love to be a part of the movement. we can't top what we just did last night. We have to top those last two games. That's the top. And just the moment, like just, we can't top those last two games, man. it's, those last two, we literally played France and Paris for the final. For the final. You know, like, that, it would have been like in 08, like during the redeem team, we would have played China in the final. Right. And, and playing for you guys especially, the place must have been. Oh, it was great. They had all the chants, they had the songs going. You know, they had beat Canada. They, you know, they was excited to play them, but there was, it was conversation like, oh ----, Canada going to be in the final four. You know, and they went in there and, and beat up on Canada. They did. They needed you, man. They had to, they had to shave that nerve down. They did not need a 50, a 51 year old to teach you play in zone. I got the corner. I got the corner, man. I got the quick outlet. It's right there. Hot potato. You know what randomly just popped in my head? Was it true that you used to read tweets at halftime when you weren't playing well? I did that. I'm not proud of it, but it was a fun time. I think it's amazing. It was something, too many phones in the locker room nowadays. I, I enabled the younger generation to be like, you find motivation from anywhere. But yeah, it was like a two year stretch. So wait, let's walk me through, what are you thinking? It was only when I was playing bad. So if I was, you know, tripping, not in rhythm, shooting horrible, whatever, I'd go get a little motivation. So it was like maybe 4 quick scrolls, find something, all right. And then coach would walk in. laughs I'm ready. laughs The one, the one thing where I was messing around was a journalist named Kareth Burke who does this stuff for NBC, and she, she, she heard about it. It was before it became a thing, and she was, she tweeted me at, at halftime, like, if you're reading this, do an airplane celebration after you make your next three. laughs They'll tell you to do the airplane. It was in Cleveland, and it hit the joint a little quicker. That's amazing. There's only, there's only one Stephen Curry. There's only one. There will only ever be one. I stopped for everything I was doing. That's awesome. That's so good. So good. Keep minding the game. Yeah. You said, you said Harvey, mind that game. By the way, you see the ---- that they doing? Yeah. You see that? With the coaches. ESPN with the coaches and ----. It's good, I like that. Oh, wow. We'll wait till you see what Amazon Prime's doing. laughs Thanks for watching Mind the Game. New episodes drop every other Tuesday. Remember to like, subscribe, or follow wherever you're watching.