The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Terrifying Timberwolves With Craig Kilborn. Too Late for the Nuggets? Plus, Lifting Life Advice With Chad Wesley Smith!
Episode Date: May 7, 2024Russillo opens by crediting the T-wolves for their phenomenal defense and sharing his thoughts on the controversial foul in IND-NYK (0:43). Then, Craig Kilborn joins to share the fan perspective of th...is Timberwolves team and play a quick round of five questions (19:48). Next, Ceruti jumps on for another edition of the Alliance (64:32) and strength coach Chad Wesley Smith helps Ryen answer some of your bulkiest lifting questions in this special Life Advice (68:04). Check us out on Youtube for exclusive clips, live streams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out rg-help.com to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Craig Kilborn and Chad Wesley Smith Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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A lot of size on the podcast today. Craig Kilborn joins us just before he heads to Minnesota
for game three of his second round matchup that I cannot wait to talk about. I'll also
get into the disappointing end for Pacers fans as the Knicks take game one at MSG.
And a tailored life advice,
Chad Wesley Smith is a badass, a powerlifter,
a guy we've become friendly with,
and he's gonna help us out with some training-based questions
for life advice.
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My God, that was something last night.
And I am talking about Minnesota's defense against Denver.
Timberwolves up 2-0, taking the first two road games
in Denver, altitude, altitude, not a factor.
I think the first 24 minutes of that game too,
considering everything that it's at Denver,
that it's against Jokic, that it's against this Denver team offensively,
you know, we can get into some of their numbers here, but
there's a standard that we expect with them.
I think it's the best 24 minutes that I've seen on defense in a
playoff game in a really long time.
I'm not going to say ever because clearly there's probably
another 24 minutes that I've forgotten about, but it was
special.
It's so special.
I'm going to watch it again.
I just want to watch it again.
Because it was a mentality.
It was the physicality.
It was just we're going to take this from you.
I never really feel this way about NBA games
when the other teams up double digits,
just because I mean how many times we
have to watch all these games like,
oh man, they were up 16 and now it's
tied and my team blew the lead.
It's like dude, it's just it's just just what happens at 33 20 in the second quarter.
I was like, I think this game's over.
It was the double team on Murray where he got the ball was barely able to bring it
up over half court and they got trapped by McDaniel and Alexander Walker.
John Krasinski, who writes for the athletic has covered the cover of the Timberwolves for years, was a guest on the show.
When they double teamed him, he said it looked like footage from National Geographic.
And at that moment, I was like, are they breaking them? Is this defense so insanely spectacular that they're breaking the nuggets.
I even joke last night.
We did it.
I was like Phoenix actually good.
Second quarter continue to get worse.
Denver finished six to 24 in the second Murray finished the game three 18.
He is shooting split so far in the playoffs, 38%, 29%.
It might be the calf, but I don't know if it was the calf last night.
He's got the two game winners.
So you're kind of overlooking that this is a shooting split guy who, uh, last year was, was incredible throughout the playoffs.
Jokic, invisible for the most part, which is rare.
59% against the Lakers.
Jokic is split against the Timberwolves.
Again, just two games, but 42% and 20%.
61-35 at the half.
It's the largest lead in the playoffs for a road team
against the defending champs since 1992.
I was watching Denver's players just continue to be frustrated.
And look, it doesn't matter.
You're just going to get frustrated.
Things aren't going your way.
We all get frustrated.
I'm not excusing it.
I got sick of them complaining every time looking for calls because I don't know that
the physicality was egregious that would say, oh, that was a missed call. That's a missed call or that's, but you want to find missed calls, you can go ahead and find them.
All right.
You can look at things in slow motion and say, Hey, there
was contact there, but I don't think it was that.
I really think it was because the Timberwolves were that
special on defense.
If you were to call a timeout for Denver and you were the
coaches trying to turn these guys around, get their spirits
up, you wonder if you'd say, Hey, if you don't have the ball,
you're going to be fine. So four of you have the ball, you're going to be fine.
So for you should be terrific. Because when you're watching the wolf swarm,
I don't like comparing anything to that Ravens defense from over 20 years ago.
I don't like ever compare it. That's how I am.
I wouldn't say prideful. It wasn't like I was a Ravens fan or ever have been, but I am defensive of the
status of what that team was.
Like, I don't want anything to ever be compared to them because the best thing
you could have said when you watched them every week, you were like, and again,
I wasn't watching every Ravens game every time during that week, but during that
run towards the end of the year, you're like, it feels like they have 13 guys on
defense. This is insane. And when Reggie Miller was like, it looks like they have seven guys.
That's what it felt like because when you caught the ball, there were someone else there.
When you got out on a handoff and turned to cut, there was someone else there.
When you got a screen up top or off to the side and you're like, okay, I'm going to have a clear
angle for a quick pull up here. If I go right to the screen and pull up, the defender can't recover that quickly.
Nope.
Someone would be there.
When you went up to reach for a rebound, it was never clean.
There was always someone there.
When you went to bring it up over half court,
you had an escort and then there was also a valet
waiting for you if you even made it past half court cleanly.
And when you stopped with the ball, you were dead.
Now Denver's offense, small sample, we're all aware,
but were there numbers against the Lakers
that tell us this Denver offense
is not actually
what we expected to be?
Going into last night's games, across the board, Denver was eighth in offense, eighth
in defense, seventh in rebounding rate, tenth in true shooting percentage.
Not great out of 16 teams, but it was only the five games in the first round.
Plus the first game against Minnesota.
The numbers are even worse now.
I don't know if I'm quite there yet.
I'm not ready for the Yoke.
It sucks takes, which I thought may take a little bit longer, but no, they were fresh
this morning.
No Rudy go bear last night.
Does that mean guys like me historically who were on the other side of the argument saying I just don't get the Rudy go bear trade?
And yet here they are and him not playing last night.
Does that mean I get to now?
I can't do that.
You just missed the game.
But no, I'm not going to do that.
Let's see what game three looks like.
But you would have thought game one would be the wake up call for the Nuggets
going into game two and game two was even worse.
I don't know what's going on with these Denver first quarters, but
The wake-up call may have happened in game two and it may be too late. I
Picked Minnesota it was a
Bit of a calling toss. I didn't want to pick against Denver, but I was like, I think I kind of have to I think this
This thing is real even though it's young and this isn't what's supposed to happen.
But last night made me think I might not pick against Minnesota again.
Like I mean in the playoffs. Let's go to New York game one. We'll get to the refs. Don't worry.
Brunson one on one against Nemhart. Not going to work. I know the Pacers mixed up a few things. They had foul trouble with Nemhart. They had foul trouble with Nie Smith and then TJ McConnell got out there and just
put on a show and worked and worked and worked.
So you can say they tried a bunch of different things, but I think there's
just too many times Brunson must be going, Hey, no, Ubre, no, but tomb, no,
like all this length is gone.
Like you guys are going to keep me isolated.
I just felt like there were actually a lot, despite multiple defeats. Brunson must be going, hey, no ubre, no butoum, no like all this length is gone.
Like you guys are going to keep me isolated.
I just felt like there were actually a lot despite multiple defenders assigned to him,
a lot of moments where it was Nemhar and just Nemhar.
Now you can watch that say, hey, this is going to work against Brunson.
Nothing seems like it's going to work against Brunson.
He's the first player in NBA history with 40 plus points and five assists in four straight
playoff games.
Nothing's working against this guy.
The only thing that worked at the very beginning of that Philly series and made me think like
small guards, heavy usage, playoff intensity, length, strategy, multiple games, it might
slow them down.
The shooting numbers weren't very good against Philadelphia.
It hasn't mattered.
It hasn't mattered.
44 minutes last night, a usage rate of 35,
true shooting percentage of 67,
which both would have been second in the NBA in the season.
Usage only behind Lucas number for the season.
I know I'm only talking about one game,
but then when you combine that with his true shooting number
that would be only behind Daniel Gafford
from the regular season,
where true shooting is usually littered
with just a bunch of big guys
that don't stretch the floor at all. and yet you're combining those two things together in a playoff
game for somebody Brunson size. This is fucking nuts. He's playing 44 minutes a game in the
playoffs. He's taken 29 shot attempts in the playoffs in these seven games. I looked it up,
modern NBA who has taken more shots per game than what Brunson is doing
now throughout a playoff run.
Well, MJ 31.7 attempts per game in 86 swept in the first round.
McGrady in 2001 took just under 31 shots from Florida game.
They lost in the first round.
Westbrook was 30.4 shots per game in 2017.
I was shocked it was that low.
They lost in the first round.
Iverson, the only one that's ever had success with this approach in the modern
NBA, took 30 shots a game for the 2001 Sixers and made it to the finals.
Although I just don't think that team was that good.
And I think the East sucked.
And then you have Brunson doing it.
So he's the fifth guy on this list
going back like 40 plus years.
So I guess just one guy is gonna do this.
And it's gonna work.
He had 21 points in the fourth quarter.
Now the Pacers did double him.
1.15 a piece, 40 seconds to go.
They brought DiVincenzo's man over to him
and Brunson hit him pass and DiVincenzo hits the shot.
So you're like, all right, well, we doubled him.
We doubled him, Rossello, and then that happened.
But here's my favorite thing about Brunson.
I don't like ball stoppers.
Not saying you wouldn't want one on your team.
If he's really talented guy, making multiple all starts.
I just don't understand people that don't move in the game of basketball.
And Brunson is tasked with all of this scoring and yet he still continues to move.
Speaking of movement, I like the way the Pacers played.
Look, look how they played, how they looked last night.
It must be weird for the next to go, wait, these guys move the ball as
opposed to Philadelphia's approach of two dynamic isolation scores, but you kind of know where the ball is at all times and you kind of know like, all right, well, this
is what they're going to do here.
And this will be the assignment and Maxie is either too fast or
too powerful to slow it down.
So it's not like they just, it was easier for them to defend,
but I imagine there's a bit of a, after a couple of weeks of the
sixers for the Knicks, we were like, Oh wait, like these guys swing the ball a lot more.
The Pacers defense, which I don like these guys swing the ball a lot more.
The Pacers defense,
which I don't like,
and there were three heart layups in
particular that I saw in last night's
games like wait what happened there?
Like he was just wide open.
He went coast to coast on that one.
There's going to be a couple layups
where somebody just open against the Pacers.
It's always going to be a concern for me,
but the second unit beyond the, where they outscored
the Knicks 46 to three in bench points, I thought the second
unit brought a lot of effort and a lot of energy where you'd
think this Knicks team would be easier to defend when it's a
guy who might not be six feet at point guard running every
single possession. It clearly isn't, but there was some effort stuff
from that group collectively,
the Jackson minutes off the bench where I was like,
wait, this could be, could this be the part of the series?
And I wouldn't say it's not the thing
that we weren't talking about ahead of time
because the Knicks aren't playing anybody.
They played three bench players last night.
Really, they only played two
because he got four minutes from my guy, Precious.
So 27 total bench minutes
in comparison again with the 46 points they got from the bench for the Pacers. They're going to
play some guys. Moving forward, I like the Pacers roster. I like Natharine coming back next year.
There's some things I like about this right now. Now, when I look at the Knicks minute allotment
here, three of the top seven guys in the playoffs right now are Knicks. It's Josh Hart who just continues to get offensive board after offensive board.
It's Brunson and then it's OG.
So I may worry about what Josh Hart is going to look like in two years, because
I'm sure there's some Bulls fans thinking about Tibbs and what Joachim Noah looked
like after the good stuff, and that might've been a Noah thing and not a Tibbs thing, but they're going for it.
Maybe Tibbs is saying, Hey, what do you want me to do?
You want me to play more guys?
You want to play Brunson less?
Like we're playing right now, the 2024 playoffs, and that's the goal.
And that's what we're working towards.
And, you know, we can worry about that stuff a little bit later.
That's maybe why that anonymous player poll always votes Tibbs as the coach
they'd least want to play for.
When in fact, he may be looking at going, Hey, we have days off.
These guys are younger.
It's not that big of a deal.
Now again, I may not want to see what Hart looks like in a couple of years.
And that could also all be bullshit.
Maybe Hart will look great in two years.
And the minutes freak out that we went through for years, which I think we've
kind of pivoted away from here, may not mean anything. I don't know. I don't have an answer for you for
that one, but the bench advantage is going to be the Pacers because they play guys from the bench.
Let's get to the foul and finish this up.
1-18, 1-17, the Knicks look like they turned it over on the first inbounds.
It was off the defender's leg for the Pacers.
So it's challenges overturned and then the Knicks can't get the ball in again.
Brunson goes and throw it off Halliburton and then actually hits Brunson back.
So now the Pacers have the ball and a spot to take the lead and win this game and steal one game one.
So Turner goes to set a screen for Halliburton.
Halliburton.
Halliburton is its own separate conversation now.
Uh, the numbers have been bad after the all star break. We covered all this stuff.
We talked to all NBA, you know, I was tracking Siakam a little bit more.
I'll probably do a Halliburton tracking thing and kind of looking at the second
was fine and he's just going to have moments where it's like, wait, is he in
the game?
Is he not, you know, but with him. He's he's was going to have moments where it's like, wait, is he in the game? Is he not? But with him,
he was really good against OG, I thought, and some of the one-on-one stuff when he got him deep into the hoop. And if Siakam does his work early, he's a really tough guy to defend. Halliburton was bad.
Halliburton did not have big impactful moments towards the end of this game. I don't know if
it's the lingering injury thing, the multiple theories out there. I don't know. But the problem
for Pacers fans is we know what happens next.
Turner sets the screen on DeVincenzo.
DeVincenzo flops.
Tyler Ford is one of my favorite officials in the NBA calls the foul.
They review it.
Zach Zarbacombs comes back and is like, look, Turner didn't give the opposing
player a chance to get set against the screen.
So if you want to go letter of the law
that Turner was moving a little bit, okay, fine.
But like, what is this Iowa Yukon women's hoops here?
Because Stan said it best.
He said, quote, that was shocking
as soon as the foul on the screen was called.
He said, never.
And that's the truth.
You could call kind of moving screens on all this stuff,
but in that moment, that call is not made.
I was shocked it was made,
but then once it went to the review,
you knew how the explanation was gonna play out.
I don't know what the last two minute report
is going to say, I don't care.
I've never gotten a last two minute report
been like, awesome, can't wait to dig in.
Let me do this before I eat.
I don't care about those.
And honestly, I think it's silly that they do it, but the NBA does it for
transparency and then when they do it, everybody gets mad that they do it.
So the NBA can't really win on this one.
So I'm sorry, Pacers, I'm with you.
I can't believe they made that call.
And that leads into everything else.
And some of the stuff that Bill and I were talking about on Sunday's pod, right.
Where Bill was like, well,
Pacers got to get it in six
because they won't get it in seven in MSG.
Like, all right, yep.
And I understand.
And I don't want to be completely naive about this,
but I don't think anybody ever keeps track of
all the times that people propose
something is going to happen and that something's rigged.
And then that outcome doesn't happen
and then just ignored.
Whereas you have something last night
and like, well, it's Pacers, it's Knicks.
What do you expect?
Well, the series didn't need to be extended.
I'm pretty sure they're gonna play another one in this one.
I think it was just one game so far
between the Knicks and Pacers.
And the Pacers historically over the last couple of years,
if you look at some of the free throw differential form,
considering how they play
and then how bad they are defensively,
they're at a massive disadvantage
on the free throw disparity thing.
So the free throw disparity thing likely
will be a problem in this series for them
based on how they play.
Kind of like the Warriors,
I don't know if anything will be bad
as the Warriors and Lakers last year,
but you get my point.
Now the Brunson Fowls that he gets, I hate him.
I hate the bad ones that he gets.
I can appreciate who is his player.
And as I also read it, I said, you know,
I'm all for the Brunson critique on the play.
Cause like, think about the whole conspiracy part of this.
When Scott Foster was assigned to game six
for Philadelphia and New York, Foster, AKA the extender,
that's his nickname on NBA Twitter.
You're like, well, that's because they were gonna
want a game seven on MSG, ratings, dollars.
You know, it's the money we're so low.
Color football, dude, it's about the money.
Thank you.
I wasn't able to figure that out yet.
Brunson got one of the worst calls of the entire playoffs
in the biggest moment from that crew
in game six against Philadelphia.
At 109, 108, 53 seconds left, Brunson gets the N1,
the Trey younging it into Goubre, he missed the free throw.
So if the fix was in for the game seven,
why would they make that call then?
And that's simply what I will present.
Stuff like that all of the time, theories, everybody wringing their
hands and then something happens that spits in the face of the consensus agreement.
And so I hate last night's call.
I hate it.
I don't think it was because it was the chance
for the Knicks to win that it was made.
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I want to save them for the good stuff. It's Craig Kilborn. And I don't believe you're in
Minneapolis yet. It looks like you're still LA based in your den of of I'm in the mahogany panel den with the conquistador lamp and I
guess the obvious question I have for you is so I'll be out there in Minneapolis for
games three and four the Timberwolves have made me I don't know if you can see this this
is Timberwolves I guess I'm the sixth man and then on the back is Lord Kilby now I don't
wear jerseys to a game so I won't be wearing that to the game is Lord Kilby. Now I don't wear jerseys to a game,
so I won't be wearing that to the game.
Is that correct, Ryan?
You can't wear it, not you.
Right.
I would never expect that to happen.
I'm thinking about wearing it in warmups
and then taking it off and putting on a blazer
for the first quarter and the second, third and fourth.
There's just too many great items
that I imagine you still have in your closet that you had to invest in.
Like I look at my closet and I go,
what have you done over the years?
You're like, well, when you're on television
and entertaining a nation five days a week,
you can justify it.
But there's still a lot of clothes there,
stuff I don't wanna get rid of,
and I just don't wear anymore.
I imagine you have the same struggles.
Especially network. Yeah, when you work in television.
I remember John Tesh was hosting Entertainment Tonight for years and he says,
I haven't paid for a haircut in 20 years. He was so proud of that.
But we haven't paid for clothes or blazers. You and I, we get the free stuff, right?
The shirts.
No, no, I paid for everything. I don't know. I don't think.
You didn't have a wardrobe stylist at ESPN?
I don't think. You didn't have a wardrobe stylist at ESPN?
No.
Not for the radio simulcast.
I don't think, although the clothing budget
wasn't exactly, I think it's a nice thing to have had.
Yes.
But when there were that many anchors,
I think the men's budget was like,
you can maybe get one good suit and a belt out of the deal.
I'm sure at the CBS level,
it's somewhat of a larger clothing allowance.
Yeah, there's more than allowance. It's I don't pay for anything. They have to pay for all the
suits, all the pants, all the loafers. It's the only reason I got into late night was for the
wardrobe stylist that comes with the job. I don't blame you. Okay, so let's...
that comes with the job. I don't blame you.
Okay, so let's...
I watched that first 20 minutes,
I already talked about it in the open today.
The first 24 minutes of what we saw defensively from your team,
I wanted to share it with somebody.
I wanted someone to watch it.
I wanted a new person who had never watched basketball.
I wanted them to come to my house.
I want to go, you need to see what this is like.
What was that like for you?
Well, Finchi called it the best defensive performance
of the season.
It's hard for people to grasp, like the fans in Minnesota
are stunned.
And one of the local reporters, a friend of mine
named Judd Zolgad said, guys, don't try to comprehend it.
I was there for the 87-91 twins, they're a good team.
You can process this later, just enjoy the ride.
But Ryan, we were the number one defensive team all year.
We did play the Nuggets tough last year,
even though we lost four games to one,
they said we played them the best.
Last year, Rudy was not as mobile as he is this year.
And Cat missed a lot of games.
He also missed games this year.
But I think you already know this, but besides Rudy, you've got these...
Jayden McDaniels just plays hard all the time.
That's why he fouls out sometimes.
And Nau and Akil Alexander Walker, he's like a mini version of Jaden McDaniels.
And I could not have predicted last night though.
I guess they just rallied because Rudy couldn't make the game.
And I have a comment on that in a bit.
But it was just a bizarre game. And Ryan, the refs weren't calling anything.
So if you're gonna allow us to play physical,
I mean, this is right in our wheelhouse
to body up on people.
So that was a stunning game.
I mean, was Jamal Murray frustrated?
A bit, but like the one play that I talked about about when it just, I never watch a game and go,
this thing's over that early. I guess, like, especially against Denver. Okay.
Like Denver always figures it out. Like even when Denver's struggling, they're like, okay,
they'll figure this out. When Jamal got doubled when he brought the ball over half
court against Alexander Walker and Jayden and, you know, it was physical, but he wasn't fouled.
There was no egregious foul.
Sometimes I think basketball players think like, I'm never supposed to, like,
you're never supposed to feel another body part from a defender at any point.
Like you're going to get bumped.
There's going to be times where you reach in.
And I just felt like in that moment, I go, I think this game is over.
It gets over.
And it was 33-20.
Yeah. And I was concerned on that particular play because I've seen this happen where we
trap somebody and you can tell the offensive player is frustrated. And then as the seconds
tick, then we start reaching and then we foul and they get bailed out. Thank God they didn't
hack or reach or come down on anybody. But yeah, it's, you know, we're really good on D. And the thing I've seen in the past
is I've seen Jaden drape, you know, all over people and the guy still scores because Brandon
Ingram can score.
And I saw Nau last year play against Jamal Murray because Jaden was out.
This is in the playoffs. He was all over Jamal Murray because Jaden was out, this is the playoffs, he was all over Jamal
Murray and he still scored because you know good offense beats good defense but and even in the
regular season this year Cat was out and we played at Denver and Rudy couldn't guard Jokic then they
had Kyle Anderson who couldn't guard him and Nas couldn't guard him and then last night they all
did a pretty nice job.
Everyone's talking about Nas' defense.
He's not always a great defensive post player.
He will help out and block shots,
but he played, you know, he had a sequence there
where Jokic missed like two bunnies right at the rim
because Nas was right there.
So it's hard to comprehend and grasp, but I'm enjoying it.
It felt also too, like there was a stretch where I was like,
is Denver aware of what this task is?
And you would think after game one, you're at home,
you've got the pride of it.
And it was actually worse.
And these first quarters had been an issue
and Malone has mentioned it now when you add all the stats.
And after last night, the stats weren't great
going into this game for them offensively, but for a young team to have this
switch where, you know, I joked about like his Phoenix actually
a lot better than we thought.
Right.
Right.
It, it doesn't happen in this sport like this.
And last night started to make me think like, I think anything
is on the table for this team now and to see Denver's will just broken and look there's still some work to do.
You got to get these guys two more times. I mean we can throw all the cliches that you'd expect to go in.
But I was just I'll be shocked if in game three you don't see a level of intensity from Denver that is far beyond anything we've seen in the start of these two games because that had to be like the wake-up call might be
too late but there has to be a wake-up call here for them. You mean everybody on
the bench throwing heat packs is that the kind of thing you're talking about?
I just hope it doesn't get dirty or physical but you know I think you said during
towards the end of the regular season, I think you
had a heart to heart with Bill and you said, you know, Denver meets Boston in the finals,
you know, Boston has no chance. Is that kind of what you said? Because I agree with you
that Denver is the best team in the league and until we beat them, the Timberwolves,
then I'm going to see, you know, Denver's the champ. But did you say that Denver would spank Boston in the finals?
I thought I heard that.
Spank is not word for word what I said.
That's one syllable. It ends in a K sound.
It's fun to say. Spank me. Hurt me.
We'll save this for a life advice part of you want to get into this content.
But that surprises me from you.
My thing with Denver, when Boston lost the rematch in Denver, and both of those
games were close, the one in Boston and the one in Denver, but I felt like my
direct, my line on it was that Boston has this unsolvable problem in the way
Denver closes versus the way that Boston closes.
And that's why I would pick Denver.
Yeah, I agree.
I said before, I said we would beat Phoenix in six games, even though I thought it was
an awful matchup based on the regular season.
But I just said, Hey, we have home court and we have the best defense in basketball.
But the Denver thing, you know, you know that if we would have beaten Phoenix in game 82
in Minnesota, we would, we would have home court against Denver. And we lost that game, wasn't even close.
So, yeah, Denver has the home court or did. And I guess the only way to explain it is we have the
best defense, but somehow we've gone up a notch in the playoffs. And I'm telling you, the refs
are letting us play physical, and that's an advantage to the wolves. Yeah last night was I don't feel like it was
anything that was egregious you know the Murray call that sent Malone off like that was a charge
on Kat. Absolutely it was a charge. Yeah that was a charge. That's gonna happen over the course of
the game. Do you think Ant got fouled in game one
on the forearm when he went up for the jumper?
Yeah, he was-
Ant doesn't get calls.
Why is that?
Cause he's so strong like LeBron or what?
He doesn't flop.
Oh, yeah.
He complains.
I mean, he's starting to like really complain.
Oh, he's toned it down in the playoffs.
In the regular season, he's not Luca,
but he claps at the ref, automatic technical.
He says, hey, every time he drives,
and they've talked to him to stop whining.
But, and you know, I put pressure on him.
I said before the playoffs,
we're gonna go as far as Ant takes us.
And he's played better than I thought he would
in the playoffs.
So his weakness, Ryan, I wanna tell you a little something.
I looked up a stat just for you, a little research.
He turns it over sometimes, our team turns it over.
That's one of our weaknesses is sometimes our crunch time offense and our turnovers.
So our defense, we always play pretty well.
But Ant's jump shot is falling in the playoffs.
I don't know if you know this.
When Cat went down in the regular season, he had six straight games of over 30 points
playing marvelously. Then he went into a little funk. He had four games where he didn't hit a
three. He went over 22 on three-pointers at the stretch towards the end of the season,
and he went in the gym and worked with his guy, and now he's hitting his jump shot.
Here's my little stat I want to give you, because I don't
think he's a pure shooter. He's not. He says that. He's worked on his jump shot. Now, we know there
are athletic players in NBA history who are not great jump shooters, but they work on it. Dwayne
Wade, LeBron James. So I'm going to say Ant, LeBron, and Dwayne Wade. One thing you can do
with a shooter is look at their free throw percentage.
That'll tell you how pure they are with their jump shot.
Do you know what the career free throw percentages
with Ant, LeBron and Dwyane Wade are?
This is what I looked up just for you.
I don't know, 78%.
For which guy?
Oh, I have to guess each guy.
This is like, same and Sunday's quiz.
Who do you think has the number one career
of those three guys?
What's the order of free throw percentage?
Oh, is it Wade?
Wade is second.
His career is 76.5% on free throws.
LeBron is third, 73.6.
And Ant in his young career is 79.3,
the number one free throw percentage of those three guys.
He shot 83.6% this year from the free throw line
and Dwayne Wayne and LeBron never shot that high
in a season for free throws.
Just a little tidbit there for pure shooting.
I love it.
I hear Scouts talk about free throw percentage all the time.
Hey, you don't like his three point numbers.
What did he do in college?
And is one of those guys were in college.
And you're right, like the pure shooting, it wasn't like just out of the lab.
He was this amazing shooter.
I wonder when you watch Ant take over like this.
Does it remind you a bit like of, of say the first time you saw Steve Levy
tossed a Nat sound?
I mean, Levy, yeah.
Don't please don't forget Carl Ravitch.
That guy was underrated.
Um, you know what happened?
I'd love this story, but I'm an NBA guy.
Ravi, we're working together and he gets baseball tonight. I go, Hey, the cool. He goes, I'm an NBA guy. Ravi, we're working together and he gets baseball tonight. I go, hey, cool.
He goes, I'm an NBA guy. Ravi was an NBA guy, but you adapt and you embrace baseball
because that's what they wanted him to do. Did I ever tell you?
Just remember something. You're not a star, Ryan. Norby told you that. Just be humble.
I'm just kidding. You can take that out.
I just think it's so funny.
It's so funny.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
You and I have shared a few stories over the years.
I love them all.
I, Van Pelt's favorite Ravitch story that I told,
cause when I was in Boston,
you know, it was tough for us to get guests.
And I know I've told this story before,
but I'm gonna share it with you. And I thought the world of Ravitch, and by the way, I don't say that past tense
as if my opinion of him has changed.
She's as solid as it gets.
She's incredible, but he's a buttoned up guy and it was real tough for us to get guests.
He was a Boston guy.
And so we're reaching out.
We're like, Hey, can we have Ravitch on?
And you know, we're like, well, we got Ravitch for 12 minutes today.
The show's going to be awesome.
Nowhere to go but up.
And I ran into him at Fenway. reaching out, we're like, Hey, can we have Ravichon? And you know, we're like, well, we got Ravich for 12 minutes today. The show's going to be awesome.
You know, nowhere to go but up.
And I ran into him at Fenway.
Uh, I don't know a couple of weeks after that. And I'm still, you know, real new and I'm excited.
I'm excited as to follow up with Carl Ravich in person.
And I see him, the bowels of Fenway and I walk up to him and I say,
Hey, thanks so much for the time.
I go, it's funny because people think you don't like the Red Sox, but you're from here and it's just, you know, it's you being
so professional that you don't want to lean anyway. And he just looks at me as he keeps walking. He's
like, you keep telling them. Yeah, he's funny. You know, he told me a story once, which I find
very hard to believe that it was a playoff game. It might have
been, I don't know if it was Larry Bird's rookie year, but early in his career. And
he said to me, oh, we all knew where Larry lived. We'd see him mowing his lawn, Larry
Bird mowing his lawn. And I remember, it was a big playoff game and my buddies and I wanted
to give Larry a six pack of beer. So we went up there and Dinah answered the door and said,
he's sleeping right now, but I'll take that six pack for Larry. I don't know if that's true,
but he said he acted like they just went up to the house and gave Larry Bird a six pack
for the big playoff game for afterwards. The other thing I wanted to say, I wanted to ask
you because I don't know this about you. So, Ravi was a really good golfer, is a very good golfer.
And of course, I loathe the sport or whatever you want to call the activity. Do you golf?
I don't see you as a golfer and I wouldn't think you'd be very good because you're so,
you're muscle bound if we're being honest.
Picked it up again this past year and out of the gates.
I was shocked how well I had played.
I hadn't played in 20 years and then I bought newer equipment, started messing with things
and then I got invited equipment, started messing with things
and then I got invited to play a couple of nice courses.
People wanted to see what I had, wanted to invite me out, wanted to be social, potential
membership opportunities and every time I played it's been a disaster.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah.
Well I don't play.
I tore my calf a month ago so I haven't played in a month.
Oh. Yeah. Oh. That's your kind of your bread and butter. Your calf. I tore my calf a month ago, so I haven't played in a month.
Oh, that's your kind of your bread and butter.
Your calf.
I know.
They're good cats.
I wanted to say something about injuries.
So Finchi has the torn patella and he's playing hurt.
He ices it all the time when he's not coaching and he's in pain and you're
supposed to rest it.
So I was hearing some of the players talk, like Kat goes, man, I just had surgery.
His is major.
I can't believe he's just showing up for the game and coaching.
It's just really inspirational.
So a shout out to Finchi for playing hurt, but also he really coached the team this year
hard and so did the staff.
And my favorite thing was after the Charlotte
game at home when Kat was chasing 70 points and we lost, we had a big like 18 point lead and we lost,
Finchi after the game said that was a disgusting performance. And I love that he was so honest.
You know, it's one of those things where I joked, I want to see him pull a Popovich and sub out the
starting five in the first few minutes
if we're sluggish, you know, that dramatic move that Pop does when he subs out the whole starting
five. But Finchi, I think he finished third in coach of the year and he's doing a hell of a job.
I'm glad you brought him up because I think there's a few things that I want to touch on
and we've talked about like in a basketball sense of Minnesota is that
them being a young team, that's not always a great recipe for somebody that wants to coach a heart.
And as long as Ant is cool with it, then everybody else has to be cool with it. And Kat has not been my favorite player despite the skill set, but I think him being out,
a bunch of great things happened. One, it kind of took Ant to another level
of knowing there's gonna be these moments
where it's only me offensively,
and how am I gonna respond?
And so far, I was even worried about the playoffs
a little bit, are people gonna load up on him so much
that he's going to force, will he force the issue?
Will he be like, some of these younger guys
that are dynamic players, will be like,
well, I guess I'll just take like 15 awful shots on top of the normal 15 I
take. And it already has figured that part out, which is incredible.
But I also think with Kat being out and the team still playing well,
and then Nas taking on this role where I'd agree with you,
I never looked at Nas as like a defensive asset,
but his help defense got a lot better.
And if you can just move your feet with the challenge as Jokic, although I'd
imagine, you know, depending on what happens to Rudy, he's going to be back.
So it shouldn't be an issue.
It changes their assignments and all that kind of stuff.
That you're going to see him feeling like, well, I have to take my stuff to
another level.
And I also think it helped Kat realize, okay, while I was out, things didn't
fall apart and I have to put more effort into some of the other stuff.
Like I would always look at Kat as a defensive deficit.
The decision-making still is always going to drive me crazy, but the
collective of what Kat is with this entire group back, like that may have
been this, this thing that happens with this team that is incredibly talented.
The roster's got all of these different options now.
I just think that time meant a lot more
to the development of this team for them to be ready,
because it felt like everybody kind of had to be more
on board with their role,
despite not necessarily doing anything
deep into the playoffs before.
Yeah, a couple beautiful points.
So, Kat is polarizing.
People in Minnesota have an issue with him.
He's an odd bird.
He's a quirky guy, he's in interviews.
I watched, you know, last night, you know,
I know he's an offensive savant,
but he always reaches and he picks up silly ass fouls.
And I, even last night, he plays Jokic,
but he's slapping down at the ball
and he's gonna get called for it.
And he did in the second half,
he got a couple silly fouls.
And I kind of just know who Kat is, so I know he's going to be infuriating.
I mean, somebody wrote last night, there was a tweet from Britt Robson where it was in
the second half, Kat got the ball to top of the key and he was holding it.
Then he tried to drive and then he turned it over.
Britt wrote something to the effect that he always wants
to do too much and it haunts him.
I love when he said it haunts him.
So he's going to be that inconsistent guy.
Now when he's on, you know, I go a little crazy with his soft shot and he can score
driving.
The thing he can't do, which I pointed out to some people, is he can't do three dribbles
in a pull-up jumper. He can't do what Kevin Durant or Brandon Ingram does. He can't even
back down and shoot a jumper like Jokic does. He either shoots spot-up shooting or it's the
freight train to the rim. And that's where the offensive fouls happen. So he's a very unique
player. He isn't infuriating. Now, you said something about Ant, and the whole thing that they wanted Ant to figure out is when you get double-team, give it up and you'll
get the ball back. So, Mike Conley and Finchi are saying they're blitzing you, they're trapping
you, give it up, you can cut to the rim and we'll find you or they'll go off the double-team
and we'll give it right back to you. So So I call it the floor game. What kind of decision making are you doing there? He has to improve his floor game and he has in the playoffs. He's still,
again, I'm a purist. He still might drive and try to do a cross court pass that's intercepted, but
he's 22 and he's playing at a level that I didn't know he would play at I mean
It's it's a little ridiculous because he does things in the regular season that I know are not sustainable
He'll have a three-minute stretch like at the end of the pacer game in Indiana
He made three shots in a row and then he made the big block on the backboard where he hit his head
You can't play that way for 48 minutes. He was like really intense.
He did that at the end of the game at home early in the season against Boston.
He made three shots in a row and then he D'd up Jason Tatum.
He got in his shorts and it's like, okay, you know, you can't do that.
But he is, you know, he's better than I thought.
He keeps improving and he loves Finchi. that, but he is, you know, he's better than I thought.
He keeps improving and he loves Finchi and he wants to be coached hard and he listens
to everything Finchi says.
So I love these Ryan, these people are saying, some of these reporters, he's going to leave
for a bigger market.
He, no, he's not.
He just bought a house and you know what I'm saying?
KG stayed there, Ant's staying there, you know?
Yeah, look, I was guilty of it when I was really worried
about the lack of future flexibility with Rudy,
the transaction last year.
I'm like, okay, so wait a minute, now you've done all this
and then the way it works with stars,
but it still is the rookie contract.
It's still the seven years.
So now that's all put to bed
and it seems like his personality is so pure, right?
And it's so genuine at this point that you're like,
well, so far every indicator of based on like
who he is as a guy and the fact that this team
is ahead of schedule and that he's ahead of schedule,
like let's not even worry about that.
I didn't feel bad about suggesting it last year when I'm going, okay, he still
do the rookie extension and all this, all this different stuff, but now this team
is so far beyond what I thought when I watched them last year and it's not just
him, although he has a huge part of kind of raising their floor.
So when I think of his interviews, there are a lot of athletes that I will pass on now. And I remember having that
epiphany at ESPN radio where it was like, Hey, we can get I
don't know, I actually I don't want to name an athlete because
it's gonna make like I'm calling them out or whatever. But there
was a very nice, although we'll take Gilbert, we'll take Gilbert
again, we have some followups for Gil. Uh,
ants interviews are just incorrect. Every time I'm like,
I wonder what he's going to say.
That's going to make me like him even more if that's possible. Give me,
give me some ant reaction and then pivot that into your
favorite athlete that you've ever interviewed.
There had to be a few people that you actually were like, okay, this person gets it in a format
where athletes don't always shine.
Trying to think, I do have an ant story for you,
but let me just think, because I typically-
I double barreled you there, which I'm not proud of.
No, that's fine.
That's fine, I can handle it.
I'm ambidextrous or amphibious,
whatever you want me to say there.
I typically like talking to coaches and broadcasters more, the Iron Eagles and stuff.
But I remember I had Reggie Miller on the show.
I had a lot of NBA guys on the show.
Reggie was great because I gave him a five question and I said, how many seams on a basketball?
I think he had it wrong.
And then I said, there's a ball right over there on our set.
He goes, I didn't want to look at it.
I didn't want to cheat.
And I go, that's why you never won a championship.
So I was giving him crap about not winning a championship.
I don't know which NBA player, but I will tell you a quick ant story.
I think you'll get a kick out of this.
Wolves were in LA for a couple of games with the Clippers and the Lakers, and then they
had a layover before they went to Utah.
So they had a couple days off and I went to practice.
Finchi said, yeah, come by practice.
After practice, I was talking to Finchi.
I did a couple of jokes.
The players were shooting around.
I said, can I go talk to Slo Mo and get that hitch out of his shot?
And he says, good luck with that. Slo Mo has a hitch in his shot. And then he said, hey, have you
ever met ants? And I said, no. So he was going to call Ant over. And I said, Finchi, at the
end of his life, Joe DiMaggio insisted that he be introduced as the greatest living Yankee. So Finchi goes, he goes, how do you want to be introduced?
So now I'm just laughing hard because he's got a million things on his mind.
He's coaching this team.
He had just missed a game in Cleveland.
He's under the weather and he's now asking me how I want to be introduced to Ann.
And I said, well, you know, I did late night.
I like natural hosts, you know. And it was just silly.
And then so Ant comes over and Finchi says, this is Craig Kilborn.
He's one of the original ESPN anchors on Sports Center.
And he finished and I look at Ant and I said, I'm a legend.
And then Ant laughed and we took a picture.
And then I said, keep working on your game.
Try not to turn the ball over.
And he goes, nice to meet you, sir.
And I said, you don't have to call me sir. So that was that. And I said to Finchi, is it okay? I told him not to turn the ball over. And he goes, nice to meet you, sir. And I said, you don't have to call me sir.
So that was that.
And I said to Finchi, is it okay?
I told him not to turn the ball over.
And Finchi goes, everyone else is telling him
the same thing.
So it was fun going over the introduction.
It's so silly.
Anyways.
Yeah, but I like it.
I like it.
silly anyways. Yeah, but I like it. I like it. Uh,
so when you are, uh, in attendance,
we see you court side. How does, how does that work out? Is there, are there people, is there an ask, is it understood?
Oh, I'm glad you asked. I have a dear friend named Charlie Swanson,
and he's a great guy. Minnesota people, Minnesota nice is real.
Charlie's a very successful guy.
I went to the Phoenix games, the first two I took my brother, and Charlie has four court
side seats.
He might even have a couple more for the playoffs this year, but he picked us up in a Maybach,
a nice brand new white Maybach. So he's a car guy.
He has Alexis dealerships, two of them in Minnesota that are very successful.
And he grew up in Minnesota.
And he's my buddy.
And we go bar hopping and we go out for dinner.
And he doesn't know this, but I'm going to give him a gift.
I'm going to print his chair.
We're going to make him a custom made suit and we're going to give him a suit. But, uh,
so he has four court side seats and we're right next to A Rod and Mark Laurie in Minnesota.
Incredible pivot. I know you're not a confrontation. You're not a confrontational person. I know
that's your nature and above the fray. Yeah. Look, I haven't seen you make one public statement
on Kendrick or Drake.
So I think that place.
Well, there are any F bombs.
I haven't watched the roast yet of Tom Brady.
Any F bombs in that?
Will it be okay for me or not?
I'm trying not to swear in this.
So I don't know that you would like all of it.
It just roasts seem mean.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Have you ever signed up for one? No, I was asked years ago to host one. It was for William Shatner. It was right after I left the
show in 2004, but I'm not into roasts. It's a little too hardcore. I like different kinds
of comedy. I like Frasier, a little more erudite, the sitcom Frazier.
Look, if you guys want to roast Frazier, I'm your guy.
What does that mean?
Well, I just, I don't know. I just don't see you as a roast person.
Yeah, right.
It's mean-spirited. You're not like that.
It is. There's a lot of bitterness in the world and my beautiful face exacerbates it.
Okay, so wait, where were you going? You were just gonna ask me something. What was it?
About confrontation, because you sit near A-Rod.
Oh yeah. No, no, no. A-Rod and Mark Laurie, they're very nice people. I don't know how
it's going to unfold. That's what I mean. Do you have to take a side?
I don't have to. It's no, it's kind of like the team. We're just concentrating on basketball.
Glenn Taylor is great. He kept the team. He kept the team in Minnesota.
You know what bothers me is, you know,
he hired David Kahn, but someone,
I heard that David Stern talked him into hiring Kahn,
David Kahn, which was a complete debacle.
But as far as A-Rod and Mark Laurie,
they hired Tim Connolly,
and Connolly made the Rudy trade. And, uh, that I think you and bill were very supportive of. No, we were not. No,
I don't know if after game two is the time to get on our case about it.
No, no. Yeah. Well, but I do want to ask you guys where like,
you have to be opinionated
in the job that you do.
Are you ever fearful of being wrong?
Or you just say the hell with it,
I'm going to be wrong on things and that's the way it is.
Then you just say, hey, I was wrong, congrats.
There's magnitudes of being wrong,
but with this one, I feel like the price,
I would never say, yeah, that was an awesome price.
That was an awesome price to pay for Rudy Gobert,
who felt like he was declining at the time. So people can keep, I'll just Nick Saban you stop asking me.
Like I'm never going to like the price.
By the way, you're right.
He is a thing where it was a lot of picks.
We got to keep Jayden McDaniels, but it was a lot of first round picks,
but you know, they say we're a young team.
He, I can't remember how old he is.
If he's 32, 32, I think.
And Mike Conley is 36.
And we seem to, so that's an older group.
We don't know how long they're going to play well at a high level.
It seems, I don't want to go out on a limb here.
It seems that the Connolly trade,
I think he's got better chemistry than D-Low. D-Low, D-Low, D-Low.
I remember when I, you know, doing a little.
D-Low.
Was like, hey, what do you think is gonna happen there?
Cause I couldn't stand watching it anymore.
Cause it was so obvious that D'Angelo Russell was like,
wait, what?
And then I- Is he the weirdest guy?
Well, I just, his game is strange.
You know, and in some days when it's working,
it's shop making at its pace, and then other days-
He likes to pull up.
He likes to shoot threes.
He likes to pull up.
Sonic must be his favorite restaurant.
He's pulled right up.
So you can use that if you get back in a late night.
When I, but when I think about you in attendance
as Minnesota's favorite son,
like you just, it's about basketball.
You don't have to worry about it.
There's never anyone trying to pull you one way
or the other to make up, just to take a public side.
Right?
They know better.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't participate in that.
There's not a lot of pressure.
Like I didn't get my eight hours last night of sleep,
and I just like, you don't have to do anything.
It's like, I go to the Phoenix, we go to the Phoenix game,
the first game we won by 25, took my brother,
but prior to the game I said,
we don't have to do anything except if we lose,
we have to have fun at Mason Margot,
which is this wonderful French restaurant
that we're gonna have dinner after the game. It was a 2 30 in the afternoon game. It's life is easy and
you just enjoy it. Um, I could ask you a JJ McCarthy question and with the Vikings, but
I'll do that another time. I don't know how good he is. I can't wait to see. Let's table
it. What's that? I said, yeah, let's table it. Yeah. But we're playing very well.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
But we play well against OKC.
I think they're going to beat Dallas, I'd assume.
I'll tell you one thing about OKC, because you watch this stuff.
So Shea is really gifted at drawing fouls where he'll drive, initiate the contact, and
then snap his head back and draw a foul.
But I hope they let us continue to play physical as I jump ahead.
So it's either going to be OKC or Boston.
Whoever wins this series between Denver and Minnesota, I think they're going to have to
play OKC and if they advance, it's going to be Boston.
I don't see the Knicks as thrilling as they are to watch.
I don't see them beating Boston.
So jumping around for you there, Ryan.
Yeah, you really rushed ahead.
I'd say this about the SGA stuff.
You wanna find some fouls in there
that you're not gonna like that are called,
I would agree with you, they're going to be in there.
But when the majority of his foul hunting is on the up fake,
and if you go up, that's on you to be disciplined.
And you would think over the course of the series,
the perimeter guys can be a little bit more disciplined being like,
I'd rather give him the pull up from 10 feet than trying to contest all this
stuff in the air because yeah, there's a lot of baiting.
There's the head snapping back stuff, the, on the drives.
I don't like any of it, but it's not all that with him. There are some old school
correct. No, he's, he's are some old school traditional get you off.
He's effortless.
He gets shots off.
He handles the ball well.
He shoots a good percentage.
Yeah, he's good.
And we are jumping ahead.
Oh, I wanted to tell you something about the Wolves
because I watched them all through the season.
So their weaknesses were turnovers
because Jane McDaniels and these guys, they're not all
great pastors or ball handlers.
And, you know, Cat and Ant will turn the ball over.
So I think we had 12 last night, which to me is the max you should have.
And that's been a problem.
And our offense sometimes is clunky and not as effective in crunch time.
Now, it's not a problem so far in the playoffs. We're
playing at a higher level. And you said something earlier, which I wanted to echo. I said to
people prior to the series, in crunch time, you have to give the advantage to Denver because
Jokic, they're always going to get a good shot. You've got Jokic who can score or make
the pass and Jamal Murray is clutched. And
I said, if we can win by eight or more, we'll be okay. But if it's a one or two point game,
you got to give the edge to Denver. Thank God we're not in that situation. The games
have not been too close. The first game was a seven point win for the Wolves. There's
one other thing I wanted to say about the Wolves. In the regular season, some of us hardcore fans, we felt like because of our offense,
we felt like we needed a third scorer.
We said we might, you know, we're good this year, but we might need in the off season
to add a third scorer because Mike Conley doesn't always score 12 or 14 and Jadon you can see is
inconsistent and Nau is inconsistent. Nas is pretty consistent off the bench. It's kind of
weird that we're saying that and we're not having an issue right now in the playoffs with our offense.
I completely agree. It was my major concern with them and I didn't know how that was just going to
be solved at the playoff level.
But I think what we're learning here, if they're going to play this kind of
defense, I don't think it's going to matter.
Yeah.
That's what it, yeah.
And these guys are, you know, no, I had 18 in the first game against Phoenix and
he just, he can, he has that jump shot.
He's not a pure shooter, obviously, but his form is a little like Gervens
where he's over there and he shoots a really high arc. It's a, he's a a pure shooter, obviously, but his form is a little like Gervans where he's over there
and he shoots a really high arc. He's a fun player. Do you know we got him in the Mike Conley trade.
They threw him in when we traded away D-Low. We got Conley and Nau.
That was the trade. I mean, the Rudy trade, we've already covered a million different times and it
just gets audited over and over and over again. And it's not fair. I was kidding about him not being there last night,
but I was sort of expecting some of it like, Oh,
still don't like the trade.
And be like, you didn't play.
Cause it's just every time they win and kind of raise
what our expectations of Bill and I,
it just inundated with Minnesota fans that are just so mad,
which I'll never quite understand.
I can't imagine a young Kilbourne being like,
Hey, my team just won.
Where should I spend my energy immediately?
I know what I should do.
I should, but it's just the way it works. So you're talking about, sorry. I swore there.
I apologize. No, you're talking about Rudy missing the game. Cause I have a comment on that.
I know you do. And that's where I want to finish. But it's even if I don't like the trade that you
can't look at last night and go, hey,
they didn't have them.
But I do think it speaks to like just how insane
these perimeter defenders do on top of everything else.
Yeah, I think last night was an odd game
that maybe couldn't be duplicated without Rudy.
I thought they were, you know, they single cover Jokic
because they don't want him passing out to the three point shooters. It's like, you know, they single cover Jokic because they don't want him passing
out to the three point shooters.
It's like, you know, when Kobe would score 40 and they would lose.
But I thought they would occasionally trap Jokic to throw him off.
So single coverage mostly and then bring a double sometimes just to throw him off, keep
him off balance.
What I was going to tell you is people say, I was very disappointed that Rudy
missed the game and he was going to take a private plane, but it was windy.
But you have two types of players, Ryan. You have the players that they don't want to miss the birth
of their child. And then you have the other guy who says, I, I'm going to be a loving father,
but I, I'm going to miss the birth of my child because I want to win a championship.
I respect Rudy and I really respect the guys that missed the game, have missed the birth
of their child and want to play in the game.
So I respect and really respect a little bit of it.
Ted Williams would have been your guy.
All right, let's close with this.
I do it.
I did it for a little while, then I just stopped doing it.
I've always given you credit for it.
It was kind of paying tribute to my guy, Kilburn here.
Let's end with five questions for you.
It's time for five questions. This is the sneaker I'll be wearing at games three and four.
This is a one star.
It's from 1974.
They still make them.
This is suede.
That's Timberwolves green.
Okay.
Terrific.
You should talk to them about the uniform, by the way, moving forward.ves green. Okay. Terrific. You should talk to them about the uniform,
by the way, moving forward.
All right.
Okay, here we go.
First one.
When I asked you about your financial situation
the first time we sat down,
was that one of the weirdest questions
anyone's ever asked you in an interview?
I don't know, one of the weirdest.
It's fine.
I guess people are curious,
how does a Bon Vivant retire at 42? I live off the 10%
commission I don't pay. I don't even touch my ESPN money. I live off my five questions money.
There was a five questions book. It's very big in Europe.
Pete I didn't mean to ask it all over again. It was just, people were like,
what's this deal again? And then I just was like, I guess I'll ask the question everybody always wants the answer to. And then you just
looked at me and you're like, what are you asking? Where's my money? And it was just sort of awkward.
But obviously- Late night pays well. And if you're not extravagant and you don't waste money,
it's an easy life. Okay. All right. This is sort of open to your interpretation, but how jealous was I of your post of you
and Robert Evans hanging out in LA early 2000s?
How jealous was I?
Very jealous.
It is fascinating.
I know we've talked about this.
You saw the offer, that series on the making
of The Godfather, correct, with Miles Teller?
I would say two episodes in I bought
Bob's book, read his book, read his book immediately and kind of told myself I don't know that I ever
want to write one. Oh yeah. He made me want to just like hey this is unobtainable what you just
read but do more stuff. Yeah you got the audiobook. No I read it. Oh, I love I love you know, he narrates it you you bet your ass
I was he does all these was I jealous you bet your ass. I
Remember when he's explaining to like one of his friends on the other side of the law
Where they were trying to figure out what was going on with his his wife and she was with Steve McQueen
Yeah, he's devastated and they were like, well, let's have
somebody go talk to him because Evans had a lot of friends with connections. And then Bob says to
this guy and he's like, well, just so you know, he's like a black belt or something. And the mob
guy goes, Bob, he's a fucking actor. That's funny. I mean, the guy is a character. He was such a character. And I tell people,
the actor, Matthew Good, who played him in The Offer, nailed him. And all I can say is
every line Matthew Good said was entertaining. So, Bob is entertaining, but not every line
is a gem. But it's pretty close. He was, we had dinner a number of times.
I was in his screening room,
watching the kids' days in the picture.
One of a kind, one of a kind.
I was so jealous.
I was like, I got out of here too late.
And I would say Matthew Good,
we tried to get him on this show numerous times.
I don't think he was even nominated
for an Emmy for best supporting actor.
He was so, he was so good.
And Miles, who I've always loved and got to know a little bit, he had to play it
straight for his role, Matthew good scenes were like Tom and Greg scenes in
succession where I was like, I could just watch those on an endless loop.
Right.
How good he was at playing Evans.
All right.
Number one, uh, number three, actually three of these to go.
Are you still at a text level friendship with Kylie Minogue?
No, I, I did interview her.
No texting, no texting with Kylie Minogue.
All right, number four, has A-Rod asked you to stay with him
for playoff games?
No, he is not.
And that's comforting for me,
because I like, Kilby likes his space.
I like my space.
We're alike in that sense. Okay.
Last one.
Speaking of real estate with this Minnesota run with ant in play, and I
know you like your farmers markets.
I like, I know you like to get out to Montecito, but is there a ever a Zillow
search in the greater metropolitan area where you're like, give
me Minnesota's version of Simsbury?
No, but there's a place.
So Minneapolis, St. Paul, the twin cities.
St. Paul is the older city.
It's where F. Scott Fitzgerald grew up on Summit Avenue.
They have a bunch of beautiful old homes.
So whenever I go back, I go to Summit Avenue and look at the, yeah, some of them were built
in the 1890s.
I like visiting Minnesota, means a lot to me.
Happy I grew up there. But no, I romanticize about Northern California.
I live in LA, but I'd like to visit,
as you know, Carmel by the Sea.
That's great.
You can get more from Craig Kilburn,
the Life Gorgeous podcast.
It's also up on YouTube.
And I would be happy to repay the favor
anytime you need it, my man.
Thank you.
A Life Gorgeous podcast.
And my favorite thing creatively remains my Instagram
where I celebrate my deep breathing at French bistros
and bonding with chilled martinis. So the Instagram is still my favorite thing.
And I also do the podcast life gorgeous.
You're the man brother.
Always good to see you.
Thank you, sir.
The Alliance ready to go playoff style here.
Uh, I held us back last week and so Rudy hasn't updated standings for the Alliance where we've
pivoted from who's done the fourth pick here.
So what do we have so far, Sir Rudy?
Yeah.
So how I do it is basically like the fourth bet is usually kind of a throwaway ish bet.
It's usually easy to hit.
So I put that in the other category.
And so the other category is five and five, which should probably be better. Uh,
Kyle and I are both six and four in our bets and you are five and five,
but unfortunately the parlay itself is one and eight overall. So,
but here's the thing we hit one more and we're basically back to even.
So this is the week we're feeling it.
We are,
but we may have to brand pivot because it looks like the over unders are
different than just pay totals where we might shoot a little bit lower
than what the overall under number is on the points.
So like, Luke, I had some of these nights, I think,
I think Brunson was like 35 points over under.
And you just look at that and you're like, how can
I take that over?
And yet most of us, right.
Most of us look at him.
You're like, I don't want to, I don't want to pick
against that.
Like I threw out an MB to under that I felt great
about the first half. I was like, this is great. This is perfect. And, you're like, I don't want to, I don't want to pick against that. Like I threw out an MBE under that I felt great about the first half.
I was like, this is great.
It's perfect.
And then it's like, Nope.
He just, he went nuts.
And I think that wasn't game.
It wasn't the 50 point game that that would have been bad.
All right.
So, um, we're going with, okay.
See in Dallas and I know we put the math in already.
So, um, I had two picks for this one. It was a
Luka point total and it was a gaffer point total. Um, and when you look at Luka's individual numbers,
like a lot of guys missed games in their matchups this year and the head to head. I'll, I'll look it
up again, um, just to make sure I have that right. But like Luca had a ton of assists, um, in this, in the regular season
matchups with them.
So, all right, what do we have right now?
Yeah.
So you have Daniel Gafford 10 plus points and you have Luca Donchitz
to, uh, record eight plus assists.
And then I'll throw Kyle's in as well.
Kyle has Donchitz to score 30 points, which, you, again, these are all these are except for gaffer
These are all totals and i'm gonna throw in chet homerun over 13 and a half points, which is another all points total
I just think he gets there. He averages 15 on the year
I think this would be a pretty big game for okay. See obviously i think she'd be charged up that gets us to plus 4 35
I love this bet. I do
Yeah, we felt a lot better about this one
I mean lucas missed two of the four games. Kyrie missed two of the four games.
So the season series stuff with OKC doesn't necessarily play out all that much.
But when you look at the shooting numbers on the splits against OKC,
like as much as I can't wait to see the fully unleashed playoff dork,
but in the games, his shooting numbers in the two regular season games,
like they had one game where they put up a ton of points, but I mean, the
shooting splits are incredible for Luca on top of averaging just under 14 assists.
So I don't know if they're going to double them in the assist part of it gets
burned or if he's just going to go ahead and get his points with this one.
It's just, some of these guys are so good.
It's so scary betting the under, but if we can't hit one,
we may force ourselves to do an under pivot
for all four picks for this one.
So have faith.
The under only parlay.
Yeah, but we do really like this one.
So I can't wait for this series.
I have one point I was like,
did okay see you get eliminated and I didn't realize,
and they're like, no, they just haven't played yet.
So let's go.
and I didn't realize, like, no, they just haven't played yet.
So let's go.
You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up?
I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I liquid. So, now you know what's possible.
Let me tell you what's required.
I love doing this.
I need to do it more often.
Specialized, tailored life advices with people
that are experts in their field.
And joining us now is Chad Wesley Smith,
who we've talked about a few times on the podcast.
He has been really nice to me over the years,
has helped me out with some training stuff,
invited me out to golf.
I wanna read the resume so people understand who we're talking to here.
He's the owner and founder of Juggernaut Training Systems and one of the most
accomplished strength athletes and coaches of all time.
Back around a track and field, two collegiate national shot put championships,
moved over to powerlifting with personal records of a 970 pound squat, a 567 pound bench, an 815 pound
deadlift, as well as a top 20 total all time of 2,325 pounds. Also professional status and strongman
by a landslide victory at the 2012 North American Strongman Championships as a coach. He's helped a ton of power lifters, thousands of athletes around the world.
And not only doing that here in the States, seminars in Canada, Australia, Europe,
and has also worked with world-class athletes in the NFL and professional MMA.
In 2020, Chad launched the Juggernaut AI app, which creates AI driven strength training programs
customized to each of its 10,000 plus users worldwide.
Chad has also a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
and an aggressively average golfer.
Thanks for having me on.
Is this a 6'1", 315 pickup comp, Robert, tractor trailer?
Yeah, I guess you could say that.
I think we're going to just post your Jiu-Jitsu tournament video that you showed me when we golfed that day.
And I was like, if I were that other guy, I would have been so mad at you posting this.
And you turned to me and said, I think you retired after that tournament.
I felt him retire as soon as he hit the ground
and I was like, I'm outta here.
So you are a strong fucking dude,
combined with all these other skills.
And you know, like I just read the resume for everybody,
but before we get to some of the emails,
this is your life, you've dedicated your life to this.
What was it about this path for you,
where you were like, this is what I'm gonna do
and who I'm going to become.
You know, I was always just pumped about training. Uh,
maybe from watching Rocky four training montage,
I would say too many times as a kid,
but I guess just the right amount of times. Uh,
so going all the way back to like my first time playing junior all American pop
Warner football when I was 10 and my mom said, she's like,
yeah, you found all the bungee cords that we'd use to tie stuff down in the back of
a truck or something. You found all you could in the garage. And I'm bungee cording myself
around a tree in the backyard to do like resisted sprints at age 10, completely on my own accord.
Then high school, I knew like lifting weights helps you be better at
football, be better at track, which I did. So I started high school, 5'8", 170, graduated
6'2", with a lot of weightlifting and chocolate milk in between. So, yeah, I think it helped
that I was good at it, which everyone likes to do the stuff that they're good at.
And even when I, you know, in high school, we didn't have a strength coach, so I was
my own strength coach.
I was scouring the early 2000s internet for information about how to train better and
saw a lot of returns on that.
Got a scholarship to go to the University of California, Berkeley, on the track team
there. And was always, yeah,
just really interested in strength and human performance. So, yeah, and then those kind of
progressions of sports, track and college and a little bit as a post-collegiate. And then
with starting my company straight out of college back in 2009, I kind of got to the point where it was like, I can't do
track anymore because I don't have time.
I was working 75 hours a week running our first gym.
So I was like, but I'm already really strong.
So let's just drop the throwing the heavy ball part of the training and just keep
going with the lifting side of it.
And here we are.
What does it feel like to have 560 plus pounds go up off of your chest and a
bench?
Yeah, I get that kind of question a lot with, you know,
how does that max feel?
And I think everyone's max kind of feels the same because, you know,
it's not like I was doing 315 and then one day I was like, how about 560?
Let's give that a, let's give that a run.
Even though there was a video I saw over the weekend where a guy had given, he thought
he told the people at the meet a number in pounds, but it was actually in kilos.
It's 210 kilos, like 462 pounds instead of 210 pounds.
And that guy, he unracked it and he tried to do it.
It went really bad for him. So outside of examples like that, I think it's, you know,
it feels probably the same as your guys's max would feel to you like, shit, this is
hard. There was just a lot more, you know, effort probably before getting into that top,
oh shit, this is hard.
Yeah, right. That's pretty much what I expected the answer to be.
But I mean, I mentioned there's sort of this moment.
And look, my story is, and just in my own fitness path,
it's like a lot of people, I was really scrawny as a kid.
I fucking hated it.
I really, really hated it.
And I started to fill out a little bit.
Luckily, I went to school in Vermont
where there wasn't really anybody tough,
so there's no football team.
So it didn't really matter.
Um, and then I hit this new filling out period, uh, of when the steroid accusations happened at 26, but it was just basically I was like, I've had it.
I'm going to see what I can do with this.
And I'll never forget that moment where I could only get to 25,
like maybe a couple of times, you know, 185 was my top workout set.
And at 26, 27, it just was the weirdest thing.
I asked a guy for a spot in 225.
He said, how many are you going to get?
I was like, I don't know, a couple.
See how it goes.
And then I got 11.
And then he looked at me like, what are you going to ask?
Like he thought I was doing it to kind of mess with him.
So I try to tell like younger people, like there is some weird, once you get older strength, if you keep putting the time
into it that happens.
But when I look at somebody like you that's just
accomplished, I think it's like a lot of the stuff that
anybody wants to do.
It's like, okay, well, if you want to do any of these
things, you have to put the work in.
And I think people always reach out to you for the
quick fix part of it.
And I imagine
there's maybe some ways to jump. Like the great thing when you get started in the beginning is
the improvements and how you start to feel it in a way. Right, right. Exactly. It's like you almost
miss it. I'd rather never go back to that, but it's this awesome stage of working out that you feel
this. But I guess the most asked question for you,
do you get it from beginners or do you get it from people
that have been going at it for a long time,
realizing they've plateaued,
which I know I've asked you myself,
and you're like, yeah,
I've probably been in the same phase here
for multiple years and it's more about maintenance
than it is about advancing.
Yeah, I mean, everyone always wants a quick fix.
I think that's in anything in life,
whether it's getting strong quick, it's getting rich quick, it's getting lean quick, you know, whatever that is. And
there's a certain nostalgia that people attach, I think, to that beginner gains phase. So
it's like whatever that first program they did was that, you know, they found in a muscle
and fitness or starting strength or whatever it is. and they're like, yeah, but that,
my bench went up 50 pounds when I did that.
It's like, yeah, but your bench went from 150 to 200 pounds.
Those are the easy pounds to get.
The much harder pounds would be the 400 to 420 pounds.
Those 15 or 20 pounds are a lot harder to come by
than those first 50.
So they don't get that things
adapt and change with time. That you're probably going to have to do more.
Like as those pounds get harder to come by, you're going to have to do more focused work
for that and more kind of clever work to manage the fatigue. And as the weights get really, really heavy, now you probably can't do as much because, you know,
when I was squatting 300 pounds in high school,
I could probably do that every day if I wanted to
when I have, you know, just the surging testosterone
of a 16-year-old boy.
But when that's 800 pounds, you know,
fast forward 15 years later and it's 800 pounds, that's just so stimulating
and fatiguing that that's gonna be more like a once
every other week type of effort.
So I think people understanding the changes that come
with age and then the changes that come with kind of
just advancement in the sport, and know, for really any sporting demand.
So let's get to the emails here and a lot of them are I think pretty straightforward so
I think this will be fun. Okay, all right. So Chad's seen these in advance. I sent them to him this
morning. I told him it'd be last night but you know, look, some of my prep's great, some of it
isn't but I think these are going to be pretty easy. 35 6 1 2 15 gym stats 225 times 5 squat 315 times 5
Conventional dead 405 times 5 I live by myself in a home gym
So I don't do one rep max is a really push to failure on any of my lifts
Here's my question as I get older is it worth it to continue to deadlifting?
I'm not training for anything specific
My main goal is to control my bodyweight, maintain my strength.
Deadlifts have always been my favorite and strongest lifts, but I want to do
my best to avoid injuries, especially to my back.
I've already started to notice it's more difficult and takes longer to recover
from injuries as I get older.
Hey, yeah, thanks for that, uh, revelation.
I don't want to suffer a long-term or serious injury just because I like a
particular lift, love the pod, enjoy what you guys have to say. All right. So what do you do?
Older deadlifter?
Yeah. So let me first say that there's nothing inherently dangerous and
jurious about deadlifts or really any other exercise as long as they're loaded
appropriately and progressed strategically.
So that's on one side.
On the other side of that,
I myself had a back surgery at the start of 2021
for herniated disc and my cortisectomy surgery
that my surgeon described as the most herniated disc
he had ever performed surgery on.
But I'd had those herniated discs since 2013
and done all the heaviest and best powerlifting
of my life in between.
And since that surgery, I've still squatted over 700
and stuff.
So the question of, is it worth it for you to do it?
If you enjoy it, who am I to say that deadlifts aren't
worth it for you to do?
With that in mind, and going back to the idea of like managing and strategically
progressing it, is doing a heavy deadlift every single week going to be worth it to
you? You know, if you're sitting at a desk for eight hours a day, yeah, your back's going
to feel stiff. So can you do what you enjoy deadlifting but do it in a smarter way? Yeah,
definitely. And that might just be kind of like a rotation week to week to week.
If you do conventional deadlifts from the floor one week, you elevate the bar onto blocks
the next week.
So it's a shorter range of motion.
You do a trap bar the third week, and then you kind of keep that rotation going just
for some variety.
Where a lot of people struggle with back pain in regards to heavy squatting
and deadlifting is that they get so locked in to powerlifting and strength training.
Serious strength training is so much about not moving, like bracing your trunk and torso
and not letting it turn or twist or extend or flex, that people lose their capacity for the other
movements. And like your spine is, you know, multiple series of joints and can bend and
twist and move in all these great and athletic ways. But when all you do is put weight on your
back or in your hands and bend your knees and stand up and, you know, pick weight up, put weight down
kind of thing, and you lose that ability to flex and bend and control your spine. And then something else in
your life requires you to do it and you've lost the ability to do it. That's where stuff really
starts to hurt. So I think for a guy like our man here, just staying mindful that you know,
with your accessory work, do some split squats, some single leg stuff,
some staggered stance, RDL, add some rotation to your trunk.
Don't be afraid of flexing your spine, like bending it this way, under control and being
able to own that control because having...
What do deadlifts do?
They make your back strong.
They don't make your back strong. They don't make your
back weak. Why would being stronger lead to being injured? You know, we just have to do
it the right way and understand as you get older, as you get stronger, you know, it's
okay to have a lighter week. You're not competing in powerlifting. So it's like, if you don't
want to do conventional deadlifts this week, you
don't have to, because you don't have a meet or whatever in, you know, six weeks
from now, so some variety in there is totally fine and making adjustments for
that day that still allow you to work towards your longer term, bigger goal.
If that's a number of that's just feeling strong and enjoying what you're doing with training, then I think you'll be all good to go. I'd also add to it's on the bench
stuff for working out by yourself. Like there's ways if you want to spend the money on the
equipment where, you know, it's a horrifying feeling when you're like, I'm not going to get
this off of me, but then it lands on the pins and you're like, all right, cool. I'm not dead.
Which I certainly learned firsthand throughout COVID.
Okay.
And a lot of those things stopping on the rep where you're like, you push it
hard and then you're like, I think I might miss the next one as you become more
experienced and this guy's, you know, lifted enough where he probably knows,
I'm probably going to miss the next one.
And just stop there and then, you know, another set after.
Right.
But the one thing about the bench solo is when you know, you have the safety
pins, you will, you'll push yourself a little bit more and then you'll go like,
Hey, if I had a spotter, I probably would have let this go.
But I, even though I know the pins are in place, I still want to try to get this.
I don't know.
At least that's the way it feels for me.
I think there were certain moments with me during COVID where I was pushing
even further than I thought just because it was like, all right, you would
probably let the guy take this off of you and quit and now you can't quit.
I did almost all of my best power lifting training by myself, which me,
me and the power rack and 900 pounds on my back and 500 in the hands.
And it was like, you know, Jesus on the spot.
I liked that. I've never heard it before.
All right. 56, 511, 198 competition weight.
His competition stats squat, squat, excuse me.
474 bench, 298 deadlift 540.
I'm a masters power lifter and hold six state powerlifting records for my age and weight class NBD.
I will be competing in the USPA nationals at the end of June and
think about switching to sumo deadlift.
I don't have any issues with pulling conventional, but I've seen
countless videos of smaller lifters pulling massive amounts.
What are your thoughts on sumo versus conventional deadlift?
How long do you need to train to get proficient at it?
Grateful for any insights or resources you can recommend.
Thanks.
Perfect.
This is my guy here.
I have lots of resources that I can recommend.
But first off, for the non-power lifters watching,
listening, Sumo deadlift is not cheating.
If everyone could do more sumo, then every single competitive powerlifter would do more
sumo because it's within the rules.
Now, that said, conventional deadlift is way cooler.
And you can kind of think of them as like conventional deadlift.
Yes, having good technique helps, having good technique helps in whatever you're doing,
but you could just be strong as shit and bend over and grab the bar and stand up with it
in a conventional deadlift.
And we're talking with the feet close together here, Sumo with the feet out wide and the
hands inside for the uninitiated.
But Sumo deadlift, you could be big and strong and try and do a sumo deadlift and
kind of be in a funky position and suck at it.
And you do way worse than you do conventional.
So sumo is like a much finer technical line to sort of toe.
And for the people who are great at that technique, they're able to get to really maximize their
ability with it.
And then as you get into powerlifting competition, there's bars that bend more and bars that
are more stiff.
And that's a dumb part about powerlifting is that there's all these different divisions
and different equipment.
And it's silly.
So the federation that this guy's competing in, because I looked at his open powerlifting,
has the flexier deadlift bar.
So yeah, there is probably more advantage to be had there for sumo.
Is sumo right for you is going to have a lot to do with your hip mobility.
If you're able to kind of open your knees enough and get in a good more vertical torso
position where you're not just doing like a wide-legged conventional deadlift, but you're actually doing a real
sumo deadlift.
As far as developing that goes, and this kind of idea can hold true for a lot of different
lifts developing your technique and as well as like an injury rehab type of situations.
What I'd suggest for our guy here is maybe you start with the bar elevated on six inch
blocks so you know that you'll be able to get in a good position there because it's
not as demanding on the hip mobility.
You do that for a week or two and as you develop the mobility there, then you move it down
to five inch blocks and four inch blocks and three, two, one.
Then over the course of maybe six weeks, you're pulling from the floor and you've kind of
progress it, progressed that mobility through your hips. So it's not just, all right, this first day,
I'm just going to jam my hips into this weird position and now my hip flexors are all fucked up
and, and you feel, uh, you know, now your squats suffering because of the hip pain from the sumo
deadlifts. So creating that progression should be a good way to do it,
whether also on sumo or conventional
being right or wrong for you.
If you're more long legged, short torso relatively,
probably better conventional deadlifter,
little bit more even torso to leg ratio
or short legs and a relatively long torso,
sumo probably gonna be better for you.
If you go to our Juggernaut Training Systems YouTube channel,
Sumo Deadlift Pillars, we'll have like a full
five part technique series of how to do it.
Okay, I promise the rest are not about deadlifting.
So the next email here, a lot of people with this one
hope for a skinny fat dad. 4161170.
No lifting stats. See the email. Still play hoops once a week.
Modeled after Houston Rockets era Chuck Hayes, not the UK version.
Hayes was a good player. So not sure of the right forum as I may not count as
bulking, but I'm the dreaded skinny fat.
My natural frame is slender, skinny wrists,
legs that have been fairly described as bird-like.
I am married, working father of two
with all the typical accoutrements that brings
limited time for working out,
diet that leaves a lot to be desired
because of all the crap food we have in the house
that I can't resist, and plenty of weekend beers, wine,
with dads, families, we get the kids together.
I have plenty of experience lifting,
played three sports in high school,
continue to get in on a lot of exercise to this day.
As the years have gone on,
the balance has been shifted in my opinion,
too heavily towards cardio and not enough lifting.
So my question is, what are the most impactful,
efficient exercises, circuits, routines I can incorporate
to realistically add some mass at my age?
With the caveat that proper form is paramount.
Should I focus on lifting heavy, low reps
or just go full body three times 10 sets
with mid-weight, low-weight burnout until fail?
I start a new job in a few weeks
where I'll have access to a proper gym again.
I think some heavy lifting will be the actual key
to me losing my punchy gut that I haven't been able
to run bike off the last few years.
All right.
So skinny fat guy who has some background here.
So it's not like he's starting out of nowhere.
Yeah.
So I think he's on the right track to begin.
But one big understanding here is whether it's running, biking, whether it's lifting,
the diet is going to be what is by far the controlling factor of your physique. So trying to not rein in, because obviously I'm not reining those parts of my life in
either, but the weekend beers and all that stuff, but making the vodka soda choice here
and there and some, at least trying to be as good as you can during the week with it.
So hard liquor is the key, is what you're saying.
It's probably a better option, just calorically.
So then from the lifting side of things, yeah.
Training, hard weight training, somewhere in the 3 to 12 to 15
rep range sets that's like, I'm almost failing, I could only do two or three more reps
at this weight, that is gonna give a lot more stimulus
and hormonal response and all this good stuff
that's gonna help you build muscle.
So whether you need to be lifting heavy
or for lower reps or lighter weight for higher reps,
doesn't really matter as long
as you're training hard, closer to failure. I would suggest doing both of those. So doing
some heavier work, probably in the four to six, four to eight rep range, most of the
time where you're doing four but you feel like, okay, I could've done five.
So you'll develop a sense and feel for that.
And doing that with the big exercises.
Squat bench deadlift, overhead press variations,
like barbell row type of exercises,
things that lend themselves to going heavier.
And then going with more bodybuilding accessory isolation
type of exercises and then burning those out.
So go ahead and take them to failure as they're not going to have the spotting issues or injury
type of risks that a heavy squat might have, especially if you're not that familiar and
well versed in the technique.
So taking those to as many reps as you could with, in the 10 to 20 rep range and pushing
that right up to failure, close to or to failure.
And that could be three days a week. So one day, maybe you're doing squat and you're
probably better off in the setting doing three full body workouts a week. So having like
a squat day, a bench day, a deadlift day, and then the next week it could rotate to
a bench day, squat day, another bench day. So it's like two upper, one lower primary,
but then the accessory work is gonna be
a little bit of everything.
So it might be some kind of weighted pushup
or dip variation, some kind of upper body pulling,
and lunges, and moving through that quick enough
to where your heart rate's getting up a little bit.
It's challenging, but you know,
you're not doing crossfit with it necessarily. It's not, how fast can I get it done?
You just don't want to be, and I'd say this more to the competitive power lifters
out there, like sitting around,
taking 10 minute rest periods when they don't need to just cause they're like,
well, I do power lifting so I can be lazy is what I want. Um,
yeah, for the regular person that you want to keep it moving. Yeah.
So I think some kind of squat, whether that's barbell back squat, box squat, front squat,
whatever you feel comfortable doing because you're not in a powerlifting competition.
Bench press, you know, always cool to bench press more. Some sort of overhead pressing
variation, whether that's with a barbell or dumbbells,
and then some kind of primary upper body pull, dumbbell rows, barbell row, pull ups, chin
ups, depending on what you can do. And then all the fun, you know, accessory stuff to
get a pump after. So the main work, four to eight reps, feeling like you could do only
one or two more. The lighter, smaller stuff after
10 to 20 reps, feeling like maybe one rep more or to failure. Probably not to failure
every single week. You're going to accumulate too much fatigue that way and it's going to
be tough to recover if it's all the time failure. But week one, train hard. The next week, train
harder. The next week, train hardest,
maybe choose some new exercises and start that progression again.
When you talked about the time off in between, like there's eventually like a pointless time
of not getting back onto the machine or whenever your free weight deal is.
And I know like on the heaviest days, like the only heavy days that I really cared
about how much time I had off in between would be a bench or a squat day.
Right.
And I've, I've always kind of like done kettlebell deadlifts or the Romanian
deadlifts and I've never ever really entered the world of, Hey, I'm just
going to see how many plates I can put on in deadlift, probably because when
it got really popular at the gym and I was at Connecticut, I couldn't
stand the guys at deadlift. They could pull six plates.
It looked cool because they'd never been strong in their life.
It's not that hard to Deadlift 315, especially if you're younger and in
decent shape and they would just chalk up and take forever in between the Deadlifts.
And they'd film it all and I fucking hated it.
So I almost in my own way, be like, I'm just going to do heavy dumbbells.
I'm going to do kettlebells.
I'm never going to do heavy dumbbells.
I'm going to do kettlebells. I'm never going to see like how hard I can actually go with total
weights on deadlift. But on bench, on the heaviest bench days, I may say like, okay, I'll give myself
230 in between set where normally once I switch my workouts to 60 seconds to 90 seconds max, like,
hey, lat pull down, any Arnold dumbbell military stuff, anything I was doing, like keep between 60 and
90 seconds, the workouts for me changed entirely and I wasn't losing any
strength waiting in an extra, or I should say the other way, like the
strength I thought I was recovering waiting two plus minutes versus what I
was doing sometimes even in 60 seconds.
There was nothing and I've looked it all up, I've read it.
I do think that there's probably maybe some stuff
psychologically for me with bench where I go,
if I give myself 230 in between say the last three elements
of whatever bench routine I'm doing,
it seems to help me recover.
But I also think that I just feel better
getting however many reps I can go
with whatever I'm trying to do,
knowing that I gave myself like the maximum rest where it was short enough that it wasn't like I didn't give
myself five minutes because I just know at that point it's pointless. I'm not gaining anything
after a certain amount of time. Yeah, I think you're on the right track there with the rest periods.
You know for squat bench deadlift type of stuff and if you're training heavy, like I want to see
how heavy can I go on this exercise, most regular people are going to be fine with probably
90 seconds to 3 minutes in between sets there.
Even a lot of competitive powerlifters that I deal with, they think they need 5 minutes,
10 minutes.
Like the laziness of especially very elite heavyweight power lifters like heavyweight
weight class power lifters where they're like, yeah, I need 20 minutes between these sets of
squats and it's like, what is wrong with you? It's nonsense and they need to cut their rest periods
down. But the smartest part of that is just being consistent and accountable to it. So like, you know, get
the stopwatch on your phone going. And if you say I'm going to take two minute rest
periods and take two minute rest periods, you know, between all your sets of bench and
then the same kind of idea with the smaller exercises, isolation stuff, machines. Yeah,
they don't require the same coordination and effort and to to get a good workout from so minute to 90 seconds
there is is definitely a good way to approach it and it's another variable in the training that
can be tracked and adjusted and and okay this you know this week i did four sets of this exercise
in you know four sets of 10 of this exercise in five minutes. Now
I want to try and do five sets or I want to do four sets of 12. And it's like increasing
the density of the training there. Those are all just other variables to manipulate training
with and get a new stimulus.
But yeah, main exercises, 90 seconds to three minutes can be good for most people. Even
at this point, you know, lifting for me between sets of squats, I'm two and a half minutes
bench, two minutes and 60 seconds or 90 seconds on accessory dependent, 60 seconds for upper
body, 90 seconds for lower body.
We got a million supplement questions.
You go anywhere you want with this.
Yeah.
So supplement stuff, as we're looking at performance
and physique and what matters the most there, it's going to be like total number of calories,
probably 70% of what makes the diet work for physique. Then the macro breakdown, how much
protein, how much fats, how much carbs is going to be the next 20%, 25% meal timing, maybe 5-10%.
And I'm just talking about responsibility for the effect of things.
And then way, way down at the bottom, maybe 5%, 3% supplements.
Now I'm talking about supplements you can buy at the store.
Supplements you buy from the guy behind the gym.
A little bit more impactful, but still not as much as people would like to think.
So what supplements work?
Unfortunately, it's like the most basic stuff and everything else is kind of marketing BS.
So stuff that there's a significant body of evidence that this has some benefit.
Whey protein, casein protein, and can those be replaced by normal food?
Yes.
If you're getting 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, you're going to
have enough to support all the muscle growth that you'll need.
You know, caffeine supplements, there's all this other stuff in pre-workouts. Beta-alanine,
sure, that might do some stuff for more endurance-based sports, all these things. Yeah, they can probably
find a study here and there that says this is doing something. But if you're looking at like a meta analysis, it's going to be a lot of like results in
conclusive.
So, but the thing that is definitely helping in those pre workouts is the caffeine part
of it.
Now that could be in a pre workout, that could be in a strong cup of coffee.
They'll work just the same.
And then carb powders like different dextrose type of things that are fast digesting and
can provide you with like quick energy in intra-training, whether that's hard lifting,
sports like jujitsu, endurance sports, those are beneficial, easier to digest, quicker
absorbing all that stuff than foods
would be. And then sort of the godfather, granddaddy of all supplements, the most researched,
most proven supplement of all, creatine monohydrate, which is just, that's the simple one. The
one that you can get like 500 servings for 20 bucks and they're
not trying to do all this fancy marketing around it. That's the one that works the best.
That's the one that they do all the research on and it definitely helps and you don't need
to worry about...
Maybe drink an extra glass of water a day is about the extent of like support you would need
around it. It's not going to mess your kidneys up, mess your liver up. You don't need to
do the loading scheme where it's like, oh, take 20 grams a day for the first week and
then go back to five. It doesn't matter. Just do five a day, three to five grams a day, put it in like a juice of some sort is a little bit more effective
because the sugar carbs in there will give a little bit better delivery system.
But at that point, we're really splitting hairs.
So protein, whey protein during the day, casein protein, so slower digesting could be as part of like your last meal of the day
and avoid any catabolic muscle wasting effects overnight while you sleep.
If you're training really hard, and I mean really hard, what I think is really hard,
not what most people listening probably think is really hard.
Yeah, then carb powders, intro workout could be beneficial. That's like, I'm a competitive cross fitter who trains for four hours a day
kind of thing. That's going to be useful.
If you feel like you're dragging before the workout, use a pre-workout. I wouldn't get
too stimulant heavy on that
because there can be other issues that arise from there.
If you have a lead on original formula, Jack 3D,
probably a good black market open for that.
I'm glad that stuff's illegal.
Even with the pre-workout stuff,
I was always really avoiding caffeine.
I had never even drank a cup of coffee until I was like 27.
And a lot of it was for competition,
I wanted to, during training,
I wanted to avoid caffeine use
so that for competition, I could introduce it
and get like this huge effect from it.
So when you never drink coffee,
and then during the course of a powerlifting meet,
you have three extra strength five-hour energies like
Yeah, you're really going
So if there's any competitive aspect, yes some sort of cycling on and off of even caffeine can be beneficial
And then creating probably everyone should be taking creating my mom should be taking creating
She turns 80 this year because it makes your muscles work better.
It is the amino acid responsible for muscular contraction.
It's not a steroid.
It shouldn't be illegal.
It's not dangerous.
It's the most well-researched, most proven supplement.
So that's what works.
And luckily, now you know the good stuff.
So you don't have to waste your money on a bunch of bullshit
that they're trying to sell you in, I would say, a bodybuilding magazine, but Instagram
or TikTok.
Before we end with a funny one, I just want to ask, like a lot of this stuff again, like
we said at the beginning, if you're willing to put the work in, you're going to see the
results and the quick fix stuff to this is not really what you're about or anything that we're going to talk about
today.
But for me, it took a lot of experimenting to figure out what worked for me and what
got me in the gym and what got me excited about it, even during those times where you're
fighting through an injury or just like, I just don't feel like going today.
But the gym was definitely something psychological for me where the day was content from the
moment I woke up to when I went into work, drove into work, listened to other people talk about
what they're going to talk about, prep my day out and then was on the air.
And then as soon as, especially this is like the radio days more so than even
now, but like as soon as four o'clock hit, I, I went into work very, very early.
I had no interest in being there a minute after I had to be there, knowing
that I then I had this three hour window to work out, to get food, and then watch basketball from like seven o'clock
Eastern time until one a.m. And that was my life for a very, very long time. That one hour gym window
was so important to me. And I would tell younger guys, if you're living on the East coast and you're
taking pre-workout at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, that's why your sleeping patterns suck.
All right. Because once you work out the morning and you take pre-workout at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, that's why your sleeping patterns suck.
All right?
Because once you work out in the morning and you take pre-workout, you're like, man, I'm
falling asleep way easier than I used to.
So that's just a little aside of some younger guys can't figure out why they can't fall
asleep when they first go to bed.
But I wanted to go a lot.
I wanted to have a reason to go a lot.
And I know there's like another level, even at my age,
if I had just gone, if you take it this much more seriously,
if you start really counting all of the protein,
if you have maybe one less cheat meal a week
instead of two, just have one.
But I liked just breaking it down
into different body parts where I'd be like just chest,
just arms, just legs, just shoulders, just back.
And some people were like, well, that's ridiculous.
You shouldn't do it that way. I was like, well, that's ridiculous. You shouldn't do it that way.
I was like, well, that's what eventually helped me.
And I think everybody's always looking for like, what's, what's the plan.
And the plan is really about like what you seem to respond to and what gets
you excited about wanting to go in.
And I know mentally I need to put myself through something every day that makes
me want to complete something.
And I think that's why people run a lot.
But when I delve into the push-pull stuff, I love it.
One of the loading program things that you gave me, I loved until, again,
I tore my calf, so it kind of reset things a bit.
But I'll be back on it here again shortly once I get stable
and kind of everything that I'm doing.
Is there a default thing that you think that everyone should be at least like,
hey, you need to at least be doing these things?
And I know that's traditional powerlifting stuff clearly is what it is
because it's just everything you've talked about and what's the most popular.
But as you kind of figure out like all these different training regiments and patterns,
like is there something that you think is just generally more beneficial is there a creatine of workout programs you think
everyone should be thinking about yeah I mean a couple different ways to think
about it and like you said it so much of its individualized based on you know
kind of personality schedule all that stuff from an exercise standpoint I
normally like to think of it for for non powerlifters. So whether it's for performance stuff or just regular guys as more movement pattern
So doing some kind of squat some kind of press some kind of hip hinge hip extension exercise some kind of upper body pull
Some kind of lunge and some kind of twist you do all those things in your training
You're gonna be a person who's fit who's strong who moves well who if their buddies ask them to go play pickup basketball You can do that if you're going to be a person who's fit, who's strong, who moves well, who if their buddy's asking them to go play pickup basketball, you can do that.
If you're going on a hike, you can do that even though maybe you haven't been doing that,
but you're not taking these luxurious Parisian rest periods in between exercises.
So your heart actually has to pump and oxygen has to get moving.
Then from a structure of it, if you do one big lift a day and then follow it up with kind of a sampling
of those different movement pattern accessory exercises
and do stuff you enjoy,
I never really cared about doing like
a lot of pump bodybuilding stuff.
I like the performance stuff
and I like to train super heavy
and was really lazy on the other part of things,
but a lot of people, most people
are gonna like the bodybuilding accessory pump kind of stuff.
So whether that's three times a week that you're training,
because that's what you have in your schedule,
I'd probably go three full body workouts.
If it's four times a week, I'd go upper, lower, upper, lower.
If it's five or six, you can get into a push, pull, legs,
upper, lower, push, pull, push pull legs, push pull legs.
All of those are really effective.
What's the most important thing that you're doing,
we have a book that I co-authored called
Scientific Principles of Strength Training,
is it's seven things in there,
that your training has specificity,
it's specific to your goals.
You could have the smartest marathon program,
most scientifically designed in the world,
but if your goal is to get jackeded that greatly designed program is totally wrong for you
Principle overload your training has to be hard enough to elicit the gains that you want
So if you want to get stronger you got a lift heavy if you want to build muscle you to lift close to or to
failure and
Then the third one is that you got to manage your fatigue
You could do all the great hard training in the world
But if you can't recover
from it, it doesn't really matter.
That recovery is going to happen for the most part from well-managed training
volume, you know, not over training, not training too much.
And then do you have a good diet and do you sleep enough?
Everything else, ice baths, saunas, Normatec boots, massage guns or actual massages,
supplements, whatever. Those are the tiny little part at the bottom.
Train with the right volumes.
Train hard.
Recover through those most basic means. And then the next four of my seven principles are
totally irrelevant for 99.9% of people listening,
but I have a lot of very long-winded YouTube videos
if they'd enjoy listening to them.
All right, I think everyone's gonna like this one.
Hey guys, 26-year-old male, 5'6", 170,
245 on the bench, 285 times five on the squat last week.
All right, also my first and last marathon
a couple months back.
A couple months out from proposing to my girlfriend
eight years, I'm planning on doing it on a beach
in Costa Rica with a professional photographer
to capture the moment.
Since the moment's gonna be shown around forever,
I'd like to look good in whatever classy beachwear
I can manage.
However, I found that each time I or other members
of the diminutive brotherhood bulk,
there's a thin line between putting on muscle
and looking like a meatball. I believe the problem stems from gaining too much width, girth,
one of our favorite words, with limited space for that mass to distribute, leading to a
bulldog-esque physique. Are there specific muscle groups, exercises you would prioritize
for a short savant while bulking to look more like Jeremy Allen White and less like Newman. So a manlet is the scientific term that those powerlifters would use for these
kind of gentlemen. Um, you know, so like I said before,
from a physique standpoint,
most of physique is going to be controlled by diet. Uh, if, you know,
if you're running a marathon, you're probably on the leaner side of things. If you're
lean at 5'6", 170, you're super jacked then. Odds are you're not super jacked, just basing it off
of everyone in the world. So in terms of what exercises are going to help create a better shape. Let's say, you know, shoulders, traps,
arms, lats, giving more width to the back. If you have a problem feeling like, man, I'm
like blocky, stumpy, like a like a little mini fridge in this situation. You know, the wider you can get your shoulders, the narrower
it's going to make your waist look. That's like the B taper. You can't change where the
ends of your shoulder bones are and where your hips are. So like they kind of are where
they are, but the more rounded and folded delts get bigger, bigger traps gonna add a little bit of shape to the physique there.
But yeah, in terms of like how big your waist is or how lean you feel, that's,
you know, if there was a way to like Jane Fonda your way to eight minute abs or
something like everyone would have figured that out by now, but you can't really spot reduce in that regard. So
eat clean
You know and again, that's calories macro breakdown
that's making up probably 80% of people's success with dieting for physique and then
Yeah, I probably put a little bit more attention to
arm shoulders back her physique. And then, yeah, I probably put a little bit more attention to arm, shoulders, back,
chest stuff. So upper body training. Um, I mean,
I think that squatting is way cooler than that, but, um,
yeah, I don't have any, any like amazing insight there.
I think the shoulders thing is right though, because you can get away with just the, your presence and the way you'll look, you know,
and even in pictures sometimes,
and you could be shorter than people,
but if your shoulders are bigger than your shoulders
or like higher than the guys that you're standing next to,
even if they're taller than you,
and like no one's gonna grow at this stage of their life,
but you can grow your shoulders.
And I have, I have very tall shoulders.
Yeah.
Yeah, as I'm maybe six foot and a half,
six one program height, but my shoulder is really up there.
It's just that my like quarter inch long neck
is bringing down the real height of it.
That was a scattering port.
Not a lot of neck, tons of shoulders, shoulders.
Well, I had girth, big gir shoulders, shoulders. Why not girth?
Big girth guy.
You have the girth on it, but it's just hard to ever see it.
This was a lot of fun, man. I know we've talked about doing this for a really long time, but I think the best
part of this is that you should just go to Chad's website again, juggernautai.app.
Download the app.
There's a free trial now.
That's not why I did this to,
to, you know, you've been awesome to me.
I was happy to repay the favor and there's a lot more intensity as far as
understanding everything Chad's talking about. If that's something that interests you, man.
So, uh,
code Ryan, shall we RYE in? Should we throw that in on the app? We can have that.
If you want to, uh,
just say hi to Fred Warner for us
and then we'll all be happy.
All right?
Oh, I will.
I'm gonna get him on here.
All right.
I'm preferring that deal.
Thanks, man.
All right, thank you. and Must be 21 and older, 18 plus in DC, in present and select states.
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