Thank you.

Thank you basketball podcast. My name is Ben. Welcome back to another show.

And today, Cody, it is all about the conference finals.

The game ones have arrived.

Of course, as I say this, people from the future will be listening in a day or two and it'll be like three

games down the road and everything we're going to say is going to sound ridiculous.

So let's get right to it.

How ridiculous can we be today? We've got the Eastern Conference finals as of

recording this. Game 2 is coming up later tonight. Western conference finals wrapped

last night. Where do you want to begin?

Let's start with the East. Let's start with the East. Okay. So Miami Heat, Boston Celtics,

my takeaway from that game was I would still feel pretty good if I was the Celtics

but not if I can't get Al-Horford and Marcus Smart back pretty soon in the series.

I don't know how many more games they can survive without them.

Because there's two big things.

One, the defense is obvious.

We've talked about it quite a bit.

Horford's been fantastic this season, especially in the playoffs,

and then smart winning defensive player of the year,

whether he technically is their best defender,

he's really important.

He's probably their most versatile defender.

...