All NBA Most Improved Team + Celtics East favorites?
The Athletic NBA Daily
The Athletic
4.1 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
Dave DuFour and Es Baraheni breakdown their choices for their All NBA Most Improved Team. Then, Jay King joins the show to discuss the Celtics win over the Hornets, their chemistry with Jayson Tatum in the lineup, and Jaylen Brown's improvements this season.
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Host: Dave DuFour
With: Es Baraheni and Jay King
Executive Producer: Andrew Schlecht
Audio/Video Producer: Alex Oliver
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for April 8th, 2026. |
| 0:04.4 | I'm Dave Before here with Esperi. |
| 0:06.4 | Coming up, we're going to give our all-NBA most improved teams. |
| 0:10.5 | And then we're going to talk to Jay King about the Celtics win over the Hornets and their playoff outload. |
| 0:19.6 | Good morning, everybody. What is up? S? Not a great, not a great NBA night last night. A lot of games. Not a lot of action. No, no. Yeah. Not a lot. |
| 0:32.8 | We do have a standing update. Yeah, we do have a standing update uh there were three important games in |
| 0:38.8 | this one obviously we'll get to boston charlotte with jay i thought that was a really great game to |
| 0:43.5 | watch uh the raptors beat the heat heat are now locked into a playing spot they also apparently |
| 0:50.1 | had a team meeting after the game which is uh never good never good i, how many years in a row are you going to be in the play? Right. Like, it's not like the team has really changed all that much. I'm not sure what exactly the heater doing. Have they turned into the Chicago Bulls of the East now? I mean, have they not just been there, essentially? You know, I mean, even the year that they, you know, they make the run from the play in, |
| 1:14.0 | it was improbable. |
| 1:16.9 | Yeah. |
| 1:17.1 | Can I just say it is so bizarre to watch Bam out of bio score seven points in an NBA game |
| 1:23.7 | after watching him score 83. |
| 1:25.9 | It's like, where is that level of aggression? You talked about this when he dropped 83. It's like, how does that happen? How does that exist? I mean, was the Raptors' defense just too much? I mean, like, it is. The Raptors defense was good. They are suited to stop a guy like, bam. No, you're right. But seven points, I just, and he, most of his shots were corner threes. |
| 1:45.4 | Anyways, the heater stuck in the play in. We'll see them next week for a playing game. |
| 1:50.9 | Okay. Also, the Houston Rockets beat the Phoenix Suns. That means the Timberwolves clinch a playoff spot, but also the Suns clinch a playing spot. |
| 2:00.0 | So we've got our team set for the Western Conference playing tournament. |
| 2:04.4 | It'll be the Sons, the Clippers, the Trailblazers, and the Warriors. |
| 2:08.6 | Okay. |
| 2:09.2 | So there are the standings. |
| 2:11.4 | No real big shakeups. |
| 2:13.0 | But we've been talking about this season and the surprise guys, these, these guys that have come out of nowhere. |
... |
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