Ding ding.

How about we can just watch basketball?

How about we can just watch basketball?

Hello and welcome to The Daily Ding on the Athletic NBA show.

I'm Dave DeFore here with Keith Parrish for your weekend update.

Before we start, don't forget, you can get this podcast without ads by subscribing at theathletic.com

slash NBA show. Keith, huge weekend with massive playoff ramifications in the NBA. And we're

going to start with the best team in the league, the Phoenix Suns.

I'm just going to say it right now,

cruising to a 10-point win over the 76ers.

114-14-104.

Chris Paul is back, Keith.

The Suns look just as good with him as they did without him.

They're probably going to wind up in the finals.

And I think that the more interesting story here really is the Sixers because James

Harden once again just didn't show up in a game that the Sixers needed.

They're only a half game out of first.

If they win this game, Keith, they're in a three-way tie with Miami and Boston right now

for the one seat.

I know you want me to disparage James Hardin's performance. His two-for-11 field goal attempts, I guess a very, very good team, where this team, you know, they sent out all the stuff to bring him in. It's like the ideal partner for Joel Embed, we think, and the process worked, blah, blah, blah. And once again, in the regular season now, we have a couple examples. A few examples of James Harden not showing up. I think you've got to be worried if you're a Sixers fan. I think this is a pattern. It's not just James Harden. You know, Tyrese, who's had an incredible year and might be a most player candidate. Like, it's a big game for him and he struggled once again. Maybe he's not ready to be that third guy. But also just basically, they need a fifth starter. And this one, they gave up on Tybal. They only played him a few minutes because they decided they needed offense. They played your guy, Danny Green, and it wasn't that much better. But, I mean, whatever you have to say about the Sixers, I guess we just have to not say the Sons are cruising. We have to give them credit somehow and be like, how do they keep doing this? Chris Paul missed all this time and now he shows back up and he hasn't missed a beat. We actually said this the other day on NERder, that the Sons aren't cruising. They're cruising to wins, but they're actually trying hard. And you mentioned Chris Paul coming back, didn't miss a beat.

Game high plus 25 in the game, man, 19 points, 14 assists, four rebounds, point God stuff all over

the place. And, you know, he missed a couple months. And then you got Devin Booker, who's making a

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