Hi, I'm Justin Tensley. You might know me from my work at Anscape, or as the author of

a Biggie Smalls biography, or from my mostly victorious appearances on around the horn.

So you're going to be hearing different voices hosting ESPN Daily for the near future.

And guess what? I'm one of them. I'll be pitching in for the rest of the week, helping

this pie do what it's always done. Tell the best sport stories in audio, day in, and day

out. Hope you enjoy.

Backstair Homes. Thanks for joining us today. You know, I think it's worth pointing out that

after a couple of weeks at the helm of this podcast, I'm actually going to be stepping

away for a bit. I guess you can call it some scheduled maintenance for me. It sounds

like load management is what you're talking about there. It's funny you mentioned that.

That's the NBA's least favorite phrase, load management, something you wrote about in

depth on ESPN.com. You paint a scene at the very beginning of the story. It's a January

game between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers that exciting young

court that they have in Cleveland facing the defending champs. But what actually did we

end up getting in this game?

Well, it was the Warriors, the defending champs only trip of the season to Cleveland. Sure

fans there were excited to see some of the Warriors biggest stars, but they were on the

bench. Steph Curry, Dreymond Green and Clay Thompson all sat out. Now, this is in no

small part because of what happened the night before in Boston. They played a thrilling

overtime game against the Celtics and Curry, Green and Thompson all logged heavy minutes.

They fly out for the second of a back to back, the last of a five game road trip. They

get into Cleveland after 2 a.m. hit the pillows around three. And Steve Curry decides, you

...