It's the Mike Francesa podcast on the BetRivers Network.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome to the Mike Francesa podcast on the Mike Francesa channel on the BetRibbers Network on YouTube.

On this Monday morning, as we get ready to preview the Nixon Celtics and wrap up a lot of other stuff from the weekend.

We'll get to the baseball. We'll get to the the weekend. We'll get to the baseball.

We'll get to the Derby.

We'll get to the other NBA series, all that.

I know there was some thrilling stuff in hockey, too.

Hey, unfortunately, you know, not having, especially the Rangers in it, hurts as far as attention here.

But as we know every year, the Stanley Cup playoffs are just tremendous.

They really are on these comebacks that we've seen in the wild play we've seen in the

playoff shows you that year after year after year.

But this is about the Knicks and the Celtics predominantly. The series

begins this evening. The Celtics are overwhelming favorites, as they should be. I saw 11 predictions.

All of them were for the Celtics. Not surprising. If you lined up 50 predictions, I'd say somewhere

around 45 or 46 probably would have been for the Celtics. They deserve to be the favorites.

The Knicks have not proven themselves against better teams this year. They have not proved

themselves against the Celtics. They don't match up very well with the Celtics. Obviously, there's a lot of issues here, and it would be a big win. But here's the thing.

It's the second week in May. You're into the real heart now of the NBA playoffs and the Knicks are here.

That's the positive.

The garden will be alive.

And when the garden's alive for a May night, there's nothing better.

Nothing better in New York ever.

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