Hello, welcome to the hook collective podcast. We talk about the NBA. It's Thursday morning.

And joining me from New York City is Tim Bonteffs.

Hello guys. How are we doing? Joining us back from vacation. God bless you, McMahon. Back from Bermuda. It's Bann McMahon.

Howdy partners. I realized I forgot to give a good old fashioned howdy partners.

On the last week's episode, I'll leave the country and lose my manners, but I'm back boys.

We're all back for the stretch run here. I'm in Phoenix where Kevin Durant is probably not going to play his first game on Friday night against the Thunder.

One thing about Durant, he's an expert at coming back from mid season MCL injuries. So while I'm sure it's in contact with the Suns doctors and his own specialists.

If Durant says he needs a certain number of days and he'll be back, you trust Durant because when he's come back from these injuries, both with the Warriors and then with the Nets, he was very good.

And I think about Durant is he comes back from injuries very well. The Achilles being the prime example. But anyway, I am here to see and spend some time with the Suns.

Got a little run up towards a game next weekend in McMahon's backyard. I'm making my first trip to Dallas since pre pandemic.

Next Sunday, not this Sunday is who the mass play the Lakers this Sunday, right, McMahon?

Yeah, so I got a deal with Minimum in this weekend and you next week. This is right. I need a bonus.

Hospitality bonus vacation is over.

So the Suns are building toward that game for the Durant Kyrie reunion. We'll see how that how that actually goes.

But as we get started here, I mean, it's not the second half. I see people talking about the second half. Most teams have 20 to 23 games left. It's the last quarter.

Yeah, it's the last quarter.

So we're going to take a look at some things that are of great interest. And I'm going to start in a team. We don't talk about enough, but we should.

And that's a Denver nuggets who perpetually get overlooked. And I think they partially get overlooked. Not just because in the West, they are dwarfed in interest level by teams like the Lakers and Warriors and even the Clippers and the Suns.

But they also.

They overachieved in 2020.

And when they reach the conference finals, they pulled the comeback with the Clippers and the bubble.

And you.

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