Comedian Bill Burr has a lot on his plate: he is about to be the first comedian ever to headline Fenway Park, he is set to make his directorial debut, and he had a cameo in a Channing Tatum movie earlier this year. But he mostly only cares about basketball, particularly the Boston Celtics.
Burr stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live to presumably talk about his comedy, though he immediately started talking basketball the moment he sat down. Kimmel asked Burr if he was watching the playoffs, and Burr burst out in a monologue about the NBA, saying it’s “it’s massaged to be exciting.”
“I also think the NBA is also low-key rigged,” Burr said, to the surprise of Kimmel. “Why does that surprise any NBA fan? I don’t know how many times you can watch a game, a team goes up by 20, then all of a sudden ticky-tack foul, all of the sudden they’re in the penalty. The [ref’s] job’s to get down to about 5 to 7 at halftime. And then the ESPN talking head comes on and says ‘I’ll tell you right now, I’m really concerned about that team that used to be up by 20!’” Burr said in his best basketball analyst voice impression.
He continued, “First half of the third quarter is for the players, and then the referees assess what they need to do to make it come down to the final two minutes. You watch the first quarter, they let the teams play. Second-quarter belongs to the refs. [Then you watch] from the half of the third quarter on. I’ve said it is rigged forever.”
“I’m sorry, I’m saying there is no Santa Claus.” Burr said, crushing the dreams of basketball fans everywhere. After Kimmel said that fans ignore the sketchy refs when their team wins, Burr concluded, “It’s massaged to be exciting. The refs just have way too much power.” Just like Santa Claus!
Check out the clip above for Burr’s take on the NBA. If you feel inclined to listen to Burr talk even more about the NBA, he also uploaded a whole podcast episode on the topic earlier this week.