Speaker 1: Hello, how are you? We are on air? Apologies to
Speaker 1: our friends out of tim Dolly. We had some technical difficulties,
Speaker 1: so I had to hop in the car and rush
Speaker 1: back to the studio. So we'll get to uh, we'll
Speaker 1: get to well everything that we need to get to.
Speaker 1: But luckily right out of the gates we can welcome
Speaker 1: and our guy, Tony Jones on a beautiful Friday afternoon.
Speaker 1: Do not let us win game six, Tony. That's all
Speaker 1: I have to say.
Speaker 2: That's all I have to say. Do not let us
Speaker 2: walk into Indianapolis and walk out. Don't let us win
Speaker 2: game six. Just don't let us win game six. Finish
Speaker 2: us off. That's all. That's all I say.
Speaker 1: I do kind of I do, kind of like porters angle.
Speaker 1: Though on the other side, we'sie, please let us win
Speaker 1: game six.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, no, it would be nice to
Speaker 3: win game six.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, don't let us win game six. Okay, no,
Speaker 2: let him win game six. Not winning game seven.
Speaker 3: I'm with you.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what was weird, man Like, if you
Speaker 1: had not watched any this series.
Speaker 3: Let's say you were on vacation, you went over to.
Speaker 1: Europe for a few weeks, and you didn't watch any
Speaker 1: of the first you know, four games, and then you
Speaker 1: just watched last night.
Speaker 3: You would have been like, how is Indiana up? I mean, last.
Speaker 1: Night was a bloodbath? What were your what do you
Speaker 1: think was different? Let me ask you that from your
Speaker 1: basketball eye? What what made last night different for New
Speaker 1: York or Indiana?
Speaker 3: Either way?
Speaker 2: Well, remember when we talked last week and and and
Speaker 2: how sad and just miserable I was after game one?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 2: Well, game one is the difference of the series, it is, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Game one is the difference of the series. So you know,
Speaker 2: but to your point and to your question, in two
Speaker 2: of the last three games, we have defended Indiana very
Speaker 2: very very well. Uh uh. Game three we defended them
Speaker 2: very well. Game four they kind of got away from us.
Speaker 2: Game five was our best defensive of the series. So
Speaker 2: in two or three we've kind of figured them out,
Speaker 2: you know. So what that means for game six, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, because the one thing from covering the
Speaker 2: first I've I've covered the first three rounds of this playoffs,
Speaker 2: you know, through how many teams, five, five teams or whatever,
Speaker 2: And the one thing that this playoffs has been defined
Speaker 2: by is that there's no carryover to these games. These
Speaker 2: games are all individual entities unto themselves. So you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think there's going to be any carryover to
Speaker 2: Game six. I mean, if New York wins Game six
Speaker 2: is going to be because you know, they play a
Speaker 2: great Game six, not because of anything that happened in
Speaker 2: Game five or anything before. But there are clearly some
Speaker 2: things that you know, Tom Thibodeau is adjusted to and
Speaker 2: you know, he's kind of thrown some stuff against the wall, uh,
Speaker 2: and they've stuck. You know. Obviously the biggest thing was
Speaker 2: he just got sick and tired of cameraon paint. Like
Speaker 2: if there are there, if everybody on the Knicks gets hurt,
Speaker 2: and there's like four guys, uh, five guys on the bench,
Speaker 2: you know, Tom Tippodau is gonna go Hoosiers and just
Speaker 2: play with four rather than play with campaign. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's one of those things where I think that
Speaker 2: there's been some adjustments made that have worked against this
Speaker 2: Indiana offense, and now it just comes down to Game
Speaker 2: six whether or not the Knicks can can go and
Speaker 2: get a big road win in Indianapolis.
Speaker 1: So I will say this to me, the main difference
Speaker 1: last night, And I don't know how much of this is.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if the Pacers are playing possum here,
Speaker 1: if they decided to mail it in, then that's a
Speaker 1: dangerous approach. So I don't know how much of it
Speaker 1: had to do with Indiana's inability to actually or get
Speaker 1: up and down with pace like they've been able to
Speaker 1: quite frankly since January if you've been watching them. But
Speaker 1: last night Tony was the first game in the entire
Speaker 1: series where I thought the Knicks actually gave. They didn't
Speaker 1: have to give forty eight minutes because it was basically
Speaker 1: over in the fourth, But I'll say the Knicks gave
Speaker 1: thirty two to thirty four minutes of intense defensive effort,
Speaker 1: like they were closing out on the perimeter. They weren't
Speaker 1: giving as much space to Halliburton, who did not have
Speaker 1: a good game. Like when you go back and watch
Speaker 1: what happened in Indiana when the Pacers hung one thirty
Speaker 1: on the Knicks in game four. Yes, give Halliburton a
Speaker 1: ton of credit for a historically special offensive game. Give
Speaker 1: the Pacers credit for getting up and down the floor
Speaker 1: and knocking down shots, But this is not your grandfather's knicks.
Speaker 1: There is no Charles Oakley or Anthony Mason or Anthony Bonner.
Speaker 1: If you want to go deep deep cuts there. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no big physical, defensive you know, effort. As far
Speaker 1: as the way the team plays came out. This is
Speaker 1: not pat Riley or Jeff Van Gunny. This is one
Speaker 1: of the better offenses in pro basketball. And their defensive
Speaker 1: efficiency in the league was around twelve or thirteen if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly. If they're going to win two more games,
Speaker 1: they've got to guard the way they did last night
Speaker 1: for the full forty eight.
Speaker 3: Do they have that in them?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's gonna be tough, because I mean,
Speaker 2: these series are every other day. The series is every
Speaker 2: other day all the way through. I mean, so you
Speaker 2: know it's gonna be tough on the legs, you know.
Speaker 2: Last night, I mean I think they had a shot
Speaker 2: of adrenaline, you know, from from the crowd, you know,
Speaker 2: But this is gonna be a road game in game six,
Speaker 2: you know, now, the shot of adrenaline is gonna be
Speaker 2: come from Hey, your season ends if you lose this
Speaker 2: game tonight, and then you have, you know, an off
Speaker 2: season of questions that you have to face. But you
Speaker 2: know you're gonna have to. I mean, it's gonna be,
Speaker 2: you know, one of those things where you're gonna have
Speaker 2: to manufacture your own energy and you're not gonna have
Speaker 2: you know, the Garden crowd behind you. Now, you know
Speaker 2: the one thing that we both know is that the
Speaker 2: Knicks have played extremely well on the road during this playoffs.
Speaker 2: And you know, down two Zho after losing two in
Speaker 2: the Garden, they did go and they did get a game,
Speaker 2: which is what they needed in Indiana, and it had
Speaker 2: to be game three because you know, you're not coming
Speaker 2: back from a three to zero deficit. So you know,
Speaker 2: winning a game four after losing a game three wouldn't
Speaker 2: have meant anything. But what they have done after that
Speaker 2: horrific o to start with both of those losses at home,
Speaker 2: they have at least given themselves a chance, right, so
Speaker 2: they knew what the formula was. Okay, you lose both
Speaker 2: games at home, you know the series is probably over.
Speaker 2: So what's the formula. The formula is you have to
Speaker 2: win game three because you're not coming back from three
Speaker 2: zero down. So they won game three. Obviously they lost
Speaker 2: game four, but they won game five. So you know,
Speaker 2: it comes down to can they win the game six.
Speaker 2: The one thing that I do think is in their
Speaker 2: favor is that, you know, for the first time this series,
Speaker 2: I think Indiana is going to face some series pressure
Speaker 2: because they know they have to win this Game six,
Speaker 2: because they can't have this go back to a Game
Speaker 2: seven in New York. You know, so their shots are
Speaker 2: going to mean something for the first time in this series,
Speaker 2: and they're just not playing with house money like they've
Speaker 2: been playing, you know, for for for most of the series.
Speaker 2: But you know, if if New York doesn't get it
Speaker 2: done tomorrow night in game six, man oh man, oh man,
Speaker 2: oh man, are they going to rule game that Game
Speaker 2: one where they allowed uh that historic rally for for
Speaker 2: oh one deficits No man.
Speaker 1: You called it, and I talked about it on the
Speaker 1: show as well, and then privately with you know, Nick
Speaker 1: fan buddies of mine. That's just it's hard to come
Speaker 1: back from. You know, It's one thing just to lose
Speaker 1: home Court. It's another thing to have your soul snatched
Speaker 1: from you after losing a game where you clearly were
Speaker 1: in the driver's seat. But to me, I'm gonna come
Speaker 1: back to I'm gonna come back to a couple of
Speaker 1: things as far as how I believe the Knicks can
Speaker 1: actually get this done, because I do feel like the
Speaker 1: way some people have talked about this series isn't necessarily true.
Speaker 1: I think these two teams are very evenly matched, and
Speaker 1: I think it's a close situation. I could see Indiana
Speaker 1: dump trucking New York on Saturday and winning in six.
Speaker 1: I could see the next winning on Saturday and losing
Speaker 1: Game seven of the Garden. And I could see either,
Speaker 1: you know, I could see any of the three scenarios
Speaker 1: left on the table actually happening. This is going to
Speaker 1: come down to effort on defense for New York to
Speaker 1: close out to get back in transition. Then it's gonna
Speaker 1: come down to possessions, meaning you have to offensive rebound,
Speaker 1: and then you have to take care of the basketball,
Speaker 1: which leads me to a couple of players. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I love Josh Hart and Josh's you know, his attitude
Speaker 1: and embracing the role that he's been asked to embrace,
Speaker 1: coming off the bench and be in a bat out
Speaker 1: of hell has been awesome. But sometimes he makes passes
Speaker 1: that remind me of like the kid in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: whose mom forced him to play junior jazz to make friends,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't know how to play. Josh makes some
Speaker 1: of the dumbest passes that I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1: And there are moments where Carl Towns just forgets how
Speaker 1: to play defense, so he grabs onto somebody and just
Speaker 1: cot commits fouls. And I hesitate to go too hard
Speaker 1: on Kat because I actually think he's been great and
Speaker 1: Indiana does not having a matchup for him. He's eating
Speaker 1: Miles Turner's lunch and your boy Tony Bradley, Your boy Tony,
Speaker 1: Tony Bradley, you know he's not the answer, and neither
Speaker 1: is neither is Thomas Bryant. They have nobody to guard Kat.
Speaker 1: But Kad has to realize, like, let the dude go,
Speaker 1: don't grab him, don't commit stupid fowls. You're too important.
Speaker 1: You need to be on the floor. And there are
Speaker 1: just some josh Ard passes that leave me scratching my head. This,
Speaker 1: to me, Tony comes down to some simple things for
Speaker 1: New York, and it's the way Tom coaches, which is
Speaker 1: good news. You've got to guard, you have to close
Speaker 1: out on the preimiti you have to get back in transition,
Speaker 1: and then it is a possession matchup offensive rebound, which
Speaker 1: is where Mitchell, Robinson and Kat have the advantage, and
Speaker 1: then take care of the basketball, do not turn it over.
Speaker 1: If they can do those things, I still think there's
Speaker 1: a world where New York wins this series.
Speaker 2: Taking care of the basketball Tomorrow night, for me, goes
Speaker 2: to the top of the line by leaps and bounds.
Speaker 2: If Indiana is able to get in transition, force the pace,
Speaker 2: force the tempo, get up and down, the series is over.
Speaker 2: There's not a road that New York can win that game.
Speaker 2: So the Knicks are gonna have to take care of
Speaker 2: the basketball. They're gonna have to get a shot up
Speaker 2: every possession. They're gonna have to defensive rebounds, and when
Speaker 2: they defensive rebound, they're gonna have to go and make
Speaker 2: those guys guard for twenty four seconds of possession. And
Speaker 2: they're gonna have to do it without turning the ball over,
Speaker 2: without giving up turnovers, for touchdowns, without giving up turnovers,
Speaker 2: and allowing them to play ninety four feet. They want
Speaker 2: Indiana to have to play forty seven feet, not ninety
Speaker 2: four feet. They want that game in a half court tomorrow.
Speaker 2: They got the game in a half court for the
Speaker 2: first time this series. Even in the Game three that
Speaker 2: they won, that game was still played in the full court.
Speaker 2: New York just played, I mean well, cat just played
Speaker 2: a historic fourth quarter and they they came back and
Speaker 2: got that one. But other than Game five, Game five
Speaker 2: was the first game of the series where New York
Speaker 2: was actually able to slow the pace down and get
Speaker 2: this game to where get that game to the speed
Speaker 2: where they wanted it. And that's going to be really
Speaker 2: important tomorrow, trying to get that game out of the
Speaker 2: ninety four feet because you know it's going to be
Speaker 2: in Bainbridge and it's you know, those guys are going
Speaker 2: to get up and try to get up and down
Speaker 2: the floor, you know, so they have to do that.
Speaker 2: And the one subtle thing that they have to do
Speaker 2: that not many people are talking about. When New York
Speaker 2: makes a basket, they have to bust back on defense
Speaker 2: because any end of the best team in the league
Speaker 2: at taking that ball out than that and running off
Speaker 2: of mate. And they've done it over and over and
Speaker 2: over again this series and figured out ways to get
Speaker 2: open shots. And you know, when Jalen Brunson or Karl
Speaker 2: Anthony Towns. They go to the basket, you know, and
Speaker 2: they flail and they they get on the floor. Whether
Speaker 2: they make that shot or miss that shot, they got
Speaker 2: to get up and they got to get back because
Speaker 2: Indiana's coming back and playing five on four and they've
Speaker 2: done it over and over and over again in this series.
Speaker 2: So you know, I agree with every single point that
Speaker 2: you say, the turnovers to take care of the ball.
Speaker 2: If they if they can figure out a way to
Speaker 2: take care of the ball and get a shot on
Speaker 2: ninety of their possessions, I think they actually have a
Speaker 2: chance to come on that.
Speaker 1: All right, Moving over to the West, and I'll just
Speaker 1: ask the question simply, does it really matter who wins
Speaker 1: out of the Knicks and the Pacers because it just
Speaker 1: feels like Oklahoma City. Well, if we're honest in it
Speaker 1: for fair, they've had this level all year long. I
Speaker 1: think people were waiting to see if they had the
Speaker 1: level in the postseason. So Tony okse is eighty and
Speaker 1: eighteen this year, they are twenty nine and one against
Speaker 1: the East.
Speaker 3: The only game they lost was at Cleveland.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should just acknowledge that this team is historic.
Speaker 3: They're great now They're going to be great for a
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 1: Do either of the Knicks or the Pacers have a
Speaker 1: shot in Hell of making the finals?
Speaker 2: Interesting, I don't think the Knicks too. I think the
Speaker 2: Knicks lose in five, if not a sweet I think
Speaker 2: Iniana can get it to six, maybe seven if they
Speaker 2: play above their heads, because I think in the styles
Speaker 2: make fights, and I think Indiana plays a style that
Speaker 2: had a chance to give Oklahoma City some issue. I
Speaker 2: don't think that Knicks have a chance in Hell, because
Speaker 2: you know, they play, you know, Jalen Bronson plays a
Speaker 2: lot of isolation basketball, and you just can't do that
Speaker 2: against Oklahoma City. You know, you saw what they did
Speaker 2: against Anthony Edwards. You saw what they Didga did against
Speaker 2: John Morant in the first in the first in the
Speaker 2: first round. The difference in the second round, and one
Speaker 2: of the biggest reasons why Denver was able to take
Speaker 2: that series to seven is because Denver doesn't Denver doesn't
Speaker 2: play isolation basketball. You know, they run a lot of
Speaker 2: Gebel handoffs, they run a lot of movement. All five
Speaker 2: guys handle it, all five guys shoot it. Obviously. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a Nicola Jokish factor he's the best player in
Speaker 2: the world. But you know, they play a brand of
Speaker 2: basketball to where you know, Alex Carusso and Cason Wallace
Speaker 2: and Lou Dort just can't key on one ball handler.
Speaker 2: You know, Minnesota plays a lot of isolation basketball, and
Speaker 2: that just wasn't gonna work. And so you know, the
Speaker 2: point is Indiana doesn't do that. Indiana moves the ball.
Speaker 2: They put it through five guys. And the one thing
Speaker 2: that the Tyreese Halliburton's superpower is that he never ever
Speaker 2: turns the basketball over. And against Oklahoma City, you know,
Speaker 2: if if that rings true, then you know that's that's
Speaker 2: a matchup that you know, Okay, so he just hasn't
Speaker 2: seen so far in this playoffs. Now there's still a
Speaker 2: better team and they'll probably still figure it out as
Speaker 2: the series goes on, and they'll probably still win that
Speaker 2: series in six. But at least that series will be
Speaker 2: to me, will be interesting. Uh, Oklahoma City and New
Speaker 2: York is gonna be a mismatch. I think it ends
Speaker 2: in five, if not four. So the the answer is
Speaker 2: if we want to see the finals, that we actually
Speaker 2: want to watch roof or Indiana the winner series?
Speaker 1: All right, moving over to a little jazz before I
Speaker 1: set you loose. You know, we are a few weeks away.
Speaker 1: We'll turn our calendars to June, coming up on Monday,
Speaker 1: and then we've got about three and a half weeks
Speaker 1: until the draft.
Speaker 3: So let's just talk big picture.
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of individual specific things that I
Speaker 1: can ask you about that we haven't already discussed. So
Speaker 1: Jazz with two first rounders, two second rounders at least
Speaker 1: that's what they have now, and just wondering what you're
Speaker 1: hearing about the overall approach. And then I'll actually add
Speaker 1: a second question just because our listeners will be curious
Speaker 1: to what your take is. Have you changed your opinion
Speaker 1: on who best case scenario is at number five as
Speaker 1: we approach Draft night?
Speaker 2: No, I mean best case scenario to me, in my
Speaker 2: opinion is who's ever left out? As you know VJ
Speaker 2: asked from Trey Johnson or Ace Bailey. You know, I
Speaker 2: know that you know there's some contin Nipple talk out there.
Speaker 2: I know that there's some Jeremiah Fears talk out there.
Speaker 2: But for me, you know, I think that the Jazz
Speaker 2: has to take somebody at five that has the outcome
Speaker 2: of a star or a superstar. To me, that's not Continental.
Speaker 2: I think Continentple was going to score fifteen to eighteen
Speaker 2: points a game for ten years in the NBA, and
Speaker 2: he's not going to be a superstar or a star.
Speaker 2: So even if you know with you know, the floor
Speaker 2: that as Bailey has, which I think he has, you know,
Speaker 2: a really low floor, but I also think he has
Speaker 2: a super high feeling. You know, I think that the
Speaker 2: Jazz just have to go ahead and swing if he's
Speaker 2: the guy that's there at five, and take that chance,
Speaker 2: because you know, they went and lost sixty five games
Speaker 2: this year. You know, you go and you lose sixty
Speaker 2: five games, and you know you pretty much that's your
Speaker 2: intentional outcome. You better take somebody that you can develop
Speaker 2: into a superstar level player or a star level player.
Speaker 2: And I think that you know as fairly has you know,
Speaker 2: a star level outcome at one hundred percent of the ceiling.
Speaker 2: I think the same of VJ. Ask Them. I think
Speaker 2: the same as Trey Johnson. I don't think VJ as
Speaker 2: Them will be there at five. I think that he
Speaker 2: goes either three or four. And you know, I think
Speaker 2: that VJ is probably the safest of those three in
Speaker 2: that tier because of uh, because of his athleticism. I mean,
Speaker 2: he is a very, very very gifted athlete, and he's
Speaker 2: a very very gifted defender as well. So I think
Speaker 2: that he's probably my bet to be the first one
Speaker 2: of those three off the board. And I think that
Speaker 2: my bet is that Aces is the one that's available
Speaker 2: to the Jazz at five. So uh, if I were,
Speaker 2: if I were the Jazz, and I were handicapping that
Speaker 2: staying and this is just me talking and not the
Speaker 2: Uthah Jazz, I will be taking Ace Bailey with the
Speaker 2: fifth pick of the June of the twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: NBA Draft.
Speaker 3: One more thing, I'll set you loose.
Speaker 1: Tim McMahon hopped on this week, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if this was solid intel or Tim just pontificating Kyrie
Speaker 1: Irving's injury. He floated Colin Sexton out as a potential
Speaker 1: target for the MAVs to utilize while Kyrie's getting well.
Speaker 1: The Jazz Actually, ironically enough, even though the books are
Speaker 1: clean moving forward, they probably will not have a lot
Speaker 1: of space cap space this summer. I'm gonna go out
Speaker 1: on a limb and say John Collins picks up his
Speaker 1: thirty million dollar player option.
Speaker 3: Now if John doesn't.
Speaker 1: First of all, wow, Second of all, the Jazz actually
Speaker 1: have a little flexibility, But I don't think he's going
Speaker 1: to opt out. So any thoughts on potential moves other
Speaker 1: than the draft.
Speaker 3: They're not in a spot.
Speaker 1: To sign a bunch of free agents even if they could,
Speaker 1: they don't have the cash. So well, they kick the
Speaker 1: tires on a Colin Sexton, a John Collins, a Jordan Clarkson,
Speaker 1: the usual suspects. Are there any other avenues to potentially
Speaker 1: add a little bit of talent outside of the draft
Speaker 1: capital of the Jazz having their back.
Speaker 2: Pocket, Well, they'll they'll explore John Collins trade for sure.
Speaker 2: Uh And I would not be surprised that John is
Speaker 2: traded this summer because he'll he'll pick up the player option,
Speaker 2: but he's going into the last year. It'll be it'll
Speaker 2: be an expiring and you know, frankly, he had a
Speaker 2: really good year last year. Uh and yeah, it's a
Speaker 2: terrific shooting year, all right, So you know, I think
Speaker 2: that there are teams out there that will give value
Speaker 2: for a an expiring John Collins. We'll see what happens
Speaker 2: with Jordans. My guess is that he probably doesn't have
Speaker 2: uh that kind of value on the market this summer
Speaker 2: because I don't think he had a great season last year,
Speaker 2: you know. And we'll see what happens with with Colin
Speaker 2: Section as well. You know, I don't think that the
Speaker 2: Jazz are adverse trading any of the three or all
Speaker 2: of the three. I don't think that they're averse to
Speaker 2: having those guys on the roster uh going forward. But
Speaker 2: you know, I do think that John is probably, if
Speaker 2: I had to guess, the most likely to go, just
Speaker 2: because of the season that he had last year. UH.
Speaker 2: And then they'll you know, I think the big thing.
Speaker 2: I think they'll go out and they'll get a veteran
Speaker 2: point guard. It's sure, no matter what happens in the draft.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think that they'll go in the
Speaker 2: next year, you know, without giving Isaiah Callier some some
Speaker 2: some competition at that spot. So UH, I think that
Speaker 2: they are reasonably sure that Keynte George is not a
Speaker 2: point guard at this point. So you know, I think
Speaker 2: that that, you know, I think point guard will be
Speaker 2: uh an area of a focus for them, uh in
Speaker 2: the offseason.
Speaker 1: All right, ton, my guy will set you loose, But
Speaker 1: I'll have this ad one more time.
Speaker 3: Is do not let us win game six?
Speaker 2: Win game six, Just don't don't let us do it.
Speaker 2: Just finish us off. You better finishes off.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. All right, brother, good, thanks for
Speaker 1: the time. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 2: All right, Yes, sir, I appreciate you. My guy Tony.
Speaker 1: Jones, our guy Tony stops by today courtesy of our
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Speaker 1: At IFA and IFA dot co Op, we're you a
Speaker 1: little golf in a bit with Paul Pugmyer. We'll see
Speaker 1: what's on the Golf Show tomorrow. There's a big tournament
Speaker 1: on the PGA Tour. We have Dave mcminnimon on the
Speaker 1: program today, Zach Harper later on, as well.
Speaker 3: A lot of good NBA.
Speaker 1: Guests and our guy Howard Back, one of the hippies
Speaker 1: riders around on this beautiful Friday afternoon, stops by Howard.
Speaker 3: Happy Friday, Sir, how.
Speaker 2: Are you, Spence? How you doing so?
Speaker 3: God man? I'm good. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: If you were on a European vacation and did not
Speaker 1: see the first four games of Knick Spacers and watched
Speaker 1: last night, you'd be like, what gives?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Why are the Knicks down?
Speaker 1: You know, certainly there was a physicality and an intent
Speaker 1: defensively that we hadn't seen from New York.
Speaker 3: I don't know if Indiana is relying.
Speaker 1: On closing it out at home, but in a vacuum
Speaker 1: that last night felt a little bit like a mismatch.
Speaker 3: What are your takeaways?
Speaker 4: That this was game five of a series where everything
Speaker 4: has been really close, and most of the games have
Speaker 4: essentially been a coin flip, and maybe we were due
Speaker 4: for one that was a little upsided, and especially on
Speaker 4: a night where the Knicks were facing elimination on their
Speaker 4: home court, where you expect they're going to absolutely fight
Speaker 4: like hell and not allow.
Speaker 2: Themselves to be extinguished.
Speaker 4: So I don't think anything surprised me. Yeah, Obviously they
Speaker 4: bottled up Haliburton pretty well, and maybe a little bit
Speaker 4: of that's on him, and maybe that little that's them
Speaker 4: just pressuring him and picking him up full court at times,
Speaker 4: or at least picking him up in the back court
Speaker 4: and making him work a little. The Pacers obviously at
Speaker 4: their best when they're just getting out and running and
Speaker 4: pushing the pace like crazy, and they're they're moving quickly,
Speaker 4: the balls pinging around, and the Knicks took them out
Speaker 4: of that. Can they do it again tomorrow night? In indeed,
Speaker 4: we'll see, but I don't the margin of last night's
Speaker 4: game is not is not striking to me that the
Speaker 4: Knicks would win an elimination game is kind of like
Speaker 4: the thing, and it's not unexpected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, the Halliburton stuff is interesting. I
Speaker 1: know we're supposed to like debate whether or not he's
Speaker 1: a superstar. I don't really have any interest in doing that.
Speaker 1: But he does have games like that from time to time.
Speaker 1: I think I read today thirteen games in the regular
Speaker 1: season doubled it or he would he did not score
Speaker 1: in double digits thirteen times, and in those games the
Speaker 1: Pacers were three and ten, so they certainly need him
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more aggressive, but there are
Speaker 1: times where he just I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's just not locked in for
Speaker 1: a moment one. I don't know if New York did
Speaker 1: something schematically that was a little bit different.
Speaker 3: I'll give Jalen some credit.
Speaker 1: They were three or fourteen last night when Jalen was
Speaker 1: the primary defender, and prior to that, they had just
Speaker 1: been able to feast whenever Halliburton was able to get
Speaker 1: that switch. But what and you've been watching Halliburton forever,
Speaker 1: I know you're high on him, have been for a while.
Speaker 1: What happens when he does have a game like last
Speaker 1: night when he just didn't look fully engaged.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's about engagement necessarily. And I would
Speaker 4: just note, like so on our podcast today on the
Speaker 4: Real Ones pod, Rajah Bell, who of course once played
Speaker 4: in your city, made the point that and I think
Speaker 4: it's a really important point when we're talking about stars
Speaker 4: in the NBA and what you expect from them, and
Speaker 4: this relates to what we saw from Haliburton. Nor didn't
Speaker 4: see you last night. He's not built like the typical
Speaker 4: or the prototypical star, right he is not the guy
Speaker 4: to just go get you a bucket every time you
Speaker 4: need one.
Speaker 2: He's not a high usage or super high usage guy.
Speaker 4: He has the ball in his hands a lot, but
Speaker 4: he's more of an old school point guard. He's more
Speaker 4: of an orchestrator. He like there are times when their
Speaker 4: coaching staff and Indy has to remind him, hey, sometimes
Speaker 4: it's okay to call your own number. You're giving the
Speaker 4: ball up too soon in the possession. So he's he's
Speaker 4: usually going to try to set up his guys and
Speaker 4: look for his guys first, and then when he scores,
Speaker 4: it's when it comes back to him and he's open
Speaker 4: for a three, or he's got a chance to catch
Speaker 4: a guy off off kilter and drive by him. But
Speaker 4: he's not the I'm gonna put the ball between my
Speaker 4: legs seven times dribble, dribble, drible dribble, you know, and then.
Speaker 2: Zip past you or step back three or whatever. Like.
Speaker 4: That's not really his game. He's, you know, a more
Speaker 4: contained scorer, more of a playmaker.
Speaker 2: He's been leaving.
Speaker 4: I think he led the league and assists for the
Speaker 4: last couple of years. So you do need him to shooting.
Speaker 4: You do need him to score, but you don't necessarily
Speaker 4: need him to be say Anthony Edwards, who was you know, notably,
Speaker 4: you know, missing an action when they got eliminated the
Speaker 4: other night. So aggression for Haliburton doesn't necessarily mean score
Speaker 4: a lot, dribble a lot, shoot a lot. It's more
Speaker 4: just attack and put the defense on its heels so
Speaker 4: that you can open up stuff for nim Hart and
Speaker 4: Nie Smith and Siakam. And you know, I don't expect
Speaker 4: we're going to see another game like that from him, but.
Speaker 2: Some of that was the next defense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I do think that was the first
Speaker 1: game where and it wasn't forty eight minutes because I
Speaker 1: didn't need all forty eight minutes. But I don't know
Speaker 1: what took so long. And look this, let's be clear.
Speaker 1: I talked about this earlier in the show. This is
Speaker 1: not your grandfather New York Knick basketball team. There's no
Speaker 1: oak or Mace or you know, the Anthony Bonner Let's
Speaker 1: go deep cuts hour like. This is not a big,
Speaker 1: physical defensive team. I think there were thirteen in the
Speaker 1: NBA in defensive raiding and they have defensive holes. But
Speaker 1: offensively is where they've been certainly much improved. Last night
Speaker 1: may have been the first game where I thought they
Speaker 1: gave concerted defensive effort for I'll say thirty two to
Speaker 1: thirty four minutes. They're gonna have to do that even
Speaker 1: more in Indianapolis. Then they're gonna have to take care
Speaker 1: of the basketball in a way that at times this
Speaker 1: series that they just had. Like I love Josh Shart,
Speaker 1: but he makes some passes that reminds me of the
Speaker 1: neighborhood kid his mom forced him to play little league
Speaker 1: basketball to make friends, Like he makes some of the
Speaker 1: dumbest reads, and then Cat in moments will just like
Speaker 1: get beat and grab somebody and commit like the dumbest fouls.
Speaker 1: So they're gonna have to offensive rebound. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: a possession game. They're gonna have to take care of
Speaker 1: the basketball. And can they replicate the same defensive effort
Speaker 1: during Game six on the road, Like that's really what
Speaker 1: it comes down to to me.
Speaker 4: Yes, all of that, And I think taking care of
Speaker 4: the basketball is such a huge, huge part of this
Speaker 4: because the Pacers absolutely thrive off of turnovers and get
Speaker 4: in anything that they can take to get out and run.
Speaker 4: And so you know you've got to keep them off.
Speaker 4: You know, you've got offensive rebound because you don't want
Speaker 4: them to defensive rebound and get out and run. You
Speaker 4: don't want to you don't certainly don't want to turn
Speaker 4: the ball over and make lazy passes or anything that'll
Speaker 4: that ignites.
Speaker 5: Their fast break.
Speaker 4: But the Pacers at their best also will just you know,
Speaker 4: even off of a make, we'll just get out and
Speaker 4: and fly. And I didn't see as much of that
Speaker 4: last night, and I think that that's what you'll see
Speaker 4: more of again tomorrow. You know, like the the Pacers
Speaker 4: are going to want to play this thing at break
Speaker 4: next speed, and the next goal is to slow that
Speaker 4: down because that's the way they needed to do it
Speaker 4: to win. The Pacers need the easy baskets. I don't
Speaker 4: think there's as as great in the half court. And
Speaker 4: you know, we'll see like that's that's been part of
Speaker 4: the tension of this series from the start, was you
Speaker 4: know whose pace that they're going to be playing at.
Speaker 1: Last time you were on, I asked you, hey, can
Speaker 1: can TIBs find ten minutes for Landry Shammitt? Can he
Speaker 1: find ten minutes for precious at YOUA? Apparently Tom does
Speaker 1: watch tape and watch. Cameron Payne was like, what's wrong
Speaker 1: with me? I don't know that I want to do
Speaker 1: that anymore. The problem, Howard, as I see it, is
Speaker 1: Rick has played eleven and twelve guys all year long,
Speaker 1: fifteen plus minutes each, right, and so what Tom is
Speaker 1: trying to do now? I respect the endeavor, so his
Speaker 1: starters don't look like they're dying in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: But give me your takeaways on how Tom has used
Speaker 1: his bench and the returns that he's seen with some
Speaker 1: of these pieces that we haven't seen play for him
Speaker 1: pretty much all year.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's wild, like there was, you know, like
Speaker 4: the idea that that suddenly in the middle of a
Speaker 4: series where you're down where you've lost home court advantage,
Speaker 4: you've lost the first few games at home, and now suddenly,
Speaker 4: out of the blue, you've gone from a seven manter
Speaker 4: rotation to playing Delawn right, Landry Shammitt, Precious Atua Like
Speaker 4: it's it's it's interesting and it's worked, and so like
Speaker 4: credit to him for pulling that lever at the right time,
Speaker 4: and to those guys for being up for the challenge
Speaker 4: after being you know, in moth balls for however many weeks.
Speaker 4: It does go straight to the main criticism, one of
Speaker 4: the main criticisms that you often hear from Knicks fans,
Speaker 4: and Knicks fans are very I think split on Tom Thibodeau,
Speaker 4: and there I have I have friends who are Knicks
Speaker 4: fans who would like to see him fired tomorrow, regardless.
Speaker 2: Of how this series goes, I think.
Speaker 4: And part of it is the frustration over the rotation.
Speaker 4: It's it's the lack of developing a deeper rotation and
Speaker 4: leaning too hard on the starters and playing them a
Speaker 4: ton of minutes, and the concerns about fatigue or injury.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're healthy right now. They're pretty as healthy
Speaker 4: as the team's going to be in the playoffs and
Speaker 4: the conference finals, and so those fears haven't really manifested
Speaker 4: this time through. But you know, there's more to it
Speaker 4: than just like, oh, they avoided injury.
Speaker 2: It's, you know, it is.
Speaker 4: How fresh are you at this stage? How fresh are
Speaker 4: you in the fourth quarter of a tight game at
Speaker 4: this stage? And yeah, can you can you give Brunson
Speaker 4: a few minutes of you know, a breather now and then?
Speaker 4: And they're doing it and it's working, and I expect
Speaker 4: that that will be more of the same tomorrow, although
Speaker 4: if things get tight, it'll be interesting to see if Tibbs,
Speaker 4: you know, shortened the rotation again and thinks like, well,
Speaker 4: you know, we're on the road facing elimination again, and
Speaker 4: maybe I'm just gonna rely on the seven guys who got.
Speaker 2: Us this far.
Speaker 6: Some of this, too, of course, has.
Speaker 4: Just been necessity.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Brunton was in foul trouble one of the games. Townses
Speaker 4: have failed trouble pretty much every game, and so I
Speaker 4: think a little bit of this has been forced on him.
Speaker 1: So if Indiana closes it out tomorrow, and I'm inclined
Speaker 1: to believe that's probably the case. Although with how wacky
Speaker 1: and wild this has been, I honestly believe all three
Speaker 1: scenarios are still on the table. Nick's winning tomorrow and
Speaker 1: Nick's winning in seven, Pacers winning tomorrow, or Pacers losing
Speaker 1: tomorrow and winning in seven. I could see how three
Speaker 1: of those things happen.
Speaker 3: That's serious.
Speaker 1: One of the wildest stats that I read, and I
Speaker 1: don't this is not up to date after last night,
Speaker 1: but prior to last night, Jalen Brunson, as far as
Speaker 1: assists to Cat in the series, he has one a
Speaker 1: single assist from Jalen to Cat in the series prior
Speaker 1: to last night, maybe a couple last night, and you know,
Speaker 1: when you stagger the two, it has some decent returns.
Speaker 1: If they lose, do the Knicks recalibrate, because there's part
Speaker 1: of me that actually feels like they.
Speaker 3: Were a little bit of heead of schedule.
Speaker 1: They should not be the Boston Celtics and the Tatum's upright,
Speaker 1: Maybe they don't, I don't know, And when you look
Speaker 1: at their books, this is pretty much their team as
Speaker 1: far as the core, with Cat and Og and Jalen
Speaker 1: and Bridges and Heart Mitchell Robinson under contracts, so was
Speaker 1: Deuce McBride. But if they lose tomorrow, is there a
Speaker 1: recalibration as far as you know, maybe this isn't working.
Speaker 3: Is there a look at the head coach?
Speaker 1: Do they look at the personnel or do they continue
Speaker 1: to kind of stay on the path that Leon Rose
Speaker 1: has kind of pay for them.
Speaker 6: It's a great question.
Speaker 4: I have thought about this a little at times, especially
Speaker 4: when I thought that they were less likely to be
Speaker 4: at this point, and you know, you you try not
Speaker 4: to be a prisoner of the moment, and certainly front
Speaker 4: offices have to be disciplined about this. If you you
Speaker 4: know you you you go down too. Oh, you lose
Speaker 4: some court advantage, You win the series, you go to
Speaker 4: the finals, you probably get smoked by the thunder whoever
Speaker 4: the thunder face, they're going to smoke them, I think.
Speaker 4: But does that change things? Does getting the finals change
Speaker 4: the way you see this five man unit and this
Speaker 4: rotation versus if they lost tomorrow. How big of a
Speaker 4: difference does it make over you know, two more games
Speaker 4: or something, two more wins or something. So that's why
Speaker 4: you need a sober minded front office. And I think
Speaker 4: this is one I think that the things that they're
Speaker 4: gonna have to contemplate. One is if, especially if you
Speaker 4: lose this series, but even in the finals, can you
Speaker 4: how if you have a built in ceiling with a
Speaker 4: lineup where your two stars are defensive liabilities, where every
Speaker 4: time you have Bernthon into out there together, one or
Speaker 4: the other both are getting get attacked, and that's going
Speaker 4: to leave you vulnerable to more talented teams. There's that
Speaker 4: there's also a payroll aspect of this. You know, Brunson
Speaker 4: took you know what was called a discount, but it's
Speaker 4: not that big of a discount when he took his
Speaker 4: last extension. Tounses of course on the max. That's the
Speaker 4: reason why the Timberwolves want to trade him in the
Speaker 4: first place. Annoby's got a huge, huge contract that they
Speaker 4: gave him last summer, and Bridges has a modest contract
Speaker 4: but is due for an extension that will be less modest.
Speaker 4: And so you're going to start facing second apron issues
Speaker 4: and other problems. And we as we know whatever you
Speaker 4: feel about Landry Shammitt, the Delon writer, whoever else, they
Speaker 4: don't have much of a bench and the depth is
Speaker 4: an issue. So do you get to the offseason and
Speaker 4: think I can flip I don't know, Mikhail Bridges and
Speaker 4: or Mitchell Robinson for more depth or cheaper pieces. That's
Speaker 4: an interesting thing to contemplate. And yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 4: one year in with Towns.
Speaker 2: Are you already in.
Speaker 4: A position where you're gonna talk about trying to flip
Speaker 4: him for something else? Like I think there might be
Speaker 4: a market for him out there, But he's a super
Speaker 4: talented big who does not protect the rim so's he's
Speaker 4: pretty much a one way player. We know all the
Speaker 4: flaws and they've been exposed again. How much of a
Speaker 4: market is there is he or is is his contract
Speaker 4: becoming like a net negative? Do you have to attach
Speaker 4: something to get somebody to take him? I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know the answers that I have not pulled
Speaker 4: people around the league on it, but it's an interesting
Speaker 4: question for them to grapple with.
Speaker 3: You alluded to this earlier.
Speaker 1: Let me just follow up though, Do either the NIXT
Speaker 1: or the Pacers have a shot in hell at making
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City uncomfortable? I mean, Howard, Okay, see eighty and
Speaker 1: eighteen this year? How about twenty nine and one against
Speaker 1: the East, And I would like to see the next
Speaker 1: you make it to the finals and you know, see
Speaker 1: what they could do it just and maybe the Pacers
Speaker 1: with their you know what. Never mind, I feel like
Speaker 1: both these teams get smoked by Okay, see what about you?
Speaker 4: I think it's probably five games, Yeah, really, especially when
Speaker 4: you see how they just completely, methodically, ruthlessly dismantled the Timberwolves.
Speaker 4: And the Timberolves are a good team, Like is there
Speaker 4: is there any massive difference just overall between the Minnesota
Speaker 4: Timberwolves and the Pacers. The Minnesota Timperwolves and the Knicks,
Speaker 4: Like these teams are all basically in the same I
Speaker 4: think tier talent wise, accomplishment wise, whatever. Like, you know,
Speaker 4: we could we could go down the list of you
Speaker 4: could compare player to player, offense, offense, defense, if all
Speaker 4: of this, But like, I don't know that the Knicks
Speaker 4: or Pacers have any great advantages that the Timberwolves did not,
Speaker 4: And so yeah, I don't see why the Thunder should
Speaker 4: have trouble with either of them, barring something unforeseen, an
Speaker 4: injury or something crazy happening. I think it'll be a
Speaker 4: short series.
Speaker 3: Would lowry market and start for the Thunder? No, he wouldn't.
Speaker 5: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't.
Speaker 4: H Yeah, No, I don't think he would.
Speaker 2: No, he wouldn't.
Speaker 4: It's a fun game to play, right, Like, how many
Speaker 4: of the best teams would.
Speaker 2: He start for?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I will admit I chuckled a little bit.
Speaker 1: I was listening to Chris Finch and his post well
Speaker 1: postseason presser after they lost, and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: thirteen teams in the West will be in the mix
Speaker 1: next year to potentially have really good years. I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, that's obviously excluding the Jazz and probably
Speaker 1: the Blazers. But we'll end on this because you wrote
Speaker 1: some today. First of all, thank you for the Buddhist drop.
Speaker 1: It reminded me to meditate and center several different paths
Speaker 1: to the same goal. But you know, I'd really try
Speaker 1: to do this with my NBA coverage here in Salt Lake.
Speaker 1: Like if you look at the way Sam Presty built
Speaker 1: the Thunder, are there lessons to learn right now? The
Speaker 1: problem is the Jazz turned Donovan Mitchell into marketing, and
Speaker 1: Presty turned Paul George into Shay and Jay's the MVP
Speaker 1: and Marketing is just a nice player. So before I
Speaker 1: say you loose, based off of your piece and based
Speaker 1: off of your knowledge about how in the modern day
Speaker 1: and age of the NBA there are several different ways
Speaker 1: to do this. How did the Jazz do this? How
Speaker 1: do they make it happen? Based off of some examples
Speaker 1: of teams that we have who have been able to
Speaker 1: rebuild and now have very good rosters.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, thanks for the plug. Everybody, Please go check
Speaker 4: out the story at the Ringer dot com. The premise
Speaker 4: was that there's different ways to build a contender now
Speaker 4: and that the Pacers did not build in a typical way.
Speaker 4: And even if you look at the four conference finalists,
Speaker 4: like these are not what we thought of a contender
Speaker 4: in the past, right where it was like, oh, get
Speaker 4: a top five guy, superstar whatever, go trade for or
Speaker 4: poach another one and you know, build a big two,
Speaker 4: of Big three, a big four. These teams have been
Speaker 4: built differently, and in the Pacers case, very methodically.
Speaker 6: Like the Pacers build really.
Speaker 4: Is almost like a ten year project. If you start
Speaker 4: with drafting my Ales Turner, who's their longest tenured player,
Speaker 4: and you go back to the Paul George to Oklahoma
Speaker 4: trade and all the things that is spun off of that,
Speaker 4: and it's just been piece by piece, and I think
Speaker 4: the main lesson is the one that Todd Ramas are
Speaker 4: the agent for Pascal Siakamander Nemhard mentioned to me when
Speaker 4: I was asking him about this, which he settled on
Speaker 4: a single word, which is patience. And patience is hard
Speaker 4: to come by in this league, as you know, as
Speaker 4: Jazz fans, I'm sure no as Danny Ainge and Justin
Speaker 4: Zanik know. And there is a youngsh owner there and
Speaker 4: those guys tend to be the more impetuous ones and
Speaker 4: the less patient ones. But listen, he you know, green
Speaker 4: lighted the blow up and the rebuild. So the hope
Speaker 4: is that and listen, this is tough. This is because
Speaker 4: as I say this, I say this as a dispassionate
Speaker 4: thirty thousand foot view observer who says, well, the right
Speaker 4: way to do this is to be really patient and
Speaker 4: you know, piece by piece and whatever, don't rush it,
Speaker 4: don't try to whatever. And meanwhile, jazz fans are this,
Speaker 4: They're going like, yeah, but we've already suffered through the
Speaker 4: last couple of seasons, like get going. And I get that.
Speaker 4: And that's the problem, right, or the challenge. You've got
Speaker 4: fans who you can only you know, do this too
Speaker 4: for so long, and an owner who doesn't want to.
Speaker 5: Take the heat for that long.
Speaker 4: And also, hey, owners want to win. They got professional
Speaker 4: pride and ego too, And so that's why, like with
Speaker 4: the Pacers, their whole thing was like, we're never going
Speaker 4: to do a tear down. They never they never really tanked,
Speaker 4: at least not intentionally. They didn't you know, have multiple
Speaker 4: you know, top three picks or anything. In fact, no
Speaker 4: top three picks, and the Jazz are doing it more
Speaker 4: of the old sixer process. Way where it's like, we're's
Speaker 4: gonna be bad for a few years and get as
Speaker 4: many bites at the apple and the lottery as we
Speaker 4: can and hope for the best. So but you still
Speaker 4: have to be patient. Whatever your root is, whatever strategy
Speaker 4: you've chosen, you still have to be patient with it
Speaker 4: and believe in it and try not to do the
Speaker 4: panic move where it's like, oh, the owner's getting antsy
Speaker 4: or the fans are getting antsy, let's go trade for
Speaker 4: I was going to say a specific name, but some
Speaker 4: flawed star that another team is ready to give up on.
Speaker 4: You got to pick the right guys to build around.
Speaker 4: And that's the other thing too, And I kind of
Speaker 4: gave a short shrift to this in the piece today,
Speaker 4: and I wish I'd put more into this.
Speaker 2: Aspect of it.
Speaker 4: But like the Pacers also picked the right guys, Like
Speaker 4: they these guys are all leaping off the page stars,
Speaker 4: but they got good character guys and guys who are
Speaker 4: selfless and like the reason that they've got such a
Speaker 4: great offense starts with Halliburton and his selflessness. But they're
Speaker 4: all willing to sacrifice and keep the ball moving, and
Speaker 4: that's really important. So you have to be patient, and
Speaker 4: you have to build the right guys or build.
Speaker 2: With the right guys.
Speaker 1: Last thing I'll set you loose on this, is it
Speaker 1: possible to build culture while being unseerious about competing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you can. I was one who did
Speaker 4: not buy into like there were a zillion different criticisms
Speaker 4: and moral hazard arguments about what the Sixers were doing
Speaker 4: with the process, and one of them was, you know, oh,
Speaker 4: you're gonna ruin these guys. They're gonna you know, they're
Speaker 4: gonna just learn how to lose, and they're gonna learn
Speaker 4: bad habits. And there's not like the culture is gonna
Speaker 4: be bad and it's gonna produce bad players. And then
Speaker 4: people would cite Julia local for well, that was Julia
Speaker 4: Locofor's fault. Frankly, like he just wasn't a good NBA
Speaker 4: player and wasn't good enough enough of a worker, serious
Speaker 4: enough himself. But like, as one example, TJ. McConnell was
Speaker 4: part of the process Sixers and he's like become a
Speaker 4: really great bench player, not having the greatest series, but
Speaker 4: a really good bench player for the Pacers. I don't
Speaker 4: think it necessarily, I think multiple years of it does
Speaker 4: create a little bit of like a franchise wide malaise,
Speaker 4: and I think that can seep into things. But I
Speaker 4: think you set the culture in terms of the values
Speaker 4: of how hard you're gonna work and what kind of
Speaker 4: team you want to be. The selflessness, the hard work,
Speaker 4: all that. That tone gets set by primarily the coach,
Speaker 4: and then when you get your guys, that's like, maybe
Speaker 4: you don't start with the superstar, right, maybe it's the
Speaker 4: middle build where you know you've got like the the
Speaker 4: Nie Smith types or nemhrds or whatever, and you're waiting
Speaker 4: to get the star. And if those guys are grinders
Speaker 4: and they're built that way, then they're setting the culture
Speaker 4: by the way they approach practice and games every day.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So I don't think the losing, or even the kind
Speaker 4: of the planned losing, the tanking mode necessarily poisons the well.
Speaker 4: I think it depends on who you're bringing in as
Speaker 4: players and coaches during that time, and are you taking
Speaker 4: every day seriously even though structurally you're designed to not
Speaker 4: win much. If that makes sense.
Speaker 3: It does make sense.
Speaker 1: Howard, he who knows knows not he who knows, he
Speaker 1: knows not knows. I just want to end on some
Speaker 1: Buddhism based.
Speaker 3: Off your piece.
Speaker 2: Phenomenal.
Speaker 5: I love it.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time, my friend. Have a good weekend.
Speaker 4: All right, all right, Spencer too, take care.
Speaker 3: Hi the Great Howard back from the Ringer.
Speaker 1: He's mostly on Blue Sky these days, but you can
Speaker 1: find all of his work at the Ringer dot com.
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Speaker 1: oh one six one five five five six zero. That's
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Speaker 1: or online at Cortland Roofing dot com. Give you a
Speaker 1: uinter Golf PGA Tour update coming up in just little bits.
Speaker 1: Dave mcmanimon from ESPN as our guest in the four
Speaker 1: o'clock hour, followed by Zach Harper. So a lot of
Speaker 1: good playoff basketball and jazz offseason stuff and the draft, etc.
Speaker 3: On the way, But let's talk a little golf DGA
Speaker 3: tour is.
Speaker 1: Let's see, we got the memorial tournaments going on at
Speaker 1: Mirefield Village in Dublin, Ohio, twenty million dollars on the line,
Speaker 1: won last year by you know, Scotti Scheffler. Because Scotty
Speaker 1: won everything last year, and Scotty's in the mix Paul
Speaker 1: Pugmyer Friday afternoon.
Speaker 3: Happy Friday, sir, How are you good?
Speaker 5: Good?
Speaker 2: Hell?
Speaker 7: Are you doing spance?
Speaker 1: I'm good, man, I'm good. Where do we find you?
Speaker 1: I think last week you were down south? Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I actually just rolled back into my office.
Speaker 7: Played up at the barn this morning and it is beautiful.
Speaker 7: What a lovely golf course.
Speaker 3: Oh there you go.
Speaker 1: Well, it's always a good day when you get out
Speaker 1: and swing at Paul.
Speaker 3: How was Saint George last week?
Speaker 7: Saint George was incredible. The lp GA Legends are aptly
Speaker 7: named legends for a reason.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 7: It was quite an experience to see these some of
Speaker 7: the very best players in the women's game in the
Speaker 7: world and in history, members of the World Golf Hall
Speaker 7: of Fame, people who will be members of the World
Speaker 7: Golf Hall of Fame. And I specifically am referring to
Speaker 7: the winner, Christy Kerr, who I think is a future
Speaker 7: Hall of Famer. It was an incredible event.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So let's move over to what the PGA Tour has
Speaker 1: going on this weekend. The memorial tournaments, i'll say, presented
Speaker 1: by Workday. Shout out to their sponsor, Dublin not that Dublin, Dublin,
Speaker 1: Ohio at Mirefield Village Golf Club cool twenty mill on
Speaker 1: the line. So that's an elevated events, right, Paul, I
Speaker 1: mean that's.
Speaker 3: What that means.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yes, Okay, tell me about this track, Mirfield Village
Speaker 1: Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio.
Speaker 7: So glad you asked it is. It is a great,
Speaker 7: great golf course with an incredibly interesting history. After Jack
Speaker 7: Nicholas won his fourth Masters, and at the time that
Speaker 7: was the most anybody had won, Arnold Palmer Hood won
Speaker 7: for Jack joined him and the two of them had
Speaker 7: four Masters each. Jack decided at that point that he
Speaker 7: wanted to leave a mark with a great golf course,
Speaker 7: leave a legacy with a great golf course, in the
Speaker 7: same way that his boyhood idol, Bobby Jones left the mark,
Speaker 7: left a legacy with a great golf course.
Speaker 2: For Jones.
Speaker 7: It was augusta national and Jack set out, inspired by
Speaker 7: his fourth Masters when inspired by the desire to be
Speaker 7: more like Bobby Jones, and he set out to create
Speaker 7: what became Mirfield Village nearby Columbus, Ohio, his hometown and
Speaker 7: named after and in homage to Mirfield in Scottland, where
Speaker 7: he had had both heartbreak and and stirring victory. But
Speaker 7: this golf course was Jack Nicholas's first real major course
Speaker 7: that he designed. This is what launched his golf course
Speaker 7: design career as well. Interestingly, it nearly wiped him out financially.
Speaker 7: This was at a time when winning a PGA tournament
Speaker 7: netted the winner for forty five thousand dollars. Nicholas, of
Speaker 7: course had money. He was the best in the world,
Speaker 7: and he had business interest and endorsements and all that.
Speaker 7: But he made the decision to control his own fate
Speaker 7: by not bringing on partners and by financing it and
Speaker 7: running it all himself. It nearly wiped him out financially,
Speaker 7: but he built a great golf course. It became the
Speaker 7: home of this tournament. Now that is Jack's tournament, the Memorial,
Speaker 7: and it is jack'slegacy that he wanted to leave to
Speaker 7: the golfing world, and it is one of the great Oh.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's why the Golf channel was showing a bunch
Speaker 1: of Tiger highlights where he was shaking Jack's hand after
Speaker 1: kicking everybody's ass a bunch of years.
Speaker 3: All right, that makes sense.
Speaker 7: That's a part of the tradition, Jack and Barber are
Speaker 7: standing there waiting for the winner when the winner comes
Speaker 7: off the seventy second hole on Sunday. Actually they shake
Speaker 7: hands with everybody, but it is the winner that stands out.
Speaker 7: And yes, Jack Nicholas is waiting there for you on
Speaker 7: Sunday when you come off the green.
Speaker 1: They showed And I know our interviews recently have turned
Speaker 1: into me just droning on about Tiger's brilliance, but I
Speaker 1: continued just really.
Speaker 7: To be brilliant.
Speaker 1: Well, I just continue to be bummed out that I
Speaker 1: was not into golf at all while he was doing
Speaker 1: his thing, and I would tune into a final round
Speaker 1: of a major here or there. But they showed this
Speaker 1: chip that Tiger had, I think it was on sixteen,
Speaker 1: you know, the shot I'm talking about, Like, exactly, that's impossible, Paul,
Speaker 1: give me a get out of town with that. Even
Speaker 1: Jack was like, that's that's the best shot I've ever
Speaker 1: seen anybody hit on the game of golf.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah. So here's the thing about when you compare
Speaker 7: Jack Nicholas and Tiger Woods. I think that Jack Nicholas
Speaker 7: had the greater career, but Tiger Woods played the greatest
Speaker 7: golf and for it, and that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 7: There is longevity of excellence, and Tiger's excellence was interrupted
Speaker 7: by injury and self imposed problems. But during the time
Speaker 7: that Tiger was at his peak, it was the greatest
Speaker 7: golf ever played. And it includes incredible shots and the
Speaker 7: chip in on sixteen Mirefield Village in the memorial is
Speaker 7: exactly one of those. And you could you could take
Speaker 7: any great, great player and stand them there with a
Speaker 7: bucket of balls and give them two hours and they
Speaker 7: might not get it within five feet. That shot was
Speaker 7: so hard. Of course Tiger made it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And to have Jack, out of anybody say that
Speaker 1: to you, I mean, what a feeling that must have
Speaker 1: been for Tiger. What you know, random, random question is
Speaker 1: what does Jack mean to the game? You know, like
Speaker 1: because you hear a lot of players interviewed about uh yeah,
Speaker 1: and Scott he talked about this last year, like winning
Speaker 1: this tournament and getting that handshake from that guy. What
Speaker 1: what does he mean to the game of golf in
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour.
Speaker 7: There's a little bit of a generational aspect to answering
Speaker 7: that question, But for people who followed the game and
Speaker 7: experienced Jack's dominance. It it was beyond Tiger's dominance. One
Speaker 7: thing that's pretty interesting. And so to answer your question
Speaker 7: before I go into a subplot here, Jack meant the
Speaker 7: highest degree of excellence, the highest degree of sportsmanship, the
Speaker 7: high degree of superlative performance. He meant the very best
Speaker 7: of the best of the best, and he meant it
Speaker 7: over time. And that is the point about Jack Nicholas's career.
Speaker 7: There is one statistic about Jack Nicholas's career that is
Speaker 7: staggering and almost silly to say. Every time I even
Speaker 7: hear myself said, it's almost like I'm making it up.
Speaker 7: Nicholas won eighteen majors. We know that Tiger won fifteen.
Speaker 7: Tiger either won or wasn't really in the mix. Nicholas,
Speaker 7: in addition to his eighteen major championship victories, he had
Speaker 7: nineteen major championship runner ups. That he's got thirty seven
Speaker 7: first or second place in majors. When Jack Nicholas pulled
Speaker 7: into the parking lot, not only did you know he
Speaker 7: was going to be the one that had to be beat,
Speaker 7: and you knew that he would be in the mix
Speaker 7: Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 1: That's a wild, wild stat The number that you just laid.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I was aware of that entirely.
Speaker 1: All right, moving over to where we find ourselves. My
Speaker 1: guy Nick Taylor top the leader board with a seven
Speaker 1: hunder par. And then you need to because I know
Speaker 1: you were listening last week and I was like, who
Speaker 1: the hell's Ben Griffin? Well, I probably should get familiar
Speaker 1: with Ben Griffin, Paul. He's also a top the leaderboard
Speaker 1: at seven seven hunders. So tell me about tell me
Speaker 1: about Ben Griffin, who is of course coming off coming
Speaker 1: off the win last week.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Griffin is an interesting story.
Speaker 2: But before we.
Speaker 7: Go there, can I just say, hey, I love me
Speaker 7: some Nick Taylor too, and so I totally share that
Speaker 7: with you and Nick. Nick Taylor has a remarkable superpower.
Speaker 7: When he is in the mix on Sunday afternoon, he
Speaker 7: closes the deal. His close rate is absolutely incredible. And now, granted,
Speaker 7: one of his closes was it took a seventy two
Speaker 7: foot putt on the last hole at the Canadian Open
Speaker 7: to become the first Canadian in several decades to win
Speaker 7: the National Open in Canada. But so it takes some
Speaker 7: histrionics on occasion. But Nick Taylor has a remarkable ability
Speaker 7: to close the deal. So if he's still in this
Speaker 7: position on Sunday afternoon, you can figure out that you
Speaker 7: can figure that he'll get her done. But let's talk
Speaker 7: about Ben Griffin fascinating character. Griffin is one of those
Speaker 7: guys who simply has got better as he's gone along,
Speaker 7: and you see him on occasion in other sports mid
Speaker 7: round draft choices coming out of college who just get
Speaker 7: better in the pros and end up being being All
Speaker 7: Star caliber players in different sports. Griffin's one of those guys.
Speaker 7: He played for University of North Carolina. He's a North
Speaker 7: Carolina guy. He had a nice and respectable college career,
Speaker 7: but nothing remarkable. He was an honorable mention All American.
Speaker 7: He won a couple of times. He goes down into
Speaker 7: the developmental tours, goes into the Canadian Tour, did okay,
Speaker 7: got himself onto the corn Faerry, lost his card, and
Speaker 7: so he walked away from the game and went and
Speaker 7: worked as a mortgage loan officer for a year or so,
Speaker 7: like eighteen months, and then he got the itch again,
Speaker 7: went to Corn Fairy Q School, got his Corn Fairy
Speaker 7: card back, and he qualified for the PGA Tour by
Speaker 7: having a lot of high finishes on the corn Ferry Tour.
Speaker 7: He had three top ten finishes, he got a lot
Speaker 7: of points and with that he got his card for
Speaker 7: the PGA Tour. And now he's been on the PGA
Speaker 7: Tour and just keeps getting better. He got his first
Speaker 7: win in the team event at the Zurich with Andrew
Speaker 7: Novak earlier, and then of course he won at Colonial,
Speaker 7: has two wins on the PJ Tour, had a top
Speaker 7: ten here just recently at Cuail Hollow in the pg Championship,
Speaker 7: and now he's in the mix at Memorial on Mirrorfield Village,
Speaker 7: which is a big boy, hard, hard, hard golf course.
Speaker 7: Ben Griffin is one of these guys just keeps getting
Speaker 7: better and he's playing really good golf right now.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about the difficulty of
Speaker 1: the course because just kind of tune in a little bit,
Speaker 1: it seems like it's bringing some of the best golfers
Speaker 1: in the world just down to their knees. You know,
Speaker 1: Nick and Bennett seven under, Ox Shay Bati at five under,
Speaker 1: You've got Scotty because of course at.
Speaker 3: Four under, and then more cow was with him as well.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the list of names that
Speaker 1: are either even or above par. I mean heavyweights, you know,
Speaker 1: because this and some of the players missing the cut
Speaker 1: are excellent, excellent, some major champions. So the difficulty of
Speaker 1: this course, how do you articulate why it seems to
Speaker 1: cause so many issues some of the best players in
Speaker 1: the world outside of Paul.
Speaker 3: Of course, golf is hard.
Speaker 7: There are three characteristics that Nicholas purposely built into this
Speaker 7: course after just and he followed Bobby Jones's model. He
Speaker 7: spent He spent a lot of time finding the right
Speaker 7: piece of property before he started the project, and Jones
Speaker 7: did the same thing when he bought the nursery that
Speaker 7: became Augusta National. So starting with a great piece of property,
Speaker 7: there's a lot of elevation change on it, and Nicholas
Speaker 7: takes real advantage of the elevation change. And this is
Speaker 7: a little unfortunate because we're watching it on TV this weekend,
Speaker 7: and TV flattens a golf course. But you can still
Speaker 7: see elevation change all the time on every holes. Characteristic
Speaker 7: number one the elevation change. Number two, it is the
Speaker 7: way they keep this course manicured and the way they
Speaker 7: keep it set up. The rough is penal. It was
Speaker 7: always Jack Nicholas's stance that hitting the ball in the
Speaker 7: ref should cost you half a stroke, which is to say,
Speaker 7: one out of two times that you miss the fair
Speaker 7: way it should make it should equal a bogie. And
Speaker 7: the rough is penal at Mirfield. And they've got a
Speaker 7: little weather going on right now which makes it even
Speaker 7: heavier and harder. And the ref always always plays a
Speaker 7: role at Mierfield Village. And then the third element of
Speaker 7: the course is the way Nicholas built in angles into
Speaker 7: the way the shots are played. And this was something
Speaker 7: that Nicholas really pioneered in terms of planning his attack
Speaker 7: on a golf course, and that is to play, plan
Speaker 7: for and play for certain angles on different shots, whether
Speaker 7: from the tee or into the green. And that characteristic
Speaker 7: is really accentuated and really requires a superb combination of
Speaker 7: planning and secution. And it's a Nicholas design characteristic that
Speaker 7: is at its best at Mirefield Village.
Speaker 1: As I ask you every weekend with these tournaments, draw
Speaker 1: the line of delineation of players who you think can
Speaker 1: still win it after two rounds. So we've got Nick
Speaker 1: and Beat at seven under, I'll say Xander's at two under,
Speaker 1: and then everyone else below him is even or above par. So,
Speaker 1: as of now, who do you think like legitimately can
Speaker 1: still win the thing after two rounds at this course?
Speaker 7: Statistically the number that shows up most often is seven
Speaker 7: shots back after two rounds, and so that would take
Speaker 7: us to even par. Now I want to go to
Speaker 7: plus one because that will.
Speaker 6: Bring in Tony fen.
Speaker 3: Now into the discussion.
Speaker 7: So there's two elements you have to figure in this,
Speaker 7: and actually a third smaller one. But the two big
Speaker 7: ones are first of all, the number of shots that
Speaker 7: have to be made up, and secondly, the number of
Speaker 7: people who have to be passed. In this case, even
Speaker 7: par seven shots back only takes us to t twelve.
Speaker 7: It falls off pretty quickly from the minus seven that's
Speaker 7: leading it with Taylor and Griffin right now, and so
Speaker 7: there's not a lot of people who have to be passed. However,
Speaker 7: those people are pretty high end players. You've got Colin
Speaker 7: Lord of Kawa, Major champions, Ander Schoffley, Major Champion, Russell Henley,
Speaker 7: a lock on the on the Ryder Cup, Jordan Spieth,
Speaker 7: Major Champion, Shane Lowry Major Champion, Scotty Scheffler, Scotty Scheffler.
Speaker 7: You know, there's there's a lot of really high quality
Speaker 7: players that would have to be passed coming from seven
Speaker 7: shots back. But at this point round two mostly in
Speaker 7: the books, all right, look past seven part it's going
Speaker 7: to be a hard thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, fair enough?
Speaker 1: Just a quick thought on Tony one over, so based
Speaker 1: off of where the field is as you reference his score,
Speaker 1: he is still top twenty. But we're just waiting for
Speaker 1: him to kind of find that gear, Paul, aren't we
Speaker 1: so totally? So is it just a continuous process? Is
Speaker 1: the orse hard or what do you make of what
Speaker 1: we've seen from Tony?
Speaker 7: Tony has to get his tee ball into the fairway.
Speaker 7: You cannot attack these greens. You cannot attack pin positions.
Speaker 7: One of the things I failed to mention about the
Speaker 7: design characteristic of Mirefield Village, and you see this on
Speaker 7: Jack Nicholas designs all the time anyway, is that there
Speaker 7: are sections to the green and you can make the
Speaker 7: putting surface. But if you're on the wrong the wrong
Speaker 7: part of the green for where the pin is that day,
Speaker 7: you have to put very very defensively, and so you
Speaker 7: cannot get to the proper section of the green unless
Speaker 7: you can spin and control your ball, and you will
Speaker 7: not spin or control your ball coming out of merefield,
Speaker 7: Billy Truugh. And so it comes down to putting that
Speaker 7: te ball in play on cut grass. That has to
Speaker 7: happen to make a move.
Speaker 3: All right, kind of a fun little story.
Speaker 1: While we await the potential return of Tiger, maybe we
Speaker 1: should start paying attention to his kid.
Speaker 3: No kid, so Charlie.
Speaker 1: Well, Charlie six hundred sixty six to win his first
Speaker 1: aj GA title, a thing that I didn't know was
Speaker 1: real until he woned.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you know about it.
Speaker 1: So tell me about this tournament the Tiger's kid Charlie won.
Speaker 7: So the a j g A, the American Junior Golf
Speaker 7: Association is junior tournament that is to say, eighteen years
Speaker 7: of age and younger for elite elite players. These are
Speaker 7: the best of the best young kids in the nation
Speaker 7: and they travel around the country, although it's very weighted
Speaker 7: toward the East Coast, and they beat on each other
Speaker 7: and they've got a point system. And this is where
Speaker 7: a lot of college recruitment takes place. This and you
Speaker 7: see time and time again that players who end up
Speaker 7: having careers that we follow as professionals, you go back
Speaker 7: in their background and they have had success at AJGA event.
Speaker 7: You just plain see it all the time. And so
Speaker 7: getting an AJGA win is significant for Charlie and he
Speaker 7: has struggled with the aj G A he has he
Speaker 7: has had a hard time maintaining position and getting points,
Speaker 7: and so this is a big step forward for him.
Speaker 1: Pennyfa your thoughts on this McElroy story where he is
Speaker 1: not in the field for Memorial and it's the third
Speaker 1: signature event he's missed this year, And look, I don't
Speaker 1: know that you. I just figure when you're playing the
Speaker 1: way he's playing, you'd want to play as much as
Speaker 1: possible to win tournaments and make money. J Monahan was
Speaker 1: asked about it during the opener of the tournament this weekend,
Speaker 1: and he went to Rory's defense, because you have to
Speaker 1: defend Rory if you're the commissioner of the dan PGA,
Speaker 1: of course, but for golf fans, you just want to
Speaker 1: I mean, this is every time you and I talk live,
Speaker 1: I come down to one thing, and that is I
Speaker 1: just miss watching the best golfers in the world all
Speaker 1: in one tournament playing together, and Rory playing.
Speaker 3: As well, if not better than anybody in the world.
Speaker 1: What do you make of the fact that he doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be playing in the tournaments that a lot
Speaker 1: of people are hoping he's playing in.
Speaker 7: Rory knows that the two big motivational factors for the
Speaker 7: elevated events, which are points and money. He knows that
Speaker 7: he'll get plenty of those through other memes. He'll he'll
Speaker 7: he'll just playing do well in majors. He'll he'll he'll
Speaker 7: do well enough when he plays that he'll be in
Speaker 7: the mix for points, and and he'll make enough money.
Speaker 7: He's making tons of money in other places. I don't
Speaker 7: think money's a motivational factor for him at this point.
Speaker 7: What Rory has told us straight up is that what
Speaker 7: floats his boat right now is a national championship. And
Speaker 7: so the US Open, what week, the British Open, the
Speaker 7: Open Championship, the Scottish Open, but the Australian Open, things
Speaker 7: like that, the Canadian Open, national championships really have Rory's attention,
Speaker 7: and he's just straight up, this is where I'm going
Speaker 7: to build my schedule and the rest will fall in
Speaker 7: around that. And I take him at his word, and
Speaker 7: I think building the schedule is really hard and the
Speaker 7: travel is really difficult, and whatever works for people, I
Speaker 7: respect their decisions on what makes it work. And at
Speaker 7: the end of the day, when we get to the
Speaker 7: Tour Championship, Rory's going to be there before.
Speaker 1: We get to local storylines what we have coming up
Speaker 1: on the program tomorrow. This does happen in golf from
Speaker 1: time to time. I think it's more prevalent in contact
Speaker 1: sports or violent sports like football or you know, basketball
Speaker 1: players who have injuries that derail their career. And I
Speaker 1: can remember, really, I don't know, like everybody else, COVID
Speaker 1: really got me into golf on a insanely dangerous, addictive level.
Speaker 1: And that's when I started watching a lot of tournaments
Speaker 1: and playing a lot of golf. And it kind of
Speaker 1: coincided with when will Zalaturus kind of broke in on
Speaker 1: the tour and I can I remember just watching him play,
Speaker 1: like this kid has game four days and it felt
Speaker 1: like he was going to go on to win majors
Speaker 1: and he's only twenty eight, but this is his second
Speaker 1: back surgery. Paul and pat Riley has this old saying
Speaker 1: back problems will change your personality. Oh yeah, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, and so I've gutted for the kid.
Speaker 1: He's out again for the entire year. What's realistic to
Speaker 1: expect is he is faced with a long recovery once again.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's jarring, it's sad. What a great talent Zala
Speaker 7: Taurus is. His ability to strike the ball cleanly is
Speaker 7: world class, top notch. But the golf swing done in
Speaker 7: certain ways imposes a great amount of torsional stress on
Speaker 7: your joints and it makes the soft tissue really susceptible
Speaker 7: to injury. And valad Taurus's swing, though incredibly efficient, creates
Speaker 7: a lot of torsional stress us and he has tried
Speaker 7: to take steps to get around that. It hasn't fully
Speaker 7: worked yet. One thing you can look for on this
Speaker 7: is at the top of the back swing, do the
Speaker 7: players release the lead foot. For a right handed player,
Speaker 7: the left foot to come with the heel to come
Speaker 7: up off the ground. And when you see a player,
Speaker 7: especially one who swings at very high club head speed,
Speaker 7: with their left foot still on the ground at the
Speaker 7: top of the back swing, the left heel on the
Speaker 7: ground at the top of the back swing, they are
Speaker 7: increasing and accentuating the torsional stress, and they are candidates
Speaker 7: for being hurt. And from what I can tell, that's
Speaker 7: what's been going on with Wills Alaturus.
Speaker 1: All right, Paul, before I set you loose, what's coming
Speaker 1: up on the program tomorrow and what sort of local
Speaker 1: golf storyline should we all be aware of.
Speaker 7: First of all, it's the City Am this weekend at Bonneville.
Speaker 7: Of course, we will be at Bonneville with Utah Golf
Speaker 7: Radio Live on Saturday morning on ESPN seven hundred and
Speaker 7: celebrating the City AM, one of the amateur majors here
Speaker 7: in Utah. Otherwise, we will be following up on and
Speaker 7: going deep on Brigham Young University's deep run into the
Speaker 7: NCAA National Championship. BYU with all of its incredible legacy
Speaker 7: and incredible record and so many great great players. This
Speaker 7: year was the first year that BYU won a regional
Speaker 7: in the match play era. This year is the first
Speaker 7: year that BYU made the cut in the match play
Speaker 7: Era to play the last round of the strokeplay portion
Speaker 7: of the National Championship. This is a historic and record
Speaker 7: setting team for BYU. We're going to go deep on that.
Speaker 3: Paul. Thank you for the time, sir. Have a great weekend,
Speaker 3: have a great show you two. Thank you so much,
Speaker 3: Ben plug Meyer.
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Speaker 1: PGA Tour is the Memorial Tournaments Dublin, Ohio Jack's Course
Speaker 1: as it's known, and the leader board. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is an elevated event, so a lot of the big dogs,
Speaker 1: most of the big dogs outside of mackle Roy Kwifranklin
Speaker 1: are playing your leaders in the clubhouse after two rounds
Speaker 1: are Nick Taylor and Ben Griffin. Both are seven under
Speaker 1: par Ox, Shay Vatias at five under, Scottie Scheffler.
Speaker 3: At four, Sam Burns, Jordan Spieth, Shane.
Speaker 1: Lowry three hundred, Parr Russell, hen Hogy, Xander Shotleg Colin
Speaker 1: Morikawa at two over part. Group of players at even
Speaker 1: including Justin Rose and Harris English. Let's see Tony Fenw
Speaker 1: at one over part. He's joined by Ricky Fowler, Patrick Cantley,
Speaker 1: Keegan Bradley, Ludwig Oberg Is also won over some of
Speaker 1: the best golfers in the world having a real, real
Speaker 1: tough time, including Wyndham Clark who barely made the cut,
Speaker 1: as did j T.
Speaker 3: Justin Thomas.
Speaker 1: He Takala did not make the cut, neither did Brian
Speaker 1: Harmon or Lucas Glover.
Speaker 3: Tough golf course.
Speaker 1: So of course I really want to see the New
Speaker 1: York Knicks come back in the series and win. But
Speaker 1: there is a part of me that is cheering for
Speaker 1: the Pacers to play the Thunder in the finals so
Speaker 1: we can hear these Prima Donna ESPN media guys bitch
Speaker 1: and moan about their.
Speaker 3: Routes between these two cities.
Speaker 1: Our next guest certainly is not in that group certainly
Speaker 1: is not in that category. He is a man of
Speaker 1: the people. He enjoys the small towns and cities of America.
Speaker 1: Dave mcmanamhon, Happy Friday, sir.
Speaker 3: How are you yeah?
Speaker 5: I mean I was in a small town just like
Speaker 5: John Cooper, Mela Camp. I go to India.
Speaker 3: Let's go okay. Now, the question right off the top
Speaker 3: is who's going to.
Speaker 1: Be the most bummed out if it's Indianapolis and Oklahoma City.
Speaker 5: Adam silver If probably my wife because she loves New York,
Speaker 5: you know. But obviously we're all here for great basketball.
Speaker 5: And I do believe the way the Knicks have pulled
Speaker 5: themselves off the mat clearly if they get to the finals,
Speaker 5: they'll be a formidable team. And India I believed throughout.
Speaker 5: I mean I may have told you this before. JJ
Speaker 5: Reddick may be Indiana's biggest fan. Throughout the regular season,
Speaker 5: he just louded them for being so good on both
Speaker 5: sides of the ball, being so disciplined, having a deep bench,
Speaker 5: having so many switchable defenders who can also shoot, and
Speaker 5: that's come to bear in the postseason.
Speaker 3: That's because he's buddies with TJ.
Speaker 1: McConnell and don't feed me this whole, and don't feed
Speaker 1: me this whole. I'm cheering for good basketball, No part
Speaker 1: of me believes that day For a second, I am.
Speaker 5: Cheering for the personal experience of being able to cover
Speaker 5: an NBA Finals game in Mad Square Garden. So there's
Speaker 5: my bias there. Obviously, had some great memories of the
Speaker 5: Big East Quarter in the Garden with Syracuse when I
Speaker 5: was in college. I would just love to see the
Speaker 5: city electric for it. However, Indiana is a great basketball
Speaker 5: town as well, and that place can get rocket as well.
Speaker 5: We were just there for All Star Games, you know,
Speaker 5: last season. They were great hosts city. So whatever works
Speaker 5: out so long at what I am truly rooting for
Speaker 5: is a six or seven game series. I'm tired of
Speaker 5: these five game series we's got the last couple of years.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm with you there, What do you think the small
Speaker 1: market will do to the TV number? Because you know,
Speaker 1: nobody that loves basketball will ever have anything but reverence
Speaker 1: for the great Spurs teams when they were spurring at
Speaker 1: the highest level of spurring, But some of those finals
Speaker 1: numbers were not great as far as the TV audience goes.
Speaker 1: And New York Indiana has been through the roof, but okay,
Speaker 1: see Minnesota, those numbers have not been great. Dave, do
Speaker 1: you what do you think the small market potential nature.
Speaker 1: If the Necks can't get this done, we'll do to
Speaker 1: the eyeballs watching the finals.
Speaker 5: Yeah, obviously if the next rout there will be a
Speaker 5: lower number. Part of the Minnesota OKAC series I covered
Speaker 5: it was really only was one good game out of five.
Speaker 5: I mean the other four were quite frankly trash. You know,
Speaker 5: you had twenty point, forty point, thirty point blowouts in
Speaker 5: those other four games, and that had something to do
Speaker 5: with it.
Speaker 2: I do I mean a cliche.
Speaker 5: It will sound like it's kind of like you write
Speaker 5: a good story, we'll find it audience. If these are
Speaker 5: good basketball games, then we'll find an audience. And you know,
Speaker 5: I think that will be the challenge on whatever team
Speaker 5: that's coming out of the East will face, is you're
Speaker 5: going against a rested, well oiled machine that will have
Speaker 5: home court advantage the thunder and can you make it
Speaker 5: a series that will be compelling basketball? Because if it's
Speaker 5: compelling basketball, like you just kind of throw your hands
Speaker 5: up and you're like, okay, well, you know That's that's
Speaker 5: what the league wanted anyway. Right, this whole new CBA
Speaker 5: was about parody. And if the parody leads to the
Speaker 5: two teams that getting to the final pinnacle have ability
Speaker 5: to you know, match styles and and make it a
Speaker 5: series where it looks like teams that are worthy of
Speaker 5: that pedestal, like, then I think you live. Whatever the
Speaker 5: number is. If the Knicks get there and they get
Speaker 5: swept in four games like that doesn't do the league
Speaker 5: any good any either, you know.
Speaker 3: It does not.
Speaker 1: All Right, before we get I do want to talk
Speaker 1: Pacers Knicks, but before we do that, let's talk about
Speaker 1: what happened out this way, because of course you had.
Speaker 3: A front row seat.
Speaker 1: But before you get there, when you heard Shack's speech
Speaker 1: last night, didn't make you nervous.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just a little bit.
Speaker 3: Who do you think he was talking about specifically?
Speaker 5: I will not venture a guess. He didn't choose to
Speaker 5: disclose any names on that one. So I will look
Speaker 5: forward to seeing how the partnership bears out. I'll say
Speaker 5: that I personally have had a great relationship with pretty
Speaker 5: much everyone in that memory. I was just spend a
Speaker 5: time with Jerry Greenberg and Okay, see. You know we
Speaker 5: spent time with the Bubble. I've known you EJ and
Speaker 5: Charles and Shack on a personal basis, not Kunny as much.
Speaker 5: But you know, I think it will be a great
Speaker 5: partnership that will have some quirks to it. I think
Speaker 5: to figure out at the beginning, but I think it's
Speaker 5: to be cool to have those guys, you know, holding
Speaker 5: the FBI and Mic flag at the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: It is so wild you still come on this show
Speaker 1: when my when my goal every single week is just
Speaker 1: to make you sweat and corner you and see if
Speaker 1: I can get you to say so something you'd regret.
Speaker 1: You're very good at this day.
Speaker 5: You know it is. It's like a mental challenge. It's
Speaker 5: like my Sudoku coming on here and try not to
Speaker 5: slip off, just keep my brain shut.
Speaker 3: Well, good, Look, I want to keep you on your toes.
Speaker 3: I've got it.
Speaker 1: I've got to I've got to keep you honest because
Speaker 1: I'm sure the other affiliates you go on like.
Speaker 3: Hey, tell me about schematically how Jalen Brun some guards
Speaker 3: the pick and roll.
Speaker 1: I want to keep you frosty Dave. I want to
Speaker 1: keep the energy up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I really want to know exactly who
Speaker 5: you are and who were you impersonating there, because now
Speaker 5: I need to put on you.
Speaker 1: Like oh man, all right, so you know what, let
Speaker 1: me let me just ask this question. Can either Indiana
Speaker 1: or New York make Oklahoma City sweat?
Speaker 3: Like when when.
Speaker 1: They lock in, when they are guarding, when they're flying
Speaker 1: up and down. It's of course the sha the shay
Speaker 1: thing is the shay thing. But they're so deep they're impossible,
Speaker 1: and you know they have been all year. They're eighty
Speaker 1: and eighteen, they're twenty nine and one against the East.
Speaker 1: Do why their New York or Indiana have a shot
Speaker 1: in hell against OKC?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think having seen them completely dismantle a
Speaker 5: Wolves team that I cover for two rounds and believe
Speaker 5: that they had a legitimate shot of beating them.
Speaker 2: I doubt it.
Speaker 5: Whether the Knicks in that rockets atmosphere that be of
Speaker 5: the Garden would be able to maybe get a little
Speaker 5: bit further, because that would be a true home court advantage. Possibly.
Speaker 5: At the same time, they're not like a perfect team.
Speaker 5: The thing that gives them a larger marginal area to
Speaker 5: work with is they create so many turnovers that and
Speaker 5: they're also a really good crashing those last is that
Speaker 5: they get like on average in the Minnesota series, who
Speaker 5: is close to like six or seven more shots on
Speaker 5: goals in the games that they want, So you don't
Speaker 5: need to shoot as good of a percentage if you
Speaker 5: get an extra seven tries to try to you know,
Speaker 5: keep up offensively. Shake gillis Ender is a master, the
Speaker 5: young master of the game. And even if you take
Speaker 5: away the foul shots, he's still one of the best
Speaker 5: scores of the twenty twenty five playoffs, So he's incredible.
Speaker 5: Where I think they do have some vulnerability is Chick
Speaker 5: looked great in Game four against the Wolves, but he
Speaker 5: wasn't a huge factor most of that series, and heartsheen
Speaker 5: can get in faust trouble and you know, so they
Speaker 5: are a little vulnerable in the middle. They gets a
Speaker 5: team like the Knicks that they get there with certainly
Speaker 5: what we've seen from it to Robinson and Colathona Towns
Speaker 5: in Eastern Conference Finals. But I think like with the Knicks,
Speaker 5: the straw that starts to drink and Jaylen Brunson being
Speaker 5: a little bit undersized and you know, can get you know,
Speaker 5: kind of crowded by bigger defenders, like they're gonna give
Speaker 5: him a heck of a time when he gets there.
Speaker 5: If it's in they I think they are the most
Speaker 5: equivalent team in the East to playing the Thunderstile in
Speaker 5: terms of like it doesn't really matter who gets the numbers,
Speaker 5: it has spread you out type of style. They can
Speaker 5: also defend with multiple bodies. I do this kind of
Speaker 5: feel like like the Knicks, though would would have a
Speaker 5: slightly better chance. But I will say you're romantic. I
Speaker 5: like the idea of a team breaking through and winning.
Speaker 5: You know, we all know it's been whatever, what's this
Speaker 5: fifty three years since the next of one?
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, yep yep on and we'll see.
Speaker 1: We'll get down in the moment though, But ultimately the
Speaker 1: Minnesota takeaway and look, I cheered for the Timberwolves because
Speaker 1: we had Rudy here, of course, and who doesn't like
Speaker 1: Mike Conley. If you don't like Mike Conley, it's a
Speaker 1: you problem. Nikio Alexander Walker was here wildly. Quinn never
Speaker 1: never played him, and he was kind of like exactly
Speaker 1: what they needed. They preferred Royce O'Neil, but we don't
Speaker 1: have to do a Royce O'Neil vers Nikia Alexander Walker
Speaker 1: segment today, and then obviously Joey Ingles as well. I
Speaker 1: know we're supposed to be mad at Aunt, I guess
Speaker 1: because I watch your network. I like it's odd to
Speaker 1: me because he's twenty three years old, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: I feel like some of the reaction has been people
Speaker 1: upset that he's not more upset at twenty three years old.
Speaker 1: With all the game in the world, he's got plenty
Speaker 1: of time to live up to the hype. As far
Speaker 1: as you know, face the league best domestic player or
Speaker 1: so many of the MVPs as I late been international guys.
Speaker 1: They probably need to make a decision on Mike because
Speaker 1: as much as I love him, it just didn't look
Speaker 1: great this year. He's under contract one more year. You know,
Speaker 1: as a Nick fan, I'm uniquely qualified to talk about
Speaker 1: your issues if Julius Randall is your number two offensive option.
Speaker 1: Even though it looked awesome for a minute against Achieve
Speaker 1: Me against Golden State, I thought Julius was probably the
Speaker 1: best player in that series, and they were also able
Speaker 1: to beat the Lakers, So they're gonna be fine based
Speaker 1: off the fact that they have a Superstars twenty three
Speaker 1: years old. But it's clear now two straight years in
Speaker 1: the Western Conference finals, they've got to find whatever is
Speaker 1: next to get them to that next level. And the
Speaker 1: problem is the next level, at least for now and
Speaker 1: probably for the next three or four years, will reside
Speaker 1: in Okac.
Speaker 3: But what's the off season look like for Minnesota?
Speaker 1: They also have to make a decision about Tim Conley, right,
Speaker 1: I think he's a free.
Speaker 5: Agent, right, con you know, and speaking to you know,
Speaker 5: people with knowledge of the new ownership structure, they're big
Speaker 5: fans in Mark Lauria and Alex Rodriguez are big fans
Speaker 5: of Tim Conley. So I believe there's a ton of
Speaker 5: motivation to get an extension done there now. Of course, though,
Speaker 5: because he's proven himself in Denbury and Minnesota, like, there
Speaker 5: could be some godfather off or somewhere else like you
Speaker 5: got to always keep that in mind, but I think
Speaker 5: the intention would be to keep Conley there. The biggest
Speaker 5: thing that the Wolves can do in terms of getting
Speaker 5: better for next year is it's really of course, got
Speaker 5: to take care of Nazrita to v opts out Joyce Ryannol.
Speaker 5: If he opts out, I don't think Nikhil Alexander Walker
Speaker 5: will be extended by them. I think he's going to
Speaker 5: be the guys that they're going to have to see
Speaker 5: walk and then hope they can replace his production with
Speaker 5: Terrence Channon Junior and Rob Dillingham and Jalen Clark who
Speaker 5: you know, Terrence Shang Junior at thirty five points of
Speaker 5: the last three five games of the Western Conference Finals
Speaker 5: have to really not play in all playoffs long and
Speaker 5: you know, Chris Finch after Game five admitted.
Speaker 2: That it's on him.
Speaker 5: He needs to lengthen this bench with some of his
Speaker 5: younger guys. It's those will be the guys that fill
Speaker 5: the Alexander Walker spot. But really, I think the biggest
Speaker 5: room for improvement here is will be ankeetting to the
Speaker 5: level which we all assume he will. But then Jade
Speaker 5: McDaniels and mcdaniald's so much better than it was a
Speaker 5: year ago, but still there's a big gap between him
Speaker 5: and say Jaylen Williams, who's the second best player for
Speaker 5: Okay see and you saw that in the series. You know,
Speaker 5: in game five, Jane McDaniels goes oh for six to
Speaker 5: start the game and they're down twenty before there's a
Speaker 5: blink of an eye, and yeah, give him credit for
Speaker 5: you know, looking to see open scoring opportunities and taking
Speaker 5: them that they need a guy to do that, but
Speaker 5: then you obviously have to convert. So I think they
Speaker 5: were a team that were treading water a lot of
Speaker 5: the year. They had some injuries, they were an awkward fit,
Speaker 5: trying to make Julius work, trying to make don to
Speaker 5: di vitenso comfortable going away from obviously the system they
Speaker 5: had had with Kat and Ant being the two pillars
Speaker 5: for them for three straight years. There's still a lot
Speaker 5: of encouragement there. I think the part that's concerning is that,
Speaker 5: like they are still in a super crowded Western Conference,
Speaker 5: And this is what Finch said after the game game five.
Speaker 5: He says, like forty two and forty might be a
Speaker 5: good year for a team in the West next year.
Speaker 5: And then you're talking about an uphill battle again in
Speaker 5: the playoff where you don't have one port advantage, and
Speaker 5: when you got to go in and play a place
Speaker 5: like ok See, where it's a madhouse, it's gonna be
Speaker 5: tough win a series that way.
Speaker 3: Is there hurt your feelings that you're not on the
Speaker 3: Hoop Collective.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think it probably saves my sanity from
Speaker 5: having to listen to Tim and Tim every day. But yeah,
Speaker 5: it's a good group. I would like to be about
Speaker 5: a little bit more. I'll go out to the live
Speaker 5: show in Vegas. They had me on stage for it
Speaker 5: a couple of years ago, so we'll see if I
Speaker 5: gets to call up for that. But it's kind of see.
Speaker 5: The thing about it is none of those guys actually
Speaker 5: cover a team that everybody cares about on a daily
Speaker 5: basically the Lakers. So my time is better spent, you know,
Speaker 5: dealing with Luca and Lebron and the Lakers most of
Speaker 5: the time than carving out an hour and a half
Speaker 5: to hear those guys talk about the same issues over
Speaker 5: and over again. But they do do a great job.
Speaker 1: Hey, hey, Porter, I want you to clip that answer,
Speaker 1: except the final part when you said they do a
Speaker 1: great job and it's a good time to nine folks
Speaker 1: that Tim McMahon covers the jazz.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: You know you've mentioned Finch's postgame press conference.
Speaker 1: Did I hear him right when he said there are
Speaker 1: thirteen teams in the West that will be jockeying for
Speaker 1: home court.
Speaker 3: Did he say thirteen?
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you did say thirteen, so that maybe a bit
Speaker 5: of an overextension, but I mean it's not it's not absurd.
Speaker 1: Well, it also clearly excludes two teams. One probably resides
Speaker 1: here in Salt Lake.
Speaker 3: Is that fair to say?
Speaker 5: I think that's fair to say. Yes, But I think
Speaker 5: no one in your city you formed listeners having paid
Speaker 5: tens Tor show, would be shocked by that.
Speaker 1: Isaiah Callier broke John Stockton's rookie assist record, Dave, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you read that.
Speaker 5: I actually didn't know that. I'm glad that you shared
Speaker 5: that information with it.
Speaker 1: John Stockton also average fourteen minutes a game as a
Speaker 1: rookie because the starting point Carver's rookie green. Anyway, moving on,
Speaker 1: does Lowry Marketing start for Oklahoma City?
Speaker 5: He does not, Dave, Yeah, I don't. I don't think.
Speaker 5: I don't think he does. Yeah, I don't think he does.
Speaker 1: What does that say about your team when your best
Speaker 1: player would not even start for the team that's in
Speaker 1: the finals.
Speaker 5: M I mean, it's a it's a really good question
Speaker 5: to Brazil. I think there's a certain style that Okay
Speaker 5: See plays that you know, lou dort Is, they would
Speaker 5: decide to go with a guy who's limited offensively because
Speaker 5: he's such a beast defensively in that position. Market is
Speaker 5: a very good player. I mean, so I think it's
Speaker 5: a little unfair to wedge that conversation in because I
Speaker 5: think he could start, for say, the Knicks, like he
Speaker 5: could start over Josh Hart.
Speaker 1: That's you know what, we're hanging the banner. Our best
Speaker 1: player would start over Josh Art. We're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: hang that here in sall like, okay, before we'll end
Speaker 1: with Nick Spacers. But before we get there, let me
Speaker 1: ask you a question without the sarcasm laced in it.
Speaker 1: There are now, as a result of the way that
Speaker 1: the CBA is structured, several avenues as far as how
Speaker 1: you can build a contending team. It's no longer was
Speaker 1: Lebron born in your city? Or does he want to
Speaker 1: live in South Beach? And certainly with Luke and Lebron
Speaker 1: and other you know, Golden State grabs Jimmy Butler, there
Speaker 1: always will be those teams that can grab the star
Speaker 1: to put next to other players. But ultimately, when you
Speaker 1: look at Indiana, when you look at Oklahoma City. Even
Speaker 1: the way the Knicks did it. The Knicks did it slowly,
Speaker 1: you know it really Jalen, of course turned out to
Speaker 1: be a great decision. How do the Jazz take advantage
Speaker 1: of this parody era in the NBA? And the CBA
Speaker 1: expires in twenty thirty so, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: they are going to be massive changes. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't love how punitive some of the
Speaker 1: second apron stuff seems to be for owners having the right.
Speaker 3: Checks, just for the right to have the roster.
Speaker 1: So if we say that the Jazz have at least
Speaker 1: five years in this new ecosystem of pro basketball, how
Speaker 1: do they do it?
Speaker 6: Dave?
Speaker 1: Because it's hard to draw a straight line between who
Speaker 1: the Jazz are now and who Oklahoma City is now,
Speaker 1: even though Oklahoma City not too long ago was in
Speaker 1: this rebuilding space.
Speaker 3: Presty has just knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 1: Like they drafted the right guys, they were able to
Speaker 1: receive their generational piece in exchange for Paul George, and
Speaker 1: they found guys off the scrap peep they weren't even drafted.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say, do a Presty because he's done
Speaker 1: it so brilliantly, But we are a basketball market star
Speaker 1: for a decent team. How did Danny and jay Z
Speaker 1: get this done?
Speaker 5: So it starts with you gotta draft well, and when
Speaker 5: you're in the position where you're in the lottery for
Speaker 5: you know, three out of five years, whatever it will
Speaker 5: end up being.
Speaker 2: For the Jazz.
Speaker 5: Like if you get even one of those guys wrong,
Speaker 5: like you're putting yourself beyond a ball. Then you gotta
Speaker 5: look at the Pacers identifying Tyree Calliburton as someone who
Speaker 5: was underutilized and turning him into a guy. They did
Speaker 5: it through a tray. The next same way with Gelen Bruns,
Speaker 5: that is, through free agency, identified a guy who was
Speaker 5: underutilized and took him to another level. I think the
Speaker 5: Jazz kind of tried to do that with a guy
Speaker 5: like Colin Sexton, and probably they unleashed a slightly higher
Speaker 5: levels than he showed in Cleveland. But he's not one
Speaker 5: of those two guys. But you guys to continue to
Speaker 5: try to find a guy that fits that archetype. And
Speaker 5: then you need a system and a coach and a
Speaker 5: clarity of vision. And you know you and I are
Speaker 5: both think aligned and being will Hardy fans, So they
Speaker 5: got that part done. I think the jury is still
Speaker 5: out on how they've done on the draft. You know,
Speaker 5: obviously there's probably a reason why so many people are
Speaker 5: calling about Walker Tesler, probably because that was a probably
Speaker 5: a pretty good pick. And so that's a guy you
Speaker 5: can build around. And hey, you just told me you
Speaker 5: got the guy breaking constacks this record, So maybe that's
Speaker 5: another guy you can build around as well. I mean,
Speaker 5: Collier has built like a young Marcus Smart and if
Speaker 5: you can turn that body into a defensive engine, and
Speaker 5: I like kind of my inside outside pieces of built around.
Speaker 5: And then again you got to marketing. It was another
Speaker 5: guy that they identified. I just think the marketing kind
Speaker 5: of timeline won't fit with where they're at right now.
Speaker 5: So you're probably gonna have to commit to staying in
Speaker 5: this lottery mode.
Speaker 2: For a bit.
Speaker 5: Hit with some luck, you know, the ping bom balls
Speaker 5: got to go your way and get the right guy.
Speaker 5: And you know, like again, I know we were talking
Speaker 5: about the idea of this being you're already on the
Speaker 5: fast track with Cooper Flag, but you know it could
Speaker 5: be you're already on the fast track if you get
Speaker 5: to bits out of Boyu it's just a year delayed
Speaker 5: from what we thought. Maybe it would be.
Speaker 1: All right, before I set you loose, let's do a
Speaker 1: little Eastern Conference finals. And you know, if you were
Speaker 1: like on vacation overseas and did not watch the first
Speaker 1: four games of Nick Pacers and came home last night,
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna watch in basketball, you'd be like, why
Speaker 1: is this close? I mean, it was a mismatch, and
Speaker 1: it really was Dave from my vantage point. And it's
Speaker 1: ironic here because Tom is such a defensive minded guy.
Speaker 1: But this is not Oak and Mace and Ewing and
Speaker 1: Anthony Bonner, if we want to go deep. This is
Speaker 1: not like a big, physical, defensive, dominant basketball team. I
Speaker 1: think they were thirteenth in defensive rating this year, and
Speaker 1: they were close to top five in offense. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if they finished top five in offense, but it's
Speaker 1: pretty clear after last night because it was the first
Speaker 1: game that they were actually closing out in respect to
Speaker 1: the Pacers, like guard Aaron Nee Smith game one, don't
Speaker 1: give Tyree Salibert and a bunch of airspace in game three,
Speaker 1: like actually play defense, you know, And last night was
Speaker 1: a concerted defensive effort for the thirty two four minutes,
Speaker 1: it was competitive before kind of things got loose in
Speaker 1: the fourth. Can they replicate that in game I guess
Speaker 1: it would be Game six now in Indianapolis, because you
Speaker 1: know what, man like I am to the point with
Speaker 1: this series, I can see all three of the scenarios unfolding.
Speaker 1: I could see the Pacers winning on Saturday. I could
Speaker 1: see the next winning on Saturday and losing Game seven.
Speaker 1: I could see the next winning Saturday and winning Game seven. Like,
Speaker 1: all three of those things still are on the table,
Speaker 1: But the Knicks are gonna have to guard last night
Speaker 1: in a way that they haven't yet.
Speaker 3: Can they replicate that performance for two more games?
Speaker 5: Primarily I completely rearview all three of those things around
Speaker 5: the table the Knicks. You know with the Ananob's that
Speaker 5: they have Robinson Really for a guy who came in
Speaker 5: with an offensive reputation as completely sacrificed that point of
Speaker 5: the game to give his energy and attention towards defense
Speaker 5: this series, it's been really impressive to me. And then
Speaker 5: you got some of like Karl Anthony Towns who seen
Speaker 5: committed more than we normally see him committed to attacking
Speaker 5: the paint. And then I think that aggression offensively is
Speaker 5: carrying over to what he brings defensively. Now he's not
Speaker 5: you know, pick your Gionnaskupo down there, but he's bringing
Speaker 5: some of that level to it. I think it will
Speaker 5: come down to you know, Tyres Alibert quite frankly. I mean,
Speaker 5: Haliburton was invisible in game five and that's not the
Speaker 5: way things are going to work for this team. And
Speaker 5: he doesn't score thirty two and have a you know,
Speaker 5: a near perfect offensive game with fifteen assistants zero turnovers
Speaker 5: like he did earlier in the series. But he's got
Speaker 5: to be a guy who's attacking the paint, breaking down
Speaker 5: the defense, kicking it out to those shooters.
Speaker 2: So even when they the Knicks are.
Speaker 5: Committed to closing out, they have already collapsed on Haliburton.
Speaker 5: So it's a longer close out to get to Anie
Speaker 5: Smith or you know, get out to Mathurin, who you
Speaker 5: know is really starting to catch fire a little bit.
Speaker 5: So the Pacers should feel good about things right now.
Speaker 5: They are going home. They took their lumps, sure, but
Speaker 5: now they have the human nature side. If I want
Speaker 5: to make up for what has happened, uh, And that's
Speaker 5: a place that gets rocking to the field House, which
Speaker 5: I don't well, I don't even know what they've called it.
Speaker 5: So many different things at field House, I don't feel
Speaker 5: confident saying is it games Bridge now Bridge? Yeah, they
Speaker 5: should feel good. At the same time, the Knicks are like,
Speaker 5: we see our pathway and so like it is a
Speaker 5: toss up, it could be tossed up. I think it's
Speaker 5: beautiful that we get a Saturday night with what could
Speaker 5: be the best game of the playoffs thus far, and
Speaker 5: it's been a pretty damn good playoffs.
Speaker 3: If Kenny Smith corners you in Bristol, do you think
Speaker 3: you can handle that?
Speaker 5: I believe, I believe I can. I've seen his races
Speaker 5: to the big board with those knock knees. I'm not
Speaker 5: too worried about.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: If he was gonna start something with me, I just
Speaker 5: run away.
Speaker 1: Oh, Dave, you're such a good sport man. Have a
Speaker 1: good weekend. Takes for the time, Okay, Nick?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: The Great Dave mcminnimon go Nicks for several different reasons,
Speaker 1: mainly so Dave and his lovely wife Malik Andrews do
Speaker 1: not have to work in Indianapolis or well, Oklahoma, city
Speaker 1: they're gonna have to go to no matter what. All Right,
Speaker 1: Dave stops by today, Courtzy of my friends at Prize Picks.
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Speaker 3: Get to the five o'clock out of the program.
Speaker 1: Coming up in a bit Brett Yormark, Commissioner the Big
Speaker 1: Twelve with some specific numbers as far as distribution to
Speaker 1: members to member schools. We'll tell you what the University
Speaker 1: of Utah took home last year. By you still not
Speaker 1: a full share member. Yet we'll get to some of
Speaker 1: that coming up in a bit. But you heard pit Bull,
Speaker 1: which means you're in a bad mood, but it also
Speaker 1: means it's time for Zach Harper on a Friday afternoon. Zach,
Speaker 1: Happy Friday, buddy, How are we doing?
Speaker 2: Happy Friday?
Speaker 6: You cannot possibly be mad at Timber though. That's a banger.
Speaker 3: Now we've been over it.
Speaker 1: Man, there are no bangers, O Tapper, Now, there are
Speaker 1: no bangers. There are no toe tappers. He's horrible, But
Speaker 1: you know it's part of the bit, and I can't
Speaker 1: quit a good bit.
Speaker 3: That's how I rolled.
Speaker 6: It was good enough for the NBA playoffs like eleven
Speaker 6: years ago.
Speaker 1: That's what ruined it for me watching pit Bull every night. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's okay, still making it worse. That's called your compounding
Speaker 1: the issue. Having to watch playoff basketball every night and
Speaker 1: here Pitbull playoffs.
Speaker 3: Oh, it ruined it. It ruined it for me. Where
Speaker 3: are you are you in Los Angeles?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I'm in Los Angeles?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So which media member will complain the most if they
Speaker 1: have to travel between Indianapolis and Oklahoma City?
Speaker 6: No question, absolutely, Amino Hassen like that is a guarantee.
Speaker 6: That is a minus ten thousand at the books, if
Speaker 6: if it's even on the books.
Speaker 3: Is he a big city snob? Is mean a big
Speaker 3: city snob?
Speaker 2: Guy?
Speaker 6: Absolutely like the biggest city snob there is.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, I did see some Instagram video. He was
Speaker 1: mad at you for something on Instagram, wasn't he?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was out at dinner and he called me. Well,
Speaker 6: he was in Minneapolis because sometime last year he went
Speaker 6: to Minneapolis. He went to get a late night slice
Speaker 6: of cheese pizza because he just only eats cheese pizza.
Speaker 6: He went to the wrong place and then said that
Speaker 6: all of Minneapolis food is bad, even though it's got
Speaker 6: some of the best restaurants in the country. And I said,
Speaker 6: that's wrong. Plus, you went to the wrong pizza place.
Speaker 6: So then he called me to get me to give.
Speaker 5: Him the right place. But I was at dinner, like
Speaker 5: I was, I was out with someone.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not going to answer the phone. That's crazy.
Speaker 3: That's on him cheese pizza? What is he twelve?
Speaker 5: Exactly?
Speaker 6: That?
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, we love him and that's our guy.
Speaker 1: I did not realize he was such a snob, all right,
Speaker 1: let's start out west. And you know, look, man, you
Speaker 1: and I have talked all year long, and Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: is eighty and eighteen. They're twenty nine and one against
Speaker 1: the East. Minnesota is good and they undressed them. I mean,
Speaker 1: is this is this just is this something that feels
Speaker 1: like it's been inevitable for a while and now we're
Speaker 1: just seeing the proof in front of us.
Speaker 6: No, I don't think it's been inevitable. Like I think
Speaker 6: they've I think they've learned. I think that they've gotten better.
Speaker 6: I think they even they've learned in this season of dominance.
Speaker 6: Like I mean, this wasn't something that was just definite,
Speaker 6: Like they went to game seven against against Denver, right like,
Speaker 6: this is something that was like they won handling game seven,
Speaker 6: but that wasn't something that was a definite and that
Speaker 6: was not a good Denver team, right Like that Denver
Speaker 6: team was not good, but they had the best player
Speaker 6: in the world, or they had.
Speaker 2: The best player in the world.
Speaker 6: So like there were still some things here and there
Speaker 6: that they needed to prove. But I think they've learned
Speaker 6: along the way. I think they've grown up in this
Speaker 6: in this playoff experience. And I think they're poised to
Speaker 6: be whoever comes out of the East. But no, like
Speaker 6: I think that, you know, we always get into this
Speaker 6: thing of you know, as not you and me, but
Speaker 6: like as a as a collective talking head of like this,
Speaker 6: you know, oh everyone doubtedn't look and we never considered
Speaker 6: the idea of this actually progressively got better during the
Speaker 6: journey or during the campaign or whatever. And that's what
Speaker 6: I think happened. Like, yes, they were winning games in
Speaker 6: the regular season, so with Cleveland, look what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that's that's really fair. And certainly Shay has
Speaker 1: been Shay for a while now. It's it's it's the
Speaker 1: Jalen stuff that I think changes them because he's just
Speaker 1: so ready as their number two, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And he was bad against against Denver until Game seven. Yeah,
Speaker 6: Like he was really bad offensively. I should say he
Speaker 6: was great defensively, but he was really bad offensively. Couldn't
Speaker 6: hit a shot shot like thirty five or thirty seven
Speaker 6: percent in that series. And then he was a monster
Speaker 6: against Minnesota against good defenders like that. You're like, you're right,
Speaker 6: that Minnesota team's really good. And people overreacting that saying, oh,
Speaker 6: this is the same thing as last year. It's not
Speaker 6: the same thing as last year. That's a good team
Speaker 6: that just got undressed by the best team. And I
Speaker 6: don't think there's any any shame in that. And Jalen
Speaker 6: Williams was, I mean man like. It seemed like anytime
Speaker 6: a player turned their head away from him, he stole
Speaker 6: the ball from them, Like, I don't like you look
Speaker 6: at the stat sheet for that series. I don't know
Speaker 6: how it doesn't say he is thirty steals. It seemed
Speaker 6: like he took the ball from everybody constantly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I'm gonna give our die Gordy
Speaker 1: chiasis and credit. During our draft and night coverage a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, he brought up Case and Wallace quick.
Speaker 1: He's like, watch out for this kid. And you know
Speaker 1: what's wild, Zach When Dagnall sits Hartenstein Hardenstein and puts
Speaker 1: a chat at five and you've got Dort, Shay, Jalen
Speaker 1: and then either Caruso or Case and Wallace. Perimeter players
Speaker 1: have no prayer, they have no shot. Like everybody wants
Speaker 1: to knock on ant, but when every one of your
Speaker 1: dribble handoff actions or pick and roll ball screen actions
Speaker 1: lead to you being handed off between Lou Dort and
Speaker 1: Alex Caruso and Shay.
Speaker 3: You cannot you can't go with Shay.
Speaker 1: I mean he's not Dort necessarily, and Jalen's legitimate like
Speaker 1: all NBA defensive type player as well. Like when they
Speaker 1: go with that, we used to call the Golden State
Speaker 1: line up the death lineup. You know, with Draymond of
Speaker 1: the center, it feels similar like there's no space for
Speaker 1: anybody on pimeter. So for all the heat Ant has
Speaker 1: been taking, to me, it's much more about who Okase
Speaker 1: is and has been than who Ant is currently.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Ant could have played better, he could have done,
Speaker 6: but you look at like the video of what was
Speaker 6: what was there on the court for him?
Speaker 2: I mean, where was he supposed to go?
Speaker 6: There was no room, like there was nothing like, Okay,
Speaker 6: he could I guess space jamut and just jump over
Speaker 6: everybody from forty feet away. But I mean they they
Speaker 6: just schemed it really well and with the personnel that
Speaker 6: the Wolves had. I mean, if you think about this,
Speaker 6: Tim Connelly built that team to beat the Denver Nuggets
Speaker 6: and they did like it worked, and then a year later,
Speaker 6: here's the thunder that that's just at you know, at
Speaker 6: a historic place. And now they've got to figure out Okay,
Speaker 6: now we got to retool this team. But yeah, like
Speaker 6: I thought Ant played well, he didn't play. He didn't
Speaker 6: you know, play to the best that you would want
Speaker 6: him to. Also, he's twenty three, Like what do we
Speaker 6: do here?
Speaker 5: Like he's twenty three?
Speaker 6: Like I just I think this is just the Internet
Speaker 6: being the Internet, and you got to find a way
Speaker 6: to kill a team instead of instead of just acknowledging
Speaker 6: like the best team.
Speaker 5: One in a way that they probably should have won.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: In some of the revisionist history stuff you hear with
Speaker 1: the coverts, it's like, well, Jordan would have found a
Speaker 1: way to take every shot. And it's like, no, Jordan
Speaker 1: actually never won until he decided he wanted to be
Speaker 1: a teammate, until he actually had good players around him.
Speaker 1: You know, I can one of my earliest basketball memories.
Speaker 1: This will age me, but watching Jordan score sixty three
Speaker 1: at Boston Garden on TV, like that was an insane performance.
Speaker 3: Guess what happened? They lost to the Celtics.
Speaker 1: Like the whole thing, like right right, like the whole
Speaker 1: thing about Aunt should do what Jordan did, and Jordan
Speaker 1: would just take every big shot. No, Like, Jordan started
Speaker 1: winning championships when he became a more willing teammate and
Speaker 1: became more of a willing defender. I thought aunt when
Speaker 1: he said after I think it was Game four, Like
Speaker 1: I made all the right plays. Maybe not all of them,
Speaker 1: but more often than not, he was making the right
Speaker 1: It's like the way that we knock on some of
Speaker 1: these players that are generational just gets so exhausting.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, look, if you just break it down,
Speaker 6: I like, I completely agree with you, and you break
Speaker 6: it down. The Minnesota Timberwolves, the same Minnesota Timberwolves we've
Speaker 6: known for the last thirty plus years, were just in
Speaker 6: back to back Western Conference finals because of that guy.
Speaker 6: And he's twenty three years old. Like he's going he's
Speaker 6: going to get better. You look at like him versus Shay,
Speaker 6: she's three and a half years older than him, Like
Speaker 6: shehase would be better than him, right, Like they're just
Speaker 6: you got to give give him time for growth. He
Speaker 6: has gotten to a certain level. He probably has another
Speaker 6: couple of levels he can get to. But I mean, man, like,
Speaker 6: he's made the Timberwolves relevant in a way that isn't
Speaker 6: a joke, And I just I don't think people remember all,
Speaker 6: like not all that long ago, like literally, like until two.
Speaker 7: Years ago, this was one of the biggest jokes in
Speaker 7: sports history as a franchise.
Speaker 1: All right, So, uh, before we to the potential matchup,
Speaker 1: let's move out east, and you know, we've had a
Speaker 1: couple of NBA guys on today, So I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: you kind of a similar type question. I mean, like
Speaker 1: if you were on vacation and you came back and
Speaker 1: you hadn't had a chance to watch any of the
Speaker 1: Knicks Pacers series and you watched last night, you'd be like,
Speaker 1: how is it even close?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Ultimately, it was the first game, at least from my prism,
Speaker 1: that the Knicks actually tried to guard with intent and
Speaker 1: purpose on the perimeter, like for all the Nie Smith
Speaker 1: Game one stuff like those were walking practice shots. Do
Speaker 1: respect to Nie Smith. He knocked him down, but he
Speaker 1: was not under a lot of pressure. Halliburton was awesome
Speaker 1: last game, but he had so much space, and the
Speaker 1: Knicks this game made a very concerted effort to make
Speaker 1: sure Halliburton could not get off early and they actually
Speaker 1: did close out on shooters. So We can talk Cat,
Speaker 1: we can talk Jalen, but those guys score no matter what.
Speaker 1: It's the defense that's been the issue. Can the Knicks
Speaker 1: keep it up as far as what you saw them,
Speaker 1: you know, be able to do last night defensively with
Speaker 1: concerted effort.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think the concern I have is that, look,
Speaker 6: everything looks a lot better at home, right, And I
Speaker 6: get it, like they lost the first two games at home,
Speaker 6: but with your back against the wall, Game five, down
Speaker 6: three to one, you know, home teams are I think
Speaker 6: what was the stat I saw from the ringer was
Speaker 6: like home teams down three to one in game five
Speaker 6: or like thirty two and twelve or something like that, right,
Speaker 6: Like they usually win those games. And there was a
Speaker 6: point like I don't want to take away from what
Speaker 6: the Knicks did, So this is kind of a tough statement,
Speaker 6: but there was a point where I wonder, I was,
Speaker 6: like the Pacers really come out there thinking like we're
Speaker 6: gonna win this game? Or do they? Or was it
Speaker 6: that classic like all right, we'll see, Oh the Knicks
Speaker 6: really want to play tonight. Well, we got game six
Speaker 6: on Saturday at home. You know, like I couldn't really
Speaker 6: tell what their what their focus level was. And so
Speaker 6: I do think the Knicks had a great game plan.
Speaker 6: I think they maybe can replicate that game plan defensively,
Speaker 6: but I also expect Rick Carlisle to make adjustments. It's
Speaker 6: it is a novel idea to not just allow the
Speaker 6: opposing team to walk into the jumpers like it. I mean,
Speaker 6: there was a moment in game four when Haliburton's having
Speaker 6: that transcendent game where Jalen Brunson like just walked away
Speaker 6: from him and he and he just like Halibert just
Speaker 6: stepped into a twenty five foot three pointer and like,
Speaker 6: we know he can hit that, and he knocked it
Speaker 6: down cold, and I like, you just you can't give
Speaker 6: these guys space, Like the NBA players are too good
Speaker 6: at shooting at this point, you can't.
Speaker 2: You can't give them space.
Speaker 6: I didn't think that the Pacers had the same, you know,
Speaker 6: the same relentlessness offensively of getting into the paint. Maybe
Speaker 6: some of that was the defense, Maybe some of that
Speaker 6: was apathy, Maybe some of that was just you know,
Speaker 6: I will get him on Saturday. I don't really know
Speaker 6: how to how to judge that from an outside looking in,
Speaker 6: but the you know, the Knicks did what they need
Speaker 6: to do. I just I don't know if they can
Speaker 6: easily get that same kind of result, not even just
Speaker 6: from a score standpoint, but from just a defensive execution
Speaker 6: standpoint when they're on the road Saturday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, the good news is now we
Speaker 1: know that Tom Thibodau does watch tape and it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: campaign isn't very good at this, So you know, like,
Speaker 1: thank goodness that those minutes are going to Delon, who
Speaker 1: can at least guard now offensively. It's a little weird
Speaker 1: because Delon was a ute and he was a really good,
Speaker 1: like ball in hand offensive initiator. It doesn't look very
Speaker 1: confident with the ball in his hand on offense, but
Speaker 1: he has given them good defensive minutes. Landry Shammit's played
Speaker 1: pretty well and at least he's trying. But the problem
Speaker 1: is Rick has been playing eleven players all year and
Speaker 1: Tom's just starting to do it now.
Speaker 3: But what are your.
Speaker 1: Thoughts on Tom Thibodau at least actually trying to extend
Speaker 1: minutes to the bench so his starters don't die in
Speaker 1: the fourth.
Speaker 6: I mean, there's there's a moment in the movie Face
Speaker 6: Off where John Travolta, who's actually Nicholas Cage. You know,
Speaker 6: they're surprised at what his character is doing, and he goes, well,
Speaker 6: you know what they say in all SLS fresh tactics
Speaker 6: like that seems to be Tom Sibodol. I think someone
Speaker 6: is actually a different person inside of his inside of
Speaker 6: his body right now. I don't think it's actually him.
Speaker 6: I don't think Landry Shammitt is the answer.
Speaker 5: I don't like.
Speaker 6: I don't think that's gonna go well in game six.
Speaker 6: I do like Duce McBride. I think he's I think
Speaker 6: he's kind of fearless. I think he's a good a
Speaker 6: good bench option. I love Delan right off the bench,
Speaker 6: like he's just solid right, he's gonna guard, he's gonna
Speaker 6: run the offense. He's not much of a scorer, but
Speaker 6: I just I think he's I think he's much a
Speaker 6: much better option than than Campaign. I, you know, would
Speaker 6: maybe throw a show out there a little bit and
Speaker 6: just see if him give you five minutes. But they
Speaker 6: don't need a lot, right, They don't need a lot
Speaker 6: with these bench guys. They just need a little bit
Speaker 6: of competency and just so didn't get their guys a
Speaker 6: little bit extra rest. But with the way you know
Speaker 6: Indiana is going to turn up the tempo on on
Speaker 6: Saturday tomorrow. I just meant like Stibbo's gotta get into it.
Speaker 6: He's got to get into his bench a little bit more.
Speaker 1: So, what's the lean. I've said this earlier, and this
Speaker 1: is how I truly feel. Any of the three scenarios
Speaker 1: left I can actually see happening. I can see Indiana
Speaker 1: winning Saturday. I can see the Knicks winning Saturday and
Speaker 1: then losing Game seven. And I could even see the
Speaker 1: next winning Saturday and winning Game seven. I really don't
Speaker 1: have a lean. Every time I feel like I have
Speaker 1: a pulse on how this is gonna go, I'm proven wrong.
Speaker 3: Are you leaning one way or the other?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I do think Indiana closes out. I think they've proven
Speaker 6: to be a more focused team in terms of knowing
Speaker 6: what their identity is and knowing what they should do.
Speaker 6: And it's not a knock on the Knicks. I just
Speaker 6: think the Knicks have gotten sucked into like what Indiana
Speaker 6: wants to do the next of a couple of games
Speaker 6: in the series. You know, we saw it at the
Speaker 6: end of regulation in Game one, where they got tricked
Speaker 6: into running with Indiana instead of slowing things down. We
Speaker 6: saw it in Game four for sure, where they were
Speaker 6: just running with Indiana for no reason. I'm just like,
Speaker 6: just slow it down, run some pick and roll, like,
Speaker 6: grind out some of these possessions. And the thing that
Speaker 6: bothers me about the Knicks offense, they're hitting shots like.
Speaker 6: You can look at their offensive numbers and they look
Speaker 6: they look good. So it you know, you can look
Speaker 6: at the results and it's fine as much, you know,
Speaker 6: as Boogian will attest to right now, but you like
Speaker 6: you you look at that and you be like, oh,
Speaker 6: what's the problem. But doesn't that seem like every bucket
Speaker 6: they get a side, you know, game five aside one,
Speaker 6: Games one through four, every bucket they're just working so
Speaker 6: hard to get each basket and then on the other end,
Speaker 6: Indiana is just getting easy buckets. Like That's the thing
Speaker 6: that worries me about the Knicks offense is they have
Speaker 6: to work so hard for every shot and that's just
Speaker 6: not the case for Indiana. And when you go on
Speaker 6: the road for Game six, it just can't be that
Speaker 6: for forty eight minutes.
Speaker 1: If the Knicks lose on Saturday, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the wildest stats, and this is prior to last night,
Speaker 1: so I don't have it updated, But prior to last night,
Speaker 1: Jalen Bronson had one assist to Cat all series long. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like they don't play well together offensively. I mean you
Speaker 1: can get into some of the pick and roll stuff
Speaker 1: and Kat you know, comhoot it from three and Jalen
Speaker 1: such a bold and then sometimes when Jalen does have
Speaker 1: his has his head down all the time, like he's
Speaker 1: so good at it, you let him do it. But
Speaker 1: at times it is at the expense of the other
Speaker 1: players offensively, which is why the plus minus stuff and
Speaker 1: gets so murky. So I mean, look, when you look
Speaker 1: at their books, the core kind of is in place
Speaker 1: unless they want to do something drastic. Maybe you look
Speaker 1: at the head coach. I don't know, I mean, Dolan'
Speaker 1: such a wild card. If the Knicks lose tomorrow night,
Speaker 1: there's part of me that believes, because they beat Boston
Speaker 1: and nobody thought they would, they might be a little
Speaker 1: bit ahead of schedule because they were kind of built
Speaker 1: with the idea that Boston was gonna have to break
Speaker 1: it down this summer.
Speaker 3: So there's part of me the beliefs.
Speaker 1: Okay, you run it back your head of schedule, But
Speaker 1: then there's part of me that believes there's enough data
Speaker 1: indicates that maybe this group doesn't necessarily work to the
Speaker 1: point where you can win the thing. What's the offseason
Speaker 1: look like in New York if they lose on Saturday.
Speaker 6: I mean, the thing is that the East, who knows, right,
Speaker 6: like Cleveland doesn't look ready, as we talked about before,
Speaker 6: Like Cleveland looks, you know, kind of mentally weak. Indiana
Speaker 6: is really good, Orlando and Detroit are coming, Milwaukee good
Speaker 6: luck with this whole situation, and who knows if they
Speaker 6: even you know, maybe they deal with Giannis and then
Speaker 6: that's that's out of the question. Boston, you know, Tatum's
Speaker 6: probably out for the year. Next year, you know, it
Speaker 6: does leave them. It's just kind of like, well, it
Speaker 6: might just be you in Indiana next season, right to
Speaker 6: see who can win the East. Now that maybe someone
Speaker 6: comes along and surprise them, but it is.
Speaker 5: Set up for them.
Speaker 6: At the same time, it's James Dolan, like you're asking
Speaker 6: him to be competent and reasonable. And that's the thing
Speaker 6: I look at is like, you know, I had heard
Speaker 6: towards the end of the season. If Tom Ziboo, you know,
Speaker 6: if they don't get to the conference finals or or deeper,
Speaker 6: you know, he's gonna get fired. And I didn't know
Speaker 6: what to make of that. You know. Some of it
Speaker 6: was was people like, yeah, that's true, and somebody like, no,
Speaker 6: that's not true. That's that's dramatic. Right, So they get
Speaker 6: to the Commons files, you think he's safe. Yeah, But
Speaker 6: if James Dolans seas and gets to the Commons Finals
Speaker 6: and then lose to a Pacers team that he doesn't
Speaker 6: think is good is as good as them, which is
Speaker 6: very possible. Now, and you know this is me guessing,
Speaker 6: but I'm trying to put my brain in, you know,
Speaker 6: with James Dolans right now, Like, would it shock you
Speaker 6: if he if he used that against Tom? Finlin just said,
Speaker 6: all right enough enough, let me go get me Michael Malone.
Speaker 6: He's from New York. You know, he's repped by CIA.
Speaker 6: That works for me. Like, I just think that all
Speaker 6: this stuff, like you can't predict that. Now, if they
Speaker 6: do keep them, and they do look at this and say, hey,
Speaker 6: we're right there, then you're trying to you know, use
Speaker 6: all of this momentum and the openness of the East
Speaker 6: and everything and the gliss and glamour of New York
Speaker 6: and being a Nick and all that to hopefully bring
Speaker 6: in some bargains. You know, you've got some relief with
Speaker 6: the contract extension that Jalen Brunson's signe like, there are
Speaker 6: some ways to hopefully still out the roster. But then
Speaker 6: you got to hope that you know, Tom plays them
Speaker 6: next year.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I don't know, Like I think that's another conversation between
Speaker 6: Tom Tibodeau in the front office that he may be
Speaker 6: sick of having.
Speaker 1: At this point, do either of the Knicks or the
Speaker 1: Pacers even make it interesting in the NBA Finals?
Speaker 6: I think Indiana can. I think that their style of play,
Speaker 6: the way that they don't really turn the ball over
Speaker 6: of I mean Game five aside, they turned the ball
Speaker 6: over Ton last night, but you know, they don't really
Speaker 6: turn the ball over there there. They've got an interesting style,
Speaker 6: They're deep, Halliburton's amazing. I think that they can make
Speaker 6: it interesting. I think they can maybe even push it
Speaker 6: to six. Everything breaks right, but man, I mean the
Speaker 6: thunder just they're gonna they're gonna beat.
Speaker 2: Both these teams.
Speaker 3: Does lowry marketing start for okac Oh. He doesn't.
Speaker 2: That's gonna be tough if he's on the Kings.
Speaker 6: I don't know why. I feel like you're gonna be
Speaker 6: on the Kings. Just feels like the King's Kings situation.
Speaker 3: He doesn't start for them is when it comes.
Speaker 2: Down, he would know, he would you know, do you
Speaker 2: start for them? Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, before I say you lose, we will do
Speaker 1: just a little jazz because you were doing radio in
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City, you do a lot of draft stuff.
Speaker 1: Just curious best case scenario at five in your opinion
Speaker 1: for the Jazz to walk away from in the draft
Speaker 1: come up in a few weeks.
Speaker 6: I think Tredy Johnson. I think if Trade Johnson falls
Speaker 6: to five, that's that's huge. Like he's a monster scorer,
Speaker 6: he's a really good guard. I think he's you know,
Speaker 6: he has some things that that you need to iron
Speaker 6: out with him, but he just doesn't like he doesn't
Speaker 6: turn the ball over. He can really shoot, he can
Speaker 6: really score. He's a good free throw shooter. Like I,
Speaker 6: you know, you need to change some things with shot
Speaker 6: selection and everything. But I just think that I that's
Speaker 6: a guy that could average twenty five twenty seven points
Speaker 6: a game at his peak. Like I just I think
Speaker 6: he's a He's a monster, and there's a certain point
Speaker 6: where you just you need guys who can go efficiently
Speaker 6: get buckets, and I think he's gonna be that. Anyone
Speaker 6: else there, I don't know that it's a it's a
Speaker 6: real good fit for them. Maybe if Edgecombe fell to five,
Speaker 6: that could be fun. I do think he has good potential.
Speaker 6: Tho I'm not completely sold. If Ace Bailey fell, all right,
Speaker 6: if you believe in your development, that could be good.
Speaker 6: I've talked to some people that aren't as low on him,
Speaker 6: even after last season, but I think Trey Johnson is
Speaker 6: the guy.
Speaker 3: So Chris Finch and we'll set you loose after this.
Speaker 1: Chris Finch after the Minnesota loss said something that made
Speaker 1: my ears per cup. He said there are thirteen teams
Speaker 1: in the West next year that will be fighting for
Speaker 1: home court. I'm like, oh, all right, well, I guess
Speaker 1: the secrets out. Everybody knows clearly he left out the
Speaker 1: Jazz and probably the Blazers would be my guest.
Speaker 3: Those are the other two teams.
Speaker 1: And then you add on to the fact Zach that
Speaker 1: they have a top eight protected pick that goes to
Speaker 1: you guessed it, Oklahoma City next year. All of the
Speaker 1: signs are pointing to just another atrocious season where they're
Speaker 1: unserious about competition.
Speaker 6: Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. I mean, and you know,
Speaker 6: there's some really good players at the top of next
Speaker 6: year's drafts. So you play the game again, you roll
Speaker 6: the dice, you go back to the crafts table, and
Speaker 6: you just you hope that you hope that you got it.
Speaker 6: You get a long roll and you make some money.
Speaker 6: Like that's what it is, right, Like that's it's not
Speaker 6: just we did it for one draft. We you know,
Speaker 6: and it works like it is part of trust, the
Speaker 6: process and all that stuff, Like you got to do
Speaker 6: it for a couple of these when when it's worth it.
Speaker 6: So it was bad that they didn't do it for Wemby.
Speaker 6: It was fine that they didn't do it for you know,
Speaker 6: the Alex Sar draft, and you know, they tried it
Speaker 6: for this draft and it didn't work out. But there's
Speaker 6: some talent at the top of next year's draft that
Speaker 6: is worth doing it again. After that, man, you got
Speaker 6: to show some progress, especially if you're not really discounting
Speaker 6: these tickets, which I'm sure is not part of the
Speaker 6: business plan.
Speaker 3: It very much is not. All right, Zach, appreciate the time.
Speaker 6: Man, have a good weekend, all right, yelling timber buddy.
Speaker 1: Okay, Zach Harper from the Athletic I always appreciate his time.
Speaker 1: You can follow him on social media at talk Hoops
Speaker 1: is where you find him. All right, happen up the program,
Speaker 1: Final segment of the day, Final segment of the week.
Speaker 1: We've had a really fun week, short week. We had
Speaker 1: Monday off from Memorial Day. Hopefully you did two. Happy
Speaker 1: Friday to you, Happy weekend to you. Good job gang,
Speaker 1: you did it, showed up every day this week, did the.
Speaker 3: Things You've earned. Some time off. Should be a beautiful,
Speaker 3: warm weekend.
Speaker 1: So get elevated, pike, bike, golf, whatever you do, walk
Speaker 1: the dog, enjoy the fact that we have this beautiful
Speaker 1: playground at our disposal, living in Salt Lake.
Speaker 3: So there we go, Hi Porter, how are you?
Speaker 1: We have not really even discussed much of anything with
Speaker 1: you all day as a result of our technical difficulties.
Speaker 3: Our hair was kind of on fire today. It happens.
Speaker 8: It happened. Sometimes I just press the buttons and that's okay.
Speaker 3: Well, you're very good at that. Sometimes you're a lead
Speaker 3: at it quite frankly to switch the butcher.
Speaker 8: Sometimes they switch the buttons.
Speaker 2: Up on me though.
Speaker 1: Well when that happens, we all lose when that happens,
Speaker 1: as we've learned on the show. But I think we're
Speaker 1: used to the new system after you know, some rough days,
Speaker 1: becoming accustomed to it.
Speaker 3: I think that's fair to say.
Speaker 8: I think so, I think so. And yeah, here's the deal.
Speaker 8: When you do live radio, there's always something something that
Speaker 8: could come up. You could do everything right and a
Speaker 8: mouse could chew through a court or something. So that's
Speaker 8: that's how it would be. We still did some sports radio. Hey,
Speaker 8: we may have had the best NBA guest lineup in
Speaker 8: the country.
Speaker 1: Today, So look, you know, not to brag, but there
Speaker 1: are very few radio shows anywhere that would have Howard Beck,
Speaker 1: Tony Jones, Dave mcmannimon, and Zach Harper on it on
Speaker 1: the same day.
Speaker 8: Am Paul Polkmyer.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Pugs, but that was a golf guest today.
Speaker 3: But we love our die. Paul.
Speaker 1: Give me a hot take on what you saw last night.
Speaker 1: Like again, I will lean into one thing you finally guarded. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for all of this stuff about Nie Smith Game one,
Speaker 1: Halliburton triple double, Lake, too much space on the perimeter,
Speaker 1: and the Knicks actually took a little bit of that
Speaker 1: away last night.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean it was a I think a solid
Speaker 8: performance for the Knicks for the first time this series,
Speaker 8: even the games spends that they won. I just I
Speaker 8: didn't feel like they put together a great forty eight
Speaker 8: minut You mentioned it. I've talked about it a lot
Speaker 8: through the series. The Karl Anthony Towns forgetting he's playing
Speaker 8: for a minute, the Ananobee, who is a great defender
Speaker 8: kind of just forgetting he's on defense for moments during
Speaker 8: the series. Jalen Brunson has been more sloppy with the
Speaker 8: ball in hand than I can remember him being at
Speaker 8: any time during even the regular season.
Speaker 5: Like that.
Speaker 8: There has been like a more las II fair look
Speaker 8: to the Knicks during the Eastern Conference Finals than I
Speaker 8: ever thought I would have seen. But last night they
Speaker 8: flipped the script. They changed that. They looked sharp, and
Speaker 8: that's the only way they're gonna win. There's not the
Speaker 8: because of what you did in the first couple of games,
Speaker 8: especially because of what you did in Game one. There's
Speaker 8: no more cushion for air, there's no more room for error.
Speaker 8: You got to put forty eight minutes together, and then
Speaker 8: you got to do it again in game seven.
Speaker 1: Well, and you know, growing up you played basketball, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure I certainly did. When you played rec ball
Speaker 1: or junior jazz ball. Growing up, there was always a
Speaker 1: player too on your team that their parents forced them
Speaker 1: to play basketball.
Speaker 3: They want them to make friends.
Speaker 1: And so there's always a couple of guys on your
Speaker 1: team that just don't know how to play. And sometimes
Speaker 1: Josh Hart makes passes that reminds me of my friend Taylor.
Speaker 3: Shout out Taylor, who.
Speaker 1: Was like forced to play on our team but didn't
Speaker 1: know how to play and would like throw it to
Speaker 1: the other team. I love Josh Hart, but some of
Speaker 1: his decision making is so stupid and like mind numbing.
Speaker 3: Take care of the ball, man.
Speaker 8: I come from a small town, so it was like
Speaker 8: a lot of the guys were just like farm boys.
Speaker 3: Who name one you know, no, I know one is
Speaker 3: coming to mind.
Speaker 8: I'll actually say this because he's he wouldn't be offended
Speaker 8: by it. But my buddy Porter Hancock, who's we share
Speaker 8: that we share the first name. Obviously, when we were young.
Speaker 8: He played basketball just to like work out, just to
Speaker 8: be there, and we would be like, hey, go foule
Speaker 8: that guy, Go foul this guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was his role.
Speaker 8: And living in Farmville, there's plenty of wrestlers. There's plenty
Speaker 8: of those types of guys that end up playing basketball
Speaker 8: with you. And yeah, Josh Hart because he is like
Speaker 8: such an energizer. A you see an offensive rebound, like
Speaker 8: a high bounce offensive rebound, and Josh Hart is going
Speaker 8: to like put his body on the line, right, And
Speaker 8: I love that about him, but it makes him play
Speaker 8: at a speed sometimes that he gets out in front
Speaker 8: of his skis is the term you use here, right,
Speaker 8: His action is operating a little quicker than the basketball IQ.
Speaker 8: And that's to give a take you have with players
Speaker 8: like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love Josh Hart, But between Josh's my
Speaker 1: numbing passes in Cats like brain farts on defense where
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna grab a guy and commit a foul.
Speaker 3: You already have four fouls, dude, we need you on
Speaker 3: the floor.
Speaker 1: Those two dynamics of the Knicks are driving me bonkers
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that one really when Kat just reached out and
Speaker 8: grabbed like we were he's holding in football. I don't
Speaker 8: even know what to do with those, but that dynamic
Speaker 8: and then I know, Tibbs always just makes me a
Speaker 8: little weary when it comes to the lineup stuff, and
Speaker 8: that's kind of been the entire mo of this postseason.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1: All right, Porter, on Monday, are we previewing a Game seven?
Speaker 1: Or are we previewing the NBA Finals? I think we're
Speaker 1: previewing a Game seven. Okay, I think I like it.
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope too. Yeah, the game seven's rule.
Speaker 1: It's not just because the NIXT stuff. I also just
Speaker 1: would love to see Game seven in the conference finals.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get our weekend started. Porter, what comes
Speaker 1: our way in a Monday edition of the program.
Speaker 8: Well, hopefully we'll also be recapping three points from RSL.
Speaker 3: Indeed, probably not, but hopefully.
Speaker 8: Hopefully recapping or looking ahead to a Game seven with
Speaker 8: Tom Haberstrow, Richard Smithy Smith in studio for an entire hour,
Speaker 8: and then our monthly ish catch up, a little offseason chat,
Speaker 8: maybe a little soccer with one Kyle Bonegura of ESPN.
Speaker 3: All Right, there we go.
Speaker 1: That'll be a fun Monday show. And with that we'll
Speaker 1: say goodnight for a Friday edition of the program. Special
Speaker 1: thank you today to Tony Jones, Howard Beck, Paul Pogmyer,
Speaker 1: Dave Mcmanhamon and Zach Harper. That's a lot of good stuff.
Speaker 1: If you missed any of it, go to the website.
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Speaker 1: you want to listen to on your time.
Speaker 3: It's called The Drive with Spence. Check its.
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