Is the Thunder’s Rep Just Bait? Plus, Who Earned Their Knick-for-Life Stripes? | Group Chat

Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Vary and joining me on this lovely Wednesday afternoon. It's Ramon, Jay Kyle, man. How's it going, fellas? It's here just looks terrible on you and enthusiasm. I don't know. We were trying to talk about what we're going to talk about at the top, and we settled on Weather Talk, but Rob was not a fan. We did not settle on Weather Talk. If you're out there listening to this, I try to protect you. I try to say, you know what, we need something to actually discuss, but Justin, you thought we could fly by the seat of our pants, our collective pants. It's like the old like, whenever you do a weather lead to your story, you know, it's gotten really bad. So it's like, it's cold and damp in San Antonio, but it's nice and hot, and the discourse is piping over here on Group Chat. For what it's worth, I do prefer the, it's cold in damp in San Antonio to the like, Timothy Shalumay pushed around the lettuce in his salad over this brokered interview at this stylish restaurant, like at least it's a scene of a scene of a different kind. Yeah. Miles Teller, what a dick, because he only orders a sandwich. Yeah. Really gets you in the, and gets you in the moment, the real description of the, are you talking about like rolling stone type interviews where they're 35,000 feet above the ground with still water? It's the hottest band in America, and we're all about to die. See, this is how I know you're going to do. You just go, spike, almost famous off the dome. JV, did you have a take on the Miles Teller is a dick or is not a dick or is defensive of that being a dick discourse? I think he's probably a dick. Okay. And revealed himself too much. And that's what he's upset about, but I don't necessarily fault him for being upset that he had like a lunch with someone and they made like a pretty sweeping generalization about him as a person. So I can see it both ways. Isn't that the gig? Isn't that what you're signing up for to be generalized? Yeah. I guess so. But things just aren't going well for him in general. Isn't he in that Michael movie? He is with a very regrettable. Many people say that was a hit, a so cold hit. My man, I haven't seen it yet. I suspect it's not a hit. Yeah. One of those audience score things, speaking of which, Mando Grogu, saw that. Another one of those audience score. A lot of the revisit the movie talking thing had some had some chatters who are just giving me a little commentary. They're like, where'd he go? Oh, there he is. Like talking out loud like that during the movie. Anyway, yeah. Want to go to a break? Yeah. I feel like we should have done weather talk, but instead you got five minutes of a quick letterbox analysis. If that, even yeah, not even pithy enough for letterbox. All right. We're going to talk game six of one of the best series in recent history spurs thunder. We're also going to talk about the nicks, making the NBA finals. But first we're going to talk about flopping right after this. The ringer NBA shows brought to you by Fandall. The conference finals are here. Think you know how it'll go down. Take your shot with Fandall and get closer to the action. Fandall is the best place to bet the teams players and plays during the NBA postseason. Build the same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout or try live betting and jump into the action after tip off. Download the Fandall sportsbook app now and play your game. 21 plus select states 18 plus DC can tuck your Wyoming gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler, call 1-888-78977 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. So I get a text message from one of my cousins like every six months and it's always just like vaguely about NBA, what's going on there? It's like, so Kaz is not about to make it, huh? I was like, yeah, sure. Okay. I'm sure you guys get this a lot. It's probably the de facto sports guy in your families. The one recently was about like the thunder flopping and clearly like he may have watched maybe a game. It's just like man, these thunder guys flop a lot, right? And it was at that point I came to the realization perhaps the thunder's reputation, his broken containment not only passed like NBA just zealots on to just sports fans in general to this next layer, like kind of the mom test where it's like just anybody out there who has any interest in sports whatsoever. It feels like people are hop and mad Rob and it for a while it felt like a very small group of people now it feels just like everybody to the point where it's like this is the dominant. I would say storyline of the playoffs is not for just the thunder overall. Yeah, I mean, this is the flip side of the NBA escaping its regular season bubble. We talk all the time about like, oh, this is when you can make your name, you can become a different kind of star. I think Yannis was one of these cases for years where it was like very popular, very well known among basketball people and then all of us and he's on the final stage and he's on 60 minutes and it's just like exploding in a totally different way. But the same is true for the most negative things happening in the league or the most toxic discussions that are happening around the league. And so I am also getting those messages. I'm also getting like AI altered flopping videos in which people are now trying to debate and litigate the legality of what like computer generated Shakeyild or Salisander is doing. So we have we have the trainers left the station. We have left the planet. I don't even know what conversation we're having anymore, but it's clear that it's bigger and louder and in a lot of cases more annoying and totally new ways. There are pockets of the basketball internet that when they get mobilized, radicalized, well, they're already radicalized because of their belief system in this case. And one of them is like the real Hooper corner of the internet, which is basically comes down to how well guys create their own shots. And we've seen some of the most like incendiary versions of this where James Harden really is one of the guys. I mean, Kobe is one of the, you know, Rob, I know you hate Kobe. You'll probably want to weigh in on this since you don't think he was any good at all. But no, no, Shay has moved into this group. I think that's part of it. And then you get the other part of it where people just want to assume that basketball in the NBA just has terminal cancer in general. So you get the the anger of the purity of the game being just like screwed up. Like anything, they're a little nuggets of truth here and there, but I think it's kind of coming together in this just cocktail of this fizzling cocktail of fury that I think Shay just is in my experience, I think there are a lot of people who maybe wouldn't necessarily just be pure thunder fans objective down the middle. I like the thunder and I kind of go by, I think there are a lot of people who just kind of ratten, you know, latched on to this cause because Shay's the type of player that they get riled up about in general because he scores points, things like that. And then there's the other part of it, Rob, like you were saying like it's like any other subject that is troublesome in today. It's just AI is making it. It's crazy what they can do. I don't know. You just didn't might remember this in the turn, but there was a play where a dude ripped the ball away from a Florida player and it was a kind of an aggressive play and somebody used AI to make it look like he punched the guy and I watched it. I was like, oh my god. Like so that's just making it worse too. So yeah, I think there's a lot of stuff going on to make the the fire is burned pretty hot. Yeah, I think there are three tiers to this that we could talk through here and this is kind of like our big conversation we want to get into is like how much this is happening, like what is actually happening and how much it ends up mattering. I think it's like is the rep warranted for the thunder overall, not just Shay, but also for the thunder. I think too, it's like what the perception kind of means for the thunder for the league at large, et cetera. And three, I'm glad you guys mentioned this. It's like what is actually real? We're getting to the point where like I've seen multiple people, Tom Haberstrow. I think I even saw peanut the other day having to tell somebody that the step they cited in order to try to dunk on them was hallucinated because they found it just via Google search and that search had just pulled something that was not real. And so like that's a whole beastness, like business on top of business is like 30 beastness there that I don't know how to get out of there alive from. But we should start first and foremost about just in general. Yeah, the thunder as followers Rob, do you think like this is warranted? It is somewhat warranted. It is very funny that we are having this conversation now, though, because you know, Shay is at the center of this whole debate. He is in the spotlight as far as what he's willing to exaggerate to get a foul call. I actually thought Game 5 was like one of his most restrained games in a long time. And I went back and watched all of the fouls that he drew in that game. I would say there is like literally one that he actually got a call on that he aggressively sold. Most of them he wasn't even falling over the ones in which he was falling over. He was getting like very obviously fouled. So I'm not saying he's perfectly innocent. I'm saying this is a very funny time to be having this conversation. But we have it because the merits have been consistent enough. I think it really boils down to the double standard between the way that the thunder accentuate contact and the contact that they get away with defensively. It just whips people into a frenzy. And understandably, if you're a fan of an opposing team whose that team is trying to play against and win against the thunder, and you're seeing marginal contact called one way, and you're seeing Lou Dorr and Kason Wallace and Isaiah Hart and Stein be really aggressive with your team's best scores. Of course, you're going to feel away about that. Of course, you're going to be like a little bit furious about that. Yeah, I mean, I think the broader basketball audience is viewing this as a bug as something that needs to be fixed. And the thunder are seeing what's possible. They know the rulebook really well. They're seeing it as a feature that is something that this is the way the game's called. And as we've talked about on previous episodes, it goes on all over the place. Guys are getting hit. guys are big and strong and to it's and in a lot of situations it's not that they didn't get hit it's just that they want to get they want to sell the contact that they feel like happen. I mean the thunder a lot of times you know are very reach either very they create turnovers they want to do that they get in there and they've gone and found a lot of guys who have like really accurate hand-eye coordination on defense and they create those those turnovers and that's a big part of what they do but I think they're just kind of like I mean the really egregious one that the one where like Fox comes down next to Shay that one was going around the internet and I mean they like lost that game so I don't really know and it's it's just interesting to me because there are ones that you can cherry pick I feel like on both sides you know Wimby you know has gotten pretty good at this too. It's just a I think it's that's the that's the crux of it is that this is something that just kind of needs to be fixed and I don't know that it's going to make people any less mad about the thunder but I mean it's one of the more like charged subjects that I can even remember because I just let you the last game was was pretty egregious I just felt like that third quarter stretch where they were like five or so calls in a row that was more just the rest for screwing things up. Yeah. And I just I just like blindly tweeted out like I never tweet about the rest but didn't say anything and the responses were just ridiculous. I was it was like I was like you all don't even know what I'm talking about and it's amazing just how ready to be ravenous people are about this subject. Look at you vague posting and then getting mad that people jump to conclusions. You know you're really something Kyle man. Yeah. I do think that game. I don't know if it was a flashpoint because you're right this has been coming up time and time again and my impulse is often to acknowledge it but ultimately just kind of move along from it. I think when you do what we do referring feels just more just like context. I know it matters and it has a effect like depending on how someone refs a game on the ultimate outcome but it like I kind of describe it more to like weather and football where it's like if it's snowing it's going to affect the game. I have no control over that. What do you want me to talk about whether I just can't help himself. He's one step away from me. The old guy McDonald's looking at you when you walk in the front door. Man those pancakes are sick so that's actually not a bad outcome for my life. But this game did seem like those couple plays really set people off. I think just the non-challenge call was one thing although I went back and watched it again today like it didn't seem like you just straight the ref just straight up missed it. He was walking by him running by him but it just didn't seem like he acknowledged Mitch Johnson doing this. Then you have the other side of this where it's like maybe you have to call a timeout before you get the challenge. You literally do. I was going to say he was outside procedure. It's just I think people were mega they just shouldn't have had to be in a situation like that because of the obviousness. And how many times if you were to go back like how many times have coaches got away with just doing the challenge call as opposed to the the the the teet into the circle. It's sort of thing like so like I can see that seems like a pretty just blatant mistake. I think the fact that it was bracketed by the goal 10 call from case in Wallace one and the two just the visuals of Tony Brothers like pointing at his wrist to call the follow on door like he actually called the fall on door so it's not like he was getting him off but like they were had a real like interplay that he was a real like like cutesy sort of moment between them. I think only like added fuel to that far. Yeah. I thought GameFi was like pretty poorly officiated and Kyle you mentioned that third quarter especially. Oh really doctor. Yeah. Okay. Well no no but this is the thing it's like I thought it was poorly officiated but that's a different conversation than like oh okay see it's flopping for these calls like the things that went their way were primarily other borderline bad and missed calls. And so and yet even though that is true it still feeds into the fervor of this conversation like that is the stage that we've reached with all this where truth is kind of marginal it's all about the impressionistic outcome of these games and these events and right or wrong whatever you may feel as grounded or fair like fans are coming away from these games feeling like the thunder haven't unfair advantage given the way the game is being officiated and I think this has been my big takeaway from all of this stuff is like basketball fans have have a lot of latitude for great defenses to defend physically right if you're the bad boy pistons if you're the grit and grind grizzlies like they they like we people want to see physical assertive defense they just don't want to see it when that same team on the other side of the ball feels like it's getting away with something and this is where it's like all of the discourse about physicality and all the discourse that's been brewing for like 10 plus years about James Hardin and foul baiting and grifting and like you know bringing your arms up through the contact all of his coalescing to me around Shay and he is like such a fascinating nexus point for this conversation and a bunch of different ways for one is the ball in his hands a ton he drives more than almost anybody else in the sport and so even if you are playing 100% earnestly all the time in terms of negotiating contact he would still get a lot of free throws but he also moves so counterintuitively in a way that it's just like it looks odd when he does get bumped off his spot and then I think the most crucial part of this that really sets people off is he has weaponized the like arm bar pushoff in a way that almost no one else in the modern game has and so then it creates the space where he is allowed and offensive players around the league right now are allowed to just bludgeon defenders with that off arm and completely shove them away and then when they try to close the space to play actual defense Shay or the shooter or whoever else will fall or they'll get in their landing space and it'll be a fucking flagrant like it is an unnavigable balance that we're putting defensive players in right now and like that part has to change whatever you may think of all this so yeah I think it's Shay as patient zero you're right and the arm ball or thing seems to have been widespread I almost wonder if people saw Shay getting away with it and just kind of accelerated as we're almost I almost wonder where like we'll get to the offseason and people are talking about it as trying to legislate it out I think it's that but I also think it's being exposed to the rest of the team doing it and that the fact that it's more of a widespread thunder thing and I think like it also plays into their best traits whereas like you can see because of their meticulous culture and how dedicated they are to the finer details of things the more that's kind of become their perception their identity to the league at large they're kind of the nerds who get everything right but ultimately they get everything right and they're very good as a result of that you can see them being the team actually drilling this in and trying to get guys to do things so when chat does it it's like oh man you should be better than that or you see McCain nail someone in the face Harper I believe it was and then like try to draw a fall like a few seconds later it feels like it's a team wide thing and that's one part of it I also think like we don't know overall what to make of the thunder like I don't think that they have a very clear identity if you're a just casual sports fan I think they're a very good successful team I think Shay is a very good successful player obviously two-time MVP but they don't really inspire anything or there isn't like that like one quality you could latch onto Shay is a pretty dunkiness as we've talked about in the past superstar he's not like Anthony Edwards he's not like excitable he's not like there's not like a fiery thing that you're just like oh that's that guy and so I almost wonder if we're like searching around trying to find something what we found is that like their villains who try to get away with it you know where they're twisting their mustache is trying to just get over on everybody else and so I almost wonder if it's like we filled the space with something it just so happened to be something that just like really reflects poorly about them and then almost as a result the NBA because of how prominent they are yeah other than this what do you think the casual sports fan who is not tuning in for a turn of the regular NBA season like what do they actually know about the thunder what else would they latch on to in that space like Shay is like well kind of well-known but not mega well-known not like globally iconically well-known in the way that a LeBron or a Steph would be I mean I think there's probably a significant number of sports fans who like their greatest familiarity with the thunder is like what a pro once via commercials like otherwise like where if you know college basketball then you've seen some of these guys before maybe you have a general sense that they're very successful and certainly that they won the title but it is odd that for a team that's been this good already for this long that they don't have these like clear signifiers of identity that do transcend our kind of discourse around the league that's not just for people who are absolutely living and dying with this stuff every day but that might actually be translatable to a broader audience I think the spursy and thing that you hit on is pretty key because if you think about it the core of this like how they go about their business how they curate their people how they kind of circle the wagons and try to control they don't have a lot of high kind of drama guys granted the spurs over the years would mix in a Steven Jackson or whatever it was just to kind of have good teams but you know if you look at the way that the thunder hate all their business I think that that's there are a lot of parallels you know you mentioned Duncan and I think I think there's something to that in talking to just like what it is about them that like isn't super maybe marketable to the you know the broader audience the broader part of the world I mentioned how you know that there is like the real hooper sort of subscription to the way that she plays but I don't know that that is Jordan is like you know the all-time example of that you know Kobe emulated it and there was like a gracefulness and a flying around and above the rim kind of quality of the way he did a lot of that stuff that had kind of a there was there was a beauty and form thing that really appealed and was super marketable and honestly you know the most marketable athlete of all time but I think with Shay it's just they're not playing they play a smart brand of basketball they They play if you if you watch the class there were a lot of really pretty basketball sequences and if you lean in and look at the details of their execution stuff there's a lot of stuff that really appreciate that distracts that is distracted from by the foul stuff but I think that we talked a little bit about this that Shay's isolation style since it starts with him it stays with him for so long it's really depending on him creating his offense it's stuff like that I think at the heart of it maybe that is just a little harder to grasp on to you know it's just like it's not like a pop song that you can snap your finger to you know immediately yeah it's a little oblique in a way that maybe I think is harder and and he's really quiet I think that's the other part for sure when it back to the spurs part on that spurs front I do think it's been kind of lost at time that like in that moment I would say a spish especially like the mid to late 2000s the spurs had a rampant reputation of being floppers like Manu Genobli this was a huge part of the conversation this is super reminiscent super reminiscent and like it's all gotten kind of sanded down and I would say especially like the beautiful game version of the spurs that a lot of younger fans will be more familiar within the earlier models but like Bruce Bowen is very much of a piece with this version of the thunder right like incredibly intense physical defense and then like baiting and flopping and drawing charges the other way so it's like even Tim Duncan for as like revered and silent and kind of like professional as his reputation is now for a long time was like pleading his case Lucas style after every single call like this is who these guys were in the moment it's just yeah we lose some of that to history and they become this like again like very smoothed out iconic version of what the actual reality was and I wouldn't be surprised if some version of that happens with the thunder of her time too I think you're right that it's been sanded down because there was gigantic these fucking guys energy back then when it was like every year you're just like god they're still like they're how are they what you know they remember they were the they were the wet blanket on everybody's favorite you know thing everybody's favorite story of 2000 was at six or seven when the the you know this the Steve Nash spurs they knock them out it was just like God spurs you know I think there's just a lot of similarity there and I don't know that I don't really know if I've heard that talked about it on to be honest well I think that dovetails nicely with kind of where we are as a media culture to like I mean reference the other day about like the Clippers not the team the Clipper but like the social media Clippers and how it's like slowly taking over the world then there's that New York magazine piece and now I'm just at the point where it's just like our is Geese like a popular band do they actually exist are they AI like it really snowballed very quickly to I'm really questioning all right that's happening yeah you're you're told me when you brought that up you heading to already read the p that that story had been out no hadn't it was like a day or two before unless are you getting New York magazine to your to your place or something that maybe you're like ahead of the game it had already gone like a full round or two around the you know the controversy train like you're not giving me enough credit for how on the ball I am when it comes to Clippers my friend I think you have your finger on the pulse of a lot of things but like looks maxing clipping is maybe not one yeah Justin his hub spot email news letter and coming in here and rattling it off as it is no I brought it up I don't know how much I could say about this but I brought up because there's actually a sports podcast that you guys would know about that had just use Clippers to their success in order to inflate their numbers I think you definitely need to talk about this we can talk about that off air but I'm at the point now where I am starting to question everything that's happened at the very least and I think we are keenly aware of this being in the podcast field like things are being processed almost entirely via clips anymore we gone from nobody reads anymore so we'll get the aggregation and only read that to like nobody will listen to a podcast we only listen to the 30-minute clips we'll see scrolling through your phone whatever and I do think if you're thinking about the thunder a team that you will be seeing if you're an NBA Twitter or whatever all the time like what is the most marketable like thing that's going to like feed clips and engagement and all this other stuff the engagement economy it's like it's probably this it isn't really just like some spectacular plays like there's they do a lot of that stuff say absolutely heaters all the time but like the thing that I think about constantly that would get the most like emotional engagement and excitement is probably this it's probably praying on the fact that like they seem to be manufacturing their way to success and so like I think we have to reconcile it sounds like very heady and almost like 2001 and in a lot of ways but like I do think like this is probably driven to a large degree by people who are purely trying to cast them as something in order to get engagement in order to like make money off of that because of ways that I wish I knew because I would love a piece of that action maybe there's still time for you and for us to to really hit it big on the clipping market but just just to be clear when you're saying like this idea that they are manufacturing their success that's the impression given by these clip farms right now that's not you saying that yes just like if you only watch them in 20-minute bites you're probably only seeing them flopping their way to something or maybe flopping their way or a fake flopping made out of AI so it looks like there's more contact than there was I do think to like we're only having this conversation because they're an awesome team and I think it comes from yes the idea that they are grifting their way to the top is certainly unimpression that people have but there's also even for the people who are watching all of these games every second of these games and seeing the thunder in action if you have a rooting interest in the other team it's coming from the frustration of like this is a hard team to beat and then all of this on top of it and it's like you know that the third quarter fourth quarter run is coming and yet they still get all of these benefits of the doubt early real or perceived in other ways and it's like that combination I think really just intensifies the feelings that people have when it's you have you're seeing something in front of you that looks wrong or looks like an injustice coupled with your real actual sense of like hopelessness at your team beating this team you can you can see how one would just like absolutely feed the fire of the other yeah I mean it can feel a little bit irrational when you're in the moment that the hopelessness but when you zoom out we have gone into this about the way that they've been able to be so dominant with their talent acquisition it's just kind of like it's really not that surprising that they continue to come in waves and they have all this handler depth that the spurs don't have that they can sustain losing an A.J. Mitchell and a Jalen Williams and still go out have a Jared McCain that they just they are very smart and there a few steps ahead on a lot of different fronts but I think in the basketball since when you're just talking about you know combining the the lack of marketability of the isolation thing that I was just describing with the fact that they very tediously want to win the possession game Dignol has said it repeatedly he's like you know we want to win the turnover margin we want to win the rebounding margin and we want to get to the free throw line and those things you know that's just kind of the it's not the sexiest version of basketball you know I don't know that that's going to charge up you know little Timmy that's trying to get into the sport and he's shooting his driveway it's like man I'm so excited to see if they win you know the the deflection margin in this game or how many times they get to the foul line it's just like it's it's smart and that's the thing it's it's not sexy but like the things you just described like that's Dignol over four factors basketball like it is the the crux of what drives winning in professional sports and so yeah it may not be sexy maybe over time it will become more sexy as there is a myth like a mythology that grows around a version of the thunder that that repeats or continues to win or a version of Shay that just like keeps doing this in terms of putting up points over and over and over I just think we're going to get softer about this stuff I think people are going to get used to it or the rules will change and ultimately people are going to turn like I think positively I think the fervor of this conversation cannot last it like I disagree I think we are going to continue to sour and if anything I think their perception has almost like my task the size and it's really hard and if anything like I think the spurs provide a nice little counter we'll see because it's funny because we talk about how game 5 is like the worst possible like scenario for this when we literally sent the goons out there after Jeremy game okay allegedly not so not so ugly allegedly I guess but probably also got hit with a flag or one after the fact this morning and so they were really interesting that you said hard and you used that word Rob I'm curious though how do you think this is going to come about that this is going to swing positive I just your your three-step plan it's it doesn't require three steps it requires two steps which is one we are here now two steps and far in the future people get bored of this stuff and stop talking about it like I really do think a lot of this stuff just fizzles out when you think about the biggest controversies in the NBA over the last 20 years how many do people really still feel so intensely about I think you're right that people will get bored of it but I don't know if people will move off of it in the fact that the thunder going to probably be so prominent only judges it back up in these sorts of times I have a hard time thinking that people will think differently of them it might shift from I'm super pissed and this is like front-of-mind to just like that's probably where it'll end up in that sense if that is I think it's a difference between hitting the brakes and letting off the gas I think probably Rob you know but you know like harden people still feel that way it's just they kind of got tired of talking about it with his history is just so long like Michael Jordan was the petulant child once and then he became like so and no one could possibly like ever disparage him like I think your spurs I think your spurs comp is dead on and if I'm thinking back on it the reason why the spurs changed from what you're describing to some the team that where you appreciate the beauty of the basketball was a little bit more light, was when LaBron became the villain in Miami, they were the counter to that. So perhaps something like that could happen. Maybe they win just so much that they're just impervious to any sort of criticism, but I don't know, when something gets that big, people just wanna knock it down even more. That's why we have literally the crying Jordan meme is that he was just so successful, and he came so successful, it's like anything that pierced that was where we found the counter. And so it's gonna take something like that, honestly. I really, I think that would certainly help. I don't even think it's gonna take that. We were just talking about how people's attention span can't even last the full extent of one podcast. And you think that they're gonna go five years feeling this way? I just, I don't believe that to be true, of human nature, to say nothing of the thunder. - The arc of Shay is so interesting to me, because, you know, I was dialed in on this pretty early, and this isn't like a hipster thing, it just mattered of being like proximity. I was here, obviously everybody knows, okay, Kentucky cow, whatever it is, all that hyper, hyperbole, whatever it is, character of myself, but like Shay was here, and I watched him for a moment one, and he had a really aesthetically nice game. And I think he still does, it's just, this has really, it's interesting how Shay's irregular movements and his scoops and his long, high glass finishes and things like that. It was just like, there would be some just, you know, your reaction to a nice like jazz lick kind of thing. It was like, damn, that was sweet. And it's really morph over time in a way where I, and maybe this is, he didn't have this stuff in his game when he was playing here. He didn't have a lot of the herky jerky pull up from two stuff. And I guess as he's incorporated that and balanced it out, it's just become something that's just kind of like, swallowed the entire talking, point about him, the conversation. - He just needs little timmies like an army of them to come and just shape his entire narrative with just a bunch of clips. - Five dollars a pop. You get me 50,000 views of me just looking like a cool guy. I'll do that, honestly. Five dollars a pop. (laughing) - You'll be somebody's clipper? - No, I mean, I need the clippers. - Oh, you're just putting an offer out on Fiverr right now to get some of this. - There's some farm - A group chat. - There's some farm out there that'll take you up on that Justin. You're not too much of a lost cause. - Mm-hmm. Hell yeah, then. Five dollars for any, but I'm-- - Did that motivate you? - I'm trying to take over the world, baby. Now I really need to know who this other podcast is that you are talking about. I can't believe Howard Beck would do that with real ones where he would just really put it really underhandedly try to goose the numbers like that. - Talk about a grifter, Howard Beck, notorious. - All right, why don't we take a quick break? We come back, we need to talk about what happened in the previous game and what it means for game six. The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Fandall. Fandall's giving you better payouts on same game parlay's all NBA playoffs long. With more ways to build and more value every time you play, you could stack your picks your way for every game, every matchup, and every moment. From spreads to player points to threes and more, build it all into one same game parlay and go for bigger payouts. So if you're betting same game parlay's this NBA postseason, bet them on Fandall. More options, better payouts, all NBA playoffs long. So we're looking ahead to the next matchup between the thunders and the spurs. So we're talking spurs at home. They're giving three and a half points. Tough one. I ultimately think the thunder won the series, but I like the spurs bouncing back in game six. They're at home, seems like that matters. Seems like the role players play better there. Also, they're gonna have, I don't think that matters the margin at all because some of the final scores have been quite large in terms of margin. So just give me the team I think who's going to win. And that's the spurs minus three and a half in game six. Head to fandall.com/ringermba to get started. Fandall, official partner of the NBA. Play your game. 21 plus select states, 18 plus D.C. can talk to your Wyoming gambling problem called 1-800-Gambler, call 1-888-789-777-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and Connecticut. All right, we talked about kind of the long view with the thunder. How they might be around here for a while. I kind of feel like this series is coming down to perhaps how the thunder of taking the long view overall in this series as opposed to perhaps the spurs who in that fourth quarter last night, it just felt like they ran out of gas. Part of it, I think it was, they spiraled out after the no call, the no challenge call that they didn't get. Like, Vicell had the fall quickly and then it was a 10 point game going into the fourth quarter. I think the game is still hanging in the balance but at no point did I think that the spurs were ever gonna come back in that. It felt like Wembee just physically was just spent and it felt like overall the team just like didn't have anything in order to come back from it. And I have to wonder if the thunder's main advantage in this series, especially with two other primary creators out in J. Wembee and J. Mitchell is the fact that they leveraged their depth so successfully. And I almost wonder if like, they've lost a couple battles along the way but Rob, if they're winning the war overall because they just seem like the more fit team for the moment to win a war of attrition like this. Yeah, I mean, they are overwhelming over any long enough timeline and they do need some things to go their way, right? They need a three point shooting like this, especially after the cold one in game four. They need someone to come in off the bench or in this case to be started like Jared McCain did and just be like an absolute flamethrower during a critical stretch of the game. I do, I saw what you saw too in terms of the spurs kind of peering out but I think that may fast forward pass like the fact that for the first two quarters of this game Victor Webinyama was like functionally invisible and there are many reasons why that's true. I would say the biggest is the Thunder Defense did an incredible job of like crowding him within like strangling out every bit of space in the paint and around the basket for Wembee, stopping him from getting any momentum towards the basket, stopping him from establishing post position at all or getting any of his roles. They were so easy for him in game one and they did it without like a lot of size in a lot of cases. You know, as they hearted signs out there, chats out there, Jalen Williams is out there, it's not like they don't have bigs but some of the plays they were really disruptive for Wembee were like case and wall is digging down at the exact right time when Wembee would try to spin and make something happen and all of a sudden he's throwing off his rhythm, the play goes kaput, like everything goes up, goes to shit. The Thunder is just really good at doing stuff like that and it's one reason why you can't count them out of any series or any game or any stretch. Like that is going to be the baseline expectation for Oklahoma City basketballs. Like they are going to be so endlessly disruptive that it's gonna take a mental toll on you and that may manifest in the fourth quarter and may manifest in the first after you've been doing this for four games. - And it may manifest over the course of five games. There are like the in the moment things that the Spurs can do or the Thunder can do and then there are the things over the course of the series that we're seeing unfold. And you know, whenever you say, oh, Wembee was tired, that would feel like a like hand wave thing for it would could be taken as a diminishment of like what the Thunder were able to do but they're responsible for that. And I think that's the thing is like, you know, you start to see Wembee go from the thing that he would revert to or settle on. I know Kirk talked a lot about this earlier in the year when he was talking about his shot chart in the past couple years as opposed to this year. It's just that we started to see Wembee hunting it a little bit, facing up, shooting the ball. And when Wembee's hunting it a little bit, I'm like, oh no, you know, it's like fake, fake terror where I'm like, maybe those go in but as we've talked about, there's a huge difference between him getting to the room a few times and then hitting it three where you're just like Jesus Christ. But when he's, when he is settling a lot, it's a way more favorable game to be playing because as good of a shooter as he is, he's not ill-eat as we've said. But I think they did a really good job in the ways that you talked about Robert, you know, keeping him out of the paint, he just looks really tired. He's not able to get there. I went and looked this up, you know, whenever Wembee's paint touches go under 20 per game which it's kind of been like clockwork. In games two and three, in both games, he only got 12 paint touches with the ball and then in game five, he got 17 and all three of those were losses. Anytime he got above 20, okay, he lost the game. That was really, and there were some, you know, areas where in the details, they were good about that. Heart and Stein was dominant. In the, you know, we're talking about the live ball events in the game, you know, whether it's getting a rebound or deflection, whatever it is, he was dominant. But he did a really good job of, and people used to play Kareem like this where with Kareem, it was about don't let Kareem go in a straight line towards the rim, making his initial move because you don't want Kareem with momentum coming over your back, getting an offensive rebound. And if you watched, Heart and Stein did a really good job with like forcing Wembee away towards the baseline and then he's not in position to go get offensive rebound. So I think all of those things, small and large kind of played, took the wind out of their sales on offense. There's a lot more we can get to, but that was a bit more. - Sure, yeah, I'm glad he brought up Kareem there because the one thing I was wanting from Wembee and this one was something in that middle game that he could go to where if he wasn't going to get right at the basket, where is that next level to basically having a counter to that where it's like a Heart and Stein push shot or like a little floater rain shot, or perhaps even a sky hook in order to perhaps take advantage of that. I mean, literally the sky hook would probably work for him considering that nobody's going to ever be able to consist of that. But overall, this was like one of the first games I was left wanting of Wembee not being able to hit at a 100% elite level of you have the counter to everything that throws out there, if they're going to physically take you out of the game, like what's the next thing you go to? - Yeah. - There wasn't anything like beyond the basket, so we only had three makes at the basket. There wasn't anything in that middle range. It also felt like he wasn't like dissecting anybody with the way he was processing or thinking things. That's also like a next level he can get to. If anything, it felt like you. who's taken out of the like the mental game, the point where he didn't do reporters after the fact, seemed like he was really shaking to the point where he did say something to plumbly and beyond but before they got on the court. And so it felt like he was a 20 something, still figuring things out, which is saying something that took this long to get there. But like for the first time, I'm like, damn, this might be the last hurdle. And I don't know if he can solve for that. - Yeah, I think with where his game is, most of the cerebral aspects of his player are gonna be on defense, right? That's where he's affecting the game. The most is where he can impose his will, the most and most broadly. And you can see those Isaiah Hartstein push shots are like slowly but surely tugging Wembee out of his preferred positions deeper into the pain. And with that space, like I don't think it's an accident that the thunder wedge Wembee out from the rim a little bit. And in particular, Alex Caruso and Jason Wallace all become like really activated drivers, right? Like the driving kick engine of who the thunder are is suddenly put into a higher gear. They're now kicking out into better cleaner threes, their role players are hitting those shots. It just feels more like they're usual offense as a result. And to the extent that he can do a cerebral thing on offense or like really move chess pieces that force the thunder to respond, it is a tandem activity. Like he doesn't have the ball in his hands. And so the cerebral aspect of his game has to be linked to Stefan Castle. It has to be linked to D.R. and Fox, who is, I mean, just playing through excruciating pain pretty clearly with that ankle. Like he is like grimacing and winsing every time he tries to make an aggressive move. Dylan Harper, I thought, played his most invisible game of this entire playoff run so far. He was just phased out of large portions of it, especially on offense. And so he's reliant on those guys to make those entry passes, to get him those touches, to make like pinpoint precise plays through the most aggressive defense in the league, to get him the ball where he needs it. There's some ways in which he has control over that. And we can talk about those and how he can be more aggressive and where he can be looking for his offense a little bit more. But he's also just going to be dependent on these guards to be equally as cerebral as he is for any of that stuff to work breaking down a defense of this level. Yeah, I mean, he can roll and go into the pain all he wants. But if the guards aren't, you know, the guards are just really bad. I mean, like we had this written down here. I mean, between, let's see, the cell Fox, Winby and Harper combined for 11 to 46. So, you know, just under 24% from the field. But the, you know, Harper, Harper with the, a doctor thing on the inside of his legs, I'm sure he's just not able to sort of do a lot of the like lunging lateral stuff that he normally likes to do. Fox just doesn't have the same kind of violent separation that he depends on. And that is not a place you want to be when you're being guarded by the OKC defenders. You mentioned something though on the other side, on all, you know, OKC's side of the ball. I don't think that Winby looks as rangel and quick defensively right now. There are a couple where he wasn't getting the things that I was like, he kind of was earlier in the playoffs or earlier in this series, even. Something OKC is doing, you'll hear people talk about gnashing, which is like not like, not like G in, but just Steve Nash, where it's not purely driving kick. It's where you keep your dribble alive to the, get the, the, the shot blockers head on the other side of the rim, basically, so that he isn't able to sort of like rotate quickly. You're just moving him and then it. So it's sort of like an idea that you don't just like linear at the end of your drive, pass it at the end of it. You get to the live and then move. And I think they have been able to successfully move him and allow their driving game to work. So it's a, it's a type of driving kick, but I just wanted to add that on that they've had a lot of success with that, I think. I feel the same way though that I kind of felt about the thunder after the previous game, where it's just like one team just looks overmatched. And it has been a weird like where the first two games have been like pretty battles going to the end and then the past three have been pretty decisive. And so I'm a little cautious about being overreactive, but I think you guys are right, especially about some of the guard play Harper I have down here. Like he had five field goals made in game two. He's had five since, and if they don't have that, if Fox is gonna look pedestrian, if he's gonna be hobbled, I do wonder if like if this is just a big old battle where we're just dealing with who is going to be the most healthy. I have to worry about the spurs not having that because it just feels like the thunder have more moves. And I think part of that was McCain just starting in his first start looking great. And just that guy's energy just seems to bully them in particular moments. I loved how the fact that like even after getting crushed by the two bash bros as they did into the game, he like had a good spirit about it. And then Caruso basically being able to turn to your like best perimeter defender who you don't ask a lot of, all of a sudden just handling the ball more. He was third and usage rate and that came in and just like, oh, we could just toggle these guys on. It's just like these aren't just regular 3&D role players, like they just have so many more wrinkles. And so I do wonder Rob, if like if it comes down to this, like it just feels like the thunder can mine more where it's like, what's with the spurs? It's just like, I don't know, Kelton Johnson, just like it feels like they're helping off him even more. There's just not as many things to go for because their top level is so talented. Yeah, this was a lot of Kelton Johnson, especially down the stretch. It's like, he's going to need more Kelton. You think that's what I was going to say? I mean, maybe given that he's true, but that's a bad state of affairs. If the answer is we need more Kelton Johnson. Well, he was, well, I was just going to say, he was like one of the lone-price spots in the game and they had barns in there. Yeah, maybe it's some, you just rolled the dice and hope that Carter Bryant can not kill you with like mental mistakes. That's one thing. You need his physicality in there. But another thing, too, that we haven't really touched on is the fact that, I mean, they're just mercilessly attacking Fox and Champaigny. Champaigny, bless his heart, man. You've got to be a little less obvious with your illegal screens. Those were just backbreakers, just critical times. You know, we talked about the spurs, or we talked about the thunder with their selling calls. It was just the spurs had a lot of self-inflicted errors in this game that if they clean those up, you hate to over-simplify and just say they need guys to play better. But Justin, I think you're right about like this is probably, if you, I think you can over-simplify and just say that they are not in the position to sustain the loss of even to have a hobbled Fox. Yeah. Having Jared McCain out there to do some world-class spackling, which is insult to injury that the spurs can't survive and it speaks to OKC's depth. And not just world-class spackling, but Justin, I think you're right about the spirit that Jared McCain plays with. Like, there is an effervescence to him that is really important to the thunder, that brings like the juice of a run that brings a different kind of energy. Like, he has an unusual cadence to his game and clearly is really explosive, but also just gives them an emotional lift. In a way that like to be totally honest, Keldin Johnson does a version of that too. Like, he comes in and gives them a different kind of energy than the rest of the lineup does. But the reason that San Antonio was a great regular season matchup for OKC that they look so dangerous in the series is that there's three guards allowed them the precision to pierce through all of this layered, intense defensive coverage. And if these guys are playing in the way that they did in game five, if they're only physically capable of that, I just think it's going to be a really tough proposition to really break the thunder down with any consistency on defense. Or on offense, rather. I like how we're talking about McCain as if he's like a dish that's the only 2G is preparing. There's a lot of a lot of lemon spritz going on here. I mean, see, you're trying to spend $5 a piece on clip farms. I'm trying to like put all that money in the piggy bank so we can get 2G for one episode to just like describe shit. So, you know, our budget to bring spend differently, but we'll see who comes out on top. See you next fan. I don't actually don't know if he has a team or not. OK. Well, look at that. He's a Palo Bank hero fan. OK. I would do a Nick's a Stanley 2G pregame, you know, set the stage narrative thing. I think would be pretty good. He'd bring some stillness to it. Get your make the hair in your arm stand up. I could see that in the budget, yeah. And if not, we have AI Stanley 2G now. Don't even worry about. Oh, yeah, there we go. There we go. Spanly 2G. If the series ended after last night's game, does Kursa win MVP? Well, I mean, Kursa is great. And look, there are minutes where he comes in. And it's like, he was the best player on the floor for five straight minutes. She had 32 and 9 in that game. In a huge impression, I'll say. Not super efficient. I'm going to be honest. I don't care how efficient it was. Like, he-- they needed him to be assertive in a way coming off of game four that it was going to lead to some of this. And maybe not the peak of efficiency, but completely essential in what he was doing. This is a little-- this is one of those granular, dorky things to bring up. But I feel like Shay has had some success with not so much hopping backwards, but bumping and moving to his left, like moving side to side, and he's had some success like evading Wimbee with that shot. He did it on the baseline on one. I will say too, Harper has been this weird back and forth where he had one sequence where he was incredible, Garden Shay. I don't know if that Shay was just trying to pick on him and just kept running into a wall. But yeah, if Shay-- it would definitely be like an Iggy winning over Steph type thing if Karuso will not win. The Karuso-- He's awesome, he will not win. Karuso-- Well, you know what? I saw a lot of momentum from actual voters for Karuso. Name names, who are we talking about? What are you going to do over to some people? I really want to get into the dirt. You're like a duma over here for NBA discourse. I just think if you put a ball in someone's hands for Conference Finals MVP, yes, I love Alex Karuso, I'm sure there are people who would say they would vote for him. him on the podcast, I want to see the ballots. She's really great in this series, so for all, he's had some tough moments, but he's been really good. Sure. What about this? We give the conference finals MVP trophy to the star, then we give a smaller but cooler trophy to the guy we actually want to give it to, but we can't because we're all cowards. What are we calling that? So if the big trophy is, who is it on the e-size? Is it? It's not my story. It's sort of the golden globes, you know, this actor kind of thing, right? If the, I don't know who they put in the trophy for East Finals MVP, but if it's Jordan, like maybe this one is a force grant, you know, like you got the goggles on and everything like that. Are they both the men? No, it's the Larry Bird trophy, the magic Johnson, so does it need to be a Celtic or does it just need to be another Eastern conference like? Cedric Maxwell. Yeah. Cornbread Maxwell. Let's make it that one. I'm giving that to Crusoe because Rob can't give himself to give him the big one. Yeah, I, I am indeed the problem, but Alex, Alex Crusoe is to the surprise of no one, fucking ballin. I have no idea what it is that determines the fact that his shots don't go in the regular season, then every three does in the playoffs. The rest of it though makes sense. Like he's just an incredible multifaceted defender. And in this case, Justin, you nailed it, like the ball handling in terms of what the Thunder can tap into, it's just something that like not a lot of quote unquote defensive specialists have that you're plugging it off the bench. You're not tasking them with that kind of responsibility, but he's the guy who they flashed to the middle of the zone. He's the guy who can play in prompt to point guard. He's the guy who they can, you know, free-shay up to make these sort of like, you know, Iverson style cuts that trigger him into the offense in a different way. Having a player like that in the post season is just absolutely invaluable. I think it also helps that like the spurs don't have as much collective size. And so like you don't really need to dig into your bench. They got, they brought out Ken Rich Williams, and he played really well in that game. But like you don't need to throw out all big lineups and go into the Wiggins minutes and all these other guys. They have those guys if you want to, but like you could really lean into your strength, which are these feisty ball handling defensive guards that they could just toggle into something else offensively. I'm curious what you guys think about going into this next game. Obviously huge one. You feel in one way or the another do you feel like there's like something low hanging for the spurs that's happened to that that didn't in this previous game? I don't know that there's anything low hanging. There are ways in which like some of the complications in just getting Wimbee the right kinds of touches, I think are just going to be what they are. Like it's going to be crowded. It's going to be difficult to get him the kinds of game one relentlessly rolling to the rim type stuff all the time. It's not going to be there weirdly enough. I think if Wimbee plays in game 6 a little similarly to the way that Chet played in game 5, which is to like unburden your brain a little bit from the expectations of playing perfect team basketball. Like you don't have to be the good soldier all the time. I thought part of the reason Chet was so successful offensively in game 5 was he would catch the ball. Like for example, get an offensive rebound. It's like a little bit crowded around him in a way where he can't get a layup, but he would just take like a little turnaround jumper and nail it. It's like that's a good enough spot. And the deeper you get into a series, the more you have to be willing to accept good enough opportunities. And it's not always going to be, you know, uncontested dunks over smaller defenders. It's not always going to be pull ups in which no one could possibly contest your shot. Sometimes it's just going to be like, are you willing to take a turnaround from eight feet from 10 feet? Are you willing to pull up on a mid-range jumper that's like not within your offense, not within your muscle memory in terms of what you've been doing all season. But if Deer and Fox is hampered and don't Harper is hampered and Stefan Kassel is, at least, like, hounded by defenders, this is going to be what it takes to win. Is you're just going to have to make enough of these sort of impossible or at least sort of improbable shots in order to tilt the balance of the offense? This kind of feels like a bit big and maybe lose everything type thing where we're like Deer in the house to take us because this goes back to what I was saying at the beginning where it's like, if Wimby is forcing his own offense, you know, what form is that going to take because he's going to get worn down, trying to get to the, if it's him facing up from, you know, the three-point line, he's going to get clawed at it. You're going to get into that sort of catch-22 of, we need to do this, but also this is going to be the thing that wears down our superstar player. I would be a little bit worried about doing that for sure, but what's the alternative? I think it could be, it could be a case of like where he's facing up from, but, you know, we were also kind of courting more of the same thing. It's like, is this sort of like, do we want Wimby taking three dribbles and trying to get to the rim or do we want him taking one? Maybe it could be a case of that. Be intrigued to see Wimby add like a dark shot at some point, granted, I don't know that I want somebody that big, fatigue way, but it would be absolutely unblockable if he could ever add that. I just think ultimately, man, the state that this, and this is a shame because I really wanted to see both of these teams at full strength, you know, throw in haymakers. And we've gotten to game six, so can't complain too much, hasn't been a super pretty series. I just feel like I'm going to stay, I think I said thunder in six originally, maybe thunder in seven. It's just going to be such a colossal task, even if they get game six, thunder at home, I feel like they're probably going to find a way to get it done. I do find myself like relying on pretty cliche things, where it's just like home court advantage, like role players play better at home, as opposed to on the road, like those things do seem to be mattering in a series where the margins are so thin here. And also just like, if you have a medical degree and can tell me if Jeren Fox is going to show up in a given game that does matter a lot, I'm glad he brought up Chet though. I did, it did feel like, especially after we kind of dogged him the previous gamer, I have to very least did, it did feel like he had the type of game where he was more aggressive and it didn't push him to a different tier, but he was just like the best version of what you'd expect from him at this point, where like he was turned away at the basket a couple of times, but then he was still going at Wembee in a way that I thought was productive overall. And so like, if you could just be your fourth option and just be the best version of that disappointing in the broader scheme of things, but overall in this series, still a helpful player if you could turn the keys over to Caruso and other guys to do that. Now, can you expect that every game from a Caruso type or some of the other guys that think out there, I'm not sure, but at the very least, like that felt like a stabilizing performance for Chet that perhaps they can build upon. Yeah, I think if you say that the three point shooting for the Thunder hadn't gone quite the way it did, Chet's performance would have felt, I think, even more decisive in giving the Thunder like a small but marginal lead over the Spurs. And the shooting is what broke it open and that's where, you know, if the Thunder Shoot something closer to even their playoff average, this is at least a game down the stretch. This is at least within reach in a way that it, you know, clearly wasn't or at least the Spurs didn't want to exert the energy to make it so in the fourth quarter. I hate that it boils down to that, but it really does. And the shooting on both sides can be like just spotty enough that it leaves so much of an opening. I think really what I'm saying is like this series has been close the whole way, even though you have what feel like decisive wins for both teams. I just really don't think in their current states, either these groups are demonstrably better or worse than each other. All right. Let's take one more break. Back, talk a little bit about the Eastern Conference champion, New York Nicarbockers. Subtitled brought to you by Amazon Prime, ever find yourself scrambling to grab that special something for a last minute party, a spontaneous state, or even that in prompt to game night at home, that's when Prime's same day delivery swoops in. That essential item you thought she'd miss delivered, the plan saved, the win, secured. Because with Prime's same game delivery, you can grab it and go before the moment passes you by same day in delivery, it's on Prime. Visit amazon.com/prime to find millions of items delivered fast available in select areas terms apply. All right. The next, they've done it. They're back in the NBA finals. None of us have a pulse on New York. And frankly, like, I feel weird trying to gauge one because New York is such a specific place that if you try to talk as if you have any knowledge about it, people will say me things about you. You're speaking from experience, Justin, have you been out of school? No, I think. I think. No, if anything. We're cool. I'm down. And because I know my place. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, I kind of feel like the mix oddly enough for a team in the biggest media market in the world, perhaps, or at least among them, just getting back into the finals feels at this point, just not as full-throwed as you'd expect, probably because there's so much momentum on the Western bracket where it's like, this is one of the best series we've seen lately. But yeah, it just feels a little underplayed. And perhaps maybe that's part of it. It's just like only certain people can talk about the Knicks and we just don't have any enough of them in our pod circles, you know? I'm not sure that's the case, but I do feel like we're getting there now. Up until they officially punched their ticket to the finals, it felt like Knicks fans collectively were trying to insist to themselves and all of us to like, be cool, stay quiet. Like, we'll believe this when it happens. Now that it's happened, I think the volume has risen pretty substantially and it may not be commensurate with what you may think a Knicks trip to the, like, to the potential championship would look and sound like. There have been times in their even like, recent or somewhat distant history where it was like, Iman Shumpert being a Knick was like the biggest story in the NBA for some reason. Like they've had a way of turning these like minute details into national headlines. And yet here we are, they've like fought and clawed their way to get here. They've been unbelievably dominant over the course of their playoff run and it's been quiet until now, but now I think we're finally giving them the coronation that they so richly deserve. I think it's been enough of a drought. New York is enough of, they've gone through enough where I think only the only real grumbling I think you're gonna hear are from people probably directly like in their division that just hate Nick fans or have some like deep-seated rival ramsher like Philly isn't enjoying this I'm sure you know that but you're just not hearing it but I think in the broader kind of feel good basketball atmosphere the vibes are just so good it felt like a it felt like a flip back to the Bingbong movement you know on social when that was just like everybody can get behind this this feels good they're riding in the streets they're running and like I don't it didn't get too crazy we didn't get to like flipping cars or setting stuff on fire did we didn't get that why they're just kind of like because they were here last year or at least close to it it's true yeah yeah well so I think there's enough positivity to just get behind it for now now if they come back people make it there may be some you know this freaking guy kind of energy but no everybody feels good I think they do have like the spirit of a small market team coursing through them because they've just gone through so much emotional turmoil like for the past three four decades like it's a very long time it also is the type of thing where it's like yes they're a big market team and yes they're insufferable in certain ways but they're also amazing fans like it's similar to Lakers fans where it's like those people are absolute fucking insane but they're insane because they're so passionate and they're very devout about watching a lot of things not that people perhaps at the games because those tickets are so overpriced at this point that no normal person can afford to go to them but like Nixon Lakers fans some of the best fans in the world I would say what is going into you today big market big market boy all of a sudden not like a big market boy but like just giving big ups to fan bases I just I don't even know who I'm talking to I talked to some you were talking about you know how people in our job you're sort of the touch point for all things basketball and when they you know you people just sometimes will just like die read a bunch of all the mainstream takes you all at once I have people like that my life but I had some people who were talking about they just casually like basketball in the broad sense and go see anything they were like we're thinking about driving up there we saw some empty seats think about driving up there to the game and I was like are you prepared to drive I was like I was trying to be like brother in Christ be careful before you enter this for a I mean speaking of what Justin's talking about I mean it's saccharine a little bit here but you know I went up there and Justin remembers this because he worked on it with me I mean I went up there and got to see it on the ground and it I'm not just saying this it really I come from a place that is very eaten up with basketball and I think their culture is just different than anywhere it's different than L.A. where there's there's a ground level on the street thing going on that it's just it's a different basketball experience so and all that stuff was going on I was just like I don't feel this way very often I was like man I wish I were there right now I wish I could just see it because it's very spiritually in the air with them in a way that I think is is kind of driving this this vibe overall someone had to do it that's right all right we're going to get more in depth into like the next run and like what it's going to mean for whomever they end up playing in the finals next week we'll do a big ol NBA finals preview but we wanted to hit just quickly like some of the characters along the way like who really earned their New York Knicks bonus feedays here like I want to do almost like the stripe ranking of like which of these players and perhaps even figures Mike Brown etc. Leanne Rose perhaps like really just like earn their place I have it down I'm curious what you guys think is like three tears basically you have like the first of all once Nick always a Nick so you're always a Nick just by being on that roster yes just from years gone by Lou Amensen you're a Nick as well all right so the next year off if we're doing the stripe rankings I think it's like you're invited right you get into the building you get somewhere there you go to the events whenever we need to sign autographs almost like you're a soprano's character like you just do a meet and greet a pickleball event like you get to do that stuff to right it literally happened to veto from the soprano which is why I'm mentioning you can get some potato wedges from the you know the underlit you know catering thing you can kind of go through and you know pay homage right to would be like your your front court at MSG you're one of the front and center people you're the guy holding John Stark's back when he's trying to support me center court or front of course I thank you yes your front and center I mash them together because I'm so excited I think level three would be like Jim Dolan takes you you're part of the lumenati now you're going to the secret dinners you get the tax breaks you know the stock tips in advance that's like highest level like we're talking Patrick Ewing we're talking Walt Frazier we're talking like the absolute elite Maura Shamar sorts of guys okay okay you're getting JD in the straight shot private sound cloud links to unreleased material you're getting a lot of stuff yeah I need those JD in the straight shot download codes for sure I guess hookers up Jim Dolan so do you want to say MSG lumenati top tier court side second tier friends and family room third tier or what do we want to call that overflow like John love it's at the SL I like I like overflow third room yeah well I think the most interesting characters are probably the ones that we've gone back and forth on a lot I think we got to start with calling Anthony towns first and foremost just the playoff run of his life oh my like it's to the point where it's just like I don't know who this guy is speaking of like finals conference finals MVP I would have voted for towns I realize why Bronson got it he's been awesome but like towns has probably been overall their best player this entire playoffs just phenomenal and so for him I think this is a two or three sort of conversation because he's such a prominent figure I could see maybe even three just depends on how many you want to put in three yeah this is the only issue with us doing this conversation about the Nick specifically is like if anyone has been elevated to MSG lumenati status over the last 27 years why would you not put the centerpiece players of the team that's returning the nicks to the finals in that category as well like what is J.R. Smith done to get these robes that Carl he did time Carl that he towns is not done to get he did that sick baseline winmill against the calves that one year that was nice that was he's had some you're also trying to curate the like this is a this is a vibey hang this is a like we're back in the you know I mentioned you all we're back there in the smokers jacket kind of the pipe and the brandy kind of this is a this is a this is a scene does Carl fit that like Carmilla with the shades yeah you know like I think Bronson will fit that it's just that's my only thing it's just like it's coming to a room you're like oh there's Carl like you know I don't know if he's going to ascend to that level or like you know do you walk in and you say oh my god that's Carl you keep moving I don't know if you give me the gap it's called what's up then you just keep going you never stop that's where I'm like come back you know I think we all agree that the three of us are the arpitors of what it's cool right sure I've never thought otherwise I go to several cool parties actually oh yeah I mean I think cats got to be there I think he he has punched his illuminati ticket already and certainly if they were to go on to win the championship like that's that's a totally different level of a claim but the way that any success is celebrated among Nick's fan culture and in New York more broadly like this is an incredible run deserving of exactly this kind of accolade well here's a better question for you guys do you think differently about Carl towns based off of this postseason run because like I'm having this internal conversation all the time here where it's like as a player this is the peak of Carl right like this is the best he's ever been the playoffs like the the stupid falls have been cut down he looks like legit but having said that like if he reverts back in the finals let alone like next postseason I wouldn't be surprised so like I acknowledge the feat while still being like I don't know if I think about him totally different I kind of am thinking about him totally differently and so some of that may just be how rigid your impression was of Carl towns before where I think just with everything we had seen from him specifically the very frustrating parts of his game right the offensive fouls the bad turnovers the like you can't get him the ball when you need to get him the ball and yet he's forcing these other shots in these other moments he just like he felt like a player who in terms of the way he like thinks the game was never going to be exactly on the page with everyone around him and certainly executing at a level to be like championship type basketball but he's done it like he's done it around upon around after round he's done it in a variety of roles that's like constantly evolving under his feet he has been the key to unlock all of these series in his in his way and in different ways basically depending on who the next even playing against I didn't think he was capable of that to the point that I don't know that I ever would have if you have asked me going into the playoffs do you think it's more likely than not the Carl towns never wins a championship I would say it felt like more like it felt so much more likely that he would never win and now I can see it now I can picture it I understand what it looks like I understand the role he plays on a team like this I think it speaks to the nicks more broadly that the reason this feels like a championship formula is not just because they've got here the finals and proven it but they have the construction where all of their core players feel overqualified for what they do like Jaylen Brunson can be a guy who gets you 32 but sometimes the nicks are their best when he's putting up 25 and he's really distributing well cat could be a guy who gets you 25 but maybe it is at his best when he's giving you 18 and like crucial playmaking and you can do the same exercises OG and Mikael Bridges you can do the same exercise [BLANK_AUDIO] Mitchell Robinson, like so many guys on the roster, they just have so many players in really great spots right now because they have accepted doing a little bit less for a collective sake of like, how do we make this fit for this moment? Yeah, I think that there is the crisis of I can't take the thing that I do and expand it to the biggest stage, you know, like there's, I can't, I can't increase the bump, pump up the volume of the thing that I do well and I fall short of the moment and I get, you know, LeBron went through this, yadda, yadda, yadda. But then there's also the crisis of self-awareness that I think some players go through and I think that Carl falls into this category where if you look at his production, like last year, you know, 21 and a half points per game and 1.3 assists per game. It's just kind of like sometimes the, and that's up to, that's the scoring is down to 16.9 and the assists are pushing six per game. So that's just kind of like, are you capable of being aware of yourself in a way to say, like, okay, maybe this isn't, I was under the impression that I needed to deliver that, and that took the form of points of threes and he'd create my own shot. That's really difficult to do. That's really, really hard to do and I think adjusting your game in a way that benefits, with some, the benefits winning sometimes takes a different approach and I think I can, like a tweak of mindset. I think he deserves a lot of credit for that. So I, it, yeah, I absolutely have changed the way I think about Carl as a player for sure. All right. Next guy up here, McHale Bridges. And here's a good way to look at this. Okay. Are we ever allowed to bring up how many first round draft picks were acquired by the nets in the trade for McHale Bridges? I don't think you are. I think the conversation has been put to rest. He's at minimum court side seats. I think he has a pretty decent case for Illuminati status already. And some of the people he put in Illuminati, I think I think it's a pretty, look, you've seen these collections of Nick's alumni, like it's a pretty big tent that they've got going over there. Yeah. A lot of emails floating around. Like Tim Thomas is in the Illuminati, right? Yeah. Oh, no, as I said, he's from New Jersey. I don't, I think he's at the game court side, right? He's court side, but not Illuminati. John Stark's, though, Illuminati. I think he's fond of marmari, smart. Well, like those guys are Illuminati. Oh, see, I thought it was more exclusive than that. I'm talking like five spots. How do you make a secret society with five people? That's just like a fucking club in your basement. Like that's not a real thing. You've never been in a secret society. Fairly not. You know what? If there's a five guy secret society out there, don't invite me. I don't want to be a part of it. Bruges in the Illuminati know. I think he's court side. I think so much of what he has had to do has been like things had to be adjusted for him or him to succeed. He wasn't the catalyst himself. So I think you need to be a little bit of a catalyst to to send to that level of Illuminati in my opinion. Well, let me, let me challenge that idea with another name because this guy does not create for himself, but I think the cult of personality around Josh Hart is a little bit different than McCale Bridges. Do you think, does he have auto Illuminati status? When, when you, you tap into personality of the city kind of thing that I think it has like a really appealing thing where it's like, Stark's I think had some of that. Stark's had it was like a little erratic. It was a little bit like I'll start a fight in the street that maybe I can't win, but damn it, I'm going to go down swing in kind of the dunks, the scoring the outbursts. He had a swagger about him that Hart I think taps into also and I think he's Bridges not the same. Bridges like a nice guy that you know could date your daughter or type thing like, you know, it's like not the same thing. Hart's like, I don't know about Hart. He's really cool. I don't know. It's not allowed to date your hypothetical daughter. No, it's just not it's a little, it's not as squeaky clean. Hart has a little bit of a has a little bit more cred I think. He's going to go on to a very long post-playing career probably with the Knicks and probably with MSG like overall. And so I could see him being like a studio analyst 20 years down the road here because he's such a vides guy. Like he's like the perfect hang if we're talking about that being for whatever reason, a qualification in order for the stupid thing that we set up here. Like Hart's going to be in our lives for a very long time and I'm here for it. He can even be in my wedding party. He can date whatever daughter I have. Wow. Age difference will be pretty profound at that point. Yeah. We may have to wait some time for that to be kosher. But I have no, we need to swerve away from the daughter thing. It's just look, I didn't, I didn't raise it. You brought it into this. I did it. I do think he is a luminous. So so far we've got cat. Do we think he's in or is he still kind of borderline second? He's probably in. I think we're being a little bit through rigid about this made up thing. But yeah, it's a system we created. What are we doing? It's not adhering to it. But the kill bridges simply courtside. Okay. Anybody else. I think Lendry Shaman is an interesting case. Yeah. All of a sudden becoming just a critical role player. I've seen a lot of his like tunnel walks to guy has a lot of a lot of style to his game. More than I ever expected for a guy who's derided by just his weird face for so long. Wow. All right. Well, would you like, I mean, I have not seen the tunnel walks. Could you describe his style for us? Like what is he working with? It's real like every other Thursday Instagram friendly. Like the brand that you only see because the cool guys know it. Like he's very plugged in. So clearly he just has like a successful girlfriend who like just or works as this or has a stylist. But it's like it's much more approachable than it would be like someone like O'Jane and I'll be back in the day with like 90 scarfs just hanging off of various body parts. Gotcha. So there's there's the approachability seems like the every man quality to his style is what appeals to you. That's right. And I in terms of pure basketball play. I think I think I think look, if you move the needle in multiple conference finals games, you get to be court side. Who's good or are people getting bumped at some point. We only have enough seats. I mean, it's right. Susie. Susie has been getting kind of like bumped at some point. Bobby, you know, I don't know. Mariska is not getting bumped. Like there are certain people who are stapled to their seats there. But I think there's a lot of wiggle room on quote unquote celebrity row. I'll leave that to the Yorkers. Yeah. Mitchell Robinson luckily probably doesn't want to be there. He would rather just be like mudden back in his hometown. Modest Louisiana boy. Yeah. Him and van. He might he might be overflow anyway. Right now. I think there's still like again, look, if you if you win the championship, everyone becomes part of the illuminati at that point. But like, I feel like what Landry Shamit has done on this run has been more important than what Mitchell Robinson has done on this run. That's fair. Yes. I think we got to talk about Bronson at some point. I think the answer is pretty obvious here. But I've seen like the anecdotes about like what he wanted from the maps on an extension. And I believe it was four years, 56 million. Jesus Christ. Like I was stunned by the number. I knew it was low. Yeah. I mean, what's funny is he won't even make that per year until his next contract because he took such a bargain deal on this most recent extension. And so just the one of the most bizarre like career trajectories I've ever seen. And it's funny because like, obviously no one will remember probably that gaff by the maps because of the Luka Doncher situation. But like, oh, let me assure you people remember the photo of Bronson and Luka together, like media day has been swirling around. Yeah. There are a lot of lot of flubs in the Cuban era, just probably not to the historic extreme of his predecessors. Yeah. It wasn't great. Yeah. I mean, we do need a new tier for Jalen Bronson. I'm thinking like Jim Dolan's soul and only air. Yeah. Just truly give him the keys to the city, let him run MSG. Like, I think there's at this point there is nothing you would take away from Jalen Bronson. He, yeah, I mean, he's probably getting to the point where he might want, he might want to dial it back a little bit. It's Jim Dolan, you know, unwanted, you know, vulnerable voicemails. I don't know. He's, he's in the inter, the inner inner sanctum at this point for the nicks, regardless of what happens to be honest with you. I mean, yeah, because he has a, he has an air about him too. That's the other thing too. It's like a, that silent coolness. It's all, it's all adding up. Well, and look, championships are amazing. They're celebrated in a totally unique way. They mean something to the city that nothing else can. I know it's a bold stance, but this is what I really want to say. Getting to this point, getting to an NBA final is really the accomplishment to me that matters and that changes a lot about the perspective of a team and the players. It is an anointing of a different kind. You want to go all the way. You want to win it all, but it's like, this is something we're celebrating in and of itself. It's just like just getting to this tier with the core of a team is like the ultimate confirmation in the roster that you built real like the real victory in life is living well. It's not living well. It's getting like reaching this sort of level with hope. Like that is where you want to be that like as a fan of a team as a part of that team. Like I just, I don't, I don't want to get this this exercise in our larger conversation about the next bog down and like, oh, if they win the XO, if they lose, then why it's like these guys are set for life because they got here on these terms with a historic like point differential along the way. And this version of it feels the best, right? Where you are tempted to and it's taken it back to the spurs thing. It's that that was something that not that they get credit for approaching it this way, but not panicking whenever something goes, you know, because they've had some pretty rough, you know, we were talking about the Pacers thing to lose the way that they did was really demoralizing and to stand pat and be like, we're running it back, you know, and I know people were making that comparison with the calves. I don't think that's going to play out the exact same way. Hey, diversity, buddy's bubble, but this feels really good because they stuck with this roster. build and they tweak some things in the margins, but it was, we're going to work with what we have and get in the finals with Hope now, like you were saying, Rob, I think it makes it feel extra sweet. Then we went inside the best reagent and we just pushed the button and got the best. This is sweeter. This is what I'm saying. Step by step, building a team that can go to the finals pretty sick as it turns out. All right. Before you go, Rob, you said you wanted to do a break dancing routine for the audience. What are you talking about? I'm going to do the worm real quickly. Why are you like this? Go on. Wait, one of us do the worm. Was it Rob? I've never done the worm in my life. Rob, one of us was not me. Rob, one of us was not me, Rob, one of us was not me. 21-plus in present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Starkicino or 18-plus in present in DC can talk your Wyoming gambling problem called 1-800-Gamber or 1-800-MyReset, call 1-888-7897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-877-8 hope-n-y or text hope-n-y in New York, Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867.