NBA Finals Variables: The Experience Factor, New York’s New Look, and More | Group Chat

This episode is brought to you by Major League Baseball. There is nowhere left to go. Two teams, one championship. Watch the World Series. Yeah, the World Series presented by Capital One on Fox and Fox One. No time like October. Visit mlb.com slash postseason to learn more. Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Verrier, and joining me, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle Mann. Finals pod! Let's go, baby! You've been very chanty lately. Is it something in the air? Is it these teams? Like, what has you so jazzed? I feel the spirit of competition just coursing through me, baby. I love that for you. I love that for us. And, I mean, of all the places this season could have gone, this one is a fucking exhilarating outcome. Like, to be here in the finals with the Spurs and the Knicks, two teams I'm super excited to talk about. I just, I know we kind of flirted with this idea coming off of the Cup, that, like, what if this was a finals preview in a way? The idea that that, of all things, ended up being prescient is kind of silly, but also kind of rewarding. Yeah, it'd be fun to go back and listen to, I probably will go see just what we said about that, maybe before the tip-off on the game, just to get a little feel for this. But it's a fun, we'll get in more of this in the details, I think, of the show, but. It is a really fun juxtaposition, match-up, whatever you want to call it, between two teams that are in different situations. One, like, ascending with a lot of unwritten, you know, character, shape, whatever it is, in who they are with the Spurs, and a team that's kind of figured things out over years and had many highs and lows in the Knicks. So, on that level, it's very exciting with a lot of superstars and a lot of different ways that this could go. I think we need this swelling brass behind us as we talk about this. Team on the trajectory to the next level. Another team hoping to make history at Madison Square Garden or something more dramatic. See, was there a Costas intro? Because I was begging for one, and I, like, was setting up my projector and missed it. I ended up, I was like, I missed the thing I was begging for. Was there an intro? I thought that was, if you were ever going to do one, I thought Game 7 in that situation would have been it. Aren't you just the average modern consumer, Kyle? Complain about the lack of something and then don't even pay attention to it, whether or not you got it. I screwed the time up. I thought it was 8.30, and it was 8. So I'm, like, you know, all over the place. Yeah. The amount of complaining I hear about the, like, the pregame show or, like, the midgame show, and, like, I just never listen. I literally just mute it just to make sure that I'm, like, on time when the ball actually tips off because it takes an extra 15 minutes after they say it's going to start. But there is a lot of pomp and circumstance going on about this matchup, not only just because the matchup is incredible, but also, like, Twitter bullying works. So we got the big old trophy back on. And the court, which is safe to see. Also saw that there's, like, the 250, what is it, bicentennial is happening, and so they have a patch all of a sudden on all the jerseys. I was just thinking, 250 years of the U.S.? That's nothing. Like, we are just a speck on this space rock that we're all traveling through time with. That's wild. What pivot did we just take? I know. 250 years, though. That's not that long ago. This is just occurring to you in the grand scheme of human civilization. Is that a realization that we're nothing out here? Seeing a news brief about a patch on an NBA Finals jersey. That's right. So does that mean, in the grand scheme of existence, are we the Spurs? You know, are we on the ascendance of something? As a species. I mean, look, to be honest, we're just getting our legs under us. We've mostly been faltering around for the last couple hundred years, at least. So maybe our brightest times are ahead. That's true. Well, that's a good segue. We need to take a break, as per usual. But when we get back, we'll talk. NBA Finals preview. But first, we've got to talk about Game 7, Western Conference Finals. This episode of the Ringer NBA Show is presented by Ferrero. The world is watching. Go all in for your team this summer with Ferrero. Enter for the chance to win a range of prizes just by purchasing your favorite treats, like Kinder Bueno with an irresistible chocolate wafer and creamy hazelnut filling, or Keebler Chips Deluxe Cookies with indulgent and rich chocolatey chunks, or Ferrero Rocher Squares with crunchy hazelnuts and milk chocolate wrapped in iconic gold. Go all in. Buy any two Ferrero brands and you could win $1 million. Official rules apply. Learn more at GoAllInAndWin.com. All right. Before we go look at the NBA Finals, we need to talk Game 7, Western Conference Finals. So I would say kind of the enduring images I have from that matchup, and there are a few of them. One would be the give and go early in the game in which Wemby just basically took Cech Homer and Sol just like real quickly. Never recovered from that one, unfortunately. I would say the Cornette block of Hartenstein, certainly. But I think the one that I'm going to remember for a very long time is down the stretch. The Spurs turn it over. OKC needs a quick bucket. Shea gets to the rim. But oh no, Wemby's there. He actually has to pull it out and all of a sudden has to reset even though they needed the bucket as soon as possible. They needed to come back. And so like that's kind of like what we're up against, Rob. Like that seems like the real like tidy glimpse of what the future holds where it's just like you could be as good as the Thunder could be the two-time MVP. But when Wemby is standing there, everything changes. They're an amazing team and we just saw them march to the title last year. And yet down the stretch of this one as it got more and more desperate, it was interesting to watch like who was game to even take shots. Like who was even willing to step up for the Thunder and like Cason Wallace was one of those guys who was willing to pull. Alex Caruso was willing to pull. But it's like it can't all be that, you know, and Wemby and the Spurs have a way of kind of backing you into a sense of desperation as we've seen over the course of these playoffs. So making you feel like right or wrong, all of your best options have been taken away. The things you default on, the things you rely on are just not as bankable as they used to be. And so Shea had an amazing game. Honestly, I was really happy to see it. Him put together a good shooting game from the field, just like hitting more of his mid-range stuff, being a little more immutable in the way that we're used to seeing him be immutable. And yet it still wasn't enough. Like the Thunder just couldn't, they couldn't, they couldn't summon enough of that other stuff around him to make this an actual, you know, an actual game that they could pull out down the stretch. But a tremendous thing to watch and a tremendous thing to watch just like every Spur by contrast seemed to pull those plays out of the mud. Yeah. I mean, Justin, you mentioned that play, that first play of the game that was, I mean, it was almost like a baptism, like a reverse baptism because it wasn't the kind you want to be a part of where Wimby, yeah, just like, Wimby just really caught Chet, you know, you know, scrambling out of position. Even if you're in position, Wimby is a tough thing to deal with. But, you know, I remember, you know, flashing back to, I guess it was, we were doing the young core rankings. Weren't we when the cup was going on? I think that was like we were all together in LA and I remember, I remember us having conversations about, you know, what is it that makes a player go from a nice idea to realizing and crystallizing into a superstar. And I've always kind of believed that like, you know, who you are in the paint is kind of what dictates your ability to be a superstar. Like what, what is your functionality there? And it's like, Wimby is just a gigantic asteroid. Speaking of, you know, the history of the earth and how things can change. Wimby is a gigantic asteroid in that, in that lake where, you know, he just causes extinction level events for who you think you are on the floor. And you watched, you know, Shay got in there and I think that was a great play to point out was at this critical point in the game where you would think your superstar would get into the paint and make, make a play. He does this thing to where it's like we were talking about gnashing where I was talking about gnashing last week where you keep your dribble alive intentionally. Shay got in there and had, you know, normally has the intention to score there. He's like swiveling and turning back towards the perimeter, which is an excellent place to be if you're on defense and you're, you're like reading Shay's eyes just chewing up clock throughout this game. And it was just, it was really impressive. There's a lot more that we could get into. I know we want to talk about the finals, but Wimby just picked his spots really well. You know, Spurs had role players that came up and hit just, you know, Julian Champagny was just nails throughout this game. Unbelievable. This, this team just kind of answered the bell in some ways that really, really left me reeling for a few days. Honestly, I was just so impressed by, by their, their youth, the way they stepped up. Well, the crazy thing about the Shay play as well is that Wimby had five fouls on him and he was cruising through a lot of that fourth quarter with five fouls, which made the lack of aggression from I think standout. In particular where it's like at the very least try to get him out of the game just by drawing contact and he just wouldn't do that. There's that like pretty popular clip that everyone's probably seen by now of him. Soon as he gets the ball hot potatoing out of there. And unfortunately, like I do think this game will be remembered as kind of an inflection point for Chet. He's 24 years old. And so there's still a lot to be written with his story. But like you could see these things just like burying certain players. Like the extreme example has obviously been Simmons. I really don't think that's going to happen to Chet Holgren because of all the extra things he does in addition to offense. Like the fact that he can typically shoot the ball or just play defense really well and protect the rim. I don't think it's going to happen, but like this does feel like a bit of a crossroads moment for him and perhaps the thunder. What do you think, Rob? I think Chet is an amazing player against like 27 teams. And this is just one of the matchups that is uniquely awful for him. And so- And, but, but if that one team that you need to go through, not just this year, but in future years hangs over you all the time, it can define your story. It can tell, you know, it can become who you are as a player over the course of your career and the way that you're remembered. So it is an inflection point. This is a, you know, the Thunder are going to have a lot of decisions to make about how much to continue with this shape of their roster versus how much they want to start planning ahead for what the next five years look like in this sort of competitive environment. And Chet is going to have to be a lot better like that. I'm glad you brought up that play too, Justin, because that is one of the indelible images of the game is Chet passing up really any opportunity to attack Victor Webinyama one on one or otherwise, but that one was so glaring and so damning. You can't be a non-scorer ineffective in guarding on the ball on defense. And just like the contrast of putting Jalen Williams in the game and him being so much more effective than Chet, Isaiah Hardenstein coming into the game and giving you so much more to offer than Chet. It can't be that way like him. It can't be like that for him forever. So he's going to have to change a lot. But I think the Thunder might have to at least consider how they want to go about the creative suite of their offense. Like just having AJ Mitchell back was not going to change the outcome of the series. Having J Dub back might have and having both of them certainly might have. But even that might not be enough the next time these two teams meet in the playoffs. I've had that same thought that you were saying about, you know, against everybody else. It's like in Chet. We mentioned this earlier in the playoffs, you know, when he's got DeAndre Ayton in front of him or he's got these typical big guys. It's just he is a certain level of like wiggliness and cross-section of wiggliness and skill at a player his size that is a handful to deal with for most fives in the NBA. But it just so happens that a player who has his same traits but just happens to be, you know, six inches taller is playing at the same time as him. And it gives him all kinds of problems. And even like the proportion. Of his wingspan are longer, you know, it's like so he is just sort of a an answer to everything that Chet does well. And I've kind of wondered if I was going to say, you know, a lot of the panic. I'm not really going along with people on that front because I feel like it would be it would be pretty short-sighted and really erroneous to like overreact to this because I think there's some go ahead. Also antithetical to everything we know about the Thunder and the way Sam Presi operates like trading Chet Holmgren now is not really the kind of thing that's going to happen. Well, no, no, but I think he's had a long enough track record that he actually has done a little bit of everything like you want to pigeonhole him as someone with the long view, but really like as soon as the giddy problem arose, like he got rid of it. It's a different level like trading Chet on a max when he still seems like pretty integral to what you do is different than giddy was a problem in the regular season going into the playoffs. It just became such a big issue that was in the playoffs, but like he's it's so funny because it's just like, oh, well. Maybe they won't go star chasing, but it's like, oh, he also pulled off the Paul George train. And so there's a lot of things colliding at once. I don't disagree that I don't think it will happen, but I do think it's in his bag to do something more extreme than you expect. I don't know about the extreme on the high end. Like, yes, going chasing after Paul George is one thing, but like obviously what's in the air right now is Giannis is on the trade market. Could he be an option for the Thunder? And you know, whether you want to put Chet or J-Dub into that conversation is up to you. It's not just bailing at the first sign of trade. Trouble in in the Josh Giddey kind of mold, but also trading youth and a player who has a lot of career ahead of him and a lot of opportunity ahead of him for someone who is a little more defined and who has an injury history. It's like it's accepting a different kind of risk that we have seen the Thunder make trades and make moves for the here and now. I would say more so in the previous era than this one, but this is where we're kind of getting with OKC. It's like all of the pieces are maturing to a point where they could start to make some of the like, do we trade for a Kendrick Perkins? I'm saying metaphorically, not a literal Kendrick Perkins type, but like, do you make that sort of move that makes you that much more formidable and solid in the playoffs at the expense of some of the youth you've worked so hard to build? It's just a tough proposition and Chet in particular, such a fascinating prospect. Still, I just don't think they would pull the plug on him so quickly. I think that he's on. Well, you're right that he has almost had like a Taylor Swift kind of heiress thing where we've seen him two different things, but I think there is a pattern among the where it's like if you compared it like I think of like songwriting, it's like changing the instrumentation or the where the sections go, like some of the core structural things he's been he's shown a willingness to do those things early on. But like they're at the point now where they're tweaking, you know, the mix, they're tweaking sort of the post-production things of what they of this realized thing that they have. I don't know that he would go back and just be like, I'm going to like change, change the core, the structure of what we have going on here because it's work also because this game went, this series went to seven games and they were missing an all-star and they were arguably some, you know, an all NBA guy. And then AJ Mitchell, I was just going to say, I think there's some tweakable things where I think the speed, this is just far be it for me to give Chet Holmgren basketball advice, but I just, I'm looking at the speed of some of the things that he does. And we talked about it, the loadup of his shot and his comfort level shooting it quickly. The difference between him and Carl Towns, who the Spurs are going to be facing in this series. It is gigantic. And I think that Chet is going to have to, he's going to have to raise his comfort level shooting the ball faster. If you look at some of the moves that he relies on, on his self-creation, he gets to that little hop back. And then the spin, it's very slow. Granted, he's so much bigger than everybody else that it doesn't always matter against Wimby. It does. I just think some of the speed and then his handle is probably an area where he could fix that. But then also just having all their guys is going to change the parameters in this situation where he catches the ball. Yeah. I do think. I think adding some strength would help. I just think adding a degree of physicality would perhaps keep like frowned out things in a way that perhaps could lead to him, like getting more time for the three pointer or at the very least, like having more confidence in it. Because after a certain point, like it wasn't just this game, it was kind of trickling throughout this playoffs and especially came to a head in the Western conference finals, where it's just like, he seemed a little shell shocked, like most of the time. And I do wonder if like incremental progress will help that. I, I would be surprised if they did anything with them on the trade market, if only because he's at the Navy. I don't know if they're going to be able to do anything with them on the trade market. And that doesn't seem like a press the move. If I was to be concerned overall about like the thunder going forward, I think it's more about case of Wallace kind of insinuating that like, perhaps he would like a bigger role and maybe they figure things out. The thunder, despite like anything big, they do have to figure things out because of the second apron and so many of these contracts, like coming home to ruse because both J-Dub and Chet's Max kicked in next season. But like, if you have a guy like Wallace, all of a sudden you don't win the title and he's like, Oh, I want something. I want something different. Like that becomes an issue because the, the great thing about depth is you have this wealth of talent, but all of a sudden you're spinning so many different plates, right? With a big three, it's like, Oh, you just have to worry about disease or more little disease or more in there. Cason. Yeah. You can't, you can't really like as an organization plan against the human behavior, like just like someone having aspiration in a different way that doesn't align with like your bigger term goals. The fact that they've gotten this far is already kind of a masterclass. In the subject, but like different guys wanting out and wanting different things, like then it becomes a little bit more tricky. Sure. Um, so, so perhaps they do something in that regard. Maybe it's just to even open up a playing, like more playing time or even to start like a regular starting role for him, but something's going to happen. I think that's the easy answer. We are, we already talked on a previous spot about Lou door and his future with the team. It seems pretty clear that Cason is ready to usurp a lot of that opportunity in those minutes. And it's like, you can, you can get him a more, you know, a more, you know, a more consistent starting role. You can get him more minutes. You can get him more on ball touches. A lot of that is already here within the architecture of the team to do. It also did feel to me a little bit, just like a guy negotiating his extension in public as pretty much happens with every player. As they get into this stage of things, like the thunder are a team that for very understandable reason would want to like mind its finances very specifically to try to keep as much of this core together as they possibly could. And Cason Wallace also rightly so is out here trying to make fucking bank and deserves it. So like there is that tension. There is. There is that push and pull, but I think you're, I think you're right to identify this JV because it's so much of the talk around the thunder and around NBA teams in general these days is from like a, a fantasy GM kind of perspective of like, Oh, you have these players, you have these picks, you have these assets. If you just keep them together and add this other piece, voila title. But all of these guys have their own agency. All of them are going to hit their own free agencies. All of them are going to be able to request or push for trades or be unsettled by their roles. It's like those human elements are so easy. To gloss over when you're on your way to a championship. And I think a little easier to take for granted at a moment like this, where it would be understandable, if not predictable for some people in the thunder to want a little bit more than they already have. Okay. The distance, there's a pretty funny speaking of distances between players. It's funny how, how different it is between door and case and where it's like, we're so excited about how willing to improve. We're so excited about how we're going to be able to do this. We're going to be able to do this. It's going to be able to do this. they have three picks in the draft and you can only roster one guy as of right now like yeah there's going to be more activity for a team that as we mentioned without two of its top players came within like a couple points in a game seven of going back to the nba finals in an era of great parody like like it's really a slim thing we're talking about here so the thunder don't need to do anything dramatic i agree with what you guys are saying but like they have to do something because they have to do something like the math doesn't matter right they will have to make some moves with their roster just by the numbers that's the reality of the situation also like as we're talking about what the team needs and what the offense relies on like they need a version of chet or a player in that spot who can stay on the floor in a game like this and make productive plays a little shooting also wouldn't hurt more generally a little more ball handling to relieve some of the pressure on shea would help ideally you're getting that from j-dub and a.j mitchell but one other option wouldn't hurt things either and that's where like nicola topich is sitting right there we're gonna see if he's ever a real active member of this rotation at any point you you know he's he's had a lot going on over the past calendar year maybe by next season he's a more entrenched part of what the thunder are yeah so as a result of the thunder losing we will now get our eighth straight different champion which i believe is unparalleled uh how do you guys feel about this overall like is it nice to have something new every year or i mean the whole thing about the the calves warriors squaring off every year was like that actually like the ratings suggested that people actually love that they love their two favorite teams and the history and the storylines going at it like where do you guys fall on this map i love what it does to us like the way and i say that us as like a broader basketball people um the way it forces us to reconsider what we think we know about the sport and what gets a team to this point it's like all of the truth is that we're not going to be able to do anything about it we're not going to be able to do anything about it we're not going to be able to do anything about of life in the nba are kind of melting away given what's going on with the cap and the apron given the rigors of the nba regular season just like i guess experience kind of matters but doesn't i guess like certain kinds of teams get to the finals except for all these other ones like there's so many counter examples to counter examples to counter examples now that i like i feel invigorated by how like back-footed we are trying to make predictions about literally anything that part does feel exciting to me well yeah it goes back and forth and i was i was sort of like flashing back just trying to imagine what i was thinking and what people were saying that granted the the warriors calf stuff was like i mean predated me covering the nba most of it but i remember going into those finals really being riveted and excited about them but also there was the the counter of i remember people being like they ruined it you know it's it's a funny it's a funny balance of people thinking that that basketball was ruined because that we had this expectation that was met every year every june because those two teams would be in the finals yeah i personally i think back to about like my years really enjoying baseball which has gone on and off you know throughout my life where the times when i was most interested in it when it was like evil empire new york yankees years there when i was in high school like in the early 2000s where they were just this um you know daunting force that you know we had to find a way to take them down everybody was just like empires are fun in sports um so and on the other side of the with the star wars comparison here it's just like you know when there's peace in the galaxy it's kind of boring like i don't know it's like the parody is like i'm not saying the nba is i know i know i know yeah maybe i thought rob was gonna say that i'm like a fascist at heart or something here but i just do you'll see what i'm saying like it is the pair the empires are fun i like that everybody has a chance to win but it's like i also don't have a team so i'm coming from that perspective i just i i'm a you know a neutral observer here but uh i like that everybody has a chance but it is fun whenever there's this daunting thing that needs to be taken down like that's fun theater to me i agree i think the problem with calves warriors is that at a certain point just became predetermined and fatalistic where it's just like we knew that was going to happen and so it was just kind of a fast forward effect through everything else to get to that point unless you were like really ingrained in the the finer details of the day-to-day of the nba uh this doesn't have that and so perhaps we could have our cake and eat it too like if the there but things are different uh getting up to there or at the very least there is enough especially in the west in order to perhaps muddle that if like the thunder like that that one team that they're going back and forth but there's a different team from the east it would help a lot if the east played their part because the east playoffs was pretty cut and dry this year maybe like injuries finally like sorting themselves out like with the celtics and the calves finally getting their shit together like maybe we'll have a good east playoffs um but yeah i think we're i think so i mean just when you think about what what are the things that are narratively satisfying about a tv show a movie a sports season like whatever it is it's like you want that uncertainty in the middle where everything feels a little bit muddled it can't feel like a straight line or else we just talk ourselves into it too quickly and by the time june actually comes around we did our nba finals preview in like november and so what is even the point of going through this exercise so you want the knicks to have a moment of crisis in june and then you want the january february you want times in the season where it was like are the nuggets the best team in the league and are they going to march all the way to the title through the thunder to get there you want moments of consideration of like how deep do the ranks of the contenders actually go and the more and more parody we see in the league i think the more we're going to be open to considering as we did this year like who are the next version of the pacers who is the team that's kind of hiding in plain sight that could pull it all together at just the right time you want all of that confusion even if in the end it's who you expect to be there because i think that's just what creates that sort of logical consistency of like okay we've seen the trials of these teams we've talked ourselves through all the alternatives and all the options and we still got somewhere that made sense to us i also think you don't want the outcome to be to determine too much by like injuries which is also a sad part of this and it probably segues nicely to our first questions this episode is brought to you by google chrome you think you know a browser but gemini and chrome that's new help you with practically anything on the web like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks gemini and chrome is here for it ready to make anything online make sense there's no place like chrome check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18 plus want to be the one who's always in the know about the game the scores the plays here's a tip the apple sports app just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing they're going to be your schedules and when your team scores it shows up right on your iphone lock screen making it easy to check in anytime so rule the group chat and download apple sports for free on the app store or find it on your new iphone so we don't have a new fresh track for the variables we're going to do this variable style but we can't call it the variables so we are going to call this our nba finals variables okay but we're just not going to spell it in the correct way because i don't know put my stamp of approval on it we're just spelling it very v-a-r-i-a-b-l-e-s that distant that distant thumping sound you heard was people in their cars hitting the roof like like this yeah driving off the road i gotta pull over i i don't know what to do with a normal variable anymore i'm just used to orienting my life around variables that's the exact reaction i would hope you to have uh so these are just variables they're not very variables that's messed up. Yeah. I, I guess, you know, we will try to soldier on, but I'm uncomfortable with the prospect. I have to say. It's all, this is all so important. It's all so important that we can figure this out and get all those details, right. It's, I love hearing you guys work through it. Um, thanks. Yeah. Perhaps someone can, can get Travis Scott in Sweden and just have them just like cut us a track real quick. You had your chance to go make your plea in person and you chose not to, you prioritize doing your job. That's the grind is there, man. He had to do it. Which for everybody listening back home is you should know that everyone at our company is currently at Sweden, listening to Travis Scott and just doing team building activities. I don't know what people do there. Uh, but we're talking about the NBA finals and we're going to talk about some variables that find five lined up for us. First, I want to talk about experience. So as you may know, the Spurs are way younger than most teams that get to this point. In fact, according to an NBA statistic where they weigh age, uh, based on post-season playing time, the Spurs are the second youngest team in NBA history to ever make the NBA finals. Can you guys guess what number one is? Well, I am assuming it's not the thunder thunder or number two. So last year's thunder or number three, excuse me. So the Spurs are two thunder three. Who else was a particularly young? Can we get like a range of time? Like how distant is this? Seventies. Okay. Yeah. It's blazers then. Yeah. Right. The blazers. Yeah. I read that book this summer. So yeah, I was trying to think back about, uh, recommend that book if anybody hasn't read it, but, uh, yeah. And then 86 rockets was the other one, right? That was pretty young. Where are they on the list? Do you have it? I only have the top three because that was the only thing on the quote card. That's all we need. But I think it is notable that two of the top three teams here come from the past two post-seasons from the West. Um, it does feel like we are in a different era where younger teams are ascending more quickly. Perhaps that's just because we have generational stars on them and also like these teams got to the depth element quicker than some other teams and so there's a lot of things at play here i guess the question rob i have for is like how much can we rely on the old axiom at this point because experience typically dictated some part of the playoffs and ultimately the title winner winner um do you think it matters at all or if anything do you think it helps that the spurs are young and perhaps more fresh in an era where like injuries are starting to mount as well it always matters in some way and i mean we talked a little bit about the pomp and circumstance of like the promotion of the finals at the top of the show it is true that it just like feels like a totally different environment if you are a player in this series it catches a lot of guys off guard in terms of you can see the jitters you can see the nervousness you can see the pressure of playing on this stage i think it catches up to players and people in ways you might not always expect and i don't think it's going to divide along like young guys versus old guys or something like that i think it's going to divide along like young guys versus knicks or anything like that in part because it's not like the knicks have a wealth of championship experience either like mikhail bridges has been to a finals jalen brunson has a you know collegiate championship experience very different thing og and ob is technically a champion but was not a part of that raptors run whatsoever because he was injured and so everyone is kind of on a similar playing field and i think one thing i have come to learn about watching the spurs throughout these playoffs is even though they are not an experienced team and this is the first opportunity trying to understand what the hell to do with victor webb and yama on the floor and that is a totally unique experience and when you have a superstar who is that singular that you have to account for i don't know how much experience is really gonna prepare you for that kind of thing yeah i think it comes down to just sort of how you ground yourself whenever um things start to go sideways really or you know and sideways can take a lot of different forms you're hit with a stage that you're that you're not used to or you know there's a run happening or whatever i listen to it like in the off season or just throughout the year i'll i just will try to hit myself with like voices of i'll listen to like coaches and things like that just talk about basketball to just mix me up and one and just hear just different things odd whatever it might be a strategy thing or just chemistry philosophy development whatever it is but there's one coach that was talking about just the storm basically that happens in a big game where you know the other team is going on a run and you can just see it happening like the calves are an example of when the storm hit they just kind of jumped off the side of the boat let go of the rope whatever analogy you want to use and throughout this game seven i think this it's spinning this forward to what to expect from the spurs but in this like game seven that they won there were several times where okc was coming and they grounded themselves you watched it happen in real time where they've just repeatedly shown this ability to be like the and and i think to to get right and stabilize and i think a lot of that sort of ripples out from wimby whether or not he's scoring or not it's just he has a conscientiousness um he's never like freaking out i told you like when he was younger he used to kind of get carried away and he doesn't really do that anymore so i think that that's going on where i just think that i'm not going to bet against their ability to ground themselves granted the final stage is a little bit different but then there's the other thing that i was saying earlier is that we kind of know who the knicks are in a way granted they made some adjustments like with the way that they're using but the spurs are so unwritten and they're still getting better like dylan harper is not the guy today that he was in december when we were talking about them stefan castle same thing wimby same thing they have so many dudes who are ascending in a way where the knicks who's ascending on the knicks at this point they're all kind of in their primes right they're in their yeah they're in their primes but like i think cat og and mikhail are all playing like as well as they have ever played i'm not i'm not diminishing them when i say that i'm just saying we know who they are more like the spurs are still working towards that they're not too yes yeah right yeah i i think the flip side of this too is like how much injuries impact a team and how much just the gauntlet of a regular season into a long nba finals long postseason is affecting certain teams uh tom has been calling this the championship tax or the postseason tax where it's just like you're starting to see the wear and tear and perhaps that helped uh the spurs and the thunder matchup where they lose two key players and they lose two key players and they lose two key players and they lose two players but like i mean we say this all the time like how much load management is is needed i feel like i use the word torque more in the past year or two than i ever have just because of the amount of uh just stress on the body just going through all this is happening and i think that's something we need to reconcile with and because if you look at the teams like yeah the spurs have had their dings fox and harper we'll see like they looked harper in particular looks really good those last two games against the thunder but like these teams are largely healthy and they're not going to be able to do anything about it they're not going to be able to do anything outside of mitchell robinson all of a sudden having a broken finger hand situation that that swung the series back towards san antonio the fact that those two dudes looked normal because in the games they lost there in the middle of the series they were non-fat they were not themselves yeah and i think in regard to this collective toll i agree with you about like the spurs getting healthy getting fox and harper with momentum is a huge thing for them in this series just as it was in the conference finals this is a different way to think about something like experience but this is also the third consecutive nicks opponent that's coming off of a seven game series into a series against the nicks and ask the calves how much fun that is like this is not a team you want to play if you're in any way weary and so the break for like a even a little bit of rest i think goes a long way for the spurs getting those guys back the guards in particular with their legs under them is a huge development for them but if the physical and emotional toll of the western conference finals is hanging over san antonio in any way and that was a huge series for them to bust through and win i mean the nicks are exactly the kind of opponent who can take advantage of that like the momentary inattention like any any lack of commitment to detail the nicks have shown they can exploit that in really explosive ways over the course of this postseason all right so as we're talking about the next why don't we go to number two here unfortunately we don't have a nice little jingle to to carry us in there and so you could just make one up in your head rob unless you want to hum something real quick you know what i'm good this is just a regular old podcast with regular old variables okay um i'm going to go with the nicks because i think it's going to be uh so the nicks playing probably the best of anyone in the playoffs just absolutely steamrolling so since they went down two to one on the hawks they've won literally every single game since they are 11 and oh uh just absolutely blistering on both sides of the floor so kyle i'm curious what you think about the nicks just overall like what's different about them because clearly uh last postseason when we last saw them things weren't as uh just free-flowing and fun i would say under tom tibideau uh what are you seeing from this year's next that have allowed them to have such success uh i mean their their role players are playing fantastic i think we can get to the root cause of why that is i mean i went and looked this up specifically bridges cat brunson and og the only guy in their starting lineup that isn't seeing a significant jump in efficiency in the playoffs is josh hart who's adding you know as as josh hart does little little intangible things all over the place and i think that's going to be a big thing for the nicks because they're going to all over the place but uh you know bridges during the regular season 49 from the field he's at 58.6 in the playoffs cat was at 50 during the regular season he's at 57 uh let's see og is a big one here 48.4 during the regular season he's at 57.7 and he's shooting almost 49 from three yeah those guys are getting better shots and making them which is a function of things that we've talked about in the past on the show which is that they're just letting cat pass the ball more in the hawks that was him uh and this is an interesting kind of path that they've been on as opposed to what they're getting ready to see in victor women yama uh where um you know the hawks didn't have a true five that's something that's going to behoove them in the offseason and the draft is to go answer that question wherever that is but uh he could just pass over the top of a kong lu and that was you know play more inside to out in against the you know the sixers who had you know a sarcophagus out there a corpse that was you know artists formerly known as joel and bead um it was a little bit more they were using their guards to kind of screen each other he was playing further out on the floor and the same thing with the calves so um i think that's been the biggest thing is that that you know whether or not they're passing against a team that has a smaller big uh from the inside out or from the outside in the way that they were in their last two series that's what's worked but that's gonna be radically different against the spurs and i think that's something that we should we should pick at a little bit but if you told the rob of 2025 or 2020 you're going to be able to pick a team that's going to be a little bit more dynamic i would be incredibly excited but it just it did not seem like it was in the dna of the way the knicks played of who jalen brunson was certainly of the way that tibbs was coaching like it that was a team that has basically run into the wall three consecutive years in the playoffs and their only solution was like i guess jalen brunson back up and run into the wall again and hope you burst through it this time and this is a team that's going to be a little bit more the whole playoffs has been an exercise in what if instead of doing that we just scaled it or just walked around it what if we what if we made accommodations to not go through the hardest part of the defense at literally every opportunity and i think shifting from a team that needs jalen brunson to do everything into one that drafts off of him to do all of this other stuff has just unlocked so many things about who the knicks are who these role players are it's given them a depth to their offense and i say that not just in terms of like tapping into the bench in ways that they didn't in previous seasons but just layering in alternatives that don't involve jalen brunson having to dribble for 15 seconds seconds to make something happen yeah it's it's crazy the like how stark of a change it's been and to that point uh the knicks fired tibbs one year ago on the day of game one of the nba final so on wednesday that will be the one year anniversary of moving on from tibbs and like it just feels night and day i mean we should mention that they're just shooting the shit out of the ball in a way that like few teams do going into the playoffs they're leading the playoffs in two point percentage and also three point percentage basically shooting 59 40 76 as an entire team and so that helps that like all of their shooters have been dialed in except for josh hart who ironically had a very good regular season but apparently like these role players that just shoot the hell out of the ball all of a sudden just apparently can't strike a divide between regular and postseason um i mean i think the cat wrinkle is something that we should talk about here where it's just like his playmaking has just been an absolute other level like basically his assist percentages like approximating brunson like he's been doing so much more of that and i do wonder if like he's able to continue that going into this series how much does this change because like all of a sudden like can you stick a smaller more physical guard on him which the spurs have in depth because you don't have the length in order to to kind of impede some of his his passing qualities because he's just so big and he passed over the defense and so i just i just think he's playing like the best player in the league and i think that does worry me a little bit because i do kind of feel like this entire finals rests on cat being a sort of guy that we haven't seen before he's gonna have to be awesome i mean we've seen it over the course of these previous rounds but it's like yeah can he sustain it against increasing levels of competition and now something he's never had to confront in the playoffs before and this spurs team and victor webb and yama specifically um it's going to be an incredible trial but to me like cat has been the answer to all of the brunson really related questions frankly like the whole like is jalen brunson like can you win with a small guard driving this much offense the answer is yes if you have a center who can also be a playmaking hug and see over the top of the defense and just the way you describe jv so it's like he is the piece that allows them to get to all of these options more quickly to balance all of the threats on the floor more succinctly than a small guard having to play out of a double team every possession down the floor and i think the larger adaptability of the knicks is the story of their postseason and they've just proved that they're going to be a great team and they're going to be a great team and they've proven to be frankly like lighter on their feet in shifting from strategy to strategy and tactic to tactic than any other team in the field and cat is a huge reason why mike brown is clearly a huge reason why he deserves a ton of credit for like layering in all of these things over the course of the season even when they weren't entirely working and pivoting and pivoting and really turning everything the knicks have done this year into such a fluid adaptive process if they if they hit an obstruction they alter it slightly they tweak slightly they change the way they play they change the way they play they change the way they play and cat has become the kind of player who allows you to do that which is an incredible transformation from the sort of like boneheaded over fouling like can't trust him to establish post position kind of flaky playoff performer he was in his younger years like he really has come into himself yeah and what's interesting is his touches are almost the exact same uh from these past two playoffs they're right at 50 so he's made a really conscious change that he deserves a lot of credit for um in terms of their offense though to speak to what you're saying there rob i think it's the valentina hot sauce thing i don't know if you guys have ever used valentina hot sauce i use it all the time so i'm very eager to know what the relevance is to my life you ever notice the spout of the valentina it has it doesn't have one hole it has two holes you know why that second hole is is there so that it comes out smoother it needs that extra needs the air extra needs that extra airflow and i think that this is something that's true i mean coffee cups also a lot of different things miller miller might have the thing where you could like no specifically with this hot sauce it's proprietary valentina's technology uh anyway it's or like you'll see like a like a fire barrel that'll have a hole punctured it's the oxygen you want the and i think that cat doing this has given them more oxygen so that they are burning hotter but with the with the experience i think you see this with like old college teams a lot of times they have like this ability to make adjustments that make people guard longer into the clock or just like they'll make a by you know a quick adjustment that will make things a little bit more efficient and you know you can have a good idea but you don't execute it well um you know your good idea is as a fart sound basically but you know the knicks i think have um i'm just i'm interested in the matchups in this one do we want to have we segued to the matchups part of this because i know this was something we were going to officially segue to are we at that point of the pod right we can get right to that right after this break the ringer nba show is brought to you by fan duel it all comes down to this who do you think will be wearing the ring at the end of the nba finals make your call right now new customers can hit the court with 350 in bonus bets guaranteed after betting five dollars for seven straight days fan duel is the best place to bet all your favorite players during the nba finals bet on their baskets and boards or build a same game parlay for a chance at a bigger payout so looking at the finals looking at finals mvp odds when b brunson top two i don't know how kind of thought he should have maybe been the eastern conference finals mvp uh can see if things go right for the knicks he would be in position to perhaps win finals mvp so at 2200 plus 2200 just give me towns for finals mvp just visit fan duel.com slash ringer nba to get started 21 plus select states 18 plus dc kentucky or wyoming first online real money wager only minimum five dollar wager required for seven consecutive days bonus issued as non-withdrawable seven days after receipt gambling problem call 1-800 gambler call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in connecticut all right number three on the docket we got the match-ups a lot of them to to diagnose here um where do you guys want to start well maybe just start with like the most interesting one and is it or are we all going to agree that it's whether or not wemby guards heart i think it has to be and that's not just a question for this series but i think it's going to be the every spurs playoff series for the foreseeable future is where is victor women yama on the floor on defense because that is going to determine the vast majority of the game the vast majority of the matchup like what the other team tries to do and where they're frustrated and it's just kind of awesome that a 22 year old who is maybe the best player in the world is dominating in that way that that's how we have to think of him it's not even who guards wemby yet but like how much how much of a problem can he create for everyone because we just saw him put chet holmgren in a prison of his own and he's not going to be able to do anything about it he's going to be his own mind without even guarding him yeah so they last faced off on march 1st during that torrid stretch where i think the spurs only lost since february 1st four games three of them were through the nuggets and one was that game on march 1st to the knicks and so in that game wemby guarded heart castle guarded towns the cell on bridges and fox was on brunson i have to assume they'll do something to start with at least the same they'll start with that just because of the way they guarded caruso until he hit a ton of shots um i think that makes sense but kyle i think this is ultimately circles back to your cat point where it's like can you get away with putting castle on cat because the physicality that he plays with perhaps matches him but then on the flip side of that you have the the playmaking part of this and then you have the old dimension of like the three-point threat where like cat is probably i guess porzingis would probably the best version of this but like cat is approximating this like that would be the best version of this but like cat is approximating this like that would be the if you were to draw up a way to kind of counter what victor does not necessarily just completely erase them but like someone who would provide him difficulty would be like a stretch big who could play make from the top of the perimeter that forces you out and so once again it seems like cat has the key here yeah if you were if you're trying to think of the ideal of a type of team that would stress the spurs in an interesting way it would be like like you said a shooting five just so happens that maybe i mean you could throw dirk is obviously in this car people start wibbling about who's a center who isn't a center it's like cat is if he's not the best shooting center of all time he's right there in that short list he's an incredible quick like he's one of the fastest shots really really efficient so that's going to be a unique thing um i'm kind of curious you you mentioned like putting castle on him i kind of felt like it was implied that castle would be on brunson i would start there uh is that do we agree or are we on lockstep on that it depends on how healthy these guys are like yeah can fox not take that i think the problem is with cat like you want the physical like is vassell physical enough he has like a slight bit more of length but like i think it'd probably be champagney it would be the alternative right it's either do you want like a little like a little more size but not as much physicality with julian champagney or do you want someone like castle who can sort of bait cat into maybe being aggressive in ways that aren't productive for the knicks and you want to put a guard on og as opposed to putting champagney like because og might be the strongest guy on the court yeah which is a legitimate problem like him being that strong on closeouts is a real weapon in a way that he's not just like a normal 3nd threat yeah i mean i was looking at this and i was you wouldn't you don't really want to make changes like this at this time of the year but i was like i'm going to be curious to see the staggered kind of lineups when harper is out there to sort of strengthen the the sort of switchy chain that the uh that the spurs have access to here i started from the like the the knicks are an interesting being parallel to like stylistically to the way that the Thunder play granted the way you know adding Kat's playmaking hub part of this. The Thunder don't really have this, but they do sort of rely on a guy who is mostly an isolation scorer who's just a little bit smaller. I would throw Castle, talking about Brunson, obviously, I would throw Castle on him. And then I kind of tried to arrange this around to figure out a way to have Wimby not guard Hart, just because that's the conventional thing that we all agree on. I'm like, I don't want to just be like, that's for sure. But it's conventional for a reason. Yeah, I know, I know. It's such a tempting option. Yeah, who Fox guards is almost as interesting to me, because I'm like, the thing that the Knicks have that the Thunder don't have is that I think their shot makers or their extra spacers are a little more reliable, and they're bigger. Bridges is 6'7", and OG is 6'8". They're really shooting the hell out of the ball. And then you have Kat shooting the ball, too. The size and the quality of the shooting in that size, I think, is a big difference between the Knicks and the Thunder. Yeah, I haven't. It's sketched out like you do, but I think you're kind of circling the main kind of tension point of the series, where it's like, in a way, this is kind of the final boss of the Spurs being able to trumpet their build overall, where the Knicks are almost like the extreme version of what we're used to, where it's just like these big physical wings that can go both ways. And for that reason, the physicality of a lot of these guards that the Spurs have is met with physical guys who are also bigger than them. And so the push, and pull of that is going to be interesting, especially considering the boards element. We can get into Mitchell Robinson and the injury effect on him, but they're just not going to be able to push them around in a way that perhaps they had some success with with earlier opponents. But I just see the skill advantage just being such like a tilt the other way, where it's like we talk about Harper. It's funny because I have everything all matched up, but then I throw Harper in there, and then everything just goes out the window. Because if he's going to be healthy, it just feels like he has his way. I've just crashed in the party and completely upending things. Well, Dylan Harper has proven to be the kind of guy who, yes, can attack one-on-one. We've talked about his driving game, probably ad nauseum on this podcast, but he's also come up with like monster offensive rebounds, a lot of random little plays where if you don't account for him or like back-breaking plays. Those were gigantic plays in that game where he snuck from the corner. Those need to be shouted out. I'm glad you did. Completely. And also, as we're talking about the defensive matchups for the Spurs, I mean, Dylan Harper, we shouted it out too, also did a great job one-on-one against Shea in a lot of situations. Just like a counterintuitive, like really disciplined, staying down, understanding the fakes are coming, not getting baited or pulled into anything. And Jalen Brunson is a very similar offensive proposition. Much lower center of gravity, very different body type, slightly different game and approach than Shea. But another guy where it's like, you have to be zeroed in on the scouting report in order to have any credibility holding down that matchup. And Harper, crazy as it sounds for a 20-year-old, I think can come off the bench and do that for a good portion of this game. I think I wanted to attack one thing with the figuring out. We've talked so much about how their role players are playing better, the percentages are better. That is the result of a source thing that I think is going to be different in this series because the entry points for the Knicks, I think are going to be stressed in a way that they have not been stressed in previous. Like the Cavs didn't have the ball. The Knicks have not faced the ball pressure or the rim protection. That the Spurs are going to throw at them. And I think that they have ball pressure options here that are going to, they're going to be able to play very aggressively at the entry point of Cat, whether or not that's Vassell, whoever it is. And they're going to be able to be very aggressive and put OG and Bridges and whoever it is in the position to be more decision makers. I think that could be a big difference. That is one of the key things that I'm watching in this series is their ability to really go balls to the wall. On those two fronts. Yeah. And that's why I think this shooting is so critical. I mean, you could say that about every series on the board, but this one in particular, just considering how well the Knicks are shooting, but also like how much that will force the Spurs to be a little bit more outside of their comfort zone and play when be like in situations where you can't just like deter literally everything in the paint. I do wonder if this is like a call for sham it because he's just been shooting the shit out of the ball. I think he missed one three in the entire Eastern conference finals, which is saying something. And, and now that would give them a five out strategy, which could be like advantageous offensively on the flip side of that. Like it also, if you're playing him alongside Brunson, that's like two targets out there. Then all of a sudden, like you see the Spurs guards being able to like go to work against two different targets as opposed to just Brunson. And so it's a tough juggling act. And so there's a lot to work with, but I could also see it just flipping very quickly. If, if the Spurs are able to work that advantage. Yeah. Cause when you think about what the Knicks alternatives are, it is like, okay, we're going to put Shamit out there. Are we going to put Deuce McBride out there? Every alternative that the Knicks have with Mitchell Robinson, we're assuming sidelined, at least for the start of the series, maybe he ends up playing in it and playing a role. Well, he says he's going to play just from game one. He's going to go out there with a broken hand, but which is for a guy who mostly just dunks like that. Yeah. And it's also like, cause it's been reported as like a broken pinky, but like, I think the New York post had something that it's also the metacarpal of, of the hand. So it's, it's, it's a broken hand. It's not just a pinky. Which hand is it? I mean, with, with Mitch, does it matter? Not that he's a shooter. It's going to affect his live dribble passing. How's that? But I think Emily, like it probably does like affect his relentlessness on the glass, like his ability to hold and control the ball. Like all that stuff is really important. And all the other options the Knicks have are to go small in some way or another. It's in his right hand for the record. Okay. Good to know. It's in the right. I mean, here's, here's the thing. When you start, if, if the, if the transfers by putting Victor women, Yama on Josh Hart can kind of nudge the Knicks to these sort of five out lineups with more spacing on the floor, you're trading off hearts rebounding, which I think is really important in a series like this. You're trading off some of the chaos in like the full court, random transition sorts of possessions that heart has a way of like infusing himself into. And you're giving up some defensive size too. Like I actually think Landry Shamit is targetable, but like pretty competitive on the ball. Like he will actually fight and like, do his due diligence in a matchup Brunson is targetable though. Deuce McBride, even though he's an absolute dog, like you can shoot over the top of him. If you have enough size working in your advantage. And so I, I do worry about all those like downstream effects for the Knicks. If Josh Hart becomes a problem because Victor weapon, Yama feels like he's everywhere. And I kind of suspect that he will, you just have to go smaller so quickly. And we haven't even talked about like what happens if cat or OG, God forbid, get in foul trouble in this series. And what do you even do trying to guard when be the other way? Yeah. When cat gets in foul trouble. And that's another thing where it's just like, not only is cat probably prone to do that, even the midst of like this Renaissance studies having, but like how much of that's going to spark the transition on the other side of that. And like, if you get like the, the theory road going for the Spurs, like all of a sudden, like that, that means so much more. It feels like in this series and some of the past that they've had, just because the Spurs are just absolute terrors in that regard. Who do you think is their do for you? Like who's the guy? You weren't going to just throw it out there. Throw that out there. That was going to get, is it, is it Plumlee? Oh, it might be or Bismarck. Honestly. Yeah. One of those. Yeah. I don't know. I'll have to ponder that one. Yeah. So on the flip side of thing here. So they, in, in previous matchups, cat has guard when B and then you could effectively, I guess, hide Brunson on champagne. And then you're basically just sticking the, the, the, the perimeter guys on, on the three guards here. Do you expect anything like, beyond that? And like, I guess how, how do we feel about that in terms of the next side of things? I mean, I think they'll probably have to use Brunson as a bit of a whack-a-mole, like scramming him out of some of that matchups. If they try to target him by like bringing champagne up to set ball screens, you can kind of like hide him on the cell. Sometimes if Brunson is willing to fight through some of the off ball stuff, that's an if, but I think that's what it has to be is a little, even a less like what is the one spot on the floor and how do we keep Brunson moving within our defense? To make it more difficult to be targeted. This has been brought up a few times too, is that I don't know, like if, if Wimby has cat on him, I see that being a potential foul issue. Like you were alluding to, like he's Wimby, I think could get past him. I don't know that he's as physical a defender, even as Hartenstein. I don't know how y'all feel about that, but I could see him causing him problems. And there is a little bit of a history of OG doing a decent job of getting up under Wimby and causing him problems. I, I almost, almost expect that to be the matchup. Well, yeah, I think OG, if you're going to carve someone out of stone, be basically be like, let's just figure out a Wimby defender. I think it would look sort of like that. He literally is carved out of stone. Am I right? I mean, you seen that guy? What a guy. Uh, but I think that leads to the question of where you stick cat at that point. Like, yeah, you would probably want to hide them on champagne, but Brunson's already over there under the covers, just like trying to get by. Uh, I also think Mitchell Robinson has had some success with Wimby in the past. And I also think like Mitchell Robinson matters a lot in this year, not only because like they require so many of the extra possessions to do what they do. Like they're just so physical on the boards. Um, but also like to stress the potential minutes for Wimby, because all of a sudden, like I imagine you would want to match Robinson's minutes with Cornette in an ideal world. But if Robinson is having success and Cornette isn't up to the task, like, do you have to rush Wimby back? and all of a sudden like. that starts to spin in other ways. And so, like, I feel like this broken hand, which seems like it occurred under suspicious circumstances. It didn't happen during basketball, the Knicks were saying. And so, like, maybe he was just so mad. Maybe he was spackling. Why are you throwing him to the wolves like that? I can relate. This is one of the most dad injuries of all time. I was reaching for my son's lunchbox, and a stack of Pyrexes slid off onto my left hand. Oh, my God. That's the stupidest injury ever. I mean, like, and I went, ah, like, screaming. It was broken for, like, a year. Those slickers don't heal. I don't know if you'll have had one of those. It was so painful, I had to sleep with it flat on my bed at night. Like, it was, like, it would hurt. And I'd still play basketball. And if somebody hits that while you're playing basketball, it is rough. I can't imagine. I'm not a dunker. I'm not a dunker, as you guys know. What if the finals were dictated by some rogue Tupperware? And that's just what knocked Mitchell Robinson out? The injury you described sounds horrific. I'm sorry you broke your hand in that way. I hope that's not how Mitchell Robinson broke his hand. I also think, too, like, if he is not Mitchell Robinson, we've seen the Knicks be, like, a really good, like, all-around rebounding team in these playoffs. The Spurs are not a team that usually goes after the offensive glass in a super aggressive way, like, tactically. But they absolutely could. Like, if Mitchell Robinson isn't Mitchell Robinson, Cat and or OG get into foul trouble. The Knicks are playing small. There's going to be a lot of opportunity for second chances for San Antonio if they want to pursue that. You know, there's the transition trade-offs, but I think it could be worth it for them. Those were some of the biggest plays of the game. Yeah, even the missed shot in Game 7. I think Champagny, one dribbled that pull-up, too. And Castle was just wide open and caught it and rebounded and put it in. And then Harper and things like that. I was curious, too, though, like, the second unit part of it. You were talking about Cornette in this series. That was such a huge assumed advantage that OKC had. I don't know that it's as much of an advantage in this one because I feel like their second units are way, way more evenly matched. Well, speak on that. Like, what specifically do you see in that? Harper. I mean, Harper. I think Harper's got way more space to play in that second unit if they just run them out one-to-one like that. That's the biggest thing, honestly. And I don't think Cornette's is overmatched, honestly, in the second unit as he was against OKC. And especially if that rebounding ends up being a factor in the series. Like, Cornette can be a really great offensive rebounder. So there's just, like, a lot of, like, there's the big advantages that the Spurs have, and then there's a lot of ways they can clean up around the edges that have me a little bit worried about the Knicks, especially because everything we just said about New York and how agile they are tactically, all that stuff is harder to pull off if Wimby is on the floor, right? Like, the idea of, like, oh, we're going to hit these cutters. No cutter really looks like they're open when Wimby is playing the field. And, like, oh, we want to tap into, like, part of the reason McHale's been so good over the course of these playoffs is because he's become a driver again, and it's not all jump shooting. That's a different proposition if Wimby is. And the same is true of OGs. So it's, like, all of the layers that the Knicks have introduced that have Brunson playing great basketball but also have empowered all these other guys, they are sort of challenged structurally by just having Victor Weminyama out there not guarding Josh Hart, especially if that's the case. Yeah, it is funny because the Knicks, like, spent so long digging in the crates in order to find, like, a credible bench, and it does feel like all of a sudden, like, they're up against just an abnormal bench where it's just, like, these guys should be starting in different ways. And so, like, the Alvarado types, the Clarkson types, all of a sudden, they just feel overmatched unless they can just catch wind. Like, the special MSG moment, all of a sudden, Alvarado has a five-minute stretch where he's just causing terror. I can see that. But other than that, just, like, on paper, it feels like a pretty big disadvantage. And also, like, let's see Carter Bryant. Like, he seems built for this because at least physically, like, matches up fairly well. We'll see, like, what state of emotional distress he's in based on some of the mistakes he's making on the court. But, like, I don't know. It just feels like the Spurs are almost, like, backloaded with the type of guys who can erase a lot of those advantages. We say that, but it's like the Knicks have found ways to get, like, great things out of Jordan Clarkson in these playoffs. It's, like, legitimately playing nine deep, and every one of those nine guys has had a huge, like, hero moment in some series, in some game or another. So, I don't take for granted anything that New York's bench does anymore. But Dylan Harper is a tough standard for any bench to measure up to. Keldon Johnson, I thought, just instrumental for the Spurs over six and seven of the Western Conference Finals in particular. Like, they're going to have to provide a lot. Like, Deuce McBride is going to have to shoot better. Landry Shammott is going to have to still be a conquering hero somehow. Like, these guys are going to have to continue to deliver in ways that may not even be fair to expect, but it's like, that's what a title requires. Yeah. I mean, that variance just comes down to whether those guys we're assuming Dylan shows up like he did. He's a rookie. There are ups and downs. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he. Ebbs and flows a little bit in a way that hurts him. You're talking about Keldon, man. Some of those threes he put up, I was like, oh, Keldon, what are you. And, like, they went in. I was like, oh, my God. Yeah, I was like, my heart would have been racing if I were a Spurs fan, but that stems the breaks. Those are the margins, right? This is kind of just what I've been saying in my mind about this entire series, where it's like, well, what about this for the Spurs? What about that? What about that? But then it's just like, the Knicks might just be charmed in this, because every time you think, like, whatever advantages they've had would just run out. Like, the fact that they're shooting would just, all of a sudden, like, law of averages flip back the other way. It just hasn't at this point, and, like, maybe it just doesn't, but we'll see. It kind of gets us into our next question, which is, like, the magic of the finals, basically. We have two teams that, based on their winning, would be a pretty huge mark in history. Wemby would win his first title at 22 years old, or the Knicks would win their first since the early 70s. Which one, like, kind of gets you in your feels? The more? Like, what's the warm and fuzzy outcome that you're looking forward to here? I think for me, it's the Knicks. And it's, the history is part of it. It's bigger than that, though. It's not just like, oh, it's been so long. Like, there are longer-suffering fan bases by, like, win-loss, by playoff droughts. Like, the Knicks have had some good teams here and there. They've never been quite on this level in a long time. But, like, it wasn't that long ago that, like, Mitchell Robinson was playing, with Emmanuel Moutier and Alonzo Trier and, like, Ennis Cantor slash Freedom. Like, the recent history of the Knicks has not been all that great. And I would say this fan base has dealt with, like, about as much, like, insane shit as maybe any other fan base in the league. Sixers possibly accepted. That's a particularly strange and cursed situation. And so the idea of Knicks fans getting to celebrate a team purely on the merits, purely on, getting here purely on the vibes, based on, like, the narrative arc of pulling their season together in the way that they did, I just think has been such a rich and satisfying part of this. And so getting to see New York celebrate a championship Knicks team would be amazing. And getting them to see, like, to celebrate a team like that, that, like many great champions, had its moment in the regular season where it's like, are these guys just going to completely fall apart? And they definitively did not and pulled it all together and somehow became better and more, like, more cohesive than we ever had. than we ever would have expected. That's what I want out of sports. And so if the Knicks were to win, I think the process of getting there would be pretty rich. I mean, I think you can't lose. This is a win-win for us because there's a lot of cool stuff going on. But I think there's obviously the big part of, you know, the Knicks fans, the history, all that stuff, and a place that loves basketball to an abnormal extent on all fronts. But, like, within that, like, poly pocket of a narrative, there's a lot of little pieces within it. I only thought of it because the only reason I thought of poly pocket is because my son has a Spongebob poly pocket and it's been on top of mine lately. He loves that thing. What was the name of the, like, when we were growing up, for lack of a better description? Yeah, the boy version. It was like Monster Mike or something. It was like. Yeah, maybe it was a Max. Mad Max? It could be. A lot of Mad Max. I was going to see that. Are there enough Gen X guys going to see that Masters of the Universe He-Man movie, by the way? If you'll see, it looks like the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I can't. Sorry, I don't know if you all were. I gotta go see it for content tonight. Oh, no. So, I'm not looking forward to it. When Skeletor started to talk, I was like, oh, Jesus Christ. How did we get here? So, I googled boy version of poly pocket and it was Mighty Max. Mighty Max. We love Mighty Max. Mighty Max fucking ripped. Some real Skeletor vibes from Mighty Max, for sure. That's right. Sure. Castle of Grayskull, all that stuff. But, you know, there are a lot of. There are a lot of little nice narratives within that big poly pocket. Just better branding, poly pocket. True. Better product. Yeah, better product. But, you know, there's the Villanova tie. There's the chemistry rolling forward from college. These guys are playing together. There's the we figured our shit out stuff with Cat. There's redemption for Cat. There's a lot of stuff going on there. There's Tibbs is pissed. What's going on with Tibbs? How many pencils is Tibbs going to snap angrily watching this? Because people snap pencils angrily watching basketball games. But then. On the other side, I think we can't lose just because. Granted, we expect Wimby to be here. I mean, I think we all are just. We think he's on this track and it's like it's early, but he'll probably be, you know. Either outcome I'll be happy with, but I have to tilt towards the Knicks because of their history and all those things that I said. I saw someone jokingly say that if Wimby loses this finals that all of a sudden he can't be better than Michael Jordan, which really, I think, things into perspective about like how early the arrival has been here. and how much in the long run like it matters and which is to say that like he will have perhaps a decade plus career of these sorts of opportunities and so this is just the precipice of that having said that though i think in the long run when we look back 15 years from now it probably will matter more because of stupid things like that because if you don't win every single one if we're having far room discussions about who's the best player and all this other stuff like that that will get brought up that when we lost the title and like jordan did not uh lost the finals um and so i think for the long run i think the wemby one matters more i think in the short term the next one is just it's front and center that has to be one of the the longest suffering nba fan bases that we've seen it's funny because like you know whenever a team makes a title they'll just be those boilerplate headlines you see in things i think i saw it on espn it's like the spurs make their first nba finals since 2014 i was like you that wasn't that long ago like for me like i think that was yesterday and so like there really hasn't been a ton leading into this is the start of something the knicks are just hoping desperately to reclaim something that they've been pining for for what is this now this is five decades it's 53 years i think it is it's wild it's it's been a long run man and yeah i i hear everything we're saying about the spurs too and the idea that they would just like we we assume they would be back here we assume this is not the last we'll see of them but as far as like how these teams got here the knicks were so like unsparing in their deconstruction of all these last couple rounds that like there wasn't a lot of drama to it and i think by contrast the sort of game seven days that you described kyle like coming off of it like i was just sitting there on my couch being like what did we just watch like how did that happen how did the team that we kind of all expect in the thunder to have the answers to be marching down an opponent to be like responding with all the big shots they look like they were out of gas out of out of responses out of players who could hit the shots that they needed them to hit and i was i was just like left there reckoning with what the spurs are right now which is not something that i think we expected to be doing this season uh and certainly we've we've done enough guessing as to like what the next couple years of this franchise could look like but the head of schedule part is inarguable at this point like these guys are too young in theory to be doing this and yet they're debunking all of that shit in style with like a flair that's so aggressive to watch with a calmness to them that is i really don't know how to describe or explain it they they do feel like a team that even now i'm like trying to wrap my head around how this is possible even more so than the knicks i'm gonna throw out what i said before because with wimpy or what no yeah everything i've said scrapped let's start no i want to retake no it's with wimby i think it's honestly you can't operate with any kind of past any kind of precedent with how you're thinking about how this matters because the league is changing the what how easy it is to keep these teams together and it gets late we've learned repeatedly not to take title windows for granted and wimby's an interesting case where you hope he stays healthy i want him to it's but this is all it feels i hold my breath every time it goes down you know there's that side of it um but you know i think we should learn to like not assume and maybe this is me teaching myself in real time that that you know he may maybe this we we always assume that he's going to get back but these it's gotten difficult more difficult on the cap side to do it and um well i don't know man it's we're 15 months removed from him being shut down with a blood clot that might have altered the shape of his career and now he is the most dominant player in the western conference en route to the nba finals we knew that was possible but it's still shocking yeah and like how many times in the past five years whenever a new winner like emerged was it like this team could win two of the next three or three of the next four i think the thunder it's like it was it was warranted but like there is this uh i think rush to proclaim a new era of dominance and all of a sudden like that's not how the nba works anymore and perhaps it's like we need to get used to it but if this i will say this is the stress test of that theory or what we were talking about before of like parody eight in a row different like maybe this is just how it is like we could be on the precipice of a pre and post wimpy dominance like could be he could just erase the next five years of history but you're right like i just don't know how many how much these new things are affecting like how we've come to learn the emergence of like the next great town but what are we supposed to proclaim like we love to proclaim on this show and we can't even proclaim the ends of eras the beginning of eras like we'll find something else i feel confident in that how about you proclaim a winner of this series because last question on the docket number five nice prediction time and you should know that whatever you say here will be held against you and will ripple through time in the same way like wimpy's legacy thank you no pressure um i think it's spurs and six i feel like that answer is probably a cop-out it's like the classic like we're giving respect to the other team but i i want to qualify with this i think the knicks can absolutely win this series like i think that the pieces are there we talked through a lot of them in terms of the unique challenges that they pose for the spurs i just see like a couple more avenues for san antonio to make new york uncomfortable and to destabilize what's gotten the knicks to this point that i lean slightly in that direction but i i think things could swing pretty erratically i just i have a hard time talking myself into watching the spurs team that we just saw come up with all of these defensive responses to the thunder and an energy advantage the momentum advantage against an opponent of that caliber not find a version of that to do for the knicks even though it'll require something quite different i i i went into this thing as we talked through the series and kind of the matchups and the problems that could come up i had come into this thing with this like creeping suspicion that the knicks could get it done and i do think they could get it done but i think i would just tilt ever so slightly towards san antonio because of that granted they have a lot of they have a lot of variables that like certain young players playing well certain matchups going well um it is a different series you know it's different for the knicks facing the spurs but it's also the knicks are going to pose them some different problems too with their competence at that like two three four spot with their size and their shooting um i tilt towards the spurs in seven i had previously tilted towards the knicks in seven as i'm just ever so slightly tilted towards the spurs but i agree like i i really don't want to like downplay how good the knicks are like i i do think they could win it but i think it's a different series you know it's a different series you know it's a um so that that's kind of where i am i i have a lot of respect for both teams in it and almost a toss-up tilting towards the spurs is it wrong to say that the knicks stress the spurs is disadvantages in ways that even the thunder did not like this matchup overall is actually worse for the spurs than it was with the thunder especially with j-dub out i think that is true and to play it the other way too i think if the thunder had survived the western conference finals i think i'd be picking the knicks right now like i think yeah both the spurs and the knicks are unique challenges for each other which is what's going to make this series so fun to watch and see these guys try to navigate it but yeah new york tack like they just do they have developed all of this muscle memory for how to tap into these different elements of their offense that a thunder team certainly without j-dub and a.j mitchell like they just don't have the flexibility to do that and also home court right that's a bit that's a thing here too true i i could see in my mind's eye that the next are winning like you guys like i could see it all playing out i could see tim timothy chalamet wearing some like oversized shirt just like high-fiving a random guy on the floor at the spurs arena because all of a sudden the knicks are bigger and badder and just came in there and won at least the game but i just i get back to the fact that like it really does have to be towns i think playing at the level that he'd been at before and i just can't see him conquering what i've known about him for so long in order to to defeat him and i just can't see him conquering what i've known like a team like the spurs and with wemby is just the ultimate sort of uh just a component here variable dare i say uh and so i went spurs and six i really wish i had the fortitude to go nixon six because that was my initial like what i wrote down but then i went through it all and i couldn't stick to it but spurs and six we're all you you heard this nicks fans i had more respect for you i said spurs and seven these two say i respect more i respect you hear it who has but this this is the problem with the sort of like i'm gonna take the screen grab of like all the picks of the people just like spurs spurs spurs spurs because i do suspect there will be a strong spurs consensus and the prediction for all this you just can't like rotten tomatoes this shit like it's really not as simple as like 87 percent of nobody's gonna hear what you're saying they're not you can you can just explain it all you want nobody's gonna have that in the clip it's not gonna make the clip man i'm sorry you're trying to add context continue hedging if you'd like but i'm gonna keep fucking proclaiming all day including if it's adding context well kyle has the extra game cushion so it's true he's got the seven he's been high he's high roaded us for sure yeah i had one i had one thing about wimby here because wimmy's the central thing of this is that people keep saying that he's generational i don't i don't this is gonna sound what generation how is that true i don't think he's generational i think he's multi-generational he's bicentennial yeah i just don't because i he's never he's he's unlike anything we've ever seen like people have made up that that that clip of him contesting that jared mccain i rewound that in slow low motion over and over again, him contesting that corner three in transition. I don't, that was one of the most incredible plays I've ever seen in my life. I've never seen anyone do anything like that. I just don't. So that was what, maybe that's an absurd thing to say, but I don't, I don't even think he's generational. Like I don't, I don't know where to put the cap on it. And we're about to see him make 30 plays a game like that on the biggest stage in the sport with that sweet, sweet trophy on the floor in the background. Like I'm already looking forward to the iconography of this series, right? Like the, what are, what are the moments as we talked about coming out of game seven that we're going to remember forever? I have no idea what Wimby will be capable of in that regard, but I put nothing past him. Yeah. Good luck, Jalen Brunson. Well, we will be coming to you next time after game one, we'll be recording Wednesday night. So look for that in your feeds late Wednesday, early Thursday morning. But from there, we'll wrap things up. Thank you. Ben Cruz. Thank you to Jeff for filling in on production. We'll talk to you next time. 21 plus and present in select States for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or 1-800. I reset call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MD gambling help.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24 seven support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York, Louisiana call 1-877-770-7867. Want to be the one who's always in the know about the game, the scores, the plays. Here's a tip. The Apple sports app. Just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules. And when your team scores, it shows up right on your iPhone lock screen, making it easy to check in anytime. 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