Spurs Force Game 7! Game 6 Thoughts, Keys for Each Team, and More!

coming up on the Zach Lowe show, we got a special Friday show. Why? Game seven is happening in the Western conference finals. The San Antonio Spurs blew out Oklahoma City last night in game six in San Antonio. Everyone gets an off day to travel or I guess the travel will probably already happen for them last night back to Oklahoma City for the most eagerly anticipated game of the year so far. Game seven Spurs Thunder. Last four have been double digit wins. Game two was a nine point win for the Thunder. I want a classic. I'm getting greedy. Enough double digit wins. Let's have a classic. It's game seven. It's Shay versus Victor. It's the MVP versus the unsolvable riddle. We got J Dub back into the series. Did not look great. We'll talk about whether even plays in game seven. Deer and Fox working his way back. Dylan Harper had a huge game, just the really fun series. But let's hope that we get a classic and waiting in the wings. The New York Knicks Kirk Gold's various here. He was at game six. He's going to tell us about the atmosphere in San Antonio. We're going to talk about what happened in that game, what the big trends in the series through six games have been, what adjustments we might see for game seven, even maybe a starting lineup change. And who should the Knicks want to win? Should they even care? We kind of look a little bit at how the Knicks match up with both teams and then we discussed Mitchell Robinson's broken pinky finger, potentially a big deal. Quick takes on a lot of rear form, which expectively passed the board of governors on Thursday, all coming up after this on the Zach Lose show. The Zach Lose show is brought to you by Fandall. The conference finals are here. Thinking 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, the players and plays during the NBA postseason. Be able to 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 or over in president's like states 18 or over in DC. You can talk to our own and gambling problem call 1 800 gambler call 1 8 8 8 7 8 9 7 7 7 7 7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Welcome to the bonus, Zach Lose show and bonus because we are going to game seven in the Western conference finals. We made it. We're getting a winner take all game seven. The first game seven. The West has offered us so far in the playoffs this year. I believe after the spurs blew the doors off the Oklahoma City Thunder in game six. In San Antonio. Fourth straight double digit outcome in this series and the game two was a nine point outcome. So we haven't had a thriller since the all time epic game one. I tried to speak a thriller into existence for game six didn't work. I did predict the spurs when I thought it was going to be close. It was not close. I'm going to try to speak a thriller into existence for game seven because we all need it and the nicks. The New York nicks just waiting, watching, do they even care? The biggest story coming out of there is Mitchell Robinson's broken pinky finger and his potential availability for the finals, which is a huge, huge deal for the nicks. We'll talk about that. Kurt Goldsbury, you were at game six in San Antonio last night. What are you going to remember from the atmosphere from the conversations after from whatever? Yeah, this young team keeps answering the bell. I didn't know what I was going to get going down there. I have such a great respect for O.K.C. The vibes in San Antonio are always reliable that showed the nuns on the jumbo tron coincidently or not that sparked a massive third quarter run. But for me and all seriousness, like this is a team that's too young to be putting up this kind of fight. So they get beat real good up there in Oklahoma and game five. You don't know what you're going to get from these guys and they come and they answer the bell. So all playoffs long zack low, this team has responded to losses against Portland losses against Minnesota and now losses against the defending champs and they did it again last night. So I'm just struck again by how young these dudes are. But then how sort of ready they are to make these responses and they did it again last night. It's interesting how the narratives flip game to game. So game five, they lose in Oklahoma City. A game that was there for them to at least make close in the fourth quarter and they couldn't do it. They committed a bunch of dumb fows and the whole like, well, this is the experience. This is the experience factor we've all been talking about. They're too young. The thunder of the experience edge. And then in game six season on the line, when becomes the game dresses a freaking monk and they blow the hell out of the thunder and force game seven. And so if they would if they lose game seven and a couple of their young guys have, you know, shaky shooting performances. And the thunder role players who have struggled to shoot from three the entire series will talk about dork and whether he should even start game seven and a second have an outlier shooting game. Well, the narrative flip back to well, look, the experience carried the day in the end or like this team of young guys and deer and fox and Harrison Barnes and a little Luke Cornette has taken the thunder to game seven of the conference finals. Is the experience thing just over have disperse debunked it or or is game seven going to be sort of stupidly narratively determinative? Because to me, if you get to game seven and you win a game like that with your backs against the wall, I kind of think you've already proven you're you're pretty much ready to win the championship. Game seven is a coin flip, whatever. Yeah, I think so. I think this team they've proven a lot. And if you talk to any fan, anybody around this organization, coach, even a player, hey, back in October, we're going to have game seven in Oklahoma City to go to the finals. They would have been like, let's go. How do I, where do I sign? This is, this is beyond expectation. This team has had a first playoff run that is just incredible in the conventional wisdom. You've said it, I've said it for the last few months as a team usually has to take their lumps, bills, said it. And maybe they will. And I think that's what game seven is really about, right? Are they going to be the first team in a very long time to just go from, hey, we've never been in the playoff. Now we're in the finals. Or are they going to have one of these teaching moments that a lot of these young teams have either way, those act to your point, they've already done a lot. They're playing with house money to some extent. I know the players and coaches don't want to think like that. But when we look back at what we were talking about with this group in October, I think that is where we're at with them. I mean, I guess we'll see in game seven. But one, one thing's clear, like, and this has been clear for months now. The idea that they're doing something dramatic to mess with this core to chase the stars, like so far, long gone. Like this, these three guys, Harper, who was sensational last night, jumpers, forceful takes to the rim, change the entire game after a couple, a couple of quiet games. Castle, who I bet he's not going to be talked about that much today in the wake of game six, just a calm chill 17, nine and five with one turnover. By the way, a reason this thing is going seven is that the spurs after a catastrophically bad game one and two turnover wise. And we know you can't turn the ball over against the thunder and hope to win. They have five fewer turnovers than the thunder game three to game six credit their guards for chilling out a little bit. And then Wembee, of course, 28, 10 and two. And for all the talk of like, well, he's got to get to the room. He's got to get to the interior settle for too many jumpers. It was never going to be just that because the modern game for all, but maybe like two guys, just doesn't work like throw it into the post and let him attack. And Wembee is big and tall and skinny. And it's not going to work like that. It's always going to be a mix of outside and inside. His threes are going to have to fall here and there for the spurs to win. They fell last night. Four of nine announced himself right. He had three in the first six minutes of the game. And then the rolls to the rim started the isolation attacks where he was clearly focused on like, can I get one extra step, one extra reach, one extra pivot to the rim came just an awesome performance by the spurs. And then, you know, the thunder, the spurs are not plus 18 for the series, total points. Thunder's offensive efficiency for the series is 107 points per 100 possessions. That would have ranked last in the regular season, more than ever, regular season versus playoffs is like apples to apples to broccoli. Basically, but still, yeah, it's not great. And J Dub, who looms as a huge X factor. If the thunder win this series and go to the finals against the nicks and because of the way they match up, we'll talk a little bit about that later was a complete non-factor and trying to gut out his return from a hamstring injury. We'll see if he even plays in game seven. A.J. Mitchell did not play. We have not really heard a whisper about his potential availability. And Shay Gilder's Alexander, yeah, six of 18, 15 points. Can we, can we just, can we, before we move on to the actual series? Can we just put the 20 game, 20 point game streak to bed? Like, I just don't care anymore because it doesn't carry over into the post season and it these post season games don't count, I guess, but anyway, he's just facing a riddle that he hasn't been able to solve. And I think for the thunder to win game seven at home, they're going to need at least one of the following three things to happen and probably two of the following three things to happen. Number one, Shay is going to have to have a decent efficiency game. Decent to good efficiency game. And we just, he's shooting 37 percent, I think, for the series. Yeah. 30 28% 26% on threes, and you see it, Kirk, it's just, it's a really hard riddle for him because the spurs have elite one-on-one defenders across the board, and he knows that if I get by that guy, or even if I don't get by that guy, I know who's looming once I get into the pain, the alien. And so he's taking just a ton of tough mid-range shots that are one-on-one designed to just be shots that get off before like, I can just kind of shoot before Wembee comes into the play, and the, and he can't like, the cells are good one-on-one defender, obviously castle, Harper, Bryant, you know, Fox is the one I would go at a little bit more and maybe tell Johnson. But even so, if Wembee's on the floor, it's just a riddle, he's not been able to solve. So that's one. Number two, they were 10 of 40 from three last night, and it just feels like, it doesn't feel like, no, shake and come out and score 35 in game seven, I wouldn't be surprised. But it feels like the more likely thing of these variables that flips the thunderway is, he starts spraying the ball out and they make more threes. And so that's variable number two, they were 10 of 40 last night did not make enough threes. And variable number three is the turnovers. And that's the ultimate solution for Oklahoma City to this half court defense that they can't solve is do they have one more game in them where they force 19 turnovers and get out on the break before that defense can set. I think the spurs are so good. I think the thunder need two of those three things to happen and it feels after six games like a Shay explosion is almost like the least likely of those three things to happen. But that's how good the spurs are. I mean, I don't, I don't think Shay has a magic formula to solve what the spurs are doing to him now that they've stopped trapping him at half court. I mean, you hit on all the things I have notes on all of them. The turnovers for the spurs just quickly. A lot of that has to do with not a manual quickly, but just quickly deer and fox coming back. And the turnovers, the castle had just the nightmarish numbers we saw a lot of that had to do with him being asked to do too much and a lot of the eyeballs of that thunder defense just locking in on that young man as soon as deer and comes back dealing harpers bouncing around again. They can't just be as laser focused on him, but he's also done a good job of taking it. But that's a great point of something that has changed. That's that you pulled about the turnover differential since I would say since deer and fox return to the series in game three, that's a really big point because when you look at the splits in the series, and I don't usually look at splits, but there's six games now. And we can start to tell a story here. And to the point about the turnovers, the single biggest differential, the variance in the series is all on one end of the court's act is all on the thunder end when they have the ball. They are scoring 124 points in their wins and 96 points in their losses. The spurs are pretty good for 112, 113, 114, 112, 113, whatever that is, but the variance there. And what that's why am I bringing that up now? Turnovers are the lifeblood of this team. And we've said it for years, Bill coined the concept like, hey, man, this is the first defense. I really remember they can go on a run by itself. They get a turnover, they turn into a bucket, they get a turnover. If you can control the turnovers and the chaos against the thunder when you have the basketball, that really reduces their ability to score on the other end. So I think the way you pointed out the first part of that thing, they thunder absolutely need to get those turnovers in game seven. And the spurs, on the other hand, need to prevent it. I think the SGA stuff you called out is the biggest story right now. I mean, this is a guy that me, you, everybody else was saying was the best player in the world just coming into the playoffs. He gave us no reason to change that after the first two rounds. He is averaging his last four games have been the worst four games of his sort of time as a superstar in this league. He's averaging six buckets on 17 shots in the last four of these games. That's not good enough. And I went in and I was like, well, what's going on? The shot quality is way down. And why is the shot quality way down? Yeah, Stefan Castle, the spurs defense, but what's not there? It's really a story of what's not there. He was averaging nine point two layups and dunks in the regular season per game attempts. That's down to 4.9 in this series. I wonder what's going on. And that's what it is. We can, the stocks and all the Webbe stats are great, but it's those kinds of metrics for the, for the dorks that just be like, yeah, Victor William is the most valuable player in the series. He changes everything. Yeah. Shake y'all just Alexander 9.2 layups and dunks during the regular season per 100. That's 4.9. He's making 41% of them down from 67% of them in the regular season. They're taking away his bread and butter at the rim. And then the last thing I'll say, dude. And this is this is the red meat for the toxic internet right now, by the way, the toxic internet. Is there any, is there another internet? Can I join that one? There was wasn't there, it wasn't NBA Twitter briefly, the, the, the, the non toxic internet back. You know when the toxic internet took over from the non toxic internet, remember the hamsters that were like the dancing hamsters that were a huge meme and they had that funny high-pitched song that was playing that I think was the end. Like that was non toxic internet. And I don't know what happened to those hamsters if they all got hit by a car, but they're dead. And now it's a toxic internet. Well, I'm going to flirt with the red meat for the toxic internet here. Shay had three free throws last night, he had 17 in game five. And again, that's a stat to watch the, are the thunder getting to the line? What did they have last night? And then on. I think 11 to 12. Yeah. And so that aggression on offense. And if you look at the splits, again, it's all the things that keep coming up in my notes are on that thunder end of the courtsack. Well, you mentioned the rim shots, right? And that's the biggest change. It's happened to Oklahoma City's offense in terms of its shot distribution is they've essentially traded a bunch of shots at the rim for a bunch of really hard jump shots. And like it sounds stupid, but part of that is also transition, right? Like that's, that's where you get rim shots. Yeah. A lot of the time. And so by taking care of the ball and Fox is not had a good series otherwise. And that's kind of what's a little scary for the thunder is that Fox is averaging 10 points a game on 33% shooting. And a lot of his looks are like, they look kind of like the Aaron Fox looks slightly maybe more difficult because he's a little bit lacking in his usual explosion with the high ankle sprain. But if he has a big game in him, that changes things. But all the easy buckets that you fatten up your efficiency on that turns a shaky jump shooting game and do an efficient, shake game. They're just vaporized because of the rim defense and because the thunder are not getting their normal diet of transition such you mentioned the free throws. I do want to, I do want to say this. I think one of the one of the sadder crowd moments of recent NBA history worth was the thunder fans trying to throw the flapper chant. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, yeah, you know what guys, I might, I might just, I might bag that one. I don't know if I want to be a thunder fan and start magnifying, flopping as an issue in the series and trying to draw false equivalents between my guys and Victor Wemanyama. They call that, they call that what about is him and political discourse, speaking of the toxic internet. The what about is what about your guy and I'm like, no, this is, you got, you got name are over there. You got the king of this stuff over there. I'll do respects, but in reality, in the arena last night, there's a few moments. Where Shay hits the ground, Karuso hits the ground. And you know that you're just watching Zack's Arba for better for worse. We start to, are they gonna, is the whistle going to come and it didn't come. So I think that's a bigger part of game seven, too, than I would like it to be who's going to be the official will those whistles come when those dudes inevitably fall to the floor. So you mentioned all the offensive stats for the Thunder and the variation. I just brought up their game log on cleaning the glass, which I meant to do last night and forgot. There are two worst offensive efficiency games of the entire season. Regular season playoffs combined are games four and six of this series. One, two, three, four, five of their nine worst scoring efficiency games of the season are against the spurs. So this is like, like I just, we knew it was a thing in the regular season. We knew the playoffs would be a little bit different because everyone's more or less available. The stakes are higher. Everyone's focused and playing their peak minutes and all that. But it is really sustained like the spurs, defense has strangled this offense and they're going to have to figure it out one time. And I don't even really know what the answer is other than they just are going to have to make more threes because I just, either Shay is going to just make a bunch of miraculous jump shots and have a great game or he's going to have an okay game or a bad efficiency game like he's had. Other guys are going to have to make shots to wit. I do wonder if game seven is finally the time where we see a starting lineup change. Heart and Stein and Holmgren are minus 45 in 60 minutes. When we didn't play Heart and Stein off the court, not by a long shot, Heart and Stein has actually become even more important as the series is going on. What he has played off the court is the thunder's ability to play Heart and Stein with any other big man because there's just not enough space on the floor. He's got to be the only big man on the floor or not or just the chip plus big jail in Williams combo because both can shoot threes. Maybe they stick with it and start it again because I don't really like you can't bring shut off the bench and I don't think you can bring hard design off the bench. The move would be, you can you just not play them with Dort. Dort is minus 54 in the series. That trio is minus 38 in just 38 minutes together. Dort is four of 22 on threes. He doesn't have an awesome defensive matchup in the series. That's been clear since you and I were podcasting on Christmas or the day after Christmas about this, this matchup. And with J Dub looking limited, I don't know if you start him. I think you probably just have to start McCain and Case and Wallace or McCain and Karuso. But maybe they don't. Maybe they just say we're the Oklahoma City Thunder. We're champions. We're the best team in the league. We have the best record in the league. New Dort is a homegrown cultural touchstone of our team. We're rolling with them. Roll players play better at home. And like, you know, you could get a game seven where he goes four of eight from three. And that role players play better at home, the whole narrative shifts in one game. I do, this is, this feels like the lineup change to make wouldn't surprise me if they just rolled with Dort. Hope he has a better three point shooting game. I thought a lot of the threes you took last night were early clock, too long, atrocious shot selection. But that line up, I mean, they're getting boat race at the start of every single game and playing from, from a whole. Yeah. And I think Lou Dort could have that Grant Williams game where everybody's just like, Oh, man, I didn't, I didn't see Lou Dort hitting seven threes to put the series away. That can definitely happen with a role player in a game seven. We've seen it, like I said, with Grant Williams. There's the Peter principle concept here, too, with Lou Dort. And last night I was, I was sitting on media row and I was talking to the guy next to me. It's like, well, playmaker Lou Dort, not a great look. And why are we seeing like Lou try to make plays off the bounce sack? It's because J. Dubb is limited. It's because A.J. is not out there. And I want to give some flowers just to the thunder depth, too, because like how many teams would even be going to a game seven on their side of this transaction without J. Dubb and without A.J.? How many teams could survive whatever your favorite team is? Take two of your four best players out of the rotation and then see if you can go hang with the spurs and the conference finals. Like they are so impressive. And one of the other ways that depth shows up is like even when a diagonal throws the proverbial white flag at the beginning of the fourth last night, I'm sitting there talking to Isaac from the ringer next to me. I'm like, is this their white flag line up? Because it's like, all these guys are good, like, like even when they're down there, it's like, they're still like really good NBA players out there. So they're surviving. I think the starting line up will stay the same. But the other name that I think we have to bring up is Chet Hongren, who simply has been invisible for too many stretches in this series, particularly in a series with J. Dubb being so limited. And he hasn't been good enough. You mentioned that. Wembee obviously takes a lot of personal pride in reducing Chet Hongren's efficiency and God help anybody who he takes that sort of pride with. But he was, you know, he shot the least amount of their starters last night. You had Shay take 18 shots. You had Jared McCain take 11 and then door and Hardenstein 11 and 10. So you'd like to see something more from Chet, right? Well, I mean, and that's the thing you watch. You rewatch all the the Shay Hart and Stein picking roles when Wembee is playing man defense against Hardenstein and they're leading to a lot of floaters, which he's fantastic at the Hardenstein. The Hardenstein push shot is, is a miracle of basketball and a lot of three point shots for Ludoord or Chet Hongren or whoever they want to shoot. And the Spurs, Hardenstein can make five of six of those. They're not going to change the way they defend. Those are when they go in and that's great. But like the Spurs are going to be happy and they aggregate with the shot diet that they're getting out of those plays. And Chet, I mean, look, let's not mince words. He's averaging 12 points a game. He's the fourth leading score on the Thunder in this series. The second and third leading scores are Alex Caruso and Jared McCain. It's not even that he's shooting 27% from three. It's that he's taking 1.83s per game. I don't understand how he's unable to get any open looks or take any open looks. And I don't want to hear like, well, it's just a bad series for him. So they're guarding them with wings. It's tough. He had that one play last night where he had that really nice spin move step through lefty layup against Vaselle where he kind of bullied Vaselle, his version of bullying Vaselle. Yeah. A couple of those plays in game five and he missed the layup. But when he had to come over and help and Hardenstein got a put back, it's like in a series where Lou Dort is taking 1,000 threes, I can't get a little bit more of that every game from you. And he's also started, and this is a very interesting push pull. He got a couple, a few put backs last night or a few like offensive rebounds where he crashed pretty hard from the perimeter because he knows he has a sides advantage. And I think that's almost a sign of the thunder realizing like, we're kind of desperate for points in the half court and we're actually willing to risk having a fourth guy crash the offensive glass from the perimeter because we think he can get it and we think that's our best shot at offense, but he has not done nearly enough. And Shay, it's going to be a really interesting what happens on a micro and macro level. If disperse win game seven and Shay has like another six of 18 game because I do think in a lot of corners and with some justification, I don't some at least some justification. It's going to make people re not rethink it's going to be a slight taint on what has otherwise been a pretty spotless rise to number one or number two in the NBA two time MVP. If he can't figure out this defense and they go down and seven to a team that is way ahead of schedule, I do think it's going to change his perception around the league at least a little bit fair or unfair. And I think probably a little bit of both. I think there'll be some over the top unfair reaction and some, oh, well, it's all Wembee. It's not Shay's fault and that will not be entirely true either. I do think a lot of it is he has come up, he has come up against a riddle that he just can't solve and he can't solve and a lot of it is just about Wembee, Yama, which makes the fall out of a thunder loss more interesting than the fallout of a spurs loss. The spurs are going to spurs. They're young. They're awesome. They have draft assets. They're not doing anything crazy. I do think I have no idea how the thunder would react to a game seven loss. If people want to do fake honest trades and this and that, that's against Sam Pressey's playbook. But I do think the way this is happening with the unsolvable riddle of the alien, with J-Dub's injury and ineffectiveness, with Chet's relative ineffectiveness, with the financial crunch that is coming for a team that I think is going to be like $40 million over the second apron or something like that next year, like I think they would have the highest tax bill in the history of the NBA. I do think it raises some interesting questions, but we're not there yet because they're at home for game seven. Home teams, the win game seven is often as they used to. I think it's two two and four game sevens all in the east this year, but those two guys with J-Dub not really being super available in the series are supposed to be the two best guys on the team and Shay has not a series up to his standards and Chet is just like, I know it's tough, man. This is an elite defense, the second best defense in the league behind you guys. They have this alien that gives you fits and really likes to embarrass you a little bit. I just got to get more, like I can't have you take a few shots in LudoDort. I can't have averaging fewer points again than like two reserve guards. I can't, it can't happen. Let me, this is such an excellent point on, if this version loses game seven, we got to get it better, we got to get a better bench. We got these coronet, Keldin minutes have not been great. We've learned something, we're ahead of schedule, quote unquote, they're not changing it. The most stunning staff for me in this series when I looked it up this morning is in 222 minutes on the court, this series, Shay Gildes Alexander has a net rating of negative 7.6. >> That is part of, that is, I looked up today and I think that's part of, he's starting this game in a lineup that is not working. Now part of it is him, but part of it is like that combination is just not working. >> Yeah, that ultimate caveat is like, yeah, dude, this is the bulls without Pippin and Koo Coach. Like, however you want to say, it's like, okay, don't forget, Shay Gildes was barely, he was technically available last night, but that was, his minutes were not good. And so, yeah, I'm not roasting SGA, but some of these numbers are stunning. And he looked like the third best guard in the game last night, because Dylan Harper had a marvelous game. And I'm not just talking about his scoring, which was hyper-efficient. He had one of the best loose ball gathers and saves in a critical moment under the rim early in the game and just set the tone that we were going to get the loose balls. We're going to make the smart plays and then Castle is playing great. And so, when you have, to your point about the team building thing if certain things happen in game seven, you look at the guards in San Antonio too, it's not just Wembee. It's like, these guards are incredible. Dylan Harper is Bill likes to say, this is the worst he's ever going to be. He. He was marvelous last night, so I think it would be soul searching for a team that we thought was just so built for war. I don't think they'll do a lot. I think they're too sort of cool headed for that. I think they would look at this and be like, "Yeah, AJ was hurt and J-Dub was hurt." And that's what smart teams would do. I said the same things as in my Celtic fanfrench, "Yeah, you lost game seven. Jason Tatum was hurt." Like, don't go crazy, don't go trading your superstars because you lose a game seven in the playoffs when your best players are. Long story short, so much on the line for game seven, so much to watch. But yeah, I'm watching SVA and Chet. If they're not good, I can't see a path for OKC to win. All right, let's take a quick break to talk about a couple of other wrinkles and then the next are waiting. A couple of other things I wanted to get to just in this game in this series, looking ahead to game seven. Number one on Chet. It's interesting to me that Chet as the only big man on the floor has just been something the Thunder have decided they're not doing any more in this series. And maybe that's just about their lack of perimeter depth. They're not playing Wiggins or Joe really at all. And obviously, J-Dub and AJ have been hurt. But they're playing Hardenstein as the only big man here and there. They're playing big J-Dub and Williams as the only big man here and there. Their best lineups, upside wise, have always been four wings and guards and Chet. And we just haven't seen that at all and I don't quite know why that is. Thing number two, and I wonder if you talked about this as anybody after the game. I thought one thing this spurs changed last night that was smart was their zone with Wembee. Which is basically a one man Wembee zone was much less obvious, much more well disguised. Sometimes he would start possessions playing straight man to man and then fade back into his own. In the second half, he just sort of played man to man like regular defense, even switched a couple of times. Because I think the thunder had found some ways in game five to, okay, we know where he is. We know it's coming. It starts at the beginning of every position. He just runs to the baseline near a corner and stays there. And I think the spurs very smartly were like, we're still going to play that here and there, but we're not going to play it all the time and we're going to disguise it a little bit and be a little bit more unpredictable on defense, even with Cornette. In the second half, especially they stopped playing zone with Cornette and just played straight man to man, which I think is smart. I think the Cornette zone stuff has not worked for them. Did people talk about that at all during the game because that was a subtle change that I think was important? No, but I'm glad you mentioned Cornette. People were talking about how Cornette had his best game of the season by far. He was plus 13 in those 13 minutes, which if you've been following that, I've been posting about it over and over, not just because, but when he's off the court, the spurs have just got blown out. It looks like a layup line for the Thunder. It started in the Wolf series. Portland really couldn't take advantage of it, but as soon as Luke would come in and when we would go off, the Timberwolves, their eyes would get big and they would start, this is tacking. And whether it was AO or Antman or Jade McDaniels, here come the drives. And it looks like Luke might be hurt a little bit, but for whatever reason, the Thunder were able to start doing that again. And last night, I didn't pick up on any exact adjustments act, but those Cornette minutes were very good for the San Antonio spurs. And that's another sort of wonky thing to watch in game seven. The Thunder absolutely need to win those Cornette minutes because when you look at Wembee's on off splits, he has a net rating of 11. The offensive rating for the spurs is rated 112 when he's on, but the defensive rating of the team is 102. And so they needed to go out and just destroy those Cornette minutes on the Thunder side to make up for that difference. And when they didn't do that in the first quarter, and then again in the third quarter, that's when this game got out of hand. So I wasn't smart enough to pick up on any sort of defensive adjustment specific to the one-man zone. By the way, did you come up with that? I was listening to you in Maui yesterday. Is that your term the one-man zone? I don't know. No, it's not. I don't think I made that up. Take credit for it. It's great. It is a one-man zone. No, everyone else plays normal defense in Wembee. Just sort of passes along his assignment, but they didn't do it as much last night. It's a perfect description of what's going on out there. But yeah, when if Luke Cornette is a zero, a plus minus zero in game seven, I love the spurs chances of winning that game. We'll say that. It was, and a lot of those minutes are coming with Shay on the floor. And those of the minutes, the Thunder absolutely have to win and they did not win last night. And one of the reasons they had a lot of Shay on Victor Offman, it's was Victor's sub-pattern was a little bit different last night than it had been in the previous two or three games. He came out much earlier in the first and third quarters and came back in. So they were going quicker, shorter stints with him. A couple of other notes, J-Dub, I mean, obviously 10 minutes at one point, didn't talk to the media for the game, didn't look great, didn't impact the game at all. And I thought also notable, they did not put him in the game when Shay rested at the beginning of the second and the fourth quarters. And that's always J-Dub and AJ Mitchell's time to sort of carry the offense. And I thought that said a lot to me, we're not overtaxing him yet. And we're just sort of seeing what he's got in the tank. And other than that, you know, I think Vicelle's had a really nice series, just sort of unsigned hero. And Penny's had a nice series for them defensively and on offense, and a lot of their most successful picking roles, disperse with Wembee rolling, which is always good. Champenny is the only guy on the weak side of the floor because that is the hardest rotation, the more stressful rotation for the Thunder to make. And I'm trying to think if I have any other notes other than, man, I'm excited. I'm excited. Obviously everyone's excited. I hope we get a classic. The stakes are enormous, historically for individual players, for a Thunder team that's trying to end the no repeat streak in the NBA. And by the way, if the Thunder lose game seven, we are guaranteed to have our eighth different NBA champion in eight seasons, continuing that streak too. So a lot on the line. I guess my other question for you is the Knicks, the Mitchell Robinson thing is, you know, we'll see, obviously having a broken pinky is suboptimal. I immediately texted my guy Jeff Stosserman street clothes and I said, fire up the database. What does it say about pinky fingers and he tweeted it, he texted me and then he tweeted it, time lost for pinky fractures is dependent on treatment needed. Average time lost for non operative pinky fractures is nine days, three and a half games normally, but nine days is exactly how much off time the Knicks are going to start. And obviously if he needs surgery, it's a month. I feel like we'd have heard if it was going to be surgery by now, maybe not. I don't know. So my guess is he's going to play easy for me to say if I had a broken pinky finger, I would be like, I'd need someone else to type up my research, it just hurts me too much to type. It's which seem hard for him to be a worse free throw shooter. So maybe the pinky finger is like a secret antidote to his free throw shooter. This is a guy who swings it a lot of shots gets a ton of offensive rebounds. The Knicks offense of rebounding rate with him on the floor in the playoffs is 40% without him. It's 30%, which is still good, but it's like it's it's mortal versus oh shit. We are, this is a whole other lever of our offense. He and Kat can play together. I think in either of these matchups a little bit. So and they don't have, I mean, their backup is Huck Porti or playing in an obi at center, which they have done against both of these teams in limited minutes. So a big deal, but do you think zooming out, who should the Knicks be rooting for on Saturday? Oh, that's tempting the basketball gods to borrow one of Zach Lowe's famous phrases. I think you don't do that. You don't root for anybody, but I'll engage. I'm not going to, I'm not going to hide from the question. If they were to root for somebody, you root for the Spurs like I technically a first-year fight coach, a bunch of young guys and a team you beat in the NBA cup. And you can roast me for calling the NBA cup relevant here. I'm fine, but we don't get a lot of regular season precedent. That was a game that both of those teams really wanted to win, and they did it. And it was an emphatic win that featured Mitch Robinson just being so great on the glass and really just punking the Spurs front court. So just a lap around the track on Mitch here. If you had to pick one player, if you're a next fan to break their pinky and still play it, that's the guy to your point about the free throw numbers. He doesn't, he's not Jalen Brunson's pinky, we're talking about out there. But he is really good for two reasons. One, I think he is a tremendous vibe shift on the glass. And then two, our man Cat is a human foul, right? He is the human whistle. It's a big, that's a big X factor. And against Wembee, who is drawn 44 fouls in the six games. So that's over seven a game. Good math. There will be whistles in the front court if it's the Spurs. And if nothing else, Mitch Robinson is six more fouls for the New York Knicks front court to have to play with against the Wembee or a heart and scene chat combo, that'll be a much better combo when Wembee's not there. So this is a big deal. Who should they be, I would definitely say they want to see the inexperienced team that they beat the San Antonio Spurs. So that's historically the correct answer. And probably actually the answer. They were two and one against the Spurs in three games, including the Cup Finals. Yeah. The third game was in March at Madison Square Garden. Pre this, whatever the hell has happened to the nicks and the playoffs, it might have been their finest overall performance of the season. They blew out the spurs at MSG. And the one loss was on New Year's Eve, Champagne hit 11/3 and set the record for most points off the bench. That's right, without even attempting a two. And then they were o and two against the Thunder. Both games were pretty competitive games. One, the Thunder ended up winning by 11 and pulled away a little bit in the last minute or so of the game. My answer is the nicks have reached a point where I don't think they should care. I think they're, yeah, they have as good a chance against either team. They can absolutely win the title. They might enter it, given the Thunder's health situation as favorites or co favorites against either one of these teams. That's how good the nicks have been playing. And I think both of them present some sort of inner, I went back and I prepped the Thunder's nicks finals just in case the Thunder won last night. Obviously they did not. I will do the same for the spurs later today. But, um, you know, both, both teams put their bigs on Josh Hart and put wings on cat, uh, Wemby guarded Josh Hart a lot and, uh, Hart and Stein guarded Josh Hart a lot and so did Chet Hungren. And that's why Jaydub, if the Thunder win is a huge X factor because he was their number one choice to guard cat, uh, and switch the, the Bronson cat pick and roll. They put a dork on Bronson and Jaydub on cat and try to switch that. And honestly, like going back and watching it, watching that film bag, like, I think the nicks are ready for all those tactics now in a way that they were, they were, they were showed up a pretty high level of sophistication tactically against both teams. They're just at another level now. They have more layers to their offense now. I think they're going to be ready for anything. But interestingly, if you look back and see, um, the most screens Josh Hart set in any game this season was in that game against this, against the spurs in March, because they put Wemby on them and they were like, you know what, we're gonna, we're gonna use Josh Hart as our screener cat space to floor and it worked. The second most was in March against Oklahoma City for the same reason. And the eighth most was another game against Oklahoma City. So that, that is clearly an interesting thing. Thunder also, thunder, thunder nicks is also, um, the team that takes the most corner threes against the defense in Oklahoma City that allows the most corner threes. So that's an interesting wrinkle. Um, anyway, we won't belabor the finals because, you know, we don't know who's playing. But I think the nicks are ready for either one. And like, I talked about the chat solo minutes, uh, Wemby obviously is the only big man on the floor for most of the minutes he plays. Unless we get a little hint of French vanilla, which we haven't got much of in this, in this series. Um, and the nicks have often moved cat around, particularly against the thunder. They put him on door or caruso, like we see teams do and try to switch their action. So I think the nicks, I think the nicks, despite being oh and two against the thunder, rewatching those games, I didn't think the nicks looked uncomfortable at all in them. Um, I think they know where to push on offense as best they can. And, uh, and obviously they were two and one against the spurs. Everyone's different now than they were then. But I think the nicks should be comfortable in either one of these matchups and man, boy, oh boy, man, I don't, I don't know. I don't even know who's going to be favored in the finals. I think the thunder would definitely be favored. Um, yeah. But the nicks are, the nicks are ready and waiting. And I'm, I'm, I'm expecting Robinson to play in game one effectiveness level TBD. But we'll see how they play. Man, we got game seven. Any, any other nicks thoughts before we go? Yeah, I think if there's one red flag, it's like, man, I bet the spurs and thunder wish they could have played the sixers and cabs and these, and these last two rounds. But, you know, that's, that's, they wouldn't have played him any better than the nicks just did because the freaking Harlem Globeswaters can't play the Washington generals any better than the nicks just played the rest of the Eastern Conference. Well, that's what I keep thinking about analytically. And I'm like, yes. Okay. So before the nicks fans come after me, they have peaked at the right time. They're starting five is great. Mike Brown has come in and done exactly what he was supposed to do. He's found depth. They made a good move at the deadline that they have Alvarado, Mitch Robinson and Landry Shammett and Duce McBride, the bench is deeper. Yes. But man, the other seven teams in the Eastern Conference playoffs didn't exactly entertain me in the last few weeks. Okay. I'm not, I'm not, the Hawke series may have been their toughest series round one and definitely those are tough. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I mean, for a nicks fan, I'd be a little bit worried about rust and the oh shit factor. Here comes a team that is throwing a lot heavier punches than who I've played for the last month. And I think that is a real thing. I don't know who's going to win game seven. But either one of those teams is going to be like, man, we are, we are playing very hard. We've just won one of the hardest series in years in this league. And here we come. We're hosting games one and two on our own floor. We're sleeping in our own beds. So the nicks are going to have to sort of snap out of this sort of gleeful celebration mode that they've been in and come into a Western Conference arena and beat a really good team in game one. I think they can do it. Don't get me wrong. But it is one of the more dramatic. Hey, we're celebrating the vibes are immaculate. Oh shit. We have to play the final sort of weeks that we've had in this league in a while. I think I said this with Mike Green the other day. I think the fact that they just wiped the floor with the east is helpful in that regard. The fact that it was anti climactic sort of reinforces to them that the job is not close to done. Like this was actually kind of an easy job. And we, if internalized how easy it was, let's be happy that we did it. But the real job is coming. And I expect whoever wins game seven, I expect a super long and competitive finals. And I can't wait any, any, any, any parting thoughts, any thoughts on lottery reform, which past gesture. I already had, I already had my, I already had my take on, on that with Hollinger. But do you have any thoughts on this as a former team executive yourself? But quickly the Mike Green podcast you did this week was incredible. Well, if you're next, I always love when a play by play guy gets on a podcast. Like when our Michaels would go on with Bill, it was just like electric, because they would, he would pull out these stories from Alice career. But Mike's ability to talk about Nick's history, Nick's culture, having the front row seat for all of these games, the dark years, the stories he would tell about his interactions with fans. I thought it really set the stage really well for the finals. I'm just buttering you up because I want you to send me your notes for the finals preview. I have to write a finals preview. And since you retired from writing, these things fall apart. I mean, sabbatical. I don't know if I've ever done, can you now send me a notes? What about a co-written finals preview? I'll do most of the work, but a couple of Zach Lowe bullets. That would be really cool in there. What do you think about this? I will send you a screenshot of this paper, which is where I wrote my hand notes on it. If you can decipher them, I will, I'm going to go into Claude. And I'll be like, Hey, Claude, turn this screenshot into a Zach Lowe finals preview. I was going to say something about Claude that I shouldn't say. The only thing I'll say about lottery farmers, I covered it is there are a lot of concerns. We'll see how it plays out. I'm largely like, okay, with this proposal. The one thing that I'm very curious about is there's a lot of angst about this cliff between like, would I rather be the eighth seed than the seventh seed? Because as the eighth seed, I get one ball and as a seventh seed, I get none. Would I try to engineer it? So I just duck out of the play internament entirely and get three balls rather than make the play internament and get two balls as the ninth or tenth seed. I just don't think any team is going to do that. I may be wrong. I may be naive. Maybe I am naive because teams game the system all the time. I just think the delta between play in excitement for your fans and your team and your, I just had such a loser mentality and you're ducking out of something that's actually real and meaningful that I just don't see that as much of a significant. That's the only take I want to get off today is I don't see teams doing that to the degree that the fredders are worrying about. I'll give you one more that I wish I had come up with, but I talked to one of the smart executives and Lee yesterday and he told me this, this current 321 era is set to sunset in 2029. And I wish I would have come up with this idea, but there's some uncertainty about those future first. What are the rules going to be? Are we going to snap back to this system? So does it change how teams value those first round picks? Is it going to reduce teams willingness to part with future first? Because we don't know what the rules will be in a world where 321 exists, like being the worst team in the league like San Antonio was or near the bottom, like Washington, Utah, where that's devalued, obviously. If we're going back to that, we'll see how these next three years play out, but one person told me, hey, we don't know how to think about our 2031st round pick anymore if we're going to be bad. And I think that's a really relevant point of this new rule system. Not only that, but the more unpredictable the lottery is and get just got a lot more unpredictable, the more likely our pick might just randomly be a top five pick one year, whatever. I Kurt Gold's very buckle up. We got a day of respite and then Saturday night tomorrow night, the biggest game of the year. The nicks are awaiting the winner. Thunder spurs. Game seven. It's been an interesting series. I hope we get a classic KG. Thank you for your time and enjoy. Enjoy tomorrow night. Thank you, Zach. All right, that's it for today's show. I will be on Bill's show live Saturday tomorrow after game seven of Spurs Thunder. And then we'll be on to previewing the finals next week on the Zach Lo Show. Thank you. As always, to Mike, Billy, and Jonathan on production. And thanks to Kirk Goldsbury. Thanks to you all for listening to Andor watching the Zach Lo Show. Stay tuned. We'll be back next week from a site, TBD. Enjoy game seven. 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