Colin is joined by Jason Timpf, host of “Hoops Tonight”.
They start with the city of Chicago losing the Bears to Hammond, Indiana as well as losing its bid to host World Cup games and the trend of states/cities competing with each other to host professional sports teams (3:30).
They move to the NBA Finals and whether Wemby’s thin frame has become a disadvantage when playing against the thicker, stronger Karl-Anthony Towns (6:00), why the expectations that Wemby be a finished product at 22 years old are unrealistic, and why Towns has grown and learned from past mistakes that cost his teams (10:15).
They argue that the Spurs have been making dumb mistakes you’d expect a young team to make, while the Knicks have been situationally excellent (17:30). They also discuss the confluence of events that have to come together in order for a non-star driven team like the Knicks to win the NBA title (25:30). They highlight that the Knicks have a special locker room chemistry that has led them to play for one another and exceed expectations (31:45).
Jason breaks down why the Knicks have been able to break down the Spurs defense with ease, and why the Knicks are just a terrible matchup for the Spurs (37:00).
Finally, they look back at the life and career of Bulls legend and broadcaster Stacey King who passed away at 59 (43:30).
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hymns dot com slash cow hurt. It is so weird
not to have a game today on Sunday. It's so odd.
I watched a little Stanley Cup last night. Wait to
go Vague. I don't think there's ever been a franchise
in the history of sports that's come in as an
(01:47):
expansion team for the next five years. They are unbelievable.
I think the history of sports, I don't think there's
anything ever been like the Golden Knights. I watched the
friendly between USA and Germany. Oh it's great. And for
the record, there's a reason they don't have a World
Cup match. And Rob Emmanuel was the mayor and he's like,
(02:07):
I'm I'm not going to write a blank check to FIFA,
and so you know, I'm not I'm not going to
force that down our taxpayers throats and FIFA wanted a
blank check. It's the same reason the Bears. The governor JB. Pritzker.
It's like, I'd love to have the Bears here, but
half the city's closer to Hammond, and I'm not going
(02:28):
to be, you know, held hostage by having a board
of directors or an ownership group. So it's interesting we're
losing the Bears. We lost the World Cup, and you
could say it's outrageous, but I would argue, well, I mean,
billionaires have a lot of leverage and a lot of allies,
and if you don't kind of sometimes baby them. I mean,
(02:50):
I like Dean Spanels. I've got a dinner with him
several times. But eventually LA gave him a better deal
and he moved up the I five and took the
Chargers to Los Angeles and has enemies now. So Kansas City,
the Chiefs are leaving Kansas City. They're going to Kansas
Niners play Santa Clara. It's like it stinks, but this
is the reality. States compete against each other. I have
(03:11):
a friend that lives in Washington State and they're adding
a nine and a half. They've never had a personal
income tax. They're adding nine point nine percent. Jesus, I
mean zero to nine nine. I mean I get zero
to two, zero to nine nine. If you make over
a million, and you can say, well, it's a million dollars,
Seattle's a tech hub.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
There's a lot of people with a million dollars.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I know two of them. They're both leaving. You know.
They're like, we can be mobile in our jobs. Were
and it's like, this is this is the if you demonize,
if you try to soak taxpayers, if you're a billionaire.
So I will defend politicians over rich people there, but
if you try to demonize rich people, they will also leave.
(03:52):
So this stuff is hard, it's it's complicated, and I
don't support billionaires all the time. I think they should
pay for mostly their own stadiums. Mostly there is some
public good in having a team in the stadium. But anyway,
I'm off ranting. So I was thinking about San Antonio
and my first question to you, and it's just kind
of a statement and say what you want. But I'm old.
(04:14):
So I watched Moses Malone and a Keen and Shack
and it had to be less old to watch Duncan.
I didn't see Russell or Chamberlain, but all of them
were big men. But there was a foundation, there was girth,
there was size. Wemby and I said this about a
year ago, is closer to Ralph Sampson and Sam Bowie.
(04:38):
The latter NBA career basically shortened because of injuries, and
Ralph Sampson was good, didn't last quite as long as
you think. But there is a downside of being seven
to four and a half, and that is most of
our great centers have not only been big, they move people.
They're powerful. We think of Cat is almost a finesse
(05:01):
big right, like a perimeter big. He has bullied Wemby.
We knew Mitchell, Robinson and Og have some leverage. But
to me, the series is, oh, Cat is the best
player in the series. To me, has that surprised you?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
No? No, I mean him being the best player in
this series, Sure as hell has surprised me. I mean
him giving Wemby issues. I think kind of is more
or less what we've expected. I think that that's been
really the story of Wenby's first playoff run is that
these big, physical centers that have some mobility with the
ability to beat him to spot. So the guys that
can give him issues, namely Isaiah Hartenstein. I didn't give
(05:39):
Jalen Williams a little bit of credit in the last
round two. I thought he had some moments and then
Karl Anthony Towns. And to be clear, it's like, it's
not like he's awful, Like he's averaging twenty eight and eleven.
He's at fifty four percent true shooting, which sounds bad,
but this series has been really low scoring, Like that's
above the true shooting percentage for both teams so far
through two games Runson, for examples, at forty two percent,
(06:02):
so everyone's struggling. Wenby's actually been pretty effective. It's just
looked really hard. It's been like he's a cat in
his individual defense, and I'd extend this to the team.
I think the Knicks have done a wonderful job of
just mucking up his roles, just getting tons of bodies
in the paint as he's trying to roll to the
basket and kind of daring the Spurs to shoot and
they're shooting thirty percent from three in the series. That's
(06:24):
been part of the problem. But as the roles have
been taken away because he can't get close to the rim.
It's been a lot of jump shots and a lot
of like even the buckets he gets around the rim,
it feels like he's fighting like hell to get just
the slightest bit of an edge. And there's no doubt that,
Like I think part of this colin which I think
is because there's this this kind of a cliche you'll
(06:48):
hear from a lot of people like why doesn't he
just go down there every time? And it's like some
of this is he's seven to five, Like he's never
going to win leverage battles against people. That's the really
to me, the story of Wemby becoming a reliable in
the paint score is more of a team coaching. How
do we get him down there? Ball screens, rolling certain
(07:11):
actions to get him position. He is not going to
just body check dudes into the lane at any point
in his career right. But the closest example of this
is Anthony Davis. He put on a bunch of muscle,
it didn't help him at all because his center of
gravity is too high. It doesn't matter like Anthony Davis
would have been better off leaning into being lean and
fast and that is Wenby's advantage. I think really the
(07:34):
story of this playoff front has been just kind of
a revealing an example of what his career will look
like in the future, which is he's certainly going to
have to have a jump shot to be impactful, and
getting him paint touches is going to be a team
and coaching issue revolving how do we get him around
bodies that are bigger and more physical than him.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, and we're a little unfair on this. So in football,
player often spends three years minimum in college with very hard,
singular coaching. It's often a Nick Saban, Lincoln Riley, a
Jim Harbaugh. It could be anybody could be Dabbosweeney, any
big college coach. There are some transfers obviously, but you
(08:15):
may have two college coaches. But football coaching is hard.
Three years minimum college often four. You often come in married.
I mean, football culture is you know it's not gonna
last very long. Football players tend to understand that, like, listen,
I'm a bad block and it's over. They tend to
(08:35):
invest their money more quickly, start family sooner, and get
a little harder coaching. It's less aau bouncing around to
a tea. That's not it. It's not a million games.
It's always once a week high school, college, pro. And
so even in the NFL, with that ecosystem, we always know, well,
he's a rookie. We allow quarterbacks to get to year
(08:58):
three before we judge him. Well, in basketball, it's often
one year of college basketball. Now nil probably makes it
two or three. But a lot of these Euros, you know,
they're the academy playing against older guys. That's an advantage.
But we forget Lebron had to fail miserably against Dallas
in the finals before he added a layer to his game.
(09:20):
Magic Johnson at one point was called tragic Johnson after
a horrible finals. These are basketball cultures different, Wemby. It's
been suggested. I don't think it's a terrible idea. People said,
you know, you should call Kareem and develop a little
bit of a baby hook, not thirteen times a game.
Three just added dimension to it. And I think, guys,
(09:41):
this idea that Wemby at twenty two, Dylan Harper looks
really young all the time in the series. It's like, guys,
let's be fair to basketball culture, right, This is not
you know, like God if you play baseball, Jason, you're
playing travel baseball from the time you're thirteen, you'd play
no sports. Then you go to the minor leagues for
(10:02):
four years, you get to the bigs at twenty six,
you've played so much baseball. Some of this is the
basketball culture, even with our stars, creates holes until you're
about twenty six to twenty seven. Then you got six
year run of you know, go look at Jordan scored.
That was it. Then he developed into a greater teammate.
(10:25):
I'm rambling, but I think we're sometimes a little unfair
because we look at these iconic prodigies and we're like, oh,
this game's not complete. Of course, who's complete at twenty two.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I think you're hitting a something that's honestly one of
my biggest long held basketball beliefs. I've actually referred to
this over the years as scar tissue. When you're a
competitor and you lose, and you know it's because you
fucked up, because you did something like a specific play
here there, it eats at you. It literally eats at you.
And I'm a big believer that it requires a certain
(11:00):
number of failures in order to properly drive and refine
those mistakes out of your game. I mean, Colin like
Karl Anthony Towns is a perfect example of this. I
went back when I was doing my player rankings and
I rewatched the Pacers Knick series last year over the summer.
Kat was one of the biggest reasons they lost. He
(11:23):
was he kept doing this thing where like he would
crash the offensive glass off the top of the key,
which is a huge basketball no no because it messes
up your transition defense balance. And the Pacers were just
running it down their throats for layups and dunks like
Siakam transition dunk, transition layup. Kat was so mistake prone
(11:44):
for so long that the talking point fairly was like
can you win with this guy? Because mistakes get you
beat I mean, hell, the Spurs are a perfect example.
Two of these games. Both of these games they could
have won if not for mistakes throwing the ball away
and Fox in Game one just fouls McHale bridges at
the elbow in a two point game in crunch time. Like,
(12:06):
mistakes win or lose you basketball games. And it's so
interesting to see, like we can talk about the Knicks
and there's all these different things that they're doing better,
and Mike Brown deserves all the credit, and there's crazy
numbers coming from how just differently they're playing. But a
big part of it is kat is just not making
anywhere near as many mistakes as he used to make
because he lost, like the Knicks lost year after year
(12:30):
to build to this moment. You don't think these guys
have an extra amount of value on every possession. You
don't think they still are haunted by Tyrese Halliburton beating
them in Game one in Madison Square Guarden last year
when they blew that lead, Like the pain of loss
builds scar tissue and builds better basketball players, And it
would have been highly unusual for a team this young
(12:52):
like San Antonio to win before going through that kind
of stuff. It would have been a testament to how
incredibly talented they are. But you know, for all to
talk about the same the Spurs like, are they too young?
This is what a young team losing looks like. Silly
mistakes at the end of a game. Bad foul here,
bad turnover there. They had two open floor turnovers down
(13:12):
the stretch where they just threw the ball away and
gave up buckets going the other way. Yeah, the Spurs
have lost these two games in large part there's been
other dynamics, but they could have one if they would
have just not made mistakes. And so they're early in
that phase and they still have a lot of that
kind of development to go through.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
No team's ever lost their first two at home and
won the finals. The Blazers in seventy seven lost the
first two, they were on the road, they came back.
They were also very very young, and a few teams
have done that. So it's likely we'll have eight champions
in eight years. And I was saying, I think Friday
on the air with Rachel Nichols, that you know, there's
(13:48):
been dynasties. It started with the Celtics dynasty. We've had
Laker dynasty, Spurs, Heatles got to four straight one two
pretty darn flows, Golden State, Katie. We've had dynasties. We
are now in what I would call the situationally excellent phase.
A prime example of that one of the eight champions,
(14:09):
Golden State, they were a third seed that year. They
were kind of small and they felt bold and then
they got some breaks. Jamal Murray was hurt for Denver
and John Morant was hurt, and they just kind of
got and teams like Memphis weren't quite mature enough, and
they kind of The West was kind of a little
hit and miss. They snuck through. They go play the
(14:29):
Celtics and they look over their skis for the first
two games, and then they go back to Boston play
the game of the series. Andrew Wiggins becomes how about
this reliable? And it was like, oh wow, they won?
And I never at that time that year, I never
felt they were the best team ever. They were situationally excellent.
(14:51):
And I do think that's to your point what the
Knicks are is that all these Denver I thought was
going to be more than situationally excellent. But then again,
you lose a guy off the bench, you lose it,
you know, I forget them a KCP Peyton wats all
of a sudden, it's like, oh god, that guy was
actually like sixteen great minutes. You lose a lot of
(15:13):
the guys on the margins. You look up and you're like, man,
we're very Yokic dependent. And Jamal Murray has a couple
of bad games, gets dinged out plays at eighty percent
and you're like, oh, you're not great anymore. And I
don't think the Knicks are great. I think they're to me,
the last eight years are situationally excellent teams. Lightning in
a bottle, and that's okay, this is what I think
(15:35):
they are. Somebody's gonna leave next year, somebody will get hurt,
you know, like like you know, this is just the
way the and this is what Adam Silver wanted. But
I don't think this is a criticism of the Knicks.
They've got the scar tissue, they got a lot of momentum,
they tweaked the offense, and san Antonio a little bit
(15:55):
of a break. San Antonio beats okay, see, and they
get this historicly young team that feels a little over
their skis late in the games. That's how I view
the Knicks.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, I don't think it's I think this is a
completely valid talking point because they won fifty three games Colin, Like,
I mean, like there were There wasn't a single time
this year where you watch the Knicks and you're like
they're among the very best teams in the league. Not
a single time, Like that's just the reality they this
This is a firmly a last thirteen games stretch. This
(16:28):
last thirteen games has been and it's been and it's
been magical, and like some of these numbers Colin have
been insane. I have to share these. They've been getting
sixty five percent of their made field goals assisted in
the finals, so almost two thirds. When they lost to
the Pacers last year, that number is forty eight percent,
seventeen percent more of their their field goals are assisted
(16:48):
rather than unassisted. They've been the best jump shooting team
in the entire field. They're the only team in the
playoff shooting over forty percent on catch and shoot threes.
So like it's just it is this magic they're they're catching,
like a magic within the group with their ball movement,
spacing and just how much they're trusting each other. There's
a magic in the jump shooting like that, Like like
(17:09):
it or not, I do think the Knicks are a
very good jump shooting team. But there's also a variance
element there, Like sometimes a team just has to get hot.
I thought Denver in twenty twenty three was a great example,
like Yo Kitchen, Murray just didn't miss jump shots for
four rounds and it made them very really difficult to beat. Right, So,
like there's definitely some of that magic. And I think
this has been one of the most fascinating things about
this era, is like it's so much more about towing
(17:33):
that line and threading that needle for the championship path.
Like you certainly have to have a good enough team,
but you also have to have a versatile enough team,
and you also have to have a healthy enough team,
and then you also kind of have to catch some
matchup luck along the way, like avoiding a time that
gives you in trouble, and it's all these things kind
of tie together. Like even Oka see Okasee broke down physically.
(17:56):
Part of why they lost is injuries, and they're one
of the youngest in the field. They're the youngest non
San Antonio team in the field and they physically broke down.
So like every one of these teams. Now, it's caused
me to reevaluate so many of the teams that lost,
Like should Denver just run it back? Are they closer
than you think? They just need they should move off.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I think they should move off Aaron Gordon to get younger.
I really do.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And if they want to do something like that, fine,
But my point is is like I think, like are
the Lakers closer than we thought if a healthy Luka
Doncic is out there and they make a decent upgrade
at the center position, Like the Knicks didn't look like
a championship team and suddenly they're this close and they're
probably gonna get it. And it's because they continuity. They
caught some fire. It's a little Pacers esque where they've
(18:41):
lost some series together and then it all kind of
came together this year. You have a singular player that
goes on a run like Karl Anthony Towns did this year,
Like it's caused me to realize that it really is
a combination of so many things more than just raw talent.
It's so much about versatility and health and getting some
luck in term of your playoff path. Like we all
(19:01):
knew that if the Knicks faced the Spurs in the finals,
it was a good matchup for them. That was their
path when the East hope, Like how the Spurs get there?
They did. Now they're two wins away, and it's just
it's it's it's kind of got to be a it's
got to be an indicator for a lot of these
teams that are right on that fringe. This summer to
(19:21):
be like, are we closer than we think? Should we
give this thing a go? The Knicks just won the title?
Why can't we.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
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one eight hundred My reset gambling problem called one eight
hundred gambler. Look at our champions, I mean the Toronto
(21:20):
Blue Jays got to a Game seven against the Dodgers.
Sam Darnold's career right labeled to bust Jalen Brunson. You know,
I always said very good, not a star. I'm apparently wrong.
I called the Knicks a good team, not a very
good team. Is that I think one of the things,
and I think this is very healthy for sports, is
that maturity? Like the thing about the Knicks that really
(21:43):
jumps out to me. Three Villanova guys, a coach that's
willing to listen. You know, I remember years ago, remember
when Buster Douglas meat Mike Tyson. It was the best
fight easily. He was a forty to one underdog. His
mother had passed away, and it really it really sort
of he was so inspired for that fight. Karl Anthony
(22:03):
Town's mother passes away. He has been so inspired and
so focused. Like you think to yourself, wow, does that matter? Well,
I mean I can speak for my so. I was
very close to my mother, and when my mother died,
I heard her voice. I mean I can remember being
in the car and I felt like I was talking
to my mom because I'd heard that voice. I was
closer to mom than dad. And they're like things happen
(22:25):
in sports. The Miracle on Ice, I mean I could
watch that once a week. We had no business. Forget
beating competing with the Russians. What makes sports great is
is teamwork, continuity, maturity. Sometimes we devalue it because we
live in a world of social media where people are
(22:46):
not only stars, they have five they have fifty eight
million IG followers. Stars have never been richer and bigger
and more close closely associated with movie stars, And we
really forget it's a lot of redemption projects, inspired athletes,
smart guys, hard workers. I mean I find the Knicks
incredibly easy to root for. I mean, you got the
(23:09):
Karl Anthony town story, you know the bruntson story. I
mean outside of his dad and Jalen, I mean, god,
he's like the best fourth quarter. I said the other day,
you can compare him to Luca, But unlike Luca, he
never misses starts Like the kid's incredible. So I think,
I think this is such a great story for basketball
that the Knicks are not star driven. I mean, I
(23:32):
think Brunson has a chance to be a Hall of
Famer Karl Anthony Towns. If he wins MVP. Will We'll
make the Hall of Fame. I mean Tony Kukochs did so.
I don't know, like I've watched this and it may
be a sweep, but it just speaks well of basketball
and what really truly matters. The Spurs You're all built,
draft and developed. The Knicks are all we traded for
a bunch of guys. This could be a complete tire
(23:56):
fire chemistry wise. They trade trade, trading, brought in guys
from everywhere, and yet it's like the closest team emotionally.
It's just speaks so well of the maturity of the team,
the draft and develop team. I understand being closed generationally.
This team comes from like eight different freeway exits. I
(24:19):
really like watching the next play. I think it's fun basketball.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
No, it absolutely is. Did you happen to see that
quote from Mike Brown after the game when he was
talking specifically about how fun this group has been, And
one of the things he said is he's like he
was like, the NBA is hard and it's not always
like this. When he said that, I thought to myself,
I was like, that is a guy who's like almost
(24:43):
shuddering internally, and all of the bad locker rooms he's
been in and like the environments where he was trying
to bring the raw raw and it just wasn't going anywhere,
you know what I mean. And he happens to be
with this group that's catching that fire. And I mean,
I talked to Knicks fans. It wasn't even always it's
perfect this season, let alone in previous stops. And it
(25:04):
kind of reminds me of that opening part of Bill
Simmons's basketball book when he talks about the secret, and
it's really what is the magic of sports, which is
this is so much more than just the sum of
your parts. This is so much more than what you
can just put on a spreadsheet. Sometimes a group of
guys can just catch magic and reach a level where
(25:27):
they are playing above and beyond what even they're individually
capable of and what they're capable of as a group.
And we've seen, i'd argue, as the game has changed,
like everyone's scoring numbers are down, Like if you look
at star scoring in this postseason, it's way down compared
to previous playoff runs. Like the days of a dude
like Lebron having eight forty point games, that just doesn't
(25:48):
happen anymore. In a playoff run because there's so many
double teams and so many aggressive coverages thrown, so it's
more important than ever to have that magic alchemy of
a group playing together. I think the Pacers last year
are another example of this and kind of just catching
that fire. Here's another stat just to kind of demonstrate
this idea. So I think a spot up situation is
just when someone throws a pass, two guys waiting on
(26:10):
the perimeter ready to score, so either catch and shoot,
catch and drive. They in the loss to Indiana averaged
nineteen of those per game nineteen possessions. This year so far,
they're averaging thirty three, almost double. That's how often they're
just popping the ball around there. You're seeing these beautiful
sequences where there's three four drives on the same possession
(26:30):
and the Spurs are running around like crazy and it's
just yet another wide open shot for somebody at the
tail end of the sequence. Like there is very much
something said. I use the word Cinderella on my show
last week, and I was like, that's not the right word.
It's not a Cinderella run. But there's something magical about it.
There's something magical about what the Knicks are doing.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, it's it is you know, you have these moments
in life like I remember when my daughter was born,
the oldest of my children, and I can remember being
in the hospital and tuallat in Oregon and I was
not I couldn't feel like my limbs like I was floating.
Oh my god, I created this, I helped create this baby,
(27:10):
and I just remember eyes wide open. She was just
the cutest little baby. And I remember having this moment
where I was just like I got to sit down,
like I am this is way, I'm out of my
element here emotionally. And I haven't had a lot of these,
but I've had four or five or six times in
my life where I'm so happy or so sad that
(27:33):
it's like an out of body experience. And sports doesn't
quite have that. But there is something to be said
about you just love your teammates. You just it's I mean,
I've played I remember in college I had just the
cool I can name every guy I played on this
intermural football team, and they were just happened to be
all great guys. There were no douchebags. It was like
(27:55):
twelve great guys and we weren't the most talented team,
but we just thought people and it was just I
can remember being in it and thinking, this is the
closest I'm gonna get to like really like like hot,
you know, college, because everybody was a pretty good athlete.
I was probably the worst athlete in the team, but
there were some really good athletes, and I can just
remember thinking, is this is It's better than school, It's
(28:17):
better than who I'm dating. It's just the best. And
I think it's really hard when you become rich and professional,
you have kids, you have a life. And this is
where Kat gets a lot of credit. He was always Jason.
He was always known as kind of a flaky player
with immense talent you couldn't depend on. He has literally
(28:39):
been the opposite. He has literally been the sturdiest, most dependable,
greatest teammate. And that's not a criticism. I mean his
rep was dumbfouls, streety, score, kind of goofy. Not the opposite,
and whatever inspired him, you could just you There was
(28:59):
a in Game two in the first half where the
Spurs were on a run and I'm watching the Knicks
just take it, just take body blows and then I
look up and they're like down one, and I'm like,
this series is over. You can't break this team. You can't.
They're just their resolve is it jumps through the television.
They just take your best shots. You're not knocking us
(29:22):
to the canvas. We're not going down. And I think
there's a spirit about it that you can be a casual.
It's so obvious watching the series. I think the series
is over. San Antonio could win Game three, I would
not feel differently. This wall of physicality, this intensity, it's
it's it is very Denver. It's just nobody's beating them.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, I'm always hesitant to completely write off a team
like the Spurs because they're so young, Like this is
not like the Calves, where you know they're in game
four and you know all those dudes are just thinking
about their time share that they have, or they're they're
their airbnb that they got down in Cabo and right,
and they're they're in their thirties, they're looking forward to
(30:05):
the cocktail on the beach. I'm like all these kids
in San Antonio, like they'll probably be either playing video
games or playing basketball the day after the finals, Like
they're these kids. There's there's those those Spurs are going
to be playing one hundred miles an hour until the
very second that you beat them completely like that, so
there's a certain like lack of quit that you'll have there.
There was a little bit of an adjustment down the
(30:26):
stretch of that game. They stopped sending the kitchen and
the game, I mean the kind of it. They stopped
doubling brunts and so much, which kind of baited Brunson
into some bad shots down the stretch. They got it,
got out in transition a lot and really scored in
the open floor. Wenby started to get some things figured
out in that second half. You had twenty two points
in the second half, So like there, the Spurs are
(30:46):
not going to go down without a fight. It's really,
to me just a combination of you have to win
four out of five now with three of those in
that hllacious Madison Square Garden crowd, which is going to
be so difficult to win in front of, and then
everything about what makes the Knicks special because they just
are so resilient and there's nothing about them that screams quit.
Or like let's say the Spurs do win two in
(31:07):
a row and you have a game six back in
MSG like they're just not going to quit. Like the
Knicks are going to be ready for that, They're going
to be prepared mentally for that environment. And you know,
I do think that that's what makes this different than
any other social experience on Earth. Like I play a
lot of basketball post college. I still to this day
(31:28):
probably played too much considering how much my body hurts
all the time. But like when I was coaching high
school hoops in Tucson, which I did for four years
before I moved to Denver, it was by far the
most fun I had after playing, because when you're actually
in a locker room and you're actually with the same
dudes every day, and you're actually trying to pursue some
goal that's bigger than the individual, that's bigger than just
(31:51):
even that week. It's a six month goal. For some
of these guys, it's a multi year role and you're
working with them through many years of their development. Like
I just when I saw that quote from Mike Brown,
I was like that dude's experiencing like the absolute peak
of the sports experience, being with a special group of
guys that is experiencing that like magical alchemy when they
(32:12):
all come together like that.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, no it is. And I know somebody listening would be, oh, Colin,
you guys aren't you know? Who do you guys think
you are? But there is something about being with guys.
It could be a camping trip. I've done on rafting
trips with guys, a Vegas trip. And there's a comedian
Brian Reagan who talks about golf. It's one of my
favorite bits everybody committee. He talks about golfing with a
buddy and he GOLs for four hours and he comes
(32:34):
home and his wife is like, Oh, how's his wife?
And reading I don't know, how are their kids? And
he's like, we didn't talk about it because you were
within four hours. You didn't talk about it. And he's like,
he got a new golf club. We talked about that.
And I always tell my wife and I'm like, I
don't talk about his family. Like when you're with a guy,
(32:56):
you're just having so much fun because you don't get
many opportunities like that to be with other guys. And
it's a foursome and you bring out a cigar and
you're telling funny jokes and there is that camaraderie and
these are really magical moments for guys and it's like,
you know, we can be idiots like and and I
just I think that part of you know, and you
(33:16):
know how you know, people say toxic masculinity. Listen, guys
need an outlet, soda women, you know, soda kids Like
you can't overparent. Sometimes you give your kids ice cream,
They're gonna run around for about an hour and then
just just have to make sure they don't hurt themselves.
Like it's okay. We all need a release. And when
you get in these groups and these times, I mean
(33:37):
that you've seen Miracle on Ice multiple times. I watched
they just did about a year ago. There was a
new documentary on it which Miracles my favorite sports movie ever.
But they did a they brought them all back to
talk about it, and these guys got so emotional. I mean,
you're talking about this thing was in the eighties and
(33:58):
like you could just all of these guys went right
back to that three week period and you're like, man,
just there is something about connecting with guys in sports
and sometimes it's just fricking awesome. And that's why New
York teams people say they're hard to root for. It's
like not this team not hard to root for. I
(34:21):
mean I didn't call it. I said Spurs in six
Basically they since February first have Wemby played fifteen minutes,
they won like thirteen and one against the East. Should
be noted the loss was to the Knicks. But what
was your prediction going into it?
Speaker 2 (34:37):
So when we talked last week, I ended up switching
my pick the next morning after I finished watching all
the film. The one that pushed me over the edge
was there was a seventeen game stretch earlier this year
where the Spurs went sixteen and one. They won eleven
games in a row, and they won five games in
a row after it, and the one loss in there
was a butt kicking at the hand of the Knicks
(34:58):
in Madison Square Garden and it was during the phase
when the Spurs. The Spurs had everything going. They had
made the lineup change, they had moved Harrison Barnes to
the bench and put Julian Champagnie in with the starters,
and they just I watched the film. Frankly, it looked
just like these first two games for all the same reasons.
Kat kind of inverting their spacing. It's been funny this
is Actually I have one last crazy stat for you.
(35:20):
Oklahoma City in the last round against San Antonio field
goals made within five feet of the rim twelve per
game at fifty three percent, the Knicks nineteen per game
at sixty one percent. They have completely kind of inverted
the Spurs spacing and have just been able to score
with relatively ease around the basket. And it's just been
(35:42):
It's kind of just a beautiful example of how basketball
is just as much about matchups as it is about
anything else. The Spurs guards, they don't have the same
size advantages they did in the last round. Wemby like,
say what you want about Karl Anthony Towns, you couldn't
build a better player to deal with a Victor women
Yama mail bag question of my show the other day
where someone was like, like, do the Spurs need to
(36:04):
get this kind of player to counter Cat Karl Anthony
Towns or players like him? Like or players like him
who's like Cat? Like how many how many players in
the league are seven feet tall but like just cannot
leave him open three point shooters, but are also like
really good slashers, like like he gets that rip through
move and he's like a bull in a china shop,
(36:26):
get good luck getting out of the way, Like like,
he's incredibly fast, he's a very good passer, like Cat is.
Kind of it sounds ridiculous to say for a guy
who not many people think as a top fifteen player
in this league, but he's kind of a unicorn. He's
kind of a super super unique player.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Like best shooting, best perimeter shooting, big ever yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Sterk yeah, and sterk and like and and you're you're
again like the other guys who you think of his
stretch fives, it's like Chris tops porzingis, well, first of all,
you've never shot the ball as well as Cat, and
he couldn't drive anywhere near as well and was an
injury prone mess for most of his career. That's like, well,
chat Holmgrend. It's like, well, you can't shoot. Like there's
a lot of bigs that can shoot, but they can't shoot.
(37:11):
I had a high school coach that I coached with
who said, like, you're either a shooter or you're a maker.
There's a lot of shooters out there. Kat is a maker.
Kat is a maker. He's a guy that you cannot
leave open in those situations. It's very much a magic
in the bottle kind of thing. And we talked about
the versatility, like them having a Mitchell Robinson when they
need a center, when they need like a real center,
(37:32):
they've got one. It's Mitchell Robinson. Oh, we need to
go with more shooting. Landry Shammitt is literally twenty three
for his last thirty four from three going into like
the dude just does not miss shots. It's like you
need a Duce McBride always steps in and hits a
big shot here or there. There were stretches of last
the game. In Game two where Michale Bridges took over
(37:54):
the offense, they had a stretch with Brunson and Kat
off the floor that dominated the game to end the
third and to start the fourth quarter. Just like playing
great defense and mckel bridges and Duce McBride hitting shots,
they just kind of have all of that juice that
you need to shape shift into whatever specific series needs.
Because again, first round it was all the off ball stuff.
(38:16):
Second round it's like and b can't guard pick and roll,
We're spam and pick and roll. Third round it's like
James Harden can't guard Brunson. We're spaming isolation the fourth round.
It's like, well, Karl Anthony Towns is pulling Wemby away
from the basket and we're getting everything like it just
is they have been able to shape shift into all
these different forms. I picked Nixon six. Frankly, I think
a sweep is on the table. I think it's I
(38:38):
just think it's gonna be really difficult for that Spurs
team to win on the road. I'm gonna give the
Spurs one. I wouldn't be surprised then if they held
Serve at home in Game five and this thing ended
up going six anyway, But I would be stunned, frankly
if the Knicks lost the series.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Before we go, Condolences to friends and family of Stacey King,
who passed away at fifty nine, the former Chicago bull
three ring forward, a broadcaster for the Bulls. One of
the sweetest guys. Whenever we called him on the herd,
he always found time for us. Fifty nine years old,
(39:16):
a really good broadcaster. I'd see him at Bulls games,
and the sweetest guy, funniest guy, great stories. And I
have a couple of friends here in Chicago that were
just I was texting with today. If you never met
Stacy King. It was your loss because he was just
(39:38):
a huge man and a huge personality, beloved in the community.
We just had him on not long ago on the Herd.
I just mean literally, sometimes you'll see something on the
internet and it can infuriate you, and then sometimes you
see something emotionally where it's a gut punch, and everybody
(39:59):
loved Stacy km so rest in peace. Did you ever
have a chance to meet him, I know you know
very well about his game Oklahoma. He was a great
all one of the great college players of all time.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I did not have the luxury to meet him, but
an absolute legend, and like you said, rest in peace.
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hymns dot com slash cow hurt. It is so weird
not to have a game today on Sunday. It's so odd.
I watched a little Stanley Cup last night. Wait to
go Vague. I don't think there's ever been a franchise
in the history of sports that's come in as an
(01:47):
expansion team for the next five years. They are unbelievable.
I think the history of sports, I don't think there's
anything ever been like the Golden Knights. I watched the
friendly between USA and Germany. Oh it's great. And for
the record, there's a reason they don't have a World
Cup match. And Rob Emmanuel was the mayor and he's like,
(02:07):
I'm I'm not going to write a blank check to FIFA,
and so you know, I'm not I'm not going to
force that down our taxpayers throats and FIFA wanted a
blank check. It's the same reason the Bears. The governor JB. Pritzker.
It's like, I'd love to have the Bears here, but
half the city's closer to Hammond, and I'm not going
(02:28):
to be, you know, held hostage by having a board
of directors or an ownership group. So it's interesting we're
losing the Bears. We lost the World Cup, and you
could say it's outrageous, but I would argue, well, I mean,
billionaires have a lot of leverage and a lot of allies,
and if you don't kind of sometimes baby them. I mean,
(02:50):
I like Dean Spanels. I've got a dinner with him
several times. But eventually LA gave him a better deal
and he moved up the I five and took the
Chargers to Los Angeles and has enemies now. So Kansas City,
the Chiefs are leaving Kansas City. They're going to Kansas
Niners play Santa Clara. It's like it stinks, but this
is the reality. States compete against each other. I have
(03:11):
a friend that lives in Washington State and they're adding
a nine and a half. They've never had a personal
income tax. They're adding nine point nine percent. Jesus, I
mean zero to nine nine. I mean I get zero
to two, zero to nine nine. If you make over
a million, and you can say, well, it's a million dollars,
Seattle's a tech hub.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
There's a lot of people with a million dollars.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I know two of them. They're both leaving. You know.
They're like, we can be mobile in our jobs. Were
and it's like, this is this is the if you demonize,
if you try to soak taxpayers, if you're a billionaire.
So I will defend politicians over rich people there, but
if you try to demonize rich people, they will also leave.
(03:52):
So this stuff is hard, it's it's complicated, and I
don't support billionaires all the time. I think they should
pay for mostly their own stadiums. Mostly there is some
public good in having a team in the stadium. But anyway,
I'm off ranting. So I was thinking about San Antonio
and my first question to you, and it's just kind
of a statement and say what you want. But I'm old.
(04:14):
So I watched Moses Malone and a Keen and Shack
and it had to be less old to watch Duncan.
I didn't see Russell or Chamberlain, but all of them
were big men. But there was a foundation, there was girth,
there was size. Wemby and I said this about a
year ago, is closer to Ralph Sampson and Sam Bowie.
(04:38):
The latter NBA career basically shortened because of injuries, and
Ralph Sampson was good, didn't last quite as long as
you think. But there is a downside of being seven
to four and a half, and that is most of
our great centers have not only been big, they move people.
They're powerful. We think of Cat is almost a finesse
(05:01):
big right, like a perimeter big. He has bullied Wemby.
We knew Mitchell, Robinson and Og have some leverage. But
to me, the series is, oh, Cat is the best
player in the series. To me, has that surprised you?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
No? No, I mean him being the best player in
this series, Sure as hell has surprised me. I mean
him giving Wemby issues. I think kind of is more
or less what we've expected. I think that that's been
really the story of Wenby's first playoff run is that
these big, physical centers that have some mobility with the
ability to beat him to spot. So the guys that
can give him issues, namely Isaiah Hartenstein. I didn't give
(05:39):
Jalen Williams a little bit of credit in the last
round two. I thought he had some moments and then
Karl Anthony Towns. And to be clear, it's like, it's
not like he's awful, Like he's averaging twenty eight and eleven.
He's at fifty four percent true shooting, which sounds bad,
but this series has been really low scoring, Like that's
above the true shooting percentage for both teams so far
through two games Runson, for examples, at forty two percent,
(06:02):
so everyone's struggling. Wenby's actually been pretty effective. It's just
looked really hard. It's been like he's a cat in
his individual defense, and I'd extend this to the team.
I think the Knicks have done a wonderful job of
just mucking up his roles, just getting tons of bodies
in the paint as he's trying to roll to the
basket and kind of daring the Spurs to shoot and
they're shooting thirty percent from three in the series. That's
(06:24):
been part of the problem. But as the roles have
been taken away because he can't get close to the rim.
It's been a lot of jump shots and a lot
of like even the buckets he gets around the rim,
it feels like he's fighting like hell to get just
the slightest bit of an edge. And there's no doubt that,
Like I think part of this colin which I think
is because there's this this kind of a cliche you'll
(06:48):
hear from a lot of people like why doesn't he
just go down there every time? And it's like some
of this is he's seven to five, Like he's never
going to win leverage battles against people. That's the really
to me, the story of Wemby becoming a reliable in
the paint score is more of a team coaching. How
do we get him down there? Ball screens, rolling certain
(07:11):
actions to get him position. He is not going to
just body check dudes into the lane at any point
in his career right. But the closest example of this
is Anthony Davis. He put on a bunch of muscle,
it didn't help him at all because his center of
gravity is too high. It doesn't matter like Anthony Davis
would have been better off leaning into being lean and
fast and that is Wenby's advantage. I think really the
(07:34):
story of this playoff front has been just kind of
a revealing an example of what his career will look
like in the future, which is he's certainly going to
have to have a jump shot to be impactful, and
getting him paint touches is going to be a team
and coaching issue revolving how do we get him around
bodies that are bigger and more physical than him.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, and we're a little unfair on this. So in football,
player often spends three years minimum in college with very hard,
singular coaching. It's often a Nick Saban, Lincoln Riley, a
Jim Harbaugh. It could be anybody could be Dabbosweeney, any
big college coach. There are some transfers obviously, but you
(08:15):
may have two college coaches. But football coaching is hard.
Three years minimum college often four. You often come in married.
I mean, football culture is you know it's not gonna
last very long. Football players tend to understand that, like, listen,
I'm a bad block and it's over. They tend to
(08:35):
invest their money more quickly, start family sooner, and get
a little harder coaching. It's less aau bouncing around to
a tea. That's not it. It's not a million games.
It's always once a week high school, college, pro. And
so even in the NFL, with that ecosystem, we always know, well,
he's a rookie. We allow quarterbacks to get to year
(08:58):
three before we judge him. Well, in basketball, it's often
one year of college basketball. Now nil probably makes it
two or three. But a lot of these Euros, you know,
they're the academy playing against older guys. That's an advantage.
But we forget Lebron had to fail miserably against Dallas
in the finals before he added a layer to his game.
(09:20):
Magic Johnson at one point was called tragic Johnson after
a horrible finals. These are basketball cultures different, Wemby. It's
been suggested. I don't think it's a terrible idea. People said,
you know, you should call Kareem and develop a little
bit of a baby hook, not thirteen times a game.
Three just added dimension to it. And I think, guys,
(09:41):
this idea that Wemby at twenty two, Dylan Harper looks
really young all the time in the series. It's like, guys,
let's be fair to basketball culture, right, This is not
you know, like God if you play baseball, Jason, you're
playing travel baseball from the time you're thirteen, you'd play
no sports. Then you go to the minor leagues for
(10:02):
four years, you get to the bigs at twenty six,
you've played so much baseball. Some of this is the
basketball culture, even with our stars, creates holes until you're
about twenty six to twenty seven. Then you got six
year run of you know, go look at Jordan scored.
That was it. Then he developed into a greater teammate.
(10:25):
I'm rambling, but I think we're sometimes a little unfair
because we look at these iconic prodigies and we're like, oh,
this game's not complete. Of course, who's complete at twenty two.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I think you're hitting a something that's honestly one of
my biggest long held basketball beliefs. I've actually referred to
this over the years as scar tissue. When you're a
competitor and you lose, and you know it's because you
fucked up, because you did something like a specific play
here there, it eats at you. It literally eats at you.
And I'm a big believer that it requires a certain
(11:00):
number of failures in order to properly drive and refine
those mistakes out of your game. I mean, Colin like
Karl Anthony Towns is a perfect example of this. I
went back when I was doing my player rankings and
I rewatched the Pacers Knick series last year over the summer.
Kat was one of the biggest reasons they lost. He
(11:23):
was he kept doing this thing where like he would
crash the offensive glass off the top of the key,
which is a huge basketball no no because it messes
up your transition defense balance. And the Pacers were just
running it down their throats for layups and dunks like
Siakam transition dunk, transition layup. Kat was so mistake prone
(11:44):
for so long that the talking point fairly was like
can you win with this guy? Because mistakes get you
beat I mean, hell, the Spurs are a perfect example.
Two of these games. Both of these games they could
have won if not for mistakes throwing the ball away
and Fox in Game one just fouls McHale bridges at
the elbow in a two point game in crunch time. Like,
(12:06):
mistakes win or lose you basketball games. And it's so
interesting to see, like we can talk about the Knicks
and there's all these different things that they're doing better,
and Mike Brown deserves all the credit, and there's crazy
numbers coming from how just differently they're playing. But a
big part of it is kat is just not making
anywhere near as many mistakes as he used to make
because he lost, like the Knicks lost year after year
(12:30):
to build to this moment. You don't think these guys
have an extra amount of value on every possession. You
don't think they still are haunted by Tyrese Halliburton beating
them in Game one in Madison Square Guarden last year
when they blew that lead, Like the pain of loss
builds scar tissue and builds better basketball players, And it
would have been highly unusual for a team this young
(12:52):
like San Antonio to win before going through that kind
of stuff. It would have been a testament to how
incredibly talented they are. But you know, for all to
talk about the same the Spurs like, are they too young?
This is what a young team losing looks like. Silly
mistakes at the end of a game. Bad foul here,
bad turnover there. They had two open floor turnovers down
(13:12):
the stretch where they just threw the ball away and
gave up buckets going the other way. Yeah, the Spurs
have lost these two games in large part there's been
other dynamics, but they could have one if they would
have just not made mistakes. And so they're early in
that phase and they still have a lot of that
kind of development to go through.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
No team's ever lost their first two at home and
won the finals. The Blazers in seventy seven lost the
first two, they were on the road, they came back.
They were also very very young, and a few teams
have done that. So it's likely we'll have eight champions
in eight years. And I was saying, I think Friday
on the air with Rachel Nichols, that you know, there's
(13:48):
been dynasties. It started with the Celtics dynasty. We've had
Laker dynasty, Spurs, Heatles got to four straight one two
pretty darn flows, Golden State, Katie. We've had dynasties. We
are now in what I would call the situationally excellent phase.
A prime example of that one of the eight champions,
(14:09):
Golden State, they were a third seed that year. They
were kind of small and they felt bold and then
they got some breaks. Jamal Murray was hurt for Denver
and John Morant was hurt, and they just kind of
got and teams like Memphis weren't quite mature enough, and
they kind of The West was kind of a little
hit and miss. They snuck through. They go play the
(14:29):
Celtics and they look over their skis for the first
two games, and then they go back to Boston play
the game of the series. Andrew Wiggins becomes how about
this reliable? And it was like, oh wow, they won?
And I never at that time that year, I never
felt they were the best team ever. They were situationally excellent.
(14:51):
And I do think that's to your point what the
Knicks are is that all these Denver I thought was
going to be more than situationally excellent. But then again,
you lose a guy off the bench, you lose it,
you know, I forget them a KCP Peyton wats all
of a sudden, it's like, oh god, that guy was
actually like sixteen great minutes. You lose a lot of
(15:13):
the guys on the margins. You look up and you're like, man,
we're very Yokic dependent. And Jamal Murray has a couple
of bad games, gets dinged out plays at eighty percent
and you're like, oh, you're not great anymore. And I
don't think the Knicks are great. I think they're to me,
the last eight years are situationally excellent teams. Lightning in
a bottle, and that's okay, this is what I think
(15:35):
they are. Somebody's gonna leave next year, somebody will get hurt,
you know, like like you know, this is just the
way the and this is what Adam Silver wanted. But
I don't think this is a criticism of the Knicks.
They've got the scar tissue, they got a lot of momentum,
they tweaked the offense, and san Antonio a little bit
(15:55):
of a break. San Antonio beats okay, see, and they
get this historicly young team that feels a little over
their skis late in the games. That's how I view
the Knicks.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, I don't think it's I think this is a
completely valid talking point because they won fifty three games Colin, Like,
I mean, like there were There wasn't a single time
this year where you watch the Knicks and you're like
they're among the very best teams in the league. Not
a single time, Like that's just the reality they this
This is a firmly a last thirteen games stretch. This
(16:28):
last thirteen games has been and it's been and it's
been magical, and like some of these numbers Colin have
been insane. I have to share these. They've been getting
sixty five percent of their made field goals assisted in
the finals, so almost two thirds. When they lost to
the Pacers last year, that number is forty eight percent,
seventeen percent more of their their field goals are assisted
(16:48):
rather than unassisted. They've been the best jump shooting team
in the entire field. They're the only team in the
playoff shooting over forty percent on catch and shoot threes.
So like it's just it is this magic they're they're catching,
like a magic within the group with their ball movement,
spacing and just how much they're trusting each other. There's
a magic in the jump shooting like that, Like like
(17:09):
it or not, I do think the Knicks are a
very good jump shooting team. But there's also a variance
element there, Like sometimes a team just has to get hot.
I thought Denver in twenty twenty three was a great example,
like Yo Kitchen, Murray just didn't miss jump shots for
four rounds and it made them very really difficult to beat. Right, So,
like there's definitely some of that magic. And I think
this has been one of the most fascinating things about
this era, is like it's so much more about towing
(17:33):
that line and threading that needle for the championship path.
Like you certainly have to have a good enough team,
but you also have to have a versatile enough team,
and you also have to have a healthy enough team,
and then you also kind of have to catch some
matchup luck along the way, like avoiding a time that
gives you in trouble, and it's all these things kind
of tie together. Like even Oka see Okasee broke down physically.
(17:56):
Part of why they lost is injuries, and they're one
of the youngest in the field. They're the youngest non
San Antonio team in the field and they physically broke down.
So like every one of these teams. Now, it's caused
me to reevaluate so many of the teams that lost,
Like should Denver just run it back? Are they closer
than you think? They just need they should move off.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I think they should move off Aaron Gordon to get younger.
I really do.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And if they want to do something like that, fine,
But my point is is like I think, like are
the Lakers closer than we thought if a healthy Luka
Doncic is out there and they make a decent upgrade
at the center position, Like the Knicks didn't look like
a championship team and suddenly they're this close and they're
probably gonna get it. And it's because they continuity. They
caught some fire. It's a little Pacers esque where they've
(18:41):
lost some series together and then it all kind of
came together this year. You have a singular player that
goes on a run like Karl Anthony Towns did this year,
Like it's caused me to realize that it really is
a combination of so many things more than just raw talent.
It's so much about versatility and health and getting some
luck in term of your playoff path. Like we all
(19:01):
knew that if the Knicks faced the Spurs in the finals,
it was a good matchup for them. That was their
path when the East hope, Like how the Spurs get there?
They did. Now they're two wins away, and it's just
it's it's it's kind of got to be a it's
got to be an indicator for a lot of these
teams that are right on that fringe. This summer to
(19:21):
be like, are we closer than we think? Should we
give this thing a go? The Knicks just won the title?
Why can't we.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
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one eight hundred My reset gambling problem called one eight
hundred gambler. Look at our champions, I mean the Toronto
(21:20):
Blue Jays got to a Game seven against the Dodgers.
Sam Darnold's career right labeled to bust Jalen Brunson. You know,
I always said very good, not a star. I'm apparently wrong.
I called the Knicks a good team, not a very
good team. Is that I think one of the things,
and I think this is very healthy for sports, is
that maturity? Like the thing about the Knicks that really
(21:43):
jumps out to me. Three Villanova guys, a coach that's
willing to listen. You know, I remember years ago, remember
when Buster Douglas meat Mike Tyson. It was the best
fight easily. He was a forty to one underdog. His
mother had passed away, and it really it really sort
of he was so inspired for that fight. Karl Anthony
(22:03):
Town's mother passes away. He has been so inspired and
so focused. Like you think to yourself, wow, does that matter? Well,
I mean I can speak for my so. I was
very close to my mother, and when my mother died,
I heard her voice. I mean I can remember being
in the car and I felt like I was talking
to my mom because I'd heard that voice. I was
closer to mom than dad. And they're like things happen
(22:25):
in sports. The Miracle on Ice, I mean I could
watch that once a week. We had no business. Forget
beating competing with the Russians. What makes sports great is
is teamwork, continuity, maturity. Sometimes we devalue it because we
live in a world of social media where people are
(22:46):
not only stars, they have five they have fifty eight
million IG followers. Stars have never been richer and bigger
and more close closely associated with movie stars, And we
really forget it's a lot of redemption projects, inspired athletes,
smart guys, hard workers. I mean I find the Knicks
incredibly easy to root for. I mean, you got the
(23:09):
Karl Anthony town story, you know the bruntson story. I
mean outside of his dad and Jalen, I mean, god,
he's like the best fourth quarter. I said the other day,
you can compare him to Luca, But unlike Luca, he
never misses starts Like the kid's incredible. So I think,
I think this is such a great story for basketball
that the Knicks are not star driven. I mean, I
(23:32):
think Brunson has a chance to be a Hall of
Famer Karl Anthony Towns. If he wins MVP. Will We'll
make the Hall of Fame. I mean Tony Kukochs did so.
I don't know, like I've watched this and it may
be a sweep, but it just speaks well of basketball
and what really truly matters. The Spurs You're all built,
draft and developed. The Knicks are all we traded for
a bunch of guys. This could be a complete tire
(23:56):
fire chemistry wise. They trade trade, trading, brought in guys
from everywhere, and yet it's like the closest team emotionally.
It's just speaks so well of the maturity of the team,
the draft and develop team. I understand being closed generationally.
This team comes from like eight different freeway exits. I
(24:19):
really like watching the next play. I think it's fun basketball.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
No, it absolutely is. Did you happen to see that
quote from Mike Brown after the game when he was
talking specifically about how fun this group has been, And
one of the things he said is he's like he
was like, the NBA is hard and it's not always
like this. When he said that, I thought to myself,
I was like, that is a guy who's like almost
(24:43):
shuddering internally, and all of the bad locker rooms he's
been in and like the environments where he was trying
to bring the raw raw and it just wasn't going anywhere,
you know what I mean. And he happens to be
with this group that's catching that fire. And I mean,
I talked to Knicks fans. It wasn't even always it's
perfect this season, let alone in previous stops. And it
(25:04):
kind of reminds me of that opening part of Bill
Simmons's basketball book when he talks about the secret, and
it's really what is the magic of sports, which is
this is so much more than just the sum of
your parts. This is so much more than what you
can just put on a spreadsheet. Sometimes a group of
guys can just catch magic and reach a level where
(25:27):
they are playing above and beyond what even they're individually
capable of and what they're capable of as a group.
And we've seen, i'd argue, as the game has changed,
like everyone's scoring numbers are down, Like if you look
at star scoring in this postseason, it's way down compared
to previous playoff runs. Like the days of a dude
like Lebron having eight forty point games, that just doesn't
(25:48):
happen anymore. In a playoff run because there's so many
double teams and so many aggressive coverages thrown, so it's
more important than ever to have that magic alchemy of
a group playing together. I think the Pacers last year
are another example of this and kind of just catching
that fire. Here's another stat just to kind of demonstrate
this idea. So I think a spot up situation is
just when someone throws a pass, two guys waiting on
(26:10):
the perimeter ready to score, so either catch and shoot,
catch and drive. They in the loss to Indiana averaged
nineteen of those per game nineteen possessions. This year so far,
they're averaging thirty three, almost double. That's how often they're
just popping the ball around there. You're seeing these beautiful
sequences where there's three four drives on the same possession
(26:30):
and the Spurs are running around like crazy and it's
just yet another wide open shot for somebody at the
tail end of the sequence. Like there is very much
something said. I use the word Cinderella on my show
last week, and I was like, that's not the right word.
It's not a Cinderella run. But there's something magical about it.
There's something magical about what the Knicks are doing.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, it's it is you know, you have these moments
in life like I remember when my daughter was born,
the oldest of my children, and I can remember being
in the hospital and tuallat in Oregon and I was
not I couldn't feel like my limbs like I was floating.
Oh my god, I created this, I helped create this baby,
(27:10):
and I just remember eyes wide open. She was just
the cutest little baby. And I remember having this moment
where I was just like I got to sit down,
like I am this is way, I'm out of my
element here emotionally. And I haven't had a lot of these,
but I've had four or five or six times in
my life where I'm so happy or so sad that
(27:33):
it's like an out of body experience. And sports doesn't
quite have that. But there is something to be said
about you just love your teammates. You just it's I mean,
I've played I remember in college I had just the
cool I can name every guy I played on this
intermural football team, and they were just happened to be
all great guys. There were no douchebags. It was like
(27:55):
twelve great guys and we weren't the most talented team,
but we just thought people and it was just I
can remember being in it and thinking, this is the
closest I'm gonna get to like really like like hot,
you know, college, because everybody was a pretty good athlete.
I was probably the worst athlete in the team, but
there were some really good athletes, and I can just
remember thinking, is this is It's better than school, It's
(28:17):
better than who I'm dating. It's just the best. And
I think it's really hard when you become rich and professional,
you have kids, you have a life. And this is
where Kat gets a lot of credit. He was always Jason.
He was always known as kind of a flaky player
with immense talent you couldn't depend on. He has literally
(28:39):
been the opposite. He has literally been the sturdiest, most dependable,
greatest teammate. And that's not a criticism. I mean his
rep was dumbfouls, streety, score, kind of goofy. Not the opposite,
and whatever inspired him, you could just you There was
(28:59):
a in Game two in the first half where the
Spurs were on a run and I'm watching the Knicks
just take it, just take body blows and then I
look up and they're like down one, and I'm like,
this series is over. You can't break this team. You can't.
They're just their resolve is it jumps through the television.
They just take your best shots. You're not knocking us
(29:22):
to the canvas. We're not going down. And I think
there's a spirit about it that you can be a casual.
It's so obvious watching the series. I think the series
is over. San Antonio could win Game three, I would
not feel differently. This wall of physicality, this intensity, it's
it's it is very Denver. It's just nobody's beating them.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, I'm always hesitant to completely write off a team
like the Spurs because they're so young, Like this is
not like the Calves, where you know they're in game
four and you know all those dudes are just thinking
about their time share that they have, or they're they're
their airbnb that they got down in Cabo and right,
and they're they're in their thirties, they're looking forward to
(30:05):
the cocktail on the beach. I'm like all these kids
in San Antonio, like they'll probably be either playing video
games or playing basketball the day after the finals, Like
they're these kids. There's there's those those Spurs are going
to be playing one hundred miles an hour until the
very second that you beat them completely like that, so
there's a certain like lack of quit that you'll have there.
There was a little bit of an adjustment down the
(30:26):
stretch of that game. They stopped sending the kitchen and
the game, I mean the kind of it. They stopped
doubling brunts and so much, which kind of baited Brunson
into some bad shots down the stretch. They got it,
got out in transition a lot and really scored in
the open floor. Wenby started to get some things figured
out in that second half. You had twenty two points
in the second half, So like there, the Spurs are
(30:46):
not going to go down without a fight. It's really,
to me just a combination of you have to win
four out of five now with three of those in
that hllacious Madison Square Garden crowd, which is going to
be so difficult to win in front of, and then
everything about what makes the Knicks special because they just
are so resilient and there's nothing about them that screams quit.
Or like let's say the Spurs do win two in
(31:07):
a row and you have a game six back in
MSG like they're just not going to quit. Like the
Knicks are going to be ready for that, They're going
to be prepared mentally for that environment. And you know,
I do think that that's what makes this different than
any other social experience on Earth. Like I play a
lot of basketball post college. I still to this day
(31:28):
probably played too much considering how much my body hurts
all the time. But like when I was coaching high
school hoops in Tucson, which I did for four years
before I moved to Denver, it was by far the
most fun I had after playing, because when you're actually
in a locker room and you're actually with the same
dudes every day, and you're actually trying to pursue some
goal that's bigger than the individual, that's bigger than just
(31:51):
even that week. It's a six month goal. For some
of these guys, it's a multi year role and you're
working with them through many years of their development. Like
I just when I saw that quote from Mike Brown,
I was like that dude's experiencing like the absolute peak
of the sports experience, being with a special group of
guys that is experiencing that like magical alchemy when they
(32:12):
all come together like that.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, no it is. And I know somebody listening would be, oh, Colin,
you guys aren't you know? Who do you guys think
you are? But there is something about being with guys.
It could be a camping trip. I've done on rafting
trips with guys, a Vegas trip. And there's a comedian
Brian Reagan who talks about golf. It's one of my
favorite bits everybody committee. He talks about golfing with a
buddy and he GOLs for four hours and he comes
(32:34):
home and his wife is like, Oh, how's his wife?
And reading I don't know, how are their kids? And
he's like, we didn't talk about it because you were
within four hours. You didn't talk about it. And he's like,
he got a new golf club. We talked about that.
And I always tell my wife and I'm like, I
don't talk about his family. Like when you're with a guy,
(32:56):
you're just having so much fun because you don't get
many opportunities like that to be with other guys. And
it's a foursome and you bring out a cigar and
you're telling funny jokes and there is that camaraderie and
these are really magical moments for guys and it's like,
you know, we can be idiots like and and I
just I think that part of you know, and you
(33:16):
know how you know, people say toxic masculinity. Listen, guys
need an outlet, soda women, you know, soda kids Like
you can't overparent. Sometimes you give your kids ice cream,
They're gonna run around for about an hour and then
just just have to make sure they don't hurt themselves.
Like it's okay. We all need a release. And when
you get in these groups and these times, I mean
(33:37):
that you've seen Miracle on Ice multiple times. I watched
they just did about a year ago. There was a
new documentary on it which Miracles my favorite sports movie ever.
But they did a they brought them all back to
talk about it, and these guys got so emotional. I mean,
you're talking about this thing was in the eighties and
(33:58):
like you could just all of these guys went right
back to that three week period and you're like, man,
just there is something about connecting with guys in sports
and sometimes it's just fricking awesome. And that's why New
York teams people say they're hard to root for. It's
like not this team not hard to root for. I
(34:21):
mean I didn't call it. I said Spurs in six
Basically they since February first have Wemby played fifteen minutes,
they won like thirteen and one against the East. Should
be noted the loss was to the Knicks. But what
was your prediction going into it?
Speaker 2 (34:37):
So when we talked last week, I ended up switching
my pick the next morning after I finished watching all
the film. The one that pushed me over the edge
was there was a seventeen game stretch earlier this year
where the Spurs went sixteen and one. They won eleven
games in a row, and they won five games in
a row after it, and the one loss in there
was a butt kicking at the hand of the Knicks
(34:58):
in Madison Square Garden and it was during the phase
when the Spurs. The Spurs had everything going. They had
made the lineup change, they had moved Harrison Barnes to
the bench and put Julian Champagnie in with the starters,
and they just I watched the film. Frankly, it looked
just like these first two games for all the same reasons.
Kat kind of inverting their spacing. It's been funny this
is Actually I have one last crazy stat for you.
(35:20):
Oklahoma City in the last round against San Antonio field
goals made within five feet of the rim twelve per
game at fifty three percent, the Knicks nineteen per game
at sixty one percent. They have completely kind of inverted
the Spurs spacing and have just been able to score
with relatively ease around the basket. And it's just been
(35:42):
It's kind of just a beautiful example of how basketball
is just as much about matchups as it is about
anything else. The Spurs guards, they don't have the same
size advantages they did in the last round. Wemby like,
say what you want about Karl Anthony Towns, you couldn't
build a better player to deal with a Victor women
Yama mail bag question of my show the other day
where someone was like, like, do the Spurs need to
(36:04):
get this kind of player to counter Cat Karl Anthony
Towns or players like him? Like or players like him
who's like Cat? Like how many how many players in
the league are seven feet tall but like just cannot
leave him open three point shooters, but are also like
really good slashers, like like he gets that rip through
move and he's like a bull in a china shop,
(36:26):
get good luck getting out of the way, Like like,
he's incredibly fast, he's a very good passer, like Cat is.
Kind of it sounds ridiculous to say for a guy
who not many people think as a top fifteen player
in this league, but he's kind of a unicorn. He's
kind of a super super unique player.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Like best shooting, best perimeter shooting, big ever yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Sterk yeah, and sterk and like and and you're you're
again like the other guys who you think of his
stretch fives, it's like Chris tops porzingis, well, first of all,
you've never shot the ball as well as Cat, and
he couldn't drive anywhere near as well and was an
injury prone mess for most of his career. That's like, well,
chat Holmgrend. It's like, well, you can't shoot. Like there's
a lot of bigs that can shoot, but they can't shoot.
(37:11):
I had a high school coach that I coached with
who said, like, you're either a shooter or you're a maker.
There's a lot of shooters out there. Kat is a maker.
Kat is a maker. He's a guy that you cannot
leave open in those situations. It's very much a magic
in the bottle kind of thing. And we talked about
the versatility, like them having a Mitchell Robinson when they
need a center, when they need like a real center,
(37:32):
they've got one. It's Mitchell Robinson. Oh, we need to
go with more shooting. Landry Shammitt is literally twenty three
for his last thirty four from three going into like
the dude just does not miss shots. It's like you
need a Duce McBride always steps in and hits a
big shot here or there. There were stretches of last
the game. In Game two where Michale Bridges took over
(37:54):
the offense, they had a stretch with Brunson and Kat
off the floor that dominated the game to end the
third and to start the fourth quarter. Just like playing
great defense and mckel bridges and Duce McBride hitting shots,
they just kind of have all of that juice that
you need to shape shift into whatever specific series needs.
Because again, first round it was all the off ball stuff.
(38:16):
Second round it's like and b can't guard pick and roll,
We're spam and pick and roll. Third round it's like
James Harden can't guard Brunson. We're spaming isolation the fourth round.
It's like, well, Karl Anthony Towns is pulling Wemby away
from the basket and we're getting everything like it just
is they have been able to shape shift into all
these different forms. I picked Nixon six. Frankly, I think
a sweep is on the table. I think it's I
(38:38):
just think it's gonna be really difficult for that Spurs
team to win on the road. I'm gonna give the
Spurs one. I wouldn't be surprised then if they held
Serve at home in Game five and this thing ended
up going six anyway, But I would be stunned, frankly
if the Knicks lost the series.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Before we go, Condolences to friends and family of Stacey King,
who passed away at fifty nine, the former Chicago bull
three ring forward, a broadcaster for the Bulls. One of
the sweetest guys. Whenever we called him on the herd,
he always found time for us. Fifty nine years old,
(39:16):
a really good broadcaster. I'd see him at Bulls games,
and the sweetest guy, funniest guy, great stories. And I
have a couple of friends here in Chicago that were
just I was texting with today. If you never met
Stacy King. It was your loss because he was just
(39:38):
a huge man and a huge personality, beloved in the community.
We just had him on not long ago on the Herd.
I just mean literally, sometimes you'll see something on the
internet and it can infuriate you, and then sometimes you
see something emotionally where it's a gut punch, and everybody
(39:59):
loved Stacy km so rest in peace. Did you ever
have a chance to meet him, I know you know
very well about his game Oklahoma. He was a great
all one of the great college players of all time.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I did not have the luxury to meet him, but
an absolute legend, and like you said, rest in peace.
The vo
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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