Nick Wright reacts to the New York Knicks winning the NBA Finals in Game 5 and what it means for Jalen Brunson’s legacy. Then, Nick debates what went wrong for the San Antonio Spurs, and how the perception of Victor Wembanyama has shifted. Later, Nick recaps the first few days of the World Cup, including the USMNT’s incredible win over Paraguay. Finally, Nick and Damonza answer your questions. #Volume
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome in What Driving the Great Episode four sixty eight.
This episode of What Driving the Grid has presented to you,
as always by our friends at boost Mobile, and for
the eighth time in the last eight years, we have
a new NBA champion, the underdog. Going into the series,
(00:32):
the almost no one believed in them as championship contenders
going into the playoffs, and going into the playoffs, I
was on that list of non believers as well, even
though I came around far quicker than most. Our twenty
twenty six NBA champions are the New York Knicks. I
was lucky enough to be in the building in San
(00:52):
Antonio for that game. More on that moment, Demons, Great
to see you. How are you this afternoon this morning?
Sorry for the late start today but had a lot
going on. How are you good to see Pops?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm great. I'm great. Bittersweet team that needed to win,
they won. Happy.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Let me ask you a question, was there any piece
of you that, by the end of the series found
yourself rooting for the Knicks.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I can't say that I was ever rooting against the
Knicks throughout the series, like I wanted Wimby to win,
you know, and all that stuff. But yes, by the
by the end of the series and when it was over,
I thought that the right team won. I like that team.
I like how everybody likes each other. It seems like
a family situation over there. Yes, I'm really happy.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well it's literally some of it is literal family with
Jalen Rick Brunson. Obviously, the Villanova guys are college and
then pro family Cat. They all seem to love Cat
even though he's in OG, even though they're not part
of the Villanova crew. It was the right winner. And
(01:58):
there is a lot we are going to get into today,
but almost nothing has irritated me more than the narrative
that the Spurs dominated the majority of this series. Guys,
if there's a horse that in every race gets out
(02:22):
to a huge lead and in every race runs out
of steam with five furlongs to go and gets caught
before the wire, that horse did not dominate the race.
It ran a bad race. And the idea that the
San Antonio Spurs dominated this series because they were awesome
(02:47):
in the first quarter and then gassed by the fourth
quarter every single game save one is ridiculous. We will
get more into that in a bit. I do want
to give the Knicks their flowers first, but first straight
to voicemail, brought to you by our friends at boost Mobile.
The Seahawks get their Super Bowl rings. Kenneth Walker wasn't there.
(03:09):
He's on the chiefs now. Tim Shallomey celebrates with the
Knicks and in the Stanley Cup Finals. That I will admit,
I was not that locked in on. The Hurricanes defeated
the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Probably terrible financial news for
my buddy Nacho, but I don't really have any sympathy
for anyone's bad financial news because I took a lot
(03:32):
of my winnings from the Knicks winning the championship and
put them on Spain minus twelve hundred on the money
line because I thought that's free money. Spoiler alert, kids,
no such thing as free money. It's something I already know.
But Cape verde Is has as many people as Wyoming,
and Spain's supposed to be the best team in the world,
(03:54):
so I thought I would be able to pick up
a little bit of cream off the top there. Not
so much. I am rallying though. Today is a big show.
Reminder to everyone you can email mailbag questions to us
at What's Right mailbag at gmail dot com. All right, Demanse,
let's get right into it.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So you were actually in attendance in San Antonio to
see the Knicks close out the series and win the finals.
Tell us about that experience.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, listen, I want to get into the game quickly,
but this is what I will say. The TV undersold
what a percentage of the crowd was Knicks fans. And
the reason I know that is because after the game,
Knicks fans obviously stayed to watch the trophy presentation. And
I never take pictures or video when I'm at events.
(04:45):
I try to just be in the moment. But I did,
for documentation purposes, take a panoramic video of the full
stadium twenty minutes after the game ended during the trophy presentation,
and I'm here to tell you sixty five percent of
the stadium was still full. So even if we think,
(05:07):
you know, ten percent of that was Spurs fans that
were like, hey, it's history, let me stick around and
watch it, more than half of the crowd. I would
have estimated about sixty percent of the crowd was Knicks fans.
And it made it a very unique environment where both
fan bases were just super loud, and you could also
(05:31):
feel when the Spurs had a lead in the fourth quarter,
but it was dwindling that even though they were the
team leading, the Knicks fans were the team that was
confident and the Spurs fans were the ones that were
getting nervous. We will get more to the Spurs later
in the show, but we must start demands with the champions.
(05:52):
Let's get to Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh yeah, so we'll get to the Knicks as a
whole later, but Jalen Brunson man, he is responsible for
just under half of their points in this close out game.
He also secured his Finals MVP. How impressed were you
with the small guard and his achievements in these finals.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I don't know how you could be possibly more impressed,
And I don't know how you could walk away from
this series and feel like right now, in this moment,
maybe it'll be different in short in the short near future,
but I don't know how you can walk away from
this series and think that if you're trying to win
(06:34):
a championship, victor Winbinyama is better than Jalen Brunson. For
as long as basketball has existed, the single most important
trait anyone can have is getting a bucket. The ability
to go get a bucket at every level of basketball,
(06:59):
at in every era of basketball, is the most important skill.
And right now, Jalen Brunson is as good as anybody
in the league at going to get a bucket. You
add to that that he is the I think number
(07:21):
one draft pick for clutch situations in the league. You
add to that that he only seems to get better
as the game goes on and is at his absolute
best in the fourth quarter. You add to that that
(07:42):
despite his stature, he is as reliable and as durable
as any player in the league. And then you add
to it that he just had an absolute utter masterpiece
to close out an NBA championship. And if someone if
(08:04):
there's a Knicks fan right now that wants to argue
Brunson's the best player in basketball, you have to at
least listen to that argument. He can't thoroughly outplay the
guy that all of us were calling, myself included two
weeks ago, three weeks ago, the best player in the
(08:27):
sport put up an all time great close out game
in the finals to finish off of finals where points
were hard to come by for literally everyone else in
the series, and he averaged thirty two and a half
and not at least be open to the possibility that size,
(08:51):
profile and draft position and all of that, notwithstanding that
this guy's as effective as any player in the league.
Forty five plus to win a championship Giannis a few
years ago, Bob Pettitt, one hundred years ago, Michael Jordan
(09:15):
in Game six against the Jazz Jalen Brunson two nights ago,
that's the list. Fifth on that list with forty two
in a close out, the most famous game of Magic's
career when he was a rookie, jumped center for Kareem
and dropped forty two in Game six of the finals
(09:36):
as a rookie. And I have said for years that
I think the best game of Michael Jordan's career is
his final game as a ball. And he had higher
scoring finals games and many higher scoring playoff games and
(09:58):
a ton more efficient game games, but the team scored
eighty nine and he scored forty five of them well
when the Knicks had eight. When the Knicks had ninety,
Brunson had forty five of them. Brunson scored fifteen of
(10:18):
seventeen Knicks points during a stretch of the fourth quarter,
including thirteen straight himself. Brunton had a His final three
baskets of the season were the hurky jerky little elbow,
shoulder to Wimby's ribs, stop start layup. Then the next
(10:43):
basket he scored was when Wimby was on the bench
resting with five minutes left in the NBA Finals. He
went straight to the basket, and then the next bucket
was with Wimby back in the tied up eighty eight
eighty eight, one minute left, championship on the line, blow
(11:08):
pass Castle right in the paint floater. Wemby's flat footed
doesn't even get off the ground. As everyone else was
getting more tired, he was getting stronger, and it was
unquestioned faith in belief from his teammates and from everyone
(11:31):
in the crowd that he was going to be able
to do exactly that. And since he's been a Nick,
only Isaiah Hartenstein has more playoff wins. Some of those
came as Jalen Brunson's teammate. Only Sga is averaging more
(11:54):
points in the playoffs, and it's by like two tenths
of a point. No one has more thirty point games,
thirty five point games, or forty point games. And he
just put on a elimination game masterclass right after he
was at the helm of the greatest comeback in playoff history.
(12:18):
If that doesn't help rewrite who a player is, what
his ceiling is, and whatever it is not I am
not someone that believes and I've never been someone that
believes a Well, if you win the championship, you're the
best player. Chauncey Phillips was never the best player. No
(12:40):
one ever argued that Chauncey was the best player in
the league. Jalen Brown was not the best player in
the league. There's plenty of guys that have been Finals
MVP that nobody thought was best player in the league.
I get that, but the comp for what Jalen Brunson
(13:03):
just did is not Chauncey Billups. It is much closer
to Piston's Isaiah Thomas. And when Piston's Isaiah Thomas he
actually didn't win Finals MVP until his second ring, but
when they won the championship, and it's like, well, he's
(13:23):
not better than Bird, He's not better than Magic, He's
not better than Michael, and it's like, okay, maybe, but
he has now beaten them all in root to the playoffs.
He does now have a playoff series under his belt
at least one and maybe and for some of those
(13:44):
guys more than one where he outplayed that guy. And
he has shown his entire basketball life that he flatly
and simply understands what it takes to win and how
to win. What's that worth? What is that worth? It
(14:11):
can't be worth nothing. And I'm just I also don't
want this to be lost in it when we're discussing
it what this means for Brunson. No one thought he
had the better team, that they were big underdogs, nobody
(14:38):
thought that he had the better supporting cast. Everyone was
over the moon about Castle and Harper. This was supposed
to be Championship one of a dynastic run for the Spurs,
(14:59):
and they got in five games and in the fourth quarters,
Jalen Brunson averaged eleven points a fourth quarter. This stack
courtesy of Zach Lowe. The Knicks won the finals all
through fourth quarter excellence, despite the fact that the Knick's
(15:21):
third leading fourth quarter scorer in the finals was Landry
Shammitt and fourth leading was Jose Alvarado's eight points. It
was Brunson and Ananobi and that's it. Cat Bridges and
Josh Hart combined in the finals, combined in the finals
(15:44):
for fourteen to fourth quarter points, and the Knicks dominated
the fourth quarters. Demonse, what else do we have on Bronson?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Do you think that this is a magical run by
Brunson or is this something that we should expect from
him moving forward?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
I mean, it's gonna be hard to duplicate this, but
I certainly expect him to be a playoff riser moving forward.
I mean, that's you have as much faith in him
(16:23):
as anyone in the league. In this spot. You just
have to and ask me the next one, because I
think it's there. It speaks to it.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Brunson went on a ten oh solo run to tie
things up late in the fourth. How would you describe
what that run felt like in the.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Building, the Spurs fans knew there was nothing that the
Spurs were gonna be able to do. And that's what
And that is really the final step of this where
the opposing fan base is like, dude, we're screwed.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, Like we.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Can't stop this guy.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
And especially with last game. How the last game went,
like the Spurs fans, I don't think could have gotten
comfortable at any point throughout.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
And listen, obviously, this series was not just about Brunson,
and we'll get to the Knicks as a whole, and
then we'll get to the Spurs side of things. But
he is just an unstoppable closer, and the Spurs were
(17:43):
supposed to have the perfect team to stop him, big physical,
awesome defensive guards with a seven foot six unicorn patrolling
the paint. But here's the thing people have wrong about
(18:07):
the Brunson and Wimby dynamic. Wimby is not much bigger
than Jalen Brunson. He is stronger. I'm sorry, he is
taller than Jalen Brunson. But Brunson is so much stronger
than him, like, laughably stronger than him, that the fact
(18:28):
that Wimby is literally I believe a foot and a
half taller than Brunson, because I believe Wimby is seven
to six and I believe Brunson is six foot even,
so that's a foot and a half taller. As the
game wore on, that mattered less and less, all right,
(18:49):
One more Brunson question Demonsey about the greatest knicks.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
So after the game, Rick Brunson said that Patrick Ewing
is still the greatest nick ever. Was he correct?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Depends on what you value. Ewing never and I love Ewing.
There was a period of my life where he is
my favorite athlete. Ewing never hit a peak this high,
and not just because Jalen won the championship. Ewing's best,
you know, the highest MVP finished was the same as
(19:23):
Brunson's fifth. He might've had won fourth. I'm not sure
Ewing was never markedly higher in the NBA his NBA
ecosystem than Brunton is right now, because when Ewing was
playing like he wasn't as good as Michael there, you know,
he wasn't as good as a team. There was an
argument between him and David Robinson. There was Carl Malone,
(19:46):
there was Charles Barkley. Guys, it's a similar spot Brunson's
in and Ewing never hit a peak this high now.
Clyde during the Willis Reed game, had third a thirty
six point seven rebound, nineteen assists Game seven of the finals.
That game Trump's even this one. But so you can
(20:11):
argue that this isn't the highest peak. That Clyde's was
the highest peak, but it's at least eye to eye
with it. So I don't know Ewing's resume and Clyde's
as well for that matter, and Willis Reid. Willis Reed
did win MVP. They're just deeper, sturdier resumes. But as
far as peak, Brunson can go peak for peak with
(20:34):
any of those guys, And as far as Clyde and
Willis Reid, who are top four knicks ever had each other,
Ewing didn't have anyone like that. But Ewing didn't get
over the hump. Brunson just did. And so he if
(20:56):
he's not already the greatest nick ever, he will be,
and he is the most important nick ever. We'll talk
about the other Knicks in a second, but first, today's
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Speaker 1 (23:04):
Reminder everybody like rate and subscribe review the pod. It
would be greatly appreciated. All right, Demanse, Let's talk nixt
before we get to the Spurs and Wimby.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
So the Knicks as a whole champions after fifty fifty
three year drought. It was not easy. Now. The playoff
run was super easy, but they overcame double digit, double
digit losses or double digit deficits in every single game
in these finals. How would you remember this team? And
are they historically memorable team?
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Oh? Well, there they are going to stand that this
is not prisoner of the moment stuff demands. They are
going to stand the test of time for two very
distinct reasons. Three actually three very distinct reasons. Number one,
(23:56):
every time a team is down big at halftime of
the finals from now until eternity, and they show the
biggest finals halftime deficits overcome, the Knicks are going to
be at the top or still on that list somewhere,
(24:20):
So that game four Knicks win is going to be
brought up and referenced every year at some point in
the finals when a team is down huge at halftime.
So that's one way they will be memorable or remembered.
Another one, every time a team is having a dominating
(24:47):
postseason blowing people out, and they show the list of
most dominant postseason runs, number one with a bullet will
be this year's next team. This next team plus two
eighty three postseason margin of victory is so far ahead
(25:12):
of second place Demons. If they took out the fifty
one point win over the Hawks, it's still the most
dominant postseason. This second place is fifty three points behind them,
so forever. So, whenever a team is down huge at
halftime of the finals, this next team will get brought up.
(25:35):
Whenever a team is going on a crazy postseason run,
this next team will get brought up. And maybe more
relevant than any of those, every team that has a
good but not great regular season and gets into the
playoffs as a low fifties win three or a four seed,
(25:56):
someone in their organization, player, coach GM is going to
reference this next team. Why do you believe, Well, we
think much like the Knicks a few years ago, we're
hitting our stride at the exact right time, we're gelling,
and we have an extra gear to hit. So they
will definitively be a historically memorable team. Now will they
(26:20):
be considered a historically great team or a good team
that got on one of the craziest heaters ever, that
is dependent on what they do next season. We talk
about this on the TV show a lot, but the
only team that is considered historically all time great that
(26:45):
did not validate it the following season was the nineteen
eighty three Philadelphia seventy six ers, and that was in
part because they went twelve and one in the playoffs.
They had made the finals a bunch of years before,
they added Moses Malone, Doctor J and then they you know,
fizzled after that. And there's but they're still considered an
(27:05):
all time great team. Every other team that we consider
an all time great team. It was the conjunction of
their title and what the title defense looked like. So
we'll see about that piece of it. But here's the
other thing I will remember about them. Yes, Demont's they
(27:29):
had a insane fourth quarter comeback against the Cavs down
twenty two with seven and a half minutes left. But
aside from that, this postseason they had they didn't really
have any going into the finals comebacks because they were
just beating everybody so badly. It was blowouts for them
(27:54):
to then in the playoffs. It's not only this is
something I think people are missing a bit. It's not
only that they were down double digits at some point
in every game in the last thirty years in the
NBA Finals, So thirty years of finals, we're talking like
(28:17):
one hundred and seventy five games. As far as biggest
deficits overcome at any point in the second half. The
Knicks now have number one, number three, and number seven.
(28:42):
They have the first, the third, and the seventh biggest
second half finals comeback comebacks in the last thirty years.
This is so, this is how numb we got to it.
(29:02):
Game five, Demonseie the game that just happened. That was
the third biggest second half finals comeback of the last
thirty years. Didn't even feel that surprising down fifteen in
the second half of the finals. The only greater comebacks
(29:24):
than that in the last thirty years is a Lakers
Celtics game from twenty ten. And what the Knicks did
in Game four, that's it. And at no point, because
of what they had conditioned us to feel like was
it out of reach.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Solo of the game. Every single game like.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
That, every single game followed the same blueprint. And for them, well,
you can ask me these follow ups and then we'll
get to this other stuff, but go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
So how much more impressive was this win considering that
they basically did it without Carl, Well, Carl, without Cat.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
I mean it's you can call him Carl, yeah, I
mean his name is Carl. I mean he scored two points.
He's in foul trouble the whole time. He and he
he now has the record demons of best plus minus
(30:28):
for any individual player in a playoff run in NBA history.
He was so important, His ability to stay on the
court was so important to what they were gonna be
able to do against Wimby, and so the fact that
in Game five he only scored one basket, they were
(30:56):
minus four in his minutes, which means they were us
eight in the minutes he didn't play is remarkable. The
fact that they won Game four Game five despite the
fact that did anyone other than Brunson play even a
(31:18):
good game? I like, is anybody other than Brunson? Maybe
Josh Hart feels good about his game, but does anybody
feel great about their individual performance? I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Worst game of the series and game by far.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
They got nine points off the bench they and they
won it anyway, So I mean, Dylan Harper had twenty
five bench points himself, the Knicks had nine, so it
was It's why Brunson's forty five is just so crazy.
(32:07):
Forty five when your team scores one to thirty is
one thing. Forty five when the team scores ninety four
and the last four are free throws. Is just bananas.
(32:28):
All right, let's keep going.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
What do you think was so special about this New
York team that the league wasn't able to replicate?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I I would come out.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
I would say the chemistry off the top like that.
I just think that your players liking each other and
genuinely want to play for each other is a huge thing.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
And everyone a first cousin of that. Everyone embracing and
accepting their exact role, and them not getting ahead of
themselves within a game when they were down sixteen, it
wasn't like, all right, we got to get it down
to two. It was like, okay, get it to fourteen,
(33:11):
get it to twelve, and not getting ahead of themselves
in the series, like the Spurs were talking about more
about winning the championship down three to one than the
Knicks were up three one. Yeah, and again, we'll get
to the Spurs stuff in a minute. What else?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Who were the biggest winners from this title run?
Speaker 1 (33:35):
So we've talked a lot about Brunson Cat, even though
you know it's so funny. Cat was so spectacular in
Game one and in the first two and a half
quarters of Game two until he got that fourth foul
and it was basically sidelined for the series. It didn't matter.
Og is a legend forever and has one of the
(33:58):
most famous singular plays and sequences, the block into that
the tip in in recent or maybe all of NBA history.
Mike Brown, who we've talked about his you know, coaching
career before. Mike, he's the Calves head coach with Lebron.
They think that it will help them keep Lebron if
(34:21):
they fire him. They fire him, Lebron leaves anyway. He's
then the Lakers head coach with Kobe. It is going okay,
and then the next year they start one and four,
they fire him so they can bring in Dan Tony.
He then the Calves bring him back. They then fire
(34:42):
him to bring in David Blatt, and then Lebron decides
to come back. He then you know, goes to Golden State,
wins a bunch of championships as an assistant, and then
gets another shot with the Kings. With the Kings, he
gets him to the playoffs. He gets them to the
play in They then start the next year at thirteen
and eighteen, they fire him, and then he was what
(35:03):
looked like the Knicks like fourth choice after they fired Tibbs,
and he just pressed all the right buttons and was
so excellent throughout. So he is a huge winner obviously,
Leon Rosen Worldwide West for not falling prey to the
(35:25):
idea that you should try to acquire players based purely
off where they are and you know the current NBA rankings,
Like there are a lot of players that are better
players than Mikhale Bridges that you could have acquired for
those five first round picks, but would they'd be better
(35:48):
fits alongside Brunson. They understood, if we're gonna build around Brunson,
then having guys like Og and Bridges are table stakes
to having a good defense. Had the courage even though
they were the Nova Knicks to include Deven Genzo, who
I feel sick for in the along with Julius Randall
(36:11):
go get Cat. Had the courage to fire Tom Thibodeau
after the team makes first conference finals in a quarter century.
So they're huge winners. Uh, Josh Mark, Oh yeah, of course, Rick, Yeah,
Rick Brunson, Josh Hart is gonna be like the go
(36:32):
to example of glue guy. Uh excuse me, Like so
every all these guys are winners Man the and Mitchell
Robinson with one of the biggest offensive rebounds anyone's ever
seen on that miss free throw down three, bullying Wimby.
(36:58):
So the only other huge winner from the knixt title
run that I didn't mention is probably Chet, who's like, yeah, God,
like thank.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
God, little guards too, Oh yeah guards.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Little well, And here's the other huge winner every other
team in the league. Because if the Spurs won, you
can't duplicate the Spurs model. First of all, the league
just literally made it illegal for you to have three
straight top five picks, so that part's going. But you
also you can't draft. There's not another Whimby you can
(37:40):
emulate the Knicks model and it so all of that
all right, it's I wanted to I'm a confession time
for me the Knicks of the champs, and so the
Knicks deserve that first forty minutes of the show. I
(38:01):
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them we sent you. All right, Demanse, Let's get to
the losers of the NBA Finals, the San Antonio Spurs
(39:49):
and Victor Wumbinama.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
So we'mb be into this playoffs in this finals or
applied to playoffs with a perfect approval rating, set all
the right things. Wants to be a winner, It wants
to win the games, does the right stuff in the
off season. But a mix of dirty plays, poor sportsmanship,
and fading in big moments has probably caused people to
change their minds. What has your what has changed in
your mind about Wimby?
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Well, here's what I'm gonna say, because the the Spurs lost.
If you have to pick one headline as to why
(40:36):
the Spurs lost, it is because Wimby ran out of gas.
And nothing exemplified that more than in Game five. After
this unbelievable like shockingly dombin first quarter and a half
(41:03):
where the Knicks scored thirteen first quarter points, they couldn't
get a basket in the paint when he had five blocks.
It was scoring, was rebounding. He quietly stopped making any
impact on either end and then had to be subbed
(41:26):
out with five minutes left in a six point clinging
to a six point lead in the finals might have
been a four point lead when they took him out, actually,
and then with twenty five seconds left down three, gets
bullied by Mitchell Robinson, who has one non broken hand
(41:50):
to allow an offensive rebound on a free throw so
the Knicks can seal it in a spot where one
of the reasons the Spurs were losing was because when
it was tied with a minute left, Wimby didn't get
off the ground to contest brunson shot. He simply ran
(42:15):
out of gas. And he simply ran out of gas
after repeatedly, in my opinion, refusing to give the Knicks
credit after the conference finals, he celebrated as if they
(42:36):
had won the championship. In my opinion, that was because
he thought light work in the finals. After game one
he said, I don't even have to play it's not
even we don't even need to play great or play good,
just play normal. Game two, then he threw the ball
(42:59):
off step Castle's back, fouled Brunson and missed the game
winning shot. After he was a star performer in In fact,
(43:19):
when yes, after he was a star performer in the
twenty nine point loss, including two missed Crunge time free throws,
he said, when asked how the team feels not only
(43:40):
that they've been dominant at times in this series, but
that everyone believes. Then he stopped himself and said knows
where going to win? Now that got reported and then
folks in the room were like, oh, just to be clear,
he was talking about the Spurs mindset, like that's of
(44:02):
course that's how they feel. Of course that's what he
would say. Horseshit. Of course that's what he would say.
He can feel that way. But I just ask anybody
right now, can you imagine, forget being down three to one.
If at the days after winning both games in San Antonio,
(44:29):
Jalen Brunson was asked, how do the Knicks feel? Can
you imagine Brunson saying, oh, we all know we're going
to win the championship. That would be more logical up
(44:50):
to oh that, well, of course that's how they feel.
Of course that's but he would never say that. He
then and I don't care as much as some, but
I guess I care a little more than some that
you know, he left the court without congratulating the Knicks. Fine,
didn't shake hands whatever. But then in the postgame press conference,
(45:16):
at no point was there the He could have at
the very least done the Mike Brown complaining about the
refs preamble, which was Mitch Johnson and that team deserve credit.
They were great. They out executed us. They won. Now
that I've checked that box, let me kill the refs.
He could have at the very least said, listen, they
(45:38):
were better than us when it mattered most. They beat
us four out of five. Ye you know, congrats to
the champion New York Knicks. But we felt we dominated
portions of the series. He didn't even get to the
front part. And the second part about them dominating the
(46:00):
series was just wrong. And that's the point I made
off the top of the pod. I'm gonna make it again.
The Spurs one the first quarter of this series by
like fifty points and then lost the second quarter across
the series, lost the third quarter across the series, lost
the fourth quarter across the series, I've learned a little
(46:25):
bit about indie car over the last couple of years.
There's this thing that indie car drivers have called push
to pass. It's this I don't totally understand how it works.
Reminds me of In The Fast and the Furious, I
used to have nitrous but it's a limited supply. If
there's an indie car driver that at the beginning of
(46:45):
every race, when everyone else is modulating or moderating how
much push to pass they use, absolutely expends his whole
tank and every race leads the first one hundred laps
and then almost every race gets tracked down by the end.
(47:06):
That guy didn't dominate anything. He got out to an
early lead and then got caught up to because he
wasn't ever going to be able to reach the finish line.
And that's who the spurs were. And one of the
reasons they couldn't reach the finish line was because Victor
(47:31):
woman Yama is not yet able to play huge, high
intensity playoff minutes at a super high level. He can
give you bursts, and this demon's is where it is
(47:56):
a tricky to walk because the biggest the three biggest, okay,
four biggest critiques of Wimby that are fair coming out
of the finals. One is he was really bad in
crunch time of this series. Chalk that up to youth whatever,
(48:19):
like that's he'll be We assume he'll be better at that,
no problem. Critique number two, a go to offensive move
would be nice. Okay, I put that in the same
bucket as young Lebron not having a jump shot. He'll
(48:40):
let's assume he improves on that. Great critique Number three
needs to get stronger. That one's trickier because at seven
foot six, I don't know how much more weight he
(49:05):
wants to put on that body and put on those
joints and how much that impacts durability and longevity. And
similar to that critique number four, man, you've got to
play more minutes in the regular season so you are
more equipped to play big minutes in the playoffs. That also, though,
(49:31):
is in the durability longevity bucket?
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Is he just a player? Because it's like, what do
you do?
Speaker 1 (49:42):
I don't know yet, but it's one of the reasons
why I have not been as bullish as all my
colleagues on oh, he's going to own the league for
a decade, just gonna you know, you might make the
(50:04):
Jordan Lebron debate irrelevant. He's gonna be the MVB favorite.
Maybe again, it's maybe, it's certainly not definitely. And then
you add to it. The other thing that we learned
in these finals is the guys got a weird flagrant
(50:29):
foul finish. He can't get enough of them. I mean
there were there was one called flagrant foul in the finals.
There were three or four more uncalled ones and the
(50:52):
landing zone one on Brunson. If if there was any
if there's any integrity, and I believe there is in
the league office, he was going to be suspended for
a Game six that has to be postgame upgraded. That
(51:12):
was as bad of a landing zone foul as you get.
It also makes me so happy the Knicks one game
five and that way there's no like, oh yeah, they
want it. But Wimby wasn't there for Game six, and
I I don't I didn't understand why the league seemed
(51:40):
to have a difference set of rules for him in
and outside of the game. I also do want to
say one quick thing about flagrance. Have we talked about
the flagrant my flagrant zero's idea yep, Okay, Yeah, so
I think, yeah, I think the league should consider tweaking
(52:01):
the flagrant foul point system to where unintentional blows to
the head and landing zone flagrance don't get you a
flagrant foul point. As far as building towards suspension, yeah, uh,
because it does make it like and because the other
(52:24):
weird thing about like the four flagrant foul points is
if you're a team that's gonna get popped in round one,
you don't have to worry about it at all, and
then just if you make the finals. But again, I
don't have a lot of sympathy because Wemby would have
been fine on this stuff if he didn't intentionally elbow
nas Read in the throat. But my other frustration piece
(52:47):
of this is that the Spurs have played the Knicks
seven times since the NBA Cup. They've lost six. If
a team beats you six out of seven times, five
(53:09):
in the playoffs and one the highest leverage regular season
game there is, the NBA Cup Final, they're just better
than you. And I didn't like the way they refuse
(53:30):
to acknowledge that. And I'm not I'm not trying to listen.
I got a lot wrong in these playoffs. But the
two things that I got the most right came to
a head in the finals. One was I believed in
(53:51):
what the Knicks were showing me, and the other was
I did not believe that you could go from twenty
nine minutes a game in the regular season to forty
minutes a game in the playoffs and wimby and quarters one.
In three of these finals, Demons was like fifty three
(54:11):
percent from the field rested before the game got a
little rested halftime. Quarters two and four was like thirty
four percent from the field. In Game four during the meltdown,
he disappeared after the first quarter, and in game one,
Game five, he disappeared after the midway park mark of
(54:33):
the second quarter. And so everybody is and we'll get
to the other spurs up in a bit, killing Dearon
Fox or killing Mitch Johnson. Guys, everyone myself included was
calling this guy the best player in the league. He
(54:53):
couldn't go get you a bucket. He was. He was
winded forty five minutes. It's into these games. They sat
him in crunch time of the fourth quarter because he
needed an arrest. All right, what else do we have here?
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Demanse, if Wimby has had a schedule career wise, do
you think that it's fair that we hold this against
him one day?
Speaker 1 (55:19):
I So here's the thing you you are not going to,
in my opinion, hold against him losing in the finals,
and this this season can't be anything other than a
(55:42):
huge step in the right direction. The only way this
gets used against him is if it is because if
it does become part of a pattern, if he's if
he is he has a bunch more late game downs
like Game two, if his team does have more historically
(56:06):
historic blown leads, If throughout his playoff career he just
can't give you big minutes like then it's important. So
this is where the seven Lebron stuff is a fair
comp kind of Now, Wimby's team was a huge favorite.
Lebron's team was a huge underdog, but still nobody really
(56:29):
used O seven against Lebron until twenty eleven happened. And
then when twenty when Lebron was bad in the finals
twenty eleven, people were like, oh, so he's bad in
the final. He's been in the finals twice, been bad
both times. Then once Lebron ripped off seven more finals
in a row and was an a triple plus in
(56:51):
all seven. Then nobody cared about the seven finals anymore.
When he was twenty two, they still cared about twenty
eleven because he was twenty six. That's fair, but O
seven went by the wayside. So that's but I do
think what is going to be held against him in
this regard is I don't think he's as universally beloved anymore.
(57:14):
I think people saw a little. The flagrant stuff bothered
some people. The arrogance when you're getting your ass kick
bothered some people. The failure to give the Knicks credit
bothered some people. And so we'll there is just a
(57:35):
and and I was trying to call this out throughout
the year. I didn't like back in December to Monsay
when he said the Knicks don't play a sophisticated brand
of basketball. I thought, why is this kid who's never
won anything telling us.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
About Yeah, I remember you had a huge brother.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
What's sophisticated or not. I didn't like when he talked
about how the Spurs play an ethical brand of basketball
other people don't. I didn't like when he took the
podium and said, hey, here's my three prong point platform
as to why I'm the league in VP. I didn't
like any of that at the media. The media loved it.
(58:20):
They loved it, I think. So I think people are
coming a little more to my sight on that stuff,
and there is We will see where this story goes.
He'll probably just come back better because of it. But man,
(58:42):
it's hard, and I have never been more certain about anything.
That's probably a bit of a stretch, but I am
just one hundred percent certain that the reason he was
crying after making the Western Armens finals was because he
thought they had locked up the title and he was
(59:02):
in denial throughout these finals that the Knicks were better
than them. All Right, one last quick wimby question that
we get to the Spurs as a whole.
Speaker 2 (59:13):
Is the best in the world belt still? Is it vacant?
And does Brunson hold it right now the same way
Kawhi did in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (59:21):
So I didn't think Kawhi held it in twenty nineteen,
but this is Brunton and Kawhi. I used the comper
like guys who are not in the art even anywhere
in the discussion for ten greatest players of all time,
but are some of the greatest championship level playoff risers
(59:42):
of my lifetime. That's the original Isaiah Thomas Kawhi and
now Jalen Brunson. I I do think the best player
in the world belt is vacant because I don't think
people are gonna be comfortable giving it to Brunson. You
can't say it's Wimby. Can't because Wimby isn't right now.
Maybe he will be in a week, but right now
(01:00:05):
this moment, Wimby is not better than Brunson. He's not.
You can't the And again, it's not just because Brunson's
team won. Brunson's team was the underdog. They won in five,
and he thoroughly outplayed Victor, and Brunson was best in
the biggest moments and Victor was his worst than the
(01:00:27):
biggest moments. It's hard to say, well, Jokich gets to
keep it when he played, by his standards, one of
his worst series since he's been awesome. Shay just literally
did play his worst series and got eaten alive by
this same Spurs defense that Brunton then ate alive. You know,
it sounds like to me, now that I'm talking it
(01:00:48):
all out, sounds like wide open for my guy, Luca,
Just wide open. Let's get that hammy healthy buddy. Uh
all right, talks Spurs as a hole in a second.
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(01:01:33):
Uh all right, demonse. Let's get to the Spurs.
Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Spurs led by double digits and all five of these
games and control the lead for seventy two of the series.
Yet it was still a gentleman's sweep. If you had
to pick one of the reasons why the Spurs lost
this finalist, what would it be?
Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
So I just laid off laid out the wimb piece,
and it's that's that's the biggest reason their best player
ran out of gas repeatedly. The other reason is, and well,
let me the biggest reason is because the Knicks are
(01:02:10):
better than them. The series that this was very similar
to was that Lakers Nuggets series where the Lakers won,
led for seventy percent of the minutes and lost in
five games because the Nuggets just kept hawking, walking them
down and winning, and similar to Wimby, Lebron ran out
(01:02:39):
of gas at the end of those games. Now, Lebron
was forty and had played sixty five thousand minutes at
that point in time, but still so, the biggest reason
was the Knicks are better. The second biggest reason is
their best player didn't look like it. After that, we
can get to failure to execute in the biggest moments, youth,
(01:03:07):
inexperience and some poor coaching. And as far as the
youth goes, everyone's killing dearon Fox. He's not part of
the youth. We'll get to him in a second. No
one is killing Steph Castle, and I get it. He
(01:03:28):
was really good most of this series. He also did
the most trash talking of anybody and said we're gonna
win three in a row, said all of these things
about how much better they were than the Knicks. He
was one for ten in Game five. His one make
(01:03:51):
was off. The victor missed three to dunk put back
down four with thirty seconds left. So Steph Castle had
been excellent over the course of the series. Give you
Steph Castle's numbers, to be fair to him. Played great defense,
gave you fifteen, five and four, but did it a
(01:04:15):
long while shooting thirty seven percent from the field and
thirty percent from three. So like everyone is just on
dearon Fox's head for giving you thirteen points and six
assists on thirty four percent from the field. Steph Castle
gave you fourteen points and four assists on thirty eight
percent from the field. Maybe a little closer than you'd expect. Also,
(01:04:39):
you ask more from Fox because he's your vett. He's
about to make fifty million. I get that. Just trying
to kind of be fair in the evaluation. Dylan Harper
was awesome in Game five. Dylan Harper was excellent throughout
the series. Dylan Harper was efficient, couldn't hit a three
A lot of the Spurs couldn't hit a three. Aside
(01:05:01):
from Vassell and Champagne, Harper gave you eighteen and six.
Harper was also excellent in Game four or Game five,
pardon me until the fourth quarter when Harper in that
fourth quarter finished one of five and missed back to
back critical free throws when they were down three and
(01:05:24):
missed that lay up at the end. But he was
excellent forel the series. Fox is going to be the
fall guy here, and here is the concern there. Do
you know Demanse Fox's contract, Like.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
I think he's making like what is he making like
thirty nine or forty nine million something like that right now?
Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Well, so you're he right, and you're kind of right
on both of them. He right now is making thirty seven,
but starting next year, he has a contract that starts
at forty nine and ends at sixty. It's a four year,
two hundred and twenty million dollar deal that kicks in
(01:06:16):
next year. So here's the problem. Steph Castle's gotta start
Dylan Harper next year. Has to start Darren Fox. I
think you'd like to keep him. Hard to have a
sixth man making fifty five million a year, and what
(01:06:44):
type of assets are you gonna get for him when
he's on that contract. I don't know. So Fox, though,
is the big the biggest, The guy who takes the
big is hel from this series. But what should not
be Mitch Johnson did not cover himself in glory up
(01:07:06):
to end, including and I didn't realize this in real time,
and neither did the broadcasters. But an odd wrinkle in
the NBA rule book is this demanse even if a
team is fouled with more than fourteen on the shot
(01:07:27):
clock to go to the free throw line, if they
missed the free throw and its offensive rebounded, the shot
clock resets to fourteen. So that was relevant on the
missed free throw by Josh Hart down up three with
(01:07:49):
twenty six seconds left, that Mitch Robinson bullied Wimby for
the rebound and kicked it out to Og. There was
twenty five on the game clock and fourteen on the
shot clock. No one recognized it, including Mitch Johnson, who
(01:08:11):
told Cornett to foul, and he did. The Knicks then
once again went one of two. Winby almost missed the
rebound again, but now you're down four. They didn't have
to foul there. You don't foul, you play defense for
fourteen seconds potentially get the ball back down three ten
(01:08:31):
seconds lock. Nobody recognized it. That wasn't great. When your
team blows five double digit leads, including three fourteen plus
point second half leads, some of that's going to be
on the coach. Now. I don't I don't think that
(01:08:55):
you make any knee jerk changes. But I am just
always I try to caution everyone about just assigning any
team a bunch of titles. I would who would have
(01:09:17):
thought when Kadi, Russ, Harden, and Ebaka walked off the
court after an incredibly hard fought five game finals lost
to Lebron in the heat, that that Corps would not
only never reach another finals, they would never play another
(01:09:38):
game together. Those five guys, those four guys. Harden was
traded that summer. I've said it before, I will say
it again. It's not what I am predicting. It is
just the history. A team made the finals in year two,
(01:10:01):
did not make it back for almost a decade, and
demanded a trade in the intrum that he was not granted.
Lebron made the finals in year two at age twenty two,
did not make it back until year eight, and he
was with a new team. Shack made the finals in
his third year in the league at age twenty two
(01:10:25):
maybe twenty three, did not make it back for five
years and was with another team. None of this shit
is guaranteed, and a little more humility, a little bit
better coaching, and your star player playing like it and
(01:10:51):
in down the stretch of these games playing his best
instead of playing his worst. Certainly the series is still
going on, and maybe the Spurs have a.
Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
Lead in it.
Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Instead, the Knicks have ended their fifty three year title drought.
Jalen Brunson is the king of New York and he
just had a finals performance for the Ages. I right now,
this go ahead, de manse. No.
Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
I think it's kind of funny how the Knicks fans
I feel like match the Spurs, and the Spurs fans
match the Knicks. Like the way that the bases have
been acting throughout this throughout this finals. This is a
very random point. And do you think that do you
think that people will start to look at the NBA
Cup and who wins it as like a prediction of
the finals?
Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
I probably not. Again, maybe way way down the road
to see if they're more because the Knicks be the
Spurs in it. So maybe I guess next year will
have a little extra meaning all right, real quick before
you go, before we go, Because the Spurs are the
Vegas favorites, the Knicks, I think of the third best up,
(01:12:02):
fun little game. If I tell you, I'll give you
five hundred bucks if either of these two teams wins
the title next year. If you pick it right, which
one are you picking?
Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
Two teams?
Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
No, it's just Spurs or Knicks. No, I'm no, I'm saying.
I'm saying next year, if you were to get a
five hundred dollars free bet on the Spurs to win
the title or the Knicks to win the title? Odds
I'm calling it the same, which one are you taking?
Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
I'd go Spurs. There, I'd go Spurs.
Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
I think America would two, which speaks to my point.
The twenty twenty six champion New York Knicks still a
little disrespected and the twenty twenty six San Antonio Spurs
still a little overrated. Like subscribe rate review, Great job, Demonse,
I kind of set you up for failure there at
(01:13:07):
the end. My apologies. Thank you to hard Rock Boost
and mars Men. Thank you to Blue Duck, and to
the volume. Talk to you guys again on Thursday. What's
right
Welcome in What Driving the Great Episode four sixty eight.
This episode of What Driving the Grid has presented to you,
as always by our friends at boost Mobile, and for
the eighth time in the last eight years, we have
a new NBA champion, the underdog. Going into the series,
(00:32):
the almost no one believed in them as championship contenders
going into the playoffs, and going into the playoffs, I
was on that list of non believers as well, even
though I came around far quicker than most. Our twenty
twenty six NBA champions are the New York Knicks. I
was lucky enough to be in the building in San
(00:52):
Antonio for that game. More on that moment, Demons, Great
to see you. How are you this afternoon this morning?
Sorry for the late start today but had a lot
going on. How are you good to see Pops?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm great. I'm great. Bittersweet team that needed to win,
they won. Happy.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Let me ask you a question, was there any piece
of you that, by the end of the series found
yourself rooting for the Knicks.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I can't say that I was ever rooting against the
Knicks throughout the series, like I wanted Wimby to win,
you know, and all that stuff. But yes, by the
by the end of the series and when it was over,
I thought that the right team won. I like that team.
I like how everybody likes each other. It seems like
a family situation over there. Yes, I'm really happy.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well it's literally some of it is literal family with
Jalen Rick Brunson. Obviously, the Villanova guys are college and
then pro family Cat. They all seem to love Cat
even though he's in OG, even though they're not part
of the Villanova crew. It was the right winner. And
(01:58):
there is a lot we are going to get into today,
but almost nothing has irritated me more than the narrative
that the Spurs dominated the majority of this series. Guys,
if there's a horse that in every race gets out
(02:22):
to a huge lead and in every race runs out
of steam with five furlongs to go and gets caught
before the wire, that horse did not dominate the race.
It ran a bad race. And the idea that the
San Antonio Spurs dominated this series because they were awesome
(02:47):
in the first quarter and then gassed by the fourth
quarter every single game save one is ridiculous. We will
get more into that in a bit. I do want
to give the Knicks their flowers first, but first straight
to voicemail, brought to you by our friends at boost Mobile.
The Seahawks get their Super Bowl rings. Kenneth Walker wasn't there.
(03:09):
He's on the chiefs now. Tim Shallomey celebrates with the
Knicks and in the Stanley Cup Finals. That I will admit,
I was not that locked in on. The Hurricanes defeated
the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Probably terrible financial news for
my buddy Nacho, but I don't really have any sympathy
for anyone's bad financial news because I took a lot
(03:32):
of my winnings from the Knicks winning the championship and
put them on Spain minus twelve hundred on the money
line because I thought that's free money. Spoiler alert, kids,
no such thing as free money. It's something I already know.
But Cape verde Is has as many people as Wyoming,
and Spain's supposed to be the best team in the world,
(03:54):
so I thought I would be able to pick up
a little bit of cream off the top there. Not
so much. I am rallying though. Today is a big show.
Reminder to everyone you can email mailbag questions to us
at What's Right mailbag at gmail dot com. All right, Demanse,
let's get right into it.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So you were actually in attendance in San Antonio to
see the Knicks close out the series and win the finals.
Tell us about that experience.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, listen, I want to get into the game quickly,
but this is what I will say. The TV undersold
what a percentage of the crowd was Knicks fans. And
the reason I know that is because after the game,
Knicks fans obviously stayed to watch the trophy presentation. And
I never take pictures or video when I'm at events.
(04:45):
I try to just be in the moment. But I did,
for documentation purposes, take a panoramic video of the full
stadium twenty minutes after the game ended during the trophy presentation,
and I'm here to tell you sixty five percent of
the stadium was still full. So even if we think,
(05:07):
you know, ten percent of that was Spurs fans that
were like, hey, it's history, let me stick around and
watch it, more than half of the crowd. I would
have estimated about sixty percent of the crowd was Knicks fans.
And it made it a very unique environment where both
fan bases were just super loud, and you could also
(05:31):
feel when the Spurs had a lead in the fourth quarter,
but it was dwindling that even though they were the
team leading, the Knicks fans were the team that was
confident and the Spurs fans were the ones that were
getting nervous. We will get more to the Spurs later
in the show, but we must start demands with the champions.
(05:52):
Let's get to Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh yeah, so we'll get to the Knicks as a
whole later, but Jalen Brunson man, he is responsible for
just under half of their points in this close out game.
He also secured his Finals MVP. How impressed were you
with the small guard and his achievements in these finals.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I don't know how you could be possibly more impressed,
And I don't know how you could walk away from
this series and feel like right now, in this moment,
maybe it'll be different in short in the short near future,
but I don't know how you can walk away from
this series and think that if you're trying to win
(06:34):
a championship, victor Winbinyama is better than Jalen Brunson. For
as long as basketball has existed, the single most important
trait anyone can have is getting a bucket. The ability
to go get a bucket at every level of basketball,
(06:59):
at in every era of basketball, is the most important skill.
And right now, Jalen Brunson is as good as anybody
in the league at going to get a bucket. You
add to that that he is the I think number
(07:21):
one draft pick for clutch situations in the league. You
add to that that he only seems to get better
as the game goes on and is at his absolute
best in the fourth quarter. You add to that that
(07:42):
despite his stature, he is as reliable and as durable
as any player in the league. And then you add
to it that he just had an absolute utter masterpiece
to close out an NBA championship. And if someone if
(08:04):
there's a Knicks fan right now that wants to argue
Brunson's the best player in basketball, you have to at
least listen to that argument. He can't thoroughly outplay the
guy that all of us were calling, myself included two
weeks ago, three weeks ago, the best player in the
(08:27):
sport put up an all time great close out game
in the finals to finish off of finals where points
were hard to come by for literally everyone else in
the series, and he averaged thirty two and a half
and not at least be open to the possibility that size,
(08:51):
profile and draft position and all of that, notwithstanding that
this guy's as effective as any player in the league.
Forty five plus to win a championship Giannis a few
years ago, Bob Pettitt, one hundred years ago, Michael Jordan
(09:15):
in Game six against the Jazz Jalen Brunson two nights ago,
that's the list. Fifth on that list with forty two
in a close out, the most famous game of Magic's
career when he was a rookie, jumped center for Kareem
and dropped forty two in Game six of the finals
(09:36):
as a rookie. And I have said for years that
I think the best game of Michael Jordan's career is
his final game as a ball. And he had higher
scoring finals games and many higher scoring playoff games and
(09:58):
a ton more efficient game games, but the team scored
eighty nine and he scored forty five of them well
when the Knicks had eight. When the Knicks had ninety,
Brunson had forty five of them. Brunson scored fifteen of
(10:18):
seventeen Knicks points during a stretch of the fourth quarter,
including thirteen straight himself. Brunton had a His final three
baskets of the season were the hurky jerky little elbow,
shoulder to Wimby's ribs, stop start layup. Then the next
(10:43):
basket he scored was when Wimby was on the bench
resting with five minutes left in the NBA Finals. He
went straight to the basket, and then the next bucket
was with Wimby back in the tied up eighty eight
eighty eight, one minute left, championship on the line, blow
(11:08):
pass Castle right in the paint floater. Wemby's flat footed
doesn't even get off the ground. As everyone else was
getting more tired, he was getting stronger, and it was
unquestioned faith in belief from his teammates and from everyone
(11:31):
in the crowd that he was going to be able
to do exactly that. And since he's been a Nick,
only Isaiah Hartenstein has more playoff wins. Some of those
came as Jalen Brunson's teammate. Only Sga is averaging more
(11:54):
points in the playoffs, and it's by like two tenths
of a point. No one has more thirty point games,
thirty five point games, or forty point games. And he
just put on a elimination game masterclass right after he
was at the helm of the greatest comeback in playoff history.
(12:18):
If that doesn't help rewrite who a player is, what
his ceiling is, and whatever it is not I am
not someone that believes and I've never been someone that
believes a Well, if you win the championship, you're the
best player. Chauncey Phillips was never the best player. No
(12:40):
one ever argued that Chauncey was the best player in
the league. Jalen Brown was not the best player in
the league. There's plenty of guys that have been Finals
MVP that nobody thought was best player in the league.
I get that, but the comp for what Jalen Brunson
(13:03):
just did is not Chauncey Billups. It is much closer
to Piston's Isaiah Thomas. And when Piston's Isaiah Thomas he
actually didn't win Finals MVP until his second ring, but
when they won the championship, and it's like, well, he's
(13:23):
not better than Bird, He's not better than Magic, He's
not better than Michael, and it's like, okay, maybe, but
he has now beaten them all in root to the playoffs.
He does now have a playoff series under his belt
at least one and maybe and for some of those
(13:44):
guys more than one where he outplayed that guy. And
he has shown his entire basketball life that he flatly
and simply understands what it takes to win and how
to win. What's that worth? What is that worth? It
(14:11):
can't be worth nothing. And I'm just I also don't
want this to be lost in it when we're discussing
it what this means for Brunson. No one thought he
had the better team, that they were big underdogs, nobody
(14:38):
thought that he had the better supporting cast. Everyone was
over the moon about Castle and Harper. This was supposed
to be Championship one of a dynastic run for the Spurs,
(14:59):
and they got in five games and in the fourth quarters,
Jalen Brunson averaged eleven points a fourth quarter. This stack
courtesy of Zach Lowe. The Knicks won the finals all
through fourth quarter excellence, despite the fact that the Knick's
(15:21):
third leading fourth quarter scorer in the finals was Landry
Shammitt and fourth leading was Jose Alvarado's eight points. It
was Brunson and Ananobi and that's it. Cat Bridges and
Josh Hart combined in the finals, combined in the finals
(15:44):
for fourteen to fourth quarter points, and the Knicks dominated
the fourth quarters. Demonse, what else do we have on Bronson?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Do you think that this is a magical run by
Brunson or is this something that we should expect from
him moving forward?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
I mean, it's gonna be hard to duplicate this, but
I certainly expect him to be a playoff riser moving forward.
I mean, that's you have as much faith in him
(16:23):
as anyone in the league. In this spot. You just
have to and ask me the next one, because I
think it's there. It speaks to it.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Brunson went on a ten oh solo run to tie
things up late in the fourth. How would you describe
what that run felt like in the.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Building, the Spurs fans knew there was nothing that the
Spurs were gonna be able to do. And that's what
And that is really the final step of this where
the opposing fan base is like, dude, we're screwed.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, Like we.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Can't stop this guy.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
And especially with last game. How the last game went,
like the Spurs fans, I don't think could have gotten
comfortable at any point throughout.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
And listen, obviously, this series was not just about Brunson,
and we'll get to the Knicks as a whole, and
then we'll get to the Spurs side of things. But
he is just an unstoppable closer, and the Spurs were
(17:43):
supposed to have the perfect team to stop him, big physical,
awesome defensive guards with a seven foot six unicorn patrolling
the paint. But here's the thing people have wrong about
(18:07):
the Brunson and Wimby dynamic. Wimby is not much bigger
than Jalen Brunson. He is stronger. I'm sorry, he is
taller than Jalen Brunson. But Brunson is so much stronger
than him, like, laughably stronger than him, that the fact
(18:28):
that Wimby is literally I believe a foot and a
half taller than Brunson, because I believe Wimby is seven
to six and I believe Brunson is six foot even,
so that's a foot and a half taller. As the
game wore on, that mattered less and less, all right,
(18:49):
One more Brunson question Demonsey about the greatest knicks.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
So after the game, Rick Brunson said that Patrick Ewing
is still the greatest nick ever. Was he correct?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Depends on what you value. Ewing never and I love Ewing.
There was a period of my life where he is
my favorite athlete. Ewing never hit a peak this high,
and not just because Jalen won the championship. Ewing's best,
you know, the highest MVP finished was the same as
(19:23):
Brunson's fifth. He might've had won fourth. I'm not sure
Ewing was never markedly higher in the NBA his NBA
ecosystem than Brunton is right now, because when Ewing was
playing like he wasn't as good as Michael there, you know,
he wasn't as good as a team. There was an
argument between him and David Robinson. There was Carl Malone,
(19:46):
there was Charles Barkley. Guys, it's a similar spot Brunson's
in and Ewing never hit a peak this high now.
Clyde during the Willis Reed game, had third a thirty
six point seven rebound, nineteen assists Game seven of the finals.
That game Trump's even this one. But so you can
(20:11):
argue that this isn't the highest peak. That Clyde's was
the highest peak, but it's at least eye to eye
with it. So I don't know Ewing's resume and Clyde's
as well for that matter, and Willis Reid. Willis Reed
did win MVP. They're just deeper, sturdier resumes. But as
far as peak, Brunson can go peak for peak with
(20:34):
any of those guys, And as far as Clyde and
Willis Reid, who are top four knicks ever had each other,
Ewing didn't have anyone like that. But Ewing didn't get
over the hump. Brunson just did. And so he if
(20:56):
he's not already the greatest nick ever, he will be,
and he is the most important nick ever. We'll talk
about the other Knicks in a second, but first, today's
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Speaker 1 (23:04):
Reminder everybody like rate and subscribe review the pod. It
would be greatly appreciated. All right, Demanse, Let's talk nixt
before we get to the Spurs and Wimby.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
So the Knicks as a whole champions after fifty fifty
three year drought. It was not easy. Now. The playoff
run was super easy, but they overcame double digit, double
digit losses or double digit deficits in every single game
in these finals. How would you remember this team? And
are they historically memorable team?
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Oh? Well, there they are going to stand that this
is not prisoner of the moment stuff demands. They are
going to stand the test of time for two very
distinct reasons. Three actually three very distinct reasons. Number one,
(23:56):
every time a team is down big at halftime of
the finals from now until eternity, and they show the
biggest finals halftime deficits overcome, the Knicks are going to
be at the top or still on that list somewhere,
(24:20):
So that game four Knicks win is going to be
brought up and referenced every year at some point in
the finals when a team is down huge at halftime.
So that's one way they will be memorable or remembered.
Another one, every time a team is having a dominating
(24:47):
postseason blowing people out, and they show the list of
most dominant postseason runs, number one with a bullet will
be this year's next team. This next team plus two
eighty three postseason margin of victory is so far ahead
(25:12):
of second place Demons. If they took out the fifty
one point win over the Hawks, it's still the most
dominant postseason. This second place is fifty three points behind them,
so forever. So, whenever a team is down huge at
halftime of the finals, this next team will get brought up.
(25:35):
Whenever a team is going on a crazy postseason run,
this next team will get brought up. And maybe more
relevant than any of those, every team that has a
good but not great regular season and gets into the
playoffs as a low fifties win three or a four seed,
(25:56):
someone in their organization, player, coach GM is going to
reference this next team. Why do you believe, Well, we
think much like the Knicks a few years ago, we're
hitting our stride at the exact right time, we're gelling,
and we have an extra gear to hit. So they
will definitively be a historically memorable team. Now will they
(26:20):
be considered a historically great team or a good team
that got on one of the craziest heaters ever, that
is dependent on what they do next season. We talk
about this on the TV show a lot, but the
only team that is considered historically all time great that
(26:45):
did not validate it the following season was the nineteen
eighty three Philadelphia seventy six ers, and that was in
part because they went twelve and one in the playoffs.
They had made the finals a bunch of years before,
they added Moses Malone, Doctor J and then they you know,
fizzled after that. And there's but they're still considered an
(27:05):
all time great team. Every other team that we consider
an all time great team. It was the conjunction of
their title and what the title defense looked like. So
we'll see about that piece of it. But here's the
other thing I will remember about them. Yes, Demont's they
(27:29):
had a insane fourth quarter comeback against the Cavs down
twenty two with seven and a half minutes left. But
aside from that, this postseason they had they didn't really
have any going into the finals comebacks because they were
just beating everybody so badly. It was blowouts for them
(27:54):
to then in the playoffs. It's not only this is
something I think people are missing a bit. It's not
only that they were down double digits at some point
in every game in the last thirty years in the
NBA Finals, So thirty years of finals, we're talking like
(28:17):
one hundred and seventy five games. As far as biggest
deficits overcome at any point in the second half. The
Knicks now have number one, number three, and number seven.
(28:42):
They have the first, the third, and the seventh biggest
second half finals comeback comebacks in the last thirty years.
This is so, this is how numb we got to it.
(29:02):
Game five, Demonseie the game that just happened. That was
the third biggest second half finals comeback of the last
thirty years. Didn't even feel that surprising down fifteen in
the second half of the finals. The only greater comebacks
(29:24):
than that in the last thirty years is a Lakers
Celtics game from twenty ten. And what the Knicks did
in Game four, that's it. And at no point, because
of what they had conditioned us to feel like was
it out of reach.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Solo of the game. Every single game like.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
That, every single game followed the same blueprint. And for them, well,
you can ask me these follow ups and then we'll
get to this other stuff, but go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
So how much more impressive was this win considering that
they basically did it without Carl, Well, Carl, without Cat.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
I mean it's you can call him Carl, yeah, I
mean his name is Carl. I mean he scored two points.
He's in foul trouble the whole time. He and he
he now has the record demons of best plus minus
(30:28):
for any individual player in a playoff run in NBA history.
He was so important, His ability to stay on the
court was so important to what they were gonna be
able to do against Wimby, and so the fact that
in Game five he only scored one basket, they were
(30:56):
minus four in his minutes, which means they were us
eight in the minutes he didn't play is remarkable. The
fact that they won Game four Game five despite the
fact that did anyone other than Brunson play even a
(31:18):
good game? I like, is anybody other than Brunson? Maybe
Josh Hart feels good about his game, but does anybody
feel great about their individual performance? I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Worst game of the series and game by far.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
They got nine points off the bench they and they
won it anyway, So I mean, Dylan Harper had twenty
five bench points himself, the Knicks had nine, so it
was It's why Brunson's forty five is just so crazy.
(32:07):
Forty five when your team scores one to thirty is
one thing. Forty five when the team scores ninety four
and the last four are free throws. Is just bananas.
(32:28):
All right, let's keep going.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
What do you think was so special about this New
York team that the league wasn't able to replicate?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I I would come out.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
I would say the chemistry off the top like that.
I just think that your players liking each other and
genuinely want to play for each other is a huge thing.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
And everyone a first cousin of that. Everyone embracing and
accepting their exact role, and them not getting ahead of
themselves within a game when they were down sixteen, it
wasn't like, all right, we got to get it down
to two. It was like, okay, get it to fourteen,
(33:11):
get it to twelve, and not getting ahead of themselves
in the series, like the Spurs were talking about more
about winning the championship down three to one than the
Knicks were up three one. Yeah, and again, we'll get
to the Spurs stuff in a minute. What else?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Who were the biggest winners from this title run?
Speaker 1 (33:35):
So we've talked a lot about Brunson Cat, even though
you know it's so funny. Cat was so spectacular in
Game one and in the first two and a half
quarters of Game two until he got that fourth foul
and it was basically sidelined for the series. It didn't matter.
Og is a legend forever and has one of the
(33:58):
most famous singular plays and sequences, the block into that
the tip in in recent or maybe all of NBA history.
Mike Brown, who we've talked about his you know, coaching
career before. Mike, he's the Calves head coach with Lebron.
They think that it will help them keep Lebron if
(34:21):
they fire him. They fire him, Lebron leaves anyway. He's
then the Lakers head coach with Kobe. It is going okay,
and then the next year they start one and four,
they fire him so they can bring in Dan Tony.
He then the Calves bring him back. They then fire
(34:42):
him to bring in David Blatt, and then Lebron decides
to come back. He then you know, goes to Golden State,
wins a bunch of championships as an assistant, and then
gets another shot with the Kings. With the Kings, he
gets him to the playoffs. He gets them to the
play in They then start the next year at thirteen
and eighteen, they fire him, and then he was what
(35:03):
looked like the Knicks like fourth choice after they fired Tibbs,
and he just pressed all the right buttons and was
so excellent throughout. So he is a huge winner obviously,
Leon Rosen Worldwide West for not falling prey to the
(35:25):
idea that you should try to acquire players based purely
off where they are and you know the current NBA rankings,
Like there are a lot of players that are better
players than Mikhale Bridges that you could have acquired for
those five first round picks, but would they'd be better
(35:48):
fits alongside Brunson. They understood, if we're gonna build around Brunson,
then having guys like Og and Bridges are table stakes
to having a good defense. Had the courage even though
they were the Nova Knicks to include Deven Genzo, who
I feel sick for in the along with Julius Randall
(36:11):
go get Cat. Had the courage to fire Tom Thibodeau
after the team makes first conference finals in a quarter century.
So they're huge winners. Uh, Josh Mark, Oh yeah, of course, Rick, Yeah,
Rick Brunson, Josh Hart is gonna be like the go
(36:32):
to example of glue guy. Uh excuse me, Like so
every all these guys are winners Man the and Mitchell
Robinson with one of the biggest offensive rebounds anyone's ever
seen on that miss free throw down three, bullying Wimby.
(36:58):
So the only other huge winner from the knixt title
run that I didn't mention is probably Chet, who's like, yeah, God,
like thank.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
God, little guards too, Oh yeah guards.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Little well, And here's the other huge winner every other
team in the league. Because if the Spurs won, you
can't duplicate the Spurs model. First of all, the league
just literally made it illegal for you to have three
straight top five picks, so that part's going. But you
also you can't draft. There's not another Whimby you can
(37:40):
emulate the Knicks model and it so all of that
all right, it's I wanted to I'm a confession time
for me the Knicks of the champs, and so the
Knicks deserve that first forty minutes of the show. I
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the losers of the NBA Finals, the San Antonio Spurs
(39:49):
and Victor Wumbinama.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
So we'mb be into this playoffs in this finals or
applied to playoffs with a perfect approval rating, set all
the right things. Wants to be a winner, It wants
to win the games, does the right stuff in the
off season. But a mix of dirty plays, poor sportsmanship,
and fading in big moments has probably caused people to
change their minds. What has your what has changed in
your mind about Wimby?
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Well, here's what I'm gonna say, because the the Spurs lost.
If you have to pick one headline as to why
(40:36):
the Spurs lost, it is because Wimby ran out of gas.
And nothing exemplified that more than in Game five. After
this unbelievable like shockingly dombin first quarter and a half
(41:03):
where the Knicks scored thirteen first quarter points, they couldn't
get a basket in the paint when he had five blocks.
It was scoring, was rebounding. He quietly stopped making any
impact on either end and then had to be subbed
(41:26):
out with five minutes left in a six point clinging
to a six point lead in the finals might have
been a four point lead when they took him out, actually,
and then with twenty five seconds left down three, gets
bullied by Mitchell Robinson, who has one non broken hand
(41:50):
to allow an offensive rebound on a free throw so
the Knicks can seal it in a spot where one
of the reasons the Spurs were losing was because when
it was tied with a minute left, Wimby didn't get
off the ground to contest brunson shot. He simply ran
(42:15):
out of gas. And he simply ran out of gas
after repeatedly, in my opinion, refusing to give the Knicks
credit after the conference finals, he celebrated as if they
(42:36):
had won the championship. In my opinion, that was because
he thought light work in the finals. After game one
he said, I don't even have to play it's not
even we don't even need to play great or play good,
just play normal. Game two, then he threw the ball
(42:59):
off step Castle's back, fouled Brunson and missed the game
winning shot. After he was a star performer in In fact,
(43:19):
when yes, after he was a star performer in the
twenty nine point loss, including two missed Crunge time free throws,
he said, when asked how the team feels not only
(43:40):
that they've been dominant at times in this series, but
that everyone believes. Then he stopped himself and said knows
where going to win? Now that got reported and then
folks in the room were like, oh, just to be clear,
he was talking about the Spurs mindset, like that's of
(44:02):
course that's how they feel. Of course that's what he
would say. Horseshit. Of course that's what he would say.
He can feel that way. But I just ask anybody
right now, can you imagine, forget being down three to one.
If at the days after winning both games in San Antonio,
(44:29):
Jalen Brunson was asked, how do the Knicks feel? Can
you imagine Brunson saying, oh, we all know we're going
to win the championship. That would be more logical up
(44:50):
to oh that, well, of course that's how they feel.
Of course that's but he would never say that. He
then and I don't care as much as some, but
I guess I care a little more than some that
you know, he left the court without congratulating the Knicks. Fine,
didn't shake hands whatever. But then in the postgame press conference,
(45:16):
at no point was there the He could have at
the very least done the Mike Brown complaining about the
refs preamble, which was Mitch Johnson and that team deserve credit.
They were great. They out executed us. They won. Now
that I've checked that box, let me kill the refs.
He could have at the very least said, listen, they
(45:38):
were better than us when it mattered most. They beat
us four out of five. Ye you know, congrats to
the champion New York Knicks. But we felt we dominated
portions of the series. He didn't even get to the
front part. And the second part about them dominating the
(46:00):
series was just wrong. And that's the point I made
off the top of the pod. I'm gonna make it again.
The Spurs one the first quarter of this series by
like fifty points and then lost the second quarter across
the series, lost the third quarter across the series, lost
the fourth quarter across the series, I've learned a little
(46:25):
bit about indie car over the last couple of years.
There's this thing that indie car drivers have called push
to pass. It's this I don't totally understand how it works.
Reminds me of In The Fast and the Furious, I
used to have nitrous but it's a limited supply. If
there's an indie car driver that at the beginning of
(46:45):
every race, when everyone else is modulating or moderating how
much push to pass they use, absolutely expends his whole
tank and every race leads the first one hundred laps
and then almost every race gets tracked down by the end.
(47:06):
That guy didn't dominate anything. He got out to an
early lead and then got caught up to because he
wasn't ever going to be able to reach the finish line.
And that's who the spurs were. And one of the
reasons they couldn't reach the finish line was because Victor
(47:31):
woman Yama is not yet able to play huge, high
intensity playoff minutes at a super high level. He can
give you bursts, and this demon's is where it is
(47:56):
a tricky to walk because the biggest the three biggest, okay,
four biggest critiques of Wimby that are fair coming out
of the finals. One is he was really bad in
crunch time of this series. Chalk that up to youth whatever,
(48:19):
like that's he'll be We assume he'll be better at that,
no problem. Critique number two, a go to offensive move
would be nice. Okay, I put that in the same
bucket as young Lebron not having a jump shot. He'll
(48:40):
let's assume he improves on that. Great critique Number three
needs to get stronger. That one's trickier because at seven
foot six, I don't know how much more weight he
(49:05):
wants to put on that body and put on those
joints and how much that impacts durability and longevity. And
similar to that critique number four, man, you've got to
play more minutes in the regular season so you are
more equipped to play big minutes in the playoffs. That also, though,
(49:31):
is in the durability longevity bucket?
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Is he just a player? Because it's like, what do
you do?
Speaker 1 (49:42):
I don't know yet, but it's one of the reasons
why I have not been as bullish as all my
colleagues on oh, he's going to own the league for
a decade, just gonna you know, you might make the
(50:04):
Jordan Lebron debate irrelevant. He's gonna be the MVB favorite.
Maybe again, it's maybe, it's certainly not definitely. And then
you add to it. The other thing that we learned
in these finals is the guys got a weird flagrant
(50:29):
foul finish. He can't get enough of them. I mean
there were there was one called flagrant foul in the finals.
There were three or four more uncalled ones and the
(50:52):
landing zone one on Brunson. If if there was any
if there's any integrity, and I believe there is in
the league office, he was going to be suspended for
a Game six that has to be postgame upgraded. That
(51:12):
was as bad of a landing zone foul as you get.
It also makes me so happy the Knicks one game
five and that way there's no like, oh yeah, they
want it. But Wimby wasn't there for Game six, and
I I don't I didn't understand why the league seemed
(51:40):
to have a difference set of rules for him in
and outside of the game. I also do want to
say one quick thing about flagrance. Have we talked about
the flagrant my flagrant zero's idea yep, Okay, Yeah, so
I think, yeah, I think the league should consider tweaking
(52:01):
the flagrant foul point system to where unintentional blows to
the head and landing zone flagrance don't get you a
flagrant foul point. As far as building towards suspension, yeah, uh,
because it does make it like and because the other
(52:24):
weird thing about like the four flagrant foul points is
if you're a team that's gonna get popped in round one,
you don't have to worry about it at all, and
then just if you make the finals. But again, I
don't have a lot of sympathy because Wemby would have
been fine on this stuff if he didn't intentionally elbow
nas Read in the throat. But my other frustration piece
(52:47):
of this is that the Spurs have played the Knicks
seven times since the NBA Cup. They've lost six. If
a team beats you six out of seven times, five
(53:09):
in the playoffs and one the highest leverage regular season
game there is, the NBA Cup Final, they're just better
than you. And I didn't like the way they refuse
(53:30):
to acknowledge that. And I'm not I'm not trying to listen.
I got a lot wrong in these playoffs. But the
two things that I got the most right came to
a head in the finals. One was I believed in
(53:51):
what the Knicks were showing me, and the other was
I did not believe that you could go from twenty
nine minutes a game in the regular season to forty
minutes a game in the playoffs and wimby and quarters one.
In three of these finals, Demons was like fifty three
(54:11):
percent from the field rested before the game got a
little rested halftime. Quarters two and four was like thirty
four percent from the field. In Game four during the meltdown,
he disappeared after the first quarter, and in game one,
Game five, he disappeared after the midway park mark of
(54:33):
the second quarter. And so everybody is and we'll get
to the other spurs up in a bit, killing Dearon
Fox or killing Mitch Johnson. Guys, everyone myself included was
calling this guy the best player in the league. He
(54:53):
couldn't go get you a bucket. He was. He was
winded forty five minutes. It's into these games. They sat
him in crunch time of the fourth quarter because he
needed an arrest. All right, what else do we have here?
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Demanse, if Wimby has had a schedule career wise, do
you think that it's fair that we hold this against
him one day?
Speaker 1 (55:19):
I So here's the thing you you are not going to,
in my opinion, hold against him losing in the finals,
and this this season can't be anything other than a
(55:42):
huge step in the right direction. The only way this
gets used against him is if it is because if
it does become part of a pattern, if he's if
he is he has a bunch more late game downs
like Game two, if his team does have more historically
(56:06):
historic blown leads, If throughout his playoff career he just
can't give you big minutes like then it's important. So
this is where the seven Lebron stuff is a fair
comp kind of Now, Wimby's team was a huge favorite.
Lebron's team was a huge underdog, but still nobody really
(56:29):
used O seven against Lebron until twenty eleven happened. And
then when twenty when Lebron was bad in the finals
twenty eleven, people were like, oh, so he's bad in
the final. He's been in the finals twice, been bad
both times. Then once Lebron ripped off seven more finals
in a row and was an a triple plus in
(56:51):
all seven. Then nobody cared about the seven finals anymore.
When he was twenty two, they still cared about twenty
eleven because he was twenty six. That's fair, but O
seven went by the wayside. So that's but I do
think what is going to be held against him in
this regard is I don't think he's as universally beloved anymore.
(57:14):
I think people saw a little. The flagrant stuff bothered
some people. The arrogance when you're getting your ass kick
bothered some people. The failure to give the Knicks credit
bothered some people. And so we'll there is just a
(57:35):
and and I was trying to call this out throughout
the year. I didn't like back in December to Monsay
when he said the Knicks don't play a sophisticated brand
of basketball. I thought, why is this kid who's never
won anything telling us.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
About Yeah, I remember you had a huge brother.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
What's sophisticated or not. I didn't like when he talked
about how the Spurs play an ethical brand of basketball
other people don't. I didn't like when he took the
podium and said, hey, here's my three prong point platform
as to why I'm the league in VP. I didn't
like any of that at the media. The media loved it.
(58:20):
They loved it, I think. So I think people are
coming a little more to my sight on that stuff,
and there is We will see where this story goes.
He'll probably just come back better because of it. But man,
(58:42):
it's hard, and I have never been more certain about anything.
That's probably a bit of a stretch, but I am
just one hundred percent certain that the reason he was
crying after making the Western Armens finals was because he
thought they had locked up the title and he was
(59:02):
in denial throughout these finals that the Knicks were better
than them. All Right, one last quick wimby question that
we get to the Spurs as a whole.
Speaker 2 (59:13):
Is the best in the world belt still? Is it vacant?
And does Brunson hold it right now the same way
Kawhi did in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (59:21):
So I didn't think Kawhi held it in twenty nineteen,
but this is Brunton and Kawhi. I used the comper
like guys who are not in the art even anywhere
in the discussion for ten greatest players of all time,
but are some of the greatest championship level playoff risers
(59:42):
of my lifetime. That's the original Isaiah Thomas Kawhi and
now Jalen Brunson. I I do think the best player
in the world belt is vacant because I don't think
people are gonna be comfortable giving it to Brunson. You
can't say it's Wimby. Can't because Wimby isn't right now.
Maybe he will be in a week, but right now
(01:00:05):
this moment, Wimby is not better than Brunson. He's not.
You can't the And again, it's not just because Brunson's
team won. Brunson's team was the underdog. They won in five,
and he thoroughly outplayed Victor, and Brunson was best in
the biggest moments and Victor was his worst than the
(01:00:27):
biggest moments. It's hard to say, well, Jokich gets to
keep it when he played, by his standards, one of
his worst series since he's been awesome. Shay just literally
did play his worst series and got eaten alive by
this same Spurs defense that Brunton then ate alive. You know,
it sounds like to me, now that I'm talking it
(01:00:48):
all out, sounds like wide open for my guy, Luca,
Just wide open. Let's get that hammy healthy buddy. Uh
all right, talks Spurs as a hole in a second.
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(01:01:33):
Uh all right, demonse. Let's get to the Spurs.
Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Spurs led by double digits and all five of these
games and control the lead for seventy two of the series.
Yet it was still a gentleman's sweep. If you had
to pick one of the reasons why the Spurs lost
this finalist, what would it be?
Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
So I just laid off laid out the wimb piece,
and it's that's that's the biggest reason their best player
ran out of gas repeatedly. The other reason is, and well,
let me the biggest reason is because the Knicks are
(01:02:10):
better than them. The series that this was very similar
to was that Lakers Nuggets series where the Lakers won,
led for seventy percent of the minutes and lost in
five games because the Nuggets just kept hawking, walking them
down and winning, and similar to Wimby, Lebron ran out
(01:02:39):
of gas at the end of those games. Now, Lebron
was forty and had played sixty five thousand minutes at
that point in time, but still so, the biggest reason
was the Knicks are better. The second biggest reason is
their best player didn't look like it. After that, we
can get to failure to execute in the biggest moments, youth,
(01:03:07):
inexperience and some poor coaching. And as far as the
youth goes, everyone's killing dearon Fox. He's not part of
the youth. We'll get to him in a second. No
one is killing Steph Castle, and I get it. He
(01:03:28):
was really good most of this series. He also did
the most trash talking of anybody and said we're gonna
win three in a row, said all of these things
about how much better they were than the Knicks. He
was one for ten in Game five. His one make
(01:03:51):
was off. The victor missed three to dunk put back
down four with thirty seconds left. So Steph Castle had
been excellent over the course of the series. Give you
Steph Castle's numbers, to be fair to him. Played great defense,
gave you fifteen, five and four, but did it a
(01:04:15):
long while shooting thirty seven percent from the field and
thirty percent from three. So like everyone is just on
dearon Fox's head for giving you thirteen points and six
assists on thirty four percent from the field. Steph Castle
gave you fourteen points and four assists on thirty eight
percent from the field. Maybe a little closer than you'd expect. Also,
(01:04:39):
you ask more from Fox because he's your vett. He's
about to make fifty million. I get that. Just trying
to kind of be fair in the evaluation. Dylan Harper
was awesome in Game five. Dylan Harper was excellent throughout
the series. Dylan Harper was efficient, couldn't hit a three
A lot of the Spurs couldn't hit a three. Aside
(01:05:01):
from Vassell and Champagne, Harper gave you eighteen and six.
Harper was also excellent in Game four or Game five,
pardon me until the fourth quarter when Harper in that
fourth quarter finished one of five and missed back to
back critical free throws when they were down three and
(01:05:24):
missed that lay up at the end. But he was
excellent forel the series. Fox is going to be the
fall guy here, and here is the concern there. Do
you know Demanse Fox's contract, Like.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
I think he's making like what is he making like
thirty nine or forty nine million something like that right now?
Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Well, so you're he right, and you're kind of right
on both of them. He right now is making thirty seven,
but starting next year, he has a contract that starts
at forty nine and ends at sixty. It's a four year,
two hundred and twenty million dollar deal that kicks in
(01:06:16):
next year. So here's the problem. Steph Castle's gotta start
Dylan Harper next year. Has to start Darren Fox. I
think you'd like to keep him. Hard to have a
sixth man making fifty five million a year, and what
(01:06:44):
type of assets are you gonna get for him when
he's on that contract. I don't know. So Fox, though,
is the big the biggest, The guy who takes the
big is hel from this series. But what should not
be Mitch Johnson did not cover himself in glory up
(01:07:06):
to end, including and I didn't realize this in real time,
and neither did the broadcasters. But an odd wrinkle in
the NBA rule book is this demanse even if a
team is fouled with more than fourteen on the shot
(01:07:27):
clock to go to the free throw line, if they
missed the free throw and its offensive rebounded, the shot
clock resets to fourteen. So that was relevant on the
missed free throw by Josh Hart down up three with
(01:07:49):
twenty six seconds left, that Mitch Robinson bullied Wimby for
the rebound and kicked it out to Og. There was
twenty five on the game clock and fourteen on the
shot clock. No one recognized it, including Mitch Johnson, who
(01:08:11):
told Cornett to foul, and he did. The Knicks then
once again went one of two. Winby almost missed the
rebound again, but now you're down four. They didn't have
to foul there. You don't foul, you play defense for
fourteen seconds potentially get the ball back down three ten
(01:08:31):
seconds lock. Nobody recognized it. That wasn't great. When your
team blows five double digit leads, including three fourteen plus
point second half leads, some of that's going to be
on the coach. Now. I don't I don't think that
(01:08:55):
you make any knee jerk changes. But I am just
always I try to caution everyone about just assigning any
team a bunch of titles. I would who would have
(01:09:17):
thought when Kadi, Russ, Harden, and Ebaka walked off the
court after an incredibly hard fought five game finals lost
to Lebron in the heat, that that Corps would not
only never reach another finals, they would never play another
(01:09:38):
game together. Those five guys, those four guys. Harden was
traded that summer. I've said it before, I will say
it again. It's not what I am predicting. It is
just the history. A team made the finals in year two,
(01:10:01):
did not make it back for almost a decade, and
demanded a trade in the intrum that he was not granted.
Lebron made the finals in year two at age twenty two,
did not make it back until year eight, and he
was with a new team. Shack made the finals in
his third year in the league at age twenty two
(01:10:25):
maybe twenty three, did not make it back for five
years and was with another team. None of this shit
is guaranteed, and a little more humility, a little bit
better coaching, and your star player playing like it and
(01:10:51):
in down the stretch of these games playing his best
instead of playing his worst. Certainly the series is still
going on, and maybe the Spurs have a.
Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
Lead in it.
Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Instead, the Knicks have ended their fifty three year title drought.
Jalen Brunson is the king of New York and he
just had a finals performance for the Ages. I right now,
this go ahead, de manse. No.
Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
I think it's kind of funny how the Knicks fans
I feel like match the Spurs, and the Spurs fans
match the Knicks. Like the way that the bases have
been acting throughout this throughout this finals. This is a
very random point. And do you think that do you
think that people will start to look at the NBA
Cup and who wins it as like a prediction of
the finals?
Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
I probably not. Again, maybe way way down the road
to see if they're more because the Knicks be the
Spurs in it. So maybe I guess next year will
have a little extra meaning all right, real quick before
you go, before we go, Because the Spurs are the
Vegas favorites, the Knicks, I think of the third best up,
(01:12:02):
fun little game. If I tell you, I'll give you
five hundred bucks if either of these two teams wins
the title next year. If you pick it right, which
one are you picking?
Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
Two teams?
Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
No, it's just Spurs or Knicks. No, I'm no, I'm saying.
I'm saying next year, if you were to get a
five hundred dollars free bet on the Spurs to win
the title or the Knicks to win the title? Odds
I'm calling it the same, which one are you taking?
Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
I'd go Spurs. There, I'd go Spurs.
Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
I think America would two, which speaks to my point.
The twenty twenty six champion New York Knicks still a
little disrespected and the twenty twenty six San Antonio Spurs
still a little overrated. Like subscribe rate review, Great job, Demonse,
I kind of set you up for failure there at
(01:13:07):
the end. My apologies. Thank you to hard Rock Boost
and mars Men. Thank you to Blue Duck, and to
the volume. Talk to you guys again on Thursday. What's
right
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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