June 16, 2026 • 29 mins
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon discuss the Knicks winning their first championship in 53 years and why it has saved the NBA!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
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(00:24):
Fox Sports Radio. Greetings, Welcome inside the NBA Champion New
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(00:47):
Harmon wherever you get your podcasts. You'll find today's full
show and a best of version posted right after we
get off the air. So as we get ready for
Parade week at DJ, it'll be the Nicks on Parade.
I'm just gonna listen to Prince's Parade album. That's all
I'm gonna do. And I'm gonna read Parade Magazine really
at that at the very end, we do the questions. Yeah, uh,
(01:11):
two big things to talk about with the finals, And
I want to give you something that you haven't heard,
you haven't talked about, that you heard a lot about
over the last forty eight hours. And look, I could
sit here and gush over Jalen Brunson and don't worry. Well,
but you know the one thing that comes true with
this when you now look at the NBA Playoffs in
its totality and you look back at the nixt five
(01:32):
game win over the Spurs. The Knicks did not play
great in the finals. They played great in the second half.
They closed games. The Spurs played terrific in the first half,
plus the first thirty minutes of the games were great
for them. The last eighteen not so much. These are
(01:52):
the two best teams in the NBA. The Knicks, even
though they were dominant sixteen to three record all the
way through the playoffs, the most game they lost to
her to the Hawks. Maybe Quinn Snyder should get an
extra big extension off of the one he got last year.
Man last week we celebrated him getting that extension on
the strength of a couple of wins. They're gonna and
rumors of firings and trades. They're gonna hang that banner
(02:15):
in Atlanta, in in In, in Magic City. Hey, beat
the Knicks twice in the twenty twenty six playoffs, Right,
that gets you a couple of lap dances. You know,
I'm just saying that. It's a it's a big achievement.
We won two games. Bigger tip the closest team beating
the closest team to beat the Knicks in the playoffs.
With the Hawks, we're relying on a couple of guys
(02:36):
that are forty five years old. Hey, sometimes that experience
is even that much more. How about that. If this
doesn't tell you what we talk about, the biggest thing
is about health and understanding that the NBA playoffs is
a marathon. We got to this NBA Finals and you
had both teams. One played good the first thirty minutes,
(02:57):
the other one close played better in the last eighteen
minutes game. Right, That's what you saw over the course
of the past week and a half. That's how you win.
You stay healthy because both these teams they were the healthiest. Clearly,
they were the healthiest all the way through the playoffs.
And you have to have enough at the end, and
the Knicks had enough and the Spurs did not. Right,
(03:19):
And now you would think, well, why did the Knicks
have enough and the Spurs? The Spurs were the younger team,
they should have a little bit more. The Spurs looked
like they were on vapors in the Western Conference Finals
against the Oklahoma City Thunder, which is something to be
said for. Hey, when you can sweep teams and get
a lot of rest. Okay, there's checked one for the
rest versus rust. You know, a sample right there. But
(03:42):
the big thing for the Knicks in the Spurs, he said,
why the Spurs? Why did this happen? I'll give you
a sentence and I'll tell you exactly why the Knicks
won and the Spurs did not. Right, to understand that
it's a marathon, it's it's staying healthy. Those are the
two biggest things that we don't talk about enough. The
Knicks were ready for the moment in all phases. The
Spurs were not ready for the moment in all phases. Right,
(04:04):
there's a reason why I said I wanted to play
the Spurs in the finals. Right, there's the reason why I
said that beginning because the Spurs are a team that
are doing it all at once. They're a young team
up and coming. They're all in their early twenties, and
what are they gonna be like when the spotlight of
the NBA Finals is its brightest and all teams think, yeah,
we've been on a big stage. First round, second round,
Western Conference Finals is a really really big stage. No,
(04:27):
it's different when it gets to the NBA Finals, and
the Spurs were gonna understand what that felt like if
it was the Thunder. The Thunder had just been there,
big stage everything. We're good. The Knicks of the new
team now the next of the team that went through
the Wars, and while maybe it was gonna be a
little bit of a question of finding their footing, they
were the more experienced team. The Knicks knew what the
(04:48):
moment was about, right to take all of it in
its totality right. James Dolan is getting a lot of
credit for the speech he gave to them ten weeks ago, saying, hey,
give me your best for ten weeks. You know, tell
your most you have significant others, and tell them this
is what the focus is going to be, because if
you win this title, you're gonna think about it every day.
The rest of your lives. The Knicks are a little
(05:09):
bit older. Everybody on the team is a little bit older. Yes,
a couple of young players, but everybody has been in
the league a few years. They all have significant now,
they have families. They know because of the more life experiences,
and I mean NBA life experiences, they know what the
moment is in the NBA Finals. We may not get
here again. Josh Hart talked very openly about it. This
(05:30):
may be the only time you get to get to
an NBA Finals. The Knicks knew we had to get
on the same page. They enjoy playing with each other.
They enjoy being able to achieve together. You just see
what they're doing the last couple of days, making all
the rounds on GMA and answering questions. You could tell
they enjoy hanging out with each other. The parties that
you've seen videos of. The Knicks got the moment because
(05:52):
they were a little bit older. They knew what the
stakes were. And they're starting fives, extremely talented right now.
Compare that to the Spurs who were very young, and
all we got from them the entire finals was we're good.
We got this Now. I would say, okay, there's confidence,
but then there is do you really understand what's going
(06:14):
on right now? Like when you hear Wemby say when
you're down three to one, we all know we're gonna
win this. Okay, you got to focus on one game first.
Don't sit here and say, yeah, we all know we
can win this because we know how good we are.
We know we're the better team because as you heard
Mitch Johnson say, all our ills have been self inflicted.
We felt like we've been the better team in the game. Well, yeah,
(06:35):
you have been, but yeah, been the best team because
the best team has the most points at the end,
and you've blown a lot of leads. And the Spurs
never seem to realize that it's not about having the
lead the first thirty minutes, it's about playing all forty
eight minutes, right dearon Fox when he said after the
big Game four collapse, we didn't really practice, but we
talked about it out of video session. We understood, we
(06:57):
got it will be good, We'll be fine. Every single
person for the Spurs has had the same message, Yeah,
we're good, we know we're gonna win. We're fine. Not
once did I have enough of pressure in the moment
to understand the gravity of the situation where this is
everything we can do to win one game, not just
(07:18):
if we know what we're doing, we're gonna win the finals.
Isn't like the rest of the year where you can say,
well we do A, B and C and our talent
level is better, we're gonna win games. Even you know
against Oklahoma City, Well we're better, we're more talented. This
is the best team you've played against. And I know
this because you look at their record, you look at
how they're beating teams in these Well, the Sixers might
(07:38):
not have been that great, the cas might have not
been that great. Well you know what if the if
the Pistons and the Celtics were better, they would have
won their playoff rounds, right. So, honestly, to look and
see a team going sixteen to three and winning the
last two rounds four to oh, four to zhero the
Spurs never thought they were really in trouble even as
they're watching the series just fall out of their hand
(08:00):
because for the most part, their attitude of yeah, we've
been the better team. Okay, yeah, the first thirty minutes
of games, I get you're out to double digit lead,
at the end of the first quarter every single game.
But when the Knicks come back and win, that's on you.
I mean that, and they don't want it to didn't
want to take any responsibility that. Well, we gave away
(08:21):
the lead. Well, okay, the Knicks came back. Okay, so
you gave it. What did you hand the ball to
Jalen Brunson across mid court instead of shooting here, Jalen,
go shoot a three? Or what did the Knicks do
to you in the last fifteen minutes? Why were you
so tired? Why is Wemby so tired? Why is Wemby
playing so many minutes and watching that and watching Mitch
Johnson say Friday night, I'm not going away from Daron Fox.
(08:41):
Dearan's our guy. We're sticking with him. Dude, you're down
three to one and he has killed you in the
NBA Finals so far. Dylan Harper is your better player.
And I even said Friday night, Steve Desager's my witness.
I was not facetious at all. I said, Mitch Johnson,
you got to flip those minutes. I'm not saying you
just suddenly don't play Aaron Fox, but Dylan Harper is
(09:01):
your best option at scoring the basketball, right, And that's
the best option him and Castle in the back court.
And he's got to play more. You saw the game yet,
Yes he missed the two free throws late, but he
was your better option. And still for Mitch Johnson to say,
I'm sticking with what worked. You're down three to one,
isn't it. There's no other round after this, there's nowhere. Hey,
(09:22):
we go back to the beginning of the playoffs start again,
like that's it. And I net the Spurs never really
got the moment of the NBA Finals well, and I
don't think they're gonna give you a lot of that
outwardly and to a man, to their credit, I mean,
they are very similar to the Knicks that there's not
a lot of emotion in the inn series conversations, right
(09:42):
because the Knicks certainly didn't get high. Well, they did
once they started hitting the banquet touch us allegedly, allegedly,
But the idea of just being Okay, we're up three
to one, you know, it doesn't matter, like the job's
not done, like that was their mess for the Spurs.
It was looking to the way they'd built those leads
(10:04):
and how well they'd played that that they were gonna
hang on there. That was it. They were holding on
to the fact that at some point that was going
to carry them across the finish line. And I told
you talking with our guy Ryan Hollins on the Fox
Sports Sunday Show, you know, got him to basically say
what where I was leading him of the coaching decisions.
(10:25):
Mitch Johnson made money plays right, dearon Fox. Has he
fit all the things like the check boxes right, years
in the league, experience whatever. Unfortunately he's also a member
of the Kings for a lot of that, which means
he didn't play a lot of big time basketball playing games.
But either way, but he's the guy with it. Now
we're looking at the extension and that's the big albatross
(10:47):
in terms of the old Hey, they're ahead of time
and they'll get back and all of those things that
that you're here and like, yeah, maybe they will. However,
history's littered with a lot of guys that were like
boy man that I wish we would have appreciated that
run and I and I appreciate the way you you've
laid this out, but in the press conferences, I didn't
think they'd ever admit like they were, they weren't going
(11:08):
to give an inch too. Yeah, the knicks were better here,
the knicks were better there. But in the end, okay,
so whatever they said behind closed doors clearly didn't work. Well,
clearly they have fights about Darren Fox and whatever and
playing time and everything else. But sure we heard that
Dylan Harper wasn't happy with this playing time, and you heard.
But I mean from the fact of, hey, we can't
keep giving away these leads, what did they keep doing?
(11:29):
You kept giving the leads away. But that's the thing, right,
kept losing the leads. So whatever you said to each other,
obviously it wasn't serious enough. You didn't work on enough,
because you kept giving these leads away. But this goes
back to then to the giant conundrum of what do
you do with Mitch Johnson, Because certainly you'll have a
bunch of folks calling him to be fired. I don't
know that's that, but if he's lost everybody and you
(11:52):
have that much malcontentedness and division coming down the stretch,
right confusion on a couple of plays, and you've seen
everybody going to the subruder films of guys kind of
pointing and all right, no, no, you have that guy
now based on a substitution whatever that they're not on
the same page there, But certainly the fact that in
(12:12):
the second half of these games you didn't go away
and change strategy. I'm not saying you can play the
old four corners and run out the clock. That's not
the case. But at no point should a shot be
going up with eighteen seconds on a shot clock. And
no point do you have eight straight possessions where you're
shooting three pointers like I'm due, I'm due? How you
(12:35):
draw another fall? Right? Yeah, you had good success driving
when you decided too earlier. How about we go back
to that and trying to get the ball into the
low post. I mean, all of these things. So for
Mitch Johnson, there's still a million questions. I agree with that,
and that's that's a full off season. And maybe Wemby
(12:55):
goes back to the Monks. Maybe he's hanging out walking
on a beach. So did the Monks teach him how
to flagrant foul?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Like?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I mean, is that what he learned? I want to know, like,
did you got the did roz eye Gould teach him
what to uh? You know? What he is. What you
do toge what he's got to do next is that
he's gonna be that's the next level of training, or
he hangs out with the crew from Kill Bill. Now,
I will I will tell you this as far as
next year, this was such a fail for the Spurs
(13:24):
and questions about playing time and and and X Y
and Z up and down the road. If you had
if I had to say, if you said, who's one
person big with this team it's not gonna be on
the team next year, I would say it's Daron Fox,
Mitch Johnson. They got to the NBA finals, And if
it's between one of the two. But you understand that
Dylan Harper is someone you look, you drafted him Matt
(13:46):
high in the draft for a reason. He is that good.
He has shown you. I mean, Darren Fox was just
so bad in the finals. And there's sometimes there's some
mistakes that it's really hard to come back from. It's
really hard for him to come back from his mistakes
in the finals, how bad he played. And even though
look Billen, Harper's biggest thing was he missed the two
free throws, I don't know that they would have won
the title anyway, but certainly that was that was a
big clincher. And I don't I still don't know if
(14:07):
he tried to miss the second one on purpose, but
they didn't even go for the rebound, like that's one
of those Is he gonna miss the second one again?
It goes back to communicating with and flow from Mitch
Johnson to the leaders on the court. It's a big
I don't I just because of the glut in the backcourt,
because Castle's got to play majority of the minutes and
and Harper's got to play majority minutes next year. I
(14:27):
don't know that even though in a position was NBA,
I don't think there's room for that. So I would
tell you. And obviously with his extension kicking in, he's
a really good player and you'll be able to move him.
You know, still somebody who is young enough. But if
you had to, if I had to say the one
big change for the Spurs, Deanroon Fox has played his
last I would say this. Right. We talked about how
much he may or may not have been injured for
(14:48):
this series, and that's what they have to determine internally.
Is there enough damage to where you've got to move
on right, Like we talked about, Uh, some of these
teams historically where it's the color apse and the fail
at the end is so bad that you just need
to clean house like they did in Dallas post Luca trade.
But the idea also, who's taking on that contract at
(15:10):
this point? That's a lot of money, especially when you're
in a draft that has a lot of guards. Right,
but you can you can spend two hundred million dollars
at Austin Greek. You have some other players who want
to move out of their own situations, and you have
facilitated trades that need to be made. Uh. No, he's
someone that is gonna he would get some interest around
the league. By the way, the the just the the
(15:31):
last point, as we mentioned Steph Castle, who I think
is going to be fantastic. He's gotten absolutely nothing, no,
no bit of the blame for Game five. He was terrible,
right he first bucket on the put back? No, exactly right, Like,
how do we not box out Steph Castle? Guy hasn't
scored all game? How do we not box out get
(15:53):
that rebound? He and dearon Fox combined in a plus
minus for a nice round zero plus one plus. My
minus one. Respective be sure to catch live editions of
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten
pm Eastern seven pm Pacific.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Ste goots here. I have a podcast empire. It continues
to grow and I have brought it here to Ibarker.
I'm also doing a live radio show from three to
five pm Eastern because my wife wanted to kick me
out of the house. It's called Stegotson Company Live, which
is available in podcast form right when the show finishes
every single day.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Some of the biggest names in sports. A lot of
phone calls, I love you got the show.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's one of my favorite. A lot of interaction, guys
not taking themselves too seriously. Those are just some of
the things that you can expect from Stu Gottson Company
and stew Gotson Company Live. So listen to Stegtson Company
Live and our will original podcast. Please subscribe, rate and
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(17:04):
depends on it. You do it today and you can
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for wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
See I should have done that song with jay Z.
I could have done that song. Well, I mean, I'm
sure Alex can do a really bang up mash version
that you can sell for a week before someone gets copyrighted.
I mean, like that was me in the parking lot
running around after the game, and that was your best effort. No, no, no,
(17:40):
And I and I thought, okay, and I'm singing, and
I knew it wasn't great because my voice was hoarse,
and and but hearing that right there and hearing me,
you know, not not struggle for breath. But like now
I understand why, Oh, in concert, it's really hard for
singers who were walking up and down the stage and
doing things that don't want to be seen as I'm
(18:01):
lip syncing. It's really I just ran around in a
circle for like a little like I probably ran i
don't know, thirty or forty yards before I started recording.
So I was running around like a lunatic. And I realized, oh,
I really don't sound good running and singing. And I
see other people, you know, running around, like I see
Axle running around the stage and he's singing, and go, oh,
these guys really they make it sound so smooth. Well,
(18:22):
they get on treadmills for hours at a time such
I work out on the treadmill. I couldn't that. That
didn't help me at all. They run on treadmills for
long periods of time. Go ahead, tejer, you have something
you want to say. You think Axle Rose runs on
a treadmill. He did. I think it's fun. You're thinking
of you on a treadmill, on a what treadmill? On
(18:43):
a treadmill? Treadmill? No, you said, you said tread meal.
No treadmill, treadmill, treadmill. I'm hearing mule, no mules like Russian.
Well that's about as as fast as he's running on
a mule. There's no mules, and there's no tread It
is tread mill, treadmill. No, no, no treadmill. No no.
(19:05):
With you with the umlat jos umlat the wolves, it's treadmill,
no treadmill. Who says says when you look at pronunciation
dot com, I don't believe them. That's it's treadmill. I
don't believe them treadmill. I believe me and you. Hey,
who's the uh? Who's that guy that was a great
tight end for the Patriots for a long time. He's
(19:26):
on Fox now, Oh, Gronkowski. Yeah right, yeah, yeah, one
of the great composers of our time. Now I'm just
getting this visual drunk comparing music. I think you can
do it. You can do it. Oh he wasn't the
duncan Ice commercial, chipping on duncan Ice. You went me
(19:46):
on a tandem bike draw solo. So to continue to
put a a bow here on the NBA Finals, the Knicks,
you're jendary NBA champions. You've heard a lot about Jalen
Brunson over the course of the past couple of days.
(20:07):
I'm not going to tell you anything about Jalen Brunston.
Didn't already know whether you liked him before, loved him,
didn't respect him, thought he was too small. But you
want to look at another difference between why the Knicks
won this and five and the Spurs went home. I'm
gonna give you the difference between the two superstars. I
thought you were gonna say, Dan Housen and Danson's long
history with the w W E and Dan Housen and
(20:27):
the monies. Yeah, and the money and the monies. Uh,
forget about on the court for a second. Forget about
on the court. Off the court, when you see the
behavior and leadership that both of these guys who are
there in charge of it because it's both their teams. Now,
Brunson's been in the league a little bit longer, Wenby's younger,
but this is both of their teams, right, they both
(20:48):
embrace we're the leaders of these teams. Contrast Jalen Brunson
with Victor Webbin Yama. Where for Jalen Brunson, it's you
didn't really hear from the entire series. You heard a
lot of Spurs talking, heard a lot of talking from Wemby,
a lot of Spurs talking. Didn't hear from Jalen Brunson.
Two biggest things I can tell you after the Game
four comeback, Ananobe makes the shot the followed legendary shot.
(21:13):
The first thing Jalen Brunson talked about in his press
conference is before we start, I want to talk about
a kid and a kid he was put in touch
with through Make a Wish that he was able to
talk with and was able to zoom with before the
NBA Finals who passed away, and he wanted to put
out best thoughts to his family. And that's a pretty
classy thing. You're coming, You're talking, you tar coming off
the biggest win you've had as a as an NBA player,
(21:36):
And this is how you choose to begin your press conference.
Look at the end of Game five, not on the
court for the final possession because the defensively you don't
need him on the court. I kind of wish he
was on the court. But you know, look, obviously he's
okay with it being, you know, being the NBA MVP
of the Finals. But what's the first thing he did.
His team wins, everybody runs on the floor. What does
(21:58):
Brunson do. He walks over to hug Mitch Johnson. He walked.
The first thing he does is hug the opposing head
coach and say congratulations on a series. That's a classy
guy who gets what it means to lead. And that's
a big thing when you get to the NBA Finals
and everybody's little jittery, and guys like Karl Anthony Towns
can't stop committing fouls in the first five seconds, and
guys miss free throws at the end of games like
(22:20):
the Knicks kept missing free throws at the end. When
you have a leader like Jalen Brunson, that's gonna be
a difference maker. Now, Contrast that to Wemby, who spent
most of the series avoiding legal ramifications for all of
his dirty play. All right, a guy who ended his
final press conference by saying, thanks, appreciate you guys. See
(22:42):
you never like what is going on with you? Like
the Wemby we saw in this NBA Finals was a
Wemby who was both a dirty player and also came
across as very immature. Now I'm not gonna sit here
and say Wemby's off his worst guy in the world.
He's a and he's done this. Wemby is immature, and
the NBA Finals is a big stage and Brunson was
(23:06):
ready on the biggest stage and Wemby was not Wemby.
What I mean, really, if Game six was tomorrow in
an analytical world and a Kenny Atkinson, hey, the Spurs
feel like they've played better. The biggest conversation we'd be
having tonight is is Wemby playing in Game six? Because
that's a flagrant Fallley committed in Game five, sticking his
(23:26):
foot under Brunson's landing spot. They've been calling it the
entire postseason. You can't look at it and say he
wasn't doing it. The right call would have been for
him to be suspended. Now. So if you're Wemby, I
look at two things, dirty play and his immaturity. Right,
wouldn't shake hands walked right off the floor at the end.
Other spurs walked off the floor too, Dude, be a pro. Okay,
(23:49):
I know you're upset, I know you're mad. You're a leader,
shake hands right, you know during the game everything else,
I get it. But you know you look like a
really sore loser. And he comes across as immature. This
is now Wemby's moment for him to realize, Okay, what
kind of player do I want to be? Do I
want to be the out of control guy who the
NBA's got to worry about flagrant fowls all the time
(24:10):
and put them in a bad position because I can't
control myself. Because these aren't flagrant fowls that come from
just banging with Karl Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson down low.
He is out on the perimeter making these plays that
the NBA can't ignore. These are elbows he is throwing
out in the middle of play. This is steamrolling Alex
Caruso on the middle of an inbound play. This is
(24:31):
who Wenby is. This is the immaturity. If I'm not
gonna shake hands, I'm gonna walk off the floor and
I'm gonna insult the media whatever he was trying to do.
This is where, Okay, what kind of player do I
want to be? Do I want to be this guy
that in the finals all of a sudden people went
for Everybody loves Wemby too, boy, this guy's a jerk?
Or do I want to use this really as a
learning experience and understand if I'm gonna be the face
(24:54):
of the league, if I'm the leader of this team,
I gotta do it differently. I need to do things
differently how I did it this because you can look
and that's a microcosm of the series. Look at Jalen
Brunson NBA Finals, and I'd say this about other guys too.
Jalen Brunson, MVP, the way he carried himself, Victor Wembin Yama,
they go out in five games. Everything I've told you
about him, the way he carried him. So there's a
couple of things to it with Wembyan notes coming around today.
(25:17):
He and Champagne were at the children's hospital and you
know there's still a guy there that at twenty two
doesn't know what he doesn't know. I mean, like and
we watch guys grow up in the moment. For Jalen Brunson,
we watched it. He was a leader in college right,
mature played several years in college one several times with
(25:41):
a pretty good squad several of those guys that surround
him now, so that familiarity, that history, big moments, it's
in their DNA, right, they've been in this moment. They
recognize the pressure cooker that is New York when we
look at where when min Yama is and things. If
you could trust the guy that's supposed to be handling
(26:02):
the ball, even if he does that a lot, that
it's not supposed to be on your seven to five
center to be the guy that's got to direct draffic
on all that, then again doesn't excuse some of the
other I would be if I'm the Spurs, though, I'm
going back and I'm looking at the preceding interaction from
the all twenty two to all right, before Victor did this,
(26:26):
what was the prior interaction with kat Mitchell Robinson and
elbow from Jalen Brunson as he clears out whatever that
led to the retaliatory. It doesn't excuse it, but it's
the reminder of I don't think it's all in a vacuum,
And I think you got a guy that got frustrated
because there were times where it's like, all right, he's
getting bullied out of the post, right. They had a
(26:46):
couple of lobs, particularly Game five, where he's getting basically
blocked like he's a blocking sled from the low post
as they're trying to lob the ball. Now you could
argue the defenders got rights to the ball. He does
have rights to put two hands in the back to
shove him to where it becomes this half ass attempt
at a tip. Look at Wemby's shot chart from the
(27:08):
second half. It's a lot close, but on each one
of them he's being moved like he's on a people
mover or he's crowd serving. Those are the guy that
thinks Robinson moved him for the offensive rebound. Well no, no, no,
Well that one was silly because he tried to hug
Mitchell Robinson and move him forgetting to look for the ball.
Oh so you think he was trying to hug I
(27:29):
think he was already he was doing the Anthony Edwards, Hey,
the game's all, we're gonna congratulate. I think I might. Okay,
that was one of the more awkward plays because I'm like,
why are you not looking at the ball. It's one
thing if Mitchell's moving you in this case, you're trying
to push him to the point where you're not even
going for the rebound now and it lands in Mitchell
Robinson's hands and he goes you're too small or something
(27:51):
to that effect. But it's the kind of thing if
you're the Spurs, that's the only thing you can And
for Wemby, yes, it's it's strength and conditioning, so you're
not getting moved off the low block like he was
on a couple of those law attempts. They need to
be better and better placed. But it's just that of
with time and maturity. Unfortunately, you had your chance at
(28:12):
the stage now and that and that's the biggest thing
is that between game one collapse game two collapse, including
your unforced silly let me throw it off my guy's
back like we're playing dodgeball moment, that you didn't learn right,
And unfortunately, sometimes the learning curve has to be accelerated.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
We tell our kids this on sporting fields in the classroom.
At some point, you know, it's the sink or swim mentality. Right.
So while while we have some of the training of hey,
watch my little kid the six months, watch I flip
them in the pool and you know, just fight or
flight kicks in same thing with Wemby. You need better
with that. The smell you lator comment I think was
(28:56):
just weird. I don't know if he was trying to
be funny or what he was really intending there, but
it just hits so awkwardly that it just punctuated everything
you'd seen for five games. I mean, look, it's a
look the way Jalen Brunson carried himself at leadership and
the way Wemby. Did you see why the Knicks one
and five
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
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Harmon wherever you get your podcasts. You'll find today's full
show and a best of version posted right after we
get off the air. So as we get ready for
Parade week at DJ, it'll be the Nicks on Parade.
I'm just gonna listen to Prince's Parade album. That's all
I'm gonna do. And I'm gonna read Parade Magazine really
at that at the very end, we do the questions. Yeah, uh,
(01:11):
two big things to talk about with the finals, And
I want to give you something that you haven't heard,
you haven't talked about, that you heard a lot about
over the last forty eight hours. And look, I could
sit here and gush over Jalen Brunson and don't worry. Well,
but you know the one thing that comes true with
this when you now look at the NBA Playoffs in
its totality and you look back at the nixt five
(01:32):
game win over the Spurs. The Knicks did not play
great in the finals. They played great in the second half.
They closed games. The Spurs played terrific in the first half,
plus the first thirty minutes of the games were great
for them. The last eighteen not so much. These are
(01:52):
the two best teams in the NBA. The Knicks, even
though they were dominant sixteen to three record all the
way through the playoffs, the most game they lost to
her to the Hawks. Maybe Quinn Snyder should get an
extra big extension off of the one he got last year.
Man last week we celebrated him getting that extension on
the strength of a couple of wins. They're gonna and
rumors of firings and trades. They're gonna hang that banner
(02:15):
in Atlanta, in in In, in Magic City. Hey, beat
the Knicks twice in the twenty twenty six playoffs, Right,
that gets you a couple of lap dances. You know,
I'm just saying that. It's a it's a big achievement.
We won two games. Bigger tip the closest team beating
the closest team to beat the Knicks in the playoffs.
With the Hawks, we're relying on a couple of guys
(02:36):
that are forty five years old. Hey, sometimes that experience
is even that much more. How about that. If this
doesn't tell you what we talk about, the biggest thing
is about health and understanding that the NBA playoffs is
a marathon. We got to this NBA Finals and you
had both teams. One played good the first thirty minutes,
(02:57):
the other one close played better in the last eighteen
minutes game. Right, That's what you saw over the course
of the past week and a half. That's how you win.
You stay healthy because both these teams they were the healthiest. Clearly,
they were the healthiest all the way through the playoffs.
And you have to have enough at the end, and
the Knicks had enough and the Spurs did not. Right,
(03:19):
And now you would think, well, why did the Knicks
have enough and the Spurs? The Spurs were the younger team,
they should have a little bit more. The Spurs looked
like they were on vapors in the Western Conference Finals
against the Oklahoma City Thunder, which is something to be
said for. Hey, when you can sweep teams and get
a lot of rest. Okay, there's checked one for the
rest versus rust. You know, a sample right there. But
(03:42):
the big thing for the Knicks in the Spurs, he said,
why the Spurs? Why did this happen? I'll give you
a sentence and I'll tell you exactly why the Knicks
won and the Spurs did not. Right, to understand that
it's a marathon, it's it's staying healthy. Those are the
two biggest things that we don't talk about enough. The
Knicks were ready for the moment in all phases. The
Spurs were not ready for the moment in all phases. Right,
(04:04):
there's a reason why I said I wanted to play
the Spurs in the finals. Right, there's the reason why I
said that beginning because the Spurs are a team that
are doing it all at once. They're a young team
up and coming. They're all in their early twenties, and
what are they gonna be like when the spotlight of
the NBA Finals is its brightest and all teams think, yeah,
we've been on a big stage. First round, second round,
Western Conference Finals is a really really big stage. No,
(04:27):
it's different when it gets to the NBA Finals, and
the Spurs were gonna understand what that felt like if
it was the Thunder. The Thunder had just been there,
big stage everything. We're good. The Knicks of the new
team now the next of the team that went through
the Wars, and while maybe it was gonna be a
little bit of a question of finding their footing, they
were the more experienced team. The Knicks knew what the
(04:48):
moment was about, right to take all of it in
its totality right. James Dolan is getting a lot of
credit for the speech he gave to them ten weeks ago, saying, hey,
give me your best for ten weeks. You know, tell
your most you have significant others, and tell them this
is what the focus is going to be, because if
you win this title, you're gonna think about it every day.
The rest of your lives. The Knicks are a little
(05:09):
bit older. Everybody on the team is a little bit older. Yes,
a couple of young players, but everybody has been in
the league a few years. They all have significant now,
they have families. They know because of the more life experiences,
and I mean NBA life experiences, they know what the
moment is in the NBA Finals. We may not get
here again. Josh Hart talked very openly about it. This
(05:30):
may be the only time you get to get to
an NBA Finals. The Knicks knew we had to get
on the same page. They enjoy playing with each other.
They enjoy being able to achieve together. You just see
what they're doing the last couple of days, making all
the rounds on GMA and answering questions. You could tell
they enjoy hanging out with each other. The parties that
you've seen videos of. The Knicks got the moment because
(05:52):
they were a little bit older. They knew what the
stakes were. And they're starting fives, extremely talented right now.
Compare that to the Spurs who were very young, and
all we got from them the entire finals was we're good.
We got this Now. I would say, okay, there's confidence,
but then there is do you really understand what's going
(06:14):
on right now? Like when you hear Wemby say when
you're down three to one, we all know we're gonna
win this. Okay, you got to focus on one game first.
Don't sit here and say, yeah, we all know we
can win this because we know how good we are.
We know we're the better team because as you heard
Mitch Johnson say, all our ills have been self inflicted.
We felt like we've been the better team in the game. Well, yeah,
(06:35):
you have been, but yeah, been the best team because
the best team has the most points at the end,
and you've blown a lot of leads. And the Spurs
never seem to realize that it's not about having the
lead the first thirty minutes, it's about playing all forty
eight minutes, right dearon Fox when he said after the
big Game four collapse, we didn't really practice, but we
talked about it out of video session. We understood, we
(06:57):
got it will be good, We'll be fine. Every single
person for the Spurs has had the same message, Yeah,
we're good, we know we're gonna win. We're fine. Not
once did I have enough of pressure in the moment
to understand the gravity of the situation where this is
everything we can do to win one game, not just
(07:18):
if we know what we're doing, we're gonna win the finals.
Isn't like the rest of the year where you can say,
well we do A, B and C and our talent
level is better, we're gonna win games. Even you know
against Oklahoma City, Well we're better, we're more talented. This
is the best team you've played against. And I know
this because you look at their record, you look at
how they're beating teams in these Well, the Sixers might
(07:38):
not have been that great, the cas might have not
been that great. Well you know what if the if
the Pistons and the Celtics were better, they would have
won their playoff rounds, right. So, honestly, to look and
see a team going sixteen to three and winning the
last two rounds four to oh, four to zhero the
Spurs never thought they were really in trouble even as
they're watching the series just fall out of their hand
(08:00):
because for the most part, their attitude of yeah, we've
been the better team. Okay, yeah, the first thirty minutes
of games, I get you're out to double digit lead,
at the end of the first quarter every single game.
But when the Knicks come back and win, that's on you.
I mean that, and they don't want it to didn't
want to take any responsibility that. Well, we gave away
(08:21):
the lead. Well, okay, the Knicks came back. Okay, so
you gave it. What did you hand the ball to
Jalen Brunson across mid court instead of shooting here, Jalen,
go shoot a three? Or what did the Knicks do
to you in the last fifteen minutes? Why were you
so tired? Why is Wemby so tired? Why is Wemby
playing so many minutes and watching that and watching Mitch
Johnson say Friday night, I'm not going away from Daron Fox.
(08:41):
Dearan's our guy. We're sticking with him. Dude, you're down
three to one and he has killed you in the
NBA Finals so far. Dylan Harper is your better player.
And I even said Friday night, Steve Desager's my witness.
I was not facetious at all. I said, Mitch Johnson,
you got to flip those minutes. I'm not saying you
just suddenly don't play Aaron Fox, but Dylan Harper is
(09:01):
your best option at scoring the basketball, right, And that's
the best option him and Castle in the back court.
And he's got to play more. You saw the game yet,
Yes he missed the two free throws late, but he
was your better option. And still for Mitch Johnson to say,
I'm sticking with what worked. You're down three to one,
isn't it. There's no other round after this, there's nowhere. Hey,
(09:22):
we go back to the beginning of the playoffs start again,
like that's it. And I net the Spurs never really
got the moment of the NBA Finals well, and I
don't think they're gonna give you a lot of that
outwardly and to a man, to their credit, I mean,
they are very similar to the Knicks that there's not
a lot of emotion in the inn series conversations, right
(09:42):
because the Knicks certainly didn't get high. Well, they did
once they started hitting the banquet touch us allegedly, allegedly,
But the idea of just being Okay, we're up three
to one, you know, it doesn't matter, like the job's
not done, like that was their mess for the Spurs.
It was looking to the way they'd built those leads
(10:04):
and how well they'd played that that they were gonna
hang on there. That was it. They were holding on
to the fact that at some point that was going
to carry them across the finish line. And I told
you talking with our guy Ryan Hollins on the Fox
Sports Sunday Show, you know, got him to basically say
what where I was leading him of the coaching decisions.
(10:25):
Mitch Johnson made money plays right, dearon Fox. Has he
fit all the things like the check boxes right, years
in the league, experience whatever. Unfortunately he's also a member
of the Kings for a lot of that, which means
he didn't play a lot of big time basketball playing games.
But either way, but he's the guy with it. Now
we're looking at the extension and that's the big albatross
(10:47):
in terms of the old Hey, they're ahead of time
and they'll get back and all of those things that
that you're here and like, yeah, maybe they will. However,
history's littered with a lot of guys that were like
boy man that I wish we would have appreciated that
run and I and I appreciate the way you you've
laid this out, but in the press conferences, I didn't
think they'd ever admit like they were, they weren't going
(11:08):
to give an inch too. Yeah, the knicks were better here,
the knicks were better there. But in the end, okay,
so whatever they said behind closed doors clearly didn't work. Well,
clearly they have fights about Darren Fox and whatever and
playing time and everything else. But sure we heard that
Dylan Harper wasn't happy with this playing time, and you heard.
But I mean from the fact of, hey, we can't
keep giving away these leads, what did they keep doing?
(11:29):
You kept giving the leads away. But that's the thing, right,
kept losing the leads. So whatever you said to each other,
obviously it wasn't serious enough. You didn't work on enough,
because you kept giving these leads away. But this goes
back to then to the giant conundrum of what do
you do with Mitch Johnson, Because certainly you'll have a
bunch of folks calling him to be fired. I don't
know that's that, but if he's lost everybody and you
(11:52):
have that much malcontentedness and division coming down the stretch,
right confusion on a couple of plays, and you've seen
everybody going to the subruder films of guys kind of
pointing and all right, no, no, you have that guy
now based on a substitution whatever that they're not on
the same page there, But certainly the fact that in
(12:12):
the second half of these games you didn't go away
and change strategy. I'm not saying you can play the
old four corners and run out the clock. That's not
the case. But at no point should a shot be
going up with eighteen seconds on a shot clock. And
no point do you have eight straight possessions where you're
shooting three pointers like I'm due, I'm due? How you
(12:35):
draw another fall? Right? Yeah, you had good success driving
when you decided too earlier. How about we go back
to that and trying to get the ball into the
low post. I mean, all of these things. So for
Mitch Johnson, there's still a million questions. I agree with that,
and that's that's a full off season. And maybe Wemby
(12:55):
goes back to the Monks. Maybe he's hanging out walking
on a beach. So did the Monks teach him how
to flagrant foul?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Like?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I mean, is that what he learned? I want to know, like,
did you got the did roz eye Gould teach him
what to uh? You know? What he is. What you
do toge what he's got to do next is that
he's gonna be that's the next level of training, or
he hangs out with the crew from Kill Bill. Now,
I will I will tell you this as far as
next year, this was such a fail for the Spurs
(13:24):
and questions about playing time and and and X Y
and Z up and down the road. If you had
if I had to say, if you said, who's one
person big with this team it's not gonna be on
the team next year, I would say it's Daron Fox,
Mitch Johnson. They got to the NBA finals, And if
it's between one of the two. But you understand that
Dylan Harper is someone you look, you drafted him Matt
(13:46):
high in the draft for a reason. He is that good.
He has shown you. I mean, Darren Fox was just
so bad in the finals. And there's sometimes there's some
mistakes that it's really hard to come back from. It's
really hard for him to come back from his mistakes
in the finals, how bad he played. And even though
look Billen, Harper's biggest thing was he missed the two
free throws, I don't know that they would have won
the title anyway, but certainly that was that was a
big clincher. And I don't I still don't know if
(14:07):
he tried to miss the second one on purpose, but
they didn't even go for the rebound, like that's one
of those Is he gonna miss the second one again?
It goes back to communicating with and flow from Mitch
Johnson to the leaders on the court. It's a big
I don't I just because of the glut in the backcourt,
because Castle's got to play majority of the minutes and
and Harper's got to play majority minutes next year. I
(14:27):
don't know that even though in a position was NBA,
I don't think there's room for that. So I would
tell you. And obviously with his extension kicking in, he's
a really good player and you'll be able to move him.
You know, still somebody who is young enough. But if
you had to, if I had to say the one
big change for the Spurs, Deanroon Fox has played his
last I would say this. Right. We talked about how
much he may or may not have been injured for
(14:48):
this series, and that's what they have to determine internally.
Is there enough damage to where you've got to move
on right, Like we talked about, Uh, some of these
teams historically where it's the color apse and the fail
at the end is so bad that you just need
to clean house like they did in Dallas post Luca trade.
But the idea also, who's taking on that contract at
(15:10):
this point? That's a lot of money, especially when you're
in a draft that has a lot of guards. Right,
but you can you can spend two hundred million dollars
at Austin Greek. You have some other players who want
to move out of their own situations, and you have
facilitated trades that need to be made. Uh. No, he's
someone that is gonna he would get some interest around
the league. By the way, the the just the the
(15:31):
last point, as we mentioned Steph Castle, who I think
is going to be fantastic. He's gotten absolutely nothing, no,
no bit of the blame for Game five. He was terrible,
right he first bucket on the put back? No, exactly right, Like,
how do we not box out Steph Castle? Guy hasn't
scored all game? How do we not box out get
(15:53):
that rebound? He and dearon Fox combined in a plus
minus for a nice round zero plus one plus. My
minus one. Respective be sure to catch live editions of
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten
pm Eastern seven pm Pacific.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Ste goots here. I have a podcast empire. It continues
to grow and I have brought it here to Ibarker.
I'm also doing a live radio show from three to
five pm Eastern because my wife wanted to kick me
out of the house. It's called Stegotson Company Live, which
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Speaker 1 (16:37):
Some of the biggest names in sports. A lot of
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Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's one of my favorite. A lot of interaction, guys
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Live and our will original podcast. Please subscribe, rate and
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(17:04):
depends on it. You do it today and you can
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Speaker 1 (17:18):
See I should have done that song with jay Z.
I could have done that song. Well, I mean, I'm
sure Alex can do a really bang up mash version
that you can sell for a week before someone gets copyrighted.
I mean, like that was me in the parking lot
running around after the game, and that was your best effort. No, no, no,
(17:40):
And I and I thought, okay, and I'm singing, and
I knew it wasn't great because my voice was hoarse,
and and but hearing that right there and hearing me,
you know, not not struggle for breath. But like now
I understand why, Oh, in concert, it's really hard for
singers who were walking up and down the stage and
doing things that don't want to be seen as I'm
(18:01):
lip syncing. It's really I just ran around in a
circle for like a little like I probably ran i
don't know, thirty or forty yards before I started recording.
So I was running around like a lunatic. And I realized, oh,
I really don't sound good running and singing. And I
see other people, you know, running around, like I see
Axle running around the stage and he's singing, and go, oh,
these guys really they make it sound so smooth. Well,
(18:22):
they get on treadmills for hours at a time such
I work out on the treadmill. I couldn't that. That
didn't help me at all. They run on treadmills for
long periods of time. Go ahead, tejer, you have something
you want to say. You think Axle Rose runs on
a treadmill. He did. I think it's fun. You're thinking
of you on a treadmill, on a what treadmill? On
(18:43):
a treadmill? Treadmill? No, you said, you said tread meal.
No treadmill, treadmill, treadmill. I'm hearing mule, no mules like Russian.
Well that's about as as fast as he's running on
a mule. There's no mules, and there's no tread It
is tread mill, treadmill. No, no, no treadmill. No no.
(19:05):
With you with the umlat jos umlat the wolves, it's treadmill,
no treadmill. Who says says when you look at pronunciation
dot com, I don't believe them. That's it's treadmill. I
don't believe them treadmill. I believe me and you. Hey,
who's the uh? Who's that guy that was a great
tight end for the Patriots for a long time. He's
(19:26):
on Fox now, Oh, Gronkowski. Yeah right, yeah, yeah, one
of the great composers of our time. Now I'm just
getting this visual drunk comparing music. I think you can
do it. You can do it. Oh he wasn't the
duncan Ice commercial, chipping on duncan Ice. You went me
(19:46):
on a tandem bike draw solo. So to continue to
put a a bow here on the NBA Finals, the Knicks,
you're jendary NBA champions. You've heard a lot about Jalen
Brunson over the course of the past couple of days.
(20:07):
I'm not going to tell you anything about Jalen Brunston.
Didn't already know whether you liked him before, loved him,
didn't respect him, thought he was too small. But you
want to look at another difference between why the Knicks
won this and five and the Spurs went home. I'm
gonna give you the difference between the two superstars. I
thought you were gonna say, Dan Housen and Danson's long
history with the w W E and Dan Housen and
(20:27):
the monies. Yeah, and the money and the monies. Uh,
forget about on the court for a second. Forget about
on the court. Off the court, when you see the
behavior and leadership that both of these guys who are
there in charge of it because it's both their teams. Now,
Brunson's been in the league a little bit longer, Wenby's younger,
but this is both of their teams, right, they both
(20:48):
embrace we're the leaders of these teams. Contrast Jalen Brunson
with Victor Webbin Yama. Where for Jalen Brunson, it's you
didn't really hear from the entire series. You heard a
lot of Spurs talking, heard a lot of talking from Wemby,
a lot of Spurs talking. Didn't hear from Jalen Brunson.
Two biggest things I can tell you after the Game
four comeback, Ananobe makes the shot the followed legendary shot.
(21:13):
The first thing Jalen Brunson talked about in his press
conference is before we start, I want to talk about
a kid and a kid he was put in touch
with through Make a Wish that he was able to
talk with and was able to zoom with before the
NBA Finals who passed away, and he wanted to put
out best thoughts to his family. And that's a pretty
classy thing. You're coming, You're talking, you tar coming off
the biggest win you've had as a as an NBA player,
(21:36):
And this is how you choose to begin your press conference.
Look at the end of Game five, not on the
court for the final possession because the defensively you don't
need him on the court. I kind of wish he
was on the court. But you know, look, obviously he's
okay with it being, you know, being the NBA MVP
of the Finals. But what's the first thing he did.
His team wins, everybody runs on the floor. What does
(21:58):
Brunson do. He walks over to hug Mitch Johnson. He walked.
The first thing he does is hug the opposing head
coach and say congratulations on a series. That's a classy
guy who gets what it means to lead. And that's
a big thing when you get to the NBA Finals
and everybody's little jittery, and guys like Karl Anthony Towns
can't stop committing fouls in the first five seconds, and
guys miss free throws at the end of games like
(22:20):
the Knicks kept missing free throws at the end. When
you have a leader like Jalen Brunson, that's gonna be
a difference maker. Now, Contrast that to Wemby, who spent
most of the series avoiding legal ramifications for all of
his dirty play. All right, a guy who ended his
final press conference by saying, thanks, appreciate you guys. See
(22:42):
you never like what is going on with you? Like
the Wemby we saw in this NBA Finals was a
Wemby who was both a dirty player and also came
across as very immature. Now I'm not gonna sit here
and say Wemby's off his worst guy in the world.
He's a and he's done this. Wemby is immature, and
the NBA Finals is a big stage and Brunson was
(23:06):
ready on the biggest stage and Wemby was not Wemby.
What I mean, really, if Game six was tomorrow in
an analytical world and a Kenny Atkinson, hey, the Spurs
feel like they've played better. The biggest conversation we'd be
having tonight is is Wemby playing in Game six? Because
that's a flagrant Fallley committed in Game five, sticking his
(23:26):
foot under Brunson's landing spot. They've been calling it the
entire postseason. You can't look at it and say he
wasn't doing it. The right call would have been for
him to be suspended. Now. So if you're Wemby, I
look at two things, dirty play and his immaturity. Right,
wouldn't shake hands walked right off the floor at the end.
Other spurs walked off the floor too, Dude, be a pro. Okay,
(23:49):
I know you're upset, I know you're mad. You're a leader,
shake hands right, you know during the game everything else,
I get it. But you know you look like a
really sore loser. And he comes across as immature. This
is now Wemby's moment for him to realize, Okay, what
kind of player do I want to be? Do I
want to be the out of control guy who the
NBA's got to worry about flagrant fowls all the time
(24:10):
and put them in a bad position because I can't
control myself. Because these aren't flagrant fowls that come from
just banging with Karl Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson down low.
He is out on the perimeter making these plays that
the NBA can't ignore. These are elbows he is throwing
out in the middle of play. This is steamrolling Alex
Caruso on the middle of an inbound play. This is
(24:31):
who Wenby is. This is the immaturity. If I'm not
gonna shake hands, I'm gonna walk off the floor and
I'm gonna insult the media whatever he was trying to do.
This is where, Okay, what kind of player do I
want to be? Do I want to be this guy
that in the finals all of a sudden people went
for Everybody loves Wemby too, boy, this guy's a jerk?
Or do I want to use this really as a
learning experience and understand if I'm gonna be the face
(24:54):
of the league, if I'm the leader of this team,
I gotta do it differently. I need to do things
differently how I did it this because you can look
and that's a microcosm of the series. Look at Jalen
Brunson NBA Finals, and I'd say this about other guys too.
Jalen Brunson, MVP, the way he carried himself, Victor Wembin Yama,
they go out in five games. Everything I've told you
about him, the way he carried him. So there's a
couple of things to it with Wembyan notes coming around today.
(25:17):
He and Champagne were at the children's hospital and you
know there's still a guy there that at twenty two
doesn't know what he doesn't know. I mean, like and
we watch guys grow up in the moment. For Jalen Brunson,
we watched it. He was a leader in college right,
mature played several years in college one several times with
(25:41):
a pretty good squad several of those guys that surround
him now, so that familiarity, that history, big moments, it's
in their DNA, right, they've been in this moment. They
recognize the pressure cooker that is New York when we
look at where when min Yama is and things. If
you could trust the guy that's supposed to be handling
(26:02):
the ball, even if he does that a lot, that
it's not supposed to be on your seven to five
center to be the guy that's got to direct draffic
on all that, then again doesn't excuse some of the
other I would be if I'm the Spurs, though, I'm
going back and I'm looking at the preceding interaction from
the all twenty two to all right, before Victor did this,
(26:26):
what was the prior interaction with kat Mitchell Robinson and
elbow from Jalen Brunson as he clears out whatever that
led to the retaliatory. It doesn't excuse it, but it's
the reminder of I don't think it's all in a vacuum,
And I think you got a guy that got frustrated
because there were times where it's like, all right, he's
getting bullied out of the post, right. They had a
(26:46):
couple of lobs, particularly Game five, where he's getting basically
blocked like he's a blocking sled from the low post
as they're trying to lob the ball. Now you could
argue the defenders got rights to the ball. He does
have rights to put two hands in the back to
shove him to where it becomes this half ass attempt
at a tip. Look at Wemby's shot chart from the
(27:08):
second half. It's a lot close, but on each one
of them he's being moved like he's on a people
mover or he's crowd serving. Those are the guy that
thinks Robinson moved him for the offensive rebound. Well no, no, no,
Well that one was silly because he tried to hug
Mitchell Robinson and move him forgetting to look for the ball.
Oh so you think he was trying to hug I
(27:29):
think he was already he was doing the Anthony Edwards, Hey,
the game's all, we're gonna congratulate. I think I might. Okay,
that was one of the more awkward plays because I'm like,
why are you not looking at the ball. It's one
thing if Mitchell's moving you in this case, you're trying
to push him to the point where you're not even
going for the rebound now and it lands in Mitchell
Robinson's hands and he goes you're too small or something
(27:51):
to that effect. But it's the kind of thing if
you're the Spurs, that's the only thing you can And
for Wemby, yes, it's it's strength and conditioning, so you're
not getting moved off the low block like he was
on a couple of those law attempts. They need to
be better and better placed. But it's just that of
with time and maturity. Unfortunately, you had your chance at
(28:12):
the stage now and that and that's the biggest thing
is that between game one collapse game two collapse, including
your unforced silly let me throw it off my guy's
back like we're playing dodgeball moment, that you didn't learn right,
And unfortunately, sometimes the learning curve has to be accelerated.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
We tell our kids this on sporting fields in the classroom.
At some point, you know, it's the sink or swim mentality. Right.
So while while we have some of the training of hey,
watch my little kid the six months, watch I flip
them in the pool and you know, just fight or
flight kicks in same thing with Wemby. You need better
with that. The smell you lator comment I think was
(28:56):
just weird. I don't know if he was trying to
be funny or what he was really intending there, but
it just hits so awkwardly that it just punctuated everything
you'd seen for five games. I mean, look, it's a
look the way Jalen Brunson carried himself at leadership and
the way Wemby. Did you see why the Knicks one
and five
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Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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