June 7, 2022 • 42 mins
Hosted by 7-time champion Robert Horry and Jabari Davis, NBA Finals File dives deep into the greatest Finals series in NBA history, breaking down the best moments, storylines and matchups, using rare archival audio from the NBA, and the personal touch that only "Big Shot Bob" can give.
In this episode of NBA Finals File, we examine the 2005 Finals. Tim Duncan and the Spurs going for their 3rd title in 6 years against the defending champion Pistons. The matchup features two of the greatest basketball coaches of all-time going head to head Gregg Popovich and Larry Brown. An epic 7-game series, highlighted by Robert Horry's legendary Game 5 performance.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the NBA Finals file with Robert Ory and
Jabari Davis. I am Jabari, former NBA writer turn podcaster,
and this is seven time champ big shot Bob A
k A. Robert Ory. What's up, Jabari? I'm glad to
be here again breaking down another NBA Finals. It's such
(00:24):
a pleasure to be here. As I said, I'm excited
about this one. Yeah. And I wondered as we were,
you know, as I was watching back the footage, I thought, well,
I was trying to put myself into your place, which
is not It wasn't as likely to happen. But I wondered,
with this being your opportunity to you know, be a
part of a championship team with three different organizations, did
(00:45):
that mean something to you heading in you know what?
I didn't even think about it when in the moment,
but afterwards I was like, Wow, I'm only one of
two players that I had this opportunity to win on
multiple teams. And I messed with John Salad to this day,
who was the first guy to win on three teams?
Is that? You know what? That Bulls team really didn't count,
that Lakers team didn't really got just a mess with him, right,
(01:05):
because you know, I was just happy to be a
part of a win, winning the organization, and I guess
I was burying the lead because this week matchup is
the is the two thousand five finals between the San
Antonio's version of Detroit Pistons. Look, Rob, I gotta be
honest with you. I was happy to watch your foot
I was. The series was fun, it was, but I
gotta be honest, the final totals in the sixties and seventies,
(01:27):
it was a little bit tough. You know what. I
didn't realize that it wasn't a lot of scoring going
on in this series. And we're talking We'll get into
that a little bit later, but you would think when
you got teams with Rashid Wireless, Chauncey Bullet, Mono, Janobi,
Tim Duncan all these greats to score and be a
little bit high. Yeah, this score will a little be
(01:50):
a little bit high. But it wasn't. It was a knockdown,
drag out series, a lot of deepest on both ends
of the floor. And in fairness to both of you guys,
these were, if I'm not mistaken, these with the best defenses,
and you know in the league at this point right, Yes,
it was. You have to think about you have former
defensive players of the Year on both sides, Tim Duncan,
Ben Wallace, and it was. It was a slugfest, all right.
(02:11):
So let's go ahead and get into it with the
Spurs path to the finals. You know, the previous year
they lost to the Lakers in the second round. They
finished fifty nine and twenty three, you know, for the
first in the Southwest Division. In this season, Uh, they
got there by going four one over the Nuggets in
the first round, for two over the Sonics in the
second round. Shout out to the Sonics, hope they one
day will come back, and four one over the Suns
(02:33):
in the conference finals, threw out by the Spurs, and
this one's over and San Antonio wins. Hey, well, advance
Pop assured us when we won the Western Conference final,
he said, for you guys who haven't been there before,
it's fifty times better when you win the whole thing.
Do you remember anything particular about either of those battles, Um,
(02:56):
I just know they were fun. Um. I know that
the Phoenix series was one of those series that everybody
wants to talk about because of some issues that happened
with this, you know, with the Sons and the Spurs
over the course of years. But when you get a
team that's rolling, like the Spurs were rolling at the
end of the season, it doesn't matter who you play,
and we were very fortunate to come out of the
(03:18):
West that year. The thing that people don't understand the
Spurs have always has a history of getting beat by
the Suns. And I remember asking Tim Duncan, like, dude,
that's the first thing that came out of my mouth
when I was talking to him. I'm like, why do
y'all have a history of losing to the Suns? And
Tim and Tim Duncan fashion like. So it was just
(03:39):
one of those teams that you know, every team has
a nemesis, and for a long time, the Sons were
the Spurs nemesis. I was just gonna ask that, like,
is it's is there something about certain matchups? Is it?
You know, certain guys have you know, just have horrible
nights and certain buildings or well, what is it to that?
I just think it comes down the matchups. Um, the
Sons have always played small ball, which kind of hurt
(04:00):
Tim and the sense that he can't, you know, guard
guys on the perimeter. He's more of an inside type
of player. And I think about when I was with
the Houston Rockets, we had two nemesis. We had the
Minnesota timber Woolves who had Doug West that was killing
us all the time. Then we had to sell out
of supersideens. And when I got to the Lakers, that
was pretty much the only team that didn't have a nemesis,
even though Portland's and Sacramento tried to be. But the Spurs.
(04:22):
You know, throughout the history, the Sons was always that
team that was battling right there for a championship or
battling for a conference title, and the Spurs rarely came
out on top. And it's funny, just you know, just
quickly mentioning, it's funny. With those Lakers teams, it felt
like the Bobcats, where you're name where your nemesis in
the regular season, there's a good thing you didn't you
never had to worry about them in the postseason. Yeah,
(04:43):
And and Orlando because when we went down, the shock
wanted to beat them so bad that they always somehow,
even though they had a team that on paper wasn't
as good as us, they would come out with a victory.
It was everybody's championship when you guys rolled into town,
all right. But bringing it back to this, ye the
Pistons path of the finals. The unfortunately they beat the
Lakers the previous in the finals the previous year. For
(05:05):
this season, they finished fifty four and twenty eight for
first in the Central Division. In the first round, they
were four one over the Sixers, four two over the
Pacers in the second round, and for three which was
a great series over the Heat in the conference finals.
But let's actually talk about the historical deal significance of
this matchup. So it's it's you going for your sixth ring,
(05:27):
you got prime Tim duncan you know versus the Pistons
attempting to repeat What were your thoughts heading in? I mean,
obviously you're involved in the series, but what were your
thoughts in terms of the historical matchup? And I thought
that we matched it really well with them. The only
worry I had was the three spot because we had
moved mono genobally from coming off the bench to start.
And you know, Taystan Prince, who doesn't get talked about,
(05:49):
was a great defensive player long lanky guy who could
post up and so had a size advantage in that
in that sense, but then everything else was a pretty
good matchup. Bruce Bond on China see uh Tony Parker
on Rip and course for Shed on Tim. I thought
we and Nazi starting on on ben waas we masched
up very well, and so I wasn't really worried about
(06:10):
the matches. But I thought, at the end of the day,
whoever bench comes out and plays well enough in this
series is gonna be the X factor. It's the others oftentimes.
You know, I'm a broken record on this, but I
I stand by you know what you're gonna pretty much
get from the stars. They you know, like for the
most part, they deliver. It's together, you know, the other
folks that come out and and and usually we'll put
(06:32):
one team over the top. So what about the coaching matchup,
because you know, obviously it's you know, two all time grades.
We got Larry Brown versus Gregg Popovich. Brown was a
mentor to Popovich earlier. Earlier in his career, Brown was
coming off of a title the previous year. If I'm
not mistaken, he's wanted just about every level, you know,
whether it's high school, college, you know, you know NBA,
(06:53):
you know Rect League, it doesn't matter. Larry Brown was
that guy. But what did you think about the matchup?
I thought the matchup was great. You've got two guys
who've been around the block, have one championships, who knew
each other very well. You know, it's almost like going
to an episode of water Board. Hey, I got your playbook.
We have been doing you for so long. But it
was it was a great matchup, um. And sometimes when
it comes down the great coaches, you know, the great
(07:15):
coaches are gonna come up with some plays that the
other team don't know about. And that's the one good
thing about Pop and the Spurs. We had a whole
set of plays that we didn't use during a regular season.
We might break it out and you know, December to
test them out, and then he would shelve them and
then pull them out when it comes to the playoffs
in the finals, because you know, when you get in
the finals, when you get in the playoffs, you playing
(07:37):
a team seven times. Maybe they scouted everything, so you
gotta have some trick plays, some new plays to keep
them off their path of trying to stop you. Defensively,
Did this series means something extra being you know, for
Pop in your in your estimation, Um, I think it did,
just for the fact that he wants to see me
in himself as one of the great coaches in this league.
(07:57):
Everybody was talking about, Okay, you got ninety nine with
is a lockout. You know, you got that championship, you
got other championships? Can you do it during the course
of the season going up a team that just won
a championship, you think about it. Nobody thought the Pistons
was gonna beat the Lakers, but they did. They beat
them handily. They won the title, and you had a
team that was playing string and think about it. They
(08:18):
have four all stars on that team, four all stars,
And so I think for Pop to come out and
beat this team the way we did, having home court advantage,
was gonna see in his legacy as one of the
best coaches ever to coach this game. And it's interesting
because you know, as fans of the game, you know,
obviously you know you're you're more privy, but as fans
of the games, we never really consider like that that
type of you know, that type of rivalry. You know,
(08:40):
we consider your rivals on the court. We consider you
guys going at one another, but but it is it
is interesting to think about that extra level that this
may have been for. You know, this may have been
for Pop. So let's go ahead and take a quick break.
But when we come back, we'll dive into game one.
(09:02):
All right, we're back here on NBA Finals file. Let's
go ahead and jump into game one because your Spurs
were looking to set the tone game one of the
NBA Finals here at the SBC Center in San Antonio.
He used to be the assistant coach for him, and
now they're coaching against each others. He's stole my bars.
Ready to get it on. Man, It's the top two
(09:26):
defensive players in the NBA, best friends calling the shots
and the sidelines, the past two NBA champions. And then
you know, as as the action started, as everyone in
the world might have expected with a team that boasted
Tim Duncan, Tony Parker Manage Noble in s starting lineup,
you guys kick things off with a direct post up
by Nazi Mohammed against Ben Wallace. It looked like a
(09:47):
set play, so I gotta ask you was attacking and
getting him in the early foul trouble was that one
of the main concerns heading in. You know, good things
about good coaches, they always know there's certain players on
your team you need to have them engaged early. And
Nasi was that type of player. If you get him
engaged early, he's gonna block shot, he's gonna rebound, and
he's gonna be there for you on both ends of
(10:07):
the floor. So at the beginning of the game, you know,
we're gonna go to Nasa and see how he plays.
And Nazi had he had some good post moves, and
people don't realize when you play alongside guys like Tim
Duncan and whoever may be, you don't get them any
post ups. So you gotta get it when you can.
And Nazi, you know, I wish we'd have used them more,
but we didn't. He went to the post. He had
(10:29):
that little move where he goes middle one to dribble
to set you up and turn back over that left
shoulder for a bank hook a bank shot a bank
off the glass. So Nasi was one of great poster
players that we rarely used. You know, that was that
weapon we need to use, but we didn't as much
as we should. Have. It's interesting, especially with it being
coach Pop. If it, if it worked, I'm surprised he
didn't go back to it a little bit more because
(10:49):
you're right like the reason why I noticed it because
literally right from the jump, it's like bam right the
Nazi okay, And he dropped it right in inside scoop
right here, um popping. I you should always you know,
getting to play for argument about him not milking the play.
Milking to play me's going to over and over and
over until you stay stopped. And he wasn't a big
(11:11):
proponent of that. He liked running through his gamble. The
plays they keep people off balance. So that was one
of the things me and Pop used always sit down
and have a stern conversation about, especially when it was
coming to me running again. I just scored, keep feeding me,
keep feeding me. If I could have just been a
fly on the wall during those conversations. So Detroit counters
(11:32):
by immediately going to sheet for a baseline turnaround over
Duncan on the other end, couple of dribbles, back to
the basket, spins, baseline fadeaway jumper good and can you
give folks you know folks that man you may not
have seen Sheet's career live. Can you give them just
a bit about his game? Um, Rashid Wallace is probably
one of the best players I ever played against. When
I talk about guys that was so difficult to guard, Rashi'
(11:55):
is not top five because he's long, he's athletic, and
he had this shots sort of like a cart right going,
you know, going back in the way he shot it.
He didn't shoot it with his arms folded. He shot
it at the top of his apex, and he would
just us his risks around the basket and knock it down.
And he could shoot threes, he could put it on
the floor. He had a complete game. He was a
good shot blocker. When you talk about players that can
(12:17):
play both ends of the floor, Rashid was one of
those guys who could do it on both ends. Yeah,
I want lot to you. He was definitely one of
my favorite players, you know, throughout his playing career, and
it always felt and this is not a criticism, it
always felt like, man, he should have even been more
of a star than he was, you know, for whatever
the reason, whatever the circumstances were, And maybe it's a
credit to him, you know, being willing to, you know,
(12:37):
kind of subjugate his game, you know, for the betterment
of the team. I think when he was looking at
Rashid's career, he was a great team player. You know,
and I know a lot of people when you say
Rashid Wallace, you think about the ejections and the technical files.
But if you can wash away that he was a
heck of a ball player, he could do it on
both ends. Like I said, he was a great teammate.
He was always supporting his teammates, and he took a
(12:59):
backseat to a lot of guys we didn't have to
receive while it should be the apex of every team,
should have been a focal point. But he was a
great team player. A testament to him. Testament to him
So Detroit, they actually jumped out to a seventeen to
four lead with Rip and She doing a lot of
the early damage. Stans executing with very good boys, just
what we expected from them. Spurs, on the other hand,
(13:21):
I've had some good opportunities and have bumble them all.
You came into the ball game about midway about the
around the midway point of the quarter, and you know,
you immediately found Duncan you're in the lane for a
jump hook. You know he also makes a bucket the
next time down and it seemed to get him going.
Just play basketball round. It's ridiculous start, We got four turnovers,
(13:42):
nobody's runna play. The ball stopped and it has mood.
What is Pop telling you, guys when a team goes
on a run like that, just stick with your knitting.
And we'd know that emotions can help you or hurt you.
And I think for the spurs Um, emotionally we were
look too high because that comes with playing at home.
It can be that that the drilling you get from
(14:03):
the fans can amp you up where you can either
you know, take bad shots, have turnovers, which we did.
We had a lot of turnovers. Or it can make
you take off. And for us, it didn't make us
take off. In this game. It kind of settled in.
But we were a team that understood that the game
is about runs. You're gonna have runs, but you need
to withstand that run, stay pat and don't do anything
(14:23):
crazy because you can come down and shoot some crazy threes,
take some bad shots. But we were more disciplined that
where we say, hey, let's go to our horse inside.
Tim Duncan get us some buckets that would open us
up on the outside. And speaking of runs, you guys
actually wound up closing the gap by the end of
the first quarter. Used to try back to the game,
(14:44):
and I'm honestly, I'm not saying this because you're my
co host, but you were a true catalyst in that comeback.
You know, you had three assists in those five minutes,
and you know it really got it got folks going,
and it got the ball movie and the Spurs for
the first time. I've a little momentum and the sel
are you driv Robinson and front Robinson san Antonio survives
(15:07):
a tour at Pistons start. Yeah. You know the thing
about the Spurs, they were big on playing team basketball. Um,
we had a great penetrated and Tony Parker Hamilton driving
inside this running the lane is off the rainbow, gud
rebound are long lead pass the Parker in the front,
cork Parker drives on Philip light up. But we moved
the basketball tremendously. We always look for the open guy,
(15:29):
next man up, and that was Let me just talk
about Tim Duncan too. That's a great testament to him.
Of being a great team player. He knew if I
can get these guys around to play good, that's gonna
make me play better because that means nobody can double
team him and he can go to work in the post.
It's interesting. I have a note later on where I'm
gonna ask specifically a little bit more, a little bit
(15:51):
more in depth about him. But can you speak to
his mindset compared to other stars that you've played with with,
you know, when it comes to that specific two grades, um,
all the truth grade centers that I played with from
a Chemo Lodge run to kill O'Neil, they were like that.
They understood that you need your teammates to play good.
(16:11):
If your teammates play good, you played better because that's
gonna make it easier for you on the inside. And
you go back to my first couple of years of
playing with Alija one. He was more of a guy
like I'm gonna do it on my own. Did he
realize he needed his teammates. He needed us to, you know,
step up, and the only way we can do that
by sharing the basketball. And I think you know, since
Tim and Shock understood this from watching Dream and David
(16:33):
and all these other great bigs before them. They followed
suit and did the same thing. So they shared the basketball.
It wasn't about me, is about we, all right. So
after a back and forth second quarter, you guys actually
took a bit of control during the third. Can you
speak to you know the types of halftime adjustments Pop
would you know would make or focus on. And I'm
asking specifically because it felt like the defense ramped up.
(16:54):
You know in Detroit they actually missed eleven of thirteen
shots at one point to start the second half. Mohamma
inside and I try to stock away ducket against Rashid Wallace.
Two of the ram las that I'm blocked by Wallace.
Defenses tightening up by both change, especially in the basket area. Yeah,
the key was stopping Chaunton bullets. Uh. We moved boost
(17:14):
growing over to Chauncey, put a bigger body on him,
or even putting money on him, and trying to put
Tony on Rip because Rip wasn't a post of guy.
He was more of a guy who's going to run
around the court to come off screens and get some
open j's. So we just tried to amp that up
and we tried to get the ball out of raheet
while it is saying because we knew Tim guard him,
not the guarden, I guard him. It didn't matter. He
(17:34):
was scoring. So we just tried to get the ball
out of his hands and and and rotated as much
as possible. And another thing we did was we tried
to trap in the open court sometimes when the guard
was getting that bad zone once you crossed half court,
we were in a big or money was someone that
was in the area to go over there and trap
to try to get them to speed up the offense
to get him out of their rhythm. Alright, So the
action that I want to focus on really quick, well,
(17:56):
it came about three minutes into the fourth quarter when
Manny was working at pick and roll to the top
of the key with Duncan, allowing Manner to get into
the teeth of the defense and eventually around and through
contact with Ben Wallace for the end one. Ben couldn't
believe the call when he winds up getting the tech
on top of everything, and it pretty much it actually
kicked off a nineteen to four run that put this
one away. What a strong mold. So I'm wondering what
(18:22):
the conversation was when with your squad when this happened.
Did you feel like you had them a bit rattled
at that stage? Um, anytime you get a player that
gets the tech, you feel like you have them rattled.
So we just wanted to keep attacking, keep playing good defense,
and and stay the course. That's that, to me, is
the sentiment of the Spurs state of course, no matter
what happens, we're gonna run our plays, We're gonna do
(18:43):
our defensive schemes and everything should work out in favor
because we know we have the talent. We just have to,
you know, stay with the course. Like I said, stay
with the process and do what we need to do
and you look back. That's what we did. Tim Duncan
was very good at that. He didn't try to get
he didn't get too upset, he didn't get too excited.
He was, you know, the emotionless Tim Duncan that we
all know and love. Yeah, it's funny down the stretch
(19:06):
in this series he shows a little bit of fire.
But you're right, you know, like throughout the footage, I
won't lie to you. It reminded me of that old
or not. Kevin Garnett recently told a story about Tim Duncan. Well,
he was talking about your different competitors he played against,
and he specifically said Duncan would kill him with like
just little little comments like nice try, like almost got
(19:27):
me that time, but just but but like it wasn't
being picked up by the cameras and everybody else that
wasn't on the court, They had no idea. But he
said that you used told drive him absolutely crazy, you know,
Tim would that. You know, I don't know if he
stole that from Larry Bird, but the worst trash talking
is when someone tries to block a shot, You're like, oh,
you almost got that one. You're looking at him like, man, well,
(19:48):
it makes you so frustrated because you know you're playing
good defense and all of a sudden, great offense beats
good defense every time. And Tim was that type of
guy that's absolutely gotta be frustrating, especially since it wasn't
like him like it was a high flyer. He would just,
you know, fundamentally just just knock you down and kill
you every time. One of the NBA Finals safely to
(20:10):
the problem for the San Antonio Spurs. So your Spurs
you wound up taking Game one eight four sixty nine
and you know, with Duncan and Manu combined it for
fifty while Tony also had fifteen. You and Glenna Robinson
shout out the Big Dog. You guys did most of
the damage. Your further spurs off the bench. But honestly,
in this one, the starters did most of the heavy
lifting for both teams offensively. Well, you can see by
(20:31):
the score, uh that it was a slug fest. And
I think the first game is always some nerves, um,
a little bit of jitters and you and the bench.
You know, if you look at we had a lot
of life finals uh vets and those guys have been
there before. So that's why we was able to stay
the course and win this game because there was a
(20:52):
lot of guys sitting there that hadn't been in the
finals that were on the team like Nazi and um
you just mentioned Big Dog the name. We don't missing
Barry Off, but it was a great player, you know,
those guys that have the finals experience. So at the
end of the day, I think that the veteran leadership
took over in this game. It certainly did. Pop said
he was real polite with y'all in those first two
(21:13):
time outs when y'all got off to that sluggist start.
Can you give us your version of it? Polite? Is
that what he called polite? But let's go ahead and
keep it moving the game too, because let's just say
this was a little bit more entertaining of a game.
You know, it's still still a blowout, but entertaining because
man who put on a show in this one Parker
cross card left constitutionally he showed for this time. It was,
(21:39):
you know, san Antonio's turn to start off hot. You know,
it's your Spurs. You kicked off the game with an
eight oh run. Duncan doesn't even attempt a field goal
in the first six minutes of the game. And this
is where I was gonna ask you, you know, like
you know, it really was a testament to him because
it was very clear he was trying to get everybody
else going exactly. Tim knows if mine, who's playing good,
you get out of his way. Of certain great players
(22:01):
in this league when they're rolling, no matter who you are,
and Tim being the great teammate, not the good teammate,
the great teammate knowing how mine's rolling, let me go
out away Tony Parker's rolling, Let me get out of the
the way. And I don't think Tim gets enough praise
for how much he let the other teammates take over
when he's clearly at that time one of the best
(22:22):
players ever played the game and dominating at any moment,
can do what he wants on the court at any time.
But taking a step back and saying, hey, guys, you
have the advantage tonight, you're rolling, go ahead and do
your thing, taking the chestnut checkers approach. I can definitely
appreciate that. Top place it first. So you guys were
up eleven after the first quarter, and they actually pushed
(22:44):
it up the sixth team by the half. And honestly,
you never really look back at this point, and you know,
I realized there, especially you're doing this with you the
last couple of months, there's a lot more finals blowouts
than I ever recognize they are. No matter what they do,
(23:04):
the pis tells us come up empty. That gets a
super performance by the San Antonio Spurs. I mean, like,
for whatever reason, I don't know if I know, put
it out of my mind or with it, you know,
like once we get to the end of the series.
But there have been a lot more individual game final
blowouts and ever would have anticipated. You know, I think
it's always those games like two, three, and four that
(23:26):
people kind of don't pay attention to unless it's a
game the fours got about to build sweet, But those
are the games that are usually blowouts. And maybe a
game six here, but seven is always a game everybody
looks at. It's like, okay, you know, who's gonna win
his final game? And those always the closer games. But
it's always amazing to me that I'm I'm with you,
(23:46):
I'm on board with you on this one about the blowouts.
I'm like, wow, we got blown up. Oh we blew
somebody out. It's it's amazing watching these games and watching
how the chess matches go and how these guys interact
with one another, and how they step up to to
play to try to you know, beat their opponents. So
you guys wound up taking this one seventy six, you know,
as the teams were heading to Detroit. Go to Detroit.
(24:09):
That's a t k oh, the pustiness ca So I
gotta ask you, you guys are up to old and
especially in this fashion, you know, not you know, blowing
the doors off of them. Even though now you're headed
to Detroit. Was there a feeling that you were definitely
in control of this series at this stage or did
he simply look at it us, Hey, look, we just
took care of business at home, and now we gotta
(24:29):
go put it in work. The key thing you just
said is we took care of business at home, which
were supposed to do you have you went at home,
especially when you have home court advantage throughout this players,
you went at home. And our mindset going on the
road with this, we gotta play three in Detroit. Just
get one. We're just gonna get one. We want to
get to We really want to get one, and that's
our whole focused. But I want to go back to
(24:51):
that game too and talk about Bruce Boyne. Bruce Boyne
was known for his defense. But the guy was four
for eight from three, and you know the first game
he in shooting that well. But in this game, Bruce
started lightening up. And I'm gonna mention Bruce because me
and Bruce had a little inside battle going on that
nobody knows about. But Bruce was forth a from three
and he was able to kind of careless that game.
(25:12):
Because Bruce is always known for his defense, But in
this series he made some key three point baskets. Now
the past doctor way by Jenovol, you're saying, took the talking.
I want to play by Mono, they're stealing the gotta
right back to Tim as he saved him going out
of Bolves. Here comes jumping to set the screen for Jenovoy.
He reads the takes to the side, right corner shot.
(25:34):
Give another assistance you Normlay, I just first of all,
pened up. Can you can you speak to that? Can
you shed a little bit more light on the the
internal battles you guys were waging. Well, I'll wait, I
think I want to save that for story time. Oh
thank you. Okay, you know what. That's a team and
I will not step on that. All right. A couple
other quick notes on this one before we move forward. Uh,
(25:56):
you know, outside of Ben Wallace, you know who wound
up going forward for six in the game. You guys
actually held their starters for seventeen forty nine or just
under thirty from the floor. In fact, Antonio mcdiyce was
the leading scorer in this game for the Pistons with
fifteen points off the bench. And again Rob for the
listeners that may not have seen his game. Can you
describe what Antonio's game was like, especially before the knee injuries.
(26:17):
And Tonio mcdyce was a Dominique Wilkins type player. He
was a human highlight film and one of those guys strong,
powerful guys can six nine sixteen, guys could do it
all on the court. And I told mcdyce after this game,
because you know we both into the University of Alabama,
I told myself, I've never invited you over to my
house again for dinner because he had came to my
house but dinner before the game, and he had a
(26:39):
good game, Like, man, you're not coming over ever again. Man. So,
but Dice was one of those guys who was athletic,
could jump out the gym. Powerful guy came out of
Alabama this sophomore year. Incredible guy played in dinner for years,
and once he got that knee injury, people kind of
forgot about him. But he was still able to score
in the post because he had the quickness of a
guard and the leaping ability of of a guy like
(27:01):
Evince Carter. And I'm I'm gonna circle back to your
point you just made here in a second. But as
mentioned you know, another final note, man who was the
start of this game. You know, he scored twenty seven points.
He got dished out seven assists to go along with
three steals. But you were also spectacular off the bench.
And this one, and this is where I'm coming with it,
you had sixteen points, six boards, five assists, four steals
(27:21):
and a block for good measure. So I'm wondering seeing
what mcdice was doing on the other end, did that
motivate you, like, like did you have that mentality of
a hold up, what's going on over there? It was
a little inside battle going with Dice. You know, I said,
I said, we're friends, but once we get on this court,
I hate you and I hope you hate me because
we're trying to get something to establish our legacies in basketball.
(27:44):
That's the NBA Championship rain. So it was a little battle.
And he was one of those guys that could get
into post that he was so quick with this move.
And we worked out in the summertime together, so I
kind of knew some of his moves, but he came
with some new stuff. Scored on me a little bit,
I scored on him sometimes, So it was a great
It was a great in a fun matchup to go
up against the former tighter. Absolutely love the game. Within
the game like that, I noticed you had a little
(28:07):
bit extra, you know, you know for some of the stretches,
a little bit more. Yeah, we were balanting the man,
we were throwing out, trying to throw each other to
the floor and everything and laughing at each other at
the same time. And we told the RELs and say, hey,
if you see us balance, you know, we know each other.
It's it's the finals, and we're just gonna, you know,
try to beat each other up. You know, are there
times for the ref will say like, okay, you guys,
go ahead and handle this. Well. You know, the refs
(28:28):
know if you know each other, Um, you're not gonna
try to hurt each other. You're just gonna be physical
with each other because that's a part of the game. Um.
And if you have a reputation of not doing bad things,
they let you play. And at this time in NBA Finals,
they don't. They don't let that. Well, I say, at
this time the NBA Finals, they let a lot of
things slide, especially when you know each other and you know, nobody,
(28:49):
if you think about it, nobody on this team with
knowing is doing anything malicious, so we didn't have to
worry about any flavorite fouls or anything of that nature.
Fair enough, Okay, that makes sense, all right, So it's
time for another quick break. When we'd come back games
three and four in Detroit, and things are gonna change
in a big way. We're back here on NBA Finals file.
(29:16):
Absolutely scintillating, you know, games one and two. But like
you know, like I mentioned before the break, things are
gonna start changing because in game three, the Pistons are
fighting for their lives and they actually showed some real
signs of life ready to go from the Palace of
Aarbre and the hell's the Christians are looking for this
game to dig out of this whole new hall and
hoping had this hall in this series. You know, In
(29:38):
what may have been an ominous start, Ben Wallace actually
starts the game off by picking off a pass intended
for Nazi Mohammed and taking it the length of the
court for a dunk. Plus the fouls the ship Fils
called you talked about age person start, it was very
(29:59):
clear that they were coming now to play a more
physical brand of basketball from the starting this one to
the point where Coach Pop actually went to the bench
bringing you in with less than ninety seconds into the action.
Was it a matter of Pop simply not liking the
effort from the start? I think Pop is one of
these guys want you to be focused, laser focused, and
you're in the finals on the road, you can't make
silly mistakes. And knowing that I had already been to
(30:20):
the finals before, I had won five championships before I
got there, he knew I had that focus. So he says,
you know what, we can't start off. We gotta do
him something now to keep them at bay and not
let them get this crowd into it. So he inserted
me earlier and as soon as he as soon as
he inserted you, and look at I don't mean this
as a slight and anyway, Sheet immediately started going to work.
You know, he scored two quick buckets. Uh, you know that,
(30:42):
I have to be honest, man, you were right there
in position you were contesting. But to the point that
you made earlier, his his ridiculously high release point. There
was really nothing that you can do against him. You know,
people are gonna look at and look at the seriousness.
Rob you couldn't go ahead with sheet. Tim couldn't either.
It was one of those things nobody could and and
and and it's it's nothing that Tim and I could do.
(31:03):
It's just, you know, it's a testament to how good
Rashid was. Rashid was a hell of a post up player.
He could turn over either shoulder, he could jump hook you,
he could shoot the j But the one thing I
want to point out to about Rashid, though, Rashid to
be a guy who's six and eleven, had the smallest
hands and the smallest feat of a six of leven guy.
(31:23):
I don't know, we need to have a contest between
him and Kevin Willis who had the smallest hands and
feet because those guys are seven footers and their hands
were the size of point guards. Where was it the
Elden Campbell Award? Like I always heard the same about him.
I don't know if it was true or not, but
I already he had small hands for a big man.
Elden had big hands and big feet. Elden just had
(31:44):
to you had to have Ellen and engage at certain times.
So oh, you had to get it right to him. Okay,
I got my bad Elden, No disrespecting him, all right.
So in this one, you know, Rip Hamilton was able
to get it going with a couple of buckets against
Bruce Bowen, you know, in that quarter, and that had
to feel good, you know, having gone twelve or thirty
six and the first two games combined. That is right
(32:07):
there off the black side of Hamlet of that tax, right,
the Pistons, they just simply look more comfortable in a
storative across the board. But your spurs, you of course,
you fought right back and you were able to take
a lead into the second quarter really on the strength
of you know, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, as well as
(32:28):
five quick points off the bench from you know, from
Brent Barry. Can you speak to Brent Berry's contributions to
this team. You know, that's the great thing about about
Pop and Brent Barry. Brent Barry, like we always said,
you have to keep your phone on the hook and
be read at the answer. Because Pop played him sparingly
in his finals. You know, he might get fifteen minutes here,
three minutes there. For Brent being the professional that he
is and one of the greatest teammates I ever played with.
(32:49):
And one of the smartest teammates I've ever played with.
He was able to adjust, go out there and play
and take care of things when Pop acting too. And
testament to Brent. You know, Brent was that player, you know,
slam dunk winner, um, great player, one of the Berries,
you know the history of the Berries, um starting with
the father, great basketball player. But when he came off
the bench, he was smart, he was intellect he went
(33:10):
to the whole he shot threes. Great player. Absolutely, So
the Pistols were able to push ahead by five by
the end of the third and they kind of they
sort of hit you guys in waves in that fourth quarter.
And I'm wondering, did you notice any specific adjustments from
them in the second half or was it really more
of a matter of a desperate home team playing for more,
you know, playing with more certainty than they had in
the previous two games. I think it was that team
(33:32):
understanding that the backs against the wall, understanding the situation
a hand, going out and playing hard because who knew
that Ben Wallace was gonna be as aggressive as he was.
He was seven for ten from the field, and that's
when our game plans. Was it kind of layoff being
because he's not looking to school. We can use it.
Whoever's guarden bands either rest or you know, Double Team
(33:54):
would do something of that next. But Ben was very
aggressive in this game, and we were sitting back scratching
my heads, like who was this guy? He doesn't score,
He rebounds some block shots, but Ben was very effective
in this series, and he was looking to score from
Game three on to the end of this series. To
your point, Bent, it was by far Ben's best game
at this stage, you know, fifteen points, eleven boards, the
(34:15):
five blocks, as you mentioned the shop blocker. You expect that,
you know, but he also had three steals, you know,
Rip Hamilton's. It was also one of his best games.
Excuse me, it was his best game to date in
this series. And you know, you put up twenty four,
four and three. You know, mcdce once again was really
good for them down the stretch and the Pistons they
returned the favor. They could cut your lead, you know,
down to one. With a seventy nine win in Game three.
(34:38):
Pistons they're celebrating and the series will go to one.
As we go to Game four on Thursday night, the
Testings come home and the series breaks out. There's a
sixty three sixty three game with less than a minute
and a half to go on the third quarter, and
you know, we tried to give Tony Parker arrest for
one minute. Uh, and the damn burst. This is the
counter funch that we talked about, you know, the this
(35:00):
is one that we'll learn a lesson from and and uh,
prepare ourselves better come Thursday. So let's go ahead and
kick it the game four, because looky San Antonio, we
have a series again. You know, even though I've watched
every single NBA Finals honestly since the mid eighties, for
whatever reason, I simply put it out of the put
the fact out of my mind that there were so
many blowouts. We had four straight blowouts by the home
(35:22):
team in this series. Yeah, it was ridiculous. This is
the first game someone ever scored a hundred points. And
you would say, what NBA Finals game, And this is
the first time and the only time a team would
score a hundred points. But you know that has that
you know, people will look at like it wasn't bad office. No,
it wasn't bad office. It was just great defense by
(35:43):
two deepest of minded teams. Everybody, and welcome to the
excitement of the NBA Finals. We are shut for Game four.
(36:03):
Much like in Game two in San Antonio, for you guys,
the Pistons came out looking even more comfortable in Game
four at home. You know your both teams. They traded
punches starting off, but Detroit really started to push tempo
off any turnover or long rebound, and you could tell
that they were looking to run for a team that
was struggling so much in the half court. I guess
that's not all that shocking, but did you recognize they
were absolutely trying to dictate tempo in the first half
(36:25):
of this one. I think when you see a team
like that, we won. We just want a game at home.
Let's push the tempo, Let's get our crowd behind us,
because we know how important that that crowd is and
making us go over the top and getting us out
of drilling to do things extraordinary. And that's what they did.
They came out, they pushed the tempo. They were trying
to make tim tire. They're trying to make Tony tire
(36:45):
and make monotype because there was logging heavy minutes and
when you got top dogs that we don't you know,
really have a sub for on the bench like we
had for them, you as a coach and now, and
we know how smart Larry Brown is. He said, we're
gonna push the tempo because we are deeper, and they
had a lot of guys that could throw at us,
even you know at Lindsay Hunter we not have talked
about yet. We got guys like that coming off the
(37:07):
bench that can push the tempo, and we knew what
he was trying to do in Game four is pushed
the tempo and get us exhausted. And it seemed like
it was working because Detroit wound up taking a six
point lead into the second quarter after a Sheet three pointer.
But I specifically mentioned this because it was actually, you know,
discussed on the broadcast. They acknowledged it was the first
three pointer made by a Piston not named Chauncey Billups
(37:28):
in the series at that point. And that's just wild
to hear, given the current state of affairs in the league.
With that shot, in particular, every pession we shot hip, Yeah,
you would think Rip Hamilton was the guy who could
shoot threes. He wasn't that type of guy. He was
(37:49):
a guy that came off screens shot, you know, mid ranges.
It was. It was a sniper. At doing that and
watching this series, I realized, Wow, you know, the Pistons
did the shoot a lot of threes. That's who that
That wasn't who they were. You know, Chauncey sawed threes
rip on occasion. Then you had Rashid to shoot threes.
Taystian Prince saw a couple of threes here and there,
(38:11):
Lindsay Hunter, but other than that, they didn't have three
point shooters on that team. They're just a grinded out
type of team, slow it down and beat you up.
It's almost like a team that just wanting to know,
you know, body blow, bodybuild, body blow, and then when
you go to the body, you try to protect the body. Headshot.
Heymeker knocked out on the break, the fan lays it up,
(38:35):
and and and Chauncey and you know in previous years
and the even following, Chauncey was that guy usually you know,
for that moment. So you guys were cold in the
second quarter to the twone of four for sixteen, and
the Pistons they were able to extend to lead the
fifteen heading into the break. According to the recap, of
this game. And this was interesting to me. You know,
Coach Pop told you guys that that that was the
worst half of basketball league ever seen from an NBA
(38:57):
playoff team at halftime. Did he actually tell you guys
us there? Yes, but you know he said it in
a smiling way like, yo, you know, we can't get
no worse. Forget about it, go out there and play
and good things that happened. But I guess they didn't.
You said it was the worst half of basketball you've
(39:17):
ever seen by an NBA playoff team. How would you
that was? We told you that was reported during the broadcast.
Was that inaccurate? Because if so, let me ask this
and I look and you know, I know you guys
are professionals, but you know, when you're playing a game,
is there ever a point where you fall behind by
a bunch and you say like, hey, you know what,
(39:39):
we can get them next game? Or do you or
do you know what I mean? Like? Or are the
players that that that you can tell that happens? No,
if we always feel like if we can come back,
it demoralizes the team. Um, if you up on a
team by twenty plus points, the next thing you know,
the game is tied, You're like, oh my goodness, what
can we do to knock these guys out? They just
keep coming and coming and coming, you know, And and and
(40:00):
that's why teams never give up. The great teams never
give up. They go out and they keep balance. The
only time when you say, okay, no, let's just wait
till next game is if you're down twenty with five
minutes left to go, because you still feel like you
got a chance at any moment the game. You know,
just go back at acts the New York Knicks and
what Reggie Miller did to them. So after sinning something
like that, everybody knows there's always a chance in the
(40:22):
NBA game. Eight points, nine seconds. What a fantastic moment,
absolutely in playoff history. All Right, So your Spurs, you
put up more of a fight in the third quarter
with Manu and Tony getting it going offensively, but Detroy
was able to hold, you know, honestly hold you guys
at bay and still narrowly won the quarter one. And
you know it was actually sparked by a guy that
you mentioned earlier, Lindsay Hunter. He he went four for
(40:43):
five and he had nine points in the quarter. Yeah,
Lindsay was. I had the pleasure of playing with Lindsay
and then with the Lakers and winning the championship. This
was Lindsay's second stint with the Pistons, So he was
one of those guys that came into the league out
of Jackson State Small. You know, Hbcuth School was a
score When he first got in the league, he was
putting up numbers, and people kind of forgot about him
(41:04):
because they only lasted two or three seasons and then
he went to being a playmaker. And but Lindsay had
that talent to score big buckets at any moment at
the time, so he put up Like I said, he
put up seventeen in that game. Really worked us when
we didn't expect that test half full wide and in
(41:26):
the fourth quarter. You know, it wasn't pretty for San
Antonio at all. But I'm going to mention this because
the one of the things that I noticed, even though
it was a blowout, you got up three shots in
the five minutes that you played in the quarter. And
I specifically mentioned it because we've discussed it in the past,
but particularly with role players, did that slight bit of
rhythm allow you to sort of set your feet so
to speak for me, it did because as a player,
(41:50):
you always want to watch film and look at your
shot and be like, what am I doing wrong? And
if you look at all my shots in the first
couple of games, it was all over the board, and
the first thing you tell a shooter is to go
straight up and down. A lot of my shots I
was rushing, and when you rush, you kind of pulled
back a little bit, so that makes you lean back.
(42:11):
So my shots were either gonna be long or short.
So I had to make that adjustment. And you know
what better way is in the blowout game, just force
some shots stuff to try to see you can get
some type of rhythm. You know, we didn't play a
very good basketball in either one of those games, especially
game before. I felt like it was slipping away and
felt like we were missing opportunities. And you know what,
let's go ahead and wrap up part one here because
(42:31):
when we come back in part two, maybe the greatest
game of Robert Ory's career coming up
Welcome to the NBA Finals file with Robert Ory and
Jabari Davis. I am Jabari, former NBA writer turn podcaster,
and this is seven time champ big shot Bob A
k A. Robert Ory. What's up, Jabari? I'm glad to
be here again breaking down another NBA Finals. It's such
(00:24):
a pleasure to be here. As I said, I'm excited
about this one. Yeah. And I wondered as we were,
you know, as I was watching back the footage, I thought, well,
I was trying to put myself into your place, which
is not It wasn't as likely to happen. But I wondered,
with this being your opportunity to you know, be a
part of a championship team with three different organizations, did
(00:45):
that mean something to you heading in you know what?
I didn't even think about it when in the moment,
but afterwards I was like, Wow, I'm only one of
two players that I had this opportunity to win on
multiple teams. And I messed with John Salad to this day,
who was the first guy to win on three teams?
Is that? You know what? That Bulls team really didn't count,
that Lakers team didn't really got just a mess with him, right,
(01:05):
because you know, I was just happy to be a
part of a win, winning the organization, and I guess
I was burying the lead because this week matchup is
the is the two thousand five finals between the San
Antonio's version of Detroit Pistons. Look, Rob, I gotta be
honest with you. I was happy to watch your foot
I was. The series was fun, it was, but I
gotta be honest, the final totals in the sixties and seventies,
(01:27):
it was a little bit tough. You know what. I
didn't realize that it wasn't a lot of scoring going
on in this series. And we're talking We'll get into
that a little bit later, but you would think when
you got teams with Rashid Wireless, Chauncey Bullet, Mono, Janobi,
Tim Duncan all these greats to score and be a
little bit high. Yeah, this score will a little be
(01:50):
a little bit high. But it wasn't. It was a knockdown,
drag out series, a lot of deepest on both ends
of the floor. And in fairness to both of you guys,
these were, if I'm not mistaken, these with the best defenses,
and you know in the league at this point right, Yes,
it was. You have to think about you have former
defensive players of the Year on both sides, Tim Duncan,
Ben Wallace, and it was. It was a slugfest, all right.
(02:11):
So let's go ahead and get into it with the
Spurs path to the finals. You know, the previous year
they lost to the Lakers in the second round. They
finished fifty nine and twenty three, you know, for the
first in the Southwest Division. In this season, Uh, they
got there by going four one over the Nuggets in
the first round, for two over the Sonics in the
second round. Shout out to the Sonics, hope they one
day will come back, and four one over the Suns
(02:33):
in the conference finals, threw out by the Spurs, and
this one's over and San Antonio wins. Hey, well, advance
Pop assured us when we won the Western Conference final,
he said, for you guys who haven't been there before,
it's fifty times better when you win the whole thing.
Do you remember anything particular about either of those battles, Um,
(02:56):
I just know they were fun. Um. I know that
the Phoenix series was one of those series that everybody
wants to talk about because of some issues that happened
with this, you know, with the Sons and the Spurs
over the course of years. But when you get a
team that's rolling, like the Spurs were rolling at the
end of the season, it doesn't matter who you play,
and we were very fortunate to come out of the
(03:18):
West that year. The thing that people don't understand the
Spurs have always has a history of getting beat by
the Suns. And I remember asking Tim Duncan, like, dude,
that's the first thing that came out of my mouth
when I was talking to him. I'm like, why do
y'all have a history of losing to the Suns? And
Tim and Tim Duncan fashion like. So it was just
(03:39):
one of those teams that you know, every team has
a nemesis, and for a long time, the Sons were
the Spurs nemesis. I was just gonna ask that, like,
is it's is there something about certain matchups? Is it?
You know, certain guys have you know, just have horrible
nights and certain buildings or well, what is it to that?
I just think it comes down the matchups. Um, the
Sons have always played small ball, which kind of hurt
(04:00):
Tim and the sense that he can't, you know, guard
guys on the perimeter. He's more of an inside type
of player. And I think about when I was with
the Houston Rockets, we had two nemesis. We had the
Minnesota timber Woolves who had Doug West that was killing
us all the time. Then we had to sell out
of supersideens. And when I got to the Lakers, that
was pretty much the only team that didn't have a nemesis,
even though Portland's and Sacramento tried to be. But the Spurs.
(04:22):
You know, throughout the history, the Sons was always that
team that was battling right there for a championship or
battling for a conference title, and the Spurs rarely came
out on top. And it's funny, just you know, just
quickly mentioning, it's funny. With those Lakers teams, it felt
like the Bobcats, where you're name where your nemesis in
the regular season, there's a good thing you didn't you
never had to worry about them in the postseason. Yeah,
(04:43):
And and Orlando because when we went down, the shock
wanted to beat them so bad that they always somehow,
even though they had a team that on paper wasn't
as good as us, they would come out with a victory.
It was everybody's championship when you guys rolled into town,
all right. But bringing it back to this, ye the
Pistons path of the finals. The unfortunately they beat the
Lakers the previous in the finals the previous year. For
(05:05):
this season, they finished fifty four and twenty eight for
first in the Central Division. In the first round, they
were four one over the Sixers, four two over the
Pacers in the second round, and for three which was
a great series over the Heat in the conference finals.
But let's actually talk about the historical deal significance of
this matchup. So it's it's you going for your sixth ring,
(05:27):
you got prime Tim duncan you know versus the Pistons
attempting to repeat What were your thoughts heading in? I mean,
obviously you're involved in the series, but what were your
thoughts in terms of the historical matchup? And I thought
that we matched it really well with them. The only
worry I had was the three spot because we had
moved mono genobally from coming off the bench to start.
And you know, Taystan Prince, who doesn't get talked about,
(05:49):
was a great defensive player long lanky guy who could
post up and so had a size advantage in that
in that sense, but then everything else was a pretty
good matchup. Bruce Bond on China see uh Tony Parker
on Rip and course for Shed on Tim. I thought
we and Nazi starting on on ben waas we masched
up very well, and so I wasn't really worried about
(06:10):
the matches. But I thought, at the end of the day,
whoever bench comes out and plays well enough in this
series is gonna be the X factor. It's the others oftentimes.
You know, I'm a broken record on this, but I
I stand by you know what you're gonna pretty much
get from the stars. They you know, like for the
most part, they deliver. It's together, you know, the other
folks that come out and and and usually we'll put
(06:32):
one team over the top. So what about the coaching matchup,
because you know, obviously it's you know, two all time grades.
We got Larry Brown versus Gregg Popovich. Brown was a
mentor to Popovich earlier. Earlier in his career, Brown was
coming off of a title the previous year. If I'm
not mistaken, he's wanted just about every level, you know,
whether it's high school, college, you know, you know NBA,
(06:53):
you know Rect League, it doesn't matter. Larry Brown was
that guy. But what did you think about the matchup?
I thought the matchup was great. You've got two guys
who've been around the block, have one championships, who knew
each other very well. You know, it's almost like going
to an episode of water Board. Hey, I got your playbook.
We have been doing you for so long. But it
was it was a great matchup, um. And sometimes when
it comes down the great coaches, you know, the great
(07:15):
coaches are gonna come up with some plays that the
other team don't know about. And that's the one good
thing about Pop and the Spurs. We had a whole
set of plays that we didn't use during a regular season.
We might break it out and you know, December to
test them out, and then he would shelve them and
then pull them out when it comes to the playoffs
in the finals, because you know, when you get in
the finals, when you get in the playoffs, you playing
(07:37):
a team seven times. Maybe they scouted everything, so you
gotta have some trick plays, some new plays to keep
them off their path of trying to stop you. Defensively,
Did this series means something extra being you know, for
Pop in your in your estimation, Um, I think it did,
just for the fact that he wants to see me
in himself as one of the great coaches in this league.
(07:57):
Everybody was talking about, Okay, you got ninety nine with
is a lockout. You know, you got that championship, you
got other championships? Can you do it during the course
of the season going up a team that just won
a championship, you think about it. Nobody thought the Pistons
was gonna beat the Lakers, but they did. They beat
them handily. They won the title, and you had a
team that was playing string and think about it. They
(08:18):
have four all stars on that team, four all stars,
And so I think for Pop to come out and
beat this team the way we did, having home court advantage,
was gonna see in his legacy as one of the
best coaches ever to coach this game. And it's interesting
because you know, as fans of the game, you know,
obviously you know you're you're more privy, but as fans
of the games, we never really consider like that that
type of you know, that type of rivalry. You know,
(08:40):
we consider your rivals on the court. We consider you
guys going at one another, but but it is it
is interesting to think about that extra level that this
may have been for. You know, this may have been
for Pop. So let's go ahead and take a quick break.
But when we come back, we'll dive into game one.
(09:02):
All right, we're back here on NBA Finals file. Let's
go ahead and jump into game one because your Spurs
were looking to set the tone game one of the
NBA Finals here at the SBC Center in San Antonio.
He used to be the assistant coach for him, and
now they're coaching against each others. He's stole my bars.
Ready to get it on. Man, It's the top two
(09:26):
defensive players in the NBA, best friends calling the shots
and the sidelines, the past two NBA champions. And then
you know, as as the action started, as everyone in
the world might have expected with a team that boasted
Tim Duncan, Tony Parker Manage Noble in s starting lineup,
you guys kick things off with a direct post up
by Nazi Mohammed against Ben Wallace. It looked like a
(09:47):
set play, so I gotta ask you was attacking and
getting him in the early foul trouble was that one
of the main concerns heading in. You know, good things
about good coaches, they always know there's certain players on
your team you need to have them engaged early. And
Nasi was that type of player. If you get him
engaged early, he's gonna block shot, he's gonna rebound, and
he's gonna be there for you on both ends of
(10:07):
the floor. So at the beginning of the game, you know,
we're gonna go to Nasa and see how he plays.
And Nazi had he had some good post moves, and
people don't realize when you play alongside guys like Tim
Duncan and whoever may be, you don't get them any
post ups. So you gotta get it when you can.
And Nazi, you know, I wish we'd have used them more,
but we didn't. He went to the post. He had
(10:29):
that little move where he goes middle one to dribble
to set you up and turn back over that left
shoulder for a bank hook a bank shot a bank
off the glass. So Nasi was one of great poster
players that we rarely used. You know, that was that
weapon we need to use, but we didn't as much
as we should. Have. It's interesting, especially with it being
coach Pop. If it, if it worked, I'm surprised he
didn't go back to it a little bit more because
(10:49):
you're right like the reason why I noticed it because
literally right from the jump, it's like bam right the
Nazi okay, And he dropped it right in inside scoop
right here, um popping. I you should always you know,
getting to play for argument about him not milking the play.
Milking to play me's going to over and over and
over until you stay stopped. And he wasn't a big
(11:11):
proponent of that. He liked running through his gamble. The
plays they keep people off balance. So that was one
of the things me and Pop used always sit down
and have a stern conversation about, especially when it was
coming to me running again. I just scored, keep feeding me,
keep feeding me. If I could have just been a
fly on the wall during those conversations. So Detroit counters
(11:32):
by immediately going to sheet for a baseline turnaround over
Duncan on the other end, couple of dribbles, back to
the basket, spins, baseline fadeaway jumper good and can you
give folks you know folks that man you may not
have seen Sheet's career live. Can you give them just
a bit about his game? Um, Rashid Wallace is probably
one of the best players I ever played against. When
I talk about guys that was so difficult to guard, Rashi'
(11:55):
is not top five because he's long, he's athletic, and
he had this shots sort of like a cart right going,
you know, going back in the way he shot it.
He didn't shoot it with his arms folded. He shot
it at the top of his apex, and he would
just us his risks around the basket and knock it down.
And he could shoot threes, he could put it on
the floor. He had a complete game. He was a
good shot blocker. When you talk about players that can
(12:17):
play both ends of the floor, Rashid was one of
those guys who could do it on both ends. Yeah,
I want lot to you. He was definitely one of
my favorite players, you know, throughout his playing career, and
it always felt and this is not a criticism, it
always felt like, man, he should have even been more
of a star than he was, you know, for whatever
the reason, whatever the circumstances were, And maybe it's a
credit to him, you know, being willing to, you know,
(12:37):
kind of subjugate his game, you know, for the betterment
of the team. I think when he was looking at
Rashid's career, he was a great team player. You know,
and I know a lot of people when you say
Rashid Wallace, you think about the ejections and the technical files.
But if you can wash away that he was a
heck of a ball player, he could do it on
both ends. Like I said, he was a great teammate.
He was always supporting his teammates, and he took a
(12:59):
backseat to a lot of guys we didn't have to
receive while it should be the apex of every team,
should have been a focal point. But he was a
great team player. A testament to him. Testament to him
So Detroit, they actually jumped out to a seventeen to
four lead with Rip and She doing a lot of
the early damage. Stans executing with very good boys, just
what we expected from them. Spurs, on the other hand,
(13:21):
I've had some good opportunities and have bumble them all.
You came into the ball game about midway about the
around the midway point of the quarter, and you know,
you immediately found Duncan you're in the lane for a
jump hook. You know he also makes a bucket the
next time down and it seemed to get him going.
Just play basketball round. It's ridiculous start, We got four turnovers,
(13:42):
nobody's runna play. The ball stopped and it has mood.
What is Pop telling you, guys when a team goes
on a run like that, just stick with your knitting.
And we'd know that emotions can help you or hurt you.
And I think for the spurs Um, emotionally we were
look too high because that comes with playing at home.
It can be that that the drilling you get from
(14:03):
the fans can amp you up where you can either
you know, take bad shots, have turnovers, which we did.
We had a lot of turnovers. Or it can make
you take off. And for us, it didn't make us
take off. In this game. It kind of settled in.
But we were a team that understood that the game
is about runs. You're gonna have runs, but you need
to withstand that run, stay pat and don't do anything
(14:23):
crazy because you can come down and shoot some crazy threes,
take some bad shots. But we were more disciplined that
where we say, hey, let's go to our horse inside.
Tim Duncan get us some buckets that would open us
up on the outside. And speaking of runs, you guys
actually wound up closing the gap by the end of
the first quarter. Used to try back to the game,
(14:44):
and I'm honestly, I'm not saying this because you're my
co host, but you were a true catalyst in that comeback.
You know, you had three assists in those five minutes,
and you know it really got it got folks going,
and it got the ball movie and the Spurs for
the first time. I've a little momentum and the sel
are you driv Robinson and front Robinson san Antonio survives
(15:07):
a tour at Pistons start. Yeah. You know the thing
about the Spurs, they were big on playing team basketball. Um,
we had a great penetrated and Tony Parker Hamilton driving
inside this running the lane is off the rainbow, gud
rebound are long lead pass the Parker in the front,
cork Parker drives on Philip light up. But we moved
the basketball tremendously. We always look for the open guy,
(15:29):
next man up, and that was Let me just talk
about Tim Duncan too. That's a great testament to him.
Of being a great team player. He knew if I
can get these guys around to play good, that's gonna
make me play better because that means nobody can double
team him and he can go to work in the post.
It's interesting. I have a note later on where I'm
gonna ask specifically a little bit more, a little bit
(15:51):
more in depth about him. But can you speak to
his mindset compared to other stars that you've played with with,
you know, when it comes to that specific two grades, um,
all the truth grade centers that I played with from
a Chemo Lodge run to kill O'Neil, they were like that.
They understood that you need your teammates to play good.
(16:11):
If your teammates play good, you played better because that's
gonna make it easier for you on the inside. And
you go back to my first couple of years of
playing with Alija one. He was more of a guy
like I'm gonna do it on my own. Did he
realize he needed his teammates. He needed us to, you know,
step up, and the only way we can do that
by sharing the basketball. And I think you know, since
Tim and Shock understood this from watching Dream and David
(16:33):
and all these other great bigs before them. They followed
suit and did the same thing. So they shared the basketball.
It wasn't about me, is about we, all right. So
after a back and forth second quarter, you guys actually
took a bit of control during the third. Can you
speak to you know the types of halftime adjustments Pop
would you know would make or focus on. And I'm
asking specifically because it felt like the defense ramped up.
(16:54):
You know in Detroit they actually missed eleven of thirteen
shots at one point to start the second half. Mohamma
inside and I try to stock away ducket against Rashid Wallace.
Two of the ram las that I'm blocked by Wallace.
Defenses tightening up by both change, especially in the basket area. Yeah,
the key was stopping Chaunton bullets. Uh. We moved boost
(17:14):
growing over to Chauncey, put a bigger body on him,
or even putting money on him, and trying to put
Tony on Rip because Rip wasn't a post of guy.
He was more of a guy who's going to run
around the court to come off screens and get some
open j's. So we just tried to amp that up
and we tried to get the ball out of raheet
while it is saying because we knew Tim guard him,
not the guarden, I guard him. It didn't matter. He
(17:34):
was scoring. So we just tried to get the ball
out of his hands and and and rotated as much
as possible. And another thing we did was we tried
to trap in the open court sometimes when the guard
was getting that bad zone once you crossed half court,
we were in a big or money was someone that
was in the area to go over there and trap
to try to get them to speed up the offense
to get him out of their rhythm. Alright, So the
action that I want to focus on really quick, well,
(17:56):
it came about three minutes into the fourth quarter when
Manny was working at pick and roll to the top
of the key with Duncan, allowing Manner to get into
the teeth of the defense and eventually around and through
contact with Ben Wallace for the end one. Ben couldn't
believe the call when he winds up getting the tech
on top of everything, and it pretty much it actually
kicked off a nineteen to four run that put this
one away. What a strong mold. So I'm wondering what
(18:22):
the conversation was when with your squad when this happened.
Did you feel like you had them a bit rattled
at that stage? Um, anytime you get a player that
gets the tech, you feel like you have them rattled.
So we just wanted to keep attacking, keep playing good defense,
and and stay the course. That's that, to me, is
the sentiment of the Spurs state of course, no matter
what happens, we're gonna run our plays, We're gonna do
(18:43):
our defensive schemes and everything should work out in favor
because we know we have the talent. We just have to,
you know, stay with the course. Like I said, stay
with the process and do what we need to do
and you look back. That's what we did. Tim Duncan
was very good at that. He didn't try to get
he didn't get too upset, he didn't get too excited.
He was, you know, the emotionless Tim Duncan that we
all know and love. Yeah, it's funny down the stretch
(19:06):
in this series he shows a little bit of fire.
But you're right, you know, like throughout the footage, I
won't lie to you. It reminded me of that old
or not. Kevin Garnett recently told a story about Tim Duncan. Well,
he was talking about your different competitors he played against,
and he specifically said Duncan would kill him with like
just little little comments like nice try, like almost got
(19:27):
me that time, but just but but like it wasn't
being picked up by the cameras and everybody else that
wasn't on the court, They had no idea. But he
said that you used told drive him absolutely crazy, you know,
Tim would that. You know, I don't know if he
stole that from Larry Bird, but the worst trash talking
is when someone tries to block a shot, You're like, oh,
you almost got that one. You're looking at him like, man, well,
(19:48):
it makes you so frustrated because you know you're playing
good defense and all of a sudden, great offense beats
good defense every time. And Tim was that type of
guy that's absolutely gotta be frustrating, especially since it wasn't
like him like it was a high flyer. He would just,
you know, fundamentally just just knock you down and kill
you every time. One of the NBA Finals safely to
(20:10):
the problem for the San Antonio Spurs. So your Spurs
you wound up taking Game one eight four sixty nine
and you know, with Duncan and Manu combined it for
fifty while Tony also had fifteen. You and Glenna Robinson
shout out the Big Dog. You guys did most of
the damage. Your further spurs off the bench. But honestly,
in this one, the starters did most of the heavy
lifting for both teams offensively. Well, you can see by
(20:31):
the score, uh that it was a slug fest. And
I think the first game is always some nerves, um,
a little bit of jitters and you and the bench.
You know, if you look at we had a lot
of life finals uh vets and those guys have been
there before. So that's why we was able to stay
the course and win this game because there was a
(20:52):
lot of guys sitting there that hadn't been in the
finals that were on the team like Nazi and um
you just mentioned Big Dog the name. We don't missing
Barry Off, but it was a great player, you know,
those guys that have the finals experience. So at the
end of the day, I think that the veteran leadership
took over in this game. It certainly did. Pop said
he was real polite with y'all in those first two
(21:13):
time outs when y'all got off to that sluggist start.
Can you give us your version of it? Polite? Is
that what he called polite? But let's go ahead and
keep it moving the game too, because let's just say
this was a little bit more entertaining of a game.
You know, it's still still a blowout, but entertaining because
man who put on a show in this one Parker
cross card left constitutionally he showed for this time. It was,
(21:39):
you know, san Antonio's turn to start off hot. You know,
it's your Spurs. You kicked off the game with an
eight oh run. Duncan doesn't even attempt a field goal
in the first six minutes of the game. And this
is where I was gonna ask you, you know, like
you know, it really was a testament to him because
it was very clear he was trying to get everybody
else going exactly. Tim knows if mine, who's playing good,
you get out of his way. Of certain great players
(22:01):
in this league when they're rolling, no matter who you are,
and Tim being the great teammate, not the good teammate,
the great teammate knowing how mine's rolling, let me go
out away Tony Parker's rolling, Let me get out of the
the way. And I don't think Tim gets enough praise
for how much he let the other teammates take over
when he's clearly at that time one of the best
(22:22):
players ever played the game and dominating at any moment,
can do what he wants on the court at any time.
But taking a step back and saying, hey, guys, you
have the advantage tonight, you're rolling, go ahead and do
your thing, taking the chestnut checkers approach. I can definitely
appreciate that. Top place it first. So you guys were
up eleven after the first quarter, and they actually pushed
(22:44):
it up the sixth team by the half. And honestly,
you never really look back at this point, and you know,
I realized there, especially you're doing this with you the
last couple of months, there's a lot more finals blowouts
than I ever recognize they are. No matter what they do,
(23:04):
the pis tells us come up empty. That gets a
super performance by the San Antonio Spurs. I mean, like,
for whatever reason, I don't know if I know, put
it out of my mind or with it, you know,
like once we get to the end of the series.
But there have been a lot more individual game final
blowouts and ever would have anticipated. You know, I think
it's always those games like two, three, and four that
(23:26):
people kind of don't pay attention to unless it's a
game the fours got about to build sweet, But those
are the games that are usually blowouts. And maybe a
game six here, but seven is always a game everybody
looks at. It's like, okay, you know, who's gonna win
his final game? And those always the closer games. But
it's always amazing to me that I'm I'm with you,
(23:46):
I'm on board with you on this one about the blowouts.
I'm like, wow, we got blown up. Oh we blew
somebody out. It's it's amazing watching these games and watching
how the chess matches go and how these guys interact
with one another, and how they step up to to
play to try to you know, beat their opponents. So
you guys wound up taking this one seventy six, you know,
as the teams were heading to Detroit. Go to Detroit.
(24:09):
That's a t k oh, the pustiness ca So I
gotta ask you, you guys are up to old and
especially in this fashion, you know, not you know, blowing
the doors off of them. Even though now you're headed
to Detroit. Was there a feeling that you were definitely
in control of this series at this stage or did
he simply look at it us, Hey, look, we just
took care of business at home, and now we gotta
(24:29):
go put it in work. The key thing you just
said is we took care of business at home, which
were supposed to do you have you went at home,
especially when you have home court advantage throughout this players,
you went at home. And our mindset going on the
road with this, we gotta play three in Detroit. Just
get one. We're just gonna get one. We want to
get to We really want to get one, and that's
our whole focused. But I want to go back to
(24:51):
that game too and talk about Bruce Boyne. Bruce Boyne
was known for his defense. But the guy was four
for eight from three, and you know the first game
he in shooting that well. But in this game, Bruce
started lightening up. And I'm gonna mention Bruce because me
and Bruce had a little inside battle going on that
nobody knows about. But Bruce was forth a from three
and he was able to kind of careless that game.
(25:12):
Because Bruce is always known for his defense, But in
this series he made some key three point baskets. Now
the past doctor way by Jenovol, you're saying, took the talking.
I want to play by Mono, they're stealing the gotta
right back to Tim as he saved him going out
of Bolves. Here comes jumping to set the screen for Jenovoy.
He reads the takes to the side, right corner shot.
(25:34):
Give another assistance you Normlay, I just first of all,
pened up. Can you can you speak to that? Can
you shed a little bit more light on the the
internal battles you guys were waging. Well, I'll wait, I
think I want to save that for story time. Oh
thank you. Okay, you know what. That's a team and
I will not step on that. All right. A couple
other quick notes on this one before we move forward. Uh,
(25:56):
you know, outside of Ben Wallace, you know who wound
up going forward for six in the game. You guys
actually held their starters for seventeen forty nine or just
under thirty from the floor. In fact, Antonio mcdiyce was
the leading scorer in this game for the Pistons with
fifteen points off the bench. And again Rob for the
listeners that may not have seen his game. Can you
describe what Antonio's game was like, especially before the knee injuries.
(26:17):
And Tonio mcdyce was a Dominique Wilkins type player. He
was a human highlight film and one of those guys strong,
powerful guys can six nine sixteen, guys could do it
all on the court. And I told mcdyce after this game,
because you know we both into the University of Alabama,
I told myself, I've never invited you over to my
house again for dinner because he had came to my
house but dinner before the game, and he had a
(26:39):
good game, Like, man, you're not coming over ever again. Man. So,
but Dice was one of those guys who was athletic,
could jump out the gym. Powerful guy came out of
Alabama this sophomore year. Incredible guy played in dinner for years,
and once he got that knee injury, people kind of
forgot about him. But he was still able to score
in the post because he had the quickness of a
guard and the leaping ability of of a guy like
(27:01):
Evince Carter. And I'm I'm gonna circle back to your
point you just made here in a second. But as
mentioned you know, another final note, man who was the
start of this game. You know, he scored twenty seven points.
He got dished out seven assists to go along with
three steals. But you were also spectacular off the bench.
And this one, and this is where I'm coming with it,
you had sixteen points, six boards, five assists, four steals
(27:21):
and a block for good measure. So I'm wondering seeing
what mcdice was doing on the other end, did that
motivate you, like, like did you have that mentality of
a hold up, what's going on over there? It was
a little inside battle going with Dice. You know, I said,
I said, we're friends, but once we get on this court,
I hate you and I hope you hate me because
we're trying to get something to establish our legacies in basketball.
(27:44):
That's the NBA Championship rain. So it was a little battle.
And he was one of those guys that could get
into post that he was so quick with this move.
And we worked out in the summertime together, so I
kind of knew some of his moves, but he came
with some new stuff. Scored on me a little bit,
I scored on him sometimes, So it was a great
It was a great in a fun matchup to go
up against the former tighter. Absolutely love the game. Within
the game like that, I noticed you had a little
(28:07):
bit extra, you know, you know for some of the stretches,
a little bit more. Yeah, we were balanting the man,
we were throwing out, trying to throw each other to
the floor and everything and laughing at each other at
the same time. And we told the RELs and say, hey,
if you see us balance, you know, we know each other.
It's it's the finals, and we're just gonna, you know,
try to beat each other up. You know, are there
times for the ref will say like, okay, you guys,
go ahead and handle this. Well. You know, the refs
(28:28):
know if you know each other, Um, you're not gonna
try to hurt each other. You're just gonna be physical
with each other because that's a part of the game. Um.
And if you have a reputation of not doing bad things,
they let you play. And at this time in NBA Finals,
they don't. They don't let that. Well, I say, at
this time the NBA Finals, they let a lot of
things slide, especially when you know each other and you know, nobody,
(28:49):
if you think about it, nobody on this team with
knowing is doing anything malicious, so we didn't have to
worry about any flavorite fouls or anything of that nature.
Fair enough, Okay, that makes sense, all right, So it's
time for another quick break. When we'd come back games
three and four in Detroit, and things are gonna change
in a big way. We're back here on NBA Finals file.
(29:16):
Absolutely scintillating, you know, games one and two. But like
you know, like I mentioned before the break, things are
gonna start changing because in game three, the Pistons are
fighting for their lives and they actually showed some real
signs of life ready to go from the Palace of
Aarbre and the hell's the Christians are looking for this
game to dig out of this whole new hall and
hoping had this hall in this series. You know, In
(29:38):
what may have been an ominous start, Ben Wallace actually
starts the game off by picking off a pass intended
for Nazi Mohammed and taking it the length of the
court for a dunk. Plus the fouls the ship Fils
called you talked about age person start, it was very
(29:59):
clear that they were coming now to play a more
physical brand of basketball from the starting this one to
the point where Coach Pop actually went to the bench
bringing you in with less than ninety seconds into the action.
Was it a matter of Pop simply not liking the
effort from the start? I think Pop is one of
these guys want you to be focused, laser focused, and
you're in the finals on the road, you can't make
silly mistakes. And knowing that I had already been to
(30:20):
the finals before, I had won five championships before I
got there, he knew I had that focus. So he says,
you know what, we can't start off. We gotta do
him something now to keep them at bay and not
let them get this crowd into it. So he inserted
me earlier and as soon as he as soon as
he inserted you, and look at I don't mean this
as a slight and anyway, Sheet immediately started going to work.
You know, he scored two quick buckets. Uh, you know that,
(30:42):
I have to be honest, man, you were right there
in position you were contesting. But to the point that
you made earlier, his his ridiculously high release point. There
was really nothing that you can do against him. You know,
people are gonna look at and look at the seriousness.
Rob you couldn't go ahead with sheet. Tim couldn't either.
It was one of those things nobody could and and
and and it's it's nothing that Tim and I could do.
(31:03):
It's just, you know, it's a testament to how good
Rashid was. Rashid was a hell of a post up player.
He could turn over either shoulder, he could jump hook you,
he could shoot the j But the one thing I
want to point out to about Rashid, though, Rashid to
be a guy who's six and eleven, had the smallest
hands and the smallest feat of a six of leven guy.
(31:23):
I don't know, we need to have a contest between
him and Kevin Willis who had the smallest hands and
feet because those guys are seven footers and their hands
were the size of point guards. Where was it the
Elden Campbell Award? Like I always heard the same about him.
I don't know if it was true or not, but
I already he had small hands for a big man.
Elden had big hands and big feet. Elden just had
(31:44):
to you had to have Ellen and engage at certain times.
So oh, you had to get it right to him. Okay,
I got my bad Elden, No disrespecting him, all right.
So in this one, you know, Rip Hamilton was able
to get it going with a couple of buckets against
Bruce Bowen, you know, in that quarter, and that had
to feel good, you know, having gone twelve or thirty
six and the first two games combined. That is right
(32:07):
there off the black side of Hamlet of that tax, right,
the Pistons, they just simply look more comfortable in a
storative across the board. But your spurs, you of course,
you fought right back and you were able to take
a lead into the second quarter really on the strength
of you know, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, as well as
(32:28):
five quick points off the bench from you know, from
Brent Barry. Can you speak to Brent Berry's contributions to
this team. You know, that's the great thing about about
Pop and Brent Barry. Brent Barry, like we always said,
you have to keep your phone on the hook and
be read at the answer. Because Pop played him sparingly
in his finals. You know, he might get fifteen minutes here,
three minutes there. For Brent being the professional that he
is and one of the greatest teammates I ever played with.
(32:49):
And one of the smartest teammates I've ever played with.
He was able to adjust, go out there and play
and take care of things when Pop acting too. And
testament to Brent. You know, Brent was that player, you know,
slam dunk winner, um, great player, one of the Berries,
you know the history of the Berries, um starting with
the father, great basketball player. But when he came off
the bench, he was smart, he was intellect he went
(33:10):
to the whole he shot threes. Great player. Absolutely, So
the Pistols were able to push ahead by five by
the end of the third and they kind of they
sort of hit you guys in waves in that fourth quarter.
And I'm wondering, did you notice any specific adjustments from
them in the second half or was it really more
of a matter of a desperate home team playing for more,
you know, playing with more certainty than they had in
the previous two games. I think it was that team
(33:32):
understanding that the backs against the wall, understanding the situation
a hand, going out and playing hard because who knew
that Ben Wallace was gonna be as aggressive as he was.
He was seven for ten from the field, and that's
when our game plans. Was it kind of layoff being
because he's not looking to school. We can use it.
Whoever's guarden bands either rest or you know, Double Team
(33:54):
would do something of that next. But Ben was very
aggressive in this game, and we were sitting back scratching
my heads, like who was this guy? He doesn't score,
He rebounds some block shots, but Ben was very effective
in this series, and he was looking to score from
Game three on to the end of this series. To
your point, Bent, it was by far Ben's best game
at this stage, you know, fifteen points, eleven boards, the
(34:15):
five blocks, as you mentioned the shop blocker. You expect that,
you know, but he also had three steals, you know,
Rip Hamilton's. It was also one of his best games.
Excuse me, it was his best game to date in
this series. And you know, you put up twenty four,
four and three. You know, mcdce once again was really
good for them down the stretch and the Pistons they
returned the favor. They could cut your lead, you know,
down to one. With a seventy nine win in Game three.
(34:38):
Pistons they're celebrating and the series will go to one.
As we go to Game four on Thursday night, the
Testings come home and the series breaks out. There's a
sixty three sixty three game with less than a minute
and a half to go on the third quarter, and
you know, we tried to give Tony Parker arrest for
one minute. Uh, and the damn burst. This is the
counter funch that we talked about, you know, the this
(35:00):
is one that we'll learn a lesson from and and uh,
prepare ourselves better come Thursday. So let's go ahead and
kick it the game four, because looky San Antonio, we
have a series again. You know, even though I've watched
every single NBA Finals honestly since the mid eighties, for
whatever reason, I simply put it out of the put
the fact out of my mind that there were so
many blowouts. We had four straight blowouts by the home
(35:22):
team in this series. Yeah, it was ridiculous. This is
the first game someone ever scored a hundred points. And
you would say, what NBA Finals game, And this is
the first time and the only time a team would
score a hundred points. But you know that has that
you know, people will look at like it wasn't bad office. No,
it wasn't bad office. It was just great defense by
(35:43):
two deepest of minded teams. Everybody, and welcome to the
excitement of the NBA Finals. We are shut for Game four.
(36:03):
Much like in Game two in San Antonio, for you guys,
the Pistons came out looking even more comfortable in Game
four at home. You know your both teams. They traded
punches starting off, but Detroit really started to push tempo
off any turnover or long rebound, and you could tell
that they were looking to run for a team that
was struggling so much in the half court. I guess
that's not all that shocking, but did you recognize they
were absolutely trying to dictate tempo in the first half
(36:25):
of this one. I think when you see a team
like that, we won. We just want a game at home.
Let's push the tempo, Let's get our crowd behind us,
because we know how important that that crowd is and
making us go over the top and getting us out
of drilling to do things extraordinary. And that's what they did.
They came out, they pushed the tempo. They were trying
to make tim tire. They're trying to make Tony tire
(36:45):
and make monotype because there was logging heavy minutes and
when you got top dogs that we don't you know,
really have a sub for on the bench like we
had for them, you as a coach and now, and
we know how smart Larry Brown is. He said, we're
gonna push the tempo because we are deeper, and they
had a lot of guys that could throw at us,
even you know at Lindsay Hunter we not have talked
about yet. We got guys like that coming off the
(37:07):
bench that can push the tempo, and we knew what
he was trying to do in Game four is pushed
the tempo and get us exhausted. And it seemed like
it was working because Detroit wound up taking a six
point lead into the second quarter after a Sheet three pointer.
But I specifically mentioned this because it was actually, you know,
discussed on the broadcast. They acknowledged it was the first
three pointer made by a Piston not named Chauncey Billups
(37:28):
in the series at that point. And that's just wild
to hear, given the current state of affairs in the league.
With that shot, in particular, every pession we shot hip, Yeah,
you would think Rip Hamilton was the guy who could
shoot threes. He wasn't that type of guy. He was
(37:49):
a guy that came off screens shot, you know, mid ranges.
It was. It was a sniper. At doing that and
watching this series, I realized, Wow, you know, the Pistons
did the shoot a lot of threes. That's who that
That wasn't who they were. You know, Chauncey sawed threes
rip on occasion. Then you had Rashid to shoot threes.
Taystian Prince saw a couple of threes here and there,
(38:11):
Lindsay Hunter, but other than that, they didn't have three
point shooters on that team. They're just a grinded out
type of team, slow it down and beat you up.
It's almost like a team that just wanting to know,
you know, body blow, bodybuild, body blow, and then when
you go to the body, you try to protect the body. Headshot.
Heymeker knocked out on the break, the fan lays it up,
(38:35):
and and and Chauncey and you know in previous years
and the even following, Chauncey was that guy usually you know,
for that moment. So you guys were cold in the
second quarter to the twone of four for sixteen, and
the Pistons they were able to extend to lead the
fifteen heading into the break. According to the recap, of
this game. And this was interesting to me. You know,
Coach Pop told you guys that that that was the
worst half of basketball league ever seen from an NBA
(38:57):
playoff team at halftime. Did he actually tell you guys
us there? Yes, but you know he said it in
a smiling way like, yo, you know, we can't get
no worse. Forget about it, go out there and play
and good things that happened. But I guess they didn't.
You said it was the worst half of basketball you've
(39:17):
ever seen by an NBA playoff team. How would you
that was? We told you that was reported during the broadcast.
Was that inaccurate? Because if so, let me ask this
and I look and you know, I know you guys
are professionals, but you know, when you're playing a game,
is there ever a point where you fall behind by
a bunch and you say like, hey, you know what,
(39:39):
we can get them next game? Or do you or
do you know what I mean? Like? Or are the
players that that that you can tell that happens? No,
if we always feel like if we can come back,
it demoralizes the team. Um, if you up on a
team by twenty plus points, the next thing you know,
the game is tied, You're like, oh my goodness, what
can we do to knock these guys out? They just
keep coming and coming and coming, you know, And and and
(40:00):
that's why teams never give up. The great teams never
give up. They go out and they keep balance. The
only time when you say, okay, no, let's just wait
till next game is if you're down twenty with five
minutes left to go, because you still feel like you
got a chance at any moment the game. You know,
just go back at acts the New York Knicks and
what Reggie Miller did to them. So after sinning something
like that, everybody knows there's always a chance in the
(40:22):
NBA game. Eight points, nine seconds. What a fantastic moment,
absolutely in playoff history. All Right, So your Spurs, you
put up more of a fight in the third quarter
with Manu and Tony getting it going offensively, but Detroy
was able to hold, you know, honestly hold you guys
at bay and still narrowly won the quarter one. And
you know it was actually sparked by a guy that
you mentioned earlier, Lindsay Hunter. He he went four for
(40:43):
five and he had nine points in the quarter. Yeah,
Lindsay was. I had the pleasure of playing with Lindsay
and then with the Lakers and winning the championship. This
was Lindsay's second stint with the Pistons, So he was
one of those guys that came into the league out
of Jackson State Small. You know, Hbcuth School was a
score When he first got in the league, he was
putting up numbers, and people kind of forgot about him
(41:04):
because they only lasted two or three seasons and then
he went to being a playmaker. And but Lindsay had
that talent to score big buckets at any moment at
the time, so he put up Like I said, he
put up seventeen in that game. Really worked us when
we didn't expect that test half full wide and in
(41:26):
the fourth quarter. You know, it wasn't pretty for San
Antonio at all. But I'm going to mention this because
the one of the things that I noticed, even though
it was a blowout, you got up three shots in
the five minutes that you played in the quarter. And
I specifically mentioned it because we've discussed it in the past,
but particularly with role players, did that slight bit of
rhythm allow you to sort of set your feet so
to speak for me, it did because as a player,
(41:50):
you always want to watch film and look at your
shot and be like, what am I doing wrong? And
if you look at all my shots in the first
couple of games, it was all over the board, and
the first thing you tell a shooter is to go
straight up and down. A lot of my shots I
was rushing, and when you rush, you kind of pulled
back a little bit, so that makes you lean back.
(42:11):
So my shots were either gonna be long or short.
So I had to make that adjustment. And you know
what better way is in the blowout game, just force
some shots stuff to try to see you can get
some type of rhythm. You know, we didn't play a
very good basketball in either one of those games, especially
game before. I felt like it was slipping away and
felt like we were missing opportunities. And you know what,
let's go ahead and wrap up part one here because
(42:31):
when we come back in part two, maybe the greatest
game of Robert Ory's career coming up
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