Colin is joined by Jason Timpf, host of “Hoops Tonight” to break down all the NBA playoff action!
They start with the Knicks overcoming a huge Pacers lead and give kudos to Karl-Anthony Towns for putting on an all-timer of a fourth quarter (3:30). They highlight the Pacers offense being “shook” after the Knicks late run and unable to recover (9:00) They both agree the series SHOULD be 2-1 and discuss the trend of teams winning consistently on the road this postseason (14:00).
They pivot to the Wolves destroying the Thunder in game 3, and debate whether it was a fluke or something for OKC to worry about (24:00). They point to the Thunder’s unique style of play and swarming defense as part of what makes them so tough to beat, but explain why they are a vulnerable team when playing on the road (28:00).
Colin compares the Pacers to the Nuggets championship team and questions whether they can have sustained success, and Jason argues the Thunder could potentially win multiple titles but the window is short (33:30).
Finally, they discuss the insane stat that Caitlin Clark is responsible for over a quarter of the WNBA’s revenue and more than tripled the value of the Indiana Fever and whether Clark is a “billion dollar athlete” (46:00). They weigh in on the Steph Curry comparisons, predict she’ll be the best player in the league in a year or two and explain how the WNBA make the most out of marketing their biggest star (52:00).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Speaker 2 (00:58):
All right, welcome to hoops today here at the Volume
Heavy Sunday. Everybody. Hope all of you guys are having
a great weekend. Well, Colin Coward was very kind to
join us tonight with his time, and this time two
days ago we were looking at a what looked like
the Indiana Pacers on their way to potentially a sweep
to go to the finals. We're talking about trading Karl
Anthony Towns. Everyone's blowing a bunch of smoke about the
(01:20):
Thunder and how they're the all time great team. And
now we're sitting here on Sunday evening and both series
are two to one and very very different Colin. My
initial read was just simply that this is more or
less where the Eastern Conference Finals should be at this
point in that I thought the Knicks looked like the
better team in Game one and they blew it, And
I thought the Pacers looked like the better team tonight
(01:41):
that I thought they let their foot off the gas
in a lot of ways. The Knicks did find some stuff,
and we'll get into that, but Carl Anthony town steals
this game just like Aaron Nesmith stole Game one, and
it kind of feels like we're supposed to be two
to one Indie and here we are two to one Indie.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, I mean, they are really different teams. At one point,
the Pacers had a sixteen to nothing fast break points advantage.
I mean, you can tell Indiana always wants to push
the pace, but tonight it was basically in the half
court Carl Anthony Towns with Jalen Brunson off the floor
for most of it. He had one of these Carl
Anthony Towns games, and I think I've told you this before.
(02:17):
It was a weird thing. I swear to god. I
went to about six NBA games. He played in five
of them. There was this stretch in LA. Every time
I went to a game he was playing, and he's
in all of them. He had a quarterway. He was
the best player on the floor by long shot. And
he does this and you know for a guy his size,
like his first step for a guy his size, like
(02:40):
he is quick and then he gets by you and
he's long and he's angular and he's a handful. He's
a handful for a big and I've just seen him
do stuff like this before. But I thought with Brunson
off the floor, you know sometimes when you're when you're
a really gifted player and you play with a ball
centric great player. This was Brunson in Dallas, you know,
(03:04):
like he would be like it was Luca's show. And
then you put him in New York and this is
one of those were in a weird way. It was
like Karl Anthony Taw. The team was just looking for
him to lead, and we both know that he can
do this. He doesn't sustain it, he gets in foul trouble.
He can be inefficient, he's flaky. But and then I think,
to your point, I think I think they just they
(03:27):
had a series of really the Pacers had a series
of really bad offensive possessions, and you look up and
you're like nine seven, four to two lead. So this
is what happens in the NBA. This isn't college Like,
there's just things happened quickly in the NBA, and you
looked up and you're like, oh, New York has total
control emotionally, they just felt like they were going to
(03:50):
win the game. With about four left, You're like, Indiana
can't get out of its own way here offensively.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, even when it was a two or three point
game with Indy still in the it kind of just
felt like New York was gonna win at that point.
Basketball is such a confidence and rhythm sport that, like,
when the momentum shifts as dramatically as it does, it
can be difficult to reassert control of the situation. Very similarly,
that happened to New York. All of a sudden, their
offense bogs down. In Game one, other offense bogs down.
(04:17):
Suddenly Aaron E. Smith's hitting every single three he takes.
It just kind of changes the psychology of the game.
I thought things really turned around in that late third quarter.
It was so funny because stan Van Gundy goes like,
I'm not sure I like this lineup. It's a bunch
of guys who can't score and they need to score.
And then he goes He's like, who's gonna be the
guy who brings the offense for the Knicks and ended
up being deuced McBride and they went on like a
seven to zero run and it cut it down to
(04:39):
ten going into the fourth quarter, and that's what they
were talking about. They're like, they just need to get
it down to ten. And then as soon as they
got into the fourth quarter in striking distance, Karl Anthony
Towns gets going. It's the three point shooting. It's the
like you mentioned, the first step. And then once he
gets that first step, the bigs all try to catch
up to him, but he's just so good at powering
through with that battering of a left arm as he
(05:01):
goes to the rim and once he got going, this
is the most interesting part you mentioned it, Colin, Indy's
offense got shook. This is the first time in a
long time I've seen Indy's offense get their foundation shaken
the way that the Knicks did. And what it really
came down to is that stretch with Brunson out. You know,
it's been so fascinating, Colin, because it's different than the
(05:23):
Celtics series. In the Celtic series, Cat and Brunson were
asked to defend one on one, very different kind of idea.
The Celtics succumbs to their switching and they just tried
to attack Brunson and Cat one on one and they
did a good job. But in this series, the job
for Brunson and Kat is much more sprinting in rotation,
(05:43):
getting back in transition defense. It's a lot of like
mental focus and energy related stuff, and those guys have
been rough in this series in that department. But in
that fourth quarter stretch with Brunson off the floor for
most of it, it's Duce McBride out there, a substantially
better defensive player. Kat was giving the requisite effort in
rotation and one of the things with this Pacers team,
(06:04):
Siakam and Halliburton can play one on one, but that's
not necessarily what they do at a superstar level, right,
And so if you rotate and you make them take
contested shots, they might just go cold and miss them all.
And that's what happened in this game. They don't have
a Brunson, a guy who's just an indomitable one on
(06:24):
one force who can step in and get great shots,
and so like that, that really is the key if
there's any hope for New York in this series. And
I still feel pretty strongly that Indiana is gonna get
it done. But like, if there's any hope for New
York in this series, it's they gotta fly around and
rotate and they got they gotta match Indiana's speed and
pace and energy as much as they can in this series.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, I mean it's it's one of the reasons Indiana
plays with pace is because Rick Carlisle knows that's when
they're at their best, because Turner can run, Siakam runs
the floor really well. But they got into us, Indiana
got into about it, and it wasn't like two minutes,
it was like six minutes. So they got into a
six minute stretch where McConnell's getting He got one short
look and then he forced one and then you know
(07:07):
again they have like Nie Smith can get hot, but
he's not going to beat people off the ball, and
you're just watching it and you're like, oh, this is mud.
This doesn't work at all. It's and you know it's
I think the Pacers are a better team. I I
think there's certain things the Knicks need to do. I
(07:28):
think what happened to the Pacers tonight can happen to
the next more often where they feel a little stock
if Brunson's not hitting. And if I recall, I think
Halliburton was out for a little bit. He was out
of it when they got out of rhythm. Then he
came back in and he was sort of asked to hey,
kickstart the rhythm, and it's like and he did hit
a three, But it's weird when when he is whereas
(07:51):
Brunson doesn't control the pace, he controls them scoring. Halliburton
can control scoring and the pace. So when you take
him out and then you insert him back and it's like, okay, now, guys,
I'm gonna change the pace of this, and he tried
and he does, but it just didn't. It felt clunky
and it felt like they were playing uphill. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I just.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
This is a hard series to officiate. Just give me
a minute on this. Siakam had a great block on McBride.
They call it, they called the foul in it, and
I'm like, oh, good God, that's ridiculous. The Biggs, I
mean Turner and Cat and uh Siakam, especially Siakam and Cat.
They're aggressive offensive players with a nice touch. There was
(08:38):
so many calls going against the Knicks in the second half,
third quarter. I'm like, oh, this is this is They're
gonna blow a gasket here. And then I thought a
couple went against the Pacers late. I think this is
a hard series to officiate. New York's a good defensive team.
Indiana is an underrated defensive team. And the Bigs move
(08:59):
and they collide and I don't know. As I watched
this game about and I'm not a guy that bangs
on officials, but I was like, man, there were a
lot of calls going against the Necks for a stretch
in this game.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I thought, no, absolutely, That's why I wasn't upset about
the Siaka one, Like Siaka block Deuce McBride clean. That
was a great defensive play, should not have been a foul.
But there were like three or four calls against against
the Knicks in that fourth quarter where I was like, yeah,
to the point you're making, what makes this series so
hard to officiate is on the one hand, you've got Brunson,
who's one of the most gifted foul grifters in the NBA.
(09:32):
And then on the other side, the Pacers just play
so fast and there's so much running that you kind
of have to put your body in the way you
have to. If you don't, they're just gonna cut you
to pieces. And so there's a lot of these like
kind of bang bang contact plays where a dude comes
flying downhill or tries to turn the corner on a
drive and you try to position yourself in front and
take the contact, and they're getting called for fouls in
(09:53):
a lot of those situations, and it is a very
difficult series to officiate. But what causes those fouls, to
your point, is the speed in the pace. And if
there's one thing to credit the Knicks for in this
fourth quarter that, like you said, there was a six
minute stretch there where You're like, why is Aaron Nesmith
trying to play bully ball against joshuar Ojananobi, Like o
(10:14):
Jananoby's you know, four inches taller than you and at
least thirty pounds heavier, Like you're not gonna go through
his chest to get to the rim. And there was
a little bit too much of like siakam Iso, a
little too much of like Tyrese Halliburton dribbling out of
ball screens instead of passing out of ball screens like
he always does. I thought Indiana kind of lost their
(10:34):
identity for a minute in that fourth quarter. By the way,
like that's a credit to Karl Anthony Towns. I'm a
big believer in this colin I'm I think basketball is
more art than science. I think there is a lot
of like psychological dynamics at play in any given moment.
And like when Luca rolls up into your building in
the first quarter in an elimination game and scorees seventeen
(10:55):
points and hits three logo threes, it just SAPs you
of all your energy. Like even I thought Brunson and
kat both kind of were succumbing to that over the
course of this game. Brunson was having a rough night.
Cat was having a rough night. What happened in that
fourth quarter was Kat threw one hell of a punch
and he's dunking on everybody and hitting step back threes,
(11:16):
and you could tell Indiana was just shaken at that.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah. I mean there was a point in the first
half when Indiana and by twenty and they got into
this like six or eight transition run where it was
like three fast rates, bang bang, and I'm like, all
the game's over. The series is over. I mean, I
would have bet my four oh one kid at that moment.
I'm like, Okay, the series is over. It's done. The
(11:41):
body language Brunson didn't seem engaged, and I'm like, okay,
this it's done. So i mean, you got to give
the next credit. I you know, it's just it's I
think to your point, it's probably the series now probably
closer to what it should be. So you go back
to Game one, the Knicks absolutely outplayed him, and and
(12:02):
going even into this game, I was with friends tonight
in the in the first quarter, a little cookout at
their house. We were watching the game, and it was
like it was one of the people there was not
a basketball fan, and I said, oh, this series has
just come down to the last six minutes. I said,
one team's great defensively, one's very good offensively. There's about
(12:22):
six really good players combined. I said, it'll be close.
It'll be a four point game. I thought Indiana would win.
But I also think one of the things that was
good for the NBA tonight is that you're seeing a
lot of road teams win playoff games. They've been a
ton I mean Indiana obviously, my entire life, even as
an NBA fan, I always felt like the home team
(12:43):
got the whistle, and I just like seeing road teams win.
I think it just I think it's just better for
basketball when the road team wins. I mean, I think
it's just funny now that the Knicks can't win it
home and the Basers now are winning everywhere but home,
and I think it's just good. It makes the series captivating.
I'm interested to watch the Pacers come out in Game
(13:07):
four because my take is they're gonna try to push
the pace again because they they walked into that locker
room and they're like, we lost our way at home
in a game that could have clinched the series, Like
they just lost their way credit the next defense, But
that was as bad as Indiana's looked offensively for a
six to eight minute stretch the entire series.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, you know, the most interesting thing looking back at
this is the Celtics series looks so weird in retrospect
now with the Knicks having won that series and then
looking bad for you know, the majority of this series.
Because I'm with you, like I think Indiana is. I
think Indiana is gonna come out in Game four and
throw their best punch, and I think it's gonna be
a very difficult game for the Knicks to win. That
(13:50):
Like the game I pointed to is the Calves Game four.
Calves went into Indiana in Game three and blew them out.
And that's not a that's not that's a sixty four
when Leyden roster that went into Indy and suffered one
of the most humiliating blowouts that we've ever seen in
the NBA when they were trailing eighty to thirty nine
at the end of the first half. So Indiana is
(14:11):
gonna come out and they're going to throw their best punch.
What's fascinating to me is coming into this series. I
mentioned to you on your show that I thought the
Pacers were better on offense and better on defense than
the Knicks, and that was why I thought that they
would win the series. But interestingly enough, this is a
Knicks team that's kind of had mediocre results for the
majority of this season, and they beat the Celtics. And
(14:34):
what's fascinating to me now as I look back on
this all is there's kind of a range of outcomes
for all of these teams, and the Pacers are a
team that pretty consistently hits their ceiling. They're not like
what you saw tonight was very out of the out
of character for them. The Knicks, I've seen them a
half dozen times each in this postseason look like a
putrid defense and look like an awesome defense, like at
(14:57):
multiple different points in this postseason, they've kind of oscillated
back and forth between those two ideas. They just have
a wide range of outcomes. And so we've all known
that the Knicks can have defensive stretches like they had
in that fourth quarter tonight. They did it to Boston
multiple times. They can fly around in rotation and contest
shots and do all of that stuff. They just can't
(15:17):
sustain it. And so Ultimately, as you zoom out from
the series, the Pacers are up to one and they
are more likely to sustain their peak level of play.
Yes moving forward, and it makes some assaye for Bet
to win the series.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
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Speaker 1 (17:02):
Okay Western Conference Game three pretty much unwatchable blowout and
and you know there's a there's a way Minnesota has
to play to beat Okay. See and they played it.
They did a lot of It's what's funny is it's
hard to find anybody that likes watching OKAC play. You know,
they're they're kind of hovering defense where they kind of
(17:25):
they swarm on you. I think you said it's almost
collegiate looking the way they play defense, and then it's
a lot of you know, drawing fouls s J. I
don't think they're a fun watch. I just think they're
really athletic and really deep. Do I am I supposed
to take anything beyond just a desperate, well coached team
(17:48):
in Minnesota ant crazy and it was just a young
team lessen really feeling their oats and just got overwhelmed
and just packed it it. I mean, it is anything
more than that.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I think there was some more in the sense that
I think that Oklahoma City's a better team than Minnesota,
but I also don't think they were the type of
team that should blow them out multiple times in a
row the way they did in Game one. In Game two,
Chris Finch was running what I thought was an extremely
foolish game plan through the first two games. The gist
of it is, if I asked you what Shae Gildes
(18:24):
Alexander's strongest traits are as a basketball player, you'd say
he's probably the best driver of the basketball in the league,
and he's just like the best isolation player in the league.
He was like of all isolation players who attempted at
least three hundred shots. He was number one by a
mile this year. And so what Chris Finch was doing
was picking up Shay at half court and letting him
(18:46):
play one on one, staying glued home to shooters. And
it was just like gift wrapping Shae, the perfect environment
for him to thrive on. And it was hilarious juxtaposed
with a Denver series where we saw the exact opposite
game plan with lesser defense of personnel have a great
deal of success. Now they won by forty because yes,
there was an urgency gap, and they shot a lot
(19:07):
better and there were a lot like Anthony Edwards was
hitting shots over triple teams in the second half, Like yeah,
that was what it caused it to manifest in a
destructive blowout. But right away to start that game, one
of the reasons why they were able to quickly assert
control and hold Oklahoma City. I think they held him
to fifteen points in the first quarter. The reason why
was they immediately dropped back to Denver's game plan. They
(19:30):
had Jaden meet Shay inside the three point line because again,
if you ball pressure a player, it's the easiest time
to drive past them because you're being forward aggressive as
a defender, so of course she's going to go right
around you. He's literally the best. He drove to the
basket more than two hundred times more than the second
best driver in the league this year, Colin. That's like
(19:50):
almost four times a game. He's far and away the
best driver. You can't pick him up that far. He's
gonna go right around you. Jaden sat back and then
they start pack in the paint off of shooters, and
so as a result, it looked like the Denver game,
and all of a sudden, it turned into Oklahoma City's
role players needing to knock down threes in Shae having
(20:11):
to make tougher decisions in the lane about whether or
not he wanted to shoot over some double and triple
teams where he can have some shortcomings. Because if I
asked you what Shae's biggest weaknesses are, it's probably his
three point shooting, yeah, and his ability to process in
traffic in the lane. Now, he's still pretty good at
those things, but they're not his strengths. And in that
(20:32):
end of the first half, he was one for four
from three, he had four turnovers. He finished the game
I think four for fifteen from the field. Colin. Only
eight times all season did Shae shoot below forty percent
from the field. He is one of the most consistently
efficient scorers in basketball. They held him to thirty one
percent in that game. So there definitely was a better
game plan and so as a result, I think Game
(20:53):
four will be a closer, more tightly contested game because
they're running the right game plan for this time well.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
And I think one of the vulnerabilities of OKAC is
young teams role players are generally not as good on
the road in the playoffs, and that's exactly what you saw.
Like we've talked about this before. Role players at home
are just different players they play. They need that confidence,
they need the swagger of the crowd. Steph Curry doesn't
and doesn't. And I think when you force Oklahoma City
(21:20):
and you just say okay, okay, young guys, hit your
shots on the road, loud crowd, it's hard, there's a history,
it's like, really really hard. And I also think, and
I also think when you're playing a team like Okay
See so much, I wonder about sometimes Okay See is
(21:40):
so good defensively and so swarming and so frenetic. I
do wonder if Minnesota players tend to spend so much
of their on court time thinking about that. So much
of playing OKAC is deciphering their defense and figuring out
I mean, you have to really be you have to
(22:01):
already be intentional when you play them defensively, because they
can trap you, they can make you look bad fast.
And so I think sometimes when you play okay See,
they don't play like a lot of other teams. Nobody
quite plays like them, and I think they can get
into your headspace and it's why. And then you go
on the road and they and now they lead by
(22:22):
six and SGA is getting the whistle. I do feel something,
and I don't know what the numbers say, but I
do feel like OKAC is like Indiana. I get the
same team, the same team. I got enough veteran I
feel with Oklahoma City they're a vulnerable road team. I've
got a shot. You know, Denver. They didn't look quite
the same at Denver. Now maybe it's altitude. Now, maybe
(22:44):
I'm wrong on this, and the splits don't say that,
but I do feel like a Oka See is a
vulnerable team on the road that you can win your
home games against them.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
They're three and three Collins and their defense. Their offense
falls all the way down to a one oh four offensive, right,
that's brutally bad, and their defense slides all the way
up to one twelve, which is pretty bad for them.
So yeah, I mean, you're not what you're onto is
what's really been happening with them?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Okay, okay, yep, they're a different offense on the road.
They don't feel like the same team. And that doesn't
surprise us because they're young and they and they play
with huge energy at home. But when I watch them
on the road at Denver a couple of times, I'm like,
it just doesn't feel the same. It's a different I
honestly feel of all the teams left, I get the
(23:29):
exact same team with minutes with Indiana, except for six
minutes tonight. I feel like I get this exact same
Pacer squad home and away. They want to run if
they can't, you know, I just, okay, see, of all
the four teams left, I feel like I get a
different OKAC team home and away.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
To your point about adjusting to Okac's defense too, Like
I thought, Aunt and Julius did a poor job in
the first two games of attacking their defense, like I
call in like because Oklahoma City's defense, I don't know
if you like just stare at any possession. Shay's ignoring
whoever he's guarding, just sitting in the basket. They've got three, four,
sometimes five guys in the paint on like every single drive.
(24:08):
They're daring Minnesota to take and make corner threes in
this series and in the like when after Game one
when Ant was like, I vowed to be more aggressive,
I'm like, that's not the answer. They're like, you're gonna
just drive into the teeth of the defense and you're
gonna take bad shots. And by the way, in the
first half of Game two, he took eighteen shots and
had sixteen points to show for it. What was kind
(24:31):
of fascinating about the flow of this series is to
your point, you start to get more comfortable as you adjust.
Aunt and Julius were awesome in Game three, especially early
at making those corner kicks, and they were finally knocking
down those corner threes. They have had three games worth
of experience against Oklahoma City's base defensive scheme, and they're
starting to figure it out a little bit. Oklahoma City
(24:54):
saw that bad game plan for two games and then
Finch throws the appropriate game plan in game three, and
they looked like completely shell shocked by it. I mean, Colin,
I don't know if you saw it. In Game one,
Oklahoma City only took like twenty threes and the reason
why is because they were staying glued off the ball
and letting Shay play one on one. It's it's such
(25:15):
a fundamentally different defensive game plan that Minnesota is rocking
from this point forward now. To be clear, in Game four,
by the way, via DraftKings. All of our odds are
from DraftKings. Oklahoma City is a three point favorite in
Game four, and that feels right to me. I think
it's gonna be a close game. They're gonna bring an
intense defensive effort right away out the gates. That's gonna
test Aunt and Julius's decision making again. And then you're
(25:37):
gonna see Oklahoma City, because they have seen this defense
before with Denver. You're gonna see them kind of come
into the game prepared for that game plan. That said,
and this is the one thing I'd say, like, I
think Minnesota has a much better chance of beating Oklahoma
City from this point forward than the Knicks do with
the Pacers, because what Minnesota can bring to the table
(25:57):
is Denver caut problems for OKC was some weak defensive personnel.
Minnesota's got a bunch of really good defenders out there,
and so if they properly execute this game plan, they
could potentially do some real damage. And as long as
they ride that momentum going forward in the series. There's
also a little bit of like a Aunt straight up
(26:18):
can be unguardable sometimes with some of the shots that
he can make, and like he was just better than
Shay in Game three, and if he can maintain that,
that would be the other thing that could swing things
back towards Minnesota.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
You know, it's funny segue back to the Knicks Pacers.
And I was watching the Pacers when they took that
twenty point first half lead, and they were just transition
basketball at its best. Just I mean, they score fast,
and I was thinking, don't fall for it, Colin, don't
fall for it, because a couple of years ago Denver
(26:48):
won the title and I'm like, oh, they're gonna reel
off like three, and then Bruce Brown left and then
casep and they didn't. I mean, they didn't have a
great bench to begin with, and now it's a bad
bench and they become you know, Murray gets hurt. And
I've never been a huge Michael Porter fan. I've always been.
I always think Aaron Gordon's underrated Porter to me, just
I think he's the nod fit and a bit overpaid.
(27:12):
And then all of a sudden you look up and
Denver just looks good. And I watched Indiana, I said,
and I thought to myself, God, I love watching them play.
But as I watch all of these teams, even Oklahoma City,
and we've just stated it there, they're the one team
that you get a different version on the road. They're
not nearly as good as they are at home. Is
(27:34):
that I feel like whoever wins this year will not
win the following year. And I first of all, there's
gonna be ay honest move. KD could go to the Knicks.
They could get another basket. You know, if they moved
off Karl Anthony Towns at his flakiness and just said
we're gonna go get Durant. We'll let Carl go, We'll
keep Robinson, he is what he is, but we'll have
(27:56):
Durant at the in the game late, so we can
we can live with them. I feel like the Pacers
feel a little bit like the Nuggets. I'm falling in love,
like I fell in love with Jokic and Gordon. I'm like, God,
I love this team, but it wasn't as sustainable. It
was very Jokicic dominant. And Murray, you know, he's just
(28:16):
one of those players that I like a lot, I
don't love, and I kind of feel like with Indiana,
I'm falling for it because and I'm doing this because
it's like confirmation bias. I love watching them play, and
so I'm talking myself into Indiana's great. But then I
watched them and I think to myself, no, they're not great.
What they have as a remarkable player in Halliburton, and
(28:40):
what Denver had is a remarkable player in Jokic, And
what Minnesota has as a remarkable player in Ant and
Brunson's one of the great small closers in the game
is I think this is what the NBA is going
to be, is that everybody's going to have a great
player and a very good too. But the days of
having three guys that you can depend on I just think, Jason,
(29:01):
I think it's over. I just don't think that multiple aprons.
I don't think they allow it. And so those teams
are just going to eventually get beat. They'll come in
as a favorite, they'll have it, they'll have an injury,
they'll lose a bench guy, and it's just funny watching
Indiana tonight. I'm like, oh boy, this team, this team,
I thought, wait, put the brakes on Jesus. They can't
(29:22):
even get to the next tonight. What if I took
these four teams, all things considered, and I said, one
of them will win multiple titles? Are you set on Okac?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, okay, He's the only team that could theoretically keep
this kind of talent accumulated for long enough. Like Indiana
is already going to face some tough questions coming up, Like, Okay,
Miles Turner is kind of very important to the way
we play offense. Are we going to pay because Miles,
guess what call it? Starting center money in the NBA
now is like thirty million a year. Like that's like
the baseline, Like we're starting the discussion at thirty million
(29:55):
a year. That's what Isaia Hartenstein got. And if I'm
Miles Hard, Miles Turner's agent. I'm going to him like
thirty is the basement, Like, so are you gonna how
are you gonna continue to build around Nie Smith, who,
by the by the way, Nie Smith is a dude
who just stole you a playoff game, who's averaging fifteen
points a game in this playoff run is your primary
point of attack, defender and shooting forty five percent from three.
(30:16):
That's a twenty five million dollar player, Like Halliburton's a
super Max player. Nemhard, you could argue as a twenty
million dollar player. Siakam is a forty million dollar player.
Like It just gets really difficult to maintain the payrolls
in these In these situations, the thing with Oklahoma City
is they're going to run into that problem in a
couple of years. They can theoretically win this year, run
(30:37):
it back, win again, run it back, but it will
be a shorter window relative to previous entities like this
because of the fact that eventually they're gonna have to
pay j Dubb Cason. Wallace is looking a lot like
a twenty five million dollar player to me, right, like
Jed Holmgren's a forty million dollar player. Ja Dub's gonna
be a forty million dollar play. Like, they're all just
(30:58):
so good that inevitably going to have to pay all
these dudes, and it's just going to become impossible to
maintain the roster. Now there's a second conversation to have
as it pertains to whether or not the league should
pivot from this structure because it penalizes smartly run NBA teams.
But yeah, on the other three teams Indiana, New York, Minnesota,
(31:18):
there's no chance to like sustain success because of just
how expensive it is to have. Like you talk about
a playoff rotation, you want six guys you can definitely
trust and probably a seventh that you can kind of trust.
And it's like a playoff guy you can trust is
a bare minimum twenty million in the open market. So like,
(31:39):
it's just very difficult to find the means with which
to maintain this. And Oklahoma City will have draft picks.
They can supplement it with draft picks, but a draft
pick isn't going to be able to impact winning at
a playoff level right away, And you can try trading them,
but it's just going to bring back expensive contracts. It's
just kind of the reality of the situation. I will
say with the Knicks, Colin I, I think there's a
(32:00):
lot of interesting Kevin Durant potential destinations. I think the
Knicks are one. I also kind of think the Pacers
are one. One of the reasons why I like the
Pacers is like, I don't think the Pacers have much
of a chance at all to beat Oklahoma City. I
think it's a horrible matchup for them. Oklahoma City has
six lightning fast guards that can chase all their guards around,
(32:20):
and they could switch everything, and they also have im protection,
and they have all the offensive talent to be able
to score on them. I worry about the Pacers' ability
to get a bucket against a team that can keep
them in front. And they're a team like if I
just had a better version of Siakam, I all of
a sudden view them as a more substantial title threat,
and so like, they're a team that I could see like, Okay,
(32:43):
we're a little older, Miles Turner's kind of older. We
need to make some sort of win now move to
capitalize on this before it gets too expensive. I could
see KD being that guy for them as well. There's
a bunch of teams where KD could immediately raise their ceiling.
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And now for our next segment, whiskey business. Yes, whiskey business,
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of the Colin Coward Podcast. Okay, I want to bring
this up. We can close on this because I saw
(34:02):
this today. It's fascinating. So a university professor in finance
looked up the value of Caitlin Clark for the WNBA.
This is insane. So this year, last season in the WNBA,
(34:24):
Caitlin Clark was twenty six and a half percent of
all economic activity as a rookie on the worst team
in the league when she entered it. So now she
has an eight year, one hundred and twenty eight million
dollar deal with Nike, so you know she's she's gonna
eat merchandise in the league. Went up off a rookie
(34:50):
from a Midwest based school on the worst team in
the league two hundred and thirty four percent. But here
was the one that struck me so before she got there,
the Indiana Fever, the valuation of the franchise was ninety million.
Remember they play a short season, it's not like the
NBA where it lasts like six months after playing what
(35:12):
forty games. The valuation of that team now is three
hundred and forty million dollars. She is almost.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
That's what NBA teams were selling for ten years ago.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
She has quaged loop holes ago the valuation, and I
was talking. I was with a group of friends tonight
at dinner, and people that didn't know the WNBA were
like asking, well, well, why, well what does she do?
And we said, well, she makes passes and take shots
that nobody else in the sport does. So she's a
bit of a It's like when Tiger Woods came on
(35:47):
the tour, Like he drove it further, He's long, putting
was better, he looked like a football player in the
red shirts, Like he just was different than every other
golfer you grew up with, and people like unique and different.
Here my question to you is there's still no other
Like somebody said at the party, well there'd be another
(36:07):
Caitlin Clark, and I'm like, well, there's not another Steph Curry.
Like there's guys that can shoot threes. I don't think
it's a game you duplicate. And I listen, let's just
be honest. There are more great male athletes in the
world than female athletes. There is no second Steph Curry
there is no other player that plays like that. My
take is she could be a billion dollar athlete. Are
(36:32):
you are you surprised by it? Like when I see
these numbers, I'm like, oh, this is Tiger in the tour.
This doesn't this isn't even Jordan, this is totally different.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Well, I think when you look at basketball, there are
two real kind of like ultimate show type of athletes
that you see, meaning like must see television. And it's
the supreme vertical athlete, which think like young Lebron or
kind of like Anthony Edwards now Dominique. Yeah, like the
(37:06):
guy that does stuff in the air that is unlike
anything you see anywhere else j And then the second
piece of it is just unbelievable shot making. Those are
the two things. Those are the two things that like
really bring eyes to television. To take it a step further,
there are two types of basketball players that I think
(37:27):
are far and away the most winning impact in the
current game of basketball. It's the big, strong playmaker think Lebron,
Luka Jokic, And it's the indomitable shooter, which there's really
only been Steph. I think those two types of players
are the players that give you the best chances to
(37:49):
win basketball games in the modern in the modern world. Now,
what makes it fascinating to me, because that's what Caitlyn
Clark is. She's a different type of player, and she
can do a lot of different types of things, but
she's a essentially bringing a Steph Curry like basketball impact
to the WNBA. It's really this simple. If you can
shoot the way that she shoots, so the way step shoots,
(38:09):
and you can perpetually be in motion running around, inevitably
there is an overreaction to your shooting ability. And we
see this all the time with Kaitlyn, just like you're
gonna see you're gonna see Aliah Boston get NonStop easy
buckets in the mid range or rolling to the basket,
because every time she sets a screen for Caitlin, her
(38:31):
defender is stepping up to guard Kaitlin because as she
comes off of that screen, if you're not there, she's
gonna shoot it and she's gonna make it. And so
there's a reaction that invert spacing in brings a four
on three because you bring multiple defenders away from the rim,
there's a four on three with a vacated paint and
(38:52):
because of that, there's a lot of easy opportunities to
score there. Like that's the thing with Steph Curry, Like,
Steph Curry is not the same shot maker that he
was for you years ago in twenty twenty one, but
just the simple threat of him running around gives the
Warriors a chance to score. And that's the thing. Like
Caitlyn hasn't even really started hitting shots yet this year
or the way that she's capable of, but everyone knows
(39:12):
she can and they guard her in that fashion. And
so to me, it's kind of like a proof of
concept in that if you can shoot and you can
run around the way that Steph does, and you can
strike fear into a defense in that way, the trickle
down effects with the way that defenses guard you just
make everything so much easier for her. And like you
could argue she's already the best offensive engine in the
(39:34):
WNBA and she's literally a second year player and like,
and she still has so much room to improve, Like
she still struggles with ball pressure, she still turns the
she turned the ball over too much against the Liberty
the other night. She still has a little bit of
an issue where she kind of cross fires across her face,
which makes it so she can only shoot going left.
She needs to build it out so that she can
shoot running to her right as well. But like, judging
(39:56):
by her psycho competitive attitude, she's probably gonna figure that
that stuff out in the next year or two and
then she'll be the best player in the league. And
so like, to me, it's just she fits the mold
of one of the most impactful types of basketball players
you can be today, which is the deadly movement shooter.
If you're a deadly movement shooter, it just opens up
so many things for an offense. And and honestly, I
(40:18):
just think I think she's musty television Colin. I've watched
all four of her games, and and I'm in my
busy season, Like you think i'd be taking a break.
My wife said to me the other day, She's like,
you're watching more basketball. I'm like, it's Katelyn Clark. We're
watching more basketball. Come over here, let's watch this.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Like she's incredible, and she's not getting she doesn't know
what's get the consistent great star whistle she I mean,
there's I think they're still kind of figuring out how
to officiate her right, Like like when you're when you know,
I've said this for years when I covered Shack and
Shack got fouled more than anybody I've ever seen. I mean,
(40:52):
it was insane. You just people bounced off Shack. Yolks
feel Yokic complains constantly like people are bouncing off me.
She doesn't quite get as favorable a whistle as you think,
so I think.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Neither does Staph too, That's the funny part.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Well, and I think I will give the WNBA credit.
They they just didn't understand the tsunami ever popularity, like
they didn't get the schedule, and you don't know what
you don't know. They've done a much better job to
I mean, all her games are on television. Every time
I turn on a WA every time I see a
promote promotion for the WNBA, it's Caitlin Clark. So they're there.
(41:31):
But I do think there's a process on. You know,
you're an official. You don't want to give her too
favorable a whistle because the players in the league will
resent her to some degree. She's getting all this attention
and I don't. And I will say this, I've defended
the w NBA with this baseball and the WNBA feel
ignored the NFL and the NBA. In college football they
(41:53):
get a lot of press, and baseball always feels like, hey,
we're America's pastime. So they're very insular, sometimes very provincial.
And the WNBA, similarly, you don't pay attention to us.
So there's part of it, like I get like they
sort of resent this one player. Nobody talks WNBA. They do,
and it's all her, you know. I remember when Tiger
(42:14):
was eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old, coming on of the tour.
There were a lot of people in golf that were like,
could you guys show, could you talk in your sportscast
about anybody other than Tiger Woods? So she's not. Bryce
Harper came into baseball. He fought with an own teammate
in the dugout because it was like, oh, everybody wants
to talk to So I do defend the WNBA. Is
that I get if nobody paid attention to you for
(42:37):
twenty six years and now they do, and they feign
interest in the rest of the league. What we all
care about is Caitlin. So the animosity built up by players,
I give it a little bit of a pass, you know.
I think people are spending too much time on race.
You know, it is what it is. There's a million platforms,
(42:57):
a million opinions, but I I don't know. My take
is they're still in the adjustment period with Caitlin. How
to market, how to promote, how to officiate, how to defend,
and it's just fluid. That's what it feels like to me.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
I think that like when I see the complaining, like
I saw some players complain and some members of the
media complain that she was on TV so much, and
let's just take us out, take fairness and just put
it to the side for a minute, like even with
Nike and giving Kaitlin a shoot like set that aside
for a minute and just focus on her being on television. Okay,
(43:33):
her being on television brought my eyes to it. I
didn't watch the WNBA. I have grown to really enjoy
watching WNBA basketball even when she's not on and they're
like Thenfista Collier became one of my favorite basketball players
watching her in the finals run last year. And what
brought me to the television was Caitlin. So like, let's
(43:54):
say that the league came out there like every Caitlyn
Clark games on national television, like, that's just what we're
going to do. Deal with it. That would be genius,
because the best way you can market the other WNBA
players is to have them play against Kaitlin Clark because
we'll all be watching. Okay, well, no one's covering the
rest of the league. Okay, but if you put Caitlin
on television and you get more people to watch, it
(44:15):
will create more WNBA fans. And we live in the
most colin I started making NBA content out of my
guest bedroom. Okay, you create a bunch of WNBA fans,
Passionate members of the media will originate from that mass
and will cover the league better, and overall, the league
will gain in popularity and gain and impact, and it
will become a momentous thing that carries forward and actually
(44:39):
does shine a big flashlight on the rest of the WNBA.
Caitlin Clark is the vehicle with which to microwave that,
to accelerate it, and to move it into a fast
track towards what could be a bright future for the WNBA.
It's great basketball, It's genuinely great basketball. She's the best
vehicle with which tow to elevate the sport. I think
(45:02):
anything they can do to put her on TV and
promote her is the best thing they could do for
the sport.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, it's Connor McGregor UFC. You know, you knew it existed,
you'd seen fights, You started buying pay per view cards
and sitting through two and a half hours to get
to his fight, and then all of a sudden, you
found yourself a year later hooked on two other fighters
because Dana White would put the second most popular fighter
in the undercards. So all of a sudden, it's John
Jones into Connor McGregor and then they So it's just
(45:29):
basic marketing. And I've said before I do think the
WNBA women's basketball and I said this years ago in
FS one, probably five years ago. The sport was getting better.
The women were you know, several generations of women were
encouraged to play basketball and to be athletes, and nutritionists
came into the sport and better trainers. There was money
(45:50):
in the league, so they had better training and the
players were getting better. But it takes this, Listen, it
took Magic and Bird in the NBA to take a
league that there were some financial problems. So it's not
like a gender issue. It's a I mean, I I
think Connor McGregor's erosion as a fighter has hurt UFC.
(46:12):
It doesn't feel as urgent. And that's and that's already
established and so and we all know that Michael Jordan
left once Magic Bird and Michael had driven the league up,
Michael left, the ratings dropped fifty percent. So this stuff
outside of the NFL, it's all cyclical, it's all market based,
it's all star based, and it's just a WNBA. You know,
(46:36):
was waiting for its first Tiger, and golf's probably had
four in my life, you know, Jack Nicholson, Arnold Palmer, Tiger.
I think Rory's got a little bit of it, Phil Micholson.
So the history of golf, you know, if you modern
history has got like five guys that have done it.
So there's no reason to be defensive about it. It
(46:56):
just it's all these leagues. They all eventually, I mean,
look at boxing, Ollie took it from whatever it was
to the next level. Then there were Sugar, Ray, Leonard
and Hagler. But when Larry Holmes arrived, nobody wanted to
watch Larry Holmes. That took an old George Foreman and
telling a grill that you bake chicken on or cook
(47:17):
chicken on to I mean literally to get the casual
back into boxing. Was George Foreman's second tour. So this
is the way sports works outside of football.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
The cyclical thing is so fascinating because that's literally what
the NBA is about to go through. Lebron and Steph
won eight titles in eleven years and now there's not
really a big name yet. Now you could argue that
the parody might prevent the rise of a star, and
that's a separate conversation for another day, but it is
really fascinating. We're in one of those cycles right now
with the NBA. The old guard's going out and there's
a new guard coming up.
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Speaker 2 (48:07):
But Colin, I sincerely appreciate you giving us your time tonight.
This has been a super fun playoff runt. I'm sure
we'll be talking in about a week or so. Again, everyone,
thank you guys so much for supporting the show. No
playback tonight, just a heads up. We'll be back with
that tomorrow night, and then I will be live on
YouTube after the final buzzer of Game four of what
should be an incredible Western Conference Finals game tomorrow night.
I will see you guys.
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Speaker 2 (00:58):
All right, welcome to hoops today here at the Volume
Heavy Sunday. Everybody. Hope all of you guys are having
a great weekend. Well, Colin Coward was very kind to
join us tonight with his time, and this time two
days ago we were looking at a what looked like
the Indiana Pacers on their way to potentially a sweep
to go to the finals. We're talking about trading Karl
Anthony Towns. Everyone's blowing a bunch of smoke about the
(01:20):
Thunder and how they're the all time great team. And
now we're sitting here on Sunday evening and both series
are two to one and very very different Colin. My
initial read was just simply that this is more or
less where the Eastern Conference Finals should be at this
point in that I thought the Knicks looked like the
better team in Game one and they blew it, And
I thought the Pacers looked like the better team tonight
(01:41):
that I thought they let their foot off the gas
in a lot of ways. The Knicks did find some stuff,
and we'll get into that, but Carl Anthony town steals
this game just like Aaron Nesmith stole Game one, and
it kind of feels like we're supposed to be two
to one Indie and here we are two to one Indie.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, I mean, they are really different teams. At one point,
the Pacers had a sixteen to nothing fast break points advantage.
I mean, you can tell Indiana always wants to push
the pace, but tonight it was basically in the half
court Carl Anthony Towns with Jalen Brunson off the floor
for most of it. He had one of these Carl
Anthony Towns games, and I think I've told you this before.
(02:17):
It was a weird thing. I swear to god. I
went to about six NBA games. He played in five
of them. There was this stretch in LA. Every time
I went to a game he was playing, and he's
in all of them. He had a quarterway. He was
the best player on the floor by long shot. And
he does this and you know for a guy his size,
like his first step for a guy his size, like
(02:40):
he is quick and then he gets by you and
he's long and he's angular and he's a handful. He's
a handful for a big and I've just seen him
do stuff like this before. But I thought with Brunson
off the floor, you know sometimes when you're when you're
a really gifted player and you play with a ball
centric great player. This was Brunson in Dallas, you know,
(03:04):
like he would be like it was Luca's show. And
then you put him in New York and this is
one of those were in a weird way. It was
like Karl Anthony Taw. The team was just looking for
him to lead, and we both know that he can
do this. He doesn't sustain it, he gets in foul trouble.
He can be inefficient, he's flaky. But and then I think,
to your point, I think I think they just they
(03:27):
had a series of really the Pacers had a series
of really bad offensive possessions, and you look up and
you're like nine seven, four to two lead. So this
is what happens in the NBA. This isn't college Like,
there's just things happened quickly in the NBA, and you
looked up and you're like, oh, New York has total
control emotionally, they just felt like they were going to
(03:50):
win the game. With about four left, You're like, Indiana
can't get out of its own way here offensively.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, even when it was a two or three point
game with Indy still in the it kind of just
felt like New York was gonna win at that point.
Basketball is such a confidence and rhythm sport that, like,
when the momentum shifts as dramatically as it does, it
can be difficult to reassert control of the situation. Very similarly,
that happened to New York. All of a sudden, their
offense bogs down. In Game one, other offense bogs down.
(04:17):
Suddenly Aaron E. Smith's hitting every single three he takes.
It just kind of changes the psychology of the game.
I thought things really turned around in that late third quarter.
It was so funny because stan Van Gundy goes like,
I'm not sure I like this lineup. It's a bunch
of guys who can't score and they need to score.
And then he goes He's like, who's gonna be the
guy who brings the offense for the Knicks and ended
up being deuced McBride and they went on like a
seven to zero run and it cut it down to
(04:39):
ten going into the fourth quarter, and that's what they
were talking about. They're like, they just need to get
it down to ten. And then as soon as they
got into the fourth quarter in striking distance, Karl Anthony
Towns gets going. It's the three point shooting. It's the
like you mentioned, the first step. And then once he
gets that first step, the bigs all try to catch
up to him, but he's just so good at powering
through with that battering of a left arm as he
(05:01):
goes to the rim and once he got going, this
is the most interesting part you mentioned it, Colin, Indy's
offense got shook. This is the first time in a
long time I've seen Indy's offense get their foundation shaken
the way that the Knicks did. And what it really
came down to is that stretch with Brunson out. You know,
it's been so fascinating, Colin, because it's different than the
(05:23):
Celtics series. In the Celtic series, Cat and Brunson were
asked to defend one on one, very different kind of idea.
The Celtics succumbs to their switching and they just tried
to attack Brunson and Cat one on one and they
did a good job. But in this series, the job
for Brunson and Kat is much more sprinting in rotation,
(05:43):
getting back in transition defense. It's a lot of like
mental focus and energy related stuff, and those guys have
been rough in this series in that department. But in
that fourth quarter stretch with Brunson off the floor for
most of it, it's Duce McBride out there, a substantially
better defensive player. Kat was giving the requisite effort in
rotation and one of the things with this Pacers team,
(06:04):
Siakam and Halliburton can play one on one, but that's
not necessarily what they do at a superstar level, right,
And so if you rotate and you make them take
contested shots, they might just go cold and miss them all.
And that's what happened in this game. They don't have
a Brunson, a guy who's just an indomitable one on
(06:24):
one force who can step in and get great shots,
and so like that, that really is the key if
there's any hope for New York in this series. And
I still feel pretty strongly that Indiana is gonna get
it done. But like, if there's any hope for New
York in this series, it's they gotta fly around and
rotate and they got they gotta match Indiana's speed and
pace and energy as much as they can in this series.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, I mean it's it's one of the reasons Indiana
plays with pace is because Rick Carlisle knows that's when
they're at their best, because Turner can run, Siakam runs
the floor really well. But they got into us, Indiana
got into about it, and it wasn't like two minutes,
it was like six minutes. So they got into a
six minute stretch where McConnell's getting He got one short
look and then he forced one and then you know
(07:07):
again they have like Nie Smith can get hot, but
he's not going to beat people off the ball, and
you're just watching it and you're like, oh, this is mud.
This doesn't work at all. It's and you know it's
I think the Pacers are a better team. I I
think there's certain things the Knicks need to do. I
(07:28):
think what happened to the Pacers tonight can happen to
the next more often where they feel a little stock
if Brunson's not hitting. And if I recall, I think
Halliburton was out for a little bit. He was out
of it when they got out of rhythm. Then he
came back in and he was sort of asked to hey,
kickstart the rhythm, and it's like and he did hit
a three, But it's weird when when he is whereas
(07:51):
Brunson doesn't control the pace, he controls them scoring. Halliburton
can control scoring and the pace. So when you take
him out and then you insert him back and it's like, okay, now, guys,
I'm gonna change the pace of this, and he tried
and he does, but it just didn't. It felt clunky
and it felt like they were playing uphill. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I just.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
This is a hard series to officiate. Just give me
a minute on this. Siakam had a great block on McBride.
They call it, they called the foul in it, and
I'm like, oh, good God, that's ridiculous. The Biggs, I
mean Turner and Cat and uh Siakam, especially Siakam and Cat.
They're aggressive offensive players with a nice touch. There was
(08:38):
so many calls going against the Knicks in the second half,
third quarter. I'm like, oh, this is this is They're
gonna blow a gasket here. And then I thought a
couple went against the Pacers late. I think this is
a hard series to officiate. New York's a good defensive team.
Indiana is an underrated defensive team. And the Bigs move
(08:59):
and they collide and I don't know. As I watched
this game about and I'm not a guy that bangs
on officials, but I was like, man, there were a
lot of calls going against the Necks for a stretch
in this game.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I thought, no, absolutely, That's why I wasn't upset about
the Siaka one, Like Siaka block Deuce McBride clean. That
was a great defensive play, should not have been a foul.
But there were like three or four calls against against
the Knicks in that fourth quarter where I was like, yeah,
to the point you're making, what makes this series so
hard to officiate is on the one hand, you've got Brunson,
who's one of the most gifted foul grifters in the NBA.
(09:32):
And then on the other side, the Pacers just play
so fast and there's so much running that you kind
of have to put your body in the way you
have to. If you don't, they're just gonna cut you
to pieces. And so there's a lot of these like
kind of bang bang contact plays where a dude comes
flying downhill or tries to turn the corner on a
drive and you try to position yourself in front and
take the contact, and they're getting called for fouls in
(09:53):
a lot of those situations, and it is a very
difficult series to officiate. But what causes those fouls, to
your point, is the speed in the pace. And if
there's one thing to credit the Knicks for in this
fourth quarter that, like you said, there was a six
minute stretch there where You're like, why is Aaron Nesmith
trying to play bully ball against joshuar Ojananobi, Like o
(10:14):
Jananoby's you know, four inches taller than you and at
least thirty pounds heavier, Like you're not gonna go through
his chest to get to the rim. And there was
a little bit too much of like siakam Iso, a
little too much of like Tyrese Halliburton dribbling out of
ball screens instead of passing out of ball screens like
he always does. I thought Indiana kind of lost their
(10:34):
identity for a minute in that fourth quarter. By the way,
like that's a credit to Karl Anthony Towns. I'm a
big believer in this colin I'm I think basketball is
more art than science. I think there is a lot
of like psychological dynamics at play in any given moment.
And like when Luca rolls up into your building in
the first quarter in an elimination game and scorees seventeen
(10:55):
points and hits three logo threes, it just SAPs you
of all your energy. Like even I thought Brunson and
kat both kind of were succumbing to that over the
course of this game. Brunson was having a rough night.
Cat was having a rough night. What happened in that
fourth quarter was Kat threw one hell of a punch
and he's dunking on everybody and hitting step back threes,
(11:16):
and you could tell Indiana was just shaken at that.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah. I mean there was a point in the first
half when Indiana and by twenty and they got into
this like six or eight transition run where it was
like three fast rates, bang bang, and I'm like, all
the game's over. The series is over. I mean, I
would have bet my four oh one kid at that moment.
I'm like, Okay, the series is over. It's done. The
(11:41):
body language Brunson didn't seem engaged, and I'm like, okay,
this it's done. So i mean, you got to give
the next credit. I you know, it's just it's I
think to your point, it's probably the series now probably
closer to what it should be. So you go back
to Game one, the Knicks absolutely outplayed him, and and
(12:02):
going even into this game, I was with friends tonight
in the in the first quarter, a little cookout at
their house. We were watching the game, and it was
like it was one of the people there was not
a basketball fan, and I said, oh, this series has
just come down to the last six minutes. I said,
one team's great defensively, one's very good offensively. There's about
(12:22):
six really good players combined. I said, it'll be close.
It'll be a four point game. I thought Indiana would win.
But I also think one of the things that was
good for the NBA tonight is that you're seeing a
lot of road teams win playoff games. They've been a
ton I mean Indiana obviously, my entire life, even as
an NBA fan, I always felt like the home team
(12:43):
got the whistle, and I just like seeing road teams win.
I think it just I think it's just better for
basketball when the road team wins. I mean, I think
it's just funny now that the Knicks can't win it
home and the Basers now are winning everywhere but home,
and I think it's just good. It makes the series captivating.
I'm interested to watch the Pacers come out in Game
(13:07):
four because my take is they're gonna try to push
the pace again because they they walked into that locker
room and they're like, we lost our way at home
in a game that could have clinched the series, Like
they just lost their way credit the next defense, But
that was as bad as Indiana's looked offensively for a
six to eight minute stretch the entire series.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, you know, the most interesting thing looking back at
this is the Celtics series looks so weird in retrospect
now with the Knicks having won that series and then
looking bad for you know, the majority of this series.
Because I'm with you, like I think Indiana is. I
think Indiana is gonna come out in Game four and
throw their best punch, and I think it's gonna be
a very difficult game for the Knicks to win. That
(13:50):
Like the game I pointed to is the Calves Game four.
Calves went into Indiana in Game three and blew them out.
And that's not a that's not that's a sixty four
when Leyden roster that went into Indy and suffered one
of the most humiliating blowouts that we've ever seen in
the NBA when they were trailing eighty to thirty nine
at the end of the first half. So Indiana is
(14:11):
gonna come out and they're going to throw their best punch.
What's fascinating to me is coming into this series. I
mentioned to you on your show that I thought the
Pacers were better on offense and better on defense than
the Knicks, and that was why I thought that they
would win the series. But interestingly enough, this is a
Knicks team that's kind of had mediocre results for the
majority of this season, and they beat the Celtics. And
(14:34):
what's fascinating to me now as I look back on
this all is there's kind of a range of outcomes
for all of these teams, and the Pacers are a
team that pretty consistently hits their ceiling. They're not like
what you saw tonight was very out of the out
of character for them. The Knicks, I've seen them a
half dozen times each in this postseason look like a
putrid defense and look like an awesome defense, like at
(14:57):
multiple different points in this postseason, they've kind of oscillated
back and forth between those two ideas. They just have
a wide range of outcomes. And so we've all known
that the Knicks can have defensive stretches like they had
in that fourth quarter tonight. They did it to Boston
multiple times. They can fly around in rotation and contest
shots and do all of that stuff. They just can't
(15:17):
sustain it. And so Ultimately, as you zoom out from
the series, the Pacers are up to one and they
are more likely to sustain their peak level of play.
Yes moving forward, and it makes some assaye for Bet
to win the series.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
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Speaker 1 (17:02):
Okay Western Conference Game three pretty much unwatchable blowout and
and you know there's a there's a way Minnesota has
to play to beat Okay. See and they played it.
They did a lot of It's what's funny is it's
hard to find anybody that likes watching OKAC play. You know,
they're they're kind of hovering defense where they kind of
(17:25):
they swarm on you. I think you said it's almost
collegiate looking the way they play defense, and then it's
a lot of you know, drawing fouls s J. I
don't think they're a fun watch. I just think they're
really athletic and really deep. Do I am I supposed
to take anything beyond just a desperate, well coached team
(17:48):
in Minnesota ant crazy and it was just a young
team lessen really feeling their oats and just got overwhelmed
and just packed it it. I mean, it is anything
more than that.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I think there was some more in the sense that
I think that Oklahoma City's a better team than Minnesota,
but I also don't think they were the type of
team that should blow them out multiple times in a
row the way they did in Game one. In Game two,
Chris Finch was running what I thought was an extremely
foolish game plan through the first two games. The gist
of it is, if I asked you what Shae Gildes
(18:24):
Alexander's strongest traits are as a basketball player, you'd say
he's probably the best driver of the basketball in the league,
and he's just like the best isolation player in the league.
He was like of all isolation players who attempted at
least three hundred shots. He was number one by a
mile this year. And so what Chris Finch was doing
was picking up Shay at half court and letting him
(18:46):
play one on one, staying glued home to shooters. And
it was just like gift wrapping Shae, the perfect environment
for him to thrive on. And it was hilarious juxtaposed
with a Denver series where we saw the exact opposite
game plan with lesser defense of personnel have a great
deal of success. Now they won by forty because yes,
there was an urgency gap, and they shot a lot
(19:07):
better and there were a lot like Anthony Edwards was
hitting shots over triple teams in the second half, Like yeah,
that was what it caused it to manifest in a
destructive blowout. But right away to start that game, one
of the reasons why they were able to quickly assert
control and hold Oklahoma City. I think they held him
to fifteen points in the first quarter. The reason why
was they immediately dropped back to Denver's game plan. They
(19:30):
had Jaden meet Shay inside the three point line because again,
if you ball pressure a player, it's the easiest time
to drive past them because you're being forward aggressive as
a defender, so of course she's going to go right
around you. He's literally the best. He drove to the
basket more than two hundred times more than the second
best driver in the league this year, Colin. That's like
(19:50):
almost four times a game. He's far and away the
best driver. You can't pick him up that far. He's
gonna go right around you. Jaden sat back and then
they start pack in the paint off of shooters, and
so as a result, it looked like the Denver game,
and all of a sudden, it turned into Oklahoma City's
role players needing to knock down threes in Shae having
(20:11):
to make tougher decisions in the lane about whether or
not he wanted to shoot over some double and triple
teams where he can have some shortcomings. Because if I
asked you what Shae's biggest weaknesses are, it's probably his
three point shooting, yeah, and his ability to process in
traffic in the lane. Now, he's still pretty good at
those things, but they're not his strengths. And in that
(20:32):
end of the first half, he was one for four
from three, he had four turnovers. He finished the game
I think four for fifteen from the field. Colin. Only
eight times all season did Shae shoot below forty percent
from the field. He is one of the most consistently
efficient scorers in basketball. They held him to thirty one
percent in that game. So there definitely was a better
game plan and so as a result, I think Game
(20:53):
four will be a closer, more tightly contested game because
they're running the right game plan for this time well.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
And I think one of the vulnerabilities of OKAC is
young teams role players are generally not as good on
the road in the playoffs, and that's exactly what you saw.
Like we've talked about this before. Role players at home
are just different players they play. They need that confidence,
they need the swagger of the crowd. Steph Curry doesn't
and doesn't. And I think when you force Oklahoma City
(21:20):
and you just say okay, okay, young guys, hit your
shots on the road, loud crowd, it's hard, there's a history,
it's like, really really hard. And I also think, and
I also think when you're playing a team like Okay
See so much, I wonder about sometimes Okay See is
(21:40):
so good defensively and so swarming and so frenetic. I
do wonder if Minnesota players tend to spend so much
of their on court time thinking about that. So much
of playing OKAC is deciphering their defense and figuring out
I mean, you have to really be you have to
(22:01):
already be intentional when you play them defensively, because they
can trap you, they can make you look bad fast.
And so I think sometimes when you play okay See,
they don't play like a lot of other teams. Nobody
quite plays like them, and I think they can get
into your headspace and it's why. And then you go
on the road and they and now they lead by
(22:22):
six and SGA is getting the whistle. I do feel something,
and I don't know what the numbers say, but I
do feel like OKAC is like Indiana. I get the
same team, the same team. I got enough veteran I
feel with Oklahoma City they're a vulnerable road team. I've
got a shot. You know, Denver. They didn't look quite
the same at Denver. Now maybe it's altitude. Now, maybe
(22:44):
I'm wrong on this, and the splits don't say that,
but I do feel like a Oka See is a
vulnerable team on the road that you can win your
home games against them.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
They're three and three Collins and their defense. Their offense
falls all the way down to a one oh four offensive, right,
that's brutally bad, and their defense slides all the way
up to one twelve, which is pretty bad for them.
So yeah, I mean, you're not what you're onto is
what's really been happening with them?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Okay, okay, yep, they're a different offense on the road.
They don't feel like the same team. And that doesn't
surprise us because they're young and they and they play
with huge energy at home. But when I watch them
on the road at Denver a couple of times, I'm like,
it just doesn't feel the same. It's a different I
honestly feel of all the teams left, I get the
(23:29):
exact same team with minutes with Indiana, except for six
minutes tonight. I feel like I get this exact same
Pacer squad home and away. They want to run if
they can't, you know, I just, okay, see, of all
the four teams left, I feel like I get a
different OKAC team home and away.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
To your point about adjusting to Okac's defense too, Like
I thought, Aunt and Julius did a poor job in
the first two games of attacking their defense, like I
call in like because Oklahoma City's defense, I don't know
if you like just stare at any possession. Shay's ignoring
whoever he's guarding, just sitting in the basket. They've got three, four,
sometimes five guys in the paint on like every single drive.
(24:08):
They're daring Minnesota to take and make corner threes in
this series and in the like when after Game one
when Ant was like, I vowed to be more aggressive,
I'm like, that's not the answer. They're like, you're gonna
just drive into the teeth of the defense and you're
gonna take bad shots. And by the way, in the
first half of Game two, he took eighteen shots and
had sixteen points to show for it. What was kind
(24:31):
of fascinating about the flow of this series is to
your point, you start to get more comfortable as you adjust.
Aunt and Julius were awesome in Game three, especially early
at making those corner kicks, and they were finally knocking
down those corner threes. They have had three games worth
of experience against Oklahoma City's base defensive scheme, and they're
starting to figure it out a little bit. Oklahoma City
(24:54):
saw that bad game plan for two games and then
Finch throws the appropriate game plan in game three, and
they looked like completely shell shocked by it. I mean, Colin,
I don't know if you saw it. In Game one,
Oklahoma City only took like twenty threes and the reason
why is because they were staying glued off the ball
and letting Shay play one on one. It's it's such
(25:15):
a fundamentally different defensive game plan that Minnesota is rocking
from this point forward now. To be clear, in Game four,
by the way, via DraftKings. All of our odds are
from DraftKings. Oklahoma City is a three point favorite in
Game four, and that feels right to me. I think
it's gonna be a close game. They're gonna bring an
intense defensive effort right away out the gates. That's gonna
test Aunt and Julius's decision making again. And then you're
(25:37):
gonna see Oklahoma City, because they have seen this defense
before with Denver. You're gonna see them kind of come
into the game prepared for that game plan. That said,
and this is the one thing I'd say, like, I
think Minnesota has a much better chance of beating Oklahoma
City from this point forward than the Knicks do with
the Pacers, because what Minnesota can bring to the table
(25:57):
is Denver caut problems for OKC was some weak defensive personnel.
Minnesota's got a bunch of really good defenders out there,
and so if they properly execute this game plan, they
could potentially do some real damage. And as long as
they ride that momentum going forward in the series. There's
also a little bit of like a Aunt straight up
(26:18):
can be unguardable sometimes with some of the shots that
he can make, and like he was just better than
Shay in Game three, and if he can maintain that,
that would be the other thing that could swing things
back towards Minnesota.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
You know, it's funny segue back to the Knicks Pacers.
And I was watching the Pacers when they took that
twenty point first half lead, and they were just transition
basketball at its best. Just I mean, they score fast,
and I was thinking, don't fall for it, Colin, don't
fall for it, because a couple of years ago Denver
(26:48):
won the title and I'm like, oh, they're gonna reel
off like three, and then Bruce Brown left and then
casep and they didn't. I mean, they didn't have a
great bench to begin with, and now it's a bad
bench and they become you know, Murray gets hurt. And
I've never been a huge Michael Porter fan. I've always been.
I always think Aaron Gordon's underrated Porter to me, just
I think he's the nod fit and a bit overpaid.
(27:12):
And then all of a sudden you look up and
Denver just looks good. And I watched Indiana, I said,
and I thought to myself, God, I love watching them play.
But as I watch all of these teams, even Oklahoma City,
and we've just stated it there, they're the one team
that you get a different version on the road. They're
not nearly as good as they are at home. Is
(27:34):
that I feel like whoever wins this year will not
win the following year. And I first of all, there's
gonna be ay honest move. KD could go to the Knicks.
They could get another basket. You know, if they moved
off Karl Anthony Towns at his flakiness and just said
we're gonna go get Durant. We'll let Carl go, We'll
keep Robinson, he is what he is, but we'll have
(27:56):
Durant at the in the game late, so we can
we can live with them. I feel like the Pacers
feel a little bit like the Nuggets. I'm falling in love,
like I fell in love with Jokic and Gordon. I'm like, God,
I love this team, but it wasn't as sustainable. It
was very Jokicic dominant. And Murray, you know, he's just
(28:16):
one of those players that I like a lot, I
don't love, and I kind of feel like with Indiana,
I'm falling for it because and I'm doing this because
it's like confirmation bias. I love watching them play, and
so I'm talking myself into Indiana's great. But then I
watched them and I think to myself, no, they're not great.
What they have as a remarkable player in Halliburton, and
(28:40):
what Denver had is a remarkable player in Jokic, And
what Minnesota has as a remarkable player in Ant and
Brunson's one of the great small closers in the game
is I think this is what the NBA is going
to be, is that everybody's going to have a great
player and a very good too. But the days of
having three guys that you can depend on I just think, Jason,
(29:01):
I think it's over. I just don't think that multiple aprons.
I don't think they allow it. And so those teams
are just going to eventually get beat. They'll come in
as a favorite, they'll have it, they'll have an injury,
they'll lose a bench guy, and it's just funny watching
Indiana tonight. I'm like, oh boy, this team, this team,
I thought, wait, put the brakes on Jesus. They can't
(29:22):
even get to the next tonight. What if I took
these four teams, all things considered, and I said, one
of them will win multiple titles? Are you set on Okac?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, okay, He's the only team that could theoretically keep
this kind of talent accumulated for long enough. Like Indiana
is already going to face some tough questions coming up, Like, Okay,
Miles Turner is kind of very important to the way
we play offense. Are we going to pay because Miles,
guess what call it? Starting center money in the NBA
now is like thirty million a year. Like that's like
the baseline, Like we're starting the discussion at thirty million
(29:55):
a year. That's what Isaia Hartenstein got. And if I'm
Miles Hard, Miles Turner's agent. I'm going to him like
thirty is the basement, Like, so are you gonna how
are you gonna continue to build around Nie Smith, who,
by the by the way, Nie Smith is a dude
who just stole you a playoff game, who's averaging fifteen
points a game in this playoff run is your primary
point of attack, defender and shooting forty five percent from three.
(30:16):
That's a twenty five million dollar player, Like Halliburton's a
super Max player. Nemhard, you could argue as a twenty
million dollar player. Siakam is a forty million dollar player.
Like It just gets really difficult to maintain the payrolls
in these In these situations, the thing with Oklahoma City
is they're going to run into that problem in a
couple of years. They can theoretically win this year, run
(30:37):
it back, win again, run it back, but it will
be a shorter window relative to previous entities like this
because of the fact that eventually they're gonna have to
pay j Dubb Cason. Wallace is looking a lot like
a twenty five million dollar player to me, right, like
Jed Holmgren's a forty million dollar player. Ja Dub's gonna
be a forty million dollar play. Like, they're all just
(30:58):
so good that inevitably going to have to pay all
these dudes, and it's just going to become impossible to
maintain the roster. Now there's a second conversation to have
as it pertains to whether or not the league should
pivot from this structure because it penalizes smartly run NBA teams.
But yeah, on the other three teams Indiana, New York, Minnesota,
(31:18):
there's no chance to like sustain success because of just
how expensive it is to have. Like you talk about
a playoff rotation, you want six guys you can definitely
trust and probably a seventh that you can kind of trust.
And it's like a playoff guy you can trust is
a bare minimum twenty million in the open market. So like,
(31:39):
it's just very difficult to find the means with which
to maintain this. And Oklahoma City will have draft picks.
They can supplement it with draft picks, but a draft
pick isn't going to be able to impact winning at
a playoff level right away, And you can try trading them,
but it's just going to bring back expensive contracts. It's
just kind of the reality of the situation. I will
say with the Knicks, Colin I, I think there's a
(32:00):
lot of interesting Kevin Durant potential destinations. I think the
Knicks are one. I also kind of think the Pacers
are one. One of the reasons why I like the
Pacers is like, I don't think the Pacers have much
of a chance at all to beat Oklahoma City. I
think it's a horrible matchup for them. Oklahoma City has
six lightning fast guards that can chase all their guards around,
(32:20):
and they could switch everything, and they also have im protection,
and they have all the offensive talent to be able
to score on them. I worry about the Pacers' ability
to get a bucket against a team that can keep
them in front. And they're a team like if I
just had a better version of Siakam, I all of
a sudden view them as a more substantial title threat,
and so like, they're a team that I could see like, Okay,
(32:43):
we're a little older, Miles Turner's kind of older. We
need to make some sort of win now move to
capitalize on this before it gets too expensive. I could
see KD being that guy for them as well. There's
a bunch of teams where KD could immediately raise their ceiling.
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And now for our next segment, whiskey business. Yes, whiskey business,
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of the Colin Coward Podcast. Okay, I want to bring
this up. We can close on this because I saw
(34:02):
this today. It's fascinating. So a university professor in finance
looked up the value of Caitlin Clark for the WNBA.
This is insane. So this year, last season in the WNBA,
(34:24):
Caitlin Clark was twenty six and a half percent of
all economic activity as a rookie on the worst team
in the league when she entered it. So now she
has an eight year, one hundred and twenty eight million
dollar deal with Nike, so you know she's she's gonna
eat merchandise in the league. Went up off a rookie
(34:50):
from a Midwest based school on the worst team in
the league two hundred and thirty four percent. But here
was the one that struck me so before she got there,
the Indiana Fever, the valuation of the franchise was ninety million.
Remember they play a short season, it's not like the
NBA where it lasts like six months after playing what
(35:12):
forty games. The valuation of that team now is three
hundred and forty million dollars. She is almost.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
That's what NBA teams were selling for ten years ago.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
She has quaged loop holes ago the valuation, and I
was talking. I was with a group of friends tonight
at dinner, and people that didn't know the WNBA were
like asking, well, well, why, well what does she do?
And we said, well, she makes passes and take shots
that nobody else in the sport does. So she's a
bit of a It's like when Tiger Woods came on
(35:47):
the tour, Like he drove it further, He's long, putting
was better, he looked like a football player in the
red shirts, Like he just was different than every other
golfer you grew up with, and people like unique and different.
Here my question to you is there's still no other
Like somebody said at the party, well there'd be another
(36:07):
Caitlin Clark, and I'm like, well, there's not another Steph Curry.
Like there's guys that can shoot threes. I don't think
it's a game you duplicate. And I listen, let's just
be honest. There are more great male athletes in the
world than female athletes. There is no second Steph Curry
there is no other player that plays like that. My
take is she could be a billion dollar athlete. Are
(36:32):
you are you surprised by it? Like when I see
these numbers, I'm like, oh, this is Tiger in the tour.
This doesn't this isn't even Jordan, this is totally different.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Well, I think when you look at basketball, there are
two real kind of like ultimate show type of athletes
that you see, meaning like must see television. And it's
the supreme vertical athlete, which think like young Lebron or
kind of like Anthony Edwards now Dominique. Yeah, like the
(37:06):
guy that does stuff in the air that is unlike
anything you see anywhere else j And then the second
piece of it is just unbelievable shot making. Those are
the two things. Those are the two things that like
really bring eyes to television. To take it a step further,
there are two types of basketball players that I think
(37:27):
are far and away the most winning impact in the
current game of basketball. It's the big, strong playmaker think Lebron,
Luka Jokic, And it's the indomitable shooter, which there's really
only been Steph. I think those two types of players
are the players that give you the best chances to
(37:49):
win basketball games in the modern in the modern world. Now,
what makes it fascinating to me, because that's what Caitlyn
Clark is. She's a different type of player, and she
can do a lot of different types of things, but
she's a essentially bringing a Steph Curry like basketball impact
to the WNBA. It's really this simple. If you can
shoot the way that she shoots, so the way step shoots,
(38:09):
and you can perpetually be in motion running around, inevitably
there is an overreaction to your shooting ability. And we
see this all the time with Kaitlyn, just like you're
gonna see you're gonna see Aliah Boston get NonStop easy
buckets in the mid range or rolling to the basket,
because every time she sets a screen for Caitlin, her
(38:31):
defender is stepping up to guard Kaitlin because as she
comes off of that screen, if you're not there, she's
gonna shoot it and she's gonna make it. And so
there's a reaction that invert spacing in brings a four
on three because you bring multiple defenders away from the rim,
there's a four on three with a vacated paint and
(38:52):
because of that, there's a lot of easy opportunities to
score there. Like that's the thing with Steph Curry, Like,
Steph Curry is not the same shot maker that he
was for you years ago in twenty twenty one, but
just the simple threat of him running around gives the
Warriors a chance to score. And that's the thing. Like
Caitlyn hasn't even really started hitting shots yet this year
or the way that she's capable of, but everyone knows
(39:12):
she can and they guard her in that fashion. And
so to me, it's kind of like a proof of
concept in that if you can shoot and you can
run around the way that Steph does, and you can
strike fear into a defense in that way, the trickle
down effects with the way that defenses guard you just
make everything so much easier for her. And like you
could argue she's already the best offensive engine in the
(39:34):
WNBA and she's literally a second year player and like,
and she still has so much room to improve, Like
she still struggles with ball pressure, she still turns the
she turned the ball over too much against the Liberty
the other night. She still has a little bit of
an issue where she kind of cross fires across her face,
which makes it so she can only shoot going left.
She needs to build it out so that she can
shoot running to her right as well. But like, judging
(39:56):
by her psycho competitive attitude, she's probably gonna figure that
that stuff out in the next year or two and
then she'll be the best player in the league. And
so like, to me, it's just she fits the mold
of one of the most impactful types of basketball players
you can be today, which is the deadly movement shooter.
If you're a deadly movement shooter, it just opens up
so many things for an offense. And and honestly, I
(40:18):
just think I think she's musty television Colin. I've watched
all four of her games, and and I'm in my
busy season, Like you think i'd be taking a break.
My wife said to me the other day, She's like,
you're watching more basketball. I'm like, it's Katelyn Clark. We're
watching more basketball. Come over here, let's watch this.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Like she's incredible, and she's not getting she doesn't know
what's get the consistent great star whistle she I mean,
there's I think they're still kind of figuring out how
to officiate her right, Like like when you're when you know,
I've said this for years when I covered Shack and
Shack got fouled more than anybody I've ever seen. I mean,
(40:52):
it was insane. You just people bounced off Shack. Yolks
feel Yokic complains constantly like people are bouncing off me.
She doesn't quite get as favorable a whistle as you think,
so I think.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Neither does Staph too, That's the funny part.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Well, and I think I will give the WNBA credit.
They they just didn't understand the tsunami ever popularity, like
they didn't get the schedule, and you don't know what
you don't know. They've done a much better job to
I mean, all her games are on television. Every time
I turn on a WA every time I see a
promote promotion for the WNBA, it's Caitlin Clark. So they're there.
(41:31):
But I do think there's a process on. You know,
you're an official. You don't want to give her too
favorable a whistle because the players in the league will
resent her to some degree. She's getting all this attention
and I don't. And I will say this, I've defended
the w NBA with this baseball and the WNBA feel
ignored the NFL and the NBA. In college football they
(41:53):
get a lot of press, and baseball always feels like, hey,
we're America's pastime. So they're very insular, sometimes very provincial.
And the WNBA, similarly, you don't pay attention to us.
So there's part of it, like I get like they
sort of resent this one player. Nobody talks WNBA. They do,
and it's all her, you know. I remember when Tiger
(42:14):
was eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old, coming on of the tour.
There were a lot of people in golf that were like,
could you guys show, could you talk in your sportscast
about anybody other than Tiger Woods? So she's not. Bryce
Harper came into baseball. He fought with an own teammate
in the dugout because it was like, oh, everybody wants
to talk to So I do defend the WNBA. Is
that I get if nobody paid attention to you for
(42:37):
twenty six years and now they do, and they feign
interest in the rest of the league. What we all
care about is Caitlin. So the animosity built up by players,
I give it a little bit of a pass, you know.
I think people are spending too much time on race.
You know, it is what it is. There's a million platforms,
(42:57):
a million opinions, but I I don't know. My take
is they're still in the adjustment period with Caitlin. How
to market, how to promote, how to officiate, how to defend,
and it's just fluid. That's what it feels like to me.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
I think that like when I see the complaining, like
I saw some players complain and some members of the
media complain that she was on TV so much, and
let's just take us out, take fairness and just put
it to the side for a minute, like even with
Nike and giving Kaitlin a shoot like set that aside
for a minute and just focus on her being on television. Okay,
(43:33):
her being on television brought my eyes to it. I
didn't watch the WNBA. I have grown to really enjoy
watching WNBA basketball even when she's not on and they're
like Thenfista Collier became one of my favorite basketball players
watching her in the finals run last year. And what
brought me to the television was Caitlin. So like, let's
(43:54):
say that the league came out there like every Caitlyn
Clark games on national television, like, that's just what we're
going to do. Deal with it. That would be genius,
because the best way you can market the other WNBA
players is to have them play against Kaitlin Clark because
we'll all be watching. Okay, well, no one's covering the
rest of the league. Okay, but if you put Caitlin
on television and you get more people to watch, it
(44:15):
will create more WNBA fans. And we live in the
most colin I started making NBA content out of my
guest bedroom. Okay, you create a bunch of WNBA fans,
Passionate members of the media will originate from that mass
and will cover the league better, and overall, the league
will gain in popularity and gain and impact, and it
will become a momentous thing that carries forward and actually
(44:39):
does shine a big flashlight on the rest of the WNBA.
Caitlin Clark is the vehicle with which to microwave that,
to accelerate it, and to move it into a fast
track towards what could be a bright future for the WNBA.
It's great basketball, It's genuinely great basketball. She's the best
vehicle with which tow to elevate the sport. I think
(45:02):
anything they can do to put her on TV and
promote her is the best thing they could do for
the sport.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, it's Connor McGregor UFC. You know, you knew it existed,
you'd seen fights, You started buying pay per view cards
and sitting through two and a half hours to get
to his fight, and then all of a sudden, you
found yourself a year later hooked on two other fighters
because Dana White would put the second most popular fighter
in the undercards. So all of a sudden, it's John
Jones into Connor McGregor and then they So it's just
(45:29):
basic marketing. And I've said before I do think the
WNBA women's basketball and I said this years ago in
FS one, probably five years ago. The sport was getting better.
The women were you know, several generations of women were
encouraged to play basketball and to be athletes, and nutritionists
came into the sport and better trainers. There was money
(45:50):
in the league, so they had better training and the
players were getting better. But it takes this, Listen, it
took Magic and Bird in the NBA to take a
league that there were some financial problems. So it's not
like a gender issue. It's a I mean, I I
think Connor McGregor's erosion as a fighter has hurt UFC.
(46:12):
It doesn't feel as urgent. And that's and that's already
established and so and we all know that Michael Jordan
left once Magic Bird and Michael had driven the league up,
Michael left, the ratings dropped fifty percent. So this stuff
outside of the NFL, it's all cyclical, it's all market based,
it's all star based, and it's just a WNBA. You know,
(46:36):
was waiting for its first Tiger, and golf's probably had
four in my life, you know, Jack Nicholson, Arnold Palmer, Tiger.
I think Rory's got a little bit of it, Phil Micholson.
So the history of golf, you know, if you modern
history has got like five guys that have done it.
So there's no reason to be defensive about it. It
(46:56):
just it's all these leagues. They all eventually, I mean,
look at boxing, Ollie took it from whatever it was
to the next level. Then there were Sugar, Ray, Leonard
and Hagler. But when Larry Holmes arrived, nobody wanted to
watch Larry Holmes. That took an old George Foreman and
telling a grill that you bake chicken on or cook
(47:17):
chicken on to I mean literally to get the casual
back into boxing. Was George Foreman's second tour. So this
is the way sports works outside of football.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
The cyclical thing is so fascinating because that's literally what
the NBA is about to go through. Lebron and Steph
won eight titles in eleven years and now there's not
really a big name yet. Now you could argue that
the parody might prevent the rise of a star, and
that's a separate conversation for another day, but it is
really fascinating. We're in one of those cycles right now
with the NBA. The old guard's going out and there's
a new guard coming up.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
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Speaker 2 (48:07):
But Colin, I sincerely appreciate you giving us your time tonight.
This has been a super fun playoff runt. I'm sure
we'll be talking in about a week or so. Again, everyone,
thank you guys so much for supporting the show. No
playback tonight, just a heads up. We'll be back with
that tomorrow night, and then I will be live on
YouTube after the final buzzer of Game four of what
should be an incredible Western Conference Finals game tomorrow night.
I will see you guys.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Then the volume
Host
Colin Cowherd
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