Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On this episode of The Heat Check, another historic comeback,
this time in reverse. Flip it and reverse it like
Missy Elliott. The New York Knicks stun the Indiana Pacers
coming back from down twenty and it was just fucking madness.
(00:20):
I turned it off. I'm sorry I had to go
back and watch it after the fact. You might want
to hold off crowning the Okac Thunder as the best
team ever. They got beaten by forty. A lot of
news from around the league to get to, well, some
news from around the league to get to. So it's
not Donald Wyatt drop that motherfucker beat. That should be Rihanna.
You're listening to The Hottest, the Hottest. It be a
(00:45):
podcast out here. I said what I said.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Off, it's the Heat Chick Check.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
What's happening in the NBA? Another comeback? And I think,
now that's just come in the norm. Brian Windhorst and
the Hoop Collective say, the best pace of play is up.
We've got threes being shot at historic level, and we've
got coaches using up all their damn timeouts on challenges
(01:14):
and now all of a sudden, you can get back
into the game fucking quick. Now it's the New York Knicks.
They come. I tried to say the Knicks are better
playing from behind. They really are. It was a game,
let's get into it. We know that the Knicks were
just shooketh going down oh two, then another somewhat of
(01:36):
a collapse in game two, but they really were down
by ten multiple points in time during Game two, so
they probably shouldn't have won that game regardless. Right, Knicks
fans are despondents. They're figuring is the Pacers gonna just
Nixon seven. We had people just not answering the phone
when I was on my live stream with Metal Arc.
(01:58):
They know they have to go to Indy and they're
hoping upon hope that somehow their road record that was
stellar all postseason long would be able to carry over.
It's Indianapolis, five hundred weekend, baby racer, pacer. What do
you get a rabid town, smelling blood in the water.
Taking down those Knickerbockers. Three zero is a death sentence.
(02:22):
We've talked about that many times before. No team is
ever in the conference finals gone down three zero in one. Ever,
then it was a funeral maybe for Tom Thibodeau. People
are crushing Tom Thibodeau for benching Karl Anthony Towns in
the fourth quarter, leaving random players in the game. We
had a little delawn right sighting. We saw more delon
(02:45):
Wright in Game three, Yes we did. Andy ran out
to a fifty eight to forty five halftime lead, and
the only reason it wasn't twenty is because there were
some key missteps in the first half right at the
end of the second order for Indy and some crucial
possessions where Michel Bridges hits a three with five seconds
(03:06):
left to cut it from sixteen to thirteen. It was
very important. That was very, very important. Karl Anthony Towns
with four fouls going into the halftime. You had Jalen
Brunson four fouls going into halftime, the team couldn't score.
You had TJ McConnell putting buckets on your head like
it was fucking two thousand and seventeen Indiana Pacers, not
(03:32):
even the third Yeah, Pascal siakam dunking on your face,
OPI top and dunking on your face. You're wondering can
this Knixt team recover? Do we need to trade Karl
Anthony Towns? Was Michael Bridges worth five first round picks.
Do we need to fire Tom Thibodeau. That's where we
were is the Pacers. Are the Pacers actually the best
(03:54):
team in the league right now? Like could they beat
the Thunder the nixt Twitter they're throwing dirt on the season.
Half of them are calling for Tips's head, just like me.
And the hero comes along with the strength, the carrion
and your cash, your fears aside, and you know you
(04:15):
will serve.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
And when you feel like hope is gone, look inside
you and be strong. You'll finally see the truth that
the hero lies in carl Anthony Towns.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yes, carl Anthony Towns. Giddy Cat we in Indiana and out.
Carl Anthony Town's one of the most hectic, chaotic players,
a player that literally had his fourth foul based on
him shoving Tyrese Haliburton on an an one dunk that
(04:56):
got overturned by Rick Carlisle using a cruise challenge way
early in the game. But they needed it because they
didn't want them cutting the lead down ended up being
an offensive foul, and you're wondering what's going on. They
can't play Jalen Brunson. He's playing terrible, so they're forced.
(05:16):
Tom Thibodeau is forced to stagger Brunson and Karl Anthony
Towns and guess what, and guess what, guess what? It worked.
It worked, baby, it worked. We found the ether serum.
It's called spacing them out. They can't be on the
floor together. Karl Anthony Towns, with Jalen Brunson sitting his
(05:37):
ass on the bench, led the Knicks back from twenty
down to one of the all time great performances. Six
for nine from the field, three for four from three.
He's it was very aggressive. He turns into a little
microwave out there, but he's not no longer doing those
Jason Tatum things, the step back threes that he likes
to do, you know, the like jab step three that
(05:59):
Kitty Can does when he's in full kitting mote. No,
he was a Maine coon out there. He was a
grown Maine coon and he was taking him to the
rack and dunking on people's faces. He's turning the corner
making Indiana shook, and he was okay defensively. He wasn't
a silly, wasn't a cone. And that's all that we needed. Really.
Karl Anthony Towns was the New York Savior. Say what,
(06:23):
by the way, a Maine coon is a cat cat.
It's a cat breed. Okay, don't you know what I'm saying,
it's a cat. He was so good. Carl Anthony Towns
was so good. I didn't even realize so just now
that that could have gotten flipped and reversed. It's cat.
Fifteen of the seven Knicks points in the fourth quarter
(06:45):
went to Karl Anthony Towns. And then when the heater
was done and the Nixon pacers were tied, then it
was like, let's bring Brunsen Burner back in and see
if he can get us one fucking bucket, which he did.
Which he did, and he took it home sweet Alabama
took it home one oh six, one hundred, and I
think we might have a series on our hands. I
(07:07):
think Tom Thibodeaux might have figured some things out. We
got some big minutes for Landry Schmitt, we got more
Don Wright sightings. Mitchell Robinson, he had some big minutes
and he had some bad minutes as well. He's breathing,
he's huffing and puffing like he's about to blow the
(07:27):
house down. His conditioning's not quite there. But when he
and Karl Anthony Towns on the court at the same time,
it's working. It's working, folks. And the effort, the defensive effort,
the intensity in the second half of the Knicks, it
was just right there. The rotations were right there. They're
playing with effort, hard, nos focus, things that you want
(07:48):
to see from these Knicks that they're going to get
back into the game, into the series. And he did it.
I should have known. I looked at this after the
game today this morning, and he did it on Dominican
Republic Mother's Day should and ONWN As we know, Karl
Anthony town has lost his mom to COVID. That was
(08:08):
his heart, that was his heartbeat, that was his soul.
And he said, it just meant a lot that I
was able to play on a day like today. I
didn't know my mom was expecting a game like tonight.
But I'm just happy that this team is able to
get a win on her day. Shed a tear for
Kitty Cat. Also, if you're a Pacers fan, I don't
(08:28):
know if you can be you should be concerned. There
are things that you can say. This is what turned
the game around one. There was a lot of laxic
daysicle taking the game for granted sort of possessions where
I'm literally tearing my hair. No, keep going kick out.
Don't just go for a dunk that ends up getting
(08:50):
back rimmed, getting rim checked, obi Toppin', Like, don't just
throw up garbage just because you're up seventeen. Continue to
get good possessions. Nie Smith sprained his ankle on this
like really weird play. Who was like dragged his toe,
rolled it over when Jalen Brunton I think was guarding
(09:11):
him underneath the rim He's kicking out. It was really
weird and tweaky. And then and then he had to
leave the game, and like he was out of the
game for like thirty eight real minutes and that that's
really when New York made their comeback. And he's questionable
for game four. So we might have for a series.
We might have a series here. That's an excuse. The
(09:31):
Pacers don't want to play the excuse game. But a
ton of credit has to go to tips. Like I said,
he altered his lineups, he played guys he never plays.
There was a lot of duce McBride minutes, and duce
McBride looked like he was on a short leash. Looked
like it was Sandman time. Sleep with one open, gripping
your pillow tight. That was what it was for Duce McBride.
(09:55):
I had an earl gray tea today. That's caffeine. I
haven't had caffeine two days in a row, and like
two years. I'm fucking pumped up, pumped up. The NBA's
back anyway. Tom Thibodeau, Kenny the Jet Smith, said, wouldn't
play nine players in a baseball game? And guess what
Landry Chemet minutes Delon Wright minutes the traditional starting lineup,
(10:18):
we said, negative twenty nine net rating. In the first
two games, Thibodeau ran out fifteen different lineups, including eight
that hadn't played a minute together all year before this game.
He adjusted. He adjusted like his life was on the line,
like his beating heart was going to be ripped out
of his chest if they didn't win a fucking game.
(10:39):
And it looked ugly. People were crushing him over some
of the decisions that he made in Game one Game two,
I think too, tib said. People think I want a
low scoring game. No, I just want one more point
that they have. But that's what you're gonna need against
these pacers, slow methodical plotting. Don't win with the offense
because you're not You don't have the guns. Okay, you
(11:01):
don't have the guns to out offense these pacers. What
you need to do is out defense them. The New
York Knicks are the first team in the last thirty
years to win not one, not two, but three games
in the playoffs where they trailed by twenty or more.
That's crazy. They pulled in Indiana on Indiana, and that's
(11:22):
the way that Tom Thibodeaux needs to keep it going.
Because they asked Rick Carlisle about it. Rick Carlisle said,
the reason that we had such a hard time scoring
in the second half is they put better defensive players
on the floor, meaning taking out Jalen Brunson, who was
food carl Anthony Towns was out there playing pretty decent
defensive minutes. Jalen Brunson very mad at the refs, but
(11:44):
he was fouling his little ass off, okay, and not
getting the calls he usually gets. Towns ended up with
twenty four and fifteen. Great great game for him. Brunson
ended up with twenty three to two and one, had
ten and for the line now Game four, but he
was not efficient. Jalen Brunson, it was awful. He's stunk.
(12:06):
It was the worst game I've seen him play all year.
He kind of feels now like the momentum has shif
did and Game four is a must win for the Pacers.
They tricked off this win, They tricked it off. I
really want to see Game seven at MSG so much
so I might have to put a hecks on those
Pacers just for the Game seven. In the back of
(12:26):
their minds, Pacer fans all remember this situation. Remember remember
remember this the Reggie Miller choked job where he came
back a million points in like eight seconds. Will people forget,
not Pacer fans, They don't forget. Is it the Knicks
actually won that series coming back in the fourth quarter
(12:47):
of Game seven to win ninety four to ninety That's
the kind of game Tom Thibodeau wants to win. In
a game where Reggie Miller shot seven for seventeen. Will
history repeat itself? Because now the Pacers can't rely on
the one thing that they thought that they knew. Tom
Thibodeau is gonna play the same guys. He's gonna play
(13:08):
the hits, even if the hits aren't hitting. And now
we know Tom Thibodeau is willing to go nine deep,
so deep we'll put the masks is to sleep. He's
throwing curveballs after curveballs, after a career of throwing nothing
but the same off speed pitch. Oooh, that's dangerous. Wo
that's dangerous out of Minnesota. Almost lost my whole words.
(13:30):
We have a series. We have a series on our hands.
Right after the NBA World even myself, I was like,
I just don't think that they have it. These Minnesota
Timberwolves can't score. Their bench stinks. Okay, so he's taking
the ball away fifteen plus times the game off his
live ball steals, getting the easy transition dunks, and just
demoralizing you. Even in the first round sweep of Memphis. Okay,
(13:53):
see got humbled in games three and four by the
grizz We don't know what would have happened if John
Moran wouldn't have gone down. That's exactly what happened in
the Denver Nugget series as well. They get blown out,
they make it a series, and now we got the ThunderCats.
After a scintillating blowout the Wolves understand we know how
to beat these guys. Well, you gotta get a lot
(14:15):
of aggression from Aunt. You gotta have buckets put up
by nas Red. The bench has to be better. You
have to get more physical with Shay. The Wolves beat
the breaks off those thunder one one one, seventy two,
forty one and a half, a thirty one point lead,
and then the Wolves outscored okay see seventy one to
(14:37):
sixty in the second half as well. They won every
single quarter. They win every single quarter against the best
team in NBA history. Statistically, they won every minute of
every quarter. Did you see that instagram where that guy
was like, from six am to noon is one day
for me, and from noon to six is another day
(14:59):
for me. From six to midnight, I think it was
even like more. I think he had four days. He
called him four days in one day. He doesn't sleep.
And there was a joke about like every minute of
mine is one day. Because if you won one six
am to six oh one pm one day, six one two,
(15:19):
six two one day, you stack those up, I'm gonna
beat you. I'm gonna beat you. That's just insane anyway,
That's basically what the Wolves did to the OKC Thunder.
They made every minute feel like one day. Four OKC
Thunder players had a negative thirty or worst net rating
in the game. Shay JDub Hartenstein, Case and Wallace. Seems impossible.
(15:40):
Seems impossible for an all like a team full of
all NBA and all defensive NBA players. It was the
single worst playoff loss in history for a team that
won sixty five or more games. There has never been
a team to win the NBA title to lose by
forty or more in a game. But as someone who
(16:04):
met this beautiful Uber driver outside of Barclay Stadium, beautiful
as a soul. I left at halftime of the twenty
twenty one Eastern Conference Finals between the Brooklyn Nets and
the Bucks because Harden, Kyrie and Kevin Durant and then
(16:25):
Boys put a smack down on those Bucks. They could
have won by sixty if they wanted. And guess what,
then that stat goes away. They end up winning that
game by thirty nine. And I had a really nice
conversation with the man from Mollie and I'll never forget it,
and that Bucks team won the title. That's what happened.
(16:48):
Kyrie st sprained his ankle, James Harden heard his hamstring.
Kevin Durant had to do it all himself. Foot on
the line, goes overtime, get him over. Then they make
light work out of the Phoenix Suns, even with Jannis
and his knee extension issue. Anyway, Minnesota out. That was
just a little history for you. Minnesota outshot Oka see
(17:09):
from two and from three twenty to fourteen out rebound
him fifty to thirty nine, had more steals, more blocks,
less turnovers, and less fouls. It was just a drumming, drubbing, drumming, drubbing, drubbing, drumming.
Aunt had thirty. He was so aggressive, And there was
a whole article that just came out by Brian Winhorst
(17:30):
about how Aunt and his positive mindset and attitude and
upbeat vibe just injected life into these Wolves. He had
thirty twelve or seventeen. He was five for eight from three.
Julius Randall had a bounce back game and the Wolves
used a couple of young bucks, got some Tarret Shannon minutes. Okay, okay,
(17:52):
Tarret Shannon had a couple of big buckets. We saw
a little Leonard Miller haven't seen Leonard Miller in years,
really since he heard himself. The Wolves had twenty six
bench points. Chris Finch used everyone except for Joe Ingles, which, like,
let's be honest, Joe Ingles is just there vibin vibein.
(18:15):
The Wolves bench outscored the Thunders starters sixty six to
forty nine. The Wolves bench outscored the starters for the
Thunder sixty six to forty nine. That's crazy. SGA MVP
SGA fourteen points. That's the least amount he scored in
one hundred and eighteen games. That's crazy. What's what do
(18:36):
we make of this? I don't know. I don't even
know if you can make anything out of this. Who
knows if Nasre is gonna come out and shoot two
two for four from three. His first I think is
actually better than that hit his first two threes. Who
knows what Julius Randall version you're getting. Who knows if
Aunt Edwards's ankle is still like this? What are we
getting from Rudy Gobert. I don't fucking know. I do
(18:59):
know that the Thunder will respond. Game four will happen
after I'm recording, so it will break it down this way.
If Minnesota wins, it's because they've broken some sort of code,
They've figured something out. They believe in their hearts that
they can beat this thunder team in Minnesota. They can
take so much away from Game three. That was good
(19:21):
and that's what players who win, that's what they do.
Bill Momentum, Jave McDaniels. He's still cold, he's still frustrated.
He's getting called for fouls for just barely grazing. Shay pause.
Rudy Gobert is gonna have to do a lot. Defense
was really good. Rudy Gobert had his best game since
the Lakers series. If you're okay See, you're like, this
game doesn't matter at all. It's happened against the Denver series,
(19:42):
and guess what, we beat them. We almost got beat
by the Memphis Guess what we swept them. So when
Okaysee's bad, they're very bad. When it's ugly, it's very ugly,
and okay See is still a powerhouse. It's pretty damn
rare to find five starters that all suck at the
same time. I cannot remember where they're starting five. Shae Dort, Hartenstein,
(20:04):
j dub and chet All scored fifty points in total.
Just doesn't happen. You get thirty from Shay all on
his own. They can count on Shae having another thirty
point bounce back game because he was four for thirteen
from the field, kid four turnovers, he got subbed out
for good down thirty eight. He's chilling. He's got the
hyper rice, he's got the norma tex leaves on. He's
(20:25):
gonna figure it out. He's a mid range machine. Maybe
Minnesota is changing something defensively. They go back to playing
a more man style off or defense and not allowing
Shaye to get easy mid range shots, which is basically
layups for him. Maybe they get more aggressive, Maybe the
refs don't allow the disparity of free throws to occur.
Either way, it's gonna be fascinating. Don't be surprised if
(20:48):
we're heading for a game seven some quick kitters from
around the league. Looks like Giannis wants to stay in Milwaukee.
Reports are that he had a long meeting with John
Horst and a pair didn't ask for a trade. Okay,
Horse apparently pitched Giannis on this season as a pause
before making another run when Dame is healthy. Jannis has agreed.
(21:10):
I knew he was gonna get finessed. I knew it.
I knew it. Look at the Dallas Mavericks. They went
to the finals and now they have Cooper Flag this guy, uh,
this guy Aj DEBANSA. We could have Aj Debanson. Look
you Aj DEBANTSA Dame Tyle run. That's what that's what
do I promise you. I wasn't there, but that's that's
what was said. Podcast p Paul George said on his
(21:30):
recent podcast that he thinks that Jannis is an old
school player wants to play in one place's whole career.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
I think also Yannis sees what happened to Dame when
you change teams and how bad that can go. You
lose your legacy, You're no longer the man. Your home
that you built isn't where you can sleep anymore. Who
knows what it did to his relationship, all of it bad.
Just because he hasn't asked out though, doesn't mean he
(21:55):
won't ask out. It just means right now there's still
on the Honest to Miami rumors have not died down recently.
Honest said a bunch of nice things about Stephen Golden State.
He's been Ruber to go there for a long ass time,
So hold on to your horses. He's not going anywhere
until he does. Moving on, Carmelo Anthony took to his
(22:17):
podcast to hype up white boys. One white boy, Cooper Flag.
Carmelo said, we've seen everyone in this draft before. We've
seen Paul George, We've seen Kevin Garnett, we've seen Tracy McGrady,
we've seen Mellows, we've seen Tatum, we've seen Ace Bailey.
That doesn't take away anything from him, but visually we've
seen Ace Bailey. Right, we haven't seen not to make
(22:39):
this black and white, we haven't seen a white boy
like this. It's true in a long fucking time. That's right,
when you know he's really good, that's when you know
Cooper Flag is really good. Like, we haven't seen that
in a long time. When is the last time we've
seen a homegrown American white player as the number one
overall consensus pick this much hype. At first, I thought
(23:04):
Larry Legend, No, he didn't go number one. John Stockton
didn't move the needle like this. Maybe this is the
most pressure that any number one pick has had in
recent memory. Because he's white. And some of that pressure
is just kind of funny. Anyway, a lot of that
moving on, been a lot of post playoff chatter about
(23:26):
Jonathan Kaminga, fashally after Steve Kerr said this, Jonathan Kaminga
is obviously gifted and wants to play a bigger role
and he wants to play more. And for me, I've
been asked to win and right now, he's not a
guy who I can say I'm gonna play thirty eight
minutes with the roster that we have and put the
puzzle together that way and expect to win. Ah, that's cringey,
and now you can see why Kaminga is buried on
(23:47):
the bench. Kerr also said, like, maybe Kamingo will just
stick around, Maybe he wants to stay and be a warrior.
Kaminga and him have a great relationship, but Kaminga might
want I don't know, some more minutes and probably someone.
This caused a massive splash in the bay, although it
probably shouldn't have because we know Jonathan Kaminga has been
like this, very much up and down roller coaster kind
(24:10):
of player, and that was the rationale explanation why he
got DMPs in the playoffs. Basically, his coach doesn't trust him,
and that's the root of what cur said. I can't
trust that we're gonna win putting him out there for
thirty eight minutes, just can't. Does that mean he doesn't
like him? No, doesn't mean it. Schemes that he wants
to run. Kaminga doesn't fit. Thus his chances are lowered
(24:31):
for winning when Kaminga is in the game. Kerr also
had to take the radio to explain this idea further
and said, I think, man, this is like a real issue.
I think the number one thing is that JK and
I have a very good relationship. We talk all the time.
This is just basketball. This is not a case of
JK coming in and say, hey, I gotta get out
of here. This is just trying to make this fit
and make this work. Blah blah blah blah blah blah.
(24:53):
He goes he going anyway, Kurz being brutally honest. It's
just basketball, and the key to basketball is winning. It's
probably gonna be a sign in trade, That's what I
imagine is going to have. That'll leave just Moses Moody.
Moses Moody on the team left from three lottery picks
and then the two timeline era will be over. That's
(25:13):
all the time that we have for this episode of
the Heat Check. Just a quick little hitter. Can't wait
to come back Friday for an all new episode. Check
out the feed. Check out the feed for the past
episodes and the occasional mini episode which will come at
you unexpectedly like a new puppy or the harrigans on Mobland.
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(25:36):
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