Speaker 1: You're tuned into Heat Check with Triste Quick.
Speaker 2: On this episode of the Heat Check, the New York Knicks,
Speaker 2: the Knickerbockers, if you will, off to another hot start.
Speaker 3: Could this be another year that they go to the playoffs?
Speaker 4: And there is one reason a man who might actually be,
Speaker 4: in hindsight underpaid. We break down the Knicks hot start
Speaker 4: and we get into what's happening in Portland, which, as
Speaker 4: a Blazers fan, I am an absolute shock.
Speaker 3: About Steam's four one baby what.
Speaker 4: Plus we cover some news around the league, including the
Speaker 4: Lakers continuing to stink but.
Speaker 3: Now being tone deaf. On top of that, Kevin.
Speaker 4: Durant being run into the ground again in Brooklyn. I
Speaker 4: compare the NFL and the NBA's handling of the concussion protocol.
Speaker 3: Uh wi, let's.
Speaker 4: Just say this NBA handling things a lot better than
Speaker 4: the NFL and Joellen deciding you know what, fuck it,
Speaker 4: I'm not playing defense anymore and the NBA going all
Speaker 4: in on Victor wembin Yama and the hype train.
Speaker 3: So much to talk about, so Nick dropped that motherfucking beat.
Speaker 4: I have a thought, obviously since this is a podcast
Speaker 4: about thoughts, but.
Speaker 3: Is Jalen Brunson actually underpaid.
Speaker 4: Everybody said, oh man, the Knicks really fucked up with
Speaker 4: Jalen Brunson one hundred and four million.
Speaker 3: No way he's worth all that money.
Speaker 4: I actually think if you look at this first four
Speaker 4: games and it continues for the rest of the duration
Speaker 4: of the contract, this deal looks like a bad deal
Speaker 4: for Jalen Brunson. Like it looks like he's worth Damian
Speaker 4: Lillard money. I hate to say it, but the man
Speaker 4: is bawling and true point guards are very hard to
Speaker 4: find these days. Jalen Brunson was the first of what
Speaker 4: we're supposed to be two huge moves for the New
Speaker 4: York Knicks, right And in fact, you could pretty much
Speaker 4: argue that last season they were committed to this being
Speaker 4: the case. They knew it was bad as soon as
Speaker 4: Dereck Rose got injured. Tibbs didn't have any of his
Speaker 4: guys in there, and things were not looking good, and
Speaker 4: they thought it's gonna be Brunson, and they thought it's
Speaker 4: gonna be Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 3: And then a very funny thing happened.
Speaker 4: Danny Ainge did Danny Ainge things, said, you know what,
Speaker 4: Leon Rose deuces I'm done doing business with you.
Speaker 3: We're just gonna deal with Donovan.
Speaker 4: Mitchell to the Calves and left the Knicks scrambling, and
Speaker 4: at the last minute they're trying to.
Speaker 3: Figure out how to piece together a roster that was
Speaker 3: largely outside.
Speaker 4: Of Jalen Brunson unchanged. And you have Julius Randall making
Speaker 4: one hundred and seventeen million dollars over four years, and
Speaker 4: he's looking like an atrocious player that you can't get
Speaker 4: rid of.
Speaker 3: Sad boy season in New York.
Speaker 4: I know, I was live on Wfan for it, and
Speaker 4: people were calling in like, no, no, we didn't want
Speaker 4: him anyway, No, no, There.
Speaker 3: Was a lot of that.
Speaker 4: Right But now, after a week of basketball, the Knickerbockers
Speaker 4: stand three and one with an OT loss to the
Speaker 4: Memphis Grizzlies, a team that everybody is.
Speaker 3: In absolute love with.
Speaker 4: On opening night where they clawed back like a very
Speaker 4: gritty team down fifteen, take it to OT, they should
Speaker 4: have won the game, but there was a no call
Speaker 4: goal ten by jaw Morant. Truthfully, the Knicks should be
Speaker 4: could be four and oh right now, which they would
Speaker 4: be the only undefeated team in the NBA.
Speaker 3: So what's the difference.
Speaker 4: My man, big Booty Brunson, Jalen Brunson, a six to
Speaker 4: one guard out of Villanova. He's not the fastest, he's
Speaker 4: not the quickest. We know he's not the biggest. He's
Speaker 4: six to one on a good day.
Speaker 3: You look at him.
Speaker 4: I've seen him up close. I've covered him when he
Speaker 4: played for Villanova. He's five eleven and a half.
Speaker 3: Let's be honest. He's one of those.
Speaker 4: Guys that doesn't wear that height. Well, do you know
Speaker 4: what I mean? One of the few true point guards
Speaker 4: left in the league. Right with doubt Donovan Mitchell and
Speaker 4: what was pretty much gonna be a shooter friendly offense.
Speaker 3: Instead, Tims went.
Speaker 4: Back to his basics and basically put the offense and
Speaker 4: the next season in the hands of Brunson, a guard
Speaker 4: in which his own dad calls a thick rear ended guard.
Speaker 3: Yep, you think I'm joking.
Speaker 4: The other word that Rick Brunson used for his son's
Speaker 4: booty was significant. Jalen Brunson has the significant caboose and
Speaker 4: it runs in the family. And that kabooz folks is
Speaker 4: getting loose, getting loose on the court.
Speaker 3: It's very on the court. I don't mean it pause,
Speaker 3: very much pause. I don't know what he's doing outside
Speaker 3: of that. It's so clear.
Speaker 4: It's so I didn't mean say it like that. It's
Speaker 4: very clear when you watch him. He's running this offense.
Speaker 4: And I saw him at the Garden on Monday night
Speaker 4: against the Orlando Magic, and man, does he have command
Speaker 4: of the Knicks offense in a way that they haven't had.
Speaker 3: Let's be honest, since Mama there goes that man Mark Jackson.
Speaker 4: Multiple times I saw Jalen Brunson on the floor pointing
Speaker 4: at the court to different players like stand there be there,
Speaker 4: like in front, yo, go over there, and they did.
Speaker 4: Like little chess pieces, they moved to Jalen Brunson's whim.
Speaker 4: And that is benefiting no one more than our guy,
Speaker 4: Julius Randall. All of a sudden, the player that we
Speaker 4: fell in love with two years ago, that one most
Speaker 4: improved player is back. And not coincidentally, it correlates with
Speaker 4: I don't know, Randal having a true point guard where
Speaker 4: Randall doesn't have to run the fucking offense. This is
Speaker 4: what Julius Randall had to say about what Jalen Brunson
Speaker 4: does for him.
Speaker 3: Bump the audio up, Nick because it's a.
Speaker 1: Little low early games, like, he just makes the game
Speaker 1: so much easier for me, you know, if I, you know,
Speaker 1: just keep moving segua scring is run the floor. You know,
Speaker 1: he's always looking to make the right play. So he
Speaker 1: finds me, He gets me going, gets me easy baskets.
Speaker 4: He just makes the game so much easier for me
Speaker 4: if I just keep moving and setting screens, running the floor.
Speaker 3: He's always looking to make the right play. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: last year Julius Randall was tasked with the Jalen Brunson role,
Speaker 3: and let me just say, this wasn't really working. Wasn't
Speaker 3: really working.
Speaker 4: Think about this, Julius Randall is scoring more points in
Speaker 4: less minutes than last year and is shooting fifty four
Speaker 4: percent from two, his best in his knixt career, because
Speaker 4: I don't know, he's not taking those god awful long
Speaker 4: twos at the end of shot clocks anymore.
Speaker 3: According to official.
Speaker 4: NBA stats, last year, Randall averaged two point two dribbles
Speaker 4: per touch, had the ball in his hands four point
Speaker 4: one minutes per game, felt like more. This year, he's
Speaker 4: down to one point four eight dribbles per touch and
Speaker 4: two point eight minutes per game.
Speaker 3: What a difference.
Speaker 4: And if you look at a stat line, it's ridoculous.
Speaker 4: Twenty points per game, nine rebounds per game, three assists,
Speaker 4: and one point two steals.
Speaker 3: Julius Randall is.
Speaker 4: Getting busy, and Randal actually has added some things to
Speaker 4: his game. He is shooting floaters now, Julius.
Speaker 3: Randall shooting floaters.
Speaker 4: He had two, count them, two zero dribble floaters against
Speaker 4: Orlando on Monday. When's the last time Julius Randall had
Speaker 4: two zero dribble floaters? He had two combined since the
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen season. So he's having two in one game
Speaker 4: and had two in the course of five years. He
Speaker 4: is adding to his bag. This is what Tibbs had
Speaker 4: to say about how differently Julius Randall is playing.
Speaker 3: And why so.
Speaker 5: And Julia's was terrific from start to finish. I love
Speaker 5: the way he's diversifying his game, like running the floor.
Speaker 5: Sometimes he's the pace guy. He'll push it up and
Speaker 5: then he'll create movements. Sometimes he just beats people down
Speaker 5: the floor. I think him getting easy baskets is huge
Speaker 5: for us, huge and uh it puts a lot of
Speaker 5: pressure on the defense. I thought Mitch gave us great
Speaker 5: minutes and you can't say enough about you know, what
Speaker 5: Jalen does for the team. He just he's incomplete control
Speaker 5: at all all times. And the game. You know, you
Speaker 5: hit some tough spots in a game, and he has
Speaker 5: such a strong demeanor and a strong face, and it's
Speaker 5: one of determination you have. It gives your team belief
Speaker 5: that we can do this. We we you know we
Speaker 5: can play well.
Speaker 3: Wow, a strong face gives your team belief. Yep, he does.
Speaker 4: Jalen Brunson is making this whole thing work because why
Speaker 4: Tibbs's vision works only with a competent point guard, and
Speaker 4: they did not have one last year because Derrick Rose
Speaker 4: was injured for much of that year. He needs a
Speaker 4: very specific roster and outside of Jalen making this team better,
Speaker 4: making his teammates better, being in New York makes.
Speaker 3: Him better too.
Speaker 4: In a league where big men are now shifting towards
Speaker 4: the perimeter, Jalen is taking what his dad calls a
Speaker 4: thick booty down into the paint to create space and
Speaker 4: get easy shots. This is what he said about his
Speaker 4: post play. I'm always comfortable in the post. I'm comfortable
Speaker 4: being able to play with my back to the basket
Speaker 4: or just playing out of the mid post or playing
Speaker 4: from the elbow.
Speaker 3: It gives me a chance to kind of slow down.
Speaker 3: For a guard, it's hard to guard. It's unconventional. Let's
Speaker 3: talk about his stat line his first four games with
Speaker 3: the Knicks.
Speaker 4: Twenty points per game, eight and a half assists per game,
Speaker 4: one and a half turnovers, fifty one percent from the field,
Speaker 4: forty one percent from three, and eighty five percent from the.
Speaker 3: Free throw line. All of that to say, do you
Speaker 3: believe me now?
Speaker 4: Jalen Brunson might just be underpaid one hundred and four
Speaker 4: million dollars.
Speaker 3: Who unlocks the offense.
Speaker 4: Who makes a guy you're paying one hundred and seventeen
Speaker 4: million dollars to actually worth one hundred and seventeen million dollars,
Speaker 4: slows the team down in times of pressure, has poise
Speaker 4: helps you win games cheap at twice the price. I
Speaker 4: could go on this entire podcast about Jalen Brunson.
Speaker 3: I've loved him long before it was sexy two. I've
Speaker 3: loved him at Villanova.
Speaker 4: I thought that he should be a point guard that
Speaker 4: the Mavericks used and paid long before Lucas stepped into
Speaker 4: that building.
Speaker 3: But you know, what.
Speaker 4: That's okay because he's getting his shine now and I
Speaker 4: would not be surprised if the Nicks end up in
Speaker 4: the playoffs again this year.