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Speaker 1: The volume, blending Vice's signature dynamic storytelling with the high

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Speaker 1: octane world of sports. Vice Sports brings an exciting and

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Speaker 1: diverse range of programming that goes beyond the game, catch

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Speaker 1: action pack, live events, and exclusive sports documentaries and profiles,

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Speaker 1: only on Vice TV.

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Speaker 2: All right, weld Hoops toight. You're at the volume heavy Wednesday. Everybody.

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Speaker 2: Hope all you guys are having a great week. Well,

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Speaker 2: we were going to be waiting until the NBA Finals

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Speaker 2: tipped off tomorrow night, but then Tom Thibodeau got fired,

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Speaker 2: so we got a bonus episode today. I just want

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Speaker 2: to kind of dive into my take on the situation,

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Speaker 2: some of the realities about how far the Knicks are

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Speaker 2: away from their goals and how a coaching change I

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Speaker 2: think kind of falls in line with their ultimate goal

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Speaker 2: of winning an NBA championship and kind of separating that

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Speaker 2: from some of the realities of the well, what it

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Speaker 2: was like having Tom Thibodeau as coach of the Knicks.

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Speaker 2: You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe

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Speaker 2: to the Hoops and I YouTube channels you don't miss

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Speaker 2: any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at

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Speaker 2: underscore JSNLTS. You guys, don't mis show announcements. Don't forget

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Speaker 2: about our podcast few where we get your podcast on

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Speaker 2: our hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave

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Speaker 2: a rating and review on that front. Jackson's doing great

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Speaker 2: work on our social media feeds Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok.

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Speaker 2: Make sure you guys follow us there, and the last

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Speaker 2: but not least, in our live shows, make sure you

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Speaker 2: guys keep dropping those male bag questions so we can

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Speaker 2: get to them in our chats at the end of

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Speaker 2: the shows. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the

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Speaker 2: first thing that we have to acknowledge before we go

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Speaker 2: any further is what the Knicks are trying to accomplish.

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Speaker 2: They're trying to win an NBA championship. They view their

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Speaker 2: defeat in the conference finals as a failure. I know

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Speaker 2: that feels weird in the context of them making their

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Speaker 2: first conference finals in over two decades in defeating the

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Speaker 2: Boston Celtics, which was kind of the goal of the

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Speaker 2: moves that were made last summer. But it's all relative

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Speaker 2: to the Larry O'Brien Trophy. And I'm gonna say something

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Speaker 2: that I said right after the MAVs lost in the

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Speaker 2: finals last year, they weren't actually close. Did you guys

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Speaker 2: think the MAVs were close to beating Boston? No, they

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Speaker 2: beat a bunch of teams along the way that were

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Speaker 2: also in that tier, below that top tier, championship contending tier,

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Speaker 2: but ultimately when they ran into a team that was

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Speaker 2: actually at a championship level, looked like there was a

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Speaker 2: chasm between them. I would argue there was a pretty

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Speaker 2: significant chasm between them and the Pacers this year, and

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Speaker 2: I think the Pacers have little to no chance to

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Speaker 2: beat the Thunder, so you could argue the Knicks are

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Speaker 2: still not close. From there, you have to start asking

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Speaker 2: yourself why why were the Knicks not close? And this

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Speaker 2: is where I'm seeing a lot of the issues with

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Speaker 2: the roster being brought up, specifically in defense of Tom Thibodeau,

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Speaker 2: and I think all that's fair. It's really difficult to

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Speaker 2: build a functioning defensive foundation on Karl Anthony Towns and

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Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson. Their challenge is there. It's all fair, and

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Speaker 2: we'll talk more about Kat in a bit, but it's

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Speaker 2: not just the roster. The Pacers outclassed them, and as

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Speaker 2: we mentioned, the Pacers are below the Thunder so here're

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Speaker 2: several tiers below where you need to be, and if

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Speaker 2: we removed the Celtics series, just take that entire two weeks,

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Speaker 2: set it aside, and look at the entirety of the

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Speaker 2: next season, I would argue they pretty significantly underachieved relative

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Speaker 2: to their talent level. They came into the year with

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Speaker 2: sky high expectations getting Karl Anthony Towns, getting Michale Bridges.

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Speaker 2: All of a sudden, you have one of the more

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Speaker 2: dynamic starting five units in the NBA, and they came

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Speaker 2: right out the gates and got the shit kicked out

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Speaker 2: of them by the Boston Celtics. They generally underachieved all seasons,

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Speaker 2: especially versus the good teams in the NBA. They were

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Speaker 2: oh to ten versus the Celtics, the Thunder and the Cavs.

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Speaker 2: They were six and six against the other ten or

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Speaker 2: the other seven teams that were in the top ten

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Speaker 2: in point differential this year, so they were oh to

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Speaker 2: ten versus the top three teams and five hundred against

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Speaker 2: the other good teams in the NBA. They got the

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Speaker 2: three seed, but they finished ten games below the two seed,

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Speaker 2: so it is mostly a product of the East being

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Speaker 2: very weak. They had a mediocre showing against the young

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Speaker 2: Pistons team that had them on the rope several times.

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Speaker 2: Knicks fans were incredibly frustrated with the team coming out

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Speaker 2: of that series and going into the Celtics Series and

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Speaker 2: then they got firmly outclassed by the Pacers. That's what

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Speaker 2: happens if we removed the Celtics Series. The NBA Finals

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Speaker 2: are here. This is your last chance to bet on

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Speaker 2: the stops to make this a finals. To remember, one

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Speaker 2: team will be crown champ and the other will be

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Speaker 2: lost to history. You got winning at all. Put your

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Speaker 2: we take a closer look at the Celtics series, they

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Speaker 2: faced massive deficits in five of the six games. Now,

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Speaker 2: they pulled that series out on the strength of some

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Speaker 2: incredible runs, but there was also some stuff there with

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Speaker 2: Tatum and Brown kind of falling apart. I want to

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Speaker 2: be clear, though, the flashes were real. I'm not sitting

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Speaker 2: here saying this that the Knicks had a bad season

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Speaker 2: and somehow made the Conference finals. They made it there

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Speaker 2: with their flashes. When they needed to be great against

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Speaker 2: the Pistons, they were great against the Pistons. They were

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Speaker 2: unbelievable against the Celtics at the tail end of those

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Speaker 2: games that they pulled out. Even in the Pacers series,

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Speaker 2: there were stretches. I thought for the majority of Game

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Speaker 2: one they looked like the better team. They had a

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Speaker 2: stretch at the end of Game three where they like

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Speaker 2: were kind of physically overwhelming for the Pacers. The flashes

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Speaker 2: were real, they were not fluky. I'm not saying this

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Speaker 2: is a bad team. It's just that that's the talent showing.

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Speaker 2: They have all these rangy athletes that can fly around

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Speaker 2: in rotation. Jalen Brunson is still one of the most

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Speaker 2: gifted half core playoff scorers in the league. When they

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Speaker 2: were able to keep opponents in the half court, when

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Speaker 2: they contained the ball, when they flew around in rotation

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Speaker 2: and didn't make mistakes, when they rebound and ran off

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Speaker 2: of that stuff, they looked scary good. That's how they

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Speaker 2: made the Eastern Conference Finals despite all of the frustrations

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Speaker 2: throughout the season. But overall, what prevented them from sustaining

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Speaker 2: that was a lack of attention to detail throughout their

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Speaker 2: daily process, and it made the mistake prone and in

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Speaker 2: many case. In many cases, it made them play below

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Speaker 2: what they were capable of. It made them play even

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Speaker 2: when their best players were trying to operate, and they

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Speaker 2: were competitive and engaged it made them operate in a

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Speaker 2: setting that was more difficult than it needed to be.

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Speaker 2: I thought there were three main areas where they struggled

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Speaker 2: to reach their potential. First of all, on the defensive

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Speaker 2: end of the floor, and this gets more complicated with

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Speaker 2: transition defense, but I want to hit transition defense in

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Speaker 2: a minute. But overall on the defensive end of the floor,

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Speaker 2: like Michale Bridges came out the gates this year and

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Speaker 2: just wasn't very good at the point of attack, right,

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Speaker 2: Brunson and Cat were pretty much a disaster on defense

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Speaker 2: the entire season. They failed to sustain any like consistent

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Speaker 2: defensive level that they needed to reach. Now, one of

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Speaker 2: the details here that's important to remember is Tom Thibau

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Speaker 2: is playing all these guys massive minutes, and it was

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Speaker 2: under this like kind of theory that if they played

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Speaker 2: massive minutes it would condition them for the playoff environment.

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Speaker 2: It was even something that became a talking point as

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Speaker 2: people in the press would ask questions about the minute loads.

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Speaker 2: But the reality is is that if you're asking a

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Speaker 2: guy to play extremely high minutes relative to the rest

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Speaker 2: of the league throughout an eighty two game season, that

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Speaker 2: player is not going to be able to be as

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Speaker 2: engaged on a possession by possession basis. So all of

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Speaker 2: a sudden, you start to build habits, and those habits

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Speaker 2: are hard to kick. That's why when in a must

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Speaker 2: win game in Game six on the road in Indiana,

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Speaker 2: they had their sloppiest game with the details. Your habits

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Speaker 2: are what carry you. When you hit adversity, when everything

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Speaker 2: hits the fan and your SHOT's not falling and the

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Speaker 2: other team's on a big run and the crowd's going

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Speaker 2: crazy and all of this stuff is just working against you,

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Speaker 2: you have one thing you can fall back on. I'm

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Speaker 2: just gonna play hard and I'm habitually focused on these

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Speaker 2: details that I'm gonna do every single time, and that

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Speaker 2: will help me restore control of the situation. Instead, the

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Speaker 2: opposite happened. They fell back on their bad habits, and

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Speaker 2: so as a result of that, when they hit adversity,

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Speaker 2: they actually fell apart. They were unable to sustain because

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Speaker 2: they leaned too much on their top guys in huge

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Speaker 2: minutes and they all practiced playing mediocre basketball all year. Now,

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Speaker 2: does the roster have a depth is year?

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Speaker 1: Sure?

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Speaker 2: You know, Mitch Robinson missed a good chunk of the year. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: once you get past the starting five, there's not as

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Speaker 2: much talent, but there were some usable guys there. Duce

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Speaker 2: McBride's a good player, obviously, Mitch when he became available,

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Speaker 2: really good player. We saw Andrew Shamitt be useful. We

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Speaker 2: saw Delon Wright be useful. I think Tibbs missed an

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Speaker 2: opportunity to lean on his depth more in the regular season,

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Speaker 2: not so that he can condition his stars for high

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Speaker 2: minute loads in the playoffs, but so that he could

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Speaker 2: actually teach all of those guys to play with a

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Speaker 2: certain amount of attention to detail throughout the season, so

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Speaker 2: that they had these habits in place, so that then

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Speaker 2: when they ended up in some adversity in the postseason,

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Speaker 2: they could fall back on those habits. The second piece

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Speaker 2: of it is spacing. This also falls into the concept

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Speaker 2: of attention to detail. I thought spacing was the biggest

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Speaker 2: weakness for the Knicks throughout this postseason run, and it

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Speaker 2: affected them both on the offensive end of the floor

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Speaker 2: as well as in their transition defense. I'm not going

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Speaker 2: to get into too much detail here because we've done

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Speaker 2: it quite a bit on the show over the course

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Speaker 2: of this series. But to make a long story, short,

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Speaker 2: there are simple concepts, simple ideas involving where you need

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Speaker 2: to be when you're off the ball that one make

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Speaker 2: help defenders make harder decisions. That two put specific guys

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Speaker 2: in situations where they can finish plays. And three create

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Speaker 2: the actual space for an on ball player to operate

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Speaker 2: so that he can be comfortable. That's just on the

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Speaker 2: offensive end of the floor. Move it to a step further.

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Speaker 2: That spacing is what allows you to get back and

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Speaker 2: transition defense. I can't tell you how many times in

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Speaker 2: this postseason run I would see multiple players in and

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Speaker 2: around the paint off the ball while no one's above

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Speaker 2: the break. Or you have a guy driving into a

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Speaker 2: guy in the strong side dunker spot instead of the

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Speaker 2: weak side dunker spot, or a guy standing where he

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Speaker 2: can't be a threat versus another guy who is a

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Speaker 2: shooting threat standing in the dunker spot, and you're like,

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Speaker 2: this is just making it more difficult than it needs

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Speaker 2: to be, and then you straight up lost the Pacers

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Speaker 2: series in transition, that's where you lost that series. And

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Speaker 2: one of the consistent themes that I saw was a

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Speaker 2: complete lack of understanding of floor balance. To make a

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Speaker 2: long story short, whenever the ball is moving through a defense,

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Speaker 2: whether it's through the drive or through the pass. As

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Speaker 2: the ball moves through the defense, the off ball guys

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Speaker 2: have to relocate. You can't just stand still right So,

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Speaker 2: for instance, if I'm driving off the left wing and

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Speaker 2: you're in the right dunker spot and I cross the midline,

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Speaker 2: you have to relocate to the left dunker spot so

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Speaker 2: that you can pull that help defender away right by.

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Speaker 2: If I cut through along the baseline, then the guy

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Speaker 2: who's in the corner I'm cutting two needs to relocate

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Speaker 2: up to the top of the key. Everyone needs to

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Speaker 2: be whirling around the ball into appropriate spacing. And it's

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Speaker 2: not just play finishing. Play finishing is a big part

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Speaker 2: of it. You don't want to have the above the

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Speaker 2: break line wide open. Why because if no one's up there,

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Speaker 2: you're making your team easier to guard. You want to

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Speaker 2: have a player situated above the break on the opposite

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Speaker 2: wing so that he is a threat, so that he

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Speaker 2: can pull a defender out there, and if they're going

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Speaker 2: to sink into the paint, you have an easy kickout opportunity.

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Speaker 2: And then if for whatever reason, you miss or you

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Speaker 2: turn the ball over. Having guys above the break those

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Speaker 2: are literally the dudes who have to get back in

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Speaker 2: transition defense. They lost the Pacers series in many cases

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Speaker 2: because you'd have a guy driving off the top of

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Speaker 2: the key, with the guy who set the screen for

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Speaker 2: him rolling off the top of the key, with two

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Speaker 2: guys in the corners and a guy in the dunker spot,

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Speaker 2: and now everyone's below the foul line. So not only

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Speaker 2: are you making yourself easy to guard because all five

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Speaker 2: defenders don't have to worry about half of the half court,

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Speaker 2: they don't have to worry about anything above the foul line.

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Speaker 2: And then in addition to that, all it takes is

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Speaker 2: one guy leaking out who gets behind all those five guys,

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Speaker 2: and now you're giving up a dunk. They were a

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Speaker 2: poorly spaced, poorly disciplined basketball team that made it to

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Speaker 2: the conference finals sheerly on the strength of their talent.

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Speaker 2: The third piece of it was offensive variety. The upside

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Speaker 2: of getting a guy Lego Jiananobi is he can put

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Speaker 2: the ball on the floor against the mismatch draw out

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Speaker 2: get a bucket. The upside with McHale bridges you can

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Speaker 2: come off of a ball screen and look to score.

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Speaker 2: The upside of having Karl Anthony Towns, and Jalen Brunson.

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Speaker 2: So you have four players in the starting lineup that

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Speaker 2: are all legitimate shot creators. And there were times where

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Speaker 2: it looked really good good. There's you know a lot

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Speaker 2: of the times when Jalen Brunson would come out of

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Speaker 2: the game, the ball would move around a little bit

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Speaker 2: more freely and guys would get more involved. I thought

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Speaker 2: in game six of the Pacers series, they finally started

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Speaker 2: to understand like, oh wait, like these guys can't guard

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Speaker 2: Ojannanobi when he's on the side, Let's go to him

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Speaker 2: more frequently. Right. We saw big stretches of the Celtics

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Speaker 2: series where Michale Bridges took over, But there was never

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Speaker 2: a point where you felt like the Knicks were operating

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Speaker 2: like the Pacers operated, meaning when you're playing against the Pacers,

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Speaker 2: they just they didn't. Every game looked different every every

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Speaker 2: night they kind of found the hot hand. On any

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Speaker 2: given night, they might have four or five different guys

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Speaker 2: score twenty points because their offense was geared towards keeping

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Speaker 2: everyone involved. Action was constantly moving side to side. This

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Speaker 2: is modern five out basketball. Modern five out basketball is

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Speaker 2: trying to get into multiple actions on the same possession,

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Speaker 2: getting the ball at the more quickly with pace getting

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Speaker 2: into that first action. If the first action creates an advantage,

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Speaker 2: you just play drive and kick off of it. If

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Speaker 2: it doesn't create an advantage, it flows into an action

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Speaker 2: on the other side of the floor. The more ball

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Speaker 2: in player movement that you have on any given possession,

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Speaker 2: the more advantages that are naturally created. The more you

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Speaker 2: cultivate an environment where everyone feels like they can be aggressive,

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Speaker 2: the easier it is for everyone to stay in rhythm

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Speaker 2: throughout a game. That is Pacers basketball. That is how

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Speaker 2: they beat you, guys. That is how they're in the finals. Now, now,

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Speaker 2: you don't want to go as far as the Pacers

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Speaker 2: did because you've got Jalen Brunson and he's one of

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Speaker 2: the best singular offensive talents in our league. But if

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Speaker 2: you don't go trading a bunch of draft picks for

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Speaker 2: a bunch of forwards that are capable of being super

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Speaker 2: versatile offensive players and then marginalize them, go for Dorian

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Speaker 2: Finney Smith instead, if that's what you're looking for. This

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Speaker 2: roster was constructed with a lot of aggregate ball. Take

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Speaker 2: advantage of it. So taking it back to self awareness,

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Speaker 2: you don't have a top tier superstar. Jalen Brunson is

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Speaker 2: definitely good enough to win a championship as the best player.

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Speaker 2: I think he's proven that. It's not like Brunson is

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Speaker 2: the reason why they're losing. But what he's not is

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Speaker 2: the indomitable type of talent that we see at the

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Speaker 2: top of our league. He is not a top tier superstar.

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Speaker 2: He's not Shake Gildess Alexander right. He's not a guy that,

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Speaker 2: regardless of surrounding circumstances, is gonna get off. There were

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Speaker 2: times in this Pacers series where Nie Smith kind of

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Speaker 2: had him under lock, like in crunch time. So like

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Speaker 2: accepting that you have kind of a second tier superstar,

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Speaker 2: your margin for error is smaller. I don't think they'll

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Speaker 2: be able to reach a championship ceiling unless they make

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Speaker 2: a pivot to the coaching staff and the roster. It's

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Speaker 2: gonna be both again, acknowledging self awareness that your multiple

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Speaker 2: tiers be where you need to be when you're in

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Speaker 2: this coaching search. The two primary things the Knicks have

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Speaker 2: to be looking for is someone who hunts margin, who

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Speaker 2: hunts the low hanging fruit in basketball, someone who understands

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Speaker 2: we give ourselves a better chance, not just in the

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Speaker 2: regular season, but in the postseason to win games if

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Speaker 2: we are a team that takes advantage of the low

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Speaker 2: hanging fruit and that prevents other teams from taking advantage

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Speaker 2: of the low hanging fruit. That means you force turnovers

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Speaker 2: and you don't turn the ball over, you corner crash

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Speaker 2: and clear as many offensive rebounds you can within the

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Speaker 2: context of your transition defense while also keeping the opponent

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Speaker 2: off of the offensive glass or like it's the it's

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Speaker 2: the pushing in transition whenever you can to get that

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Speaker 2: extra twenty percent out of every possession while also being

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Speaker 2: a great transition defense that prevents the other team from

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Speaker 2: getting an extra twenty percent out of every single possession.

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Speaker 2: These are all readily achievable things that basketball teams can

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Speaker 2: take advantage of. It just has to be drilled down

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Speaker 2: from October through to the middle of April when you

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Speaker 2: start this process. The second piece of it is they

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Speaker 2: need to find someone who can build the offense around

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Speaker 2: a more equal opportunity. Approach someone who advocates for maximizing

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Speaker 2: the aggregate offensive talent on this team, and I'll just

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Speaker 2: be really curious to see who they end up tracking

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Speaker 2: down on that front. And then, lastly, before we get

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Speaker 2: out of here, the Karl Anthony Towns thing. I've talked

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Speaker 2: about this before. The problem with Karl Anthony Towns is

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Speaker 2: he is obscenely talented, and the upside is there, and

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Speaker 2: there were points in the Pacer series where he kind

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Speaker 2: of just realized no one could guard him and he

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Speaker 2: looked like a force to be reckoned with. But when

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Speaker 2: I watched Game six of the Pacers series, he was

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Speaker 2: front and center for the majority of the issues they

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Speaker 2: were having in their transition defense and in their half

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Speaker 2: court defense, and not in like a oh he's limited

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Speaker 2: kind of way. I've seen some talk about, you know,

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Speaker 2: his athleticism and his ability to like cover ground and

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Speaker 2: all this sort of stuff that I think is certainly

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Speaker 2: part of the issue and that'll prevent Cat from ever

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Speaker 2: becoming like a dominant defensive player. But the main reason

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Speaker 2: why he is a bad defensive player is his just

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Speaker 2: his natural defensive instincts, his overall just he's just kind

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Speaker 2: of aloof you're above the break, dude, you can't be

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Speaker 2: crashing the offensive glass. You have get back responsibility, Like, dude,

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Speaker 2: you're in a ball screen with three people and the

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Speaker 2: role man's getting behind. You can't just be dancing out

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Speaker 2: around twenty five feet from the basket throwing the worst

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Speaker 2: headg I've ever seen. There's a certain amount of like

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Speaker 2: Cat just kind of feels like he's freelancing all the time,

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Speaker 2: and so like, Okay, if you decide to bring Cat back,

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Speaker 2: you can try to drill that down with a better coach.

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Speaker 2: But the reality is is we've had multiple stops in

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Speaker 2: his career in big spots where he struggled to be

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Speaker 2: as attentive to detail as he needs to be to

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Speaker 2: be a strong defensive foundation. That is to say, I

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Speaker 2: think tying up fifty million dollars in salary on an

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Speaker 2: inconsistent offensive player who is a bad to awful defensive

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Speaker 2: player who specifically is bad in terms of just his

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Speaker 2: ability to make basic basketball decisions on that end of

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Speaker 2: the floor, I think you're kind of handcuffing yourself if

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Speaker 2: you tie yourself to him. So I do view him

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Speaker 2: as the primary pivot point. But I believe that Jalen Brunson,

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Speaker 2: with Josh Hart and Mikale Bridges and og Anobi and

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Speaker 2: a competent coaching staff that has attention to detail that

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Speaker 2: maximizes the overall aggregate offensive talent on this roster. I

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Speaker 2: do believe that championship ceiling is in there. And it

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Speaker 2: takes a lot of guts to look at a guy

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Speaker 2: in Tibbs who just led the most successful next season

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Speaker 2: in decades, who is below his players and in general

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Speaker 2: is just a legend of this era of NBA basketball.

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Speaker 2: It takes a lot of guts to sit down there

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Speaker 2: and be like, he's not the guy that can bring

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Speaker 2: us to the championship. And I thought it was completely

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Speaker 2: defensible to move on from him. All right, guys, That's

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Speaker 2: all I have for today is always sincerely appreciate you

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Speaker 2: guys for supporting me and supporting the show. I will

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Speaker 2: see you guys tomorrow night after Game one of the

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Speaker 2: NBA Finals live on YouTube. I cannot wait. We'll see

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Speaker 2: you guys then