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