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Speaker 2: All right, welcome to hoops today here at the Volume
Speaker 2: Heavy Sunday. Everybody. Hope all of you guys are having
Speaker 2: a great weekend. Well, Colin Coward was very kind to
Speaker 2: join us tonight with his time, and this time two
Speaker 2: days ago we were looking at a what looked like
Speaker 2: the Indiana Pacers on their way to potentially a sweep
Speaker 2: to go to the finals. We're talking about trading Karl
Speaker 2: Anthony Towns. Everyone's blowing a bunch of smoke about the
Speaker 2: Thunder and how they're the all time great team. And
Speaker 2: now we're sitting here on Sunday evening and both series
Speaker 2: are two to one and very very different Colin. My
Speaker 2: initial read was just simply that this is more or
Speaker 2: less where the Eastern Conference Finals should be at this
Speaker 2: point in that I thought the Knicks looked like the
Speaker 2: better team in Game one and they blew it, And
Speaker 2: I thought the Pacers looked like the better team tonight
Speaker 2: that I thought they let their foot off the gas
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. The Knicks did find some stuff,
Speaker 2: and we'll get into that, but Carl Anthony town steals
Speaker 2: this game just like Aaron Nesmith stole Game one, and
Speaker 2: it kind of feels like we're supposed to be two
Speaker 2: to one Indie and here we are two to one Indie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they are really different teams. At one point,
Speaker 1: the 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 when you're
Speaker 1: a really gifted player and you play with a ball
Speaker 1: centric great player. This was Brunson in Dallas, you know,
Speaker 1: like he would be like it was Luca's show. And
Speaker 1: then you put him in New York and this is
Speaker 1: one of those were in a weird way. It was
Speaker 1: like Karl Anthony Taw. The team was just looking for
Speaker 1: him to lead, and we both know that he can
Speaker 1: do this. He doesn't sustain it, he gets in foul trouble.
Speaker 1: He can be inefficient, he's flaky. But and then I think,
Speaker 1: to your point, I think I think they just they
Speaker 1: had a series of really the Pacers had a series
Speaker 1: of really bad offensive possessions, and you look up and
Speaker 1: you're like nine seven, four to two lead. So this
Speaker 1: is what happens in the NBA. This isn't college Like,
Speaker 1: there's just things happened quickly in the NBA, and you
Speaker 1: looked up and you're like, oh, New York has total
Speaker 1: control emotionally, they just felt like they were going to
Speaker 1: win the game. With about four left, You're like, Indiana
Speaker 1: can't get out 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 it kind of just
Speaker 2: 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. Very similarly,
Speaker 2: that happened to New York. All of a sudden, their
Speaker 2: offense bogs down. In Game one, other offense bogs down.
Speaker 2: Suddenly Aaron E. 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 they need to score.
Speaker 2: And then he goes He's like, who's gonna be the
Speaker 2: guy who brings the offense for the Knicks and ended
Speaker 2: up being deuced McBride and they went on like a
Speaker 2: seven to zero run and it cut it down to
Speaker 2: ten going into the fourth quarter, and that's what they
Speaker 2: were talking about. They're like, they just need to get
Speaker 2: it down to ten. And then as soon as they
Speaker 2: got into the fourth quarter in striking distance, Karl Anthony
Speaker 2: Towns gets going. It's the three point shooting. It's the
Speaker 2: like you mentioned, the first step. And then once he
Speaker 2: gets that first step, the bigs all try to catch
Speaker 2: up to him, but he's just so good at powering
Speaker 2: through with that battering 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 Kat 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 Duce 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 2: And that's what happened in this game. They don't have
Speaker 2: a Brunson, a guy who's just an indomitable one on
Speaker 2: one force who can step in and get great shots,
Speaker 2: and so like that, that really is the key if
Speaker 2: there's any hope for New York in this series. And
Speaker 2: I still feel pretty strongly that Indiana is gonna get
Speaker 2: it done. But like, if there's any hope for New
Speaker 2: York in this series, it's they gotta fly around and
Speaker 2: rotate and they got they gotta match Indiana's speed and
Speaker 2: pace and energy as much as 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 into about it, and it wasn't like two minutes,
Speaker 1: it was like six minutes. So they got into a
Speaker 1: six minute stretch where McConnell's getting He got one short
Speaker 1: look and then he forced one and then you know
Speaker 1: again they have like Nie 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 when he is whereas
Speaker 1: Brunson doesn't control the pace, he controls them scoring. Halliburton
Speaker 1: can control scoring and the pace. So when you take
Speaker 1: him out and then you insert him back and it's like, okay, now, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna change the pace of this, and he tried
Speaker 1: and he does, but it just didn't. It felt clunky
Speaker 1: and it felt like they were playing uphill. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just.
Speaker 1: This is a hard series to officiate. Just give me
Speaker 1: a minute on this. Siakam had a great block on McBride.
Speaker 1: They call it, they called the foul in it, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, good God, that's ridiculous. The Biggs, I
Speaker 1: mean Turner and Cat and uh Siakam, especially Siakam and Cat.
Speaker 1: They're aggressive offensive players with a nice touch. There was
Speaker 1: so many calls going against the Knicks in the second half,
Speaker 1: third quarter. I'm like, oh, this is this is They're
Speaker 1: gonna blow a gasket here. And then I thought a
Speaker 1: couple went against the Pacers late. I think this is
Speaker 1: a hard series to officiate. New York's a good defensive team.
Speaker 1: Indiana is an underrated defensive team. And the Bigs move
Speaker 1: and they collide and I don't know. As I watched
Speaker 1: this game about and I'm not a guy that bangs
Speaker 1: on officials, but I was like, man, there were a
Speaker 1: lot of calls going against the Necks for a stretch
Speaker 1: in this game.
Speaker 2: I thought, no, absolutely, That's why I wasn't upset about
Speaker 2: the Siaka one, Like Siaka 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, yeah,
Speaker 2: to the point you're making, what makes this series so
Speaker 2: hard to officiate is on the one hand, you've got Brunson,
Speaker 2: who's one of the most gifted foul grifters in the NBA.
Speaker 2: And then on the other side, the Pacers just play
Speaker 2: so fast and there's so much running that you kind
Speaker 2: of have to put your body in the way you
Speaker 2: have to. If you don't, they're just gonna cut you
Speaker 2: to pieces. And so there's a lot of these like
Speaker 2: kind of bang bang contact plays where a dude comes
Speaker 2: flying downhill or tries to turn the corner on a
Speaker 2: drive and you try to position yourself in front and
Speaker 2: take the contact, and they're getting called for fouls in
Speaker 2: a lot of those situations, and it is a very
Speaker 2: difficult series to officiate. But what causes those fouls, to
Speaker 2: your point, is the speed in the pace. And if
Speaker 2: there's one thing to credit the Knicks for in this
Speaker 2: fourth quarter that, like you said, there was a six
Speaker 2: minute stretch there where You're like, why is Aaron Nesmith
Speaker 2: trying to play bully ball against joshuar Ojananobi, Like o
Speaker 2: Jananoby's you know, four inches taller than you and at
Speaker 2: least thirty pounds heavier, Like you're not gonna go through
Speaker 2: his chest to get to the rim. And there was
Speaker 2: a little bit too much of like siakam Iso, a
Speaker 2: little too much of like Tyrese Halliburton dribbling out of
Speaker 2: ball screens instead of passing out of ball screens like
Speaker 2: he always does. I thought Indiana kind of lost their
Speaker 2: identity for a minute in that fourth quarter. By the way,
Speaker 2: like that's a credit to Karl Anthony Towns. I'm a
Speaker 2: big believer in this colin I'm I think basketball is
Speaker 2: more art than science. I think there is a lot
Speaker 2: of like psychological dynamics at play in any given moment.
Speaker 2: And like when Luca rolls up into your building in
Speaker 2: the first quarter in an elimination game and scorees seventeen
Speaker 2: points and hits three logo threes, it just SAPs you
Speaker 2: of all your energy. Like even I thought Brunson and
Speaker 2: kat both kind of were succumbing to that over the
Speaker 2: course of this game. Brunson was having a rough night.
Speaker 2: Cat was having a rough night. What happened in that
Speaker 2: fourth quarter was Kat threw one hell of a punch
Speaker 2: and he's dunking on everybody and hitting step back threes,
Speaker 2: and you could tell Indiana was just shaken at that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean there was a point in the first
Speaker 1: half when Indiana and by twenty and they got into
Speaker 1: this like six or eight transition run where it was
Speaker 1: like three fast rates, bang bang, and I'm like, all
Speaker 1: the game's over. The series is over. I mean, I
Speaker 1: would have bet my four oh one kid at that moment.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, the series is over. It's done. The
Speaker 1: body language Brunson didn't seem engaged, and 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 him, and and
Speaker 1: going even into this game, I was with friends tonight
Speaker 1: in the in the first quarter, a little cookout at
Speaker 1: their house. We were watching the game, and it was
Speaker 1: like it was one of the people there was not
Speaker 1: a basketball fan, and I said, oh, this series has
Speaker 1: just come down to the last six minutes. I said,
Speaker 1: one team's great defensively, one's very good offensively. There's about
Speaker 1: six really good players combined. I said, it'll be close.
Speaker 1: It'll be a four point game. I thought Indiana would win.
Speaker 1: But I also think one of the things that was
Speaker 1: good for the NBA tonight is that you're seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of road teams win playoff games. They've been a
Speaker 1: ton I mean Indiana obviously, my entire life, even as
Speaker 1: an NBA fan, I always felt like the home team
Speaker 1: got the whistle, and I just like seeing road teams win.
Speaker 1: I think it just I think it's just better for
Speaker 1: basketball when the road team wins. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's just funny now that the Knicks can't win it
Speaker 1: home and the Basers now are winning everywhere but home,
Speaker 1: and I think it's just good. It makes the series captivating.
Speaker 1: I'm interested to watch the Pacers come out in Game
Speaker 1: four because my take is they're gonna try to push
Speaker 1: the pace again because they they walked into that locker
Speaker 1: room and they're like, we lost our way at home
Speaker 1: in a game that could have clinched the series, Like
Speaker 1: they just lost their way credit the next defense, But
Speaker 1: that was as bad as Indiana's looked offensively for a
Speaker 1: six to eight minute 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 gonna be
Speaker 2: a very difficult game for the Knicks to win. That
Speaker 2: Like the game I pointed to is the Calves Game four.
Speaker 2: Calves went into Indiana in Game three and blew them out.
Speaker 2: And that's not a that's not that's a sixty four
Speaker 2: when Leyden roster that went into Indy and suffered one
Speaker 2: of the most humiliating blowouts that we've ever seen in
Speaker 2: the NBA when they were trailing eighty to thirty nine
Speaker 2: at the end of the first half. So Indiana is
Speaker 2: gonna come out and they're going to throw their best punch.
Speaker 2: What's fascinating to me is coming into this series. I
Speaker 2: mentioned to you on your show that I thought the
Speaker 2: Pacers were better on offense and better on defense than
Speaker 2: the Knicks, and that was why I thought that they
Speaker 2: would win the series. But interestingly enough, this is a
Speaker 2: Knicks team that's kind of had mediocre results for the
Speaker 2: majority of this season, and they beat the Celtics. And
Speaker 2: what's fascinating to me now as I look back on
Speaker 2: this all is there's kind of a range of outcomes
Speaker 2: for all of these teams, and the Pacers are a
Speaker 2: team that pretty consistently hits their ceiling. They're not like
Speaker 2: what you saw tonight was very out of the out
Speaker 2: of character for them. The Knicks, I've seen them a
Speaker 2: half dozen times each in this postseason look like a
Speaker 2: putrid defense and look like an awesome defense, like at
Speaker 2: multiple different points in this postseason, they've kind of oscillated
Speaker 2: back and forth between those two ideas. They just have
Speaker 2: a wide range of outcomes. And so we've all known
Speaker 2: that the Knicks can have defensive stretches like they had
Speaker 2: in that fourth quarter tonight. They did it to Boston
Speaker 2: multiple times. They can fly around in rotation and contest
Speaker 2: shots and do all of that stuff. They just can't
Speaker 2: sustain it. And so Ultimately, as you zoom out from
Speaker 2: the series, the Pacers are up to one and they
Speaker 2: are more likely to sustain their peak level of play.
Speaker 2: Yes moving forward, and it makes some assaye for Bet
Speaker 2: to win the series.
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Speaker 1: every play could be the one that changes everything. This
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Speaker 1: Okay Western Conference Game three pretty much unwatchable blowout and
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's what's funny is it's
Speaker 1: hard to find anybody that likes watching OKAC play. You know,
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of hovering defense where they kind of
Speaker 1: they swarm on you. I think you said it's almost
Speaker 1: collegiate looking the way they play defense, and then it's
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, drawing fouls s J. I
Speaker 1: don't think they're a fun watch. I just think they're
Speaker 1: really athletic and really deep. Do I am I supposed
Speaker 1: to take anything beyond just a desperate, well coached team
Speaker 1: in Minnesota ant crazy and it was just a young
Speaker 1: team lessen really feeling their oats and just got overwhelmed
Speaker 1: and just packed it it. I mean, it is anything
Speaker 1: more than that.
Speaker 2: I think there was some more in the sense that
Speaker 2: I think that Oklahoma City's a better team than Minnesota,
Speaker 2: but I also don't think they were the type of
Speaker 2: team that should blow them out multiple times in a
Speaker 2: row 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 Shae Gildes
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 2: and he's just like the best isolation player in the league.
Speaker 2: He was like of all isolation players who attempted at
Speaker 2: least three hundred shots. He was number one by a
Speaker 2: mile this year. And so what Chris Finch was doing
Speaker 2: was picking up Shay at half court and letting him
Speaker 2: play one on one, staying glued home to shooters. And
Speaker 2: it was just like gift wrapping Shae, the perfect environment
Speaker 2: for him to thrive on. And it was hilarious juxtaposed
Speaker 2: with a Denver series where we saw the exact opposite
Speaker 2: game plan with lesser defense of personnel have a great
Speaker 2: deal of success. Now they won by forty because yes,
Speaker 2: there was an urgency gap, and they shot a lot
Speaker 2: better and there were a lot like Anthony Edwards was
Speaker 2: hitting shots over triple teams in the second half, Like yeah,
Speaker 2: that was what it caused it to manifest in a
Speaker 2: destructive blowout. But right away to start that game, one
Speaker 2: of the reasons why they were able to quickly assert
Speaker 2: control and hold Oklahoma City. I think they held him
Speaker 2: to fifteen points in the first quarter. The reason why
Speaker 2: was they immediately dropped back to Denver's game plan. They
Speaker 2: had Jaden meet Shay inside the three point line because again,
Speaker 2: if you ball pressure a player, it's the easiest time
Speaker 2: to drive past them because you're being forward aggressive as
Speaker 2: a defender, so of course she's going to go right
Speaker 2: around you. He's literally the best. He drove to the
Speaker 2: basket more than two hundred times more than the second
Speaker 2: best driver in the league this year, Colin. That's like
Speaker 2: almost four times a game. He's far and away the
Speaker 2: best driver. You can't pick him up that far. He's
Speaker 2: gonna go right around you. Jaden sat back and then
Speaker 2: they start pack in the paint off of shooters, and
Speaker 2: so as a result, it looked like the Denver game,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, it turned into Oklahoma City's
Speaker 2: role players needing to knock down threes in Shae having
Speaker 2: to make tougher decisions in the lane about whether or
Speaker 2: not he wanted to shoot over some double and triple
Speaker 2: teams where he can have some shortcomings. Because if I
Speaker 2: asked you what Shae's biggest weaknesses are, it's probably his
Speaker 2: three point shooting, yeah, and his ability to process in
Speaker 2: traffic in the lane. Now, he's still pretty good at
Speaker 2: those things, but they're not his strengths. And in that
Speaker 2: end of the first half, he was one for four
Speaker 2: from three, he had four turnovers. He finished the game
Speaker 2: I think four for fifteen from the field. Colin. Only
Speaker 2: eight times all season did Shae shoot below forty percent
Speaker 2: from the field. He is one of the most consistently
Speaker 2: efficient scorers in basketball. They held him to thirty one
Speaker 2: percent in that game. So there definitely was a better
Speaker 2: game plan and so as a result, I think Game
Speaker 2: four will be a closer, more tightly contested game because
Speaker 2: they're running the right game plan for this time well.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the vulnerabilities of OKAC is
Speaker 1: young teams role players are generally not as good on
Speaker 1: the road in the playoffs, and that's exactly what you saw.
Speaker 1: Like we've talked about this before. Role players at home
Speaker 1: are just different players they play. They need that confidence,
Speaker 1: they need the swagger of the crowd. Steph Curry doesn't
Speaker 1: and doesn't. And I think when you force Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: and you just say okay, okay, young guys, hit your
Speaker 1: shots on the road, loud crowd, it's hard, there's a history,
Speaker 1: it's like, really really hard. And I also think, and
Speaker 1: I also think when you're playing a team like Okay
Speaker 1: See so much, I wonder about sometimes Okay See is
Speaker 1: so good defensively and so swarming and so frenetic. I
Speaker 1: do wonder if Minnesota players tend to spend so much
Speaker 1: of their on court time thinking about that. So much
Speaker 1: of playing OKAC is deciphering their defense and figuring out
Speaker 1: I mean, you have to really be you have to
Speaker 1: already be intentional when you play them defensively, because they
Speaker 1: 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 veteran 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 a Oka See is a
Speaker 1: vulnerable team on the road that you can win your
Speaker 1: home 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 offensive, right,
Speaker 2: that's brutally bad, and their defense slides all the way
Speaker 2: up to one twelve, which is pretty bad for them.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, you're not what you're onto is
Speaker 2: what's really been happening with them?
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, yep, 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 minutes with Indiana, except for six
Speaker 1: minutes tonight. I feel like I get this exact same
Speaker 1: Pacer squad home and away. They want to run if
Speaker 1: they can't, you know, I just, okay, see, of all
Speaker 1: the four teams left, I feel like I get a
Speaker 1: different OKAC 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 stare at any possession. Shay's ignoring
Speaker 2: whoever he's guarding, just sitting in the basket. They've got three, four,
Speaker 2: sometimes five guys in the paint on like every single drive.
Speaker 2: They're daring Minnesota to take and make corner threes in
Speaker 2: this series and in the like when after Game one
Speaker 2: when Ant was like, I vowed to be more aggressive,
Speaker 2: I'm like, that's not the answer. They're like, you're gonna
Speaker 2: just drive into the teeth of the defense and you're
Speaker 2: gonna take bad shots. And by the way, in the
Speaker 2: first half of Game two, he took eighteen shots and
Speaker 2: had sixteen points to show for it. What was kind
Speaker 2: of fascinating about the flow of this series is to
Speaker 2: your point, you start to get more comfortable as you adjust.
Speaker 2: Aunt and Julius were awesome in Game three, especially early
Speaker 2: at making those corner kicks, and they were finally knocking
Speaker 2: down those corner threes. They have had three games worth
Speaker 2: of experience against Oklahoma City's base defensive scheme, and they're
Speaker 2: starting to figure it out a little bit. Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: saw that bad game plan for two games and then
Speaker 2: Finch throws the appropriate game plan in game three, and
Speaker 2: they looked like completely shell shocked by it. I mean, Colin,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you saw it. In Game one,
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City only took like twenty threes and the reason
Speaker 2: why is because they were staying glued off the ball
Speaker 2: and letting Shay play one on one. It's it's such
Speaker 2: a fundamentally different defensive game plan that Minnesota is rocking
Speaker 2: from this point forward now. To be clear, in Game four,
Speaker 2: by the way, via DraftKings. All of our odds are
Speaker 2: from DraftKings. Oklahoma City is a three point favorite in
Speaker 2: Game four, and that feels right to me. I think
Speaker 2: it's gonna be a close game. They're gonna bring an
Speaker 2: intense defensive effort right away out the gates. That's gonna
Speaker 2: test Aunt and Julius's decision making again. And then you're
Speaker 2: gonna see Oklahoma City, because they have seen this defense
Speaker 2: before with Denver. You're gonna see them kind of come
Speaker 2: into the game prepared for that game plan. That said,
Speaker 2: and this is the one thing I'd say, like, I
Speaker 2: think Minnesota has a much better chance of beating Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City from this point forward than the Knicks do with
Speaker 2: the Pacers, because what Minnesota can bring to the table
Speaker 2: is Denver caut problems for OKC was some weak defensive personnel.
Speaker 2: Minnesota's got a bunch of really good defenders out there,
Speaker 2: and so if they properly execute this game plan, they
Speaker 2: could potentially do some real damage. And as long as
Speaker 2: they ride that momentum going forward in the series. There's
Speaker 2: also a little bit of like a Aunt straight up
Speaker 2: can be unguardable sometimes with some of the shots that
Speaker 2: he can make, and like he was just better than
Speaker 2: Shay in Game three, and if he can maintain that,
Speaker 2: that would be the other thing that could swing things
Speaker 2: back towards Minnesota.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny 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 gonna reel
Speaker 1: off like three, and then Bruce Brown left and then
Speaker 1: casep and they didn't. I mean, they didn't have a
Speaker 1: great bench to begin with, and now it's a bad
Speaker 1: bench and they become you know, Murray gets hurt. And
Speaker 1: I've never been a huge Michael Porter fan. I've always been.
Speaker 1: I always think Aaron Gordon's underrated Porter to me, just
Speaker 1: I think he's the nod fit and a bit overpaid.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden you look up and
Speaker 1: Denver just looks good. And I watched Indiana, I said,
Speaker 1: and 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 there, they're the one team
Speaker 1: that you get a different version on the road. They're
Speaker 1: not nearly as good as they are at home. Is
Speaker 1: that I feel like whoever wins this year will not
Speaker 1: win the following year. And I first of all, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be ay 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 at the in the game late, so we can
Speaker 1: we can live with them. I feel like the Pacers
Speaker 1: feel a little bit like the Nuggets. I'm falling in love,
Speaker 1: like I fell in love with Jokic and Gordon. I'm like, God,
Speaker 1: I love this team, but it wasn't as sustainable. It
Speaker 1: was very Jokicic dominant. And Murray, you know, he's just
Speaker 1: one of those players that I like a lot, I
Speaker 1: don't love, and I kind of feel like with Indiana,
Speaker 1: I'm falling for it because and I'm doing this because
Speaker 1: it's like confirmation bias. I love watching them play, and
Speaker 1: so I'm talking myself into Indiana's great. But then I
Speaker 1: watched 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 Ant 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 it's just funny watching
Speaker 1: 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, He's the only team that could theoretically keep
Speaker 2: this kind of talent accumulated for long enough. Like Indiana
Speaker 2: 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 call it? Starting center money in the NBA
Speaker 2: now is like thirty million a year. Like that's like
Speaker 2: the baseline, Like we're starting the discussion at thirty million
Speaker 2: a year. That's what Isaia Hartenstein got. And if I'm
Speaker 2: Miles Hard, Miles Turner's agent. I'm going to him like
Speaker 2: thirty is the basement, Like, so are you gonna how
Speaker 2: are you gonna continue to build around Nie Smith, who,
Speaker 2: by the by the way, Nie Smith is a dude
Speaker 2: who just stole you a playoff game, who's averaging fifteen
Speaker 2: points a game in this playoff run is your primary
Speaker 2: point of attack, defender and shooting forty five percent from three.
Speaker 2: That's a twenty five million dollar player, Like Halliburton's a
Speaker 2: super Max player. Nemhard, you could argue as a twenty
Speaker 2: million dollar player. Siakam is a forty million dollar player.
Speaker 2: Like It just gets really difficult to maintain the payrolls
Speaker 2: in these In these situations, the thing with Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: is they're going to run into that problem in a
Speaker 2: couple of years. They can theoretically win this year, run
Speaker 2: it back, win again, run it back, but it will
Speaker 2: be a shorter window relative to previous entities like this
Speaker 2: because of the fact that eventually they're gonna have to
Speaker 2: pay j Dubb Cason. Wallace is looking a lot like
Speaker 2: a twenty five million dollar player to me, right, like
Speaker 2: Jed Holmgren's a forty million dollar player. Ja Dub's gonna
Speaker 2: be a forty million dollar play. Like, they're all just
Speaker 2: so good that inevitably going to have to pay all
Speaker 2: these dudes, and it's just going to become impossible to
Speaker 2: maintain the roster. Now there's a second conversation to have
Speaker 2: as it pertains to whether or not the league should
Speaker 2: pivot from this structure because it penalizes smartly run NBA teams.
Speaker 2: But yeah, on the other three teams Indiana, New York, Minnesota,
Speaker 2: there's no chance to like sustain success because of just
Speaker 2: how expensive it is to have. Like you talk about
Speaker 2: a playoff rotation, you want six guys you can definitely
Speaker 2: trust and probably a seventh that you can kind of trust.
Speaker 2: And it's like a playoff guy you can trust is
Speaker 2: a bare minimum twenty million in the open market. So like,
Speaker 2: it's just very difficult to find the means with which
Speaker 2: to maintain this. And Oklahoma City will have draft picks.
Speaker 2: They can supplement it with draft picks, but a draft
Speaker 2: pick isn't going to be able to impact 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, I think there's a
Speaker 2: lot of interesting Kevin Durant potential destinations. I think the
Speaker 2: Knicks are one. I also kind of think the Pacers
Speaker 2: are one. One of the reasons why I like the
Speaker 2: Pacers is like, I don't think the Pacers have much
Speaker 2: of a chance at all to beat Oklahoma City. I
Speaker 2: think it's a horrible matchup for them. Oklahoma City has
Speaker 2: six lightning fast guards that can chase all their guards around,
Speaker 2: and 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: just had a better version of Siakam, I all of
Speaker 2: a sudden view them as a more substantial title threat,
Speaker 2: and so like, they're a team that I could see like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're a little older, Miles Turner's kind of older. We
Speaker 2: need to make some sort of win now move to
Speaker 2: capitalize on this before it gets too expensive. I could
Speaker 2: see KD being that guy for them as well. There's
Speaker 2: a bunch of teams where KD could immediately raise their ceiling.
Speaker 1: Hey, so we all make mistakes, but owning up to
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Speaker 1: never tried it, it might be a good time to
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Speaker 1: And now for our next segment, whiskey business. Yes, whiskey business,
Speaker 1: brought to you by Green River Whiskey, the official whiskey
Speaker 1: of the Colin Coward Podcast. Okay, I want to bring
Speaker 1: this up. We can close on this because I saw
Speaker 1: this today. It's fascinating. So a university professor in finance
Speaker 1: looked up the value of Caitlin Clark for the WNBA.
Speaker 1: This is insane. So this year, last season in the WNBA,
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark was twenty six and a half percent of
Speaker 1: all economic activity as a rookie on the worst team
Speaker 1: in the league when she entered it. So now she
Speaker 1: has an eight year, one hundred and twenty eight million
Speaker 1: dollar deal with Nike, so you know she's she's gonna
Speaker 1: eat merchandise in the league. Went up off a rookie
Speaker 1: from a Midwest based school on the worst team in
Speaker 1: the league two hundred and thirty four percent. But here
Speaker 1: was the one that struck me so before she got there,
Speaker 1: the 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 where it lasts like six months after playing what
Speaker 1: forty games. The valuation of that team now is three
Speaker 1: hundred and forty million dollars. She is almost.
Speaker 2: That's what NBA teams were selling for ten years ago.
Speaker 1: She has quaged loop holes ago the valuation, and I
Speaker 1: was talking. I was with a group of friends tonight
Speaker 1: at dinner, and people that didn't know the WNBA were
Speaker 1: like asking, well, well, why, well what does she do?
Speaker 1: And we said, well, she makes passes and take shots
Speaker 1: that nobody else in the sport does. So she's a
Speaker 1: bit of a It's like when Tiger Woods came on
Speaker 1: the tour, Like he drove it further, He's long, putting
Speaker 1: was better, he looked like a football player in the
Speaker 1: red shirts, Like he just was different than every other
Speaker 1: golfer you grew up with, and people like unique and different.
Speaker 1: Here my question to you is there's still no other
Speaker 1: Like somebody said at the party, well there'd be another
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark, and I'm like, well, there's not another Steph Curry.
Speaker 1: Like there's guys that can shoot threes. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a game you duplicate. And I listen, let's just
Speaker 1: be honest. There are more great male athletes in the
Speaker 1: world than female athletes. There is no second Steph Curry
Speaker 1: there is no other player that plays like that. My
Speaker 1: take is she could be a billion dollar athlete. Are
Speaker 1: you are you surprised by it? Like when I see
Speaker 1: these numbers, I'm like, oh, this is Tiger in the tour.
Speaker 1: This doesn't this isn't 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 Edwards now Dominique. Yeah, like the
Speaker 2: guy that does stuff in the air that is unlike
Speaker 2: anything you see anywhere else j And then the second
Speaker 2: piece of it is just unbelievable shot making. Those are
Speaker 2: the two things. Those are the two things that like
Speaker 2: really bring eyes to television. To take it a step further,
Speaker 2: there are two types of basketball players that I think
Speaker 2: are far and away the most winning impact in the
Speaker 2: current game of basketball. It's the big, strong playmaker think Lebron,
Speaker 2: Luka Jokic, And it's the indomitable shooter, which there's really
Speaker 2: only been Steph. I think those two types of players
Speaker 2: are the players that give you the best chances to
Speaker 2: win basketball games in the modern in the modern world. Now,
Speaker 2: what makes it fascinating to me, because that's what Caitlyn
Speaker 2: Clark is. She's a different type of player, and she
Speaker 2: can do a lot of different types of things, but
Speaker 2: she's a essentially bringing a Steph Curry like basketball impact
Speaker 2: to the WNBA. It's really this simple. If you can
Speaker 2: shoot the way that she shoots, so the way step shoots,
Speaker 2: and you can perpetually be in motion running around, inevitably
Speaker 2: there is an overreaction to your shooting ability. And we
Speaker 2: see this all the time with Kaitlyn, just like you're
Speaker 2: gonna see you're gonna see Aliah Boston get NonStop easy
Speaker 2: buckets in the mid range or rolling to the basket,
Speaker 2: because every time she sets a screen for Caitlin, her
Speaker 2: defender is stepping up to guard Kaitlin because as she
Speaker 2: comes off of that screen, if you're not there, she's
Speaker 2: gonna shoot it and she's gonna make it. And so
Speaker 2: there's a reaction that invert spacing in brings a four
Speaker 2: on three because you bring multiple defenders away from the rim,
Speaker 2: there's a four on three with a vacated paint and
Speaker 2: because of that, there's a lot of easy opportunities to
Speaker 2: score there. Like that's the thing with Steph Curry, Like,
Speaker 2: Steph Curry is not the same shot maker that he
Speaker 2: was for you years ago in twenty twenty one, but
Speaker 2: just the simple threat of him running around gives the
Speaker 2: Warriors a chance to score. And that's the thing. Like
Speaker 2: Caitlyn hasn't even really started hitting shots yet this year
Speaker 2: or the way that she's capable of, but everyone knows
Speaker 2: she can and they guard her in that fashion. And
Speaker 2: so to me, it's kind of like a proof of
Speaker 2: concept in that if you can shoot and you can
Speaker 2: run around the way that Steph does, and you can
Speaker 2: strike fear into a defense in that way, the trickle
Speaker 2: down effects with the way that defenses guard you just
Speaker 2: make everything so much easier for her. And like you
Speaker 2: could argue she's already the best offensive engine in the
Speaker 2: WNBA and she's literally a second year player and like,
Speaker 2: and she still has so much room to improve, Like
Speaker 2: she still struggles with ball pressure, she still turns the
Speaker 2: she turned the ball over too much against the Liberty
Speaker 2: the other night. She still has a little bit of
Speaker 2: an issue where she kind of cross fires across her face,
Speaker 2: which makes it so she can only shoot going left.
Speaker 2: She needs to build it out so that she can
Speaker 2: shoot running to her right as well. But like, judging
Speaker 2: by her psycho competitive attitude, she's probably gonna figure that
Speaker 2: that stuff out in the next year or two and
Speaker 2: then she'll be the best player in the league. And
Speaker 2: so like, to me, it's just she fits the mold
Speaker 2: of one of the most impactful types of basketball players
Speaker 2: you can be today, which is the deadly movement shooter.
Speaker 2: If you're a deadly movement shooter, it just opens up
Speaker 2: so many things for an offense. And and honestly, I
Speaker 2: just think I think she's musty television Colin. I've watched
Speaker 2: all four of her games, and and I'm in my
Speaker 2: busy season, Like you think i'd be taking a break.
Speaker 2: My wife said to me the other day, She's like,
Speaker 2: you're watching more basketball. I'm like, it's Katelyn Clark. We're
Speaker 2: 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: what'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 fouled more than anybody I've ever seen. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was insane. You just people bounced off Shack. Yolks
Speaker 1: feel Yokic 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 think.
Speaker 2: Neither does Staph too, That's the funny part.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think I will give the WNBA 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 the WNBA feel
Speaker 1: ignored the NFL and the NBA. In college football they
Speaker 1: get 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 on 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 the 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: interest in the rest of the league. What we all
Speaker 1: care about is Caitlin. So the animosity built up by players,
Speaker 1: I give it a little bit of a pass, you know.
Speaker 1: I think 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 I don't know. My take
Speaker 1: is they're still in the adjustment period with Caitlin. How
Speaker 1: to market, how to promote, how to officiate, how to defend,
Speaker 1: and 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 members of the
Speaker 2: media complain that she was on TV so much, and
Speaker 2: let's just take us out, take fairness and just put
Speaker 2: it to the side for a minute, like even with
Speaker 2: Nike and giving Kaitlin a shoot like set that aside
Speaker 2: for a minute and just focus on her being on television. Okay,
Speaker 2: her being on television brought my eyes to it. I
Speaker 2: didn't watch the WNBA. I have grown to really enjoy
Speaker 2: watching WNBA basketball even when she's not on and they're
Speaker 2: like Thenfista Collier became one of my favorite basketball players
Speaker 2: watching her in the finals run last year. And what
Speaker 2: brought me to the television was Caitlin. So like, let's
Speaker 2: say that the league came out there like every Caitlyn
Speaker 2: Clark games on national television, like, that's just what we're
Speaker 2: going to do. Deal with it. That would be genius,
Speaker 2: because the best way you can market the other WNBA
Speaker 2: players is to have them play against Kaitlin Clark because
Speaker 2: we'll all be watching. Okay, well, no one's covering the
Speaker 2: rest of the league. Okay, but if you put Caitlin
Speaker 2: on television and you get more people to watch, it
Speaker 2: will create more WNBA fans. And we live in the
Speaker 2: most colin I started making NBA content out of my
Speaker 2: guest bedroom. Okay, you create a bunch of WNBA fans,
Speaker 2: Passionate members of the media will originate from that mass
Speaker 2: and will cover the league better, and overall, the league
Speaker 2: will gain in popularity and gain and impact, and it
Speaker 2: will become a momentous thing that carries forward and actually
Speaker 2: does shine a big flashlight on the rest of the WNBA.
Speaker 2: Caitlin Clark is the vehicle with which to microwave that,
Speaker 2: to accelerate it, and to move it into a fast
Speaker 2: track towards what could be a bright future for the WNBA.
Speaker 2: It's great basketball, It's genuinely great basketball. She's the best
Speaker 2: vehicle with which tow to elevate the sport. I think
Speaker 2: anything they can do to put her on TV and
Speaker 2: promote her is the best thing they could do for
Speaker 2: the sport.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Connor McGregor UFC. You know, you knew it existed,
Speaker 1: you'd seen fights, You started 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 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 I
Speaker 1: think Connor McGregor's erosion as a fighter has hurt UFC.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel as urgent. And that's and that's already
Speaker 1: established and so and we all know that Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: left 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 a 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 Micholson.
Speaker 1: So the history of golf, you know, if you modern
Speaker 1: history has got 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, Ollie 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 Foreman and
Speaker 1: telling a grill that you bake chicken on or cook
Speaker 1: chicken on to I mean literally to get the casual
Speaker 1: back into boxing. Was George Foreman's second tour. So this
Speaker 1: is 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.
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Speaker 2: But Colin, I sincerely appreciate you giving us your time tonight.
Speaker 2: This has been a super fun playoff runt. I'm sure
Speaker 2: we'll be talking in about a week or so. Again, everyone,
Speaker 2: thank you guys so much for supporting the show. No
Speaker 2: playback tonight, just a heads up. We'll be back with
Speaker 2: that tomorrow night, and then I will be live on
Speaker 2: YouTube after the final buzzer of Game four of what
Speaker 2: should be an incredible Western Conference Finals game tomorrow night.
Speaker 2: I will see you guys.
Speaker 1: Then the volume