The Dan Patrick ShowDP reacts to the latest in the NBA Conference Finals. Can the Knicks tie up the series after yet another shocking late-game comeback? CFB reporter Ross Dellenger says a 16-team playoff is all but locked in for the future and projects why the SEC and Big Ten are poised to dominate. Fox Sports NBA analyst Jim Jackson gives Lu Dort his flowers and shares why Muggsy Bogues was the most difficult defender he ever played against.
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports.
Radio running down some of the headlines. Here, the thunder go up on the Timberwolves. SGA gets forty and his MVP tonight. The Knicks are getting two and a half. Well from the bookies from Vegas. They don't start out up two and a half, nohing, No, they don't. That would be great though if they did. You know, are we ever going to get to that point with gambling that you start out with? That's the point spread and you know, make it easier on us, so we can understand when there's, you know, a bad beat. You never hear good beats, do you? You always hear a bad beat. Scott Van Pelt always talks about a bad beat. Although if you're a gambler, and I'm an ex gambler, you do love telling people about the bets that you won. You normally don't talk about the bets you lost. Like I can't imagine Drake or Floyd Mayweather saying, hey, let me tell you about the time I lost a half a million on.
The Raptors or something.
But Nicks are getting two and a half at the pace game four and Tyree's Halliburton's dad gets.
To come back. How about that?
But he doesn't. He can't go on the floor. He has to be up in a suite. I don't know if they make him sit like in row eight of the suite, Like he can't even sit in the front row of the suite, but his dad will be in the building. The Knicks at the Pacers Game four, Thunder dominated. At least it looked like they dominated until you look at what happened and you get forty from SGA, you got balanced attack from the Thunder, and you hold on to win this one by two. NBA teams that take a three to one series lead back home for Game five win seventy five percent of the time. It felt like every time I covered the Bulls with Michael Jordan? Did I ever tell you that I covered the bulls with Michael Jordan? Did I, Pallie, Do you remember.
That I'd heard about it sometimes talked about it.
Yeah, Yes, I covered the Bulls.
It felt like every time that they could close out a series on the road, they never did for some reason, even though Jordan never went to a Game seven. But seventy five percent of the time, the team that takes a three to one series lead back home for Game five, they win seventy five percent of the time. So Shay Gilgis scores forty and the first Thunder player to score at least forty in a playoff game since Russell Westbrook Junior the third did that against Utah back in twenty eighteen. Stat of the Day is always brought to you by Panini America, the official trading cards of the program, and for over forty years they've been helping you get the best tires, helping customers find the right tires for how and what and where you drive, ship fast and free back by free road hazard protection, convenient installation options like mobile tire installation, tirerack dot com. The way tire buying should be all right? Seaton poll question, if you would do us the honors for the first hour?
Sure we can start in the NBA.
Which is more true the Thunder shut Anthony Edwards down or Anthony Edwards needs to step up?
You know it's rare when we will compliment or credit the defense. We tend to look at the star player and say, what's up?
What happened? Now?
His shots per game have been going down each series. That to me is a little worrisome. If he plays at his normal level, then they pull out that win. But keep in mind his teammates had a great performance, so they were making shots and I'm going to give credit to the defense with OKC lou Dort. All he's doing is trying to stay with ant Man. That's it, and I think that's the key is he's not worried about anything other than Anthony Edwards. And Anthony Edwards even said after the game that he didn't particularly have a bad game, but here is the Timberwolf's star.
I don't look at it like that Strogut or his struggled.
It just.
They had a good game plan making us get off the ball. Well, especially for me. Man, it was superan gaps. I made the right play all night, So I don't really look at it like I struggled. I didn't get enough shots to say our struggled, So that's my thing might be hid you guys look at it, but yeah, I'm a struggle.
Oh it's just gonna make the right lay.
Yeah, he had six assists, but I do need him to score more, be more aggressive, and he said he was trying to take it to the hoop but they played great defense. Help defense. The gaps they're really tight with that. Chet Holmgren has done a great job. But give credit, Okay, See is the best defensive team in the NBA.
They're proving that.
Now that's not you know, a hot take when you go, how about we credit the defense. It's what's wrong with Anthony Edwards. I'm giving a whole lot of credit to Oka See. I've often said many, many, many many times, so I very often said this, don't let the best player beat you. Okay See did that last night. Now, the other players played pretty well, and that's the danger in that. But that's because Minnesota has a balanced attack there. They have depth there and they almost pulled out a big win there. But give credit to the defense for a change. Yeah, Pauline, Yeah, I saw a stat on Anthy Edwards. He drove to the lane like sixteen times, which means he is being aggressive. But on all sixteen of those times they rotated over a double team sixteen for sixteen. They're trying to get out of his hands. And that's the way to go. Don't let the best player beat you, And that'll be the philosophy. It should be the philosophy. Now, I don't know why Minnesota doesn't do that to Shay Gilgus Alexander. How about we don't let their best player beat us and score forty points. And you've got the rim protector, Rudy Gobert, you should be able to shut him down.
There, Rudolph had thirteen and nine for you.
It's okay, it's all right. See, if you want the most overrated player in the NBA, it's not my guy, Tyrese Halliburton, it's Rudy and the go bets.
All right?
What other poll question we looking at today? First, donur seat and by the way, let me do the starting lineup and guard out of NYU Tied Fritz Mm hmmm.
Do I do height? And wait?
Oh boy, now we don't do that.
Oh, we don't do anything at guard six foot six, So I just do your height. I don't, I don't. They don't do weight. So your height is what time?
Five ten and a half five ten? All right?
Ended guard five foot ten out of NYU Todd frittanz minister forward.
In a guard him more like he's a tweener small forward.
Seaton O'Connor is here, Marvin is here, Pauli's here, Marvin has his All Star.
T shirt on I do.
I live in the crates, much like Ill, much like Paulie and uh Fritzy.
What year is that? This is nineteen ninety two, of course in Orland, of course it is. I've been looking for that. Now I know where it is. You have my nineteen ninety two Orlando All Star T shirt?
Gun, Yes, Paul, But it is a genius business model because that's not an original All Star T shirt like Marvin wasn't at that weekend, No offense. But you can buy that old stuff now. There's websites that have reprinted memorabilia from years in past.
Yeah, it's called Todd Fritz's Favorite place to go buy Maya's More drog Yeah. Well it's like distressed. You know where we buy distressed furniture, distressed jeans. That's kind of the sports version of distressed. Yes, yes, Marvin.
And it's very nostalgic, so you want to try to go back to your youth or something like that. That's why retro sneakers are such a big thing. You know what, man, I couldn't afford those Jordans when I was ten.
You know, I'm forty.
Well I can afford though, so a lot of people do that.
Well, guys do that with cars. You know, if there was a car in high school that you couldn't afford, then once you get money, then we tend to revert back.
Can go?
You know I always wanted that trans am or Corvette IRAQ. Yeah alrighty uh So we'll settle on a poll question or two.
Here. Your phone calls are always welcome. Operator Todd.
Marvin is going to be running things today, So I just want you to take your cues from Marvin today.
All right, Why would you guys do that?
I don't want to be the bad guy. I had a great weekend. You know, the sun is out. I just want to make sure that Pritsy is having fun.
I am.
I went fishing yesterday. Yeah, I went fishing. Caught some small mouth bass and catching release.
By the way. But yeah, went out and.
I roughed it a little bit. I was out there, but kind of like a hab, you know, I'm looking for the.
Big way, big waves out there. Yeah, looking for the big one.
What makes it a small mouth pass? How big is the big mouth pass?
Then it's larger than the Yeah, it's mount like you would be a large mouth, it would be a.
Big mouth pass, it would be that would pain in the back. Yeah, yeah, yes, marmon.
Whenever you're Maine, do you just feel more like a man?
Oh you can't spell Maine without m an well said down their license plate, isn't it.
Yeah, I think it's something like that. Yeah, you know you're Paul Bunyon here. It's just you're out there in the wilderness. But you know when you're just you and the dog and then you hear sounds at night and you're like scared, you know, those glowing eyes and the thing. What kind of cats think about it?
Yeah?
Well I have a dog when he's a rescue but part coonhound, and she is a hunter. She'll hear everything and sometimes she didn't hear anything, but it certainly sounds like she did, yes, Paul.
Now Maine has bears, and you know about bear like the strategy if a bear walks up on yours near you, You're you're supposed to stand motionless and just walk backwards slowly. Is at the routine, I believe. So how does a person do that?
Well, I encountered a bear. This is nineteen ninety nine and I'm in British Columbia. Here's Dan's story time. So I'm up there fly fishing and we stay for an extra day because we're on a photo safari. This group wanted to do a photo safari. They gave me a camera and they said, we're going to look for the Kommodi bear. Komodi bear is one of the rarest animals in the world. It looks, you know, it's an albino bear, kind of looks like a polar bear. But it's a spirit bear is what it's called. So people Native Americans viewed it as a religious figure. Well, we're there and I'm thinking, I'm not going to see this bear. I mean, it's one of the rarest animals in the world. Our guide on the boat had lived there. He was over forty years of age. He had never seen the bear. And all of a sudden we realize that there's a sighting for the bear, and we go over. We're moving closer this island, and all of a sudden, you see a little speck and then I realize that might be as close as I get you to the Kommody bear. Our guide Native Americans starts crying because that's a religious figure. We get there on shore, eventually the bear's gone. I'm like, all right, at least I got these real small, grainy pictures, and people may not believe me, but we did get to see sort of the kommody bear. I'm standing there looking through all my film that my pictures. The bear walks out, and the bear is and the salmon are spawning. So the bear walks out, He's ten feet away from me, and the guys that I'm with moved about twenty feet away from me. They didn't tell me, so I stood there and then I did what Paulie said. I didn't run. I stood there, and then all of a sudden, I thought, I'm just going to take pictures because this is content, and if he to me, I might be able to get that last picture right before he eats me.
Well I have.
I have a couple of these pictures that are framed gorgeous bear. But all he cared about was salmon spawning. So I kind of survived almost a bear Attannic. I guess you could say almost.
Yes, paul that's pretty solid though, the fact that you unintentionally stood there motionless because you're taking picture.
Well, if I if I was reading the room and had the wherewithal to look up. I probably would have run, but I stood there because I was I was frozen, just taking pictures. And the bear is eight feet tall, and he looks at me, and then all of a sudden he goes, eh, that's not salmon, and he went back in and started grabbing the salmon that were spawning.
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We've talked a lot about college football, the ever changing landscape of college football, where it is now, where it's going next year, where it's going after them. Ross Dellinger, this is his job. Yahoo Sports senior college football reporter joins us on the program. Right, bring us all up to speed, bring the audience up to speed of where we are right now with let's just start with the playoffs, the number of teams and any other ancillary items that fall in line with them.
Yeah, and well we know this year we're going to have the same format pretty much try We're gonna have twelve team the same format. They're going to go to straight seeding, which they decided last week. But it's starting in twenty twenty six and beyond where the conversation is around sixteen teams, and that does feel like something that's going to happen. We're at least we kind of know that maybe for sure, is that we're going to college football is going to have a sixteen team playoff. The question is how do you decide how do you determine those sixteen teams? So the Big Ten has kind of swung its support behind a model that grants four automatic qualifiers to the Big Ten in the SEC each two automatic qualifiers to the ACC and Big twelve one for the Group of six champion and then three at large. So that would be a multiple kind of AQ type of sixteen team format the SEC. And I'm here at SEC Spring meetings now in Destin. They'll talk about that this week, but they as well have been in support from predominantly in the Athletic Director and President room, they have been support of that model too. But Greg Sinki did say yesterday the SEC Commissioner that they're not necessarily officially or formally have adopted any kind of support for a model, but that's the one they've been certainly discussing most Now the flip side of this, obviously, the Big twelve and ACC they want more than two teams, right, so they're not for this four four two two one type of model. And that's where things could get pretty interesting. Dan, there's a little bit of a you might say, a fight brewing between among the power conferences.
Yeah, it's interesting though the four to four with Big ten and SEC. Now are they capping that the Big ten and SEC can only have that's a maximum of four teams in the playoffs.
No, they are. They are not capping.
So the three at large that are still available would in theory still be available for the fifth place, sixth place SEC or Big ten team.
Wouldn't the SEC? I've had six teams to qualify last year. Does that sound about right? I think that's right. There were sixteen, Yeah they were.
There were six in the top in the top sixteen or whatever where that would possibly have happened. And actually, you know, it's one thing, Greg Sink you did say yesterday, because the two formats they're talking about most here, I think are this four four two two one and then a five plus eleven format, which is five autumn qualifiers in eleven at large, and in that model, the SEC would have gotten as many as sixteen teams into the or six teams into the playoff. If you did that model and went back for the last several years.
It might be crazy to say this, but I will who benefits the most out of all of those.
Well, the SEC and Big ten right in this in this four to four model, certainly the SEC and Big ten would be would benefit. Now if you look at outside of college athletics with the kind of the brewing fight going on in just the fight for control in more money Dan, which everybody right now needs more money right because they have to pay athletes directly starting in about five weeks or so, So everybody's after money. So when you look at what's going on in college athletics just the landscape in general right now, those that benefit outside of the agents in the athletes right that are are getting paid and then the agents getting a percentage are the outside entities that we see maybe trying to get into college athletics with money, which are private equity firms, private capital firms. And that's really been interesting to follow DAN two weeks ago, the Big twelve and ACC some of their presidents met with the Smash Capital folks that have this super league proposal, and they want to infuse nine billion dollars in the college athletics. And it's people like that that could benefit and come in and kind of fill a hole a financial goal where so many schools have one.
We're talking to Ross Dellinger. He's at the SEC meetings. He's Yahoo's Sports senior college football reporter. I've been saying for years it would be nice to have a schedule maker, so yeah, for college football, and maybe we get to this fifty schools and then you have somebody who's going to have you know, the AFC West and the AFC North and AFC you know all of those. You know, we create and we treat it like it's the NFL. But I don't I don't know if we get I'd love relegation, Like I think you could really dress this up and make this so incredibly huge, and but I don't know if it just feels like there's too many moving parts and too many people, uh that that maybe it doesn't have. Is that is that a pipe dream of in the next ten years, that we have maybe a fifty school format or forty schools.
Well, and that's what you know. A lot of these super league proposals that you've seen, not much of it backed by private equity. In private capital firms would design something like you're talking about, right. They think college athletics, specifically college football is vastly undervalued. They need to consolidate all the media rights the TV deal. They need to have more uniform scheduling among the conferences, and they need to have more balance in the playoff in the regular season schedules. So I think a lot of folks agree what you talking about trying to get done. The problem is you have all these existing right TV contracts with individual leagues, and as you know, college sports has always been kind of fractured into conferences, and it really prevents a lot of this from happening, and it prevents the entity in general of reaping its full value. A lot of people would say, but eventually, Dan, we'll get there, and I think it's coming. I think it's around the corner. I would say five to seventy years, we're going to get to a point where this happens. Because between the years twenty thirty and twenty thirty two, there's a lot of things that will happen. Contracts that come up, DAN that could really trigger a lot of what we're talking about here. The CFP contract comes up with ESPN, the the NCAA Basketball tournament contract comes up. The Big twelve and Big ten TV contracts as well come up. We could see a more of a consolidation of brands there and more of a centralized kind of leadership in college athletics. I think it's coming.
We have INIL, but we also have collectibles and we have salary cap right.
Right, there's a lot going on with yeah, collectives, right with the compensation, right, we've been in the NIL era of the past four years where boot basically boosters are paying athletes for quote in IL when really it's it is just a salary. And now we're about to get into real salaries, right, Schools in July one are going to be able to pay directly players basically salaries. They don't call it that, of course, because they don't want them to be employees, but it basically is a salary that schools.
Will begin paying.
But in order to do all that, the House Settlement case needs to be approved by the judge. And here we are, right probably five weeks before it's supposed to be implemented. All this is supposed to be implemented, and the judge has not yet ruled on whether to deny or approve the settlement.
How's it going over with USC? Looks like they're going to end the rival with Notre Dame. I don't know if it's spoken about in SEC circles, but we're losing rivalry games here.
We are losing rivery games, and it's it's probably one of the more sad things that has happened in college athletics the last few years with conference realignment. Right is the destruction of these these rivalry games. Oklahoma State Oklahoma right is another one that you could see go away. It is too bad. I haven't heard it really we talked much about here, but I'll say this. If the playoff format gets playoff format gets finalized as a four four two two where you have four out of wind qualifiers for a big ten in the SEC, I think you'll see USC still play that game. I think the CFP format is going to be a big piece in a lot of regular season, non conference scheduling decisions.
Great to talk to you, and it feels like if Lincoln Riley doesn't win this Notre Dame game coming up this October, it feels like that that's u This is a make or break year for him at USC.
It feels like that, Dan, But you got to remember that buyout of his I think it's over eighty million dollars At a time when everybody's so stressed financially stressed with paying athletes, it is tough to see USC paying eighty million plus dollars to fire them. But you never know, right.
What are your thoughts Hope's perspective for North Carolina with Bill Belichick this upcoming season?
Wow?
Yeah, certainly without all the off the field stuff going on in college athletics, that would be the big storyline. And it has still been a big storyline this year. You know, you look at their schedule, Dan, and it's it's pretty good. It's pretty smooth. You could see them going eight and four or something like that. I think that would be I think that would be a success year one there. But it's going to be certainly interesting to watch. It's been quite an interesting offseason there in Keppel Hill had.
Yeah you got Carolina blue polo shirt on there?
Yeah?
Thank you?
Ross We appreciate your time. Ross Dellinger, Yeahho sports senior college football reporter.
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
He's Jim Jackson, Fox Turner, NBA, also college basketball analyst, joining us on the program. I've just spent a little time reminiscing about guys who missed their window. You know, when Bird and Magic came in, and then Mike came in and the bad Boy, you know, anybody before that, Kareem I think got short sighted a little bit. Doctor Jay did, and I got a chance see Doc played twice in the ABA, and.
So it was just different.
That was he was playing against the Kentucky Colonels who had Dan Issel and had a really really good artist Gilmore was on the team, and Doc was just dunking on people in traffic like it was like wild and I had not seen somebody play like that.
Have you met Doctor j.
Yes, that was my Ironically, I grew up a Sixers fan because of Doc. Now from Ohio, but it was close to Philly, so I grew up idolizing the fro and it was moving. I wanted to try to have an afro like Doctor J. And you know at that time too, you know that NBA Finals, I think when they played the Magic his rookie year and that thing was on tape de lay back in the day, remember that. But I met Doc at the ninety five All Star Game in Phoenix. I still have that picture and that was like a oh you know that moment when you see Doctor J walking in the room, He's like glide and you know, in slow motion, it was like, that's Doc. But then Dan I got to really get a chance to know him via the Big Three with Ice CBS League because he's one of the coaches. But more importantly, we were in China with the NBA NBA China Games in twenty eighteen. That was Lucas rookie year and Doc was there and we really had a chance to just hang out and spend time because he's an abbot like me, cigar smoker, so I would make sure that I have a play set up that we go to that we can sit and smoke and talk. And he was telling stories. You know, he was with the Atlanta Hawks in camp. Did you know that?
Yeah, yeah, they think about.
It, they wouldn't him play. Think about that, Dan, if he would have stayed with the Hawks, how history could have been different because he's with the Virginia Squires at the time. Yeah, and then went to Atlanta. He was in camp. The NBA said, he said, if Doc plays, you have to forfeit the games that he plays in, And that's how he ended up getting to the New Jersey Nation and eventually of course at the Philadelphia seventy six ers. But spending time with him and it's a different. He's just it's something about people have aura, and Doc definitely is that person that has.
I was covering the NBA Finals with the Bulls and the Jazz. We were in Utah. Jim Gray says, when you get done with Sports Center stuff, you want to join me and Doc we're going to be playing golf.
And I'm like, I'm there, And so we get there.
We're playing golf and then there's a backup on like the fifteenth hole, and there was a basketball hoop. There was a like a house right you know, behind the tea box, and there was a basketball out there, and I said, I said, Doc, you want to go shoot? So we went over in golf shoes and we're so I'm shooting hoops and I said, Doc, would you stand under I lowered the basket to I think eight feet and I said, would you stand under the hoop? I want to dunk on you. Doc went and stood under the hoop and put his hands up, and then I dunked on him.
What.
Yeah, I'm just more surprised you still got up on the foot rim.
I was putting on an aerial display man.
Hey, listen, I played Doc, we played, We're at Big three. We played golf in Tulsa. And I love Doctor Depth and I'll tell you how smooth he is and everything is melodic and everything, but sometimes he can be slow in the golf course too.
Though he wasn't a great golfer. As a golfer, he was a great dunker. So I love what Giannis has brought up. Well, we brought it up a while ago, and that's everybody outside the United States versus the United States and the All Star Game. And I said, well, what do you have to lose, Like we've already lost the All Star Game, maybe you can get it back. And I certainly like my starting five with you know, the players from outside the United States, what's the negative to this?
That the negative to me is that you have to search for a way for guys to play hard and search for incentive to make the game interesting because we're going through all this Dan the Elon system captains picking their teams different iterations of the All Star Game because it falls back on the players and not really wanting to play and play hard. At the end of the day, when the top players really want to play and you play hard, I'm not saying you're going to go out, you know, one hundred miles per hour and try to hurt yourself, but you know on that second quarter, that third quarter, that fourth quarter, when it's time to compete, when you're playing defense. And again I go back to you know, the eighties and nineties, two thousands, early when the games were played hard, okay, and it wasn't just a dunk contest. That's what bothers me that we have to search that the NBA has to search for reasons to incentivize the players to really go out and play hard. So why are we looking at europe European players versus United States? Why?
Because because we can't get them to play hard. Now you say, for your country. And if if if the players, what are the team world beat the Americans? Now you have something, Now you have oh my goodness. Then the next year like now we have something. I I don't watch the All.
Star Game because I've said it's a glorified layup line. I couldn't. I don't care. Even the dunk contest. I don't care.
Three point you can still dress that up. And NBA you could have prior like Del Curry and Steph Curry could be a team, you know, you could. You could do something like that, and I'd be fine with that. But this to me, if if the World beat Team USA, I think at least it has a pulse.
Well, how does it? But here's the thing too, how do you Well, guys get left out because of this? And with regards to the number of players, with a number of players too, because if you think about it, if you get a twenty five players or twenty four players or whatever it may be, and now you're looking at placing a European team together American team, that means you can need twelve European players, right, they say you got twelve on the bench, I mean twelve on the team. But ironically, maybe five to eight are your real All Stars. So that means now you're putting another four to five players that are there that are taking spots from other players who should be All Stars. Okay, so you run into that dynamic too. It sounds great, but when you're voting for the All Star team, you pick the twenty four to twenty five best players the All Star Ironically, they're not going to be the majority of going to be American players, but you have to fill out that roster is the European team, and that means on the American side, it's going to be guys that deserve to be an All Star that don't end up making it if you go that way. Not again, I don't know how they'll the process a beat, but I think you have that as something that you really have to look at on how that makes sense.
Yeah, I think that's fair. I do.
But I'm just trying to have the All Star Game mean something and this might be your last ditch deffort. Talking to Jim Jackson Fox Turner, NBA college basketball analyst, the Knicks or two and a half point underdogs against the Pacers. What happened in that fourth quarter that Indiana forgot to do or Indiana or the Knicks, you know, remembered to do well.
I think you got to give a lot of credits to the Knicks. It was of course Carl Anthony Town's got reactivated. I mean really played extremely well, and you know, he played assertive. I thought it was some shots that he took early they kind of build the defense out. But you got to give og Ananobe credit played extremely well. Miles McBride Duce McBride came in and played extremely well. I mean he had a critical role, you know in that game, in particularly in the fourth quarter, not just offensively, but defensively too, kind of making some things happen. And when you're you know, in this situation, you play a little desperate. You're now two I mean down two oh on the road, and really the pressure is kind of more on even though it's pressure on New York to win it. Don't get me wrong, because you go down three to oh, it's you know, it's basically over, but you're not expected to kind of win that game, just based on how the series was going. Even though this was you think about this, then it came every game came down to a one or two possession game, okay, and that New York probably sat back and said, you know, if we cleaned up what happened in the third quarter, some turnover, some tough shots, not giving up an offensive rebound, we win those two games at home. And that's the mentality you have to have. And other guys really stepped up. My I mean, Michel Bridges stepped up big time, mate, great defensive plays, offensive plays, and a lot of that was done, you know, Dan with Jalen Brunson sitting on the bench, you know, and that says a lot about the character of that New York team. Now, can it be duplicated, We don't know. But you play hard, you give yourself a chance to win, you don't turn it over. And the ball moved a lot more late in that fourth quarter, the last five minutes. That gave New York opportunities to be able to score the ball and eventually win the game.
Yeah, okay, it's not fair to say it, but it is real. They'll move the ball more with Brunson not ball dominant, Well, they will. I'm not saying that you win without him, but it's a different it's a different Knicks team or style that they seem to capitalize on whether that. You know, I still think that Timms needs to play more guys. You know, he's stuck on like six guys. But you have some guys who have experience and put him in there, and they had to out of necessity with Brunston, but it just felt like the ball moved a little bit more and they benefited from.
Them in the last couple of games too well, he went with the change in the starting lineup. Okay, moved Josh Hart back to the bench. He played Landry Shammitt, you know, in the game. But here's the thing, because we got a snippet of about five and a half minutes of no Brunson right when he left the game in the fourth quarter, came back in with about a minute something less, and everybody said, well, it looks better without Brunson. Yeah, but you know what, Brunton was there to both the game to get you to that point. So you can have a snippet of it, But imagine if Brunton is not there for the totality of the game. This is a different New York team. Now you're asking guys to do this for fifteen twenty twenty five thirty minutes to be able to do what we saw in five minutes. That's a different ask, you know, And.
I agree lazy analysis on people.
They say that, but it makes sense, you know, in that mad moments.
Yes, it's like when people said the Celtics are better without Tatum.
Stop it.
Exactly by the way, Tyree's Haliburton's dad's allowed back in the building.
But only in this week now near the court.
Did you ever have a family member create an incident?
No game, No ever, and I had, you know, I was fortunate my my father, my mother, they weren't. They were always in the background. Never. No, that's my son out there. I mean high school, college and the pro Uh. My relatives who came to the game that were really close to me. They were just so happy and later to be just in the building a lot of times to be and see other players played, but proud of what I've done. But never never close friends teammates. No, I've never played with a teammate that now I had some Did I ever have over the top let's say parents or crow Yeah, maybe a little bit, but not to where it never interfered with the game. No, maybe I practices or doing stuff or trying to travel and be at stuff. Yeah, that part, but not what we saw on the court after a game in another player's face. I didn't have I didn't experience that part.
I like what Okay she did, and that is I don't want your best player to beat me. Now you do run the risk of the other players. And the other players played really well for the Thunder, But Anthony Edwards saying basically I didn't have a bad game, like you know, I made the right choices here where do you stand on the field? Goal attempts were limited for the best player on your team.
Well, that's very mature of Anthony Edwards and it's a correct analysis being this. Okayse made it a point in particular lou Dort that Anthony wasn't gonna get a lot of airspace. You know, in the previous game he had a lot of good isolations on the wing. He was able to get one on one. But when you're facing this OKC team, think about this. What you want to do. You want to get a mismatch. Everybody wants to figure out a mismatch. So when Anthony Edwards, who initiates the offense, comes down and sets once that pick and roll up top with holme grin or hard and stun. It's incumbent upon the guy that's guarding and to get over that screen. So now you don't have a switch and you're basically back to one on one defense. And that's what lou Dort did most of the night. He stayed, he got over those screens, so now you don't have a mismatch. And when they did, they loaded up on an. So the thirteen shots was a result of excellent one schematically designing a defense that works, but two the commitment for OKC players to really execute that scheme. Because you could have a scheme all you want, and coaches will tell you that, they say, listen, we lost this game because we didn't execute our game plan. Well that wasn't the case for Okay, see man, I mean, whoever was in that pick and roll situation or needed to be around Anthony Anderson, they did a heck of a job. And then when he went into traffic, he was double triple team and he had to get had to get rid of the ball.
Most annoying defender you ever faced.
Muggsy Bogues, not even not even close, not even because my second year we traded. I was in Dallas and we traded uh jed garper Right to New York. So I'm playing point guard. Man. We played Charlotte and you know muggsies five two with with with some insols in okay, and he'll pick you up full court and he gets up underneath you and annoying is all. I'm like, man, just here's the ball. I'm we get it back over half court. But because people don't understand how strong Munkey Bogues was at the time, even though he was didn't have the height, but his advantage was the further you wore away from the basket. His speed is quickness and its size wasn't a liability, and that annoyed the heck out of me when I played against Charlotte and had to bring it up against a smaller quicker and a defensive minded point guard like uh like Muggsy Bowls. I still hate to see him coming, like Muggy may get out of here, man.
He was actually five to two five three.
I said what I said with insoles in.
Yeah, isn't it amazing though somebody that size could could have a lengthy career in the NBA.
Well, look at Yeah, he look at Spudweb. Spud Web, I mean the same thing.
Bud wasn't as good as Muggsy what.
But in a different way though, Spud was a lot more affen.
You won the contest, yeah, and he was more Yeah, and he.
Muggsy was a terror on defense man.
Yeah, but terror he could he could play, he could be his starter.
I mean, well, you know, you know it's interesting that you brought that up to is that people talk about guys that couldn't play back in the day because of size, Like, say, Steph, are you so we just named two who were smaller that played, you know, Michael Adams back in the day when he played for Denver, Okay, he was he was small. Okay. It's guys that played back in that time that were smaller, leaner in a more physical league that still knew how to play because they grew up playing in that era, playing with that physicality, knowing how to use their size. So that's why I laugh at when people say, you know, Steph couldn't play back in the you know, late eighties and nineties. I'm like, well why not. You know, here's examples of guys that did.
Great To talk to you always. Thanks for lighting. Yes, yes, who you got tonight?
I have the knicks like that. I'm greedy because I won seven games. Man, I won six to seven games in both series. I was just pointed in you Okac and Minnesota game, and I think about the Minnesota game. I say this before we go. People look at ant And and Randa only scoring twenty one points compared to there's seventy four between Shay and Williams. But it wasn't that to me, this is a two point game. You give up twenty three turnovers. Right, Dan Okac had ninety four possessions, Minnesota only had eighty five. That's an eleven possession different in the two point game. Despite all what was going on. That to me, when Minnesota gets themselves in trouble is when they turn the ball over and they lose the possession game. Good to talk to you always, brother and En George tonight that's Jim Jackson
