The Jason Smith Show with Mike HarmonBest of the Week on The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon
This week, Jason and Mike celebrate the greatness of the New York Knicks breaking a 20 year losing streak defeating the Celtics and moving on to the Eastern Conference Finals! Plus, Michael Jordan returns to the NBA?!
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Carmen podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight from ten pm to two am Eastern seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every night on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
This is the best of the Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.
Hello, Welcome inside, Happy Monday. Is it really? Yes? It is. I got a lot of crap going on right now, Harmon. I got a lot of stuff happening right now. Got the Hurricanes, I shepherded them do a three to one lead. I got the Mets in the ninth inning, tied with the Pirates, the I got the course the Knicks up by nine with three minutes left to go. I'm dealing with a lot of stuff right now. I'm looking bulldorm. We got to get what a live rooster to take the curse off of Hector's glove We're dealing with. I'm dealing with a lot of I got a lot of stuff going on right now. Yeah, I can see you're completely amped up. We watched the end of that Stanley Cup playoff game Fantastic You called for the public flogging uh and release of Francisco Lindor, get rid of Indoor and and acun you get rememberoth Erizon the ninth and get Mber.
You went on a five minute rant, not ten minutes prior telling me he's the greatest thing of all time.
He was bored bla, he said, And doesn't matter that yet too. Peter Alonzo is gonna win this game with a walk off sack fly Mets get the w Okay, I'm two thirds of the way there. I'm not just halfway there with bon Jovie. I got the Hurricanes, I got the Mets. Now I got shot him.
Hey shot a man, I got a steal and a nine point lead, and Jason Datum laying in a heap shot him May with a lot of shots of Al Horford as they went to a commercial break.
For over forty years, tire Rack's been helping customers find the right tires for how, what and where they drive, Shipped fast and free, backed by free road hazard protection with convenient installation options like mobile tire installation, Tire Act dot Com is the way tire buying should be. Well, yes, that's where we sit right now. The Knicks with a one thirteen, one oh four lead over the Celtics with three minutes to go in the fourth quarter. Look, I don't want to go too crazy because I know somehow this game is gonna be tied with a minute left. Okay, I'm not gonna go to I know that's what's gonna Somehow the Knick Celtics is gonna be tied with a minute left to go. Okay, I'm okay with that. But let me just say this, for the the it's been kind of a thing the last few days. You have seen the oh the NBA is unwatchable crowd come out again with a lot of different things. Right, all the NBA is unwatchable, The NBA's on watchmap, Uh, this game tonight, and there's gonna be a big update we're gonna bring you with Jason Tatum coming up in a second. All you have to do is watch this beach that. All you have to do is just watch This is the Tatum Brunson game, right and now, Jason Tatum just got hurt for the second time in the second half. Twisted his ankle. He was helped off the floor. I assume that is going to be it. We're not gonna see him again the rest of the night. But this game, up until this point, this has been Tatum bruntson Tatum Brett. Anything you can do, I can do better. Every time Brunston hits a shot, you go, my goodness, I can't believe it. Tatum comes down the other way and it's a three. Look. The guy can get his shot more than anybody else in the NBA can get his own shot at any situation. It has been amazing to watch these two guys duel this entire game. The Celtics hit all a bunch of threes, it was looked like it was gonna be a runaway. Then Jalen Brunson brings the Knicks back in the third quarter, when it looks like they're gonna run away, Tatum starts hitting shots, getting into the lane. Really, it has been some kind of Brunts and Tatum show. But now the rest of this game is gonna be played without Jason Tatum.
Huge first quarter where you see the barrage towards the end and it became in all right, here we go game three look once again, but bit by bit as you lay out with Jaylan Bronson.
But he didn't come alone, right.
He brought friends to the show this time around, as opposed to making it a one on one conversation. This was like the fight between the news teams in Anchorman, where more guys come to the party. Right, Because Bridges has twenty three, you got twenty one from Kat eighteen from Ananobi, including a number of huge defensive plays, and that's the thing that's got to be under you know, underscored here in the fourth quarter, filling passing lanes, aggressive with each possession, no easy buckets except for the one that literally, as I say, no easy buckets. But all that, just the attempts to pass it across the court, up around the arc, just the length of Ananobi and the other defenders, just wreaking havoc, causing so many turnovers and just failed possessions where it's now the scramble with the shot clock winding down to get something up and tour the buckets. So overall, just a fantastic effort the second half by the Knicks, really controlling things as we get down the stretch, Go New York.
Go New York Frostburg drive driving that bandwagon. It is a ten point lead for the Knicks with just under two minutes left to go in the fourth quarter. Right, well, what plenty of time for Brunson. However, we got it till we have a little bit more on Jason Tatum right now, he has helped off the court, as we said, an ankle injury on a turnover. Ogano Noby has had a terrific game. He has stepped in the passing lane many times for the Knicks uh turnovers in the second half. He had one turn one turnover early in the fourth quarter where Jalen Brown had to tackle him from behind because he jumped in the passing lane and and got got the ball for a layup. But what just happened a couple of minutes ago, and this is where things are a little scary. Jason Tatum has the ball. The Knicks have a have a nine point lead, and Tatum looks like he's going to you know, he's got the ball on the wing, right, and he comes, he has the ball on the wing and he passes out and it looks like he's waiting to get the ball back. And here's the play by play of what happened after.
Its Jaylen Brown back.
Had lost the ball.
Adaoby all by himself throws it down and Titum is hurt. Turtum is down, he wants a time out. Titum is so much pain. A suffix call.
Timeout there it does, Mike Breen with the call right there. Uh, this is how it looks. He's chump coming to get the ball back. Jalen Brown looks like he's gonna give it back to Jason Tatum and hw Nobe steps in the passing lane and he picks off the ball and goes down the other way. Tatum just simply steps forward to try to get and grab the ball first and his right leg he just collapses. It's a non contact injury. He takes a step back with his right foot to try to get down, to try to come back and get the ball, and then he just collapsed. He was helped off the floor. He is in pain. He was just shown coming off in a wheelchair with his hands covering his face. We don't know what kind of injury this is. Certainly you see this and look just because of injuries we've seen. It could be an achilles injury. It could be an ankle injury, but he doesn't turn his ankle. It's a straight step back, which tells me you've seen this for achilles or a calf injury. So it does look like it wasn't like I don't know that it's so much an ankle injury as much as it could be a calf or an achilles non contact injury. He simply tries to plant and step forward and he can't, couldn't put any weight on it. As he was helped off the floor and again in a wheelchair, taken off with his hand on. He got a big round of applause from the from the Knicks players and the Celtics players as they came off again. A non contact injury for Jason Tatum, and suddenly this throws the rest of the playoff, the rest of the playoffs for the Celtics in flux. They're gonna lose this game. They're gonna go down three to one to the Knicks, and now it's is Jason Tatum going to play again? When is he gonna be able to get back? Because you have the non contact grabbing at his achilles that none of this looks good for Tatum and the Celtics.
Number of your Internet doctors, all folks that I have not verified their cvs, but we'll take them at face value for the moment, with their histories and check marks and everything else, going straight to the Achilles right several with the tag of hope the video lies because you and I as we watch it go down as he comes to challenge anonomy for the ball just goes down in a heap, and immediately he's screaming, and he's in a heap, down on the floor, and the play goes on and immediately would you have five staffers get out there? No pressure on his leg as he comes off obviously anguish. So just a horrid end to I mean, he'd been fantastic all night long. Every time Bronson or Ananobi or Cat made a shot at one end, he was at the other to keep the pressure on. Get got some what forty two points I think was the last as we saw him hitting three after three, and then a play that had been so problematic for him just from an execution standpoint, becomes their worst nightmare.
One of the game stars and a guy.
Who's much debated in terms of his rank in the hierarchy of the current NBA goes down. Hopefully, hopefully the video does lie in this regard.
I mean, look, there's three things you look for right in plays where where you say, okay, how bad is this injury? Non contact is always the worst, right, that's always the worst. But a non contact could always be something where you turn an ankle, it's a tweak and you come back, but non contact the worst, no pressure on it coming off when you know we can't do that, and there's there's no there is no twist where it could just be an ankle tweak of some kind where oh oh, maybe he'll be okay, maybe it's just something where it's the end of the game and we're not gonna do it. We're gonna let him just sit back and and uh and and come off the floor. There was none of that. I mean, it was just it was a straight back I'm putting my like I'm putting my back foot down to plant and then just falls right down. There was no step like almost as if like you stub your toe kind of thing where he just goes into the ground as like, okay, not a lot of twisting, but maybe maybe just enough pressure there for the momentary, but no quite obviously something far far worse. Look and and this is this is what happens in the NBA as as we look at this season, right we talk about injuries, and injuries affect the NBA playoffs more than any other playoffs, more than more more than the NFL, more than Major League Baseball because superstars are not as eye and clad as they used to be. And when the first round happened in the playoffs, what did I say? I probably stupid because I put this out in there. I said, Hey, usually we see an all star team of guys injured missing games. By now at that point was right, and all of a sudden, it's okay, it's it's it's it's not And Willard was more of a you know, a medical condition than it was an injury. It's like, hey, is he okay with his you know he and right after that but you're to okay, can he come back? Can he play? But now you're and this is why when the NBA playoffs, when the NBA playoffs hit, it doesn't matter how great you were during the regular season. It makes no difference if you're dominant, because if someone comes down on an ankle wrong, if someone comes down on the floor wrong, All of a sudden, everything changes, right. Who are the three best teams in the NBA this season? Cavaliers, Celtics and the Thunder and all of them are in trouble. All of them are in trouble. The Celtics are in a three to one hole. The Knicks win at one twenty one, one thirteen. The Cavaliers are in a three to one hole. Now you don't know is Jason Tatum gonna play again? Is are you you're gonna have Donovan Mitchell right for Game five here when you need them? And clearly the Thunder have all they can handle with the Denver Nuggets in the second round of the playoffs. These are the three best teams in the regular season, and now it's the door is wide open to win a championship. This is no matter how it looks, no matter how great a team looks, these things happen. You can't and you can't bank on injuries. But obviously that's been a part of the NBA the last few years, the last five seven years. It's you see all kinds of big injuries, and they happen. It's not just support play as well. We're missing our six man, we're missing No, you're missing superstars. We're missing games, game after game after game.
Well, what's a by the time, it was a joke that it was the second season, not because of u the attrition this way, but just when we're looking at three months of television covers, ha ha, it's almost as long as the actual season itself. But now it's the how do you manage to get to the end of March, first week of April in as best a rotation game? Because that's the thing that comes out of this game too, Jason, is the fact that both starting lineups just traded blows the entire time. Like my Anchorman analogy isn't too far off. Now, Prichard ends up with twelve points, so it becomes a nineteen point bench effort. But for the longest time you're looking at fourteen to ten. Was the margin and the usage of these benches. Shorten the rotations and get every minute you can out of your starters, and with that you're gonna welcome in court trouble at times. And unfortunately it showed up in the worst of ways in this one.
So we'll keep you updated on that. Let you know when to hear something about Jason Tatum. I assume we're not going to get anything official tonight, while we'll hear postgame from the teams. But the Knicks Jalen Brunson throwing towels all over the court. The Knicks are up three to one. Go New York, Go New York, Go Go New York, go New Yeah, it's a sober min What are you doing? Hey, hey, games still happened, the guy, the game still happened, the games. Let it breathe a minute for crying out. Wow, man, we just spent the entire last twelve minutes on Jason Tatum hoping he's okay, hoping he's all right, you know, going through everything wet. Now you're dancing over the top of it. So I'm just saying, not just saying, I can say, go New York, go New York. I could do it. The Celtics lost again. How it's got Yes, the Celtics lost again. Wow, Knicks are up three to one. Look at this Nick Man right again? What did I go back when I said a week ago? Nick Pacers Eastern Conference Finals? Yeah no, none a minute eight. Jason might really be right about that. It could really happen. Could really happen.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Michael Jordan is coming back to do stuff for NBC. Yes, the Knicks and the Pacers are going to be in the East Conference finals. It really is the nineties again, Mike Harmon, get ready, celebrate parachute pants, really bold colors. Then you segue into the grunge. Okay, that's fine, but it is then. I love the nineties. It is the nineties when we peaked as a species in the world. The nineteen nineties are coming back and they are in your face.
In rewind, we go back and turn back the clock to all the music and TV.
I mean about watching ed YPD Blues.
So it's only appropriate in a rewatch that we've got that Reggie Miller is.
On calling games. Oh yeah, so he'll be part.
Of the action and the nineties, talking about all of those Nicks and Pacers battles and whatever.
Michael Jordan's role is.
If nothing else, it gets people up in arms for a minute, remembering simpler times, no cell phones.
You'd have to the Internet things. The Internet was new because some people had the Internet. You mean I can talk to people and just really just I'm okay.
Well there you were an elitist at that point though, in the early in the early nineties. I mean, that's that's where you're talking your high rank government you know, employee.
Yeah, that's what you're scurity. People started to have, like the messaging systems at work. We're like, oh, I could just send you a quick message on the computer. Oh okay. Yeah.
A lot of bad things happened to that at the end of the nineties at Yahoo because we had super IDs, So people would start screwing with employee, you know, fellow employees. They did not like you sent what I swear I didn't. Oh no, it was them on this conterminal supercomputer.
Want to watch Nick Pacers tonight? Yes, Rick Smith's will have a big night for the Pacers.
Nobody was texting or messaging about the dunkin Dutchman.
Yes, I don't know how the Knicks are going to stop, either Anthony or Dale Davis. Yes, send the Davis' is No, that's good. I like that. It's the nineties, man, get ready, you knew what was happening. And oh, by the way, before we go any further, it was about ten days ago. People said, oh, you're Jason, You're just crazy. It's a hot take. You looking for attention. Yeah, okay. When I said Nicks Pacers East Finals, no, wait a minute. And then a few days later was it's nice Nicks and the Pacers, Yeah they well get it's great. Still it's Celtics and the Cabs. Yeah, okay, okay, now Nick pays about but the two of those things can and then are not mutually exclusive. And then then a few days went by, then a week we said, what am I going to wish for? Us to lose what you wish for? I have no choice. We're gonna play the Pacers. If we move on, destined, they're destined to lose to the pace. We're sweeping the Pacers. Okay, we'll see you soon, Indiana. We got something. Sorry, we'll talk about that in a minute. We got something.
But going back to to the point about hot takes and and needing a hug and all of those things that those that's not necessarily untrue.
The fever dream that you had to try to arrive at this moment, the voodoo doll you've been carrying of Jason Tatum, Godo, that's no, that's nut stop, that's bad, that's that's dirty pool right there.
Point clips that the Bulls don't win a draft lotteries. All of these things are things you've been trying to bring into existence, and suddenly the universe has smiled down upon you in this moment, normally hitting you in the back of the head, uh, you know, kind of bringing you towards the crossroads, and then just saying no, no, no, you're not ready for this stuff yet. Now you're actually there. Now all the things you've been wishing for are coming to this moment, festering building to this Eastern Conference Finals. Just maybe tomorrow, maybe it gets put off a couple of days, but it seems.
And I can see the Knick showing up tomorrow going yeah, whatever, hey, Celtics have another game showing up where they shoot the lights. How are the Knicks losing this game with no Jason Ted I can absolutely, I'm all right, I'm already seeing that come. We're saying this game where suddenly he doesn't look like he's heard or slow or but then there'll be the game six anointment of the Knicks into the Eastern Conference, because I'll clear, I'll be clear with you, like my brain like during the day now and and and times when I when I think about the Knicks, it's it's like my brain is like the the beginning guitar solo of Mam. It's the end. The just came out about a week. A little bit of that, A little bit of that, a little bit of in the end.
Yeah.
Right here, this is my brain with next, next, next, next, yes, the next. We're going to the finals. We're beating the Celtics. We're gonna sweep the pacers. Here come the drums. Way too many brain cells. Brain's still going, brain still going. Now, is he gonna always? Dad? Just state anything for kind of going towards eruption? Uh No. I think Wolfgang van Halen is good everything? Yeah, I think or is he actually at this point he kind of do what he wants. I think he can that if Roth gets pissed on Non well, I don't think. I don't think Diamond Dave can get I don't think smiling like cat happened like his dad on the on the soul of it, that's my brain now, Okay, with it. I mean it really is is insane, but this is what's happening. And I said, look, I said, hey, next pacers, No, no, no, then a week ago, let's re visit. Yeah, okay, maybe a tiny bit, Jason, maybe a tiny bit now like, oh wait a minute, well Nick's face. Oh wait, that's happening. Oh oh oh wait a minute, that's really really happen. Oh my goodness. He was right all along, he was right about everything. What's happening. I might be laid down some money on some futures, or maybe parlayd all of that good fortune. I don't know.
Maybe you've been treating your family a little better, maybe a little longer walk with the dog. Maybe I bought a Knicks car.
Maybe I bought a Knicks cards, had it wrapped wrapped in Nicks Patrick Hewings, Patrick Ewing's face on one side of it, Jill Jackson's face on the other. Thought you were saving up for the mobile McDonald's. I got, well, well that's that's when we get to the finals. Then I'll be able to buy the mobile. McDonald's gonna buy it, can we buy it?
Get in on a franchise and actually just making a food truck. I wanted to McDonald's McDonald's. I don't know today, Mike, you know you yeah, the mobile McDonalds. Because you know, Trump is meeting in Saudi, probably getting another place, and they they had a mobile McDonald's there to bring him food, and I'm like, I want to go to there.
I want a mobile McDonald's. I want like the bookmobile used to drive on my street when I was a kid. Hey, come get books every Wednesday from the bookmobile. This is great. I want that mobile mcdonald'sremile. Ah, dude, I wanted to drive McDonald's. I mean like ice cream man was great. That was one thing. I mean, that was awesome, But man, a mobile McDonald's to drive up and just stop and go, hey, hey, go, what do you want, Big Mac? How many ice co That guy was a menace? How many you want? Yeah? And what else? You want? Fries? And what else? Shake? And what else? More? Shakes? And what else? And a gallon of coffee and and and you know what here, just take my credit card. It'll be like James Old Jones says in Field of Dreams. Uh, they'll fork over twenty dollars a piece without even thinking about it. They'll give you there, they'll give you their cash. They could be washing the memories. I'll get whatever you need. Just give me stuff off this mobile McDonald's. Try and then I'll follow you around the city so that because I can't you know, look, you can't stop in my neighborhood the whole time. You gotta go out of the place. But I'll follow you. Just don't go too fast, so I could follow you and stop one I'm done. I'm ready to have something. Damn pied piper. Yeh, yeah, buddy, Well they have the molten lava apple pie available. I think they're gonna have everything, Mike, except the ice cream obviously. Yeah, I crea the ice cream will never be worth broke. Yeah, machines broke.
Sorry, seems like you get have parlayed that into your own trade school.
What do you do? We just fixed McDonald's ice cream. What else? What else can I learn here? Nothing? No, that's it. That's all you got. I don't know. I just think maybe that all that what the McDonald's has decided. Listen, when the when the machine, when the ice cream machines break, We're not going to fix them. Just tell people they're down it's not worth it. We don't make enough money on it. We're not gonna kind of like how uh uh the story that uh Disney didn't want to do season two of Hawkeye because it was too much money, so they low ball Jeremy Renner. So because they knew he would say, no, okay, we don't want to do the season. That we don't want to do the season at all, So we're gonna low ball Jeremy Renner. He says no, and we don't do Hawkeye too. That that's kind of what's happening. Just tell me more some Hailey Steinfeld in my life. It takes it takes way too much money to fix the ice cream machines. Just gonna bring just tell people were just not here. Is half the man he used to be. We're not gonna fix him. He's got a new back out. He's back now. Jeremy Runners back. Now, he's back. He's back. He's back like the knickxer back. He's back that Nicks in the nineties when they did that little pose trying to save the world. Yeah, oh everything what everything old is new again. We are back in the nineties. And look, let me just say this, right, because here here's the Cavaliers, who it's just a stunning loss for them, uh, falling to the Pacers. Pacers win. It won fourteen one to five, a game they once led by nineteen. Clearly, yes, regular season success and postseason success are two completely different things. But to go a little bit deeper than that, the Pacers are pretty good. This is an Eastern Conference Finals team from last year. And if you want to go back and look when the calendar change at twenty twenty five, not many teams have won more games on the pace. I think the Pacers are won the second or third most games in the NBA since the calendar turned to January. Right, this is it that they almost look like a mirror image of the Knicks, where you talk about a strong starting five with guys that have very similar roles. The bench is somewhat okay, but these are two really similar teams. I'm already previewing the Knicks in the basin. You've been watching a lot of Andrew Nemhar. People don't. People don't give the Pacers credit because and look, and Pascal Siakim is such a huge addition to them. The clutch shots he made down the stretch, Halliburton figuring out okay again I need to get to the rack, and he once again took control of the game again a little bit too inconsistent for my taste. He has too many games where you say, what was that all about? But this Pacers team, people don't really They were really good. Yes, they had a bad start to the season, but it's a bad first couple of months. You say bad start, it's it's November December, Okay, the season is just getting going. But since January again, second or third best record in the NBA. And so for them to come in here, and we already told you when the seat when the series started, the Pacers are a bad matchup for the for the Cavaliers. Because NBA preis it's all about match Sure, they are a bad matchup. So when you saw the series start, yes, could the Cavaliers maybe have had a better beginning if they were healthy. Yes, a lot of things went against them, but this is not as surprising because of those things. The Pacers were good. They match up really well. We've seen them do it before. We've seen the Pacers get to the Eastern Conference finals. Haven't seen Don and Mitchell get out of the first round. So when you're comparing the two teams and you think about, all, what a shot with it, you think back and go, well, maybe not as much as you thought it was going to be, because this wasn't even a seven game thriller and escape with a ball that bounced off the rim three times. This was four to one. This was a beatdown. This was you don't deserve to be on the same floor as the Pacers, despite the fact you won sixty four games in regular season. I just didn't finish the job, right.
You look at Donovan Mitchell tonight that I don't know that I expected to see him play, but give it the old college try. But he does, and he puts up twenty five shots. Well he hits eight of them. As a team they shoot thirty nine percent owing to the length and the swimming abilities and what Carlisle's done with this Pacers squad. You know, Haliburton didn't put up a ton of shots, but he's ten to fifteen from the field, hit six three point shots for the what the game high, Well second to Mitchell, of course, but it comes down with thirty one points. You get good balance, your gout nemhard all five starters in double digits. And here's the stat of it all. Home field in home court advantage. We talk about it in all sports, but certainly basketball in these playoffs hasn't mattered.
Right. You look at the Cavaliers for the year thirty six and five at home against teams not from Indiana, OHO and five against the Pacers on their home court, bad match time and again, and the Pacers good enough to claw back and to wait you out and come up with the big stop when it mattered.
And that's exactly what happened here. Looked like they were gonna get back into it. Calves clawed back. You had the three pointer from Mitchell making it a three point game, but that was it. Uh Pa end up distancing themselves and winning the series. And now they wait, Well, the winner of Boston and New York, Well, here we go.
And already I've watched Rick Carlisle is already complaining about the East Finals officiating in his post game. Now, he's already very upset about how the East Finals officiated. He's very upset. He's already trying. He's very upset me to just crown you king. He's really mad. Last year, he's really mad about the officiating. Already, he's the celebrate. He's pounding the tables. Actually really a series and get there, really upset for small market teams not getting a big run. I mean he's really he is really mad about this. He's really mad about the East Finals officiating. Justin make you want to Celtics come back? Any of this talk? Hell no, okay.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific.
Two minutes to go in the third quarter. The party is underway at MSG. The Knicks lead the Celtice. I should say it like Marv Albert does. The Necks leave the Celtics eighty nine to fifty one with a minute fifty seven left to go in the third quarter. Uh, it has been all Nicks from the jump. Make it ninety two fifty one After an Ogiano Nobi Thie. I think Joe Mizzoula is gonna call time out and they're all gonna leave. I think it's out, just gonna leave, and it's just gonna be a big party. Michael Straighthan is excited. This is the bill, looks to flog you got, you got Marbury there. This is This is a party, Mike Harmon, It is an absolute party. But you're gonna be the disapproving girlfriend with the coat over her arms going we can leave whenever you want to. I know you're having fun, but we can leave whenever you want to. You're gonna play that role tonight. I can already tell. I can already tell, just by your countenance, just by the way you are, just by you're gonna be that. I'm ready to leave. I didn't want to go to this party at all. I'm ready to go home.
This is where you have your kid who's hopped up on sugar and you let them run around hoping that at some point they just fall out napping. That's where I'm at right now, because I have already had forty minutes of this, yeah, leading into the start of the show, And I've said for a very long time, there's a jealousy to a point of your fandom, okay, and we've tipped past that jealousy of the excitement. Okay, Jude, shut.
Up, all right. I'm not happy when your teams get, you know, the little success they have, So I mean, I thought you'd be happy for me, but okay to a point, I see where because you're screaming at at the like they're going to win, to go to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since I was in my thirties.
Yeah, but that was presumptive when we got to halftime when Kendrick Perkins said, they need to find Jesus to play the second half. That's what he said about the Celtics. They're like any closing thought, get Perk. It's like, you know what they need and there's a pause, and you know everybody on sets looking at him, nervous.
What he's gonna say to find Jesus. He said that go on a diet. If the Knicks blue the lead, they would go on a diet. If the Knicks bleue this lead at halftime and they have grown it out, it is a forty one point Nick lead, now ninety two to fifty one with just under a minute half to go with the third quarter, Bird and Michale are ready to check in for the Celtics in the fourth quarter.
I don't even think they They don't want any minutes of this. This is where you go find what was that guy's oh the ninety three Dino Rajah and guys like that. Will you start bringing those guys in or to get some minutes. But like Jalen Brown did what Nikola Jokic did the other night, except this is an elimination game and he tapped out.
Porzingis is sick.
I can't make any jokes about him sitting because I have no idea what's going on there. I hope he finds whatever solution he needs in the offseason. He's ready for twenty twenty five. But this is a gutless effort, right You're down six to start the second quarter, you score four points in the first half of the second quarter, and then it's like you waved a white flag.
Right effort.
Plays are non existent. You're seeing reach in files, just sloppy play. It's like no sense of urgency whatsoever. It's like, all right, we're down twenty five, what are we gonna do. Let's run the shot clock down to two and then you're still contesting every shot because I mean, that's the celebration of what the Nicks have been here. They smelled the blood in the water like any shark movie and attack the hell out of this squad. So I give full credit to whatever Thibodeau said. It pregame whatever they.
Needed in the fuel of the New York media to go finish this thing off, because they never let the Celtics get a quarter breadth no on once it really started to get out of hand in the middle of that second look. And this is why I told you all week when I can't no one believe me when I said I'm fine they lose Game five. I told you we're gonna lose Game five. We're gonna show up and kind of play. All right, we'll kind of play if the game is there. Maybe they try to close in the second half, but it wasn't there. Brunson fouls out of the game five thousand and one. Quarter Karl Anthony Townsend foul trouble said, Okay, this is how it's gonna go. But it's gonna be a different story on Friday night. What if I said the last two days, Hey, Friday night, I'm going to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in twenty two years. I was absolutely fine because I knew this was the next team we were going to see on Friday. Bad feeling about Wednesday. I knew was gonna Hey, Okay, we're not gonna get Rick. Bucker had a great comment on that with us the other night, saying, Hey, there's lots of teams in the NBA that come in to close out type games like the Knicks did, and you know, like we've seen in the playoffs elsewhere as well, where it's been, hey, we know we're not going to get the calls, and if the calls go against you in the beginning of the game at Sea, we're not getting him. Let's put it away for the next game. And that's kind of what the Knicks did, and we see that it's not just the next thing the same team to do that strategy. Sure, and I tell it, but tonight was gonna be different. It was gonna be physical, and it was gonna be a Karl Anthony Towns night. And this was how it was gonna go. You guys didn't believe. You thought I was nervous. And Frostburg's going on, what are you gonna say in game seven? Are you say in game seven? I knew we're never getting to Game seven because this was gonna be the game we're gonna get tonight one.
You did not predict a forty point burial and that the Celtics would quit.
I said, I said, whend, I say fifteen. Last night, I said ten to fifteen we met our. I said, no, there's.
A difference between Hey, we win by ten because down the stretch we're making free throws and finishing the job, right Jalen Bronson getting to the following versus, I should have said fifty. Here's to win by fifty. Look in in game betting, I was laughing before it was thirty thirty two, when you and I were sitting before we started this soire on a big Friday night party for you. Where it sits now? I can only uh, I can only guess because it's it's bloomed it is now at its still only thirty three. If you really want to go that, that's basically saying the Knicks are gonna quit and start sipping wine playing with three fourth quarter something like that. They're they're relegated, they have to take half court shots, or whatever the case may be. But you know, the you're officiating thing from the other night rings true, and there are a number of times where it's just like, really, that's that's a continuation file. Again, it's a thirty point game, so who the hell cares, But at the time it was thirty five. Karl Anthony Towns gets fouled quite clearly. Al Horford bangs him three feet off of this spot and then he goes, ah, forget it, I'll take the extra step and throw the ball up, all right, and one it's like what are we doing? So again the officiating issue, but by that point it's long gone. I mean, Jalen Brown tapped out, so all of the talk and we heard this got really loud about what a better effort they get when Jason Tatum isn't there. Just just hang up your microphones, just quit. You know, the record is not always indicative of what you're gonna get, and you can do things for one game. We've seen at time and time again in playoffs. We see it in the regular season, the heavy underdogs that can come up no matter the sport, and certainly in the NBA, as you alluded to, the all right, it's really not coming together for us. We'll live to see another day. There's no reason to play another twenty labor and you know, laborious minutes when we've got a game two days. Hence, look at what I did there, Yeah, I went fall on dictionary.
Hen and my literary world.
But like, when you only play five or six guys, why play them an extra twenty minutes when you're done? So that strategy the other day certainly comes to bear. But from Missoula and Company, like when exactly did you quit? Like that's the first question I would ask him in the post day, When would you quit?
The Knicks? The Knicks have been playing tonight. They're playing with a twenty five point lead, like the game is tied. There's been no let up. There's been no open shots for the Celtics because the Knicks have decided, hey we're up by twenty six and everything is fine. There's been no running around to offensively. It has been there playing this game. Like in fact, you would think the Knicks, if they win this game, would be winning the NBA Finals. The way that the Knicks are playing, the way fans are responding, we will be going to the Eastern You still have two more rounds to finish, but eight more wins. But hey, we're going to the Eastern Conference finals. And the party is like we're winning it all, like that's what it is.
But that's okay, But that's the party like watching watching that connection right, and you know me, one of the mantras of the show is the love of live events because very few places in the world you have energy and agreement of what's going on and the energy going in the same spot.
So the fans feeding.
Off the effort, the players feeding back off the fans, and that frenzy. You know, every shot is contested. There's no way, all right, I missed the assignment. It's like no, They're still cursing at each other. You had a play down low where Jalen Brown loses the ball and it gets tapped and eventually goes off his leg. They were up thirty five and they immediately three guys are sick doing the Thibodeau to challenge it, which they did and they won the challenge. It's that kind of thing. Look, I'm not saying I don't love it. I just I just have a headache. Look the Nicks, they came out for blood. They came out for blood, and it's a party, right, That's that's exactly what Mad Shalom has been shown ninety seven times. Spike Lee doesn't have to accost the referee chasing him down the court.
He's just sitting there. No, doesn't. He's gott he's gotten don't because he's got no role to that. We don't need coach Spikes. He's just like as happy as he should be when they show him. He's like, I wanted a contested game. What do you got, Frostburg? I mean, this game is so out of hand that the Necks have just rolled out four players to play four on five. They're going with my team is on the court, and one of them is Clyde Fraser, Ben Stiller, Stefan Marbury and bad Bunny. I think we had we probably were winning by thirty three right now, going twenty five, Uh, we're going so now all right now, I guess eight and a half has gone to on Wednesday. This is very poor Frostburg. So now are you gonna be because you're with Obviously we'll celebrate your fan so to yo where it it doesn't just end after the game. It's you'll celebrate tonight after tonight at eleven one to give him dabs you in the face. Okay, all right, that's and the duel will come in. So the celebration is tonight. Who cares about tomorrow? Celebration tonight and it's go Inde, go Inde, go. All right, Bill Bradley is at the game. Yeah, I haven't seen Bill Bradley. While I really thought you were gonna start singing. We've got tonight. Who needs tomorrow. I'm doing a little bats making last babe. Ten minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the Knicks lead the Celtics ninety six to sixty two. We will begin our Knicks Pacers Eastern Conference Finals preview coming up a little bit as we'll have more on this game as the party tonight is going to be off the hook. We've already ordered pizza. We had all kinds of pizza and wings coming. It is a Knicks party Friday. But coming up next as we continue to track the biggest game of the night, all as freely all the time, maybe the biggest game all year. Coming up next, do we have an NFL story coming your way because somebody really got paid. Go New York, Go New York Coast. And when does Tatum come in?
Uh?
Wow, in the next time next, next official time out?
You know what, he would have at least wheeled himself around and giving you an effort.
Actually, Tatum O'Neil is coming in nots who's coming about that? Shack's brother and TJ click, you know you ruin, you ruin my bad news Bears line tysher, you know nothing today, You're about to win, all right? Yeah, it's nothing he says or plays he can play. Everybody wants to rule the world forty five times in a run. I don't care. Yeah, whatever, that doesn't matter.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harman weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
From outside of Madison Square Garden at the top of a light pole because Knicks fans is celebrating like they won the finals tonight. Nicks insider John Schmielkey is on Twitter at shmilk, longtime friend of the show. How you doing man? You sent me that picture of you at the game. I can imagine it must have just been an entire party since midway through the second quarter.
Here, I just.
Drove through the Lincoln Tunnel. I did not need my car to get home. I could have floated.
Home or flown home.
I just don't want to have to go back into the city tomorrow morning to get my car. So this is just convenience. I could have lunched myself from thirty third Street and Eighth Avenue and set my butt back to Central New Jersey. Baby, oh man, twelve.
Look, still work to do.
Let's be very clear about that. Still work to do. You gotta beat the Pacers, but twenty five years is a long time. Enjoy the stick fans.
I'll tell you I have no one believed me on the show this week when I said, oh, they lose Game five, I said, I'm fine, we are gonna blow the doors off of them in game six. It's gonna be different. It's gonna be officiated differently. The Knicks are gonna be more physical. They're smelling blood. They kind of halfway went for it in Game five, and they all thought I was crabbed. Oh, you're just you're just trying to You're trying to show us you're not nervous. I'm like, no, we are gonna win big on Friday night, and there we go. It happened.
Yeah. Look, I did not think I'd be sitting there in that building tonight and the.
Knicks would be leading by forty one points in the third quarter. That I mean that place for twenty four minutes of basketball, and like an hour and a half of real time was just a party. The only thing people got mad about is that Thibodeau wasn't taking the starter. That place was absolutely lit, guys, And look, I said, as you know, twenty five years since they've been to Thesetern Conference finals, that might have been the best defense I've seen a Nick team play in twenty five years too. They shut the Celtics down. The cout Bridges eraced, Derek White, Jalen Brown fouled out in the third quarter. It was utter domination in every facet of the game.
At what point did the did you think the Celtics quit? When? When did the spirit leave the body?
I think when Shireman made an appearance in the third quarter. Look, I think it was a point.
At the end of the second quarter where the Celtics I think had won three and it looked like they were about to make a run. And then the Knicks counted with like three straight baskets and they're up by thirty points at a halftime.
The game wasn't over yet, but.
It was darn close.
And then you know, Celtic's mad.
A couple of shots to start the third, Nicks bounced right back. They got a bit you know, forty and then guys, that was it, you know, Badulla pold everyone and man, just.
What a game.
And again it's I don't think fans understand.
How I mean they do, but if you're the root for the next.
How bad the last twenty five years have been, or at least twenty the last twenty five years watching you know, Ron Baker and Kyle O'Quinn, who is probably one of the better guys he got to watch.
I mean, my gosh, Alexei Schived, who Nick fans were in love with, Damian Botson, my gosh, go.
Through the list.
It was bad.
David Fizdale's regime, Larry Brown four year, my god, isay it? Thomas it was.
It's as bad as.
It was the lowest of the lows. And to finally get to see this in that building for a night, it was a blast and it was.
So much fun.
So as we look at the squad, because Jason and I were really celebrating, and I did so maybe a little muted because my guy's been at volume. You know, you turn into eleven on spinal tap. He broke the knob off, John, I mean, there's just no about it. But all of that, with the defense still up thirty, still challenging plays, all of that, it's like, I like it. The uh I believe you actually said, you know, don't don't get off their necks, and they didn't.
They didn't, they did not lay it off.
And look, if this team can play like that defensively the rest of this postseason, they can win an NBA championship if they can keep that level of intensity on defense. Karl Anthony Towns was locked in. Boys. You do not see that very often for a non defense. That dude was locked in. If he can play like that for two more rounds, the Knicks can win a championship. That's not hyperbolic, that's facts. That's where we're at. This has not played that way consistently this year. They didn't maddeningly inconsistent. But if you can bring that type of effort defensively, you the Knicks can be NBA champions in the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty five.
The Knicks are here to save the playoffs, John, They're here to set the playoffs because we got Minnesota and maybe Oklahoma City and the Pacer. The Knicks are here to save the playoffs.
Wait, wait, you're telling me Mike Silver doesn't want in Indiana, Minnesota or Indiana Olahoma City NBA Finals. But you have not had any luck on this planet since the uing lottery.
They have that zero.
Luck, they've gotten no help.
Time to start pulling some straights. Baby, you're gonna get the big ball, get into the finals. Adam Silver, Well.
Hey, that's it. What a week it's been. But look at where we're at. John, Listen, it's already gonna be a Knicks Final four. It's gonna be like a Wholemark Christmas movie because it's the Knicks and the Pacers who are synonymous with the Knicks and the playoffs. Randall and deven Chen and probably Hartnerstein. It's an entirely Knicks final four. It's everything we need right now.
Look, this goes back to the nineties and Nick Pacers, where they've kind of went back and forth, like neither team dominated in the nineties. One year the Pacers would win and the Knicks would win.
Well, guess what, boys, payback's a bitch here cuts the Nick. There lost of the faces last year.
Harry Halliburn. Look, he's a really good player, but he is such a perfect like sequel to Reggie Miller.
He's lanky, he's.
Skinny, he fires threes, he's annoying, he flops heavy. He's like Reggie Miller, not as good, but reincarnated. This could not be.
It's just it's the.
Nineties all over again, and it's gonna be so much fun. But you're right, Look, whoever gets out of the West that if you're a Nick fan, I would root for the Denver Nuggets. I want no part, no part of the Oklahoma City Thunder. So if I'm a Knicks fan, I rooted for Denver. Maybe you guys disagree, but look, that was a hell of an effort. And Guys, I can't believe I'm saying that the Knicks have a real chance to win an NBA title this year.
I can't believe I'm saying it on the radio and to millions of people.
But them's are the facts, boys.
And you know I love that. Well, all Knicks like you and I. We're all celebrating like we won the title. They're climbing lightholes, we're all talking about who the Knicks are going to play in the finals and it's like they've been to there. We gotten out of two rounds of the playoffs, but it's like we won the whole thing tonight.
Hey, look like I said. That's why when the first question, boys, you ask me, and what I say, there's still work to do. You did not put this team together to win two rounds in the playoffs. You put this team together to win an NBA championship. But there's a realistic window here. You know, the Knicks finisher the day at home. The Nicks have a homeportant advantage in the Eastern Conference title to compute effort.
Good boy, all right, And by the way, if the Timberwolves go to the finals, you know who's gonna have the home court advantage in the NBA finals too.
You're New York next. So this is real. There's work to do. They have to keep playing well, but there is enjoy the series win. Plenty of work to do. But this is real. You know, I'm always one the poor cold water on stuff. I'm very realistic. I've seen too much. You guys have seen too much as Nick fans. It always goes wrong. They have a real shot here, that is real.
I gotta ask the obvious question. First, you John dn Smith, You'll just punch me, is uh? You know, after the euphoria wears off and you punch yourself out and you go to sleep, how soon did the nightmares of Reggie Miller come back?
You think we're gonna sleep, Well, eventually you're gonna pass out.
I'm not saying it's a it's a natural. Hey, I'm going to bad thing. Eventually your body's just gonna collapse.
So hey, look here, here's.
The thing about Reggie Miller.
Reggie Miller had some really awesome moments against the Knicks. The Knicks also had some really awesome moments against Reggie Miller. They knocked him out of the playoffs more than once in the nineties. So yes, Reggie got the Knicks a couple of times, and a couple of times in heartbreaking fashion. But you know, the Nicks beat to go to the NBA finals. Four Pacers boys. So yeah, Reggie Miller, you hate him, he's he's the worst, But Nicks.
Beat him, and now it's time to be Prearry Tyler Barton too.
Mix insider John Schmilkey. He's on Twitter at s milk. You can find him. There are at the top of any kind of light pole somewhere in the New Jersey metropolitan area. After the win tonight, John, thanks a bunch, buddy. We'll talk to you during the East Finals.
All right, I'm gonna land in New Jersey. I'll talk you guys to Nick the conference finals.
Let's do it.
