Broad casting live from the ninety six to nine at Jay Studios.
It's time to show as a song. Here's your host, Brandon Kravitz.
Yeah yeah, Welcome to the show. We are live on ninety six nine, the game streaming everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You are in the zone, the show of the Orlando Sports Fan. Your host Brandon Kravitz here, joined by my co host and producer, He is Sweet Tea Tyler Karen. Hit us up on the mills are text line. That's five zero eight five seven coming up today, finally getting into my top five that I the top five things that I learned about the upcoming college football season from
my vacation magazine. Also listener questions at four to twenty five today your chance your final chance at Monster Jam tickets during that segment that's at four to twenty five. Sort Of a disjointed week for me in and out of the studio, at least for the early portions of the show. Doing the show from home today, I thought that this would be it was just sort of kind of a run around. So I thought, hey, you know what, Friday, let's just let's just slow down a little bit, connect
into the studio. Thanks for bearing with us, by the way, hopefully it doesn't cause you any disruption, but we've been kind of running around like chickens with our heads cut off. And Tyler, you have earned MVP status for helping to for me to get through this very busy week. So thank you and congrats on your award MVP for doing my job. I could get used to this.
Yeah, it's a little lonely in here today. The gloomy weather outside certainly doesn't help it. We have motion detector lights just outside of the studio through the halls in the building that we're in, and BK, let me tell you it is a Friday, we're heading into the weekend.
It's crappy weather outside and those lights are off. I might be the only one here in this horse story building today, but we still have the same amount of fund, bunch of great Friday stories and some Friday shenanigans as well.
And I would love to start the show with some quippy story about life, something that happened. But I literally haven't seen the sun in five days, so I got nothing.
I've just.
I've just been I've been watching sports and prepping sports for the last five days. It is a you know, it's like a life of solitude. It's not sexy people, but damn if it's not fun. So let's dig into it. Here's the reality. I should be excited about what's happening right now in the NBA. We are entering into a Game seven in the NBA Finals. I should be excited, and I know that. There's a big part of my
brain that says, be excited. This is exciting right Game sevens This is what we live for as basketball fans. Except I can't get there, and I'll tell you why in a second. But let's rewind a bit before I get back to that point. Great game by the Pacers last night. Gutty performance by Tyrese Haliburton, who I thought did not look like his normal self early on, but played close enough to the level that we have become accustomed to to where he wasn't anything close to a
detriment to the team. In fact, I thought once he settled into the game, he actually played quite well, and more than anything, I think he inspired his teammates. Now, with all of that said, that game was not indicative of how good the Pacers are. It was an absolute no show from the Oklahoma City Thunder. Think of how uncharacteristic that game was. The Thunder scored the least amount of points that they had scored through three quarters in a season sixty also one hundred and three games played
this season by OKC. This was just the second time all year that the Thunder didn't create a steal or a live ball turnover in the first half of a basketball game. Their bench was outscored thirty one to six through the first three quarters of the game. The fourth quarter was complete trash, throw it out. The box score doesn't matter. Sga tallied his second lowest point total in the entire postseason in a game where he played at least thirty minutes.
Credit the Pacers, they got the win.
Rick Carlisle is a genius coach, and I thought it was an inspired effort. But the result, the way that it played out, the blowout nature of the game was a fluke. The Pacers are not a fluke. I'm not calling the team of fluke. I am calling that win felt fluky. So I'll get to my Game seven take in a second, But your general response to my read
on this basketball game. We usually don't see these, or at least I don't think we are mentally ready for these in the NBA Finals, these games that you see in the middle of the season where you go, oh, well, that team just didn't have it tonight.
But that's exactly what that was to me.
Yeah, it seems like a game that was played on a sleepy Wednesday night in the middle of February heading into the All Star break.
That was the vibe of it. That's number one.
Number two, Aaron Wiggins is on the road, the star of OKCE.
What do we expect him to do? I'm kidding. I'm done with the the Aaron Wiggins focus.
But you certainly have to give credit to Rick Carlisle and to this Pacers team because they were up for it.
They are ready.
But jet lagged is a term that I've continued to use when, especially when you have quick turnaround travel like you do in the finals, Game five in Oka, se Game six in Indiana, now back to OKCE for in Game seven, the Thunder just didn't show up.
The Thunder were playing.
Like they had some wiggle room, like they had an extra game to play, and the Pacers were playing like they did not. But it was some certainly some uncharacteristic things by Oklahoma City that also Indiana forced them into the corner to do when you shoot one of eleven from three point range in the first half. Which, don't get me wrong, the Thunder won a game in this series where they only had three main threes in the game.
It's not their bread and butter, but that doesn't help the cause twelve turnovers in the first half comparatively to just two for Indiana. We're talking about the Indiana team that likes to get out and run, whereas OKC kind of slower tempo, methodical, half court offense. Those numbers are generally flipped in this series, even in games that Indiana
finds a way to win. So very uncharacteristic game for Oklahoma City, and it continues to beat into the pattern that this Thunder team just frankly isn't as good on the road as what they are as home. You see this a lot with teams in general, especially young teams, which Oklahoma City, despite the success, despite having the MVP, are still one of the younger teams in the league.
But there is something about that building and playoff environment buildings on the road that the Thunder have struggled with, and it's why they're in even five hundred in the postseason, five and five on the road comparatively to ten and two at home. So heading into the Game seven, I don't think that you need to sell all of your stock in the Oklahoma City Thunder.
You shouldn't be riding the Pacers too high.
I think this game can be competitive, but last night, as you mentioned, BKA, very uncharacteristic for the Thunder and just all in all a complete no show.
So in my opinion, game and this is going to be controversial, and I think some people are going to get very upset, but hear me up. Game sevens are overrated, especially for a series like this. I like watching these two teams play, Okay see style, their brand, the way they built their franchise. I appreciate all of those things. The defense the Pacers, the high octane offense that anybody can score on any given possession, kind of feel of the way they run their team. I appreciate all of
those things. But this series has been sloppy and lopsided. Outside of a couple of instances, we got a great Game one, We've had a couple of moments, but for the most part, it's just been a flip flop of bad game in great games and Game sevens to this point should be great. I think they have become one of the most overrated things in sports. They have become the NBA's equivalent to the New Year's Eve party. That
sounds awesome, but it's usually pretty lame. And every time it comes around and you get invited to one, and you put the little hat on, you get the kazoo, and you go grab a bottle of champagne, you think you're gonna have the time of your life, and it's just it's just not a good party. That is what has happened to Game sevens. They should be awesome. They have not been awesome. This is and that part. Some of that is based on opinion, but the opinion is
backed up by numbers. Home teams in the NBA Finals in Game sevens are fifteen to four overall. That's just straight up. Now, this is where it gets ugly. The average scoring margin in NBA Game sevens. This is across the playoffs over the last ten years. The average scoring margin is twelve point six. That usually doesn't end kate a good game. This postseason alone is where it got really ugly. Game sevens have produced an average final score
of twenty point twenty one point six. In terms of the differential, the average of the Game sevens we have seen in the postseason have been decided by over twenty points.
I don't think Sunday and think about the way.
Okay, So that's the trend that's been going on, is that over the last ten years, Game sevens in the playoffs haven't been very good.
This postseason, they've been horrible.
And then look at this series and look at the way this is tracking for OKAC. You don't think okac' is just gonna blow them out on Sunday. Of course they are. This is the way this is going. We overrated the Halliburton injury. The Pacers gave you that one final shot. This series is over, and I find myself I'm glad that we have another game because we're in the content business. I just feel like it's kind of
a waste of every buddy's time. So I'm sorry if I come across like the Game seven curmudgeon, but I don't think this game is going to be entertaining.
Ssh. That is top rope with it.
It's a waste of everyone's time, Like Game seven of the NBA Finals. Through what has been outside of the Game sevens, it's been fairly entertaining postseason run.
Here's here's what I will say, because OKAC has been.
A juggernaut at home and it's in the numbers that I detailed, the ten and two at home, they're averaging one hundred and twenty two points at home. Opponents are only scoring one hundred and one points on them. They have a plus two forty seven differential in the postseason.
It's unbelievable.
But these Pacers team, this Pacers team, they have been road dogs throughout the entirety of the playoffs. It started with Milwaukee where they split the games on the road, and then in Cleveland, winning all three games on the road against the Knicks.
They were two to one on the road.
They already have a win in Oklahoma City going back to Game one. So this Pacers team, they have been road dogs and we now have seen I'm with you about Tyre's Halbert. Early on in the game, it seemed that he started a little slow, but then he kind of shifted into gear. He got more comfortable as the game went along in a very balanced Indiana attack to where Tyre's Halbert didn't have to be involved in every
single bucket. It could obi Toppin could just find space and the ball would find his way to him, and it's why he was the leading score if I'm not mistaken, off of the bench with twenty points in the game last night. So I still think there is confidence and more room for growth with tyrese of what he is able to give you in a game seven. And this Pacers team has been good on the road, but Brandon.
It all circles back to this is an Oklahoma City game as much as last night was an Indiana Pacers game. This is an okac identity game written all over it. Heading home for a Game seven, the franchise that is dying for a championship. You have flirt You flirted with it last year. You have been building towards it. You had the best season and what we've seen in the NBA in a long time.
In the regular season.
You survived a Game seven against Denver in dominant fashion. You have been you have controlled this series more than what the Indiana Pacers have. This is a lopsided affair heading into a Game seven. I'm still excited and looking forward to it. But if I had to put a prediction on this game, which essentially we are, that it's going to be the double digit win for the OKC thunder. The history backs it up, the numbers back it up, and frankly, these teams back it up with what we
have seen. The saving grace is that Indiana has been good, better than most would be on the road through this stretch. But yeah, you can make the tombstone that the Indiana Pacers great effort. You put together a great series. You have defied the odds and everyone's predictions. No one had this series going to seven and Okasee winning in a game seven.
But that's what it's all leading to. It feels like exactly.
I mean, think about the way that this series tracked in Indiana. Their DNA in this postseason has been get out to a hot start.
In the series.
They have won game one in every series that they were in in the playoffs. That was how they got to this point more than anything else was their ability to gain an advantage early in the series, and then the percentages are on your side. They were underdogs in every series they played in. They I don't I think the only one they had home court advantage in was round one, but they were even underdogs in that series. If I remember correctly, at least early on the number may have flipped whatever.
That.
So they did that, and they had the big miracle shot from Tyrese Haliburton. Then Okay se goes, Okay cracksknuckles and they blow out Indiana in Game two, very predictable. Then Game three, first game in Indiana. That's the first NBA Finals game that they've hosted since Reggie Miller was playing. So they win that one, Okay, no big surprise. Then OKAC comes back Game four, and then and then okay, see takes care of business game five, and it does
be like things are wrapping up. We started to count out the Indiana Pacers, and that is again what makes them special. The second you count them out, they will show you they got one last gasp left in them. But I think that was it. I think that was the one, and I don't see it happening again. Not in Okac, where the team has been so much better. Their net rating is significantly higher over twenty point six I think was the number. I don't have it sitting
in front of me anymore. Negative six point two when on the road, the role players you detailed this on this show this week. The role players are non existent for OKC on the road, and they show a big at home. On the text line at five to eight five seven, Johnny says game seven's are great.
Sports extended is always good.
Those two pieces of your sentence, though, are completely different takes. I agree with the second part. I like the fact that we have another game. Sure, it gives me something to watch on Sunday night. It gives us something to talk about right now. It gives us something to talk about on Monday because there's gonna be a results to that game.
I like that.
But Game sevens are great. That first part, it just hasn't been true. I think that's the part that it kind of drives me crazy right now, how much sports fans just default to game sevens are amazing.
They should be, but they haven't been even in.
Even in hockey, Like some of the Game sevens that we've seen in the Stanley Cup playoffs have been blowout Thank you to the Florida Panthers for that, But I think just a little bit overblown in terms of how great these games have been. Up next, the top five things that I learned about the upcoming college football season while on vacation.
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