Are you superstitious at all? I don't know that I know.
This about you. Are you superstitious? Are you a little stitious on a scale of one to ten? I might be a little stitious, but I'm not superstitious.
I don't know what the scale is and I've never been tested. Okay, fair enough.
Well, we played Orange Crush last week for Howard in honor of our next and it did not work, so we switched it up. But I figured we'd stick with the rim to get our guy in the right mindset before his Friday hit, Howard, Happy Friday, sir?
How are you doing all right?
Guys? How are you love? The choice of drive an all time favorite?
So, sir?
And you're a drive time show, right, so that fits. I'm not sure that the thematic tie into the Nixon Pacers other than driving the balls.
Yeah, I guess. I don't know. I just you know.
I didn't want to do Orange Crush again because it didn't work last time, so I figured.
We'd switch it up.
You are in the great City of New York, correct, I am.
I will be heading to the garden as soon as we hang up.
So does it feel like a funeral? What is it what's the what's the buzz? What's the buzz in the city today, Howard?
I mean, might be completely unrelated, but it's May twenty third, and it is like gray and cold and rainy, and it feels like Portland frankly, So I don't know if I can blame the Knicks for that, or if the if like it's vice versa, or if it's just reflecting the mood of the city. I don't. I don't know what to tell you there. There's definitely some shock and some hangover for the fans for sure from the other night. Whether the Knicks have that will we'll see in a
few hours. You know, it's a I suspect everything we know about this team, about Tibbs, about Brunson, about Josh Hart, about the way this team has been. I don't think the dent in their psyche from the other night is going to carry over, Like this is a This is the kind of team that you know, they've they've kind of seen it all already. They're kind of a tough
minded group. That's that that is their hallmark anyway. So you know, like with every playoff series or most play series, every night's a new game and you know, younger teams may feel that differently because they're not used to just shaking it off and hit the next one. But these things have a way of changing very quickly. So I don't know what we're going to see tonight, but I don't think the other night is going to have anything to do with it.
I tend to agree with that.
But before we dig into tonight a little bit further, since I've not been able to visit with you since Game one, it's wild man, Like I was watching and taking notes, you know, to get ready for the show the next day, like, Okay, here's this story. Okay, wait, wait a second, No, here's the story. Okay, wait, that's
not the story you like. I could give you ten different targets to aim at, and probably more about game one, but your biggest takeaways from both what the Pacers were able to do and what the Knicks were unable to do to close it out.
You know, as you say that about how many different stories there were, the first thing I'm always going to remember about that game other than Halliburton's crazy shot at the buzzer that we thought was a game winner and that he thought was a game winner. But wasn't a game winner, but it was only a game tier that
forced over. The thing that was also staying with me was Jalen Brunson went to the bench with five fouls and you know whatever, eight nine minutes left and a two point lead for the Knicks, and I thought, wow, this is the golden opportunity for the pay Like if the Pacers were going to win it, I thought it
was then. And because the Pacers instead lost ground while Brunson was on the bench, I'm like, well they're cooked, And I think years from now, I'm still going to be thinking about how much I thought this thing was just over and how impressive it was that the Knicks were able to extend their lead by a lot without
their best player. I don't know what to make of any of that spence, Like, I don't know, like do we go into game two thinking, well, you know, the Knicks played their butts off and still lost and you know, so now it's it's in the pacers favor, not just to court advantage, but just the overall vibe of it all.
Is it? The Pacers were lucky just to be able to come back, and Nie Smith hit some some I mean he's a great shooter, but he hit some some crazy shots, and you know there's gonna be some you know, return to baseline here, some you know, regression to the mean. I don't know which way to try to spin this, which is why I will just still rest on. We'll see what happens in a few hours.
Little Birdie tells me that somebody may have left press roll a little early. Can you confirm or deny?
I mean, you don't need a birdie. I spoke about it for like ten minutes on Rosillo's podcast yesterday, and I spoke about it again on the Real Ones pod today. When they're down fourteen fifteen, the Pacers are down, it
didn't matter which who's down. But then when the score is that big of a gap and there's five minutes left in a game at the Garden, if you're sitting on the Chase Bridge, which is where the media auxiliary go right like the press area for like the Beat writer and some of the local columnists, it's not that big, So most of us are up on this Chase Bridge, which is level nine at the Garden. For anyone who's never been there, that is about as high up as
you can go. It's also where inside the NBA's studio set was right, that's floor nine. Eve level is five, So the locker rooms are on five, the press conferences are on five, the press workroom is on six, So
it's a hike. And if you want to be downstairs where you need to be in time for the coaches and the players and everything else, sometimes it's like, well, if the game's out of hand, I might as well go now, because the stairwells are just an absolute like just madhouse, especially if the next of one, which looked like they were going to do because it's just this
moving party. It's really raucous, and it's fine if you're a fan, but if you're a reporter trying to get down to the press room or the locker rooms to get your job done, it's kind of hard to navigate. So yeah, I was not the only one who left.
I got to the press room. Rachel Nichols was there, Chris Mannix was there, some of my Ringer colleagues were, like a lot of us were in the press room watching those final minutes of regulation thinking Dinicks are going to finish this off, and we were to all just of course flabbergasted and then some people actually rushed back up to the Chase Bridge. I did not. I waited it out. So yeah, that happened. That was a thing.
I did not realize that it struck such a chord. I was mostly just giving you guff. I mean, I think I went to ten jazz games this year, and I think I left at halftime of every single one.
So I'm not one to talk, and I'm.
Very it was a different.
For sure, and I'm also very aware of the complicated space you have to traverse to the garden. But Zach Low couldn't run you guys over enough fast enough with Mannix and Nichols, like that was the first thing he talked about. He took the victory lap that he was the only one left on press row and called all y'all out by name.
I mean, you know, I think Zach probably figured whether he gets down there in time or not doesn't matter. He was going to wait it out, and he's got a life leisurely drive back up to suburban Connecticut to his estate. You know. So the rest of us spelt like we needed to get downstairs.
One more thing on game one, Howard, because I'm wondering if at any point now, as somebody who has been cheering for this franchise since I was ten years old, it has ingrained in me not to believe the game is ever over, and it's ingrained in me to believe that if something could go wrong, it probably will.
So at no point was I like, all right, that's it.
But when Jalen hit his step back three and it's one nineteen one oh five with two point fifty one, I just said there's not enough time.
Like no part of me was like.
All right, that's it, because I figured something, if something's any could happen, it might.
But I just thought, like the Pacers simply.
Will run out of time because I didn't think aaron Ne Smith was going to go ray Allen circa nineteen ninety eight. Was there any point in the game where you're like, Yep, that's it, Nicks one, it's over.
Yeah.
Multiple times, including when I left my seat to go down to the press room. I did not see this happening. But who could have predicted, you know, Nie Smith just you know, turning into a flame thrower and you know the knicks, you know, gagging it at the worst moments too. I mean, you know, anenob and Towns each missing a free throw. Like a lot of things had to happen, as is often the case in a in a dramatic NBA comeback, right, So it's it's it's all of it.
I have not rewatched all that sequence, but I mean there's so many just I think unlikely twists and turns in there. And especially given how much of a clutch team the Knicks are, you absolutely do not expect this. But one of the things I said before the series started was, you know, given what the Knicks have done and what Jalen Brunson has done, he is the clutch
player of the year and all that. If this is, if it's ever close in this series, the Pacers could be cooked because the Brunson's going to always bring it home. But I as soon as I thought that in the week, as I was getting all my thoughts down, I thought, wait, Tyre's Haliburton has hit a buch huge clutch shots in his career already. The Pacers have wiped out massive leads
to win on the road. You don't want it close against them either, Like this is like they're truly both of these teams are built to weather this, and so it sort of becomes a coin flip as to who
can prevail in the end. But even all that said, like I mean, all this comes down to Tyree's Haliburton driving into the lane, turning around, making a U turn, going back out to the ark, hitting a shot with his toe on the line, giving the choke sign, going into overtime, and then having to still like go oh, whoops, chokes signed too early, Guess we better finish this off and overtime now, and still having to then execute then, Like it's it's just so many different things that's what
makes this Like that game. Apologies to you and all the rest of the Knicks fans, but that game is going to go down as an all time incredible game.
We're going to be talking about this years and decades from now, just like we talk about Sorry again, Reggie Miller's eight points and nine seconds or Derek Fisher's point four that I was there for all the years ago, Like this is a playoff classic instantly, and wherever the series ends, like the Knicks could win the series, we will still be talking about Tyree Haliburton.
In that moment.
I'll be honest, I couldn't sleep, like I kept going over the final few possessions, and I did go back and watch Howard and ultimately as much credit as the Pacers deserve, and Niece Smith and Halliburton and Rick Carlisle's a hell of a coach. Og Annobe stopped closing out. Josh Hart slipped twice. Josh Hart was caught on a back door cut with his feet firmly planted on the floor. Jalen with a couple of bad turnovers down the stretch. Kat misses a free throw. Og misses a free throw.
Credit the Pacers. The Knicks were gassed. So as we move over to tonight, here's my first question. Can Tom Thibodeau get ten minutes out.
Of Precious Atchua? Can he get eight minutes out of Landry Shamitt? I know his deal right, but they were gassed.
Kat was limping up and down the floor at the end, and again Og never fails to close out, and he did on multiple occasions. So I get like, this is who Tom is. It's who he's always been. I understand that, Precious that you is not a bad player. He's got some pieces on his bench that he can throw in there for four or five minutes. He also has to be better with his challenges, and I think he has to be better with his timeouts.
I thought he was out coach game one.
Is there any chance he extends the bench a little bit so they're not so gassed at the end.
You know, Tibbs is fairly stubborn about these things. He trusts who he trusts in that rotation, and yeah, I mean we've seen the pattern over and over again. I
do think so a couple of quick things. What is a concern for the Nicks in general coming into the series would be and certainly after Game one, the Pacers play at this just frantic pace and they're gonna get up and down the court, and the Knickers are used to playing much more deliberately than as much as the Knicks are certainly conditioned for long minutes because Timms plays them all, you know, among the highest minutes in the league.
It's it's it's ad their pace. It's not running up and down at the PACER's pace, which is which again it's frantic, and I do think and also the Pacers move the ball quite a bit, right, like you have to defend multiple actions in every possession, unlike what they faced with Boston or Detroit. So there's there is a potential fatigue factor here on in every other day series for the Knicks. On top of that, yeah, the shorter rotation. So to the question of Precious at Cheua in particular,
you know, Town's had a pretty big game. He had some some missteps of key moments late, but Town's had a pretty big game against them, and Miles Turner was not you know, or or Siakam many their bigs were not really the answer. So I do wonder if they might just dust off Precious a Chua anyway, And you know, he's he's closer to like Tobias Harris size really and you know, Tobias Harris had had some good, you know, stretches again, and you do need to give Towns different looks.
And sometimes when you get a guy who's just strong with the lower center of gravity, that can have an impact. So we'll see. I think your instinct is right, given everything we just talked about, like they probably should extend the rotation at least by one more player.
Okay, so you make some good points regarding the pace, because ultimately early on in that game, I think what people forget is Indiana could not miss they just made I think they made their first ten shots, but the Knicks were able to keep up. But they were playing up and down and it was and it was working for the next they were actually playing well offensively. And New York can run, They've got fast wings, Jalen can get up and down kats not necessarily flee to foot.
But if Tom isn't going to extend his bench by a player or two, what do they have to do to be careful that even if the pace is working. Understanding that going up and down with a bench that goes eleven deep fifteen plus minutes a night with eleven players eventually will catch up to you, how do they stop themselves from getting in this up and down game back and forth, even though at times it works to make sure that they have enough gas.
At the end.
I don't know. I think you can be as deliberate as you want, But if the other team is pulling the ball out of the basket and immediately sprinting up court and you know, basically going seven seconds or less Mike dan Toni style, which so many times the other night I've flashed in my head. And it's funny, because of course, the sun's paced back then, which we thought of as so frantic and they're gonna shoot as soon
as they get their first open shot. Their pace would be slow by today's NBA standards, but that's what it looked like to me watching the Pacers go like they're just gonna get up court and the first good shot they got, boom, it's going. And it's easy to get caught up in that. But I do think, yeah, the Knicks have to try to do things their way. They need just to slow it down. They need to make the Pacers work as much on defense as possible to maybe hopefully put a dent in their stamina at the
other end. But yeah, the Pacers, they're gonna say, fine, we're you know, we're gonna run nine ten or eleven deep or whatever. We'll have fresh bodies out there. So I'm not sure what the exact answer is there.
All right, last thing on tonight, what's your gut say? I completely agree with and I think a lot of this does come from Jalen Brunson specifically, and Tom Thibodeau as well. But Jalen has this like stoicism about him where he doesn't get high, he doesn't get low.
After they beat the Celtics.
He's the one that was yelling at his teammates to get into the locker room like nothing has gone down yet. So I agree that I think this group can compartmentalize and put Game one out of their minds. And I'm not asking you to pick, because I know you don't do that, But what's your gut tell you?
Well, do you have a lean for tonight?
Yeah? I mean I reflexively, you know, go with the home team, especially if they just lost a game, right like you know, the Knicks losing, the Knicks going down oh two, which would stun me. But that said, when the Knicks stole Game won from Boston, I thought, oh yeah, of course Boston's gonna win Game two.
Oops.
And it's same same thing with the Pacers and Calves. But it's been that kind of postseason where the Pacers beat the Calves in Game one in Cleveland, and I thought, of course Cleveland's gonna win Game two again. Oops. For your sake, I hope I'm I'm right this time. But yeah, I absolutely expect the Knicks to win. It wouldn't even surprise me if it were, you know, a pretty big gap,
not a blowout. But just like win and win handily, Like I don't think we'll see the same kind of drama in the final minutes, but you just you just never know. I mean, I had a piece earlier this week basically saying like, welcome to the NBA's age of chaos, and it referenced all the things I just mentioned and
many more. You know, whether it's Dallas jumping up in the lottery, whether it's just the volatility in the standings in the playoffs and two sixty win teams going down in the second round, and just across the board, like, there is so much unpredictability about the NBA right now, and it cuts both ways, right There's aspects of it that make it really fun. There's a lot more suspense, and there really is this sense of you just never
known a given night what may happen. The flip side of it is being sixty win team guarantees or nothing, and that could be pretty frustrating for those teams and their fans. And it does just feel like it's harder to get to wrap our heads around, you know, any of it. So but this is where we are. This is this is you know, like I say, not just the age of parody. But it's the age of chaos.
It is.
It is all right, moving out this way before we get to the nuts and bolts of the Western Conference Finals. Your reaction to Shay be An awarded MVP and any inside information as to why we all had to wait for so long for that announcement.
It's weird how everybody latched onto that. I don't think this is all that much later than usual. I haven't looked up the dates. Maybe you have. The MVP always comes after all the other major awards. You know, the only thing that's still left right now is you know I think so we have the all defensive teams yesterday, we'll have all MBA tonight and then we'll be done. But MVP always comes after all the other big awards, aside from the two I just mentioned, and could they
have done it during Denver OKC. So, like, all I can tell you is this, there's a bunch of different factors, right they announced The way things go these days, they announce all the awards, the major awards on T and T. So it's got to be on a Turner night in the playoffs, and Turner and ESPN divide up all these games, So that's one consideration. Another consideration is, as I understand that the league does not like doing awards major awards
in the second week of a series. I think because it could become awkward, like you're not going to be to give shade like the MVP before games against the Nuggets. That would have been, you know, a little uncomfortable. And I don't know they had a window the first week of that series. So it's just they're weighing a bunch of stuff and trying to figure out when to thread the needle. It's it's difficult. I don't think there was any plan to do it this way. It's just kind of the way it unfolded.
So I'm starting to feel about okay S the way I felt about Boston a year ago.
I just think to have a level that nobody else does.
I was hesitant to just anoint them, even though the numbers and data probably says we should have been maybe quicker to do that. I just if you have not had a deep playoff run as a group together, I'm always a little bit skeptical. I don't know that it's as sweet, but I don't think Minnesota really has much of a prayer here, and I think if you're okayc, you got to feel pretty good about your chances of not just going to the finals, but winning the whole thing.
I mean, I feel like they're ready. Howard, what are your thoughts?
They definitely look ready, There's no question. The last night's game was pretty pretty darn convincing, and you know, I thought this was going to be a much closer series. It still could. You know, it's just a Minnesota. We'll see what happens. But you know, teams that are up two zero and the best of seven series in the NBA win the series ninety two percent of the time, so including six and oh in this postseason, So the chances are this thing is over, but we'll see how
it plays out. The fact is, yeah, Oklahoma is everything that we've been praising them for since last summer when we were talking about them as being favorites, which is they're young, they're deep, they're super talented, and you know, they play incredible defense like the Timberwolves. It looks like there's just no time or space for them to get anything done offensively. You dribble one time too many, it's
being poked away. You know, you turn your back on your defender for two seconds and there's there's a hand there and it's you know you want to then you know, rely on more more passing and ball movement, right, But like the second you throw one slightly off target past, someone's leaping into the passing lane and steeling it and running off for a fast break. So I don't know
what you do about that. And the fact is, you know, Anthony Edwards does not have He's got good help around him in the sense of like he's got shooters and Julius Randall can do a lot with the ball in his hands. But you know as a Nick fan that you know Julius Randall kind of comes and goes, and he has suddenly disappeared again, and there's just not a second threat to keep the thunder, you know, honest for for Anthony Edwards benefit. So I'm not expecting some great
comeback at this stage by the Timberwolves. And yeah, I guess we'll all be setting up camp in Oklahoma soon.
Oh, looks at the excitement in Howard's voice. Maybe you can get a Oklahoma City Indianapolis finals.
I'm sure you'd love that.
Yeah, I made the Cracker earlier today on the Real Ones with with apologies to Oklahoma, but because we were the Logan Murdoch my coast was saying something about you know, parade and you all Oklahoma. I'm like, yeah, it's gonna last like two minutes and noverybody's got to turn around and go back again, or that it'll be out in the field. But yeah, it's bad, right, It's yeah. I think that's where we're going. Not my favorite place on
the NBA map, but they're an amazing team. They've done a fantastic job and I do not expect that anybody who comes out of the East is going to beat them either, so and then we can all start having premature discussions about whether or not they'll be a dynasty.
Well, when the Jazz are in the finals in twenty forty seven, I can't wait to have you out here in Salle a coward. So we'll set you loose. I know you got some traffic to fight. Enjoy the game tonight and stay to the.
End, will you.
I will try.
Thank you appreciated such Howard back from the Ringer, one of our favorites. He's really not on Twitter much anymore, but you can find The link to his work on his Twitter page at Howard Beck is where you find him, and he's also on Blue Sky as well.