Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Can Knicks Sweep The Cavs? + Injuries Putting Spurs In BIG Trouble vs. OKC

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to react to the Knicks taking a 2-0 series lead with a convincing win at MSG including if New York can go for a sweep in Cleveland and what the Cavs need to do to get back in the series. Then, the guys discuss some major injuries in the Spurs-Thunder series before talking some key adjustments to watch out for from both teams in Game 3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Hello and welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing late in the evening here on Thursday.

Joining me from right here in Madison Square Garden, we're both in the bowl about 100, you want you to say about 100 yards apart, Tim Bontzance? Yeah, close. I can see it from across the way. Yeah, Tim's sort of in the upper sections here. Joining us from, I think you're in San Antonio. I haven't asked whether you got there, but I think San Antonio. head of game three of the Western Conference finals,

Ban McMahon. San Antonio, indeed. Howdy partners? All right. Okay, so here in Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, the Knicks took a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals with a 16-point win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. Nowhere near the drama of game one.

It was a pretty quality victory from really start to finish. I guess the Cavs had a lead a little bit in the first quarter, but it wasn't close after that. the Knicks really, I guess you could say, dominated. After Jalen Brunzel put up 38 in game one, the Cavs tried to really try to get in his way. Even though James Harden was the guy who was getting toasted head to head. Kenny Atkinson, I think, felt that the second line of defense was really the culprit. He said as much.

And so he put Evan Mobley onto Josh Hart. This is, you know, they did this in game one, too. It wasn't like a change. But they really had Mobley stay in the paint. and they just let Josh Hart go. And this is not an unusual game play. It's been seen before. Josh Hart was ineffective in game one.

He got benched in the fourth quarter. But in this game, he was effective. And this is a thing. You know, Josh Hart is not a Sart Thompson, Bontemps, which is this is what the Cavs did in the last round. And Assar Thompson, you know, his chances of scoring 26 points and having seven assists being left mostly unguarded are pretty low.

Josh Hart will do this. Not every night, but he will do this. and he crushed the Cavs strategy with his playoff career high. That really was the jet fuel that got the Knicks going offensively. And then late when the Cavs tried to make some sort of run, they just went to the Harden, attack, Harden offense, getting Brunson isolated to Harden. The Cavs were not effectively able to stop that either,

and the Knicks flex their muscle. And now they're two wins away from their first finals in 27 years, Montemps. Obviously, you know, Josh Hart going five for 11 from three, having over 10 feet of separation per Genius IQ tracking on his three's third player in the tracking era to have that much space and get that many three-point attempts off in a game. Alex Caruso did that against the Spurs and Terrence Mann did it against Jazz, another Donovan-Mitchell game in that situation back in 21.

And I mean, all that being said, though, I sort of agree with what Donovan Mitchell's message was after the game and to an extent what Kenny Ackinson's message after the game was, which is that this was an offensive loss for the Cavs. The Cavs did not hit shots. Like, the Knicks scored 109 points. Like, they didn't score 130. Like, that is a number that I think the Cavs, if you said before the game, hey, the Knicks are going to have 109 tonight.

Cleveland would feel pretty good about that. But the calves in this game were 9.35 from 3. It's 25.7%. They were under 40% from the field on a night when they didn't turn the ball over very much. and Evan Mobley didn't take a single field goal attempt in the entire second half of the game. Like, their offense... That's a crazy comment.

He had 14 in the first half and scoreless in the second. Yeah, it was 5 for 8 from the field in the first half, didn't take a shot after halftime. And, you know, like the calves just were not good enough offensively. Like, the calves, as you've talked about the whole time, their defense isn't great. They're built to be an excellent offensive team, and their offense was not good enough tonight.

To me, that is less than John. Josh Hart, that is why it's an O2 series. And from a Cavs perspective, is that this is a team that's supposed to be one of the best offensive teams in the league, and they did not get it done in this game. When you look at the Knicks numbers overall, they're fine. But it's not like they blew them out of the water with the strategy the Cavs were important. Yeah, you're not going to win a lot of games with 93 points. You're not going to win a lot of games when your dynamic backcord combines for three assists.

I mean, Harden didn't turn it over tonight, but. They only had eight turnovers as a team. It's like their best take care of the ball in weeks, months, years. Yeah. They just didn't do anything with it, you know? And, you know, Donovan, like, 26 on 8 of 18, like, that's okay. That's not great. He was fine.

I know that there's discussion about him being, having some sort of injury. He was not on the injury report, okay? He played 39 minutes. Yeah, he's fine. He got more free throws than anybody else in the game. He tied with Josh Hart for highest scoring, okay? I'm sure he's not 100%. You know, I was talking to a scout who was watching the game,

and he said it looked like when Donovan would go downhill, he looked fine, and when he moved lateral, he looked a little bit sluggish. Maybe there's something to that. But this is not an incapacitated player. So, you know, I know Kenny Atkinson told these assaulters at the halftime that he thought he agreed with her that Donovan maybe didn't look as explosive. But I'm not going to say that that's a factor. Donovan looked perfectly fine when he had 29 points in the first 40 minutes of game one.

And he had, I think, 26 points tonight. Like, he's fine. That's not the issue that the calves have. And look, this was a game, too, where the cows had 32 free throw attempts in the Knicks 14. They were 22 for 32 for the line. It's also not good enough for a team with a bunch of good free throw. shooters. Like, they, they did all the right stuff. They didn't make shots. Like, if I'm the Cavs, that's my takeaway from this game. And by the way, while we criticize Kenny Atkinson

and the Cavs in general for process decisions in the fourth quarter and overtime of game one, the process of leaving Josh Hart open, I think, is totally fine. Josh Hart couldn't make a shot the whole postseason. Maybe Josh Hart is going to go crazy now in this series to start making shots all over the place. But if I'm the Cavs, I'm fine. forcing Josh Hart to beat. I'm okay with that. At the end of the day, if he's going to hit shots, that's fine. All that being said, again, the Knicks only scored

109 points. That's a game. The Cavs should feel like they can win. Like McVan said, if you have 93 points and you shoot 32 free throws, that's hard to do. That is an offensive loss, and that's nowhere near good enough for a team that's built on offense and led by

two high-powered scoring guards and Donovan Mitchell and James Hart. To your point, Bontem's about, you know, So Hardin had 18, 6 of 15, not great, but Max Drew, Sam Merrill, Dennis Schroeder, Jalen Tyson. Those are the four guys. Basically, the Cavs played off the bench tonight. That quartet was one of 15 on threes. Yeah. One of 15.

And two of them were paid to be shooters. Yeah. You looked at last night, the game that you were at in Oklahoma City, McMahon. The Thunder had four guards. come off the bench. Cason Wallace, Alex Caruso, Jerry McCain and Isaiah Joe. Jeremy McCain and Isaiah Joe.

They combined for, I think, 11 threes and 11 steals each. That's a more ideal bench production unit. The Cows would be the other end of that spectrum. Yeah, yeah, the Thunder had 57 bench points. Now, part of it was because Jaylon Williams only played seven minutes after starting, but still. We'll get to that, but nonetheless,

that's what a bench flexing. this mouse hole. This is not happening. Well, that's where I just keep coming back to. I mean, every other question that Kenny Axton, Donovan Mitchell, after the game was about leaving Josh Hart open. I'm fine with leaving Josh Hart open. And I actually do agree with them. I really think

their defense was fine. Their offense just has to be way better. I don't think it was fine, but they followed the game plan. Their defense was fine. The Knicks scored 109 points. Josh Hart went crazy. Jalen Brunson was fine. The Knicks didn't have some crazy offensive game.

The Cavs, you've been saying it all year, the Cavs defense isn't that great. Correct. If they're going to make the finals, it's because their offense is the thing that drives them there, and their offense today was terrible. That's why they didn't win the game. All right, let's have some real talk here.

Uh-oh. Real talk is that if the Knicks, Bontemps is really close, he could probably throw a ball and hit the banners from where Bontemps is sitting right now. He doesn't have a very good arm. I mean, it's like 10 feet away. I'm pretty sure I can do it.

If they want to hit, if they want to put another banner there, real talk, okay? Oh, the NBA Cup banner? They're going to reconsider? No, no, it doesn't appear to be here. Although James Dolan was in a good mood at postgame. Maybe he should ask them again. I saw him on the court. If they're going to do that, I would advise them to try to sweep the calves and sit back

and wait for a war of attrition to take place in the Western Conference, which is already You know what this is about? You know what this is about? A guy wants to the extra time at home. Oh, okay. wants to just go west to Cleveland and then go west to the Golden City on the hill. That's what we want to do. I mean, I think I'm a little bit more of a professional than that.

But, you know, the calves obviously were behind 2-0 last round. They came back at 1 4 out of 5. They're 6 and 1, I believe, at home in the playoffs. I'm not saying it's something that would be simple. The calves are obviously going to fight for their lives. on Saturday night in game three. But if you're serious about this, if you're serious about winning six more games,

that's the pathway, is to try to finish them off. That's what they did at the Sixers, right? They went up 2-0. They went back. There was no OG and Nobi. He was like, all right, well, how's this going to go in game 3?

And they came out and played well and made shots down the stretch and won that game and ended the series, right? Let's go back to the last round. We talked about it a ton. That was a toss-up game in game three with Detroit up 2-0. three, four minutes to go.

I think it was a tie game. Cade Cunningham has those turnovers. Cleveland comes back and wins that game. Donovan has the huge second half in game four. They get back in the series. They end up winning the series, right? Like, we saw in game one, the calves are more than good enough to win this series.

They have the talent. I'm not saying they're going to win the series, but man. They have the talent to win the series, though. You saw in game one. Like, they can play with the Knicks. Like, they got a lot of talent on this team. And if you let them off the mat, they can come back and get you,

just like they did to Detroit in the last. round. But if the Knicks have a going into this game Saturday night, the Knicks have a chance to end this thing, just like they did with filler. Like, can they go in there and do the same thing? By the way, it would be their 10th winning the playoffs in a row, which isn't bad. I know. Mike Brown

referenced the 2017. So what year Bond Temps do you remember did he have to step in for Steve Kerr in the playoffs to be the interim head coach? I believe it was 2017. Yeah, so he was talking about that before the game. That team, you know, that was the super year where Derwent got there.

And they were fed full power. And he talked about how, you know, the experience of that team winning eight or nine or ten consecutive playoff games. They went 11 and 0 with my coaching team. Right. Okay. That's pretty good. And by the way, teams that have had more double-figure wins, double-digit margin wins before the finals of the next right now, you're talking about the 17 Warriors. Oh.

And the 13 heat. The Knicks have nine double-digit wins during this playoff run. And Mike Brown's coached two of those teams. Yeah. So he was talking about the challenge of recognizing that you're still fallible and that not everything that you do, it turns to gold. But the fact that Mike Brown can say, well, my previous time that I coached a team that won 10 straight playoff games or whatever, I learned these lessons. More Hoop Collective Podcast.

After this. Risa's knows a thing or two about great combinations. Chocolate and peanut butter, obviously, but there's more than one way to Rises. From indulgent Rieces Big Cups with caramel to crunchy Rieces pieces and Riesce's miniatures, there's a delicious Rieces for every mood. It's the same combo you love,

just with more ways to enjoy it. So whether you're snacking, sharing, or just treating yourself, nothing else is Rises. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old.

You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. I would just say that I had so, I spent a little bit of time with some Knicks super fans tonight. And it's interesting the way they look at, you know, the Knicks.

So Tracy Morgan. Are you going to name drop or what? Yeah, Tracy Morgan. Oh, you know he's going to name drop. Just let him get to it. And they are not, they are not arrogant. Named through the stars. You only name Tracy Morgan.

There has to be more. Fat Joe. It was very nice to talk to Fat Joe tonight. I would say significantly slimmer Joe. Listen, what do you want me to say? He goes by Fat Joe. You know, his mom, my name is Clay. I'm going to call him Clay.

There you go. Susie Esmond of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame. Do you know Curb Your Enthusiasm, McMahon? I mean, I'm familiar with it, but I can't say... I'm familiar with the work. Yeah. Yes.

But Susie Esman played the character Susie Green on Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is an iconic character that she played for over 20 years on a show that was one of the most famous comedies of a generation. And she was telling me that when she walks around the city, nobody talks to her. Her character was known for outrageous swearing, you know, very angry, outrageous swearing.

She had some absolutely, you know, epic swearing streets. And, you know, so for a long time, people would always come up to her and swear. She says now people come up to her, they don't even ask about curb your enthusiasm, whatever. They recognize her as a Knicks fan. Now, she's at many Knicks games on Celebrity Row. She was telling me, she's like, they come up to her and say, Susie, Nixon, six, which that would be good for the cast. They got it to six. The next one.

And the ones were chanting Nixon four at the end of the street. Yeah. But Tracy Morgan was like very concerned about like not letting, you know, because, you know, he was just, he was just saying. Like, last year we thought we had the Pacers beat and we let it go. And, you know, you know, there's an incredible enjoyment that's happening in a lack of arrogance. from these fans because they have been let down by their team thinking their team was in great shape before. So, you know, it's, I think the vibes are pretty amazing. The humble Knicks fan.

I love this. Real talk. I mean, you think I'm not sure. I'm not sure how humble the Knicks fans are. Outside in the streets, it's a bleep show. Okay. I want to be clear. Outside.

Well, I mean. Brian's not talking about the pleas, but, man. He's talking about the people up in his star class. Talk about the super fans. You know. The star class where he resides. My people. Yes.

I didn't talk to Spike tonight, but I'm, you know, I feel like Spike feels the same way. First name basis? Yes. I've, I've, I've spent some time with Spike before. Oh, okay. But, yeah. So, you know, there's a great appreciation and a joy that's happening in this building. Outside the building, you know, there's some, you know, I will see.

say this. J.R. Smith earned the respect. What are you laughing about? I'm laughing at you. I'm laughing at you just lording over the people. That's what I'm laughing at. How high up are you right now? He's not high enough. Speaking of high, the J.R. Smith earned the respect of many Nick's former players who, when he went out to the, did you see the other night,

man when he went out and went to the watch party outside? No, I didn't see this either. JR went outside, you know, to see it. He basically got overrun by excited Knicks fans in the street outside the garden. I think it was at around 33rd and 7th. And he had a blunt. He was holding a blunt. Okay.

And despite him getting overrun, he was able to maintain the integrity of the blunt. James Harden would have turned it over, I guarantee you. And, you know, some of the Knicks former players were saying to me, like, you know, you got to respect Jared's ability to, you know, he's like, that's a man who, you know, knows what he's doing. Winner's all about the integrity of Blunt, McMahon. For sure. He's all about it. Yeah. Well, my little time, that was my super fan, my not, my number of super fans is story time brought to you by SoFi, get your money right.

and all those dudes have their money right. I'm certainly not surprised to J.R. Smith is trying to pass the blunt. Not much of a passer. Despite the reputation of Nick fans and what may be some of the pockets of lower denominator fans are, I sense mostly a joy and a wonder. Well, yeah, the city is on fire, man.

Everybody here is thrilled about the Nick. I mean, the thing that people don't understand who aren't from New York is that the Knicks are by far the biggest team here. There's two football teams. There's two baseball teams. There's multiple hockey teams. The Knicks are bigger than the Yankees? Oh, by miles. Yes.

Every person here is a Knicks fan. It's why it's why it's always been so lopsided with the Nets. Like there's no, the Nicks, pretty much everybody who follows basketball within 100 miles of the city is a Nix fan. I mean, it's why they invaded Philly. It's why they're going to, I'm sure, be all over whatever the name is now of the Arena, Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. Is that what it's called? No, no, no, no, sir.

Rocket Arena. Rocket Arena, okay. So they'll be in Rocket Arena Saturday. When the Knicks are good, the city is on fire. And the city is on fire right now because people, since the Knicks have an opportunity to do something special, though the teams out west are awfully, awfully good. For sure.

If you're looking how the Cavs can make a dent here because what's happened is that the Knicks, at least in the first two games, have put away the Carl Towns' distribution offense. I think Towns only had one assist tonight, although I think he played

a good game. He had 18 points and 13 rebounds, and he only had three fouls. He's on the board, but he only had one assist. The ball's gone back into Brunson's hands. and the Knicks can win multiple different ways. They've shown that in the postseason. And, you know, in the next round,

if they get two more wins here, they may go back to the Carl Towns High Post offense. But the Knicks have gone back to Jalen Brunson, you know, run everything through him. And like I said, 14 assists tonight, just three turnovers in 40 minutes. So the Cavs have any chance here. They're not going to solve the James Harden

defensive challenges. James Harden is, you know, regardless of what Kenny Atkinson said, right. But they have got to have the bullseye. He can play post-defense, but if he's out on an island, he's, you know. If the Cavs play defense the way they did tonight in the two games in Cleveland, they'll have a chance to even up the series.

Like they were good enough at that. They've got to go home and be much better on offense. The Hardin thing was still a problem. The Hardin thing's always going to be a problem. Well, hold on. At times they were trying kind of double teaming him, but they were doing really soft double teaming, and it was like easy for Brunson to pick it apart.

There was a couple of possessions where it looked like some of the players on the court were in zone, and some of the players on the court were in man. At one point, they were trying to play like a half-zone defense, and Dennis Schrooter was looking around that he threw his hands up because he's like, what defense are we in? So you can say their defense wasn't terrible, but their defense was still disorganized. The defense was, again, the defense was fine.

They didn't foul. They relatively held the Knicks down. If Josh Hart is getting that many open threes, probably not going to go five for 11. Again, it's what you said. Those four guys coming off the bench, or the four ancillary players, were one for 15 from three.

The Cavs were nine for 25 from three. The Cavs are supposed to be one of the best offensive, or not for 35, I should say. Caves supposed to be one of the best offensive teams in the league. That is the thing that powers this team. Their offense has to be really good. But had they gone seven for 15 from three and this game went to the final two minutes, I'm not sure they would have been able to handle what Brunson was doing to them. So that is still a problem. Yeah, I mean, I agree. But James, I mean, Jalen Brunson is going to be a weapon late

in the game no matter what. Like, I mean, you've been banging the drum about this with Cavs friend leading Cavs Corner all season. The Cavs are not a deal. defensive team. They have a great offensive team and they've got to out offense the Knicks. In the macro, right, but the actual strategy against Brunson, whatever they worked on between game one

and two, I did not see a material difference other than the fact that Brunson didn't have to keep scoring because they were ahead by 15 instead of behind by 15. The inherent problem with that though is with the lineups they have unless they're taking James Hardin out of the game, there's not a

real good option put on it. So no matter what they do, well, they are taking James Hardin out of the game. Some of people ask me about this, why wouldn't they take Hardin out? They can't take James Hardin out. Well, that's what I'm saying. Because they need Hardin to carry some of the burden on offense and to initiate offense because Donovan can't carry that burden.

That's the problem in this matchup. They just don't have somebody in that group that you can say is going to do a credible job on Jalen Brunson. That's the, so they have to try all this different stuff because they don't have a great option for that. I do not understand what their strategy was in the fourth quarter. Like I said, that's got to be cleaned up a little bit. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this.

This episode is brought to you by L'Oreal Group. Beauty is a powerful force that moves us. That's why Loreal Group has built a business that is inclusive at its heart with 100% of its brands, championing diversity. With 25,000 professional opportunities for people, 30 worldwide and 54% of leading positions held by women. Diversity is a strength that helps Loreal Group create the best beauty products for all people. Visit Loreal.com to learn more.

All right. Game three is Saturday night in Cleveland. It will determine whether this is going to be a long or a short series. Now, man, how is your hamstring feeling? These guys are dropping like flies. Played pickup the other night, didn't play well. J.K. got fired midway through. Probably saved me

from pulling something. So I'm all right. By the way, so J. Dub, they're calling it hamstring tightness. Questionable. Day to day. You know.

Guys, this is his fourth hamstring injury. It's all you got to say. It's the second one on this one during the playoffs. There were two on the right side during the season that were more significant. But obviously, look, his availability. is going to be questionable, I think, for a while. I hope Jalen Williams is day-to-day and questionable.

I am skeptical that Jailen Williams is day-to-day in question. I would agree with that. Dylan Harper, they announced right leg last night. We were told post-game by people who know hamstring, and then he's on the injury report as right-adductor soreness. So, and he's questionable. So the word that we're looking for is strain. There's neither were announced.

There's an absence of the word strain. Right. Correct. And they both got MRIs. You know, I don't, I mean, I don't have a polygraph that I can apply to the people who put the injury report out. But they wouldn't announce. Deeran Fox remains questionable. And Ms. Johnson basically said, hey, even if he comes back and plays, he's going to be a game time decision.

of moving forward here, probably for the rest of the playoffs. He's got a high ankle sprain that he's trying to manage well enough. He does have a high ankle sprain? That's what Shams reported. It was a high ankle spright. I didn't see Shams's report on that.

That is not good, yes. Shams reported that yesterday, and I did not know that. And when he said it, I learned about it live on the get upset. And I fell back in my chair. And I was like, oh, my God, it's a high ankle sprain.

because I think, first off, he's been called a game time decision, right? And he came back and played on it in the last series. Right. And then you see him pregame. This is like what happened with Duran. Durant's like called the game time decision and you see him out there raining in three's pregame

and you're like, well, wait a minute, why isn't he playing? Well, with the high ankle sprain, typically, like, you know, I don't have, I'm not Martin O'Malley here. I don't have a medical degree, but typically with the high ankle sprain, you can jump up and down and you can even run in a straight line. But you try to cut right or left.

Yeah, you can't plant on it. You can't cut. You can't really even push it off on it. And I didn't watch this whole pregame yesterday, but I didn't watch some. I didn't see any planting, cutting, moving. You know, it was basically what I saw was a bunch of spot shooting. Now look, they go from having three big time guards to maybe one.

and the one that they have, Stefan Castle, who has done a lot of great things in the series, he's also turned the ball over 20 times in two games. And, you know, they got away with in game one,

but typically turning the ball over against this OKC team is a recipe for disaster. And how do you solve the issues of when Mnayama's shutting down huge chunks of the court on defense? You get out in transition where he's not back.

Well, and the other problem, the Spurs, have too. Let's say, again, hopefully these guys can both play, right? But if they both can't play, or if Dylan Harper is playing and he's limited even at all,

Stefan Castle's already got a completely insane workload where he's got to handle the ball a ton against these piranhas that the Thunder have running around trying to make plays everywhere. And then on the other end, oh, by the way, he's got a Gartigilis-Ox-Exander. Basically every

second the guy is on the court. Like, that is an immense, I mean, people can say all they want about, oh, the spurs are young, they got fresh legs. It doesn't matter how young you are. That is a brutal assignment for anybody to have to handle at one end, let alone at both. And if he's the only ball handler out there of consequence for large stretches of the game now, it's tough. Savon Castle is an awesome player, but that is just a crazy thing to ask of anybody, let alone a guy in his second year in his first playoffs and the conference finals having to try to. do that for another five games. All right. So we talked to a minute ago about what the Cavs might have to do.

So, McMahon, what is, let's say Dylan Harper is either out or limited. What does the spurs move here? You know, I know Devin Vessel can, you know, and I, by the way, Devin Vassell had a pretty excellent game on Wednesday night. He had six threes, over 20 points. He kind of got lost in the sauce by the way it went. Devin Vassel could handle the ball a little bit. he's not going to remind anybody of Chris Paul.

He can handle it a little bit. Kelton Johnson can handle it a little bit, but these guys, they can handle it a little bit against most defenses. Oklahoma City is not most defenses. You know, I don't know that you want Wemby initiating a lot of the offense. You could throw it to Wemby in the, when he get over half court and have him try to like,

Yoke-a-Chice. Take a 30-footer with the game on the line? Yeah. I don't love Victor trying to do a lot of drivet. and against the Thunder team. I think that's going to end in more turnovers. Yeah, that's tough. Jordan McLaughlin came in and played,

I think, seven or eight minutes. Jordan McLaughlin is a nice, intelligent player, but he's a third-string point guard. Correct. You know, and like, they've had, you know, there was a question, how are these three guards going to fit together? And it ended up, it was great.

And, you know, I remember talking to people of the Spurs and in Summerlee, They're like, there's 96 back court minutes. We've got three guys that all play. And if you have two guys, you can still manage it pretty well, as they did in game one. Down to one against this defense, that's really difficult. I hate that. I hate that this series could be determined by a false step.

I hate it. Well, and you know what? Janlon Williams was an all-emba player last year, who was the second best player on a championship team. his absence doesn't hit the Thunder as hard as Dylan Harper's absence would hit the Spurs because of the circumstances with Fox and just because the Thunder have such insane depth the Thunder have 13 quality rotation players on their roster

and they I'm forgetting what their exact record was without J-Dub this year but it was I want to say including the playoffs is like 45 and 10 or something in seven. insane like that. They've got like plenty of options. They can go a lot of different ways just in the starting lineup. They can start A.J. Mitchell again.

They can start Case and Wallace. If they want to, they can start Caruso. I mean, I can go down the list here. Crusoe plus 18 in game two. I mean, my God. 25 and 8 without with Jalen Williams. Yeah, just like the Cavs did with

Josh Hart. Game one was absolute invitation three-pointers for Caruso. hit 8 of 14 to keep the thunder in it when Shake couldn't get anything going. Check couldn't get anything going. You know, game two, I don't have it right in front of me. I know he shot it really well again. Finished with 17 points and I want to say it was like, I don't have in front of me.

He shot at like three or four, three or five, something like that from three. The guy's shooting 43% from three for the thunder over two post seasons. I mean, he is a playoff riser. Again, he sure is. That's not leaving Asar Thompson open. No, it's not. It's a little bit of a lot.

He just impacts the game so many different ways. Now, having said all that, Mark Daganal basically admitted he screwed up the game one game plan, Guard and Wimby, and basically saying, we're not going to have Hardinstein on the floor against him hardly at all.

They completely reversed that. And he basically went to Isaiah Hardinstein after the day after the first game and all but apologized. basically I didn't love only playing you 12 minutes. You're going to be on the floor a lot more. And Hartnstein, you know, he didn't shut Wimby down.

Don't get me wrong. Wimby's still had 21 points, 17 rebounds and six assists. That counts of shutting him down in all honesty. But, dude, here's the numbers. Wimby had 26 points in the paint in game one. He had 10 in game two. He had 13 free throws in game one. And by the way, I think three of those five baskets were his own putbacks.

Yes. Yes. were, which are all insane plays. Nerf group putbacks. He had 13 free throws in game one. He had three in game two. Hardinstein with his size, with his smarts, with his toughness, he kept Wemby from being just an unstoppable force in the paint that he was in game

one. And so that was a sick. And he honestly, he kind of wore him out. Hardinstein had eight offense rebounds. Five of those came in the fourth quarter. All right. guys know that I really, really hate officiating discussions, especially to officiated discussions after Thunder games. But considering what the situation is, if I'm the Spurs, I think you have to campaign

to not allow Hardinstein to get away with the hand-to-hand combat that he was getting away with in Game 2. I think it's very smart for Thunder to do it. I think Hardinstein did a great job. I think Over and over and over, he found ways to impact Wembe with physicality that helped his team, whether it was boxing out, whether it was creating lanes, whether it was just trying to wear him out. I thought it was very effective. And if I'm the Spurs, I can't allow it because that's where the rubber is going to meet the road. because I think I you know I don't think he was doing anything like dirty or underhanded I just think he was

he had his hands all over him and if I'm Mitch Johnson I am on the referees from the start of game three they're going to be back in San Antonio it's going to be a different situation I am applying pressure to the referees to get you know

Chet and Isaiah more more Isaiah than Chet because Chet had a very good game on Wemba Yama too when the possessions he was on him I've you know that's got to be a talking point McMahon even though I don't like it

that's going to be a talking point with Victor Wemeyama for the rest of his career because like if you aren't physical with him and he's just able to get where he wants to go get to wherever yeah like forget it forget it

If Wimby catches the ball on a duck in, you're dead. Yeah, he can reach from eight feet away and dunk the ball without moving. Yeah, look at the last minute of the double overtime. You know, the last minute of that game, he got deep positioned twice once he spun and, you know, check him over to help and he almost, you know, put the guy six feet under with an and one on his head. And then the other time, yeah, I don't even know if an official count as his dunk. He basically caught it and threw it in over his head and in one motion. If Victor is able to just decide, I want to get to that spot,

and that's where I'm going, now I'm going to catch the ball, you can't deal with them. So, of course, teams are going to be physical with them. And that was the whole idea of having Caruso and Dort and J-dub on them is they could kind of get the lower, you know, the lower center of gravity and try to push and shove and all those kind of things. That didn't work. Hartnstein's physicality worked a lot more, but yeah.

Do you think, and I know they haven't used this really at all, but downguards and they're trying to do something with the bigs, do you think going to French vanilla, Cornett and Wemba Nama together is something that they could look at just trying to, I mean, obviously not when I started or played a big strategy. I don't love that personally. I don't love it because the Thunder can put such a fast

lineup on the floor and the Thunder just can create so much havoc defensively in terms of creating turnovers. I mean they had 27 points off turnovers in this last game that's not like an unusual number for them yeah I think you've got to put more skill

on the floor than that and Wimby's crazy skill but I think you know Wim, I just, I don't think that pairing is going to work in this year.

Just don't think there's enough shooting. You just, you want to have as much space for Victor to operate as possible and it just gets easier to bang on him because,

I mean, I think you saw as that game went on, he looked tired at the end of game too after all that banging and wearing and grabbing on him and as the series goes on, like we talked about it just before it started,

playing every other day like the spurs don't have that many guys to go to. They're not as deep as Oklahoma City. So like, and now's before the injuries. So like there's going to be that much cumulative wear on them as this thing goes on. And, you know, that's that's where the thunder and their ability to just keep throwing all these different looks at you and playing different ways and doing all this stuff can be such an advantage. My big takeaway from game two overall, though, was I know the, like, I thought the thunder were going to be. going to play much better in game two.

They did. Hartnstein was great in game two. Chet Holmgren's got to be a lot better. And the minutes against Victor have been a disaster. Like I think he was four for five when Victor was. Chet's numbers in game two were significantly better than game two.

Yeah, he got going a little bit in the third quarter. He hits some shots when Victor wasn't on the court. When Victor has been matched up with him, it's been, anytime he's been on the court with Victor, it's been really bad. and he's got to be better. And Chet, in the first two rounds, was playing outstanding. And one thing that he was really doing well was finding those little cracks in the defense

where he's able to cut or he's able to find some space around the rim and, you know, catching it and just going up and finishing. And, man, Wimby eliminates a lot of that stuff. He just does. And he's also had some open looks from three and he's double, like he's like, I got an open look and he won't take it. Like, he's just, he's got, especially now that Jayland's out, like, or in theory anyway, they need more from Chet Holden. Well, and, you know, one thing that Dagan Holt mentioned, they don't call plays for Chet.

Like, you know, to get Chet going, it's not like they're running a lot of offense specifically for him. You know, the term that, that Mark used was, you know, he gets a lot of his stuff downstream. You know, in other words, like when they're playing well offensively in the process is good, Chet gets his stuff within the flow of the offense. And, you know, he's not as necessarily the primary option. And so he felt like the key to unlocking Chet was just to, you know, to be less clunky and just to have the offense flowing better. And again, there was a little bit there where it happened in game two.

But he's mostly been a non-factor in the series. I feel like most of the action is going to be with you. Like, man, you may have to carry the narrative at the NBA. Listen, this is going to be a hell of a series, and I'm still shaking my head about game one. I mean, it's one of the best games I've ever seen in person. Game two wasn't quite that, but it was a competitive game. It was a great game, though. Now, I'm excited to see what the atmosphere is here in San Antonio, where, you know,

they haven't had a playoff game in a long time. They're going to probably go to the multicolored shirts. That's a very, it's been a very effective strategy when they go to the multicolored shirts for the first. tone game. Listen, Oklahoma City, there was two-tone. There was white, there was blue. There was a little two-tone look for game two. You know, they had the white sections, they had the blue sections.

Now, I'm going to tell you, there were, I'm not going to say a lot of Spurs fans, but there were some pockets of black and silver in that crowd. I think there were more Spurs fans, and there were Lakers fans the previous series. What about the Tiki, where there are, in the, Spurs fans of the Tiki? There were some Routy Spurs fans. Oh. Yeah, there were.

All right. Well, as long as they were, they were paying. All right, they're turning off the lights. You're kicking us out. Oh, Bontems. They won us out of the garden. I think Window wants to go to sleep. I think that's what's gone.

Yeah, well, you know, I'm getting four hours of sleep at night now right now. All right. Sleep update. Thank you so much. Thanks so much to all of our producers. Mark, Sam, Miles, Tucker. Thank you to McMahon and Bon Temps. Oh, and Jackson.

Don't forget about him. Thank you, McMahon and Bon Tems. Thank you for listening and watching the Hoop Collective. We'll reposition to Cleveland and talk to you in a couple days. Follow us on Instagram at Hoop Collective Show. Adios Nicos.