Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - REACTION: Knicks’ HISTORIC Run To The NBA Finals

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps to react to the Knicks completing their continually epic run to the NBA Finals with a sweep of the Cavs. New York rode another massive avalanche in a statement game to down Cleveland. Is this Knicks’ best chance at a title? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Wayfair, every style, every home. Hello, welcome to this special edition of the Hoop Collective podcast. We talked about the NBA, more specifically, talking about the New York Knicks, Beating the Cavs 4-0 in the Eastern Conference finals. I've just come back from Rocket Arena where it all went down. and the Knicks fans are partying in the streets as much as one can on a Monday night in Cleveland, Ohio. Joining me from New York City where they are partying in the streets,

I was just looking on X and seeing people climbing 7th Avenue street lampposts is Timbontas. Not Bam McMahon. We'll see if Bam McMahon is here in a couple weeks for the finals. But, I mean, what a remarkable month. I wrote about it for dot com. and our takeaways file from tonight's game. And tonight is exactly a month since game four of the first round of the playoffs

between the Hawks and the Knicks. And the Hawks were up to one. They'd won back-to-back one-point games. The Knicks felt like they were on the ropes. Everybody in New York was mad at them. It felt like it was going to be another disappointing season for the Knicks. It felt a lot, frankly, like it's felt in Cleveland for the last month. And all that's happened since then is the Knicks have had the best 11-game stretch

in the history of the sport over the last 80 years. Point differential. No team has ever won at an 11 game span where they outscore their opponents by 262 points, which is what the Knicks have done. And that's in the regular season or the playoffs. It's not just in the playoffs. It's the best 11 game stretch in the history of the sport. And you can say, well, the Knicks played a banged up Philly team and they played a not very good Atlanta team and they played this Cavs.

That's fine. By the way, it's the hole right there. I think Atlanta's not too bad. The only team that put the glove on the Knicks. That's right. But again, you can poke holes in their opponents. You can say they haven't played the Thunder or the sport, whatever you want to say. The bottom line is the Knicks have taken the teams in front of them

and absolutely demolished them to the point that all three of them gave up in the final game. That's right. That is exactly correct. It's remarkable to see what they're doing. They won by 37 points tonight and their close-out win differential decreased. decreased. That's right. Went under 40. Went down to 39.

Right. I mean, we've just never seen anything. Like, honestly, we've never seen an 11-game stretch like this in the history of the sport. Think about that. And here's a thing. Like, they're knocking these teams out, like, in the first quarter of these games. The first quarter, the game tonight was, I had somebody text me at the end of the first quarter to say, this game's over. And I was like, well, I don't know.

And then four minutes in the second quarter, they're up by 25. I was like, all right, yeah, you were right. It's over. So in the third quarter, the Cavs for like a second got the lead down to 16. And the Knicks actually called time out. And I was like, I'm going to go to the bathroom right now. And I went to the bathroom, you know, and I saw some people out in the concourse, whatever. And I came back and it was like 28 again.

Like I was gone for seven minutes real time. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. I mean, they're playing on such a string. They're all connected. I mean, what was crazy about this game, in this series in particular,

and we'll have time to talk about the Cavs. We'll probably talk more on our podcast for Wednesday. We really dissect what happened to them this season. It was embarrassing how they just got roasted in transition in this game. I mean, Kenny Huxley came in this game saying, we have to be better in transition, right? Which they did. They were terrible in transition.

Maybe this is an exact quote. He said something like it's priority one. Yeah, it was their top priority coming into the game. And then the Knicks, Stats Williams texted me with three and a half minutes to go in the first half. It said the Knicks have more fast break points in the first half of this game than in the first half of any playoff game in the last 30 years. Bontems, they had 26 fast break points in the first half. That would be a season high for some teams. 100%.

Okay. 26 points. Of a close out playoff game. Of a closeout game in the point. Playoffs. Listen, man. And they were scoring, okay, it's one thing if you're turning it over, because you know the calves, they've been known to turn it over. They were scoring after made baskets. Just like they did the last game. It would be that. It was, it was unbelievable to see. And some of that's a credit to the Knicks and how hard they were playing and the pace they were playing with. And some of it's just pathetic from the calves, frankly. Like, it's one thing to lose. It's another thing to lose like that. You can't. Come on. It's just, it's a baseline play that you don't get beat back after a made basket. One of the rewards for a made basket is you get to get back.

Get to set your defense. That's, you know, that's come on. And look, the Knicks were hot today. This wasn't even like game four against Philly when they literally started the game 12 for 13. And like it was, they were like on literally on fire like an NBA jam. Like the Knicks were hitting shots in this game. But the Cavs just were giving up open layups off of made baskets, repeatedly.

Yeah. Well, again, 13 baskets in transition in the first half. It doesn't really even matter what you shoot from three. No, it doesn't matter. By the way, all the whole, having said that Landry Shamet is 11 of 12, was 11 of 12 on threes in this series. Now, a lot of them were open, but my God. Not all of them, though. My God.

I think the hottest I've ever seen a guy get in the playoffs was Danny Green, my colleague, our colleague at ESPN in the 2014. Danny was the ultimate hot and cold guy. When he got hot, he got as hot as. as anything and when he would get cold you would think he'd never made a shot in his life well shamit was the former

he certainly was anyway I thought they had you know one of the things that is so evident of this Knicks team is since they and I've talked to the Knicks coaches well first off I talked to a bunch of members of the Knicks front office tonight

both before and after the game and um you know when they got this job when these guys came in when leon rose and west wes wesley came in uh and they hired frank zananan and they hired a brock aller and they hired gerson rossus um uh and uh wal perrin who i always name check because he's their lead scout um they had no players bontemps this team had no players and jrace randall that was it basically yeah now you look at the team all they got is players we have players everywhere

There's a lot of talk. We're going to talk on the Wednesday pot about the draft lottery. I got a story coming on. Yeah, it's going to get past this week. What's going to get past this week? And there's, you know, there's been some Sturman drawing over, oh, well, how are you going to rebuild if you don't have a chance to get to the top of the draft? Well, look at the Knicks.

The Knicks have maybe the greatest free agent signing in the history of the sport. Jalen Brunce is in the conversation for that when you look at what he's done for this team. I mean, he's not ahead of Shaq probably, but, you know, short of that, You look at what he's done here. He's up there in the conversation with guys like Jack and LeBron and these guys who change franchises. Jalen Brunson has completely transformed the Nix franchise by leaving Dallas deciding with the Nix.

And every other guy, Josh Hart, Ogen and Obey, Carl Towns, McHawns. All trades. OJNobie Trade. The rest are starting out of his trades. They signed Langer Shammett off to Scrapheep a couple years ago. He's become a terrific two-way player, a guy who can really guard

and is also a knock-down three-point shooter. They draft Dusman Bride in the second round. The second they traded him in a manual quickly. They signed him to one of the best contracts in the league. He's an excellent bench score and defender. Like Mitchell Robinson, it gives them a great compliment to Carl Towns. That was a draft pick. That was another draft pick.

But they drafted in the second round and developed them and re-signed him. And they've just built a really solid team that can play different ways, that can guard. It's got a lot of two-way players. That's tough-minded. that's led by one of the most clutch players in a league and a guy who is rock solid as far as everything you could ask for from a guy leading your team.

And even still, again, a month ago, the Knicks were 85 games into the season and we're seeing as a disappointment and a frustrating team. And it's just the last month is maybe the most unexpected month in the history of the sport for them to rip off this stretch of play

at this time a year and just throttle each of their opponents into absolute submission. I mean, it's honestly unlike anything we've ever really seen before. Like, there's teams that have had dominant runs through playoffs, like the Sixers and 82. The Warriors didn't beat teams like this.

And, I mean, the West was not that great back then. No. Like, I mean, the top team, you know, some of the top team. No, like the Warriors went 16 and 1. That was the dominant run through the playoffs. When the Sixers went 12 and 1 through the playoffs, that was a dominant run through the playoffs.

Like, there have been teams of a dominant runs through the playoffs. Not like this. But not like this. Not like this. Not having the greatest point differential over 11 games in the history of the entire 80 years of the NBA. I mean, it's just, it's utterly remarkable. So it's a couple of things. First off, I talked to some Nick's coaches, and I was asking them about how this happened. And really, when they changed the offense to run through towns. And it wasn't just give the ball to Carl Towns. it was also run action off the ball.

So because you're taking Brunson off the ball and you're moving him around and you're moving OGI and Anobi around and you're moving McHale Bridges around and you're moving Josh Hart around. And all of a sudden, those guys who, you know, for the last year or so played picking, you know, Cat would run pick and roll

or Robinson would run pick and roll and those guys would stand on the wing or at the elbow and wait to see if they got a shot. Now they're moving around. Now they're catching the ball on the move, putting it on the floor, distributing. They love it. They love it. So that engages them at the defensive end where they already were good defensively.

They already had good defensive bones. I mean, Towns and Brunson are not good defensively, but they compete defensively. And Towns rebounds, which is part of defense, finishing defense. And the other three guys are damn good. And now they're involved. And so now when they get a defensive rebound or even if they go of a basket, they're tearing off to the other end because they want to get down there because they know they're going to be involved. They're not just running down and standing in the corner and maybe one out of six possessions, you know, getting a grenade. Yeah, for sure.

And so you may say, why does it take, you know, 80, 90% of the season for that to happen? I don't know why it didn't take 80% of the season, but it happened. and it's just totally not only has it unlocked their talent, it's unlocked their chemistry. And look, they already had bedrock chemistry, the Villanova boys and all that stuff, but it's unlocked their chemistry. And now you watch them play,

and it's one giant, you know, party. It's been a party for a month. Second half, and I know you did some of this. Honestly, I was totally checked out of the second half. I was not even watching the game. I was totally texting. You were just devastated as the Cavs Corner after a year of pushing it. It's just imploded around you.

It's not devastating because the cows were not competitive. They were not competitive. It's like, well, what are you going to say? I mean, by the way, we should just stop for a second. Let's just go back to eight minutes to go in the first quarter of game one. Like, the calves sitting there 40 minutes into the series. Eight minutes in the fourth quarter. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.

8 minutes ago in the fourth quarter of game one. The guys were sitting there 40 minutes into the series looking like they had a chance to really make this interesting. Because if the Cavs had one game one, there was already all the pressure on the Knicks. And it would have been two days of absolute panic in New York City. Like, oh, man, are the Cavs going to knock these guys off? Was this all a mirage?

They just do this against not very good teams. What's going to happen? And that comeback, and the Knicks win in that game, again, it was just a. rocket booster right back up to where they'd been. And it just was like, yep, all good. We were a little rusty after a week off. We had a rough start.

We closed the game out. An Ananoby looked a little off coming back. And he's thrown down dunks everywhere today. He looked great. But yeah, even that's crazy how things turned on. But anyway, you were saying, second half of the game, you were texting people. So second half, I'm texting like, you know, some head coaches. some GMs, some scouts.

And I'm like, all right, brass tax here. What do we think? And, you know, basically all of them, one or two were like, no, they're not beating the West. You forget about it. You know, the calves are a first round to eat Western Conference team, blah, blah, blah. But for the most part, the answer that I was getting was, look, they're going to probably be the underdog. All right? but yes, absolutely they can win.

Basically it was like, you know, probably at the start, you know, two weeks ago people were like, eh, I don't know. That's, you know, maybe if somebody gets hurt. Two weeks ago, let's just call it like it is. Two weeks ago, the Western Conference Finals was 100% seen as the NBA Finals. Now, like, I checked in with my guy Jeff Sherman at the Superbook in Vegas at the Westgate to see what the odds would be. I was like, am I right, the NICS would be underdogs?

He said, yeah. I mean, he sent me over what he thought the lines would be. And the Knicks would be underdogs to both teams, but not crazy underdogs, like, slight underdogs. And, yeah, I had the same conversation with people. I was like, can the Nix win the series? I got, like, yeah, of course they can win. Like, if a team is playing like this with this level of confidence, I mean, look at the Indiana Pacers last year. That was not a team anybody thought was going to win the title when the playoffs started.

They were not a team. There's way more optimism about the Knicks right now than there was about the and they don't even know the opponent yet. And they went seven games and who knows what happens if Tyrese Albert does get hurt, right? Like they were right there with a chance to win the finals. Of course the Knicks have a chance. Like this is the thing.

If you get to the NBA finals and you're sitting there, like that alone gives you a chance. You never know what's going to happen over a seven game series. And how are you going to tell me that a team playing like this, shooting the ball like this, playing with a connected energy like this, that's going to be playing, I mean, game three, two east from today,

Madison Square Garden is going to be one of the coolest things I think you'll ever experience. Like, that place is going to be just an unbelievable scene. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. And it'll be very cool, by the way, for Mike Breen, our friend, to get to call NBA Finals games with the Knicks in them. That's only something he's waited his entire life to do. She was a total pro. Well, of course. But after the game, there was some hugs going around.

That guy's called a lot of bad Knicks basketball. Well, listen, it's not a coincidence of Mike Breen. I mean, both at the end of game three and the end of game before, when there was a lot of time to vamp. Mike Breen was talking a lot about the dark days of 2002 to 2020. Yeah, well, all the Cows fans had turned it off. Only the Knicks are watching. Well, Clyde Frazier, who was in the building and handing out trophies with Patrick Ewing,

which is a cool touch. And Mike Breen called a lot of Knicks games with a lot of really bad teams. And, you know, this team is not one of those teams. Yeah. So I was, I just sort of, you know, happened to be right next to Jim Dolan as he walked off the court tonight. And there was a lot of Knicks fans there. I mean, you know, I mentioned on the podcast the other day that I didn't feel that the, of all the Eastern Conference finals I've covered in Cleveland. There's been like six or seven of them. This was the most recent. It was just, there was just no energy. In fact, outside today, we did NBA today out on the plaza. What eventually I think should be the LeBron James Plaza. There was more people excited about the Guardians game.

The Guardians had one eight out of ten. Then there were excited to get, you know, in terms of Cleveland people. The people were excited to go in were Knicks people. Or Nick's fans. And, you know, tickets were going for, you know, around 100. You'd get a good seat for 200 bucks. And again, the calves fell into the same trap the Sixers did. with this stupid crap with the fans and it it's just not a good look to be trying to box people

out of seats like I'm not trying to sit here as somebody who lives in New York being like oh man like invade the Knicks should invade small markets and it's cool or anything like that i mean i grew up near buffalo i know what it's like to live in a small market community where you're proud about your team but at the same time like yeah nix fans it's cheap the sad state of affairs is it's cheaper for a nix fan to drive to Cleveland and watch the game and drive home, that it's not just cheaper. It's outrageously cheaper. Correct.

You can fly and go much cheap. And stay at a hotel and buy a ticket and buy dinner and all that stuff. So, like, of course Nick fans are going to show up and watch them play. Like, there was several, there were several thousand Nick fans in the building. Yeah. And it wasn't like 50-50. I mean, it was more Cavs fans. But the Caz fans, I think, were...

The Caz fans made a lot less than 50% of the noise. It was very evident on the broadcast. And they didn't believe in this team at the end of the day. Well, they didn't give a... To be fair to the Caz fans, even today, they were not given anything to believe in from basically the second the game started. Donovan Mitchell had a couple shots at the beginning.

And by the end of the first quarter, it was already a 10-point game. Donovan tried to pour it out. He had 20 points in the first half. He tried. Yeah. I respect the effort that he gave. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, the Knicks fans, you know, were, you know, not always do the visiting team when they win, do they take the trophy out on the court?

Numerous times I've covered conference finals where the winning team will take the trophy, you know, in a back room. Yeah. I had seen that happen a number of times. But there were so many Knicks fans, he took it out on the court. So anyway, Jim Dolan was out there. He didn't partake in the trophy ceremony. He stood back and let Mike Brown and Jalen Brunson handle that, which I thought was interesting.

He was sort of humble in the moment. But as he was coming out, he was sending the message to every fan who was saying, he's like, we got four more we got to get. We're not there. We're not done. Listen, we've talked about this. Jim Dolan in January went on the radio and said, the Knicks have to make the finals and should win him.

Like, his message has been very clear from the jump. Like, he was not, they didn't, and again, they didn't fire Tom Thibito last year to win this series, right? They fired Tom Thibito and hired Mike Brown to win the title. I'm not saying that it will be some massive disappointment if the Knicks don't win. It's an incredible season, regardless of what happens now. But they believe, especially after the last 11 games, why wouldn't, I mean, that's what I wrote about for dot com.

Why wouldn't you believe if you were a Nick or why wouldn't you believe, or why wouldn't you believe if you're a Nick fan that you can go beat Oklahoma City or San Antonio, especially after this absolute knockdown, dragout, slug fest these two teams are going to have for the next, you know, whatever, three to five days before that series is over and see who's left standing after that series is over. I bet more on five than three.

Right, exactly. And what did you say after game two? Like when we potted from the garden Thursday night, your message was, if you guys are serious, get this sucker over with. That's right. Go to Cleveland, do what you did the last round, get yourself eight or nine days off,

and let these other two teams play rock'em sock and robots for another week. Like, it was critical, again, especially the underdog team going into the finals, it was critical for the Knicks to get this thing over with, with everybody healthy, and everybody available.

And if they, you know, when I saw Donovan Mitchell got quoted after the game, saying we didn't take our business the first two rounds, and we didn't give ourselves, chance. Whether that's true or not, like we talked about the other day, blowing that game four against Toronto, blowing the game six against Detroit, blowing game one against the Knicks. Those are the games that you can't give away. Kenny Atkinson called out the two game six

losses, the chance to close out both teams in game six. They lost both of them. Yeah. Like, extra games in the playoffs are death. Like, it's a hard road and you can't play more games. And the Knicks of the Knicks have done an incredible job of that. complaining about the schedule. I heard a couple of players. And Kenny referenced it. Like he thought that there is some, you know, there's some unfairness in the schedule.

I'm not sure. The Western final started. The Western final started first. Yeah. Like, by the way, there's no unfairness in the schedule. If you play back-to-back-to-back seven game series, guess what you're going to be? Tired.

That's how it works. Don't play back-to-back-seven game series. Yes, absolutely. Come on, guys. All right, well, we will definitely be talking about the Cavs. We'll see if there's any changes by Wednesday's pod. I'll just, we'll see. Leave it at that.

And obviously, we'll be talking about the Western Conference of Finals and who the Knicks will be playing. But an ode to the New York Knicks. You've been an East coaster, most of your adult life bond temps. You've seen a lot of bad Knicks teams. Remember, just a couple years ago, the Knicks made the playoffs for the first. time in like a decade.

Look, I mean, the Knicks, just about everybody I know in my life here is a huge Nick fan and I have a lot of people who have been fans of the Knicks for 50, 60 years, basically back since like when they won the last time. Many of them are neurotic. Yes, incredibly so. Jeff Jacobs at CAA, legendary agent, Mike Wolbon's agent, among others. He's been a, I mean, he's very close to Leon Rose. He's been a fan of the Knicks his whole life.

Like he's living and dying with every single game. You know, it's like, it's like we talked about the other day on the pod. The Knicks, when the Knicks are good here, there's nothing like the city in the spring when the Knicks are good. And the energy here is. If you say so, I've barely seen it. Well, even in the moments I've been here when it's like, oh, the Knicks, like last year when the Nicks got to the conference finals or the year when they had Carmelo and they got to the second round of the playoffs. It's like a taste of it. It's just, it's another level.

And if the Knicks are able to win four more games and win the title somehow this year, like this is basically the last holy grail thing left in American sports. It's like the Yankees won the World Series, the Red Sox won the World Series. You know, you could argue some other stuff. Cubs won the World Series. Right, the Cubs won the World Series. Have the Browns made the Super Bowl? No.

I mean, take it back bunch of us. You could put like the Jets and the Browns win in the Super Bowl and that kind of round maybe. The Jets won a Super Bowl. But, I mean, another one. It's been many, many, many, many years and many years of futility. But when you look at just the breadth of fandom that the Knicks have and, like, whoever I've said for years and years and years, whoever wins a title with the Knicks will be a god here forever. And, like, already, like, you see how the guys from the 90s are treated.

Like, it's been very cool that the Knicks have had Patrick Ewing and John Starks and Larry Johnson and Alan Houston's been in the front office for a long time, but it's been cool to have those guys around this run all the time. Charles Spreewell. Kylie Jenner. Kylie Jenner and Timothy Shalame. But like this group, Janlon Brunson and Carl Towns and Josh Hart, all these guys are going to be sort of like that no matter what 20 years from now.

But if they're able to win four more games, like, I mean, they're just, they're going to be gods in New York. Like it's hard to describe. what a parade down the canyon of heroes would be if the Knicks won. Like it would be an unbelievable scene. All right. I will look forward to speaking with you in a couple of days here or a day or whatever it is, 24 hours. See in a week.

Thank you for Jackson. Thank you to Jackson for staying up late and putting it together. Thank you for watching this little special and listening to this little special short on the Knicks sweeping the calves. It was mercifully over because it wasn't very interesting. Usually you don't want a short series. It's like you spend this whole year setting it up and like, oh, my God, it's over. But when it's done like this, you can't help but be impressed. There's not much analysis to do other than to be impressed. So there you go.

Yep. And the Knicks have earned it and they deserve. And what I was telling the Knicks personnel tonight, not that they want to hear from me, but it's so hard to win that you have to celebrate when you do. Well, especially this run. I mean, this is, the Knicks could make the finals the next three years in a row. They're not going to do it like this. I mean, this is a once in a lifetime month.

Like, you're just never going to see this again. I was talking to Carl Towns a little bit afterwards, and he goes, I go, hey, man, you should, you know, take it from somebody who's been around for a while. You should celebrate this. And he's like, yeah, he goes, he goes, ah, you know, we got more to win. You know, we got a focus, you know, no champagne. I go, yeah, I didn't say do champagne. I said, you should celebrate. And he's like, all right, well, the plane ride's probably going to be pretty fun.

And it ought to be. I imagine it will be. So it is probably happening right now. All right. Thank you for watching. Listen to Hoop Collective. We'll talk to you very soon. Goodbye, everybody.