Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Thunder Take Control + Can Knicks Recover From Collapse?

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to react to Game 2 of the Western Conference finals between the Wolves & Thunder including OKC taking control and if Minnesota has a chance to get back into the series at home. Then, the crew breaks down one of the most incredible playoff games they have seen as the Pacers pulled off an epic comeback win at MSG over the Knicks. Plus, can the Knicks recover from this collapse in Game 2? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello and welcome with HOOC Collective Podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Friday morning in the middle of the night, I would say. Joining us from New York City, where we saw one of the craziest playoff games in NBA history on what is about 26 hours ago is Tim Bontops.

The end of this podcast made a prediction about when the beginning of this podcast would start. That's right. It was bang on. That's all I'm going to say. Go on. We taped the end of this podcast many hours ago. So we're all smarter and older. Joining us from Oklahoma City,

cross the street from where I'm at right now is Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners. And I would like to point out that I'd hit the under as far as my readiness for the start of this. And somebody was shuffling around his hotel room where he'd just been maxing and relaxed while I was working away. Yeah, I was working too. I was saying. Man signed on to the podcast one minute under the exact number that I said that the pod would start at. And he muted his microphone twice and they intervening three minutes before Brian signed on.

You of all people should know you can be proud of one minute. Oh, my God. All right. I wouldn't say the wolves are too proud right now. They're down 02 to the Thunder after game two of the Western Conference finals on Thursday night. This was an impressive performance by the Thunder, but also at the same time, would call it a paint by numbers. The Thunder did with exactly what they do. They defended. They frustrated the wolves up and down their lineup. Shea got to the foul line, scored 30-something

points. It happened to be 38, which tied his playoff career high, but Shea looks the same whether he scores 31 or 37 or 38. Got to the mid-range. I think it's worth just saying. I think it's just worth saying his line just for across the board the day after he got the MVP award. 38 points, eight assists, one turnover, plus 25 in 41 minutes and 47 seconds, on 12 for 21 shooting from the field, only one for two from three. So basically all those shots for two point range, and going 13 for 15 from the foul line. That is a heck of a line.

And he had three steals. And he had three steals. And one turnover in 42 minutes of playing point card. So that's pretty much the type of game. It may have been like, you know, an A, minus game. He's had better games, but an A-minus game, and that's why he's the MVP. Look, he got the MVP trophy. The crowd roared, his teammates went crazy, and then he played the part. Exactly. A complete MVP type of performance. But you know what? Who else played the part?

All-star Jalen Williams. We, 26, 10, and 5, 12. Pay by numbers from the floor, big part of the defense. Zero turnovers. Yeah, Chet Holmgren had, I don't have his line right from me. Chet Holmgren. There you go. Chet Holmgren and, you know, just the chaos they create defensively. But to me, like, Shea playing the part of MVP, obviously, you know, that's what I wrote about. Like, that's huge. You know, he's the number one reason why the Thunder are six games away from the franchise's first championship. But he needs his guys with him and he needs his all-star sidekick.

And look, man, Jalen Williams had a rough series for the most part against the Denver Nuggets really came through for them in Game 7. And this, man, this was a hell of a J-dub performance. And both Shea and J-Liam Williams are just picking apart the Timberwolves in the mid-range. Just picking apart the Timberwolves in the mid-range. And look, those are, if Rudy's in the game, you know, he wants to be in drop. You know, he's never been a guy who's had a lot of success or a lot of comfort challenging these guards in that mid-range area, and these two dudes just shredded the Timberwolves there.

Yeah, the Thunder, they only, they only shot 27% on three, but they were so efficient everywhere else that they still, you know, really didn't have to sweat that much in this game. They had a big third quarter, which they did also in game one. They had 30 assists, just ran their stuff defensively. once again, the Timberwolves chopped down their turnovers, but still the Thunder had 12 more points off turnovers. So for the last three games now, by the way, that's 63 more points than their opponents off turnovers.

You say only 22 points off turnovers. Yeah, because the last two games, they had over 30. I know, and the Thunder led the league this year in points off turnovers with 21.8 per game. Yeah. But in the playoffs, they crank that up to over 25. By the way, Jackson actually doing some producing work again. Man, he's on a roll here.

Man, when he can just stop. Stop with the side. Stop with the shots of Jackson. Oh, do you stop being a sensitive little wuss. The Thunder, hunting Rudy Gobert and pick and roll, 1.25 points per direct pick when Gobert was the screener defender. And again, that's a whole lot of mid-range stuff. Well, she gets that mid-range. She's beyond automatic.

Yeah, you do a better job. defending Jackson, then Gobert does defend in Shea or Jay Debbin pick and roll. Jackson is just staying up until the wee hours of the morning putting this pot up where you're taking your sweet time getting ready. So you don't need to be going on. I was ready before Wendy. This game, again, like you said, Brian, I think it's, I think calling a paid by numbers is accurate. The Thunder stuck to their formula. They did what they need to do. And look, we talked. Stats Williams gave me the numbers after game one. Walls were 11.

for 39 on open threes in that game. You think, hey, if the wolves can hit some shots, maybe the series looks different. The wolves are six for 15 on open threes in game two, according to stats. He just sent me the numbers. Now, that's 40%. However, it's also 60. Yes, it's 60% less of those shots in the game. More importantly, they're 5 for 24 in the game on contested threes, which is a much better split for if you're the thunder. You don't want them shooting 75% of their shots on contested. And the other thing, stats informed me that he told the pod father before he came over to here to do the pod is that when you look at Julius Randall, who's obviously had a disastrous game, two for 11, six

points, didn't play in the fourth quarter. Julius Randall, as we know, likes to play a physical game. He likes to get in the paint. He likes to bully his opponents, uses massive frame and strength to get in there and wreak havoc, right? This Thunder team, despite being small, like we've talked about, in terms of height, between Alice Caruso, Lou Dort, the two bigs when they have them out there, there's not a lot of places for Julius Randall to use his strength to really try to gain advantage in this series. And outside that first half, when he was a flamethrower, making shots from the perimeter,

he has not done anything over the past six quarters. and that's something that Minnesota and Chris Finch has to find a way to try to change. Because if Julius Randall is going to be a semi-non factor in the series, this series probably is going back to OKC. Yeah, we had a pickup run yesterday here in OKC, and there was a possession in, I think it was the first quarter, maybe it was a second quarter, first half for sure. I sent McMinnom in this text. I said, Randall looks like me at pickup because the man smoked like three.

layups on one possession. I mean, he was, and look, he was frustrated. He was frustrated with the officiating. The Timberwolves had a free throw in the first half, a singular free throw in the first half. I didn't think they got a good whistle in the first half. I'll just be honest. I thought, I thought Ant should have been at the line at least a few times in the first half.

By the way, Ant, I'm going to read his entire post-game media availability. ability. Okay, and that was the whole thing. He didn't talk to the media. Now, that might just be saying, okay, you find me for one bleep and F-bomb, another 50 grand. I just won't talk. But it's a tough look for a face of a franchise not to talk after a playoff loss that puts you down in the Western Conference finals. I think you could sense the frustration. Remember the whole Marshaun Lynch thing at the Super Bowl where he just said, I'm just here so I don't get fined? Right. I think it was doing the opposite.

that. Yeah, right. Ant was like, I'm just, I'm not, I'm just not here so I don't get fined. Or, hey, you find me for talking. You might find me for not talking, but whatever. By the way, aunt's up to $430,000 in fines this year. And stay tuned. I think he might get fine for skipping media tonight.

Again, he's got that, those sprite commercials keep running. He'll be all right. Those Adidas are selling. You know, I like those ants. So actually one of my boys has a pair. Got blisters the first time it wore him, but that's any of the year. here nor there. What?

What? Get back to the get back. What are we doing? It is comprehensive coverage. Try it sometime. Okay. Listen. You could sense the frustration.

Old Jade McDaniels. I'm, you know, hey, 10 of 16 with McDaniels is the primary defender, including six of 10, She goes to Alexander. And he had enough of Shay and just gave him that little kind of a, you know, it was a bit of a cheap, like, like a one was appropriate, a little cheap shot shove in the back. You know, Jaden McDaniels, who struggled with Shea all season long, by the way, which is not an entitlement of Jane. Exactly.

Him and the rest of the NBA. He got frustrated and he shoved Shea down and got a flagrant. I will say this, Jaden has been known to be a little emotional. You may recall that two years ago that he punched a wall and broke his hand. Yeah, and the wall won. He punched the wall. So, in all honesty. see, like, if he got his emotions out this way, but Julius was very frustrated.

Jaden was very frustrated. Ant, I think very clearly is frustrated. He was frustrated in game one. He was so frustrated and talked to the media. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. This is what the Thunder do to you on Scott Van Pelt tonight. I compared the Thunder's defense to a Cracken. Oh.

Because it's just like, it's just like. Yes. It's just like. What? What? Like a sea monster. It's just like enormous and it's got all these tentacles. Seriously what on SVP and said that the Thunder defense is like a mythical creature?

That's a cracking. It's like a cracking. Listen, dude, they are. They are, they just, they swarm. They just, there's, and there's just like another body coming out. It's everywhere. Tentacles. Interesting.

You think that you got away from them and you throw a pass, they pick it off. You know? You think you're just like, there's. past your defender and the sucker sticks his hand in there and knocks it away on your way by. Lou Dork got his first, finally, all-defensive team selection, first team, right? Jalen Williams, J-dub, got a second team selection. I would listen to an argument that those aren't the first and second-best defenders on the team. I would listen to an argument.

I think Lou is going to be there. But, dude, Caruso, especially- I mean, Knox Caruso is the best defensive player on the team. Especially playoff Caruso. Yeah. Oh my goodness. And then Chet, like, listen, if Chet's eligible for defense. Chathom had been healthy this year, he would have made all defense.

And Isaiah Hartnstein has probably had a Ludeau, too, if you're just starting from, if you're just starting from defensive players. I definitely is. Yeah, I'm going to dial you back on the last one. I'll tell you this, Case and Wallace, I'm not sure he's there yet, but he is on the way. Look, there were times this year. I'm fully on the case and Wallace take, so. There were times this year. year where Shea was taken off the court for defensive purposes, not because he's not good,

but because Kaysen Wallace is that good. And I've said it many times. Shea is not first team all thunder defense, but he is a tremendously impactful defensive player. You know, he got three steals night. That's not unusual. He had 208 stocks this season, steals and blocks, third in the league. Like, he's a great defensive playmaker. So by the way, like the guy that Chris Finch played over Julius Randall down the stretch and a lot of for a little case and you know the point of all this is that

it was Nas Reid. Yeah. And Nas Reid, I think is one of 15 on threes in this series or something like that. Oh. And that was the guy that Chris Finch went over Julius with. I'm not sure Nas has made

a three in this series. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Maybe he's one of 15. I can tell you real quick. He was 0 for 5 in this game and he was over 7 in the first game. So 012. And 4 of 19 from the floor in this series. That's not going to cut it. They need, like, they need scoring everywhere they can get it.

And look, they're two big-time bench scores, Nas Reid, we just read his numbers. Dante DiVincenzo in this series ain't a whole lot better. I mean, he's made some threes, but he is five of 18. and six of 22 from the floor. They're also just taking the ball from him. Yeah. They're taking the ball from him. That's what they do.

They're averaging, they're averaging 11 steals a game. And, and, what they do? And after he told everybody that he got 13 f-in shots, only 13 f-and-shots in game one, which that's what he got fined for.

50 grand. I'm like, I don't know, man. The league, like, chill out, dudes. But anyways, He said he was going to be more aggressive, and he was. He got up twice as many shots.

And he had 13 shots in the first half is not great. Well, and he was 12 of 26 from the floor, so pretty middling efficiency. His three ball is not going down, one of nine from three-point range. Again, he got to the line for 10 free throws. I thought that could have easily been like 16 or 17. But, you know, he is taking care of the ball. He's not been part of the turnover problems. He didn't turn it over one time tonight, which is honestly pretty impressive, considering

how aggressive he was. He played well, he played, well, maybe not. He played much better tonight. Yeah, he did. And he just couldn't get a three ball to go down. Right. And like, yeah, if he was much more aggressive, McDaniels shot the ball well tonight. He got scorched on the defensive end, but he shot it well.

And other than that, I mean, not a whole lot of production. To kill Alexander Walker gave him something off the bench. But again, for their two bench scores to be that big of duds is going to be tough to overcome. Gobert has not made any kind of impact so far in this series. He's given him, you know, I mean, he screens offensively, but he's in single-digit scoring for the series. Well, and the problem for Rudy in the series is it's not really a rim protection series. No, because they'll just, they'll pull up, they'll get to their spots. They're two go-to guys.

They're more than comfortable pulling up 16, 14, 12 feet. Like, they love those spots. Yeah, I mean, they get into the lane a lot. Like, they get a lot of paint points, but they're getting a lot of paint points, like you said, getting to 10 feet and rising up. And as we've talked about all year, to go back to the Thunder, the free throw disparity stuff, right? Jay is the one guy who's always getting in the lane as a threat to score. Most of the rest of the time, sometimes Jaylon Williams is.

Most of the rest of the time, it's guys spotting up around them on the perimeter. So there's not a lot of places for Rudy to really hide. And especially if Isaiah Hartinstein isn't on the court, then you're basically in a five-out situation all the time. And, you know, it's just a hard matchup for them. It's, you know, it is, as you watch these first. two games and watch them play out, the things that Minnesota did in the first two rounds or where they had success against the Lakers and the Warriors, those advantages just don't really

show up in this series. And it's going to be interesting to see what they can cook up over the next 48 hours because right now it's not. They're also, yeah, you're right now. It's not a lot to be optimistic about. They're also having an easier time with Randall and Edwards than they did with Yokic. Well, but that's what I'm saying. Like Randall, Both those guys, you know, Randall especially, like his strength is a huge advantage because there's not a lot of guys who are strong enough to handle him. And Alex Caruso and Lou Dort are two guys that are strong enough to handle him despite being several inches shorter. And so that in there, also ball hawks who can take the, especially Caruso's case, who can take the ball off. So Randall's a streaky shooter.

If his three-point shot isn't falling, you know, all of a sudden things look limited really quick. And that's what the thunder can do to a lot of guys. I was going to say, the simple fact is that there's not like a lot of easy solutions against the thunder. There's a reason this team set the freaking NBA record for a point differential in a season and another gym from Jackson, the best producer in the Hoot Collective history. That's better. Despite what Bontems might say, despite any bad mouth from the USWB. Yet another great product from Syracuse. I think we can all agree. He overcame that crap. He had one of the few. Yes. Get this. highest point differential in a postseason in NBA history. The 71 bucks, that's Kareem,

the big O. Oscar Robertson, yeah. Yeah. Plus 14.5. The Thunder are number two on that list right now, plus 14.1. The other team's on the top five, 17 Warriors, 2001 Lakers, 91-8-1. 17 Warriors were mildly good team. Yeah, and obviously all those teams, Thunder have yet to finish the job, but the rest of those teams did win the championship. All those teams had at least one Inter Circle Hall of Fame around them, too, in some cases multiple. So that's pretty good company to be in.

Yeah, we're talking what, Grim and Oscar Robertson, Steph and KD, Shaq and Kobe, Jordan and Pippen. It's pretty good. It's pretty good company. And look, Shay is well on that path. And then we'll see. We'll see Jaylon Williams is off the hell of a start in his career. But to put him in that kind of company, you know, maybe he'll end up being a Pippin type of dude.

We'll see. Well, and it was pretty cool to see Shea back up. I mean, a lot of times we've seen these MVP things, not that Shea obviously deserved it, but you see a guy get this award, get it the night before, you play the next day, you get the award before the game. Sometimes, like with the ring ceremony at the start of the season, you see guys be off their game or whatever. And, you know, Shea's obviously always a pretty monotone, even-keeled guy on the court. And so it wasn't shocking to see him play this well in this spot for many reasons.

But pretty cool to see him get the MVP award and then go out and look every bit the MVP and just boss the game and always. By the way, a rare moment of comedy from Mark Dagonal tonight. Not that, not on the podium at least. I'm not saying, you know, in general conversation. but, you know, he's, you know, the Thunder, very, very, very, very professional. You know, Shea, very, very, what did you say uptight? No, no, I didn't say that. Very professional.

Okay. McMahon wrote about this and talked about this. Shea gave all of his teammates a gift basket in appreciation for them helping him to his MVP award. There was a Rolex in there, each one of them. There was an iPhone. What else was in there, McMahon? Canadian Goose jacket, I believe. Canada goose.

I believe. Canadian Goose. This might have been a knockoff. That was a Canada goose. All right, whatever the fancy thing is. There was a Canadian goose in there? An actual goose? No, the jacket.

And then there was something else. I forgot what else. Something else nice. So anyway, they were like 10 grand each, give or take. And so in the press conference tonight, Mark Dagonet was asked whether he received a care package. And he said, oh, I did not. He said, you know, I heard Shea say that everybody loves watches.

He's like, guess not everybody. That's pretty good. Pretty good for Mark D. Yeah, it was the hardest I'd ever laughed in a Mark D press conference. By the way, you mentioned Stats Williams before. Guess who has fallen head over heels in love with our guy, Matt Stats Williams, who may try to steal him away. Uh-oh.

Presti? No, I'm sure he'd keep Presti away from him. My God. you'll definitely try to hire. Well, Presti's not a good judge of talent. He didn't even keep Caruso on the OKC blue, but go on. That's a whole other story. You're telling yourself for your Caruso feature you got coming up.

I like to tease things via the Hoop Collective. All right, good job. Michael Malone. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Does he love Stats Williams? Oh, does he love Stats Williams? Well, almost what's up?

Who does it? Yeah, he was practically had his arm around him like he was a surrogate son tonight. He was so happy. that. Like stats getting recognized for his excellence. Malone did clarify. He said his vote would have been for Joker for MVP. Now we didn't pull him after the game because it was a Shea MVP type of performance.

You know, he lives in Denver. So he's got to be sure. They ain't a for sale sign on the house yet. So he's got to make sure. And he definitely indicated he got a little bit of blowback from the neighbors. That's right. The thing about Shea, though, is his. dominance is almost like a quiet dominance, right?

It's not like when Ant dominates a game and we've seen Ant dominate many playoff games, it's loud, right? There's highlights. There's crazy dunks. There's, you know, these like long threes. There's just emotion and, you know, all trash talk and all this kind of stuff. SGA just kind of cruises through games as he says, let's the game come to him. him. The dude only took three shots in the first quarter, right? And then he's just kind of waiting

for his opportunities. Late first half goes on a little flory, oh, next thing you know, okay, they bump the lead out. Third quarter when they're, they've overwhelmed Minnesota in both third quarters. Just third quarter at 11 points, couple assists, you know, just fingerprints all over it. And then you look up at the end of the night, the guys, you know, I mean, look up at the end in the third quarters, the guy's got 30. And it doesn't feel like he's been, you know, just, it's, it's quiet. You don't feel like he's just been that dominant. And it's just like.

He scores 30 every night. Just in complete control. And this, Mike Breen read the stat right at the end of the game. The Thunder have played 95 games this year. And they've won by double digits in 60 of them. 60. I mean, look, all season long, we talked about it a lot. and the only reason, the single reason to not think the Thunder were the massive and overwhelming favorite to win the title was very simply because the combination of they hadn't done it before and was Jane William, Jaylon Williams good enough.

That was it because they have every other thing you could possibly look for in a team that's good enough and could be good enough for the next several years. and we saw they I think we've already seen the rubber meets the road moment in game five of the last round, which I think was the West Finals. We talked about it a bunch. They're down eight going to the fourth quarter against Yokic. Didn't look great. They lose that game. Season's probably over in game six.

They find a way to win that game. And I know they didn't win game six, but they come home, they take care of this game seven. And it's a little early. They still got to get six more wins. But bar an injury, it certainly feels like it's all downhill from here for these guys, the way things look right now. And the scary thing about Thunder, we'll have plenty of time to get to this stuff later. They're probably going to be better next year and maybe the year after that and the year after that. I was looking at the box score tonight and I went over the injury with the injury report.

And I forgot that they have one of the most hyped European prospects since Luca. sitting out. Oh, I mean, he's not going to be Luca, but they do have a lottery pick. Yeah, I mean, I said since Luca. You know, he's one of the- They have a talented lottery pick guard who hasn't played all year. Yeah, it's torn ACL. And they just have young ascending talent.

Like SGA is, and this is something when Daganaut's more boring, frequent moments, he talks about how SGA just continuing to get better and better. and better. The guy just got MVP, and I'm going to go Thunder Jargon here, still has a growth mentality, right? Like, Jalen Williams has gotten significantly better every single season. We can go on down the list. I mean, Chet, you know, Chet missed most of this season. Like, he's going to be better next year. These guys are in the Western Conference Finals. They've won two games in the Western Conference Finals in dominant fashion. They have one player over 30 on the roster in Alex Caruso.

who's 31 and Kenrich Williams is 30. Every other guy on the team is 27 and under. And they've got a million seven draft picks. Well, correct. I don't know that Sam Presti's ever going to make this big splash trade that we've talked about so much, the people coming away just because, like, you don't need to. And like, honestly, one of Presti's biggest challenges is going to be managing the payroll. Yes.

But what a great challenge to have. Like, by the way, sending down like, case. Walls is going to be so good. He's already, he's already, he's already good. He's like, this guy's got a chance to be. He might be an all-star type of player at some point, not too, not too distant. When you calculate, which is important in today's day and age, when you calculate a player's value with their contract, in other words, what, what's the bang for your buck?

Casein Wallace is, what, top 20? You guys have taken my Case and Wallace love and ran with it. I like it. Listen, man, my taxes don't pay for his high school education. Well, one thing I'll tell you about Casein Wallace that I've noticed in the last two weeks is all of a sudden he's looking like Chris Paul in transition. Dude, ever since I said all his lobs end up in the fourth row, he's completing him left and right. By the way, Chris Paul came to the game tonight. He did. Just celebrate Shea, who as you remember, Chris Paul came to the,

When the Rockets did their rebuild, Chris Paul. That was pre-rebuild. That's when the Rockets made it, got off the trade because it was the worst contract. I'm sorry. Brain fart. According to Petita. Brain fart at 2 a.m. I will say to Fortita's credit, he learned from that mistake.

He learned to take the emotion out of the process. But, yeah, that's when the Rockets, when Fortita and James Hardin wanted CP3 gone, so they made a bad trade. but he came here. It was one year. It ended up being the bubble year. It was Shay's first year. It was that weird kind of like gap year for the Thunder where they weren't going into their little tanker mode. They made the playoffs.

Yeah, they made the playoffs that year. But CP3 was there and it was Shay's first year and it was George Rookie year. And look, man, CP3 was like he's got a little piece of this because he definitely was a huge positive influence on Shea and on Dord. Not that those guys wouldn't have had success without having him as a teammate for a season, but he was a great, great bet, great mentor and has continued to be a mentor as he's gone to other teams for those guys. Yeah, well, that just shows the respect level that he has for Shea and vice versa that he would come in for this game just to see Shea get the trophy.

You talked about those rare moments of comedic relief. Shea had one in his post game where he was asked about CP3, and he said, yeah, I looked over there. I was like, wait, who's that sitting by my wife? And I said, God, then I saw it. And then I saw it was Chris. I was like, right. He didn't know Chris was coming? That's what he said.

Oh, okay. I don't know. Maybe, you know, sometimes you don't tell the full truth because you're going for a punchline, at least. I got you. Some people might do that. Yeah, I got you. Because like we at ESPN knew Chris was coming yesterday because he was on countdown. Maybe it was a surprise.

Maybe Chris thought he was getting a Rolex and it's disappointed. I don't know. Would you fly Oklahoma City from L.A. for a Rolex? I'm not a watch guy. So, She's wrong. He says everybody enjoys watches. I don't like having that stuff on my wrist. Now, if somebody wants to give me a Rolex, I'd be happy to have it.

I just won't wear it. I might pawn it. Yeah. All right. Well, I will say this. Looking forward, the wolves are bound to hit some threes. They're shooting under 30 percent the first two games. They will hit some, I think. And I'd recommend game three. Shea, you're right. Shea is, you know, he averaged eight free throws a year. They didn't average 15. He's averaging 15 so far in this series. So, you know, we could see, you know, a little bit of a change when they go on the road on Saturday night. But, and look, we are, this is the never say never postseason. If you say, don't assume anything. So I ain't. That said, the concept of the Thunder losing four out of five is hard to see.

Wouldn't say impossible because we don't do that. But it's hard to see. It does have the aroma of a gentleman's sweep. Maybe. I mean, you know, the Thunder have not always handled prosperity the best. So, but. Yeah, they only 168. games. I know, but I'm talking about in the playoffs.

When? Prosperity, when? When do they not handle the well? When they swept the Grizzlies? No, I mean, they... They had to come back to one. I guess you could say after game two when they blew the, the, the, the nuggets out. I guess you can, I'll give you that one. We'll see. But obviously, they need Julius Randall to play better. They need to start hitting some threes. They need better play from Gobert. And, you know, one thing was strange tonight, um, Mike Conley, everybody. on their roster was in the negative, obviously. Mike Conn was a plus 14. He was one of six

shooting. It was plus 14. Yeah, that was a weird. Sometimes sometimes that single game plus minus can be a little bit wonky. Yeah. So, all right, well, we'll leave the high test intense series to you, Bontems, and we're

going to talk about game one of the Pacers and Nix. Actually, we're not going to talk about it. We already talked about it, but Jackson is going to smash him together right now. More hoop Collective podcast after this. All right, welcome back to Hoop Collective, and it's not earlier in the day. We're all younger.

We're all ignorant of tonight's results. But we're educated on what happened in Game 1, the game you were at Bon Temps on Wednesday night, which was one of the craziest games I've ever seen, and I've been saying that a lot, it feels like, in these playoffs. A lot about the Indiana Pacers in these playoffs specifically. Pretty much the definition of having a game wrapped up. up is three possessions in the final minute. I think if you have three possessions in the final minute,

you're winning percentages in the high 99 percentile. And three times a three consecutive series, the Pacers have pulled out of victories in those situations. And twice has happened on the road. So you were just, as we're recording this, we were just on NBA today, Bontovs. You talked about being in the arena for the shot. you could go over that with us as well.

I mean, the whole thing was just, I want to say it was unbelievable, except it honestly kind of wasn't because this has happened twice in the past couple of weeks. Like when it got down to eight with a couple minutes ago, I turned to our colleagues, Jamal Collier and Chris Herring, who were sitting next to me. And I was like,

these guys aren't going to do this again, are they? And then when Jay and LeBrunsen got it back up to nine with 50 seconds is to go, I was like, all right, you guys probably got it in the bag. but it is just remarkable. We've spent so much time talking about this pacer's team and the way they play and the pace they play at and the way they just wear you down in these late game situations. And as the games go on, and like there were so many moments in the end of this game that

were almost identical to these other collapses. Even Josh Hart ended up catching the ball, but there was almost the identical pass thrown across the court that Max Struce didn't get that Josh Hart managed to corral. like, holy crap, this is literally going in the exact same manner as those other games. And then obviously the thing that was wildly different was this just completely absurd Halliburton shot that thought it was going to get stuck in the vaulted ceiling of the garden and then just drop through the hoop.

And from our seats, which are on the opposite end of the court, it was the same vantage point it basically had on the KD shot at Barclays. I thought that shot was a three at the time. I thought this shot was a three at the time. Tyrese Hallibor had thought it was a three at the time. And, you know, the difference between that game and this game was, as I said, Tyrese after the game, first thing I thought of was that Durant shot, the difference was you guys won the game. And like, you know, Milwaukee, Yana said a couple big buckets late.

I think Chris Middleton and Drew Holiday each had big shots down the stretch in that game. Bucks obviously escaped, went on to win the title. But, yeah, I mean, that was, even for all the crazy stuff Indiana's done, that was crazy. They scored 23 points and nine possessions to end the fourth quarter. Aaron East Smith was seven for eight and three in the game. And what? 23 points in nine possessions. And the Nick, yeah.

Pretty good. My God. Like the Knicks were even getting open shots. The Knicks miss, I mean, I. Dude, they scored their last six possessions. And they were all threes except for the toe on the line buzzer beater. Yeah. I mean, just absolutely crazy.

and, you know, I mean, it just, it was one of those things where literally everything had to go wrong for the Knicks and it did. They bring him Mitchel Robinson to box out late. He lets Obatop and get by him for a dunk. Josh Hart, excellent defensive player, Lance, let's Andrew Nemhart get by him for a layup. Those are both late. Josh Hart slipped on the court two or three times in the fourth quarter and overtime. It different places in the court. I honestly wonder if there was something wrong with his shoes that I'm not even kidding.

Yeah, I mean, just like that, you had, Carl Towns, a fantastic shooter, misses two free. throws. O'Jananoby misses a free throw. Like the Pacers couldn't miss. I mean, it just, it was everything that had to come together. I mean, Sats Williams sent me the stat. There were since over the last 27 years, there had been 1,414 games where a team had led by nine or more in the final minute of regulation and overtime. And a team had lost every single one of those games until Wednesday night in game one. And I'm going to combine it with the fact that this is the third time we've had a stat like this. with the Pacers because before it was seven points and it was a different number.

But because the previous two comebacks were seven points. Seven in about 50 seconds. It's seven in about 35 seconds. But it's three possessions inside the final minute. And yeah, I mean, you just have to say this is the best team that we've ever seen at doing this. So this is where I make one of my speeches. Oh.

Over the course of 20 plus years, I've seen a bunch of comebacks. The quintessential comeback that I always think of is the heat coming back on the spurs in in game six of the 2014 finals, 2013 finals. 2013 finals. 13, yeah. And that was seven points with about 30-something seconds. There's typically three things that you see, not always obviously, but three things that you often see when you have a sort of weird comeback like that.

Miss free throws, there's almost always a miss free throw. There's almost always a turnover, which manifests itself in several forms. Sometimes it's an offensive rebound, which not exactly a turnover, but can feel like it. and then a lot of times there's a role player. So in the case of the heat come back, the role player is Ray Allen. I know he's a Hall of Famer, but he was a role player.

He was a six-ma at that point. Two offensive rebounds happened in that, and Genoblee and Kawhi Leonard missed free throws. In this game, Miss free throw, Edge O.G. and Noby. Miss free throw, Carl Towns. Two turnovers, both of them as a result of reviews. That review, Bontemp's, was interminable for the one

on Siakam. It didn't quite say it right, but it was a good use. I don't know how you guys felt. I felt, you know, they went to commercial. Like, I don't know how you guys felt. It took a thousand years. I mean, everybody around me was pretty stunned that they overturned it. I thought the Knicks, I don't know if the Knicks necessarily deserved a break on that play.

So I was kind of okay that just called it like everybody was just scrambling for the ball. I thought on the Jalen one before, you know, the refs have been pretty inconsistent in that, like if there's not this one specific thing, but if there's other contact, they're cool with it on these plays. And there was a lot of contact on that play. I was pretty surprised they overturned. The ball had already been knocked. The ball had already been knocked loose. So I guess that's how they ruled.

I mean, I guess. But look, I mean, look, you can even go to challenges, right? Tom Thibito took an awful challenge in the third quarter. Like, he had no chance of winning the. the challenge. Jalen Brunson pushed off on Aaron Neesmith. They should have called a foul on Aaron Dismith. As an aside, the rest were awful in this game, both ways. They're awful the whole game. Whoa. Like, just is what it is. They missed a ton of calls. But they had a rough game. I mean, they were all, they were all over the place. That review, the OG, it's the Akam review

to your point. Took several minutes. If you got to review it for several minutes, you probably shouldn't be reviewing it. Probably should just be moving on at that point. I'm saying it's inconclusive, which if it's inconclusive, And over time, they missed the Miles Turner had a goaltend. I will say this. On the Obie Toppin backdoor play, I think it was Miles, I think it was Mikhail Bridges. He fouled Topin. That was a, that was an N-1.

But look, that sequence in overtime, when they missed that goal 10, and Aaron Andrew Nemhart hit the quarter three on the next possession, that was a gigantic swing. Would have been a stoppage and the Knicks up six if they called the goal 10. instead the Pacers five seconds later are down one. But look, this isn't about the refs. Like, whether they had a good game or not. And it was an equally, I thought, bad both ways, performance about the refs. I don't think the rest decided the game for the Knicks.

The Knicks blew the game. The Pacers won the game. And the Pacers have done this over and over and over again. Right. It's a collapse against the best comeback team, maybe in NBA history. And it's not just the playoffs. Remember they had, it was January, maybe February. The Pacers had that crazy stretch of games where they,

had a bunch of these type of comebacks from three possession margins in the last minutes. I mean, they've been doing this all season. Raining Cajonis Factor Player of the Month. Tyrese Halliburton. Well, he didn't get Clutch Player of the Year, but I told you, boys, I think he's coming for that crown. The full-season Cajonies Factor, MVP, dude, our buddy Tom Haderstrow, actually, we'll call him Haberstrow because he wasn't hating in this one. His substack updated his Halliburton's shooting with a game on the line this season. These numbers are insane.

I'm talking about shots to tie or go ahead in the final two minutes, including obviously the toe on the line. You know, I mean, massive shooters bounce that he got last night. Twelve of 14 on those shots this season. 12 of 14 with two and ones. 11 of those are jumpers. You know, the exception, obviously, being the blow-by layup to, you know, get Papa Halliburton ban from all arenas forevermore. When he had the little chit-chat with Yonnas waving that towel. But this man, including the free throws, has 32 points on 14 shots that, again, are to tie or go ahead in the last couple of

minutes. It's one of the most insane clutch make clutch shot making seasons of all time, maybe the most. Like, it's insane. One. No, what? Go ahead. And, dude. Ah, listen, I know he thought he, I know he thought he wanted, but the choke all with Reg Miller in the house. I was with McMahon.

Oh, come on now. When we were watching together, first of all. When he did the choke sign, McMahon's eyes got glossed. I love Halber. I love a dude. Everybody. Everybody has got a trash. talk and backs it up.

Like, how could he not let? And you know what? That dude does not mind one iota being the villain in Madison Square Garden. He loves it and he feeds off it and he loves just sticking it to those, you know, trash throwing Nicks fans. Yeah, I mean, I wrote about it last night. Like, he's in the locker room and I was giving him a hard time about how the game went. And he just looks at me and goes, it's got to be the shoes.

And for young people who don't know what that's referring to, it's to a ad campaign. in 1989 for Michael Jordan's Jordan brand shoes that was done by Spike Lee. No, it was Morris Blackman. Oh, yes. Okay. And Spike Lee, obviously, legendary Knicks fan, got into Reggie Miller famously in the winning time doc, which Tyree said he'd watched about 50 times last night. Tyrese who showed up last year for game seven wearing a hoodie that had the choke on it

and sitting at the podium wearing it. I mean, I was, I was amused when he was like, you know, oh, yeah, I thought about doing it different times. Like, yeah, you'd been preparing to do that for the moment. You hit a shot to beat the Knicks at the Garden for well over a year, Tyrese. We know that. It's okay. But you got Reggie Miller sitting there. You've got Larry Johnson with the famous four-point play sitting there.

Got John Starks, Alan Houston, Patrick Ewing, Spike Lee, all these people, all there. Three Well, was probably there, too. I didn't see him, but he was probably there. I think three-well was there. So much history in the building, so much history in the series. and again, different players, different styles, but there is a whole lot of Reggie Miller in Tyreys Halliburton. 100%.

And it's a lot of fun to see them. Halliburton and the fans aren't playing, but Halliburton versus the Madison Square Garden crowd is awesome. He's right in the Pantheon, as Jackson, New York area native says, the Knicks did win the series back when Reggie did the choke, which is true, and we'll see if the Knicks win this series. I do think we should get into that. Which Tyrese referenced last night.

He's like, you know, the Knicks did win that series. He was right on top of it. He knows this history. But the one thing I thought was interesting before we get into the meat of the game and going forward in the series that Tyree said, I asked him, I was like, look, you guys have now made a habit of doing extraordinary things in these situations in these playoffs. What is allowing you to do it? And I thought it was interesting.

He didn't talk about the pace. He didn't talk about their style. of play. He didn't talk about any of that stuff. What he talked about was solely the front office choosing to keep this entire team essentially together after last year's run to the Eastern Conference finals and that, as he said, over the past couple of years between making the run of the in season tournament championship game, the run they had in the playoffs, the ups and downs they had this year. As you mentioned for months, Brian, in preparation to have excuses for when your boys lost in Cavs Corner. Just kidding. Just kidding. That they've been awesome.

for months, whatever the record is since beginning of January. They've been one of the three or four best teams in the league. And he said all of those shared experiences over that time have us, we've gone through everything we could go through. Everybody's had to play a part in it at different points. And we have full belief on ourselves that anytime we're in one of these situations, we're going to come back and win. I just thought it was an interesting way to talk about continuity, even went into how, as we all know, continuity is a thing doesn't exist in the NBA anymore. and I just thought that was a very interesting thing for him to immediately go to in talking about why the Pacers keep doing this. Because we've talked to a ton about the pace of play, the way they fly around, the way they wear teams out.

But I hadn't really thought about the fact that they have so much institutional history together, at least by current NBA standards, and I thought it was a interesting thing to think about going forward. And they've done a great job developing guys, too. knee-smith is an unbelievable development story. And look, he's not like he was, I mean, the guy was a late. He was a lottery pick. A late, but, you know, nobody who said, oh, wow, can you believe the Pacers got knee-smith in that deal for Brockton? Like, he was, you know, nobody blinked at that.

And the dudes just gotten better and better and better. Obviously, last night was just an insane shooting performance by him. But the guy shot 42% from three last year, shot 40%. shot 43% from three this year. He's become an awesome 3-and-D guy. You know, and Nimhard, early second-round pick, like these role players that they've got that are complimenting Halliburton, Seacom, like there's been some major player development going on with the Pacers.

Talk about going looking forward here, Bontemps. I thought the Knicks did a lot of things good in this game. That's how you build a 14-point lead with four minutes to go or whatever. Yeah, 17 point fourth quarter lead. It was Carl Towns' best game of the last two series, all told, in my view. He had, you know, and by the way, the Knicks executed a bunch of really good high-pressure offensive plays in both the fourth quarter and overtime. They just couldn't stop the Pacers, which obviously is a problem. But, you know, there was a lot that they did under pressure that was impressive.

Like I said, Towns was good. Brunson's had the foul trouble, still had. 43 points. The only thing that stopped Jalen Brunson in this game was the referee's whistle. He got whatever he wanted against the Pacers. And by the way, Aaron Neesmith was fouling him every trip down the court, right? And he's bigger than Andrew Nemhard. Andrew Nemhardt, couldn't guard him last year. Nemhart had a ton of trouble again in this game. Neesmith is bigger, very physical. They put him on him. He did a pretty good job on him, I thought. Jalen still got whatever he wanted. Like, coming into this game, the three things that I was looking at, really, were

Jalen Brunson, can they slow him down? They couldn't. Carl Towns and Miles Turner, how's that matchup going to go? Carl Towns destroyed Miles Turner. Miles Turner was not even playing down the stretch of this game. They're playing Thomas Bryant in the fourth quarter of this game. It was basically just rendered inoperable for a lot of it. And Mitchell Robinson came in off the bench, dominated the glass.

Pacers had no hope of doing anything with him when he was on the court. So there were a ton of things, I think, from a Knicks perspective, where you come out of this game and say, if we just can avoid a catastrophic meltdown to end the game, like if the Knicks just have a normal... Other than that one minor detail, yes. Well, yes, obviously this looks vastly different with the Knicks losing the game.

But if you stop the game with three minutes to go in game one, you're thinking the Knicks are in a pretty comfortable position in the series considering they were up to O last year before the injuries really set in, that was without Julius Randall. And they were pretty damn comfortable for the vast majority of this game before Aaron East Smith turned into the human torch and 12 other things happened and they lost. So I don't think it, like, yes, the Pacers obviously have home court advantage. It's a huge break for them.

It's a huge potential momentum swing. But the Denver Nuggets had a crazy comeback and beat the Thunder in game one last round and then lost by 1,000 in game 2 and went on to lose the series at 6. To me, I'm expecting, all right, what's up? I expect this series is going to be two, two after game four and Indy, and the Knicks will get two of the next three, and we'll see how it goes from there. But I felt from the master of Jordan name, there was a lot to be,

hold on, hold on, hold on. You're making nasty predictions about those Pacers. You've got to go to Indy. Yeah, what nasty prediction is there? There's going to be two, two after four? You're saying that the Pacers are good, or the Knicks are going to win two of the next three now, not two of the next three after it's four or four. Are you picking the Knicks and seven before the series started?

He's saying it'll be four. But I think it's going to be two two after four games. I think the Knicks of win game two and I think the two teams will split in Indy and then we'll see what happens. But I came away from a feeling pretty good about where the Knicks are at in the overall picture of the series, obviously setting aside the awfulness of the final couple minutes for them. because I did think that a lot of the main themes to watch coming in all tilted pretty heavily in the Knicks favor without really a lot of reason to think it should shift back the other way. Like the Pacers didn't have a good match for Carl Towns. He was very comfortable.

The Pacers don't have a minix for Jaylon Brunson. They better be up double figures in the final minute because nine's not enough. Well, I mean, I mean, they're 14 with under three minutes to go and that wasn't enough. So, yeah. Well, but the Knicks were the, have been the team that has been doing that, although they weren't doing it necessarily in that fashion, but they obviously walked down the Celtics twice. The thing about it is, and I mean, I know this is quite obvious, but the Knicks' upset

of the Celtics got real when they won game two. The Cavs, real danger of their situation against the Pacers got real when they blew game two. Well, the Pacers took it, but the Cavs also blew it. So I know this, again, obvious. If the Pacers win game two, the series is going to, yeah, if the Pacers win game two, this series is going to be really short. And I, you know, and I would, you know, this, you know, this momentum thing is, in the NBA is fragile. So.

Yeah, momentum, I'm, there are exceptions, but for the most case, I don't believe in momentum game to game in playoff series. You know, like you hear Dagonalt say it all the time. Each game is its own chapter. Each game's its own story. I agree. All right, well, Bontham's, we look forward to your coverage of it. And what time do we think McMahon will have started this podcast tonight? Let's take a guess.

What do we think, Bon Temps? Games going to start it. Games going to start 843 Eastern Time, right? Yeah. So I'm assuming. What time will this podcast will have started? I'm guessing 135. Okay.

Eastern time. Okay. I'll take the over because I'm going to be obnoxious about it. Well, then you'll just get, it'll just get booted by the. the host who's got to get his sleep. I think we started about 120 after game one. Was I

on time Monday morning? Tuesday morning? Was I on time? Yes. All right. No, I didn't doubt you that. I mean, you were on time and you were on time in terms of your time in terms of when you showed up. So we started when you were ready. No. In the morning, you do, Fis? No, it was 7 a.m. Are you talking about the chauffeur service? Well, listen, you know the important thing is that the star has got to be properly chauffefered and

on time. So you were there. I was not going to, yeah. The Uber was called for 7 a.m. and the Uber arrived at 7 a.m. Five star rating. Not put my job in jeopardy. Damn right. Five star rating. All right. Thank you to Jackson for staying up all night. Thank you to Bon Temptson McMahon. Thank you for watching and listening to the Hoop Collective. We will talk to you. We don't know when we'll talk to you. Probably talk to you next on Monday. Adios amigos.