PTI - Do the Panthers Have a DECIDED Advantage Over the Oilers?

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss the Stanley Cup, Jason Kidd, and the Knicks. Plus, Brian Windhorst stops by! 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. Pardon the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilbon. The Strawberry Moon rises tonight, Tony. What's your favorite moon?

I'm Tony Kornheiser, the one I pressed against my front window when the UPS guy shows up. That's it. No, don't do that. I thought you were going to say like me that Strawberry Moon reminds me. It sounds like a Prince title. I wasn't going to say that. I was first thinking about Warren Moon, of course. And then I thought about Randy Moss.

Remember when Randy Moss did that thing by the Gold Post? Remember that? Didn't Jim McMahon do that even earlier? McMahon did that super. Probably. Probably. Today's episode, the Knicks and Jason Kid, U.S. soccer beef, and Brian Windhorst joins us for five good minutes.

But we begin today with the Stanley Cup final. The venue moved to Florida last night, and we had our first game that did not go into overtime. In fact, Florida routed Edmonton six to one to take a two-to-one lead in the series. We'll find yesterday we both said, that neither team had established a decided advantage. What are you saying today? Wow, it looks decided today if you can have a decided advantage of 2-1.

But Tony, it's because of the mood, not the score of the game. And the score of the game has something to do with it. But the Edmonton Oilers fell apart. They melted down. They played like petulant little children. They couldn't get their way, so we're going to scrum this up like a game in December. No, no, no, no. And then in a series, and they're all short, even a long series,

it's still four out of seven. You can halfway through that series. Another team gets an advantage on you that's a champion. This isn't like last year to me when Ebbington came back from 3-0 down to force a game seven. And we know the teams are fairly even and most of us, I'm one of them, gives Edmonton an advantage in terms of talent and depth before a couple of injuries. It may have changed that. But they just let, and I don't do, I know what they said after the game. But to me, watching that entire game fairly intensely and annoyed,

at the end of it, they left Florida getting underneath their skin completely got rattled, and now they got to find some answers in a hurry. So you can't really take 21 penalties, and you can't give up three power play goals. I mean, you can't do that. Okay. So I'm going to pretty much stick with my position from yesterday while admitting that 6-1 is a beatdown, and I'm going to point out to you that there is a game four coming up, and that if you look at the playoff history of both of these teams, they tend when beaten to come back and win a game. Edmonton lost two games in a row only once in these playoffs to the Kings.

Florida lost two games in a row only once in these playoffs. That was to Toronto. And so I'm not going to be surprised if Edmonton wins this game. But if they lose game four, then they're digging themselves a big hole. Not quite as big as what you mentioned being down 3-0 and having to win three in a row to get to, you know, a game 7. But a big hole. They are still, even with this loss, Mike, they are still six and four on the road in these playoffs. So I think you'd be foolish to automatically count them out. And they had a freak thing happen last night in their playoff history.

And that dry-sidle and McDavid did not score any points at all. That's bad for Edmonton. They're 2 and 11 in their playoff history when it happens. But the last time it happened twice in a row, Mike, if I have these notes correct, was 2021. It doesn't happen. regularly, and if they score, obviously, they have a chance. So I'm, you know, I'm more of the mind to think, okay, I like Edmondson's chances tonight, even though others might not. I do. Ton, I don't disagree with you about the bounce back and all the reasons you just led up to. I'm just saying a meltdown is not good because then your coaches got to deal with some things

and your captains and all that. They got to deal with some things on the off day they shouldn't have to be dealing with. They should just be countering Florida. And now they got some other stuff. So, you know, fascinating game four situation coming up. Let's move to the NBA. Our own Brian Winhorse reports the Knicks and Jason Kidd share a mutual intrigue about the Knicks head opening at Coach.

Kid is currently in that same role in Dallas, of course, and the Mavs would need to grant permission for Nix, the Nix, to speak with him. Tony, if you're J. Kid, would you want to leave the Mavericks and presumed number one pick Cooper flag for your New York Knicks. Okay, so that's a two-part question. The first part is, if I am Jason Kidd, I am leery about staying in Dallas right now.

The owner that I came in to work for, Mark Cuban, is not the owner anymore. There are new owners now of that team. I believe that the general manager, Nico Harrison, will be fired, and I believe he should be fired for the Luca Donchitz trade. And even though you and I are sort of inclined to believe that the lottery was fixed so the Dallas could get Cooper Planned. I'm not sure that I want to stay if I'm Jason Kidd.

But the other part of that is do I want to go to the Knicks? Well, let's look at Jim Dolan. Let's look at what happens with coaches who go to the New York Knicks. I've had something like nine different head coaches in 22 or 23 years. They're working on their 10th. So the shelf life of a coach in New York is very short. Do I want to look, they just fired a guy who went to the conference finals for the first time in over 20 years. Who does that?

Is that what you want to get involved with? Tony, this is a dilemma. This is a legit dilemma. I thought of you as this story began to percolate because going back, you were very early on when J.Kitt was in college. You were fascinated with J.Kidg. You always loved the way he saw the game. I love them. And as a coach, yes.

And so I thought of you and I'm like, aha. Tony will jump on this and love for Jason Kidd to go to New York. But it is a dilemma. You're right about it. It's tough. He doesn't know these new owners, Tony, who have a reputation of not so far, if any reputation, is not communicating with anybody. And if you're J. Kid, you're like, what am I doing here?

I don't know if Kyrie is going to be healthy enough to come back or even contractually will come back. I don't know what that is. Anthony Davis is a great player. We don't know how much of the percentage of time is going to be out there. is Cooper flagged ready to contribute and contribute right away and the New York Knicks want to win now

and maybe that's the intrigue tone. They're going to be involved with Kevin Durant I think more than Janus. I think... And Janus. Well, look, he coached Jaylen Brunson. He coached him for a few years. I understand the draw there.

But this is important to say. We've gone over this a lot. This is New York. This is Bright Lights Big City. This is splashy. They're not coming back with the exact same roster. They want something bigger and better because they think they're close. They could trade Carl Anthony Towns to get what they want.

So I expect that. There's hesitation on both sides. We move now to soccer. I love this story. Apparent beef between Christian Polisick's dad and all-time U.S. great land in Donovan. Donovan was on TV the other day marveling at Cristiano Ronaldo's great play

for Portugal against Spain. And Donovan said, quote, this is what it means to represent your country. And I can't help but think of some of our guys who are on vacation right now, not wanting to play the Gold Cup. It pisses me off, unquote. Christian Polisick is on vacation right now, not playing for the U.S. in the Gold Cup, for what he says is injury recovery. And his dad came back at Donovan using artificial intelligence to say Donovan had taken

a sabbatical from the U.S. team in 2012 and 2013 citing burnout. Wilmot, who side do you want in this one? Donovins or Polisics? This is hard for me, too. First of all, artificial intelligence has nothing to do with it. He took a break. That's fact. You don't need AI. Donovan did not play. Now, the other thing is half the U.S. team is not playing in the Gold Cup. Half the team, the guys that you expect to see in the Red, White, and Blue next summer in the World Cup, they're not playing in the Gold Cup. So, you know, I'm more with, the more I think about it, I'm sort of with Polisic's dad. I'm also a dad. And I get it. If somebody took a shot and I perceived it, my kid, I would come roaring back too. But Tony, you know, the team is in a funk already. They've

lost three straight games. I don't know where they go from here. And I'm not willing to blame it all on Christian Polisic, but he better be a big boy. He's the star of the team. He makes a ton of money internationally. He's in the crosshairs. That's fair. That's fair. So I'm on the side against artificial intelligence making an argument. I think if you have to go to a robot, to decide how you think that that's no good. Christian Policic's dad, not Christian Policicic, Christian Policic's dad was incredibly mean and nasty to Donovan. I mean, if you read that stuff, you go, whoa, whoa.

So we are in an era now of dads making news. We got Christian Policic's dad. We got Tyrese Halliburton's dad. Happy Father's Day to both of them. I don't know much about Christian Policicic. I'm not a soccer guy, but I know we're supposed to be great, except not everybody says he's great, like Alexei Lalis once very derisively called him Wonderboy.

I don't know his vacation schedule either. I don't know if he's on vacation or whatever, but I do understand if former players, like Lannin Donovan, and who's the other guy who was down there, Clint Dempsey, if they were chagrins, the American players were taking all this time off. Just remind me, Mike, because I'm not a soccer guy. How many World Cups have we won with Christian Polisic? Oh, that's right. We haven't won any.

How many we went with Donovan and Clint Dempsey? And how many of those guys? Lexi Lollis. None. How many do you win? Because here is my point. None. Because we are still 10 years away from being 10 years away.

That's who we are. Be careful. You're going to get yourself in trouble with the soccer purist. They're going to come after PTI. Oh. Coming up. How will the pace is trying to get Tyrese Halliburton back on track against the thunder? Well, they ask Brian Windorce.

Not his dad. Don't worry. We'll also ask him what he's hearing about any potential trades involving big stars in basketball. And we don't win anything. We're 20 years from being 10 years away. We are a co-host of the World Cup. You know how you stop? Yeah.

Criticism, win it. Game three of the NBA Finals isn't until tomorrow night, but we've got questions today for our great friend ESPN senior writer and the host of the Hoop Collective podcast, which I have seen. Mr. Brian Windhorst. Let's start with this game three tomorrow in Indianapolis. You're in Indianapolis. Tyrese Halliburton did Tyrese Halliburton things in game one, but not in game two.

Do you see that as an off night or as a product of how he was specifically defended? It's been an off two years for him against the Thunder. If you go back and look, Tony, at the last two years, that's six games. Two games last year, two games in the regular season this year, two games in this series. Halliburton can't get it done against him. He really has difficulty getting into the lane, getting in transition. You can tell in his shots, he only averages 11 shots, those six games. That's a pretty big sample size.

Just 11 shots. He can't get into his normal rhythm. And the other thing is he is being bothered by some sort of minor lower leg thing. You know, he doesn't want to talk about it. Frick Carlisle said he's in some discomfort. Maybe it's inhibiting him 5, 10%, but you just can't have that again. against the Thunder. The big thing for him is the number of shots. It's not like that for everybody, and I know that the Thunder or the Pacers have a Democratic offense, but when he scores over 20 points,

there's 7 and 1 in the playoffs. He also averages 11 assists in those games. So when he's getting shots, they're working. He's not getting the shots. It's because the Thunder is so good of keeping out of lane, and I don't see an antidote that's going to change that. Ah, let's go to Anadale for a second. Rick Carlisle has been wizard-like throughout the regular season starting in January and through these playoffs, as you know, Brian, in terms of just giving his guys or maybe a guy on a night an advantage, anything that you see or people talking about there

that might unlock Halliburton necessarily against that OKC defense. So the one thing that Pacers are so good at, and Carlisle game plans so well is finding matchup advantages. They hunted the matchup advantages that they saw that they had against the bucks. They destroyed the Cavs smaller perimeter, getting Halliburton and their other perimeter players in good matchups. And you saw what they did to Jalen Brunson and Carl Towns. But there's no weak links on this thunder defense.

And that's not an insult to Carlisle or the Pacers. That's just because this is how the thunder are built. And they have a hard time hunting those matchup problems. And not only that, they're playing a specific way against Pascal Siakum. They're just roughing them up. It has been their game plan all year long to rough up guys and let the chips fall more they may with the officials. The officials are allowing playoff contact. They're getting away with it, and it's slowing Seaccom down too.

Seacom can't get his shot numbers up. It's why beating the thunder four out of seven times, and now you're talking about beating them three more out of five is so difficult. We're all waiting for game three in Indianapolis of the finals. There's so much stuff going on. Chatter. Brian, I know you're in the center of reporting and listening to this and being interested in it. The mutual interest that we believe exists between J. Kidd and the Knicks.

Where is that now? Has it advanced? When do we expect those two to talk if we do? Yeah, so I believe that Jason Kidd is the Knicks focus. he's the guy that they want to make their next head coach. But obviously he's under contract with the Mavericks. And I would say, and you guys know this, when you have a player like Jason or a coach like Jason Kib,

you don't request permission to interview him. You're not bringing him in and asking him his philosophy when they're down three points or whatever. You're asking permission to hire him. So don't pay so much attention to the permission. What it will come down to is whether the Mavericks are willing to let Jason Kidd go. So as I see it, the Mavericks, the ball is in the Mavericks court now. they are aware of the Knicks interest

and they have one of three choices. Number one, they can just tell the Knicks no, we're not interested in losing it, we're not just in doing business with you, good luck to you. They can make sure Jason Kidd doesn't want to go to New York, which the way to do that is typically with a new contract. They just gave him one last year, but a lot

has changed on the Mavericks since he got that contract. Or they can trade him there. And we have seen three or four coaches get traded over the last couple of decades, including Jason Kidd back in 2004, 14, got traded from the bucks or from the nets to the bucks. And let me tell you, they didn't ask for permission on that one until it was already a done deal. They gave them two second round picks. So that's what the Mavericks have to do. They have to work through this, work through

this with Kidd, and they're the ones who are going to make the next move in this process. All right. Let me get you out of here on this. And we're talking about things, not necessarily about the NBA finals now, but more peripheral things. Are you hearing anything new? regarding big names who may be on the move, specifically Janus, specifically Kevin Duran, or anyone else. Yeah, let's talk about Janus right away. Okay, we are now in the beginning or the middle of almost of June. Yannes de Nicancoe is overseas. I believe he is in Brazil. He has not asked the bucks for a trade. Right now, as far as I am aware, there are no plans for a meeting with the bucks to ask for a trade. The bucks are not intending on trading him. They want him to return. They want him to return. They want

want to put their team back together and try to make another run next year. So right now, Janus is not going to be on the trade market. And I think we're headed for a draft situation where he is not a part of that. Will that stay the same? Let's check back. Let's see what the Bucks do with their roster. Let's see where Janus is at in July in August. But I don't think you're going to see Janus traded in the short-term future as far as I can see.

Don't feel that way about Kevin Durant. The sons are still doing business. They just introduced their new head coach, Jordanott, this afternoon. I expect them to move on to looking at the Kevin Durant trade market. The key thing with Durant is this. He has one year left on his contract, guys, which means if you are going to trade for him, he is probably going to want to sign an extension.

And that means he's going to want to participate in the process. The sons do not have to do that. They can trade him wherever, but it is more likely a team will give him more, give up more to get him if they think he's more than a rental. And to become more than a rental, he needs to be involved in the process. There's a handful of teams.

that I think have interest. The Knicks are one of them, but there's a handful of teams that I think we'll have interest, and we'll see how that plays out probably over the next couple of weeks. Thank you, Brian, as always. Enjoy the game. Brian, appreciate you, man. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. Let's take one last break still to come. Some big names in the NFL are missing from mandatory mini camps.

An A's outfielder, Denzel Clark, makes one of the greatest catches anybody has ever. Happy time, people. Happy 69th birthday tomorrow, Joe Montana. Quite simply, one of the best quarterbacks of all time, maybe the best. Okay, you will say, well, Tom Brady won seven Super Bowls and Montana only won four. But Montana won every Super Bowl he was in, and Brady lost a few. Like Brady, who was ignored in the draft for five-plus rounds, Montana wasn't drafted until the third round in 1979, coming out of Notre Dame with a national championship. Montana had an enormous impact in San Francisco under Bill Walsh. Montana to Rice, Montana to Clark, Montana to Taylor.

I would be very comfortable listening. Montana, Brady, and Unitas is the best quarterbacks ever. And you know what round? Unitas was drafted in, the ninth. Tony is having an argument with Don, discussion with my brother Don this weekend in which I said, Tom Brady's the goat. I don't have any argument against it. But Tom Brady never brought me out of my seat with a play.

Joe Montana did it regularly. I'm just saying Montana visually. And if I wanted to pay to see a man play the position of quarterback, I'm going with Joe Montana and John L.A. Bring you out of your seat like nobody else ever did to me. Not so happy anniversary, Tori Hunter, on this day, 10 years ago, in his 19th and final season, the nine-time gold glove outfielder objected so much to a called third strike that he proceeded to strip off all his equipment.

Excuse me, elbow guard, gloves, helmet, including his jersey in protest. It's great video. Hunter now 49 joined the Angels front office as a special assistant to the GM, position he held with the twins for about six years. Hunter was a five-time All-Star, two-time Silver Slugger. He hasn't made a dent on the Hall of Fame voting and will likely get a last chance next year. Hall of Fame or Wilbonne? Well, this Hall of Fame monitor comps are two of them, were Dwight Evans and Dave Parker.

Parker's end, Evans should be, so I lean toward that, and the Twins need to go back to those uniforms. Those are great classic uniforms. Happy trails to a home run for Nolan's Shanual. The Angels' first baseman appeared to hit his fourth home run of the season in the first inning last night, but A's rookie center fielder Denzel Clark scaled the wall and stretched to make a completely improbable catch. Look at the slack-jord reactions from pitcher Grant Holman and Shaniel himself. Clark's manager Mark Katsay said, quote,

I asked our bench coach Darren Bush, if he'd fallen over the fence, how would they have ruled that? That's about as far over a fence as you can get without going over, unquote. Clark made a similar but less spectacular catch against Toronto just last month. Hit another catch, a third where he runs and bounces off a wall, which we're not even having there. This guy's the greatest in the game right now. He has to be defensively. He's a rookie. He's the greatest as a rookie? The greatest?

Really? Right now. Here we go. Nobody better. Dion has been out of the office. It was an unspecified health issue. Your thoughts? Yeah, Dion and I share some health issues.

I don't know if this is one of those, but whatever it is, all the best. Absolutely to Dion Sanders. T.J. Watt, T.J. Y, T. Hendrickson, and Terry McLaurin, all missed the first day of mandatory minicamp. What's the biggest deal, Tom? They're all incredibly valuable. They need, they're going to get money. They have to. Scotty Sheffler is paired with Colin Moracow and Victor Hoblin to start the U.S. Open.

You like that? You know I have a favorite in that group, Mr. Moracow. I'm rooting for. T.J. Osi of the California. Capitals retired after 16 seasons. How are you going to remember his career? I remember the shootout goals he had in the Olympics, and I'll remember that he won a cup of the Capitals.

Last one, Yankees starter, Max Free, strikes go to 9-1-1 when he thinks he's to Royals tonight. Do you like his chances? Yeah, 8-1, 178. I do like his chances, Tom. We are out of time. We were trying to do better the next time. I'm Tony Kornheiser.

And I'm Mike Wilbon. Same time tomorrow, knock on the Uncle Hans. Tony, we lost sliced stone over the line. last few days. Everyday people is such a great song.