PTI - The Hottest NBA Moments From This Weekend

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss the the hottest NBA moments from this weekend and more 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. It's National Fun Day, Tony. What's fun for you?

I'm Tony Cornhide, three things. Playing golf, seeing movies, stealing my neighbor's packages. That's fun for me. They got stuff for that package stealing now. They will blow you up. They'll be dye all over you, all over your car, really? All over your clothes forever.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I love that term porch pirate. I just love the term. term. I think it's really good. Welcome to PTI, boys and girls. In today's episode, UCLA wins the women's bracket. The Lakers have issues, and Joe Adel brings back three home runs, but we begin today with Big News in Chapel Hill. North Carolina is hiring former Nuggets coach Mike Malone as its new men's basketball coach. UNC. had pursued Tommy Lloyd, Dusty May, and T.J. Otsleberger, but came up

empty. So the Tar Heels turned to Malone, who has never been a college head coach, but did win something called the NBA title with the Nuggets three years ago. Wilbon, does this hire makes sense to you? Let's just say it came out of nowhere to me, Tony, and I don't know if it makes sense yet. This is one of those things where it's like, whoa, can I see this for a month or so first? Like, can I get used to this before I even decide whether it makes sense? Mike Malone is a fantastic coach in the old-fashioned way we described coaches. X's and O's, handling of personnel, building a team, developing of players, bringing along

and instilling confidence in young players. All those things, Mike Malone has been terrific for Lentany. He grew up in the business. He knows what he's doing. You want a championship, as you said. But just a year ago, Tony, they sort of dismissed him in Denver. And his star player said, no, I'm not signing off on him. I'm signing off on the guys in this locker room

and Denver's back in the thick of things today with a different coach and Mike Malone has been on our set doing the shows at ESPN, the NBA shows. I did not see this coming, did you? No, not at all. I know you've been very critical over the years of Michael Malone

and so I respect what you're saying now. I didn't see it at all. If they wanted to get a pro coach, I assume they would go after Billy Donovan because Billy Donovan had been a college coach and won a couple of championships at Florida. No, I didn't see this coming. I'll say another thing.

He hasn't been in college. Malone's not been in college, I think, since 2001 when he was an assistant at one. Manhattan, maybe his dad coached Rhode Island for a while. Rhode Island was not exactly a power. He is a wonderful coach. But Mike, North Carolina, hired a pro coach in football last year, and I thought that was a disaster. And so I'm sort of doubly surprised. that this is going on.

I don't think of North Carolina and equate that to professional basketball at all. A lot of guys go from college to the pros. Brad Stevens did, Billy Donovan, went from college to the pros. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Rick Retino, John Caliparron, did not have any great success.

Not everybody goes the other way. I'm in a wait-and-see mode, and I am very surprised. Tony, I will say this, though. It's a new day. It's a new day. North Carolina is a professional program. You know, they're all

professional programs now, and so I'm confused. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Let's move to tonight's NCAA championship game between number one seed Michigan and number two seed Yukon. Michigan got here by blowing the doors off Arizona, 91 to 72.

Yukon got here in another close game with another key shot by freshman Brayland Mullins. Yukon beat Illinois 7162. Willbon, you have had all year to look at these teams. to which team do you give the edge? Tony, an edge to Michigan, an edge. And I'm presuming, of course, that Yaxel Landenborg

will be out there. We saw him come back after limping off to the dressing room. And I was like, oh, my God, can they afford to lose him? You know, I think he's the best player in the tournament and has been tournament long. So they have him back, apparently. Solo ball has a foot spray for Yukon. He's going to be out there.

They need him. I see Michigan having an edge. But as I told you this morning on your podcast, anybody who thinks that, you know, there's some Cinderella in Yukon is not paying attention. Yukon's a power. This is Ali Frazier. This isn't, you know, Ali and some dude in the Third Street gym. So to me, there's no surprise winner here, whoever wins it. But again, to answer your question, edge to Michigan.

It's a hard question for me. To which team do I give an edge? I know that Michigan is favored by seven and a half points. That really seems like a lot to me, seven and a half. And I understand, I get it. They've been killing people in the tournament. They've gone over 90 in all five games in the tournament. Their last combined margin of victory over the last two teams is 51,

and the last three teams, they've held the 37% shooting or worse. So they come in here rock solid, but let me go to your point about Yukon. Yukon, you know, seven and a half, really? Youcon plays close games and wins close games. Yukon beat Michigan State by four. They beat Duke by one. They beat Illinois by nine, but it was a closer game than that.

And they've had success in this game, the final game. This is the third year out of four that they're in the final game. Their shooter, Caraband? He's been in three final games now, and Danny Hurley is two and O in these things. So, yes, I will not be stunned if Yukon wins this game. I think Michigan, should win it.

I think their conference is better, you know, overall on the whole year. But I'm not going to be stunned if Yukon wins this. I'm really not. Well, I'm glad neither one of us will be. I don't understand some of the national sentiment I'm hearing. Let's move to UCLA's dominance of South Carolina yesterday in the women's championship game. The Bruins led by double digits in the first quarter. One by 28.

Gabriela Hockes led UCLA with 21 points, while Lauren Betts had 14 points, 11 boards, and was named the Final Four's most outstanding player, no surprise. The Gamecock showing disappointed. Just days earlier, they had dismantled Yukon, leading to inflammatory behavior from Huskies coach, Gino Oriema. Tom, what do you make of the team that won it, the team that didn't, and Gino's behavior on the way out? So I'm glad UCLA won because they're all seniors. They've been doing this for a while, and this is the reward. that you get. UCLA seniors

scored the last 173 points that UCLA scored this year. They scored all 130 points in the final four. Look, Mike, I don't know anything about the UCLA staff at all. I can't name anybody on it. But I watched UCLA against Texas and against South Carolina

demolish good offensive teams, hold them to half, half their normal production. So somebody in that room knows how to coach defense. And the game was terrible because UCLA made it terrible because they were dominating. In terms of South Carolina, Mike, honestly, I think they won the game they wanted to win. Um, Yukon is the dynasty in women's college basketball, not UCLA. UConn had pounded them last year. 23 points in the final. They

waited a year and they got their revenge by winning that game. And Mike, I'm not sure they were emotionally up for UCLA at all. I'll give you this one stat that's fabulous since 2007. And, Every time Yukon has lost in the tournament, in the tournament, the team that beat them went on to go one and ten, because the team that beat them thought they climbed the mountain by beating them. I'm going to back away from Gino. You feel stronger about than I do. I'll come back to it when you're done.

I'm going to take the rest of the time to deal with Gino, who was guilty of with not just the handshake, but the bogus apology and the fictionalizing of a ripped jersey, saying that the other team behaved like thugs and did it when his own player ripped their own jersey. is the disgraceful, disgraceful, excuse me, behavior of a massively insecure bully. It was petulant. It was classless.

The fictionalization of the ripped jersey is unbelievable. The apology didn't even address the person he offended. And it's just we're all taught to shake hands at the end of a game, no matter what happens maybe before a game. To shake hands at the end. He couldn't even do that. and he wandered away, and he lied on national television, round after round of interviews and accused South Carolina's players are doing something.

His own players did as if we don't have television. And the apology, the aftermath, all of it was disgraceful. Gino Oriema is one of the biggest figures in the history, deservingly so, of college basketball, and he behaved like a garden variety bum. And it's awful that he behaved that way. He took away from his own team season. He took the moment away from South Carolina.

He ought to be embarrassed. But at this moment, I don't think he has any shame. And these attacks, these public attacks on Pat Summit, Mufford McGraw, Don Staley. I could go on another day about those attacks and why they existed. They're awful. Let us move to the NBA and ESPN's favorite basketball team to talk about the Los Angeles Lakers. They were really hot. They'd won 16 of 18 by the middle of last week,

and now they're looking at life without Luca Donchich, who has a bad hamstring, and is flying to Europe for treatment, and they're looking at life without Austin Reeves for four to six weeks since he nurses an oblique injury. Wilbon, what is the state of the Lakers without Donchich and Reeves?

Tony, I don't want to be flip and say it's a rap. But look, with those guys in the court last year, they got sort of taken out in the playoffs by Minnesota. with them on the court. Now, they played together a year. They're hot now. They're a better team than they were a year ago, no doubt. LeBron just figures out what it is that he needs to do in a given week or month or a quarter and does it.

And they are really impressive, but they're not beating without those two guys who put up about what, 60 points a game. They're not beating Denver or Houston or Minnesota or, God, let's not mention Oklahoma. city in San Antonio. They're just not doing that without those guys tone. And it's too bad because the Lakers had turned into quite an impressive story. If the question is, what is the state that the Lakers are in right now? They're in a state of despair. They're in the capital city of the state of despair. Without these two guys, they are done DUN, you know, or something like that. It's just not going to happen. I mean, you know, they're losing, how do you replace 57 points? 13 rebounds and 14 assists a game.

Who replaces that? If these guys are out for four weeks, and that is the common term that people are talking about four weeks, they will not win the first round of the playoffs. They would not win if LeBron was 21 or 31, and he's 41. So they're just not going to win this. The shame of it is they were playing great. Luca Donchich had inserted himself in the MVP conversation.

I'm not saying the vote that you have to vote for. I'm saying he's in the conversation. No doubt. In the month of March, Mike, 38 points a game, eight, rebound, seven and a half assists and two steals. Best play. Can't lose them both. You can't. You can't, yeah.

Can't lose them both. You just can't. Let's take a break. Coming up, Yokic and Wenbanyama, go to OT. But the Cooper Flagg make the biggest NBA headline of the weekend. And what's the word for what Joe Adele did Saturday night? Man. I'll just go back on Gino, just to say this one thing.

There's no nuance there. What he did was wrong. He's incomparable as a coach. What he did was wrong. You have to mention Dawn Stanley in the apology. Let's see what's cooking with the commoners in mail time. We'll get the first week. Put on my glasses and read this.

Biggest deal of the NBA weekend. Cooper Flagg putting up 96 points over two games. Nicola Yolkich and the Nuggets besting Victor Wemba Njama and the Spurs in overtime. Or Steph Curry's return. Tony is not Steph Curry's return. I hate that it's not. But the Warriors can't.

remake their whole season just because Steph is back in the line. It was wonderful to see him out there yesterday. And my goodness, he played well coming back. But the Warriors are in the playing, and they probably won't get out of the plan, so it can't be that. And I'm not going to make it Cooper Flagg because Knieppel to me is still the MVP because it's a season. Not a weekend award, a season award, though.

Cooper Flag looks great. He looks better and better every night out. The kid looks like he's going to be the great player that almost everyone projected and good for Dallas they try to still recover from getting rid of Luca. No, it's Denver and San Antonio. Look, I picked Denver to win the whole thing at the beginning of the year, and they've had mostly a disappointing regular season. But when the big man, when Joker is on, he can go head-to-head with Wemby.

That's each guy picking on somebody his own size. Forget the result of the game. The nature of the game was a playoff game. It was fabulous if those two meet up. either one of them. Denver can win a game seven on your court or theirs. The development is Denver winning that game. Yeah, I have no disagreement with any of that, none whatsoever. That is a playoff series I would actually like to see. Denver is now won eight in a row and San Antonio had won 11 in a row. You're right about Curry. He's walking into a team that's six

games under 500. It's great, 29 points in 26 minutes. But let me go to Cooper Flag for a second because I think he's the rookie of the year. I do. Cooper Flagg did something that hasn't been done since 1962 to score a rookie scoring at least 45 points in consecutive games. Hasn't been done since 1962, Mike, when Walt Bellamy did it. He also became one of six rookies ever to score 45 points, at least 45, three times in a year. You want to know who they are besides Bellamy? Have you heard of Will Chamberlain? Have you heard of Michael Jordan?

Have you heard of Earl Monroe? Have you heard of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? So that is a category. That's a great list. That's a category that's unbelievable. and I'll just leave it at that. I'll go to the next one. It is.

It is an unbelievable catch. Walt Bellamy, I think, was overall number one pick, too. Way low many years ago. Yes, he was. Yes, long time ago. What's the word for Joe Adele robbing three homers in one game? How about Griffeyish? As you know, other than Willie Mays,

look, everything starts with your idol, Willie Mays, to me, in center field. And it's not center field, but outfielder, going up, snagging stuff. Great outfield plays. this, three of them in one game. I mean, Griffey never even did that. I mean, there's a kid, Denzel Clark. Remember for the A's last year? We had the video, Tony, of him doing like a couple of catches in a week.

Three in a night. It's astonishing he could come up with that sort of production and glove. And Tori Hunter, when Tori Hunter is in the dugout and says, yeah, yeah, yeah, this, this, Tori Hunter. It just gives it all the credibility you could have. Yeah, the word I use is, you know, unprecedented. And I'll go right to Tori Hunter, who had nine gold gloves in the outfield. He said, this is the greatest defensive game I've ever seen. It's a one-nothing game, Mike.

So every time he goes over the wall, he saves the game. Saves the game. The amazing thing here is that you can go a whole season and not get three shots at it in 162 games. Last year, the most home runs that were brought back, two different guys had four. One of them was Jacob Young on the Washington. nationals. That's over 162 games.

This was in one game, which leads me to ask you, it's Johnny Vandermere, is it? If nobody's ever done three before, who's going to break this? Who's going to go to four? That's not going to happen. It's remarkable. And the last one, when he falls in the stands, you go, my God.

I mean, that's it. That's about, that's enough email. Let's take one last break, still to come. Did Patrick Waugh deserved to get canned with four games left in a regular season? This is hockey kids. Are we going down that road again in it? NHL, Angel Reese was just dealt out of Chicago tone. I'm not even surprised.

Are you happy or sad? Are you happy or sad? I'm kind of neutral. I just never thought she'd be there long term. It didn't seem to be a great fit to me. And it's too bad because she's a star. Happy time, people. Happy 75th birthday, Burt Blyleaven.

Blylevin made the Hall of Fame in his 14th year of eligibility. It was a two-time World Series champion in 1979 with the Pirates, 1987 with the twins. He threw a no-hitter in 1977. Blylevin is fifth all-time in strikeouts with 3,701. 27th all-time in wins with 287. 14th all-time in innings pitch with 4,970. Numbers that will get you in Cooperstown now on your first ballot.

Justin Verlander has more strikeouts than any active pitcher. He's eighth all-time. Verlander has one strikeout so far this season. 148 more. We'll move him all the way up and pass Blyleven for fifth all-time, but Verlander just went on the 15-day injured list with hip inflammation. For 500 years, you knew what pitchers threw in baseball. And it wasn't a circle change, and it wasn't a four-seamer versus a two-seamer.

You had to have a good curveball. That's where Bert Blyleven had, one of the great curveballs, Uncle Charlie, of all time, right, Tony? I mean, he knocked your knees out from under your body with his curveball. Old-fashioned, curveball. Happy double anniversary, Mike Chisholves. on the state 34 years ago, Shishovsky guided Duke to their second consecutive NCAA title, defeating the FAB five freshmen of Michigan.

Then 11 years ago, Coach K led the Blue Devils to their fifth and most recent national championship, 6863 win over Wisconsin. The Blue Devils were led by Tias Joneses, 23 points. Shishovsky's one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time. For those who are growing impatient with John Shire,

who started at guard on Shishvsky's fourth national championship team, because Shire has not yet won a championship, it's prudent to remember. Shishowski went 10 seasons at Duke without winning one. Tony, I suppose you could have Hank Iba and Adolf Rupp high on the list. But Mike Schofsky is going higher on my list under only John Wooden in college basketball.

Mike Shishovsky, who spent generations into this latest transfer portal NIL. I mean, he's sort of got into the mouth of that river. Mike Shishvsky, everybody else, take a step back. Happy trails, Patrick Waugh. If you thought last week's firing of Bruce Cassidy in Vegas was late in the season, get a load of this. The Islanders fired Waugh with four games left in the regular season after losing four in a row and seven of ten and falling just out of the postseason field. The Hall of Fame goalie coached the Isles for two seasons going 97, 78, and 22.

He's replaced by Peter DeBore, who took the Dallas stars to three straight Western Conference finals before getting the axe last year. seemingly to fire Patrick Waugh? How do you even convince yourself you should tell the great Patrick Waugh get out? How do you do that? Yeah. Well, he can't hear you because he's got Stanley Cup rings in his ears. Let's go to the big finish. Your Chicago Sky traded Angel Reese to the Atlanta Dream

for two first rounders. Does that make sense? I don't know. She was a rebound champ last year. The Sky went one in 13 without her in the lineup. But it didn't seem like it was going to last long. I don't know what to make sense of that. JJ Spahn when the Valera opened his first victory since last year's U.S. Open. You want to break it down? Yeah, he came from two or three back.

He shot 67 on Sunday. You know, it's a great year for him. I mean, starting with the open. Doc Rivers, Mike Dan Tony, Amari Stottomier, and Candace Parker, headlined the Basketball Hall of Fame class. You're happy about that? I know them all. Love them.

Two of them are great Chicagoans and friends. Doc and Candace, yes, I'm happy. Oklahoma freshman softball star Kendall Will says 30 homers. In 40 games, you have to be impressed. Well, the record is 37 in 72. So yes, I'm impressed. Last one, Bulls fired head of basketball, Arturis, Cornishivus, and GM Mark Eversley.

Didn't they just trade away your whole team? You don't blame Mark Eversley. Blame A.K. Cornishvishvist, he's the one who deserved to be fired before now. They gotta start over. I hate to be blaming Mark Everston. Stop. We're out of time.

Try to do better the next time. I'm Tony Corrinheiser. Bulls are so pathetic. I'm Mike Wilp. I'm Mike Wilp. Same time tomorrow, knuckleheads.