The Ringer NBA Show - The Knicks Pull Off a Stunning, Historic Comeback to Win Game 4 | Group Chat

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Justin, Rob and Kyle catch their breath enough to fire up the microphones after a historic Game 4 of the NBA Finals. They kick things off breaking down the finer details of OG Anunoby’s absurd game-winning tip-in before shifting to the Spurs’ side and discussing De’Aaron Fox’s questionable decision making down the stretch. The guys then move into talking through how much of the game was the Knicks coming back vs. the Spurs melting down and whether or not it’s possible for San Antonio to recover after such an epic collapse. Then, they close things out with their final thoughts heading into Game 5. (00:00) Intro (0:15) Knicks Comeback to win Game 4 (8:16) Spurs' meltdown (48:12) Thoughts heading into Game 5 Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney and J. Kyle Mann Producers: Victoria Valencia and Ben Cruz The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Buy any two Ferrero Brands and you could win $1 million. Visit GoAllInAndWin.com to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to group chat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me, Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle, man. What's going on? What did we just witness? I'm still not sure, but do we want to open with like 20 to 30 on your garden before we get to the garden? Or you zoo substituting for citrus as you guys. It's good talk. It's good chatter.

We could, but my brain is just a replay of Go New York, go New York, go on a complete loop because I can't actually put thoughts together because we first witnessed one of the historic shooting performances in the first half, and then that gave way to one of the biggest finals comebacks we've ever seen. Holy shit, Rob. Why don't we just go around the horn saying, holy shit in different ways? Holy shit? Holy shit.

Holy shit. I think this is genuinely the most insane playoff game of my lifetime, certainly of my sentient basketball lifetime. For all the reasons you just described, And the Knicks had every chance after embarrassing themselves in the first half in front of Adam Sandler and the Hymn sisters and everybody to just like pack this thing in. Well, yeah, I mean, two is a crowd, the majority, the quorum of Hymn sisters. They could have just like packed it in and played for game five. And instead they took a stand and did something genuinely unthinkable with all-time resolve.

It's always crazy watching basketball history happen right in front of you. But O.G. and at O.B., welcome to basketball history. Yeah, I mean, that's going to be a mural somewhere in one of the burrows, I would assume, just him like, you know, we can get into the details of the play. But, I mean, like, in this game, within this game, we saw two of the most epic meltdown crashouts that I've seen in recent memory. I mean, should we just go half by half? Like, start because there was two crazy stories within, yeah. I know, I know. Well, we start with the end.

And let's start with that final play, because as I was going through it, I had two pretty. bold reactions. One was like, what is Jalen Brunson doing? Because he took an ISO ball play on the first possession before that. And then he kind of pulls up from pretty deep. But then when I see OG kind of have a free rein to the rim, I was like, was that planned in advance that he was putting it up there in order to get the putback? And having said that, where are the bodies on OG? Pretty much the entire game, you're like, oh, OG and Annanobi, open again, wide open. And he's just drilling shot after shot for shot. And he's just wide open free rein to the rim. And he's just wide open. free rein to the rim and nobody boxes them out.

I'm just like, how? How so many times did they blow that? Well, I'm not looking at the box score right now. I'm not convinced he has missed a three at any point of this series. From the corners, it just feels as automatic as it has ever felt. But yeah, the strategic decision to not have a defender on the endbounder, you kind of understand it conceptually in a one-point game, right? Like something that's this close.

You want to have the extra body to kind of roam the paint. You want to maybe have some flexibility if you're going to be switching this much to opportunistically double. but good Lord, you got to put a body on that guy. And in the Spurs defense, Oji and an Obey, just like an 100th percentile effort to sprint in and get a hand on that ball in the first place out tipping. I think it was Dylan Harper and Devin Vesel who were basically there to scoop it up if OG had been like a half a fraction of a second late on that play. Yeah, you got to know that in that situation, granted they'd called it, you know, there had been some loose ball fouls on the offensive glass for, you know, Carter Bryant trucking cat throughout this game and the past game.

There been a lot of trucking going on, but you had to kind of, they were watching the ball fly through the air. Granted the play the sequence before that, Josh Hart, you know, speaks to the speed of the NBA game. And Josh Hart just for a moment watched a shot in the air and Castle swooped in and got an offensive rebound that was, he almost converted, which would have been cataclysmic for New York, considering all the effort they put in coming back. but I thought Fox was just kind of true. They should have just sent an onslaught to the glass

and just hit somebody because I don't think they were going to call something in that situation. You've got to have the president. And maybe they were tired. I don't know. There were a lot of mental lapses in that second half, but I thought that they would have gone to the glass harder as a unit. Well, and to wind it back a little bit,

was it not OG who also got the stop on Deeran Fox on that leakout and transition as well? Why did Fox try that? Of all the people to try that against, that was the one. And I was like, dude, you got to like pull this out. Like, maybe he thought he was going to get fouled, but I didn't like that decision. Yeah.

Like, why didn't he just pull it out in ways clock or at least force a foul a couple seconds later? It's just like, and then that gave way to the Alvarado just almost getting a back court violation. And we all learned like that your body can go back there, but the ball does not be. That was crazy. He clearly knew the rule. Yes. If you're a small guy, I got to know. Pressure that hard.

I assume he just has that like dictionary definition in his mind here. I think Dierrin Fox's decision, basically. down the stretch of this game was absolutely maddening. You know, he is supposed to be the calming influence for the spurs. He's supposed to be the steady hand in these situations. They give him the ball over Castle and Harper in some of these situations. For one, it's just really clear that he's too much of a make or miss jump shooter to really occupy that role for this team. Like, he doesn't have the stability to drive and finish or even really draw contact in a way that you want your lead guard to in that moment. But in this spot specifically, I mean, they get the

tap out in transition. It is a crazy loose ball. I think. think the play ends up ending at like 11 seconds. Easily could have dribbled it out and drained clock. Easily could have kind of taken the chance to actually calm things down. And instead, I would say he makes the Drew Holiday play from the Bucks championship run. Remember, Drew wrote through that crazy alley-up to Janus that if he misses is an infamous play. They didn't miss. Darren Fox does.

And now I think this has to hang around him. This game was in his hands, maybe more than anybody else's. and he blew it, he threw it away. I think you saw the tide shift really. I mean, I tweeted this out. I mean, the hot shooting of the first half, I think, just gave them, you know, the malaise and the fog that the Knicks were wandering around in, where they were trying to find the ground, find their resolve, find their composure, their will to fight back. During that time, the spurs were playing so loose that it just got a little too loose.

that sequence at the start of the third quarter where five one of my friends that I you know you have your people you kind of I don't know if you all are this way or you all seem like you're really dialed in I mean I have my people I have ongoing dialogues with during the game and I text you back well I text you don't always answer so I'm just like barking up the wrong text friend tree here we're locked in man I can't do two things at once yeah well I'm just kind of but anyway so I mean I was texting him and I it was pretty hilarious because I was like man that was a terrible shot, the Champany one. And then I was like, ooh, that's two straight, bad, threes in a row, three straight in a row, four straight in a row, five in a row. And as that's

going on, like, the Knicks are slowly kind of like going from this like melted goo on the court at MSG. And suddenly they took physical form again. And they were like, wait a minute, we can, you know, I thought that was the turning point. That was the, that was when the shift happened in the game, in my opinion. Yeah, I want to get into this more in detail, but we have a weirdly time break that we need to turn to right now. So why don't we all take a deep breath? You kid me? Just take the bridles.

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So as Kyle was kind of alluding to before the break there, the Spurs, despite the hot shooting in the first half, four for 20 in the third quarter, just in totality in that third quarter. And then you had the late mistakes that we mentioned,

And even the final play where was Harper, I believe, imbounding to Castle, the ball was just like too low for him to even get a shot up from there. As much as this was a historic, miraculous Knicks comeback, and we got to give them all the credit they deserve all the credit. It kind of was the spurs melting down in a way that I've never seen, but I guess we should expect to a certain degree for a team this young and that has proven in these sort of tight situations that, like, the Knicks really do have that edge there.

I mean, it takes two to make history. Like you need the historic implosion to make the historic comeback. I thought the only moments where the Spurs looked like they were in control in the second half where there were a couple of Dylan Harper drives that were very direct, like straight downhill. He felt in control. I know we, I mean, just our parodies of ourselves, we're talking about Dylan Harper a lot of the time, but bumping through OG and Inobie for just like an easy turnaround, not a normal thing. And so I don't think we have to be normal about it.

Those possessions I thought were good. And then there were like the Wembe literally batting the ball to himself off the rim possessions that felt like he had a tact like a tangible advantage that he was flexing to get some interior scoring. Other than that, they really just were chucking threes out here. And it felt like as soon as the shot stopped falling, not only did they not have any other plan, they had kind of let go of the rope in terms of forcing any other issue that they just started settling for even more shots, even more shots. And not to point the finger at only Fox again, but I thought he was one of the worst culprits about setting. meddling for some of those, where at least the other guys, it was the result of action, right? It's like you're kicking out to an open shooter, some of those looks for the Champany types. I thought were at least the kind of shots that were going for them in the first half that built the lead in the first place.

Instead, they just kind of ended up bearing the spurs, too. Yeah, I need to go back and rewatch it, but it did, were those off paint touches? Because a few of them didn't feel like they were. Some of them weren't. When I was watching live, where I felt like the spurs kind of forgot where the tension and release is within the way that they play. they weren't getting to the basket. And the Knicks did, I mean, they shut off the water. And I just felt like their discipline to execute to get into the paint

has been the thing that swung the momentum in their direction to begin with. In game three, and then in game four, they come out and just stomp a mud hole in the first half. And then I thought they just got away from, and the Knicks, that's a credit to the Knicks that they are such a good, you know, sound defensive team schematically, that they were doing a great job keeping them out of the paint. And the Spurs found some ways to do that. There was one play that they kept running. I didn't know really what the name of it was,

but it was like a delayed stagger where the second screen was Wimbonyama. And he would come up and instead of setting it immediately where Castle was running off of it, he would run off of the first one, have a head of steam. Wimby would come up to set the second screen and then just slip it or ghost it.

And he got in the paint. So there were a lot of little dials that they had turned. And when they kind of just were settling for the threes, I felt like that was them getting away from the thing that had kind of given them the upper hand on the Knicks, and the Knicks took advantage of it and roared back. Very much so. So 14 made threes in the first half. That is a record in the finals for a half.

San Antonio also had 76 points in the first half. That's a record for a road team in the first half in the finals. But you guys are right. It seemed like they were just too enamored with the perimeter shot. They kept just chucking it up there. And I also felt like that spurred some of the ball movement that we'd seen the Knicks kind of thrive off of thus far. Like broken plays, giving way to like slow breaks the other way. And then everyone was scrambling.

It just seemed like the ball started to ping in the way that the Knicks have just thrived off of this entire postseason. 13-0 run in that third quarter. Castle has the fourth foul. I think that also opened the floodgates a little bit. But still in that fourth quarter, Rob, like it was still within reach. It was like 15 points. And it just didn't feel like the Knicks were getting over that hump. I was waiting for them to go with a little bit more offensive leaning lineup,

and I was ready to come on this podcast being like, oh, man, like, you can't just trade baskets when you're down this much. Like, why aren't they just, like, trying to do more of that? I felt like Alvarado in those sort of, like, lineups where they were essentially five-out, Kat started playing better. But, like, Elvarado and, like, being opportunistic, making shots when they were forward to them, when they blitzed Brunson, like, I felt like that was the deciding factor of, like, taking the comeback to that next level.

Yes, I think the blitzing especially. Like, you just need one more ball hand. handler on the floor in those situations. And I thought this wasn't the best Josh Hart game, as far as, like, being that kind of pressure release. Kat had such a weird night in the early foul trouble and then just like really tentative in some other spots as well. Like, he wasn't exactly the answer as that goes.

I just can't, I can't wait for the continued hand-wringing over the Jalen Brunson Hero Ball experience. The hero ball that spurred the Knicks in the third quarter that forced the traps that ultimately they were playing out of down the stretch. I don't know. Turns out this guy's pretty good. Well, those last two possessions, though, pretty dicey.

I think, look, you got to dance with the one Run Hoongya, you know? Like, he got them there. I think he deserves those shots. Josh Hart needs to buy O.G., a car. Oh, my God. Literally a car. Like, not dinner, not wine, because those Nick's moments live forever.

You want to ask, you know, Patrick Ewing, about missing that flow, that finger roll in the lane, that shit lives forever. And if Josh Hart's blown transition layup that could have taken the lead, that would have been an all-time matzabal hanging out, and OG saved his ass.

And losing Castle on top of it, on that offensive rebound. Two of them, you're right, yeah. If you just want to run down the last couple minutes in terms of some of the insane things that happened, one of the reasons I think Brunson deserves some of those final looks, the step-up three he hit over Wemby, for me was the oh-shit moment of the comeback. It's like, oh, not only is this real,

this is the exact kind of crazy shot you have to hit to pull this off. You got the Josh Hart smoked lay-up in transition, Spurs up one, Wemby goes to the line, bricks both free throws. I mean, just excruciating in retrospect. You got the Castle Josh Hart play and Fox blowing it in transition with OG saving it, and then the OG put back on top of it. I mean, it's just crazy on crazy on crazy all the way down. The Cat 3-2 was crazy, yeah.

Can we talk about Brunson though? Just toward the end there. Because I hear what you're saying where he kind of is the guy that they turn to in those moments. But I just felt like Kat getting past the foul trouble. and really being engaged in that fourth quarter. Unlike he had been before. I think, like, when he hit that three, those were his first fourth quarter points

this entire series, which is a world to think. It just felt like things were moving in a way that fits, like, their personality. This is how they've rattled off so many wins this postseason. You were fine with the two Brunsson-Late Buck as the one going at Wembe late, and then the deeper three, because he was out there. Like, he wasn't quite game-lowered logo style,

but, like, he was there, and it was quick. And so I don't know, I didn't love the two looks that they got ultimately there. They weren't the best that Brunson manufactured. I mean, you could even see on one of them, like he had to pass out of it to even reset the play in the first place. He wasn't getting the same kind of separation he had been earlier in the game. But even so much of that good stuff they were generating driving kick or getting it too cat to maneuver out of was coming off of a Brunson drive in the first place in a lot of those sequences. And so I still want the ball in his hands in those moments.

And I think the way he played in this game, the way he scored, the way he bound, the way he bowed, balanced the attacking, but also setting other guys up. I'm good with the premise. I'm not saying the shots are completely perfect or exactly the look you want under those circumstances, but I mean, you just have to make some of those to pull off games like this. And sometimes when you're in the midst of an all-time comeback, you just have to make some of these improbable shots. You just have to pull some of those rabbits out of your hat.

I liked enough of what Brunson was setting up. The end result of those last two looks weren't the best. They weren't ideal. They weren't the exact shots you want, even under those circumstances. but he generated so much great action for them all throughout the second half. And including some of the best stuff that Kat was facilitating or the best stuff that OG ended up converting, those plays usually started with Brunson either beating a guy one-on-one off the dribble or passing well out of the trap to get the other Knicks going in the first place.

I don't think they had any choice, but to go that direction, you know, the time that it takes for Brunson to get in, you're weighing the time that it takes Brunson to get to his spots or whether you're playing pitch and catch and then trying to get to your spot versus The fact that the Knicks have just been forced to, now granted, they have the ability to play longer in the clock than any team that the Spurs have played in the playoffs this far, versus how long it takes Brunson to do this. This is a stat I kind of pulled up.

So of the Spurs opponents in the playoffs, teams that have had possessions of five passes or more, the Knicks are by far producing the most. And let's see, the highest is at 1.355 points, for possession. Second highest is the Thunder at 1.03. So significantly better. So I'm just saying that they weren't going to be able to play that game and play the blender game and chew up time because the math just didn't work. So it was either they were going to have to get like 50 transition buckets, which I haven't checked it. They might. I don't think they got 50 or anywhere

close. But I think they had to kind of take a different route to kind of make that happen. So they had those little like clips in between like the coaches in the locker room. And after I believe the Spurs went up 12-2, Kat gets the two fouls. We could talk about the fouls and then the refs and Wembe and all that stuff. That's going to be another hour of this podcast. But there was the like inside the locker room before the game, and Mike Brown's literally like, it's all about the start of the game.

This is the, it all comes down to how you start. You got to start fast because that's going to dictate how this goes. And obviously the Spuror is just completely clobbered things going. Did it just seem like to you guys, it was just the shots, just unbelievable, like the fouls on cat plus the unbelievable shot making for the spurs, or were they doing something in order to get out to that gigantic? The shot making was clearly historic and unbelievable, but honestly, those looks have been there for the spurs.

They were there in game three. You could see in game three, I thought Castle and Fox came out looking for that exact same read and were hitting it and hitting it, the spurs just weren't converting those open threes. And so this time they were hitting those shots. really what a lot of it is is the way the Knicks are trying to defend the pick and roll is this high tag and recover that requires them to ease in from the weak side

to clog the lane so Wembe doesn't get a free run at the rim and so then like Devin Vassell, Julian Champany, Dylan Harper sometimes, whoever's out there, somebody's wide open on the weak side and the Spurs team absolutely dialed in on that look over and over and over and over and it was just punishing. But it was punishing in a very, like a predictable way given the way that the Knicks have been guarding in this series.

Yeah, I mean it's a good. combination of you could really see, and I was ready to come on. Speaking of things we were ready to talk about, I was ready to talk about how the Spurs had figured out how to really stress the weak links in the chain for them, whether it be sham it or Brunton. They were putting Brunton in all kinds of, honestly, at times, mean-spirited off-ball screens to get Dylan Harper on him. Dylan Harper had moments where I was, again, was ready to come on here and talk about how Duane Wade 2.0 is upon us, a bigger version. And he still is amazing. those things are still all valid.

But yeah, they were doing a great job finding those. And in game three, you were talking about how those shots were there. I think that was the difference between the balloon lead and the close game that we saw in game three. And I just thought, do we want to talk about the call? Because on one hand, I was relieved. I was dreading talking about the officials because it just seemed like it was going to be the thing that stuck the life out of the fun of this basketball game. But, I mean, it did affect the beginning of the game. At this point, like, next time.

probably would have murdered somebody in the streets. Oh, yeah. If it had been a one possession game and we were talking about the Lou Cornette Gold Tent. It's getting brutal out there. Just like leave Brian Winhorst alone this year, please. Or just like anybody in his Spurs? Spurs fans, yeah.

Did you think you were watching a sketch when, I honestly thought it had to be a setup when like a doughy white guy in an Adidas era, Tim Duncan jersey with the wide shoulders and cargo khaki shorts was proudly walking down the street. I thought it looked like the Larry Bird bit from, um, blanking the John Carlo Esposito, Spike Lee, whatever. It just looked like a sketch.

I was like, that's the most stereotypical kick my ass dude. He might be a list of this show. I'm sorry. I just thought it was like the most, I thought it was a setup at first. I was like, that's two, that's two. That's two stereotypes.

Watching group chat. I was just shocking. by that video. I hope that guy's okay, but I'm with you in the sense of like, I just don't know what is real anymore. You know, like, he's a false flag. He was like, Tim Duncan, Adidas air, a wide air. I was like, what are you doing? Look, in a world where my Christian's Dior guy is a false flag, I'm just willing to believe anything.

Wait, what? We can't even get into it. That guy was a plant? Everything is a plant now. No. I love that guy. I'm sorry. Christian Dior?

Kyle, we can't, again, we can't. even go that far. Let's just keep them over there. My bagels, Jewish, my Mayor's Muslim, my Christians, Dior, Nixon, four. Oh, okay, sorry.

The street poet who supposedly came up with that, I don't know, I'm under the impression based on the supplementary materials and evidence that maybe that guy is a plant. If I couldn't have been shocked one more time. I know, I'm sorry.

God damn. No, but I think the big issue, just with the refs, this entire series is just the consistency. If you're going to go over, and call everything, that's one thing. Or if you're not going to call anything, that's another thing.

It's just the game-to-game fluctuations where it's like, yes, Carl Anthony Towns was hooking Wemby. He does it all the fucking time. They all do it all the time. They're all Jocelyn. They're all doing that. That's a final physical game. And like, I just don't know how you could pick and choose this one over some of the ones in

the past, especially coming off of what we saw in the last game with Wembe throttling Jalen Brunson. I have to wonder, like, maybe they were over-correcting. at the start because of that, I don't know, but just like, it's been bad. The referee has been bad thus far in the finals. Yeah, they just missed a lot of stuff, especially in that first half. I wouldn't even go as far as to say it's like tilted in one direction or another because the Knicks were still getting a lot of calls too and had a dramatic free-throw advantage.

But like the Luke Cornyette, non-goldent, that was awful. Like, that was such a terrible decision. I was prepared to just punt all that stuff in the trash because at the point where you're allowing the spurs to shoot. 65% from the field with like zero or maybe one turnover. I just don't think the officiating is having that big of an impact on the game. Clearly it got much closer than that. Clearly, the Knicks will themselves into it.

And mercifully, they are so good in the clutch. We don't even need to worry about it from the winning and losing perspective because I think the Knicks would probably be the team with the greater grievance as far as all that stuff goes if somebody were to make the complaint about it. But New York has shown if the game is close, they probably will just go out and grab it. And that's certainly what ended up happening. Yeah, and I understand from the perspective of if you're the Knicks and you're just thinking, you know, because they, I mean, they obviously let it affect the way they were playing.

They lost their minds. They did. I mean, they melted down. Cat at one point was like the play where he was coming across the lane and just like, you could see him just sort of, you could tell how exasperated he was and he's just falling into people and just his arms are going everywhere and everything like that. And I was like. Elvarado take down where he didn't get him the first time. so he just tried, like, a judo move to try to bring him down.

Very effective. I was shocked that wasn't, I mean, that was like intense. That was okay. I was surprised by that. That was not a basketball play. I mean, turned around and lifted his leg off the ground. I thought that was. The benefit of being a small guy.

It's true. I'm glad that that didn't, didn't. My kind of thing was, you're right. I mean, the only way for us to, you know, approach this is to look at this of at, look at it like this where, yes, it was super inconsist. And going back and watching the games, people got mad at me early on for saying that Carl was hooking, a lot of hooking, a lot of grabbing, which is a common strategy. Ask Isaiah Hartstein.

Like, this is what they do. This is what you kind of have to do. You got to got to play in the margins of in between. Go ahead, Rob. Not just a common strategy. I would go as far as to say as Carl Anthony's had a mostly very good series. That clamp is basically his signature move. Like, he does that specific thing all the time.

Well, what I was going to say about that is I think Wimby came into this game. I think he knew I'm going to get myself in the position to get this call. He knew it. Because people were like, why didn't he pull his arm out, blah, blah, blah, blah. The initial pin was there. It was no different than like if somebody hit you and you just blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, why didn't you regain your balance after he put? It's like the initial thing.

He clearly went in there with that mindset. It was, it was tough. And then the first play of the game, they drove the ball right. And the other thing about this, too, is that like, from crew to crew, we've all seen this. not consistent. And I, when I was looking down the horizon, and I was like, the Zarba crew is coming in here, and this is probably what's going to happen. I thought that it was going to favor the spurs at the beginning it did, but credit to the Knicks for getting their composure back after, because, I mean, for God's sake, Wu-Tang played to silence at half-time.

What the flying... I think this is the thing that's being revealed about Wemby. We all knew that he had some shit to him. And let's just be honest, a lot of the guys from Europe and France, just kind of play with this sort of, let's call it an edge when it comes to the in-between-the-line sort of thing. If Rudy Gobert is his mentor. There's a lot of Rudy in what Wembe does. You're saying there's the spirit of Nick Batume hitting Juan Carlos Navarro and the Nuts in Wimby. That's right.

But, I mean, clearly in the beginning where he's telling Mitchell Robinson that I'm in your head, and it did seem like he was trying to bait him into that Flagon to start the game. Like, I think he was going in there looking to exacerbate certain things. Maybe he wasn't in the park, like, drawing pretty pictures. Maybe he was plotting out how to fuck with these guys and order to pull a little Reggie Miller action going on here. Machiavellian Wembe, just like pulling puppet strings until, guess what, he got all tangled up in him.

He just lost track of it in the second half. He was then in his own head. What a poet, Rob Mahoney. No, this goes to something that Tyler and I made up on a playoff pod one time, which is called The This Fucking Guy Provision, which is whenever they go back and review a flagrant, if a guy is being this fucking guy, it gets revoked. So if they feel like a guy was kind of being, you know,

and Wimby had a couple of those where it was like he kind of put his face in there a little bit. That's the thing about it's just like, I can't tell, because people are getting frustrated with him drawing in the park and things like that. I just, I don't know that there's some, I think that's just who he is. Like I think he's just kind of Kareem weird. And I don't think that there's a person like you and I in there that is just choosing to be sort of odd or choosing to do these things that seem I think that's just, I think that's who he is.

But it's hard to excuse me. I mean, he clearly was going in there trying to game the game a little bit tonight. I feel like he's been pulled. I agree with you. I think he is Kareem weird. I think that is his personality type. I think that's the sort of energy

that he's bringing to most things. But people almost seem to respond to him as if he is like cardigan wearing, reading Sylvia Plath at the coffee shop, performative male. And I think that's just like a totally different phenotype that is not the energy that he's, spring.

That's a big cardigan. We're talking cash beer? I'm not 100% sure I agree with that part of it. It does feel like he does this in a very public showy way, but he's just like a giant person in the shock of the century. You would think that. Justin. Well, no, I've been going back and forth in this in my brain because like I would typically

be super annoyed by this behavior. In part, like I think if anything, I've been doled by the fact that everyone jumped to this conclusion already. Like when Jacobi's out here going on for. on diatrives. I'm basically like, I can't live up to this. I might as well just sit back and go to the other way on that. Wimby gets fouled more than anybody since Shaq.

I mean, Yokic too. That's the other thing. Do we agree or disagree with that? I think it's he gets it's absurd what people get away with doing him. Like the shivers to the back, like it's crazy. He shouldn't fly off the handle and elbow somebody in the neck, but you know.

Yeah. I think it's you know, maybe it's because like who am I to judge. Like, I'm finding salvation in a couple cucumbers. Like, if Wembe finds that, like, his mind is cleared by just doing these, like, silly things, like, going and drawing or, like, reading a couple pages, like, who am I to judge that? Right? I think where I really get kind of, like, where it goes a little bit overboard is just when I think sports writers, frankly, are probably the ones to blame with, where they connect the cause and effect where it's like, Wemby quieted his mind by, like, going and taking a bath.

And that's how he won, game three. It's just like, you had the anecdote floating around today where he just, like, walks around and barefoot in order to ground himself. And then there's like the connection where it's, like, that's weird to begin with. But it's like, I don't know, who cares? I'm barefooted all the time. I grew up in Kentucky. That's a true story.

So nothing weird about that. Do you find yourself more grounded than the rest of us? Justin, do you want us to ask you about your cucumber? What was that little nugget you dropped there? No, I think we've done enough garden talk for one week. I think you are right, though, JV. Like, all, there's a lot of bait there. And we at sports writers, as media types, are incredibly guilty of, like, you find an

interesting detail, and it must mean, not just something, it must mean the thing, like, the defining aspect of a player's personality or if they're competitive spirit or whatever it is. So, yeah, the cult of Wembe is a little out of control. Some of that is, frankly, he just puts himself out there in ways that other modern athletes, especially in the NBA, really don't. Most of these other guys are so guarded. And so, yeah, there is something about him that maybe wants you to know about the monks a little bit,

maybe wants you to see him barefoot, maybe wants you to see him in the park sketching, whatever that may be. All of that being said, like the subplot as far as all this goes, this fucking guy provision now of the NBA finals, is we are one more flagrant away from Victor Webb and Yama being suspended for one of these games.

And that's an area where, if I were a Knicks fan, I would feel pretty rightly miffed about the game three, should have been flagrant shove on Jalen Brunson that was just hand waved away by the NBA today. I just do not see how that is an irrelevant non-flagrant play. Yeah, and this is where if I were the Knicks, I would just be an outrage to the league office. Because, yes, once he got this flagrant in this game, I believe in the third quarter for, was a nailing cat in the head. In the jaw, yeah, just like an elbow straight up.

I thought cat was concussed. Did you see the way his jaw moved when he hit? I mean, that's a tough hit. If you've ever been hit on the bottom of the chin in basketball, it's a sharp, really painful hit. That's why they wear the strap, right, because of concussions and football, right? So your head, I thought that, your jaw, maybe I'm a mistake. No, I think you're right.

I'm talking to my helmet guy lately, but I'll double check on that one. Well, that's the thing about Wimby is, like, now you're in this position where how do you control, his control is amazing. We're going to have to see how amazing it is because I don't think he meant anything by that play. I think his limbs are just so big. Now it's like on a closeout. Oops, my size 50 feet just kind of happen to swoop.

Like, this is going to be really precarious for him going forward. So he has three now as a result of today's flagrant. Should have four based on the Brunson shove. And this is now the second time that the NBA goes to the review after the fact. Don't ding him after the fact or add anything to his record here. That's bullshit. Like, on the one hand, I don't want to. want him suspended for a high-stakes game.

And I almost wonder if, like, this only compounds the advantage because the NBA probably knows that. And I think at the very least in the back of your mind, if you're a referee, don't want to throw Wembe out of one of these games in the future if it comes to it. And so it's getting really dicey really quickly. I just don't know what you do about it at this point, but it is just another thing for Nick's psycho fans to be able. I think kind of feeding into the idea of Wembe as the NBA is Golden Boy.

and that's going to make him a villain in the eyes of a lot of fans of other teams who feel wronged by these sorts of situations. You're right, though. We don't want Wemby to not play. This is a better series if Wemby plays every game. But the points are the points. And if he's racking him up enough to get suspended, he deserves to sit out one of these games. You could understand where people would feel some conspiratorial spirit about this, because not only is he the perceived face of the NBA, but there's a lot on the line with Wimby globally, where I think he has the first chance.

among, I mean, in a while, maybe since, I mean, LeBron's on this level, but I just think that the international appeal with him where he could kind of dip into that level of it. Because it's funny what's going on in America right now, if you know what followed this, where FIFA athletes are in America and Americans are like, who?

Oh, that's the funny thing that's going on in America right now. Yeah, I wish that were the only thing. But, no, I just think that Wimby's going to have a chance to kind of level up, So you could understand where you could, you know, Tim Foil's sombrero be like, oh, they're trying to, they're trying to protect this guy.

Because, yeah, the shove to, I don't, what's the argument? We don't have to litigate this, but what's the argument against the Jalen Brunson? Well, what's the argument against the elbow to Nas Reed? It's just, it's not helping this kind of their protecting Wemby narrative because those are, those are glaringy.

Yeah. All right. Why don't we take one more break, come back, talk about what could happen in game five. The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Fanduel. It all comes down to this. Who do you think will be wearing the ring at the end of the NBA finals?

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I get it. They're going to come out with piss and vinegar after this one, but man, I don't know how they recover from such a traumatic defeat. Give me the Knicks plus five and a half to close it out in game five. So Knicks plus five and a half in game five. And remember, just visit fandul.com slash ring your NBA to get started. 21 plus select states, 18 plus DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. First online real money wager only.

minimum $5 wager required for seven consecutive days. Bonus issued as non-materable bonus best, which expires seven days after a seat. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-800-Gampler. Call 1-888-7-89-77 or visit ccpg.orgs. Chat in Connecticut. So one thing we have to talk about just to kind of go through the rest of his game here. Got some interesting Hock Purdy minutes.

Didn't expect him to see him in a critical game four of the NBA finals. But that's how Dyer, I think, it got for a while. there for the Knicks. Well, yeah, there's dominance, and then there's a team willingly playing not only Huck Pordy, but Jeremy Sohan as a part of their rotation. Like, it is baffling that the Knicks pulled this thing out, considering where it all started. I would say where it started truly is they came out. They were clearly trying to establish Kat right from the jump as a hub for their offense,

as a go-to option in their offense, picks up those two fouls, I believe, in the span of like basically one minute of playing time. And then from that point on, you can see the cascading effects that that has for the Knicks. Cat has to leave. In comes Mitchell Robinson. Mitchell Robinson plays, I believe, five minutes, and he looks like he's about to pass out, so they have to take him out and put Hook Portie in. Then even later in the game, because of Kat's foul trouble, the spurs start while they are up 25, intentionally fouling Mitchell Robinson so that the Knicks have to take him out and put Huck Porty back in because they can't put Kat back in. It's like, all of these tradeoffs were just like happening.

and then we're sitting there wondering why the spurs are up 25, 27, 29 points. A lot of it just starts with they were cut off at the knees in terms of cats' foul trouble from the very beginning. And I don't know in the first half that they ever really recovered from it until they got the hard reset at halftime. Yeah, I understand coming out and trying to say like, all right, we're going to try to establish, I don't know, if you're approaching it like a box or almost like I'm trying to establish this finishing move, which I think for the Nix is throughout the course of the game, you kind of the bodywork, I think, is the move. movement that comes through playing through cat, which gets everybody involved. I think it's way more of a like we're finding closeouts. We're getting, you know, that's what gets them into that blender, I think, is starting through him because you have a little bit more point five stuff with him.

But I kind of wondered if they had moved one of the ailments that could lure the Nix into the troubles of the past and the stagnation for them offensively is this is a conspiracy theory that I have about the Nix. I almost wonder if it's like when Yonis makes. makes a three in the first quarter, and on the one hand, you'd be like, damn it, oh, man, it's not our night. But if I'm the opposing coach, I'm thinking he's going to take more. He's going to take three more of these. So this is going to, oh, no, you know, it's the, you know, fake it. He hit a tough shot in the first quarter of last game where it was sort of like a

reverse pivot, hot, crazy shot, high glass over Castle that went in. And I made a mental note of it. I was like, I wonder if Brunson tasted the shot making honey. a little early because he over-pursued it the rest of the game. So you come into it, you're trying to set up this flow of the game and it just got thrown wildly off by the way the game started with Kat. Yeah. Is that crazy? Do you think that's possible? I think it's definitely possible. And also within this whole like foul trouble subplot, I think one of the better uses of a challenge we've seen at any point in the playoffs, as far as the clamping play that we addressed earlier, my normal policy is if you're not resolved,

in like the actual exchange of points. And this one would have because Kat was going to be going to the free throw line regardless. You shouldn't challenge. If it's this early, you should be very careful about it. And really, the only alternative is very, very late in the game. If there's a change of possession that could swing the result, then yes, you should absolutely investigate it. But that was a play that clearly there was the proximal clamping foul that ended up getting reversed and getting Kat his second foul and out of the game. But if it had gone slightly differently, then the Spurs were just without a challenge for 47 minutes of this game.

Yeah, that was at 105 into the game was when they challenged that. I had the same thought. I was like, it happened. I was like, what? Like, what are we doing this so quickly for? A hugely high stakes play, a minute in. Because if you get cat out of there, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, it changed everything.

If you lose the ability to have that counterpunch throughout the game, you know, I just feel like a big takeaway from this game is the fact that we always talk about the teams like the spurs or just young teams. We always measure a team's competence. stability based on how they respond to adversity. And I think it's just as important to measure how a team responds to success because I think in the Spurs success tonight, they lost focus and it ended up really, really burning them. Well, I think that's the big question going into this next game. Is can a team overcome such like a colossal failure like this? And this one just, I mean, considering all the stakes, all the emotional tensions that are already rising going into this game,

clearly we talked about Wembe kind of feeding into those. And, and, and, you know, and, and, and to come out on the other side and to do it in such kind of an embarrassing fashion, just really probably hurts. I don't know. Like, is it possible to even come through this and, like, find any sort of silver lining to take with you? Or is this the type of game you just flush and just, like, decide, like, well, we'll just start fresh from the next one? I don't know how much silver lining there is about a 30-point second half in which all of your limitations are laid bare. And everything that was working for you has suddenly been turned against you.

That's the part that really would stick with me if I were a member of the Spurs or their coaching staff. It's just how easily the team was kind of duped into chasing the three after three after three fallacy that we mentioned earlier. This isn't a team that really plays that way. Like they are not a volume shooting team by type. They have all sorts of other avenues into their offense. We've seen it all throughout the playoffs. And here they were just like chasing after this one like home run shot over and over and over and over and over. just because they had the success that they had in the first half.

Kyle, I think you're spot on about that, about the way that we evaluate young teams and what we put value in as far as their ability to respond to challenges. But it is a challenge in its own way to be up this much. It's a challenge to think about 24 minutes against a really skilled, capable, adaptive opponent. And you have to maintain the focus

or else they're going to cut it. They're going to cut the lead to 17 and then to 13 and then to 9. And then you're backfooted. You're on the ropes. And what are you doing? We just have seen enough of the Spurs' offense in the series to know that they don't have the precision to bail themselves out when they're against the full brunt of a comeback like what New York did tonight. Yeah, you said insult to injury, and I think that's a really good kind of microcosm of what went on here, where the Spurs just need to realize that the injury is them getting in the goddamn pain and scoring at the rim.

The insult is the extra stuff is them shooting the threes. That's like if we're making them, we get up huge on you, but otherwise we got to stick with our bread and books. butter. And I just feel like overall, um, the spurs just, we've kind of lauded. I've gone back and forth. I've gone back and forth with them where I'm like, man, it, it seems like they don't, they've, they've got a lot of different guys who are auditioning or maybe someday they're going to be the primary option for this team. And, and, and then we'll have these moments where, where they go up 30 where I'll be like, well, maybe that's their, maybe that's their superlative is that it's not just one guy. It's a, it's, they're cobbling it together like a unit and it's coming from

everywhere. And then when the, when the, the feet start getting to the fire, you see like, no, they don't have a Jalen Brunson guy who, like, time and time again can steady the ship and go get his own. So that's kind of where I laid it because there were moments in this game where I was just like, man, Dylan Harper is this, is he claiming that belt right now? But he's clearly just not ready to do that. That's where I wonder where the environment shift probably couldn't have happened at a better time. On the one hand, I think it's easy to just read into the fact that MSG is rocking and just describe a lot of what happened tonight to that. On the other hand, when you hear Mike Bring being like, it's never been this loud or it's never been this

crazy, and like the screen is literally shaking, I do have to wonder. There's like a pretty nice anecdote, I believe from game three, where Dylan Harper, I think he was talking to ESPN, Scott Van Pell afterward, and he was like, oh, I was walking through the tunnel and I saw Jay-Z and it was like, oh, shit, that's Jay-Z. And he's like, did you say anything? And he's like, nah, I didn't I didn't want to, like, embarrass myself. It's like that sort of thing at MSG must be pretty jarring. You're not only in this giant moment, but then, like, you look across the stands. Like, it's so replete with, like, everyone from your childhood and all the biggest celebrities that you know.

You have fucking Taylor Swift with the Heim sisters and Mariska Hargatea all wearing stupid punch shirts. It's just like that really does have to compound what is already happening there. I'm not going to say, like, that that led to what happened in the actual game. But, like, if you're already rattled in young. and not ready for the moment. It has to really kind of add to everything going on through your head. There's a lot happening there. I mean, there are times...

You're trying to process the puns that's going on there? How many copy editors in New York were going to blame the game on the puns? I don't know. Would the copy editor have... I don't know, I guess it depends, but yeah. The finger was going to be pointed at somebody, and it was probably going to be Taylor Swift.

That's just how the universe seems to work with this stuff. Is she a Knicks fan? Was I unaware of this? No. I think she lives in the general area. Well, plus she's getting married. It has been announced at Madison Square Garden or reported. So I assume this is just like preamble to the ceremony.

Oh, the vibes were horrible too because the whole Dolan Trump thing. And then the Dolan, like Dolan was, I texted off this for the game. Yeah, Dolan was doing everything that he could to ruin the ever-increasing positive vibes in New York. Trying to tend to snatch, you know, damnation from the, from the jaws of salvation. Yeah. I know, yeah. No, it's the Dolan Trump thing, but also the Dolan Mamdani thing. Whereas, like, the whole watch party situation, they were canceled because they weren't

getting the approvals that they wanted. You guys are saying that Taylor Swift cleansed the aura of what could have been a curse inflicted by Dolan slash Trump. I think she might have. It's just like there were enough puns that the wordplay just washed out whatever funk was in the building. I got to say. A pun swish and swit spit.

Yeah. This might just get me just completely. like docs for saying this. Taylor Swift, terrible hang. How do you know? Based on what? It just seems like a lot. Like, I don't know, just didn't seem like a lot of performative like celebrating there. Oh, yeah. I mean, given how anti-performative you are, like Taylor Swift is about as performative as it gets. Like that that's the whole brand. A couple celebrity things that I noticed that I enjoyed a lot was when they went to Larry David during the break and he was like, ah, and he was like, go away. shoot him. You could tell it was really Larry David. He gets to be himself in a really awesome way.

And then when everybody was celebrating and like hugging and grabbing, Jerry Seinfeld was like telling people not to touch him. He's like, I'm not doing that. It was a pretty funny almost like, I don't know if he's a germaphobe or something, but. And Salome wore a normal outfit. Maybe that was good for me. Sometimes you got to do it.

It was like a chrome heart's like million dollar normal outfit. Well, for him that's normal. By Shalemate's standards. this whole conversation is like living in L.A. where it's like you're not supposed to acknowledge the celebrities, but what you do is as soon as you see someone, you're just texting your best friend, like, oh my God, I saw Jared Leto walk into the Air One the other day.

Castle Gracecoe. See, I was thinking as we were seeing Celebrity Row and all the different pockets of it, like what would be the spots that you guys would want to sit in, a la the cafeteria table meme? And when I saw the like Sandler Calipari corner, I'm like, that feels like Kyle Man territory to me. That feels like where you would love.

No? I don't know. Okay. It took me a minute to realize. Anti-Sandman? Saman, yes. I don't know if Cal be a great hang. I don't know.

It's not for sure about that. It's not for sure. It's fun to watch a basketball game with. Yeah, possibly. He's charmed many a Southern man in his life. I'm sure he could. That's true. Who do you think for you, Javier?

Are you posting up with Fallon? What are you doing? No, it's just me and Kylie Jenner all the time. We have a lot in common. We live the same sort of lifestyle. I feel like that would be a robust conversation. You two have more in common than anybody knows. You could drop hints, try to get her to ask what's your cucumber.

There's a lot of stuff you could do there. All right, so game five, what do you guys see in the future? Anything you picked up from this one, any sort of like tactical things, any Dylan Harper, like, he's great. Do we just want to give him a little tug real quick? I think we already kind of did that. Oh, boy. I think the time for little tactical things is kind of over.

The dispiriting nature of a loss like this, I find it hard to believe it would not have some hangover effect. I'm not saying necessarily that the Spurs are going to lose it all in game five, and that's just what's going to happen. But how do you pick yourself up off the mat after this to then pull off of 3-1 comeback? That is, I think, too long a road. It feels much more likely to me,

and maybe this is me with sports writer brain yet again, that we're thinking about the images in the moments of this game as like the preseason feature fodder for next year spurs of like oh every spur has a moment that haunted them it's wemby stepping to the line and going over two it's champagne stepping up with you know two and a half minutes left or whatever it was and missing that three it's Dylan Harper throwing that ball away at half court when he got like the slightest pressure it's Deeran fox smoking the layup it's I mean Stefan Kasson might be the only Anderson one I mean I'm not pitch I'm not pitching it but everything is there for who are doing work for yourself Rob I I simply can't anymore. This, I mean, the OKC thing was, they rallied back, but it wasn't like this. I mean, three in a row, this is pretty, for it to, for me, I mean, I wanted this to go to seven just because I just want to watch these games. Sure. I guess it still could, but man, this is going to be, this is going to be such an uphill, uphill thing.

I mean, I think if they can manage to, God, if they could win a game six at the Guard, and obviously that would like, even the series. out in a literal way, but that's the only thing that I think would like cleanse it. And they're, got to be so tired at this point, man. I mean, they, that's another thing, too, is these rotations that we were talking about, I was wondering if the fatigue was going to start adding up for the spurs and just the amount of just, like, discipline that it was taking, the reunication, the physical toll that it was taking its, you keep wondering where it's going to hit a wall with the spurs. See, I was going to say it on the flip side, because if this was like a one day between games, at the very least maybe the Spurs youth in athleticism could get on top of the older team.

Jalen Brunson played into the 40s. O.G. and Ninobe played into the 40s. Maybe they could do it by like sheer energy and verve or something. But man, two days in between this next game because the next game is going to be on Saturday, which is kind of a weird split. I guess they just wanted the Saturday prime time for this game five. But like even that is tough. So I don't know.

We didn't really talk much about Wembe. How did you guys feel about him just overall? in this game. He finished 9 for 25, 24 points. Yeah. It did feel like really like he sunsetted in the first half along with the perimeter shooters. Yeah, it didn't really feel like he gave them much stability at all in the second half. Other than, yeah, those moments where he was aggressive on the offensive glass, you could see him kind of hunting for some of those shots.

And he felt he hit some jump shots during the third and especially in the fourth quarter when they really, really needed some kind of answer. Those are big moments. But I don't think you can really compare. what he did versus what O'GNan and OB did, or Jalen Brunson did. Like the biggest Knicks in terms of the stability they provided were just so much more secure

than what 1B was giving the Spurs. Yeah, I mean, you want to keep, he, you know, took eight threes tonight we were talking about. When he gets up in that eight, nine territory, I'm feeling pretty good if I'm the opposing team because it's like we were talking about. Like he, some of those like Joelle and Bid, like short pick and pop kind of things

in the ball screen that he was doing, they mentioned it on the broadcast. I don't mind those shots. You kind of wonder if they might go to that. I think you just got to reset and go back to the game plan because I think that the Spurs we saw, found something, got away from it, lost it. I think they're going to just kind of reset

and see if the Knicks can answer that again because I think those things were working. All right. Anything else? Any good tidings? Oh, I have one more good tidings. Just because I feel like somehow even in lavishing praise on OG for hitting the game-winning tip-in. We've somehow just kind of glossed over the fact that he had 33 points on 15 shots.

The fact that he has become this rock-solid metronomic part of what the Knicks do. You know, Mikhail Bridges is a little up and down. Kat has had amazing moments, but also really quiet fourth quarters. OG might be like front-to-back the most consistent player on the floor for a New York team that is one win away from the NBA title. And that's not the kind of thing I feel like we should just end up glossing over. Well, I mean, this might be overly symbolic. Maybe I'm also doing the sports friday thing there.

But, like, it does feel like the OG trade, as we look back on it, really did kind of form this team in a way that, like, they needed it to. It's just so crazy how he was always so good, clearly, because we went through several deadlines mocking him to 30 different teams because every team could use a player like him. It's just crazy how he went from a guy who was so talented and had so much potential, but wanted it to be more, but maybe didn't really necessarily profile as that sort of player,

but it was so off-injured that, like, he couldn't get there. To now he's just, like, this paragon of stability and health. Like, I don't know what happened, because it's not like he went from a coach that ran him into the ground to a coach that was going to preserve him because he went straight from Nick Nurt to Tom Tibado. And so, like, it isn't that, like, maybe the Knicks just had a plan in order to pace him out or use him properly, but, like, he's going to go down as, like, one of the most important players,

for one of the most important teams of this recent era. And, like, it's a credit to him. Like, these types of players that get tossed around a lot is, like, oh, role player on this team or that team, like, tend to get, like, forgotten or at the very least don't live up to this sort of hype. And, like, he really was worth all of the podcasts we did about him. Oh, my gosh. I still kind of firmly believe that he might have saved the Grizzlies.

Like, if they had just traded for him during the John Moran era, like the peak of it, the height of it where they really needed a quality three, that team might still exist and be really good. There are probably a couple other teams that could have traded for OG and saved themselves in the process. The Knicks ended up with him. And not only has he just covered himself in glory

in so many of these massive moments, he has clearly just the production of getting the Knicks here in the first place. He's going to live forever in the reels of this game in particular. And that's where, for as charmed as this Knicks run has been, this was a truly magical game. Like this is an all-time

mint it, make the DVDs, send it out into the world, put it as a hardwood classic right now. This is Willis Reed level shit. Completely. We are going to be remembering this game, whether you're a Knicks fan or not, like on our death bet someday. Like that is, this is basketball history

and OG and Anobie is, I think, the defining reason why we're going to remember it as such. Yeah, you'll be thinking about my tomato stories, all of the many dick puns that we've made on this podcast. Just friendship. You joke, but what are the Knicks, if not the power of friendship? And what is this podcast, if not the power of friendship? And they had some big old grape tomatoes in that second half.

And OJ is one of the best two-way players in the world. I mean, that's just kind of an obvious one at this point. But, I mean, he can shuttle with the ball. He can stop the run. He's just built like a truck. He's had four or five of the most impressive transition, like defensive plays that I've seen in all of these playoffs. just blocking Dylan Harper at the rim inexplicably,

just doing all kinds of crazy stuff. And like you said, metronomic is the way he's a culture guy. Yeah, I mean, what did he make? Seven of nine threes tonight, you know, granted this first. Seven of nine three, ten of fifteen from the field. Come on. One per's over.

Also peeling off of him inexplicably at the dumbest possible time. So they got to shore that up. So, yeah. I mean, and that was something that was building throughout the game. They kept leaving him. And then it just culminated. in leaving him at the worst possible time. Well, and not to tip our hands too much,

but we're about to file some ballots pretty soon for the last top 100 iteration of this NBA season. I'm just ready to be fully irresponsible about OG and Anovi's ranking on this list. About to be some skewed shit. How high is too high, frankly? When you can do this on that stage,

I'm willing to consider anything. Third overall, too, yeah. Yeah, why not? So OG, as it stands right now, number 40. on our list. Yes. He is right between, oh,

this is funny, Deer and Fox is at 38, Aaron Gordon at 39. Aaron Gordon kind of is okay, okay, spiritual predecessor, I would say.

Fair. And 41, con canipple stuff. Like God had a good rookie season. Let's have a conversation. All right, Kyle,

you had a stat. One last stat. I feel like we need like a drop for you. We're just like, like trap music. Like, Kyle, man,

it's dad. Let's fucking go. No. This is something, it hasn't updated for the data for this game, but coming into this game, I wonder if this is something that they could mess with a little bit. I'd had the growing suspicion, and I think we talked about it on this show,

that Harper was like acutely set up to bother Jalen Brunson, and I went and looked up the numbers, and they were staggering. So 61 touches coming into, like, through game three, where Harper was on Brunson, 0.585 points per chance on 61 possessions. So that's the Knicks.

That's an interesting thing. I just wonder if they have a way to maybe tilt around their matchups or lean more into that one. And you said that was just the first three games, though, that number. Yes, tonight. I mean, he got him a couple times tonight. That one's going up, unfortunately.

He spent a lot of time guarding Jalen Brunson in the second half. I think he did a good, responsible job, but good responsible defense wasn't really enough in this one. Well, the breaking around the ball screen thing, Brunson hadn't been getting that call, and he got Harper on a critical one tonight. That was a backbreaker. Yeah.

Cool step. Let's go. I meant to say a huge win for the dicks. All right. Let's go out on there. I think we'll be back on Monday. That's the schedule that's got laid out for us, I believe. I think so.

I think that's the plan. Okay. We'll be talking about game five, maybe previewing to game six or looking forward to what's next, just in life. What's going on with Taylor Swift and all that other stuff? Thank you to Ben Cruz. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. Back from Sweden, baby.

Welcome back. I can never left. We'll talk to you on Monday. See you later. 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in present in D.C. Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem call 1-800 gambler.

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