The Zach Lowe Show - Spurs Take Game 3! Wemby’s Big Game, Brunson Hero Ball, and More!

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Zach is joined by Kirk Goldsberry and David Jacoby to talk about the Spurs' Game 3 victory over the Knicks. They break down what led to Victor Wembanyama’s success, what Jalen Brunson needs to change, their thoughts on the president’s attendance, and what they thought of the officiating. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (1:28) Kirk Goldsberry and David Jacoby join the show! (8:34) Wemby attacked the rim early (18:53) The Knicks need Karl-Anthony Towns to be more aggressive (22:23) Let’s talk about the officiating (30:51) Does Shai Gilgeous-Alexander compete against social media? (47:21) Mikal Bridges got in foul trouble and couldn't find a rhythm (55:06) On the president attending the game (1:13:04) Brunson is playing hero ball Host: Zach Lowe Guests: Kirk Goldsberry and David Jacoby Producers: Mike Wargon, Jonathan Frias, and Billy Gil Social: Keith Fujimoto and Michael Szokoli The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. #ULTRACourtside could get you closer to the game! https://michelobultra.com/courtside MICHELOB ULTRA:registered: COURTSIDE ’25 to ’26. No Purchase Necessary. Open to US residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1, 2025 and ends on June 30, 2026 Multiple entry periods. See Official Rules at https://michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor,

free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. The 2026 Chevrolet Tracks is the stylish SUV for those on the move. And with the standard Chevy safety assist package, you have the backup to handle every turn with confidence. The 26 tracks, start your build at Chevrolet.ca. On the Zach Lowe Show live from New York City, the Spurs are back in the NBA finals with a thrilling and somewhat bizarre game four win

in Madison Square Garden, a strange night with the president in attendance, lots of delays, all of that. It got dicey toward the end after an N and OB3 and a very dicey inbound play, but Steph Castle knocks down two free throws. He had a big three. Wembe had a monster game. We got David Jacoby and Kurt Goldsbury here. We're going to do a three-man weave and we talk about everything.

What do the spurs do adjustment-wise to sort of unlock Wemby rolling to the rim? How can the Knicks counter that? We get into the X's and O's. We get into the crowd, the environment, all of the spurs. of it. And we have a series. There's nothing I love more than a game for the finals when it's two one. It is the ultimate swing game of the series. Credit to the spurs last night for coming out and winning in a very hostile environment in a strange game and a strange night, a night like no other in New York City. So we have David and Kirk here, Jacoby and Goldsbury to break it all down.

That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe show, all things. NBA finals, 2-1, Knicks, pivotal game four. I cannot wait for Wednesday night. To the Zach Lowe's show. We have a series. The San Antonio Spurs with their backs against the wall. And the president in the building, oh boy, came back in one game three in Madison Square Garden. It's 2-1.

They needed at least a split. This is the power of home court advantage. All the Spurs really need to hope for is get it to 3-2 Knicks. Now they want to be three-two spurs. That's fine. But if it's 3-2 Knicks, they win. You win game five at home, put all the pressure on the Knicks to close it out in game six in Madison Square Garden. They have given themselves a chance to at least do that with an awesome win.

Wemby with a 32 point masterpiece in the biggest game of his career. Steph Castle with a three to put the spurs up by seven on a completely dead possession. And then two clutch free throws after a frantic Knicks rally and a sideline on a bounce play that looked like it might be a disaster. And then Castle knocks down the two free throws. game over and we get a delicious game four. Game four, well, first of all, we have Kurt Goldsbury and we have David Jacoby. We have a whole full crew take because it's the freaking finals. How are you guys doing?

Great. How are you? I'm good. I got out of the arena last night. I got into the arena and out of the arena. It took two hours to get in. Fine. I get it.

We're good with that once. We're good with it once. Twice after a loss in game three. I'm not sure how Nick's fans would respond to that one, but we'll deal with it at once. The way out was a complete mess. I saw a woman get arrested on 32nd Street because cops wouldn't let her walk north

and she was not happy about it. And she kind of went out one of the cops. And it was one of these scenes where it was like, oh my God, what's going to happen? There's like a million people here. And it was a fun game. And now we get a game four. I would argue game four of a two-one finals.

Maybe my favorite sort of swing game of the final. because, look, if it's 2-2, we know the winner of game 3, it's game 5, rather, it's 3-2. They have a chance to win. And then after that, every game's an elimination game, a potential close-out game. Those are like known commodities. 2-1 has this glorious air of mystery,

where it's either going to be 2-2, spurs have rallied back and tied it up, or 3-1, and the Knicks have a commanding lead. And so we get to live in this unknown for a couple more days. I can talk all about the atmosphere at the game last night, which was strange and loud. I actually was a slightly, like, not this, I would say it was like a B plus A minus crowd. I expected an A plus intensity crowd. We can all go through the theories for that, including that they priced out all the real fans.

It was good, but it was not great. Jacoby, you're emotionally invested. I had a couple of moments when I thought in the fourth quarter, even in a disperse, had a lead. Oh my God, are the Knicks going to do this and go up 3-0 and it really is going to be a party? Did you have moments where you thought that Knicks were going to pull the game out? You've actually already mentioned it. It was that Wimbuniamma possession, I think it was over a minute before Castle hit the three. That possession like wasn't going anywhere. It kind of felt like he just wanted to dribble out the shot clock and just like take 24 seconds off the clock

and not even attempt to shot at the basket. No one was moving. Nothing was happening. And I was thinking myself, like, this is another late game collapse for the Spurs. I was outside in the second half, that was the only time that I felt like, oh, this could actually happen again, and we could go up 3-0 in the series. But, like, I think just to respond to your crowd thing, it was a very strange day in New York City yesterday, just like all around, you know, because you're getting these reports of, like, these glass structures being put up, like, around, like, eight city blocks, and then, like, Shams dropped an AirPod

and ran up on by security and people are getting there three hours early and like the city's on fire. It's a Monday too, which is kind of like a low energy day in the city. And it was a strange crowd. I think that a lot of the reason, and I don't want to lead with fouls

and the reps or whatever, but like it was just such a choppy second half. There was no flow to the game. There were no runs that like there's just really nothing to get up and excited for because you're watching reviews and you're watching free throws. the whole entire second half.

Yeah, the replays completely sucked the energy out of the building. I don't mean to say it was not a good crowd. It was a good crowd. It just wasn't as like a fever pitch crowd as I kind of expected it would be. But the endless reviews, look, the challenges were all challengeable plays. Some won, some loss, like smart coaching. It just completely drained the energy out of the game, which is that that happens. And I just, my only commentary is my personal experience, I just want to get out of the way.

because it must be mentioned, my personal experience when they showed the president on the Jumbotron was like, to my ears, it sounded like 75, 25 booze. It did not sound like 100% booze raining down on the president. There was some cheers. There was some, they're screaming. I just, it wasn't, people were debating

in the PUC tweets like, oh, booed out of the building. It did not sound like, to me, he was booed out of the building. Kirk Goldsbury, we talked about the Castle 3. I talked about the out of bounds play, Nick's up to, I'm sorry, Spurs up two with nine and a half seconds left when Castle inbounds and throws it to Dierrin Fox, who has to tippy toe around the half court line, pass it right back to Castle. And if Jalen Brunson were actually his listed height, he might have been able to deflect that pass, but alas, he is not and he did not deflect it. When you, did you, when did you fear, even as the Spurs up and up like an eight point lead, et cetera, when did you? you, or did you fear at all? Like, uh-oh, the Knicks might actually pull this off. Oh, it was terrifying. When OG hit the corner three at the end of the game, I was still like,

oh, the Knicks are going to steal this. Like, they are so terrifying. I'm slightly rooting for the spurs. No shocker there. But I love this Knicks team. And one of the reasons I love them is they're so cohesive. They never give up. They play so well. You know, shooting has been their strong suit all series long and all season long, I'll playoffs long. But they started off that fourth quarter, Zach, with just a terrible three-point shooting exhibition. I think Castles three was the first made three of the quarter. I think the teams had combined to miss 18 or 16-3s. It was, to Jacoby's point, very choppy, not exactly just shot-making on display. But when Wembe blocked Shamet at the rim, too, I thought that was another big boy moment for him, just asserting himself.

I've always said if they're going to win this series, he has to be the best player in the series. He wasn't in the first two games. He was in game three. And the stat that really epitomizes this to me, Zach Lowe, they had one alley-oop in the first two games to Wemby. They connected on four of those in game three. Most of them early. Dier and Fox, not making his shots, not playing great, but he is making passes. They had four lobs and they got Wemby eight dunks and layups.

And that to me really captures that he was a different dude in this win than he was in those losses. Yeah, I mean, they clearly came in with the directive of just throw the fucking ball up. Like, you know, where they blitzed Castle at halfport. And he just like, and I thought Castle, he had two or three bad turnovers and a bad three shot foul on Annanobi. And those are like that he's become, I think, Castle has become. become prematurely a little bit of a polarizing player. Like I don't like when Bill plays the Russ comparison card on him because he's just so young. And I think he's just so big and so physical and plays so hard and smart defensively

that I just, his mistakes are loud. And that's rusty. But I just think he's been awesome. And I thought for the most part, he played a very under control game. And there were a lot of plays where he would get toward the paint into the paint. And instead of forcing up or really. tough shot at the rim, which he's been doing for the most part in the series. He would just make the simple kickout pass to Harper who hits a three or then swings it to Fox who drives and throws

a lob to Wemben Yam, all that stuff. But they clearly had a directive throw the lob. I thought Wembe set better screens, which is something that Stan Van Gundy hit right after game one. Like, if you're going to get set, if you, if you want to get clean rolls to the rim, you got to hit people and force your guy to engage on the ball handler and give you a lane to the rim. I thought, I thought he did that. And 55% of his field goal attempts came at the rim last night, according to cleaning and glass. That's by far as highest number in the series.

And look, a lot of the game is Wembe 32 points, cat 11 points and felt a little bit like a little bit like an afterthought. That said, the Knicks scored 120 points per 100 possessions, which is a very good number. And that feels a little

I don't want to say misleading, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that because that number is good that Knicks had like a really good offensive performance. What they got was the Josh Hart game. And it's always painful when they waste the Josh Hart game. When he hits threes, they almost always win. And Ananobe just continues to hit everything in sight.

Ananoi for the playoffs is averaging 20 points a game on, I had it somewhere and now I lost it. It's like 57% shooting, 47% on threes or something like that. And like two and a half stocks a game. He's been, it's hard to argue he's been their best player because Brunson just does so much with the ball. Brunson is shooting 37% for the series and we'll talk about his over-dribbling, I think later.

But Ananobe is awesome. But I do think that number is a little overblown. I'll tell you what I thought when I made in my notes, uh-oh, was when Wemby missed that lefty layup with like 3.45 to go in the game, an offensive rebound that got kicked to him. And it was just, it was uncontested and he bonked it. and then Brunson came down and drew a foul and made it 108, 108, 102.

That's what I thought, oh, boy, that's going to be, if they lose this game, that's going to be the turnover again from game two. But they pulled it out and, yeah, what else? I mean, like, what else did you notice, Kirk? Like, what else does the spurs change, if anything, in this game? Well, the other moment, the other, oh, shit moment for the spurs, I felt like was going to swing the whole series was when that four point play correctly, by the way, got reversed.

Keldon Johnson, what are you doing, pushing Mitchell Robinson into Victor Wemignamah? But they look like a Larry Johnson-style four-point play for the Spurs. And then they wiped it off. It just felt like that that was going to be the moment that the series turned. But credit to the Spurs. Another point on Oji, Anonovie and Brunson, before I get quickly to the Spurs.

I'm going to ask Jacoby about this. OG's incredible. Towns is playing great. Are we seeing too much Brunson? Brunson. His usage has surged. His usage in the regular season is 30. It's 40. His true shooting percentage in the regular season is 58. It's down to 46. And you can say that's playoffs, Jacob's. But for me, in the context of what Zach's laying out there with OG shooting the shit out of it, towns being great, bridges being hot, are we seeing too much Brunson? Like, there's a path

for the spurs to get back into the Zach. If like they did to Ant Man and like they did to SGA, they can sort of take that lead guard and make him an inefficient score. And the other guys don't have enough. The thing with the Knicks is that supporting cast is so good. That group is just not getting enough shot. So if the if the spurs are able to steal game too, I'm actually going to look at that shot distribution on the Knicks box

scored to Kobe and say, are we seeing Hero Ball from Brunson in the face of great supporting cast members? Well, a couple things about that. Think about the way that you were previewing this series and the way that I thought about this series. I said before this series and this isn't, you know, groundbreaking. I was like, this is not a Brunson series.

They've got multiple guys that are bigger and stronger and great defenders that can move their feet. This is an OG in town series. Like they're, the Knicks are kind of like a little bit bigger. two through, two through, you know, four than everybody else knows it was bigger than Win Vinyama. Yeah.

And I felt that really this was going to be less Brunson dribbling around and trying to get inside and little Euro stepping and shooting one-footed fadeways. Like I thought there'd be a lot less of that than there is now. And I thought it was interesting because everyone was talking about Mike Brown

talking about the fouls, but he had a quote after the game. He said, we just wanted to stand around and watch one guy dribble a ton. And then when the ball got passed, there were no quick decisions by the guy receiving the basketball. And like, what happened to all these, like, Brunson gets off the ball, goes down,

sets a screen for the guy in the corner, and then he cuts. And then Brunson cuts off of that. And he's moving off the ball. Like the stuff that they were doing in that 13 game win streak was not Kiro Ball Brunson. And down the stretch, we go to that under five minutes. That's just what happens. And it works. But I think that there's a little too much of that in the third quarter and the fourth quarter when he was in.

I think the third quarter, the beginning of the third quarter, when the spurs were down seven, and the crowd was really at a fever pitch at going into halftime. And that's the cool thing about this series, by the way. I don't know what the biggest lead has been in this series, but every time any team looks like they're about to rest control of the game, the other team responds and gets right back into it. It's been like these games just do not let up. They're so intense.

The biggest league has probably been like 12, I think 14 for a hot second in game two. But that got erased immediately. But yeah, the third quarter, Brunson came out. And I just didn't like their process at all. I thought he was just sort of wasting time, hunting bad matchups, taking bad shots. And look, to give this, and Brunson, by the way, for the series, he's averaging 27 points, four assists, four turnovers. His assist to turnovers are exactly equal.

37%. And again, grain assault, Cat through three games is plus 31. Brunson through three games is minus 13. something is just a little off something was a little off kilter with the process last night too many tough shots, too much dribbling, too many possessions where they just wasted

time getting to the point of everything. And part of that is the two ends of the floor are so different in terms of like Nick's offense versus Spurs defense versus the other side of the floor. Nick's offense versus Spurs defense, you kind of have to watch it

with one eye on Wimbunyama at all times and your other eye trying to follow the ball. And I think the spurs are just mixing up where Wembe Nyama is. And the simplest way to put it is when it's like starters versus starters, they don't want Wembe on towns, but they also don't want him definitively not on towns because they're scared of towns posting up their smaller wing players. And that's all they have in their starting lineup compared to towns anywhere,

smaller wing players. And so they have Wembe just sort of tagging out, tagging out, tagging out, hanging out in the corner. And the Knicks are spending time figuring out, how do we want to set up the chess board to best attack that? And sometimes they did it really smartly. Like they'll have, like ideally, the ideal spruce possession is Josh Hart stands in the corner

and Wembe can stand there and it's risk free. And he's guarding heart, but he's just really guarding that area. And the Knicks are not putting heart there. If he starts in the corner, they'll switch him out and put a shooter like Ananobe in the corner and they'll move Cat around. And they'll try to find a time in a possession where Victor is on one side of the floor and it's two Knicks versus two spurs. And then they'll run like a Brunson town picket roll. If they see Victor is toggled onto towns, they'll attack that match up that way and try to.

And like, you know who's really good at this? And when the ball started popping is Alvarado. Alvarado comes in and he's looking for Cat right away. and he's looking for those matchups right away. And God forbid if Cornette is in the game trying to guard cat, it's death. And they just went to that over and over again in the third quarter. But I think like the plus and minus of this for Wembe Nama is this is a tough matchup for him defensively because the Knicks make it hard. They have one of the greatest stretch big men of all time.

They move hard around. They move the chest pieces around. And that's when they get into that blender of like the kind of blender that led to that Wembe epic block with four minutes left in the game. But that's when they're at their best when they get. to that matchup early, trigger the action, and then everyone else gets involved. And I thought they kind of lost that a little bit. And that's why Kat kind of disappeared from the game. And I'm fascinated, Jacoby, like, they have to get him more involved again without

kind of overdoing the mismatch hunting and all that. And that's hard. I mean, they're facing a very creative defense. I, um, this morning watched all of, uh, cat's shot attempts. And it was, it was really interesting because games wanted to, if he had Wembenyama in front of him at the three-point line, I felt very confident his ability of sort of muscle and just ugly his way into the lane and get a layup.

And, you know, and one thing I've learned in this is defense play of the year, but not quick on his feet. And when he's closing out, you can get past him. You know what I mean? Oh, OG. OG loves it. Yeah, OG loves it. The thing is OG, so the difference between the O,

that shamit block was so frustrating because OG has mastered having Wembenyama behind you, but then just sneaking the ball over the top of the rib with two hands, like just sort of like making it just quick enough and like sneaky enough. But then Sham is trying this like finger roll thing and that's just going to get eaten up by him.

But Towns, when I watched his 10 shot attempts this morning, when Mbanyama was, I want to say around him for one or two of those. And a lot of it was just, oh, cornette's here, let me go. I've got someone else on me. I've got a size advantage, let me go. And I thought that in game one and two, it was almost the opposite. And I think obviously they have him on heart now,

but there was something about Towns last night, lack of aggression that it just can't. It's not winning if he takes 10 shots. Not going to have it. Yeah, and I thought there's some pet actions they could run for him that they did in game two that got him off for some threes and they kind of let go of that.

The other thing, the Spurs finally made Brunson work a lot more defensively last night. They put him in, according to the tracking data, a genius IQ. They put him in 21 ball screens as the guy defending the screener. That had been, I think, 24 combined in the first two games. And you saw Harper go at him a lot using Vacelle as the screener. And they would split and drive.

And Harper, five of 18, but the power he brings to the game is just something that no other. I mean, even Castle is a little bit more deliberate than Harper in terms of just straight line power. It is interesting, by the way, the Spurs did not play the three point guards together much in the regular season. And they played 11 minutes together last night. You can see the spurs trying. I mean, this is what the finals is supposed to be. In elite opponent drags you out of your comfort zone. And like Champany didn't really do too much last night.

Keldon Johnson, they kind of can't decide if he's good for this series or bad for this series. I think there's a place for him in this series because he's the one non-Wembe guy that can physically at least make towns work a little bit. And so when he and Wembe are on the floor together, they can put him on towns and have Wembe guy. Wemby instead of doing all this fancy stuff. If Hart's on the floor, just guard hard. And I actually think, I think the spurs are taking Wembe off of Hart a little bit too easily. Like, so what?

Hart moves up from the corner to set a ball screen for Brunson and Inobie moves to the corner to replace him. You don't have to stay on Ananobe. You can still guard Josh Hart. And yeah, they'll do a hard, Brunson, hard pick and roll. Just drop back, hang out into paint. Like, Josh Hart's not going to hurt you from out there. I think they're overdoing it with that a little bit.

But yeah, the chess match in the series is awesome. And those three point cards together, the numbers aren't good, but it's interesting that they're playing them, they're playing them more. And I actually like the Harper, Fox, Vassell, Wembe, like those four guys together, that's a good mix of defense, offense size. But man, this is just all these games do not let up.

They're so fun to be at. Last night was a little bit weird to be at. I guess, Jacoby, we should have the officiating conversation now. because the Spurs have a big free throw edge in the series. They had a huge free throw edge in the second half last night, 24 to 8. Mike Brown did the press conference thing where he's like, I'm going to give the Spurs credit. They play great.

I'm not going to blame it on the officials. But watch me now blame it on the officials and say this is like a historically anomalous thing that I've never seen in my entire life. I never thought I would see it. But I'm not blaming the officials. But if they do that again in game four, it's going to be tough for us. But I'm not blaming them.

But if they do that, he actually said, If they do that, what? If they do what? If they call foul? So, you know, what did you think, Jacoby? Because you're the Knicks' perspective here to some degree. Like, what did you think of the officiating? Well, I'm on like 17 Knicks group chats.

And I just felt like as a fan base, there was just way too much focus on the referees. And I think that that, you said, like, it was an A minus B plus crowd. I think that the crowd got into their heads, too. Like, on that bridge's call on the rebound, when he hooked his arm. Like, the one thing I'll say about this in defense of Mike Brown and the Knicks

is I rewatched like the fourth quarter calls because one of the biggest things was those early fourth quarter calls. They're in the bonus. Two minutes into the quarter. All of a sudden, yeah, all of a sudden they're in the bonus. And those were fouls. Every time you watch.

Clearfellet, they're fouls. But it's also inconsistent with everything I've seen in this series. Every time when Benyama goes to set a screen, Towns has got two arms around him. And anytime you try to move, your defender is just all over you. So the physicality bar has been raised so high that I just felt those early calls, which were definitely bowels,

were just sort of like inconsistent when everything I've seen up to this point. And it really put them in a tough spot in the beginning of the fourth quarter. I didn't have any problem with those calls. The consistency is like it's impossible to keep track of what's called, what's not called. It's just a whirlwind of physicality. the three polarizing ones were Wemagnama mushing Brunson to the ground and not getting called for anything,

which I didn't notice in real time from my seat at the ceiling of Madison Square Garden. I can almost touch the ceiling, which, by the way, I like those seats. A lot of media complain about them. There are great birds-eye view of the game, but you miss certain, like, it's hard to see that happening. And that was probably a foul, obviously a foul.

Kirk, what did you think of the castle smashes into Brunson and they review it for a flagrant and decide that it's not a flagrant? Yeah, that's a good one. First of all, as a Spurs guy, I mean, Wembe should have been called for that foul on Brunson. It was a nasty sort of agro move. Not quite the not. Not quite the Noss read. Let's not go with arrested after last night's game because there was a lot of, there was a lot of fleece action at that.

Don't wear a Spurs jersey in Bryant Park to my friends from Texas. But I'll say this, dude, that reminded me exactly of Carter Bryant crashing against Shea Gilgis Alexander a couple times last round where these guys are clearly instructed to be physical attack closing. And then, you know, he shoved Jalen Brunson. That's not in question. Could it have been a foul? Yeah, probably.

I mean, it was a foul. It was called a foul. It should have been a flagrant. I don't think so. But then, like, I was on a text thread with some Nix fans. And I was like, this one's going to piss you off because then I forget who was shooting the three. But Brunson got in the landing zone and they went to the monitor. And I was like, this is going to be a flagrant.

That's the one I did. Like minutes. I didn't like that one. I watched that one like 10 times last night. I went back to my hotel room. And I don't know that I've seen a landing spot foul quite like that. he jumps like sideways. He jumps toward the sideline

because that's the angle Brunson is coming from. And he doesn't like his latitude or whatever, longitude, whatever, whatever the right one is, doesn't change. Like he jumps straight toward the sideline. And I'm not really even sure what else you're supposed to do in that situation. So I didn't like that.

I thought that was a bad call. It is worth noting the Knicks for 25th and free throw rate in the regular season. Like it's like when the pistons would complain about free throw discrepancy. It's like, are you going to acknowledge that you let the league in fouls in the regular season or is that just not going to be acknowledged? But that call I didn't like.

The other thing is like those, I mean, the Knicks had won the turnover battle in the first two games. That's a, that's a variable that they are built to win and have to win to win this series. And they were minus five in turnovers last night. And some of them were just fucking boneheaded throws right to the other team. But like, remember that one? I mean, this one sticks.

in my mind because it was a live ball turnover that led directly to an and one where Clarkson just picked Devin Vassel's pocket in the right corner. Great moment for the Knicks like a guy who, by the way, monster game for Jordan Clarkson off the bench, a guy you don't necessarily expect much of, certainly not on defense. Cookies on Devin Vassel and then throws an outlet pass to nobody except Steph Castle who then gets an and one. I mean, that's like an instant gifted three points in a game that comes down to the wire. Their turnovers were a little sloppy. And I don't know, Jacoby, what else you want to talk about in this game?

There's a lot to get into. I have to have this conversation with you and Kurt. When Wimbunyama elbowed Nas read like that, I got really angry. And I was surprised that there was no retaliation in that game or the next game from anybody wearing a Timber Wolf's jersey. and I my blood is still a little bit boiling

about this Brunson thing because I've seen it a million times Which which Brunson thing? Which one do you think I'm talking about? The Mush. Yeah, like, what is he responding to? What is that a retaliation for?

Like, I think he's emotionally can't control himself. Honestly, and I really, I really, I started drumming up a dislike for him like this summer. And now it's just at a million. Like, I cannot stand this guy. I hate his outfits.

I hate his face. Wow. I hate his hair. I hate everything about him. I just think he's such a tryhard, curated. When he goes to the park and he's drawing in the park with his friend, he's like sketching a bush with like a graphite pencil. I just can't stand it. And like, and the idea that Mike Brown won't be like, hey, Huck Porty, go in for 30 seconds and get

kicked out of the game because he just basically mush, push, punched whatever, our best player. And then Castle comes and like, oh, whether it's a flagrant or a foul, it is the exact same thing that Carter Bryant did to Shea. And then we have the Victor Wimbunyama whispering in Beambo and Plumley's ears as they go in. Like, I just am really, really, I respect him as a basketball player and I respect the work ethic. I'm not saying he's a bad basketball player. I'm just, you can't disagree with it. When I say, I can't fucking stand Victor Wemignam. Cannot disagree with me.

That's my opinion. Look at your opinion. Kirk, would you like to respond to this? Yeah, I mean, one of the great things about this. How is your drawing game? How is you, do you do coal? Do you do crayon, color pencil? Like, what are you like?

Landscape. What was that, Gramercy Park? Where was he sitting there? I think it was a fenced off park, right? So that he could be. You need to get in. They're very strict about it. I'm a charcoal, man.

I mean, call me old-fashioned, but I'm a charcoal man. Look, the other thing, the Wembe side of this argument, and I'll take it, is if you watch these playoffs from the Portland series through the Minnesota series, through the OK series, C series, and a little bit here, we're seeing a lot of grabbing and holding a Victor Wemayama in plays that Spurs fans would point out and be like, dude, these are fouls if they're against Brunson. Nobody can hold Brunson like this every time he goes into the paint. Nobody can just yank on Shea Gilder's Alexander's arm every time there's a loose ball in the air. Oh, I have to stop you at the mention of Shea, Gilder's Alexander. I have to. Did you guys see Sam Presti's end of your press conference? Please hold the floor on this.

Yes. I cannot let this. I cannot let this slide. So Sam does incredible press conference. after every season. He answers every question. And the Thunder have been awesome about just like they don't duck. They don't make excuses.

They don't duck from the loss. You never hear this player. Well, Jalen Williams didn't after one game when he got injured, didn't talk to the media. But they all come out and they address the series. And here's what Sam Presti said about Shade Gilgers, Alexander, and the dialogue about whether he's a grifter or a flopper or whatever. He's playing against six people, Presti said. He has five defenders.

and the sixth defender is social media. It's a reality. He's not going to be the last player that the machine, the machine decides to target. Is that the villain from the last mission impossible movie? The entity, the entity decides to target, but nobody is going to handle it as gracefully. Okay.

I can't, I cannot, I'm sorry to deviate from the finals and whatever you're going to say about Wembe, who is getting mauled and did elbow almost decapitate and I was reading and somehow not get fined for, which I thought was insane. I just can't let this quote pass. Yeah. Am I the only one who's like, what?

What? Social media. How about the head coaches of like half the NBA teams? It's not just, yes, you'll get this Zap Rooter stuff on social media. Who fucking cares about that? Let's start lining up the head coaches who have called it out. It's not, it's not this. He's trying to make it sound like it's just these imagine,

these lunatics on social media and nobody else. And it's just these fringe people in portion. She has all these people attacking him on with these clips. It's people in the league. It's head coaches on the record talking about. Am I the only one who thought that was like a crazy quote? No, you're not. And I think you're exactly right.

I don't know how many texts. If you search the word unwatchable in your eye message app, many of the returning feeds will be one of your friends or colleagues from this league talking about Shea Gildes Alexander. Like this is just the conversation that people are having. Like he's the best guard in the world. Nobody's disputing that. But he flops like a soccer player.

That's a fact. And nobody's attacking it unfairly. I think that is a fair point. And the same way that I just took Jacoby's point, yeah, Wemby should have been, you know, that's bullshit. He shouldn't do that to Brunson. Some of these dudes have these tendencies. And I think, yeah, I watch the whole press conference.

I love when Sam Presti gives these end of the year. conferences. I recommend everybody go watch it because it's really thoughtful stuff about basketball and the NBA and how he approaches the season. But that was like a misstep. And I think it reveals Zach, it's sort of a paranoia about the thunder, how they feel like they're being disrespected internally. But I would be curious, Jacoby, this is for you. You're going to cook on this. What do you think of Sam Presti defending SGA here? I understand it. I think when you have a star player and an MVP

and you're the general manager and you do these press conferences, you're going to want to kind of ride for your guy. And I do think that SGA does handle it with a lot of grace. To be honest, he does. That's correct. He's right about that. That's a fact. He does.

He does. When he said that, I was like, yeah, you're kind of right. But one of the things that really struck me when he said that is, like, we can delete these apps on our phones.

it is a choice. Like, you know, like, it's one thing, like, you know, to be mad at the refs or the defenders or the physicality, like the way we're talking about this series. But, like, yeah, there's going to be noise on social media, you know. There's going to be noise on social media. And I think it's sort of your job as a professional athlete and even a professional NBA executive to sort of disregard that. Yeah.

I agree with you that SGA handles the gracefully. I actually don't think I'm probably on the low end of the conclusion. of anger about SGA's flopping. Like everybody like Brunson flops. Like tons of people flop. He falls a lot. He takes a lot of very hard off balance jumpers and whatever. Like I don't like he's a little hardnessk in terms of if you reach,

he's going to put his arms out. But like that's part of the game. And that's always been part of the game. Like I've never been riled up. But I just I thought it was a little, a little much to just say, well, it's just social media and out of thin air. creating this narrative and it's not actual NBA coach. Anyway, Kirk, your point was Victor is getting mauled.

He is getting mauled. I get it. And I don't like I, officiating over an X amount of series is going to, is going to hopefully even out. And that's all you can ask for. Yeah, my thesis here, guys, is that the NBA does have an officiating issue. Like, for me, it's a geographic thing on the court.

Like the contact allowances, depending on where you are and who you are on the basketball court are wildly different. This isn't be being a spurs homer. But again, if anybody yanked on guard, like they yank on Wembe, it would be like Flegren Fowls all game long. I think he gets frustrated. Jacoby, I do think you're right to an extent he's a young guy who's going to make those kinds of hot-headed mistakes. But I think he's expressing frustration. Even last night, we saw a couple of fouls correctly called on towns for like grabbing his hand or hooking him in ways that you just don't see other players having to deal with nearly as often.

And I think that's just a reflection on a stature more than anything. But yeah, he gets frustrated. He's going to act out. And then at halftime, I thought the point where Shaq was like, I don't know if you saw it half time, Shaq was like, I'm proud of him for doing that. He should do that. Go for it, Wemby, young man. Not the most notable inside the NBA comment at halftime, apparently, from what my Twitter

suggested. That was classic, Chuck. The other things you miss when you're at the game, and I got back to my hotel. Like, wait, Charles said what? Legend. This is great. I want to pose something to you guys that was sort of like my biggest takeaway from game three, right? We all know what happened in game one and two, right?

All of a sudden, Carlin The Towns is out playing Wimbun Yama and Wimbenyama and, you know, throws the ball off of Steff Castle and then fouls. And he has to sit with that, think about it and watch the film and everything. And to start the game, he gets what, three dunks in a layup in the first. first seven minutes. And they're running these great sort of like stagger screens. Like it just really felt like the first drive of a big football game when they've got the play scripted.

You know what I mean? It felt like they were obviously going to use him offensively, actually setting screens and actually rolling. And in the Thunder series, I think it was game four. There was a while where they were just like, let's just throw the ball up towards the rim and let the nine foot guy be nice and tall. And like, I felt as the game went on, they went away from that. Like, I felt like when Banyama played well, but I do think if I'm a Spurs supporter

or a Knicks fan, you're terrified of this. I think that you can do that for four quarters of a basketball game. But they really only did. I tracked all his 18 shots today, too. It's a lot from Fox, dunks on OG after he pins him, another pin with an easy little drop in. And then he goes around OG and scores. gets an and one on towns.

And just sort of like the rest of his shots, he's taking a couple threes. He's taking some mid-range shots. You know, he does get two more lobs in the game. But like, if I'm the spurs, like, this does, and the Shaq sort of reminded me of this because you always hear Shaq, the big man, get in there and dunk on everybody.

You know what I mean? But that sort of like antiquated way of like looking at the game. But when you're Shaq, you can say stuff like that because you actually did that. Like I kind of feel like that way about Wemby. It's like you're nine feet tall. Just go near the basket. Catch passes.

Like he didn't have me one where he missed his own shot. He just tipped it back in with his other hand. Like, I don't know. I just feel like there's a lot of room. I think as Wembe gets older and more sort of polished, you'll see a lot more stuff around the rim than less outside. Yeah, 100%. Zach, I actually have a nerdy stat that captures to Kobe's point.

So in the first two games, go and then we'll take a break. First two games, obviously Spurs lose. Wemby's average shot distance was 16 feet. It was the highest among all the players, like all the six or seven, eight volume scores in the first. the series. Game three, that number is 10. It's the lowest number. So it's just, we're seeing it in the numbers, too. We're seeing it in the eye test. But yeah, go to the rim. Shack's right on this one. I want to talk more about that. Let's just take a quick break and we'll get back to the Wemby issue.

This episode is brought to you by Mickelope Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. The NBA finals are here. And every time the finals roll around, all the memories start to flow into my brain. LeBron's block on Andrew Godal. I was there. I had a perfect angle on it. I almost had a heart attack on Fresro. I ran to a monitor to try to see if he actually got in and it wasn't a goalt and I felt like I needed a Michelobulcher. I wish I had drunk a beer with my dad when we were watching the flu game together on our couch and just marveling at what we were seeing Michael Jordan do.

And of all the amazing plays and moments that happen, the best ones are served cold, just like Michelobolter is superior light beer. It's even better so that they're getting people closer to the game with a chance to win tickets, custom. merch and more. Mickelope Ultra, Superior is worth paying for. Enter now at Michaelobultra.com slash courtside. Mickelob Ultra Courtside, 25 to 26, no purchase necessary. Open to U.S. Residence 21 plus begins on October 1st, 2025, and ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at Micklobultra.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. Okay, Wembe rolling to the rim, dunks, crazy putbacks. First of all, again, 11 of 18 from the floor, 32, 8, 6, 3 blocks,

including that epic one on shamit with four minutes and change left. A plus response from Wembe after a gaff to end game two that we will all remember forever and will be in the highlight blooper reel, whatever of all, like here are the pivotal turnover as an NBA finals history. It's the rolling to the rim thing is interesting because you mentioned Jacoby, the staggered screens that. the spurs are running and told lots of different variations of them. Most of them have either Castle handling the ball, one of the three guards handling the ball.

And one of the screeners is whoever Brunson is on to get him involved in the play, that's often Champani. And the other is Wemidyama. And the reason that's interesting is because if Champany is in the screening action, he's dangerous, he flares out for threes and all that. But that means he's not spacing the floor, which is, his number one value as a spur. He's kind of facing the floor as a moving shooter,

but he's not like on the wings dragging a defender out there. And it means that Brunson is in the play, which is good for the spurs, but also far from the rim. And kind of why that matters is because if you watch a lot of the roles where he doesn't get all the way to the rim or has a difficult time finishing, it's because the Knicks, who are huge on the wing,

as you noted earlier, Jacoby, with Bridges Hart and Annanobie, are just pulling way in off everybody else. And so, and the spurs, for whatever reason on a lot of these plays, have Harper or Castle, whichever one of them is not handling the ball, kind of in the dunker spot. So their, their defender is close to the paint. And he goes there and there's just a ton of traffic. And he had one play where he caught it and Hart stepped up off the dunker spot guy.

And Wemby stopped and kind of was like, I don't know what to do. And he kicked it, I think to Harper, who drove and then found Wemby who relocated for a three. So fine, he gets a three out of it. But ideally you would love to script the offense so that Brunson is the guy, the defender in the dunker spot because when he doesn't see him, it'll just run right over him and dunk. But Champany is not useful there. They need him on the perimeter. So it's this sort of like cat and mouse game of like where are the defenders who's there. But it is part and parcel of how the Knicks built this team is like they're just huge on the wing.

And they're at least they're in early. They're pulling in hard and they're making him think. They're making the ball handlers think. And like I said earlier, I think one of the counters that the. Spurs made last night was Castle just making the simple kickout pass instead of forcing something in the paint. And when that help comes, trust the next guy to make the play. But yeah, I mean, clearly the Spurs came out with the directive of just throw the fucking ball up and good things are going to happen for us. And I would expect them to, having seen the evidence,

just go even more in that direction, Kirk, in game four. Yeah. They have Randy Moss, maybe throw a couple of deep balls, right? There you go. It's, you got Mossed over and over again if you get if you get him away from the low man who's tagging him or whatever the other opponents are doing but they just got to figure it out it's like the existential strategy for the spurs for the next decade one way i've captured this in my own notes is what i call the wemby dunk differential which is looking at his dunks versus his jump shots as sort of an expression of his if his passive nature sometimes in game one he had four dunks and 12 jumpers these are attempts not makes four dunks and 12 jumpers and dunks and layups, I should say, attempted. So he was 12 jumpers, four dunks

and layups in game one. Game two, it's almost even, 11 dunks and liaps against 10 jumpers. And in game three guys, 11 dunks and layups and just seven jump shots. So he's a lot harder to guard when he's getting those touches deep in the pain. It's not always lobs, as Jacoby pointed out, it's pinning guys down. Like, he doesn't have to have the best footwork. He has so many physical gifts. He just needs to be stronger. And if I had one point to say, like, what are we learning about Wemby's future this series? It's like, this dude needs to get stronger because there are players who are bigger than

him that are pushing him around all playoffs long. And that's, I think, the reason why we don't see it, Jacoby, all four quarters long. It's like he's not strong enough to endure all of that beating that he's getting down. low. But, you know, I think Sean Sweeney, Miss Johnson, whoever it is, has to come up with a game plan that gets that sort of dunk differential to be

in the right sort of order. He needs to have more shots in the paint than he does outside of the paint. Zach, going forward. Yeah, and then so the last point I'd make is this is sort of a minutia thing, but going at Brunson like they did,

he got four fouls, too. That was the thing we didn't say. And they got him in foul trouble. And I think that's why they have those three guards out there. They can't hide. There's no champagne out there for you to sit on. Wherever the ball comes to you, and whether it's going to be Fox, Castle, or Harper, there's no soft spot for for our man Brunson to hide. And I think that got him in foul trouble, which is a huge point of that third quarter. And we had, we had some brief minutes with Annanobie at center and some brief minutes, like a hot second without both Brunson and cat. Remember way back it feels like six months ago. I think it was game two of the Hawks game when

Mike Brown went a long stretch, two long stretches with Brunson and Kat on the bench together and they got rolled and it was like, well, it's worked well for us in the regular season. And I was like, kind of hasn't. And we've never seen it again. Uh, they've obviously avoided that since. But yeah, the Brunson, uh, the Brunson fouls were, were an issue. But like, I just watch. I know it's boring. Just watch the dunker spot because I don't know why this. I mean, there's value in having a guard sitting down there is a release valve. Like there were a couple of times where Wembe got it and probably could have dropped it off to Harper, who's a powerful finisher.

That dunk Harper had on a cut from Cornet was like, holy cow, off two feet. That guy's like jumping off a trampoline. But then it also creates a lot of traffic. And there was another play where instead of one of them in the dunker spot, they had Castle and Harper both on the strong side of the floor, both out by the sideline, kind of doing some fake screening action to distract the defense. And somebody got a dunk out of it. So that's just like a fun thing to watch.

We probably should talk about, speaking of Nick's lineups, we haven't mentioned Bridges at all. No doubt. The foul trouble he got in early, I think just took him out of the game. And we did not see one second of the Knicks' best sort of like all offense,

all shooting lineup, which is the starting lineup, but sham it in place of heart. That did not play a second in this game because their rotation got jumbled. That lineup is plus 41 in 23 minutes in the playoffs. Like it's just like an explosion on the court.

It turned game two in the second quarter. We didn't see any of it. And I have to go back and watch like how could they have involved Bridges more or whatever. But I think the fouls just took them out of the game. And it's interesting because every time there's like a little bit, even when like regular season now, we haven't had a Knicks like down moment in a while. But it always seems and when they were like in a little bit of a rut in January

and then again in March, it always seems to center on bridges and towns. Like those are always the bellwethers for the team. And they go through these stretches where, they're kind of not involved or whatever. And like we haven't had that in a while and we had it again, Jacoby, like they're the guys who it always seems to come back to them.

Well, a few thoughts on that. Part of it is Brunson just dribbling the air out of the ball for 18 seconds. And I think, you know, we're all sort of older. Like I remember the old school, point cards. You know what? Bridges has zero points. You look up, he's like, me, I can't

hit him a ball. You know, like I got to get him involved. And I feel like there's a little bit of onus on Brunson to be that point guard to, you know, spread the ball around, get off the ball more than he does. And one thing about, listen, the Knicks were just on fire for the last month and a half, right? You know, but do you remember when Deuce McBride in game four in Philly had like seven threes in the first half? Or Landy

Shannon was 11 for 13. And, And they say like role players play better at home. They role players for the Knicks did not play better last night. You know, and I think with no bridges, sham it one for seven from three. A couple of those are pretty questionable. Well, a couple of good looks too. Yeah. And yes.

So I expected some of those to go down. And Deuce sort of like doing nothing for eight minutes in this game was a little bit of a concern. Clarkson played well instead of Alvarado. But I expect that to be a change for a game four. I don't think they'll be as hot as they've been for last month and a half, but I think a few Knicks just kind of like really laid an egg last night. I will give to Kat's credit, I think his defense has been unrelenting the whole series.

He's been outstanding defensively. I think he only had one turnover last night. Like he's just not forcing anything. And there was that one play where he got the ball in the post and like four guys were on him and he was just sort of like throwing his elbows around. And you thought like here comes the bad cat like crazy hook past turnover like the old days. and it's not, it's not coming. And yeah, Bridges just didn't do very much last night.

The one thing they could, the one thing I think the Knicks could do if they just need a simpler thing to do is they could hunt Fox like the Spurs are hunting Brunson. Like Fox is clearly not 100% and probably not close to 100%. And the Knicks have only put him in 15 ball screens as the guy defending the screener in the entire series. And, you know, the Spurs put Brunson in 21 last night. I think that's a little, a little place that the Knicks can pull. But honestly, like, as a neutral fan here, I'm kind of glad the Spurs won the game last night

because now we have a chance at a, we get a special, a special game for it. And like, for a young team, that was a hello response. And can I tell you when I started to think, oh, maybe this has this in them. Can I tell you what I saw the day before the game? I went from Grand Central. I got into Grand Central with my little roller bag on my way to my hotel. and I realized, oh, I'm going to pass by the hotel where the Spurs are staying at some point. So I said I texted some people.

We sat down in the lobby. We had a little meeting. And in came two San Antonio players who shall not be named. This is like 8 o'clock at night or something like that. And between them, they had, I'm going to conservatively estimate 14 shopping bags that they were dragged. up to their hotel room. And I was like, I love it.

Like, you're in New York. The shopping scene is better than it is in San Antonio. I like that you're just not in your, you're not in your hotel room, like sulking, being stressed out, like, whoa, oh my God,

I can't believe down O2 in the finals. Live your life. Take your mind off the game. Get some nice clothes. God knows how much money they spent. And then trailing behind them was Mason Plumley with one shopping bag. And I was like,

Mason, like, come on, man. Like, you're just like, what else you got to do? Just go out and have a little, have a little fun. The other thing that happened last night, and I didn't realize this until I got back and I was rewatching the game.

So on Saturday, my daughter had a swim meet. And I volunteered at the swim meet. And my job was I got an orange vest. And my job was to be the male marshal at the swim meet. And my main job is there's like an eight foot wide hallway, the opening when you come out, the swimmers come out of the locker room where I got to clear it of parents at all times

because it's just for the swimmers. Kids are like running around. If there's parents in the way, they're going to bump into the parents. And so my job is basically to sternly tell parents, I know you want to watch your kid race, you got to get out of this. There was one guy I had to tell like six times

in the course of the swim meet. And by time number four, I'm just straight up rude. I'm like, hey man, I've asked you like a bunch of, of times now. Can you just get out of here? And I'm watching the game back last night. That fucking dude is in the second row right behind one of the celebrities and he's on TV the entire game. And I'm like, who is this guy? It's like a James Dolix. Like what rich, powerful guy

that I fucking annoy by just kick him out. And look, I'm ruthless. I had a friend who was trying to sneak in there and watch the meet. I was like, hey, I'm sorry. Very nice woman. Like, I got to get you out of here. You're making me look bad in front of all these people. So I see this guy to you. I'm like, oh, my God. what did I do? But yeah, Spurs shopping, A plus shopping game for the two unnamed Spurs. First of all, respect the vest.

You have a vest on. I have an orange vest on. Yeah, you have an orange vest. Respect the vest. It's a thankless job. The swim coach was like, thank you for doing this thankless job. And I was like, are you kidding?

I love it. I get to be rude to these entitled adults. It's fucking awesome. Like, no, shockingly, the rules also apply to you, sir. Like, I know that you're probably not used to that. But here I am with my vest on. but God only knows who the hell he is. He might run Goldman Sachs for all I know.

There's some things about the game. It was a really weird game last night for a million reasons. Like the whole like getting in stuff and like the announcements during the day. And like I just want people that aren't here that like see the most extreme clips of the fans. That's not like the normal New York City experience. You're seeing the sort of like the, you're not seeing the bell curve of New York. You're seeing the very extreme ends of it because there was some like violence. and some like cop interactions and stuff that got weird.

But like Alvarado ending up in former Mayor Bloomberg's lap. I didn't see that. I didn't see that from my seat. Oh, yeah. He goes to save a ball from going out of bounds. And he's literally sitting on Flabber's lap. I thought Bloomberg was hurt, dude. That was a pretty violent one.

I held. And then like DJ Callad's on his phone the whole time. It was just like, I don't know, maybe the president fell asleep. Maybe he didn't. I don't know. Who knows? It's hard to tell if... It's strange.

It's hard to tell if he's asleep because he has, like, sort of a downcast view of, of, like, his, in general, where his eyes are facing it. It's hard, it's hard to tell. There were rumblings that... I have no idea if this is true or not,

but there were rumblings going around that he wanted to sit courtside, and everyone was like, that's a terrible idea. And the first thing I thought of was not anything to Ferris. It was like, Josh Hart diving for a loose ball,

fucking kicks the president in the face or something like that. You got to put it between Tracy Morgan and Fat Joe because I would pay all of my money just to watch a live stream of those three micups watching a playoff basketball game. It would be good. A lot of celebs in the crowd. Everyone thought he was going to leave in the middle of the first quarter. He stayed, I think, for almost the entire game in his little class enclosure. Very bizarre.

The whole vibe was bizarre in ways that. It's just hard to explain it. I mean, getting in was not that bad. Honestly, like, it was obviously much worse, but the arena was full 45 minutes before tip, which is like what they were worried about is if, oh, my God, if he's late or the crowd can't get in, are we going to start this game at the 842 tip time if there's like 15% capacity? And that didn't happen at all.

They were in the building. But it was, it was, it was just strange. And yeah, I mean, prepare now. We got 36 hours of like, did Trump current? the Knicks discourse that's going to dominate the airwaves in lieu of actual basketball analysis. I do want to say that like this whole thing with him and sort of what he brings to the table could have gone a lot worse. You know what I mean? Like I like, like, you remember like when Taylor Swift would go to Chiefs games and they would like show her too much and to like make it

too much on Taylor Swift? It really wasn't really impacting the game. You know what I mean? Like they showed him during the anthem. If you have the president in the building, you're doing the national anthem the 250 year anniversary of the country like show the guy you know and like we can we can talk about whether he got boot or cheered who cares but like it really didn't impact my viewing experience as a basketball fan as much as i was terrified it was going to like we can talk about basketball in this podcast i thought i thought he'd say something after the game that would inflame everyone but it was just all kind of whatever he did say that Stephen A smith doesn't have the aptitude to run for president I didn't want to mention that.

I did not want to mention that. Zach. The finals are always weird. The finals are always weird because it's such a show. Like I always tell people my favorite round of the playoffs to cover in person is the conference finals because the stakes are super high, but it still feels like almost a normal NBA game. Like there's more people, there's more media, but it's not insane. The step up from the conference finals to the finals is like it goes from a basketball game to a complete

circus where you cannot get any real work done. That's fine. But it's such a circus that you get there three hours before tip. There's so much going on. There's so much extra-cricular stuff that the game starts. And you're almost like, oh, yeah, I forgot that we're all here for the basketball game. And you wonder, like, the players must feel that sort of saying, like, I got to remember, this is just a basketball game.

Like, I know we got to wait three hours and tips late. There's all this pomp and circumstance. I just got to focus on being approaching this like a normal basketball game. that felt like tripled last night. And just in terms of like we got, we were in the arena so early because we all got there so early. We didn't even know what to do with ourselves for three hours, three, four hours. And it's like, oh, that's right.

There's a game. We're all here to watch a game. It was a very strange atmosphere. But we have a real, a real finals. The road team has not yet lost the game in the series. And look, if it goes back to two, two, holy shit. Even if it goes back 3.1, the spurs have done enough to put themselves in position to win one home game and force the Knicks to play here for the title with all the pressure in the world

on them to try to close out the series. And when you fall behind 2.0 at home, that's really all you can ask for. Now, they want to get 2-2. That's fine. They can definitely do it. The total point differential in the series is Knicks plus seven. So it's a very close series. But just getting yourself in position win game five and force them to do it under pressure in game six. I mean, Jacoby, you'd, if that, you'd have to come to that game. You'd have to find a way at that game. I can't afford it. I cannot afford it. Get a press pass, man. Come to the game. I'll give you my press pass. I don't want to. I don't want my head against the ceiling. And also like, you can't cheer and you can't have a beer. Like, what's the point of going to the game?

If you're just going to like have a laptop out and take notes, that's what I do here in my office when I'm watching the game last night. I did see a media member last year, game one of the conference finals drinking a beer on press row. And I remember Chris Mannix and I looked at his stuff. how what is this this is this is this is this is this is this is happening here maybe it was I'm going to say that it's probably a non-alcoholic beer it must have been it was it was not we we checked what beer was and it was not oh wow the finals brings out a lot of weirdness it just does um I don't know Kirk any concluding thought what did what did we miss here I mean I have a whole list of notes that I can table for a day of trying to find a comp for the Knicks

in the entire history of professional basketball in terms of like pretty good team like you know, they went 53 games not a great like sixth in net rating or something that becomes a supernova team in the playoffs to win the title. And let me tell you, it's hard to find a good comp for them in that sense.

But I found a couple, but we can table that for a day because the spurs are back in the series. And he can, what did we miss, Kirk? I got three like orphan stats that I'll give you that I think are pretty interesting. Perfect.

Brunson is a minus five. net rating in this series. As you pointed out, Towns is plus 12.5. I think that's really weird. I looked up while Jacoby was talking about all the dribble in the air out of the ball. Jalen Brunson has dribbled the ball 1,590 times in these three games. Stefan Castle ranks second at 813. I wonder where last night would rank in like dribbles per game for Brunson for the whole season.

I tried to look that up and I couldn't figure out. out how I looked it up. I have it here. It's not his highest. There have been many, many more than, he's averaging about five or six dribbles per touch and he's getting 100 touches. So he's up there, but he is the dominant dribbler in this series. And again, that goes back to this. That's sort of a quirky stat. This usage surge, though, Zach, like it is bordering on hero ball. And if the spurs win game four, I think that discourse is going to get a little louder. I mean, obviously the Knicks need Brunson to be the straw that stirs the drink, but it might be doing a little too much strawing and not enough stirring.

And then, you know, lastly, I think what Ms. Johnson did in the fourth quarter using challenges and timeouts to keep Wemby in the game for the entire duration of the fourth quarter, which to my understanding was the first time that happened all playoffs. I think even in an OKC overtime game, Cornett played in the fourth quarter. The Spurs are really hard to beat in those Wemney minutes. And if they can make this science of getting Cornett in at the exact right times against the right lineups,

and they don't turn it over, that's the last that. That was by far the best Spurs turnover game of the series, seven turnovers, A-Term or something like that. But the Spurs have a roadmap now. And as a biased Spurs observer, I think they got to keep doing what they're doing.

And to your point, excellently framed, man, if they win game four, all bets are off. Wemby plus 10 for the series, minus 17 when he's off the floor. So, Cornett, you know, do the math. They don't really have a good alternative to Cornett. I mean, it's just they would have to be so small that I'm not sure they want to go that route. But, yeah, the timeouts were interesting because there was the one time. out he took right after a challenge when the Knicks did the thing where they sort of moved the chest pieces around to the point that Wemby toggled onto towns and then they cleared that

side of the floor and ran a Brunson town's pick and roll. This is exactly what they want. And then Wemby blitzed Brunson turned the corner and got a layup and Ms. Johnson called the time out and I was like, is he mad or is this just like a rest Wemby? time out. Maybe it was both, I guess. Yeah, I got a weird stat for you, Goldsbury. Spurs had five fast break points. Yeah. In the game. I mean, a lot of it was because the second half was so choppy, right?

But like, I was pretty shocked. Yeah. And to paraphrase Kenny Atkinson as we wrap up, analytically, this series is tied. Oh, stop. No, we're not going back there. We're not going back. Analytically, this deal is tied, guys. It can't be tied. There's only been three games.

You can't be one and a half. You just don't know the analytics, Zach. You don't know the analytics. This thing is tied, baby. I'm playing checkers. You're playing 4D chess. I misread you. Yeah, the transition defense has been outrageous on both.

I mean, Ananoby, I feel like, has two outrageous transition defensive plays every game. Bridges had one where he sprinted black back and deflected the past. Again, these games do not let up. The intensity is off the charts. I cannot wait for game four at the world's most famous arena. I expect an even better performance out of the MSG crowd, those who can afford to attend the game, which is a whole different story.

David Jacoby, mismatch recorded last night, right? That's going to be my listening when I go, get my fat ass to the hotel gym today. That and Bill's pot. I got a lot to listen to. What else are you recording? I can't keep track of everyone's schedules anymore. We do Thursday nights,

so I'll have a nice Wednesday watching the game and not having to stay up until one in the morning afterwards. and food news every Friday. Look at that. KG, what do we got from you this week? You did a big final preview. You picked Spurs and Seven, I think, was your pick. It is.

And I'm committed to write a game five look-ahead piece, which now is going to happen. There was a time I was like, maybe I won't have to do that, you know? But I have to do it. So look for that. I would guess Friday. Yeah, there's a big party that I was going to go to the night of game five

if there were a sweep. I'm out of my RCP is officially no. I'm ready and willing to have a long series here. All right, David Jacobi, Kurt Goldsbury. Thanks for waking up early after a long, long night. We will see you back here on this show after, I don't know, whatever, Thursday morning, I think, after game four, whatever is happening. I don't know.

Thank you guys. Talk to you soon. All right, that's it for today's edition of the Zach Lowe. So thanks to the great David Jacoby and Kurt Goldsberg for their time and analysis and humor. Thank you to Mike, Billy, and Jonathan, as always on production. Thank you to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe Show. I'll be back around this time Thursday morning after attending game four at Madison Square Garden. It'll either be 2-2 and Holy Smokes or 3-1 and Knicks on the Burge.

Either way, we'll break it all down, maybe talk some NBA draft trades, who knows. Thank you all for listening or watching to Zach Lowe Show. 21 are over and President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. or 18 and over in president, D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming, gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or 1-800-Mai Reset. Call 1-888-7-9-77 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut, or is it MDGamblinghelp.org and Maryland. Hope is here.

Visit gambling helpline, ma.org, or call 800, 327-50-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-8-7-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope N-N-Y in New York for Louisiana. Call 1-877-7-770-8867.