The Zach Lowe Show - The Knicks Are NBA Champions! The Moments We’ll Remember Forever.

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Zach is joined by Sean Fennessey to discuss what the Knicks winning the title means for the city of New York. Then, Fred Katz comes on to share the moments he’ll remember forever from the Knicks run and debate if Jalen Brunson is the greatest Knick of all time. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (1:36) Sean Fennessey joins the show! (13:20) Were the Spurs not well conditioned enough?  (18:19) You knew the Knicks would close the gap when they fell down big again (20:20) There was zero doubt in Jalen Brunson last night (25:06) Let’s go through the end game of the Knicks winning the championship (32:10) These storylines are a home run for the NBA (37:28) Zach’s love letter to NYC (54:30) Fred Katz joins the show! (58:36) Kat taking in the moment last night (1:03:14) This Knicks team was so connected (1:06:53) What changed for the Knicks during the Hawks series? (1:14:27) Gotta give OG his due (1:17:38) Brunson’s floater isn’t really being discussed  (1:23:53) Is Jalen Brunson the greatest Knick of all time?  (1:28:30) What to expect from the Knicks’ free agents (1:33:30) Rapid-fire offseason takes Host: Zach Lowe Guests: Sean Fennessey and Fred Katz 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. As the Official Beer Sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 26, Michelob ULTRA gave away $1million in FIFA World Cup tickets and prizes. https://www.michelobultra.com/superioraccess/FIFAWORLDCUP26 MICHELOB ULTRA® FIFA® WORLD CUP 26TM SUPERIOR ACCESS. No Purchase Necessary. Open to US residents 21+. Begins on 12/1/25 and ends on 7/31/26. Multiple entry periods. Visit https://www.michelobultra.com/superioraccess/FIFAWORLDCUP26 for free entry, entry deadlines, and Official Rules. Message and data rates may apply. Void where prohibited. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for Calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. On a special Sunday night edition of the Zach Lowe show, the New York Knicks are NBA champions for the first time in 53 years. Every champion deserves a moment of celebration before we move on to the offseason. Everyone, I do it every year in various ways. This is moment, number one, for the Knicks. I did Bill's Pod last night.

I just, I had more things to say, more emotions to share, more people to talk to. Sean Fennessey, lifelong, long-suffering Knicks fan is here to talk about how he experienced the Knicks championship from afar, some frozen moments from he and I that we will all try to remember from this incredible anomalous, weird run. And then Fred Katz, who was there for all of it, including in San Antonio for the clinching game, just talks about the sights, the sounds of a team,

spraying champagne, drink at tequila, celebrating a championship, hugging family members, plays from the he'll remember, forever, Jalen Brunson's place in Nick's history. The OG and Obie Tippin as one of the most consequential final swinging plays in the history of basketball. Just all things, Nick's title run. A little bit of offseason talk sprinkled in, Janus in particular, and Deeran Fox in particular, and Spurs, future, Spurs are going to be fine.

We talk about all of that. It's coming up on the Zach Lowe show. A Sunday edition of the Zach Lowe show. We don't normally record on Sundays, but we make exceptions for NBA. championships. And one thing we do on this show is we pause every year and we luxuriate no matter who wins, no matter what the circumstances, before we pivot to Ghanis and Chet Holmgren talk and all this stuff everyone wants to do. We sit with the NBA championship because it is so hard to win. It is such a monumental accomplishment. It is the point of all the other hundreds of

podcasts we do about trades and free agency signings in the draft is to get to the point that the new York Knicks just got to capping off a historic anomalous, almost insane, 16 and 3 playoff run with the greatest playoff point differential in the entire history of the NBA for a team that won the championship. For the first time in 53 years, the New York Knicks sit atop the basketball world. Sean Fennessey, you have waited a long, long time. You have moved to the West Coast where you must have been feeling an enormous amount of FOMO watching the city explode last night. How are you feeling? How did you watch the game? What have you been doing for the last 24 hours?

Zach, thank you for having me here. This is very special. I never, I never, ever, ever thought that I would see this moment. I am beyond myself and truly having the best 12 hours I've had that I can possibly remember in my life. I'll tell you how I watched the game the exact same way I watched every single game in this series and every single game in the previous series, which was seated on my couch and then occasionally deciding to make the decision to move to my bedroom. And I've watched most of these games with my five-year-old daughter. this is by far the latest she's ever stayed up in her life. And I watched every single game through gridded teeth,

mostly frustrated and scared. And the reason for that is not because I didn't believe in this team or love this team and love these players. It's because I have 43 years of previous Nick's experience to measure them against. And the franchise historically always hurt me. And I feel like a changed man. I feel like a new person.

I actually think something has changed inside me because of all the things you just described. The point differential, the record over the last six, seven weeks of basketball, the way that they won, the way that they comported themselves on and off the court throughout this entire stretch, the way that Brunson instantaneously ascended to the rarest of air for New York athletes. I did feel FOMO, and yet I'm really happy that I didn't freak out and decide to fly to New York or something and just ruin whatever mojo is.

going. I'm as superstitious as the next guy. And so, um, even though I was just with my family last night, I also was with all my friends on the internet for like 14 straight hours. I stayed up till three o'clock in the morning, just listening to podcasts, looking at tweets, reading recaps, just, you know, absolutely reveling in everything that I never thought was going to happen. So I'm in the best state that you've ever found, me, Zach Lowe. Wembe misses a three with like three seconds left. rebound ricochets. It's officially over after Ogy and Obey hits a free throw to put them up for that three misses.

When that three misses, you can hear the crowd pop in San Antonio. Like, I don't know what percentage it was. I had friends at the game who estimated it was 40, 50 percent. It was loud. And it was loud every time the Knicks did anything good. What does Sean Fennacy do at the moment that that three hits off the rim and you know, it's actually over. I can exhale.

It was the one moment throughout this entire stretch where I, I needed to just place my daughter to the side. She was sitting on my lap. She had picked up a Brunson, Brunson, Brunson chant. And I needed to just get up and just wander around the room for a minute and try to catch my breath. It was very, very similar to Game 4. Game 4 was an absolute, it was like a three-hour surgery. Like, I felt like things were being taken out of me actively throughout that game.

First, in the first half, because of how painful it was. And in the second half, because I felt like I was being rebuilt in real time. And this game had the exact same feeling at the end of the game where something left my body. Maybe it was just the, maybe it was the demons that have been haunting us for so long. Maybe it was something else. I don't know. But I felt transformed and just wandered around the bed for about three minutes. My wife looking at me as though I were some sort of ghost.

And then I picked up my daughter and I just pointed to the team. And I just said when I was four years old in 19, 1986, my annual New York Mets won the World Series. And I said, I don't remember that happening. I know that I saw it, but I don't, I have no memory of that moment. And my daughter, who's four years and 10 months old, I said to her, just watch this and try to remember this. Because there's no guarantee that this will ever happen again. And you really have to revel in this.

And this is the sort of, this made her a Knicks fan for life. And if it didn't, then we're going to have big problems. Yeah. But, but, you know, to watch her get so invested in this and to do it with me and to have that moment together was super special. Do I wish I was screaming like a maniac on the streets of Manhattan? I do. I do.

I would have had the time of my life last night doing that. But I also wouldn't have traded it for the experience that I had. First of all, your description of the clenched teeth, I just don't think a five game series can never be better than this. It's got to be the greatest five game series in the history of basketball anyway. I mean, every game, it feels like I was only at three of the five games, one in San Antonio and three and four in New York, which really were the games to be at most of all for various reasons. And I feel like the series has been going on for five weeks because every game was just this like just white knuckle wall to wall, which is why I,

I chuckled a little bit when Wembe after the game said, we absolutely dominated most of the series. Most is the wrong word, Victor Wembe Nama. You dominated parts of the series, parts of every game. The problem that you had is that the Knicks then dominated other parts of every game. And where that all netted out was four extremely close games that came down to the wire, five extremely close games that came down to the wire. And you won one of them. So I don't like, I understand that you say things in the heat of the moment and whatever, but absolutely dominated most of the series just isn't true. And it was just like, I live surrounded by Knicks fans in Connecticut. My entire life for the last month has been answering questions about what the game was like to be at, what's going on.

Are they actually going to do this? Hearing people's hot takes on the game, the Knicks, Wembenyama. I told you earlier today. I was in a public place trying to take a little outdoor snooze for 15 minutes. And I just overheard this woman say, that Victor Wemba seems like a really obnoxious guy. And I'm like, okay, I guess this is just going to be another two hours. It's just been absolutely all-consuming. And it was just the tension of every game was unbelievable.

And some of these big moments will live forever. And you mentioned game four. I was at the game. I was watching it happen brick by brick by brick. And I don't mean that to facetiously about the spurs. I just mean the makeup of a comeback slash collapse like that. And it was like an out-of-body experience. I was up on the bridge of MSG, the very top,

with a great view of all the action. And it's happening. And you realize it's happening. Like, okay, it's 21. It's 18. It's 15. It's 13. It's 13.

And it was just like, but is it really happening? What's happening? Is this actually going to happen? And then just the combination of heart missing the layup, Wembe Nama missing the free throws, Castle putting the spurs back ahead, just the swings of emotions. And I watched the Ananovi-Tip it.

I almost never do this. I stood up in my seat because there's an elevation behind us, so I'm not in anyone's way. And I just had my hands on my head like this. And I don't care who wins. It's just so excruciating. And Brunson misses that shot. And how many times you rewatched?

Have you hit 100 times yet? Well over. Well over. There are multiple plays in the last three games that I've watched over 50 times. And Ananoi is wide open. And the thing that stands out in rewatching the play, which I didn't really download in real time with my hands on my head and my mouth agape. is he's calling for the ball. He wants the ball.

He's open because in a decision that has not gotten enough scrutiny and may never get enough scrutiny, the Spurs decided that the greatest defensive player on the planet needed help against a point guard that he's a foot and a half taller than with four seconds left and no time for that point guard to really do anything. And Ananoi calls for the ball, his guys, hands up. And as soon as you realize he's not getting it, he rushes to the rim with the urgency of someone who thinks,

I will die to win this game. I will do whatever it takes to win this game. And he goes up and gets it. And I just stood there like this until the game ended. And then after the game ended, as MSG became a karaoke bar for 30 minutes and nobody left and nobody moved. That game alone was a movie, a marathon, whatever you want to, wherever you want to say. And all these games were incredibly intense. It's just, it's felt like a 14 game series because it's been.

so good. As a fan, as a diehard fan, it's felt even longer than that. This has felt, and especially because the previous five or six weeks of playoff basketball had not felt like that. I mean, they just so thoroughly dismantled the two previous teams that these games being so intense, it felt so brutal. And I just have very little experience with this as a fan. You know, I watch the Mets in 15.

I watched the Subway series. I watched the Knicks in 99 and 94. and I just don't have a ton of championship experience and long series, not single game elimination series, are historically painful for teams. I cannot imagine what it must be, be a Spurs fan right now.

You know, I know they have five titles since 2000, but that was, that was nightmarish, the way that the same script went over and over again. I want to say a couple of things about what you just described. One, I didn't have any feeling for what was happening in that moment

at the end of game four. I didn't see OG calling for the ball. I didn't see the fact that Brunson took what was ultimately not a very good shot, but was not such a dissimilar shot that he hit in Wemby's face about two minutes earlier in the game. I think the fact that he hit that shot in that game, maybe that encouraged Wemby to try to like, he consistently would make mistakes in an effort to make up for a mistake that he had made previously in a game. I felt like I watched him do that defensively a lot.

but the thing that I wanted to ask you about that has been on my mind, and I have been texting Bill Simmons this for a week now, is, and I don't know if a single reporter has asked either Mitch Johnson or Mike Brown about this, but I feel like three games ago after game two, the Knicks very clearly realized that the Spurs had a game plan that they were not going to move away from, which was they were going to play full effort from the first second, of every game and that the team was not well-conditioned enough to make it to the fourth quarter.

It's true for Wemby, but I think it's also pretty definitively true for Castle, Vassell, and Fox. And those guys, if you watch their defensive effort and the shots that they took in the fourth quarters of the last four games, they looked gassed in those games. And you described Wemby trying to come out

on Brunson to defend that play. When he turns his back to go towards the basket while O.G is mid-flight, he's not even leaving his feet. that he is routinely not leaving his feet in the fourth quarter. And so when I'm wondering about, and you being the elite analyst that you are, was that was that a strategy that the Knicks had deployed

that actually falling down so brutally in the first quarter of every single game since they started pressing in game two, were they playing Possum in some way, knowing that they could get back into the game offensively in the second half? Because it was the same script every single game. So my buddy Matt asked me that exact question three hours ago because Brunson had the quote after the game. Like I guess we don't really start playing until nine o'clock. And he said, why do you think that this happened over?

He didn't say playing possible, but he was just curious. And I said probably part of it is just random. Like the Knicks missed some random shots. The Spurs made some random shots. But I do think part of it is the spurs just come out in a gear defensively that when they hit it, they're really hard to start. like when he had four blocks and it felt like I barely sat down to start the game, and he had four blocks. And for whatever reason,

they just couldn't sustain that year as the game went on. And the Knicks, they don't turn the ball over. They don't make a lot of mistakes. They are a very good puzzle solving team. And they solved it. I said with Bill last night, their offensive rating,

people are going to look at the stats in five years, be like 11 points per 100 possessions. That's like dead last in the regular season. They had a horrible offensive series. They won because of their defense because of the spurs malfunctioning on offense. And I will always say, like, look, man, That offensive number looks bad. They're facing an insanely good defensive team, top two in the number two, I think, in the regular season.

The best defensive player in the league with time to game to do one thing, which is think about how to stop your team, with a refereeing regime that has decided, with the exception of Carl Anthony Towns, we're just going to let everyone beat the shit out of each other the entire game. And I don't really care what the numbers are. the Knicks had a good enough offensive series, and that's all they needed to do to win the finals. And that's what happened. But I really do think the Spurs came out shot out of a cannon and couldn't quite sustain that level of intensity. And I took a lot of shit from Spurs fans before the series

when I said, I think the Knicks are deeper than the Spurs. And like neither bench acquitted themselves like super well. The Knicks had no bench points for like the entire first three quarters of the game. But like Carter Bryant kind of couldn't play in the series. Harrison Barnes didn't end up playing much at all. the series got played out of it. Cornette was played to the fringes of the series by the end. Like other than Harper and Kelvin Johnson was like a bit player in a lot of these games,

too. They just didn't have guys that they trusted to play big minutes. And I think that fatigue was, and Wembe has never played minutes like this ever. And yeah, you had two days of rest between games, you know, four and five and all that.

But he's being asked to do so much and he runs the floor so hard in both directions. And a stat that I just apropos of this. in the first half of last night's game, I kept writing in my notes, he's not rolling to the rim, he's not rolling to the rim. He rolled to the rim on only nine screens, according to Genius IQ tracking data in the first half,

and 17 or 18, I think, in the second half. Someone clearly said to him in the locker room, like, I know, I know it's hard. I know that you're tired. You just got to summon everything you've got because when you roll to the basket, good things happen to our offense. And when you don't,

we don't really have a lot of levers that we can pull. against this team. And I absolutely think that fatigue was a factor more so for the Spurs and maybe the Knicks. And there's one play that I want to talk about later with you where I think that happened. But it was just bizarre how it's 3115 in the second quarter of the game last night. And two of the Knicks 15 points to that point, we're going to talk about sort of frozen moments that we will always try to remember from this game and these playoffs. One of them, two of those 15 points came on a pretty blatant OG and Nobi double dribble that the world

forget about it in my notes. And Victor Wenbanyama will whenever forget about because it was like, wait, what just happened? He was baffled. And 31.15, I'm sitting there watching the game. Like, it's my, I was acting like in my, in my heartbeat, my pulse was like at zero, zero. Like, I know what's going to happen and it's going to be close at the end. Yeah.

I think there were a number of completely bizarre plays in this game. And it had that incredible rock fight feeling. I just, I was noticing this throughout the game. This isn't a frozen moment, but I believe Wembe went to the bench five different times yesterday. Including late in the game when I was really surprised they took him out. And Brunson immediately was like, I'm going to the rim. Rims here.

It was four and a half minutes. I think it was a six point game, maybe a four point game at that point. And he brought Cornette in. And as soon as he did that, I was starting to feel this before this, but as soon as he did that, I was like, it's over. It's over. If he can't, if he is so gas that he can't stay on the floor right now. And some of it felt like,

In the third quarter, it was a little bit of Mitch Johnson overcorrecting for the criticism that he got after letting Wembe play 44 minutes in game four. And I understood that. But you could tell at the end of the first quarter when Wembenyama was as dominant, I would say as we've ever seen a big man, at least in my life watching the sport, the way that he protected the rim and was so clearly in the heads of the Knicks. And they actually made an effort to go to the basket against him in the first quarter. but I do think there was something, and maybe it wasn't a coached idea, but there was a mentality amongst the team that was like, we're going to make him work.

We're going to make him work from second one. If Castle's going to deem me up 94 feet, then we're going to go to the basket and we're going to try to tire him out. And by the time you get into the third and fourth quarter of this game, you can see him just not elevating. It's the third game in a row where he took a ton of jump shots in the fourth quarter.

And some of them were good shots and some of them were not, and some of them he missed. But as soon as you see the fact, I don't know if he's asking to come out of the game. I don't know what the decision making is, but with four and a half minutes to go in an elimination game on your home floor, for him to come off the floor, I was like, is this, did they just hand this to us?

This is un- because he knew exactly what Brunson was going to do because it was the same thing that he's done in every single minute in which when Vinyama was not on the floor, which is he just attacked. And his shot making last night and his feel for the moment and every touch was unreal. It was Pantheon-level stuff. He was not that through the entire.

series, but last night, there was not a scintilla of doubt that he wasn't going to be in control of the game. So I don't, I'm kind of fascinated by it with a little bit of distance as a, you know, set aside euphoric fandom for a second. I couldn't help but noticing the rhythms of the team. And even Harper, who is a magnificent player and terrifying, he even seemed to just be out of gas. He missed two free throws. He missed that layup at the bass. He missed that layup at the basket at the end of the fourth quarter. Those two shots were shots that he was, you know, he was hitting those shots in OG's face in game three.

Like there was just, they had just kind of run out of energy. I thought Castle was played really lousy and I thought Hart and Bridges had him in a straight jacket all game five. So I don't, it was just one of those things where I was like, is this just a much better condition team? They didn't have to play two seven game series. They did not have to play OKC to the limit. But even still, I'm like, and you know, Bridges famously is a is a, is a,

a is a freak when it comes to conditioning. Heart is a freak when it comes to conditioning. These guys can play 48 every night. But to me, the decision making of the Spurs, Brunson's just fearlessness in any situation, OG's TIPPIN,

and something about the togetherness of the team, the fact that they never talked shit, they never took individual credit for things. They just, I'm obsessed with watching these Brunson interviews every Brunson interview is just unbelievable to me.

Not just because it's heartfelt, but he just is deflecting all praise. All praise. He's in the next to his dad, and they're both like, yeah, we didn't really see this as possible. But we talked about it,

we hoped it could happen. He's the NBA champion, NBA Finals MVP, and he's like, I definitely didn't see this. So, okay, number one, rest versus Rust, I'm always taking rest every time in the playoffs.

I was telling everyone before game one, I think the Knicks will play well, tonight. I'm not worried about the layoff. I know they looked rusty in game one against Cleveland, which feels like nine months ago that the Landry Shammat shot hit the rim and went up and fell in. I just would rather be rested. I just don't want the wear

and tear. They definitely made a conscious decision. We are going to make Wenbanyama move on defense. We're going to go out of our way to try to drag him up, up the floor in the pick and roll when we can. And when we can't, I know one

of the emphasis they had was, if he's and around the baseline, we want our corner, our corner shooters to drive at him, to engage him and make him guard a drive, close out, rotate to another person. But we just want him moving around all the time. You mentioned his defense at the beginning of game one. Maybe the, maybe the, like, most courageous slash saddest moment of the NBA finals was Landry Schammett putting his head down and being like, I'm going for it. I'm going to give it a shot. Wemby. And it's, I think Landshamber just disappeared into like into the time space continuum somewhere like in a black hole. Okay, let's go through.

Well, before we get to the other frozen plays, I just don't think enough can be made of the Ananoby Tipin. It's the greatest play in the history of the Knicks with apologies to about 10 other people who have made 10 iconic plays. It's, are you pleased as a Mets fan that it's become known as the OMG Tipin? Do you get a little bit of a kick out of that? I am. I have a screenshot. of the New York Post cover now in my my photos forever. I mean, it's a perfect nickname for an indelible moment.

And I agree with you. I don't think you can overstay. Now, I will say, I think I heard Bill say this last night when you guys were talking to, but I do think that Towns would have just dunked the mist put back too because he's standing right behind him and also not being boxed out. Extraordinary to me that, I mean, that's another thing that there's just something about the weird grittiness of New York basketball where it's like box out is the thing that you hear screamed at you by your father, who is your coach.

your whole life. And, you know, the Knicks are just a great box-out team. This is the team of Mitchell Robinson and Josh Hart. They just box the fuck out on every rebound. And it's amazing watching them. And to see two different guys be in position for that at the most important moment of the game,

it felt once again like youthful indiscretion on the part of the spurs. Let's talk about what of my frozen moments was going to be that Harper mislay up at the end of the game. Because I want to go through the end game of, of the Knicks actually winning the championship. And so with like 37 seconds left, I mean, this is what I wrote at my notes. Jalen Brunton makes one of the single best passes

of his entire career, a wraparound pass that skips two Knicks in like the rotation order and hits heart at the top of the key. I mean, that is, that's the championship in his hands. It's not the shooter you necessarily want, but it's a guy who's made some big shots for the next. It's the championship in his hands.

The level of tension in that moment as that shot went up, I cannot overstate like my eyes were bugging out watching the flight of the ball. It misses, and Harper goes coast to coast. And all of New York City, this is a 20-year-old kid going one-on whatever at the end of an elimination game of the finals. Reckless, maybe. All of New York, correct me if I'm wrong. All of New York City was probably like, this fucking guy is terrifying.

I'd rather have it be pretty much anyone else on the spurs. He was the only guy with any juice in the game at that point, too. I mean, there was not a single spur who was making any meaningful offensive impact in that quarter or even in the third quarter. So yeah, I thought for sure it was going in. I think it was 27 seconds when he took that shot. So Ananoi is tracking back and he sees Vesel on the right wing. And there's a moment where it looks like he might veer that way.

as Harper's dribbling up the middle. But he also sees bridges sprinting his ass back and is probably going to catch of a cell or at least disrupt the passing angle and kind of pivots his body back to get in front of Harper. And if you freeze it at the summit, his hand is just like just almost on the ball.

Yes. But he's falling backwards a little bit and he doesn't have as much elevation because he's backpedaling. But he does just enough to disrupt that shot and Harper leaves it short at the rim. Hart then rebounds the ball, what 28.3 seconds left, exactly 28.3, Spurs down two.

4.4 to 5 seconds is like the no one knows what to do segment of time. Do we foul or do we play for the stop? I would err on the side of fouling. The spurs apparently didn't even think about it. They foul and then the free throw thing starts. Castle has the putback to make it 9290. And then the other. frozen moment is they wait seven and a half seconds to foul McHale Bridges at the end of the game.

And I, like they were trying for a turnover. They basically trapped Brunson in a rugby scrum at half court and were mauling him and there was no call. So they almost got the turnover. But that amount of elapsed time, I think ended up biting them in the ass at the end of the game where they just didn't have any time to do anything down four. In that moment, the take foul that they had on heart at 27 or 28. seconds, I was actually screaming past the ball of Brunson,

past ball of Brunson when Hart grabbed the rebound. As soon as he grabbed the re- because I actually, I know enough to not want Josh Hart on the line in that moment. I love Josh Hart. He's a legend forever. He should also have a statue. Like he is a beloved New York Nick, but that's not the player in that Ross on that lineup that you want at the line. In fact, there were a number of players who you didn't want at the line because Nick's missed a lot of free throws in the in the fourth quarter of this game. But I was desperate that he would look for an outlet pass, but he didn't. And they fouled right. I think Fox fouled him right away.

So it was the right play because you just can't, you can't risk the Knicks milking the whole clock. And then a long rebound into deflection and the game is over. Yeah. The other foul that you're talking about where they burned clock off. I couldn't understand why I don't remember who it was who made it with the ball up or maybe it maybe it was Brunson the whole time who made it up around the sideline and then went around to half court. And then he, you know, he's just clearly being fouled by two different players as he's approaching the half court line. and they didn't call that foul

and it was really weird and maybe it was because it seemed like they were trying to make a basketball play and not intentionally fouling him and then there was obviously an intentional foul on Bridges and Bridges, who's a good free throw shooter but I thought the broadcast was really good about this where they were just like,

this guy has taken so few free throws in this series and has been so not at the center of the offensive action of this series. It's a tough spot to be in as a free throw shooter and he missed one of two. And when he missed one of two, I was like, well, this is not over. Like there's just a there was just a not overness to this entire thing and I've heard people say this the you know this is the franchise of the LJ four point play so just being up four even with eight seconds left doesn't mean anything to us it's like we've seen teams come back from this in bizarre ways and this has been we don't talk about this too much Zach but a bizarrely officiated five game series bizarrely and whether you want to say it was in one direction or another the number of missed calls the regularity

with which guys were being pummeled in ways that would never be allowed in a regular season game. And then just the technical foul strangeness. I was just like, everything's on the table here. Until it's zero, zero, zero on the clock, this is not over. So I was never feeling like, okay, we're completely good, no matter what happens. Let's take a quick break, talk a little bit about some other big picture stuff,

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and ends on July 31, 2026. Multiple entry periods, visit www. www.m., www.m.com slash Superior Access slash FIFA World Cup 26 for free entry. I said with Bill the other night, last night, and I believe this, I think this is like in terms of like literary narratives, the Knicks winning and the Spurs losing and Wemby coming out a little bit scarred

basketball wise and as kind of a polarizing figure, at least to the largest fan base in the NBA, maybe other than the Lakers fans is just a home run for the NBA. It's so much better than, oh, he already did it. Like it's already his league. And not only does he not do it, he averages 26th a game in the finals on 42% shooting. He accumulates a whole bunch of flagrant fouls, some called, some uncalled. And I think we would have been looking at a suspension in game six.

And it's another reason I was kind of glad as a neutral fan that the Knicks won last then is because if they come back at MSG and beat the spurs of that Wembe, it's just so anticlimactic. And we're coming off the finals that ended on the most, the saddest possible anti-climactic moment with Halliburton last year. I just think it's awesome for the league that he comes back. He leaves in this state with these things to work on in his game. And the flip side is like the closest thing the NBA really has to a Red Sox Cubs style

drought ends with this incredible one-of-a-kind team that has no players on it that I've ever made first team all NBA ever and is put together in such an unusual way. And I, you know, I saw some feedback on social media. I checked. I shouldn't have checked that people, some people think I'm getting a little caught up in the moment for the Knicks being a little hyperbolic when I describe it as a totally anomalous playoff run. And I don't apologize. Like, I'm not getting caught up up in the moment. First of all, I get it caught up in the moment for every team that wins a championship because it's the point of the whole goddamn enterprises to win one. And as the next 53 year drought testifies to, it's very hard to win one. Like some of these teams have had repeats and dynasties.

They make it look easy. It's hard to win one. So hell yes, we should celebrate it. It is absolutely anomalous. There is no team that is like this team in terms of it was a pretty good regular season team. Some flaws, some warts, some down periods, 53 wins. Like not, doesn't scream like, oh, that's a clear championship contender.

And then whoosh, two months later, 16 and 3, 15 and 1 in its last 16 playoff games. The greatest point differential in the history of basketball. Like, it doesn't happen. The closest comp is the 2001.

Lakers who won 56 games in cruise control in the regular season and went 15 and one in the playoffs. But it's not a comp. That was a defending championship team with Shaq and Kobe. It's like a completely different thing. The only other team that comes close is the 2023 Denver Nuggets who had 53 wins on the dot, I think, 16 and 4 in the playoffs plus eight. The Knicks are plus 15.

It's absolutely outrageous. And I do not want to hear. I don't want to hear. Well, they didn't have to play Boston. Guess what? Boston got their asses exposed in the second round by Philly, who was healthy for a week. And it turned out that Nemia-S-Keda was Nemeus Keda and Luca Garza was Luca Garza and they didn't have enough size. And now they're going to do some stuff in the offseason to address that. They didn't have to play Detroit.

Detroit lost to Cleveland. They didn't have to play Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City was injured and lost to the Spurs. The Spurs hadn't lost more than three playoff games in a series. The Knicks just beat them four out of five. I'm sorry that they didn't have the ideal story. book path. The other thing they did was they beat the living shit out of everybody that they faced in the Eastern Conference. Embarrassed them, ran them off the floor, announced to the

Cavaliers, to the Sixers, and to the Hawks after two one-point losses. Their losses were by one point, one point, and four announced to all those teams. You are not even in our universe. Get the fuck out of here. Talk to us next year. You don't belong on the core with us. So I don't, Am I getting caught up in it? Yeah, I get caught up in it every year. One of the reasons I got caught up in it, and this is what I want to talk to you a little bit about, is I just love New York City.

It's my favorite place in the world. I live there for 20 years. I have a deep fondness for it. And so you're goddamn right. I'm getting caught up in it, and I don't apologize. First of all, I just want to show you that I'm wearing my Philip Seymour Hoffman t-shirt today.

There you go. My favorite actor of all time, and that was a rant suitable for Gustavricos. You know what my wedding song was? My wife and my wedding song, we got married in Croatia, and we forced a Croatian band, beautiful band,

to play Empire State of Mind. That was our wedding song. That was our first dance wedding song. What year did you get married? What year did you get married? 2013. Okay. I was going to say,

I got married in 2009, and there was a, there was pandemonium on our wedding dance floor when Empire State of Mind came on. So it's funny that you mentioned that. I mean, look, I spent yesterday, we went for, okay, I'm just, now I'm going, Sean. Just go, man.

I'm going to let you cook in a second. Go. New York City changed my life. It changed me as a person. It changed me in, I became a man. I became who I am living in New York City for 20 years. My first apartment was $550 a month, a basement apartment, a windowless room in a cat ladies apartment where the cat ladies cat Susan would come into my room every night and wake

me up and I would be like, get the fuck out of here, Susan, $550 on the Upper East Side for a month. I paid my dues in New York City. I love it. It is beyond special to me. I, I, this was a home finals for me. I could have come home between games two, three, four. I decided, you know what? I want the hotel in New York City all week because I want to feel it. I want soak it up. My wife and daughter came in on an off day between the two games to have dinner with me on 85th Street. I walked from 25th to 85th because A, it was beautiful. And B, I just wanted to see all the Knicks fans. I wanted to see all the decorations. The New York Historical Society has Abraham Lincoln wearing a Carl Anthony Towns jersey and Frederick Douglass wearing a Brunson jersey.

There's stuff everywhere. I wanted to see it. And again, I grew up not only not a Knicks fan, hating the Nix. And I wanted to see it. And I wanted to feel it. And, you know, like some people recognize me and would just shout go Nix. One guy recognized me at dinner and said, never get never bet against Nova. Never bet against Nova. I just.

And to see those videos last night, I just think there's, it's just there's one city that's going to look like that when its basketball team wins a championship. And it's New York. And I apologize for nothing. I love New York City. I went in yesterday morning to a Croatia World Cup kickoff event in Long Island City, a neighborhood where I used to live at a bar called Annabelle's Basin where I used to go all the time because my wife wanted to go, but also like I want to see it. I want to see what it's like day of, day of the morning of them possibly winning the championship. And everyone at there was a thousand people to say, I don't know how many people were there, was wearing like a Croatia jersey and a Nix hat.

or a Knicks jersey and a Croatia hat. It was just awesome. So I don't know. I don't know what the fuck I'm saying, man. I don't care if I'm going overboard. It's New York City. Listen, man, it's New York City. I lived there for 10 years as well.

I was born in the state. I went to college in the state. I'll be a New York Nick fan until I die. I'm an extremely, extremely sad sports fan. I root for the Knicks, the Mets, and the Jets. The Jets are the most historically unsuccessful team of the last 15 years in North America. The Mets, you and I have a niche, niche sports.

segment on your show talking about how painful it is to be a fan of this team. And the Knicks have been disastrous, give or take three times this century. You can say that first Mello season, you can say that first Amari season, and you can say Linsanity. And aside from that, until Julius Randall and Tom Tibado arrived in New York, the franchise was depressing. It was painful to be a Knicks fan. And here's the thing for me.

I'll try to put this in context personally. Four of my like eight best friends are from Philly. And I watched, including Chris Ryan, who works at the Ringer and a number of other people who people would know. And I watched them go through this with the Eagles when the Eagles won the Super Bowl. And I was so jealous. And I was happy for them. I was actually happy for them.

The Eagles are not rivals of any team I root for. But I was all I could feel when they were going through that first championship run, years ago was like, I just really want this for myself one day. I just really want this monkey off my back. If you compound that with, I've been working for Bill Simmons for 14 years. I've known you for almost as long. And I've watched Bill get the moon and the stars when it comes to sports fandom. It really has been unbelievable. I mean, but what Boston has been able to experience as a sports city is just absolutely unbelievable. And you know, if you're a Yankees fan or New York Giants fan, it's different. It's different. Like you've, you've, you've, you've tasted glory this century.

But to be proximate to so many people and to care about so many people who have had this kind of happiness and this kind of joy and to have not had this, it genuinely made me a different kind of person. Like I just, I was getting angrier. And I just don't feel angry. Like I just don't feel, I do feel like I said this to my wife last night and then I woke up again this morning and I said to her, I just feel like there's a piano off my back. This is, and I have an amazing life. I love my life. I have so many things that have gone my way and I feel so lucky.

But when I watch sports, I'm a different person. I'm pissed off and fearful. And all of a sudden, poof, gone. And it doesn't mean that my teams will always win now and forevermore. And it doesn't mean that the character of New York City as a sports town will change forevermore. But we will always have this. And on the literally, I have three insanely active Knicks fan. text threads. And in every single one of them I just sent, we will always have this and they can

never take this away from us no matter what. We will always be able to talk about this team and what they did. And you provided all of those data points about the strength of their run and the way that they dominated teams through the first three rounds of the Eastern Conference path and the way that they took four out of five from the spurs and six of eight on the season. Let's not forget, they dominated this team this season. The fact that they went up against one of the most bizarrely gifted players in NBA history and routinely made him look bad. Put all that down. Like, forget about all that stuff.

They can't, nobody can ever take this way. We will always be able to talk about this and share this and have this. And so I think that it kind of dawned on everybody simultaneously. I think it actually dawned on us after Game 4. Because after Game 4, there was this collective like, wow, 3-1, there's no way they're going to beat us three times in a row. Like, we really felt that way, but you couldn't say it. You couldn't enunciate that feeling because of how afraid we are of everything that's

happen us in the past as fans. But when the tip-in went in, and I think it's right that you've circled back to it a couple of times in this conversation, something happened where we were just like, oh, my God, oh, my God. This can't happen for us. The tip-in is such a important moment for obvious reasons, but also because when I did my live show in New York in March, a segment that me and Jacoby and Howard Beck did were just like, let's draft the craziest moments of the last 30 years.

of Knicks history. And just going through that exercise, even though you cognitively know this to be the case, having lived it, it just hammers home how many of those moments are bad things and great plays that happened to the Knicks, that happened at the expense of the Knicks. And the great moments, there are some great basketball moments. Starks' dunk losing series. Ewing's put back, they don't end up finishing off the job in the finals and all that. But a lot of them are just like, Linsanity, which is just a regular season moment to end all regular season moments, but ends up yielding like, you know, in terms of playoff equity, not all that much at all. And it's just like the endless list of like Charles Smith and Reggie Miller and Tyrese Halliburton

and double nickel and all this stuff that has happened to the Knicks, they have now in the post-merger modern history of the NBA, they have a play that was their play that happened to them that happened by them that was done by them that is their moment. I think that is just like, are there any, I asked you for Frozen Moly, you have any other Frozen? Yeah, I have a few. I want to, yeah, just let's go. List off your like,

I want these to be embedded in my brain forever. Sure. There were a couple of Landry Shamit plays, and I'm citing this because in one of my text chains, we were going back and forth about how the Knicks bench had been brutal for the previous two games. It was giving them nothing. Deuce McBride

was a zero in this series, and it was sad because Deuce is a really good Nick and was a really valuable player this season. Mitchell Robinson had a broken hand, couldn't finish those lob dunks the way that he had all season, even though he gave them good defense and good rebounding. We saw Jordan Clarkson minutes. We saw Huck Pordy minutes that were valuable

yesterday, but I bring up Shamid because he hit a big three in the fourth quarter, and then he hit a huge layup in the fourth quarter in which he got injured. And when he got in, and he slid on a wet spot underneath the basket after he hit a layup that I think maybe tied the game or put the game and maybe he made it a two-point game.

And when he hit that layup, it was such a complicated feeling for me. Because on the one hand, I was like, good. Shamet got his moment, which I knew was going to happen, which I texted people. I was like, I'm not giving up on Shammit. He was so good in game one and game two in San Antonio. He was not afraid. And he was not afraid in that game. And when he got hurt, my hero's my fear.

Towns had five fouls at that point and Shamet got hurt. And I was like, if this game goes to OT, they don't have enough bodies. They cannot survive over time without Shammit and without Kat. that's one moment. The second moment is the Mitch offensive rebound, which we have not mentioned. Mitchell Robinson on a missed free throw, literally just manning up on Wembeñama.

After Wembe Gama got position on the inside, and Mitch just big-boid him out of the way. Yeah, Wembe turns to face him to make sure, like, I'm going to make sure I see you and look you in the eye and I'm between you and the rim. And Mitch was like, it don't matter. It did not matter. He muscled him the same way that when Mitch got,

T got the technical foul, which got reversed. I think that was in game two, eventually rescinded by the league. It was the same thing where they were kind of having like a physical standoff. And Wemby was using all of his might and he could not overpower Mitch because Mitch is a grown man. This is his eighth season, as he has been saying. Mitch not only gets the rebound, but immediately outlet passes it to the sideline and then the Knicks whip the ball around. And he could have gotten fouled by Wembe Nyama in that moment. And that would have sent him to the line because they were in the bonus.

and he does not get fouled. And if he goes to the line, we know what happens. It's probably O of two. But wouldn't it, wouldn't it have been the all-time greatest thing if he goes two of two? If it in that moment.

It would have. I mean, like, Nick fans from this decade, we love Mitchell Robinson because he plays so hard and he does things that most other players cannot do. And he's an athletic freak. I mean, he is truly,

his skills are insane, given how big he is. So I want to cite that one. And then the one that is the most important, one to me, which was not in the final moments of the game. There were six minutes to go, maybe six and a half minutes to go. And Brunson was at on the left side at the three point line. And Wemby once again came out to challenge him one on one. And Brunson takes him off the dribble and he gives him not two, not three, but four stutter step hesitations and uses his body and then moves

to opposite hand and lays it off the glass and they score. And that cut the game from six to four. and that was really the time when you were like, oh, the rush in his cut. He's not leaving his feet. He does not know Brunson's timing. The interior defense did not collapse on Brunson in that moment in a way that is confusing.

If you watch that play, it's hard to even understand what the defense is doing other than just saying like, tip your cap to J.B because he has moves that confound defenders, especially in these big moments when everyone is nervous and afraid of fouling. And that clip, that moment,

I have watched it over and over and over again today. I sat there with my daughter this morning holding my phone up, trying to explain to her the things he's doing with his footwork and his headwork that confused this alien who's on the court. It's magical shit. And it is the perfect poetic, metaphorical moment for what the team is and what they were facing and how they won. I'm so glad you brought that up because it was high on my list.

And I've watched it a bunch of times. it is it is the culmination of all the videos you see of young jalen brunson on the playground with his dad honing his footwork and working on mid-range jumpers and you know wrong foot takeoffs and all that he it's a switch it's another play where we talked about earlier they clear the side of the floor when when benyama is stuck on i think it was annanobi and then okay you come set a screen we're going to bring him up and there's some confusion among the spurs and then they switch and And it's literally David versus Goliath, basically. It's 7-5 versus 6-foot-nothing.

And he beats him right to his right. Like Victor kind of opens up a little bit and says, if you're going to beat me, it's going to be the right. And he hits him as he gets in the paint with a shoulder into, I mean, it's probably not even Victor's chess. It's probably his gut. And it moves Victor back a half step. And against pretty much any other player in the NBA, that's enough.

if Jalen Brunson has enough space to finish that shot. But this is not any other player in the NBA. This is Victor Wenbenyama, and it's not enough. And so he takes one more hard dribble, kind of hesitates a little hesitation, stops on a dime. Victor gets stood up a little bit and off balance. And then all Jalen Brunson is not only small for an NBA player. He doesn't have a big wingspan or long arms or anything. And he sticks that right arm out as far as it can possibly go and just says,

God, I hope this is long enough. I hope this is far out enough and flicks that thing up. It's a 1,000 out of 1,000 on difficulty and creativity. And it does cut the lead, as you mentioned, to four. It's an all-time, it's an all-time move by an all-time New York Nick player at this point. It reminded me a lot of playing high school basketball because I was not a great high school basketball player, but I played basketball in high school. And there would routinely be things that would happen to me when I would.

would try to defend players that were clearly better than me. And they would just beat you in ways. They could do things that you could not do. And there is a spirit breaking that happens when someone does that to you on a court. And even if you're the fiercest competitor in the world, when someone has a move in their bag that you don't understand, and look at Wembeyanama's reaction, look at his composure, look at his disposition after that basket.

He is exhausted and he looks defeated. And this is probably the single most powerful defensive defense. force in the sport. It was everything. I didn't, I clocked it in the moment. I was like, oh, okay, that was crazy. That was crazy that he did that. But as soon as people started circling it and saying this, you can look at it over and over

and over again and you can see the whole series in that moment. It's amazing. He was never scared of Wembeyanama. He made step back threes over him. He led the dance his way on that drive. And I think that was emblemat. The Knicks did not ever play scared of and Benyama. That's not to say that they did not have their healthy share of drive.

Uh-oh, kick it out. That says the spurs would ironically say appropriate fear. But there was never any sense of like, well, we're just never going to go to the rim. We're never going to get in the paint. They played him like he was mortal. And I think that that's how you had to play him. Sometimes you're going to have the Landry Shamet challenge that goes bad. But you're also going to have OG and and Obi dunking against him from the corner. You're going to have fouls. You're going to have other stuff. Kat went out of him a bunch of times in the first two games of the series. They didn't play scared of him.

And I think that Brunson Drive is emblematic of that. All right, Sean Fettysi, I got to bring in Fred Katz, who is writing a book about this team and was there last night. But any parting thoughts, any, any, and the bets won eight to one to boot today. They beat the Braves two out of three. The hated Braves. Like, what else could go right for you? I saw Toy Story 5 this morning with my daughter.

It was an incredible movie. that worked out well. Things are just, I sat by the L.A. river with my family having brunch this morning and a blue heron landed in the middle of the L.A. river and we sat and watched it while enjoying our brunch.

And I was like, what is happening right now? This is unbelievable what this world can give us if it just turns in your direction for a short period of time. I'm feeling great. Listen, the Mets, I'm sure we'll talk about it

more soon in the future. I'm simultaneously as rage-filled as I've ever been as a fan. and yet I have not given up and I will not give up. It's actually, I'm so, I'm so thrilled that I have, I was wondering, could I sustain a subpar season? I'm like, I just watched the last three ratings of the game with my daughter today. Like I'm like, no one in the National League has run away. Lindor's coming back.

Like, why not? Why not? What am I going to do? Give up like it? This is a fun time. All right, Sean Fennessee, we will do. We have some very good Mets Corner content, knock on wood, coming up. We will do it soon.

Go enjoy. Luguriate in the championship. That's what the whole point of this is. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Zach. I appreciate you. This episode is brought to you by Activia. You might already be eating yogurt, but not all yogurts are created equal.

Activia contains over one billion probiotics per serving to survive and reach the gut alive. When it comes to gut health, Activia is the number one. one family doctor recommended probiotic yogurt brand. Choose Activia. Feel good from the inside out. Visitactivia.ca for more details. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up?

That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Fred Katz from the Athletic, Fresh from San Antonio on no sleep, just witnessed the unthinkable, the New York Knicks after 53 years

win the championship. What was the scene like last night? I mean, you wrote a wonderful story for the athletic, highlighted by O.G. Annobe trying tequila for the first time of his life and it apparently not going so well. Really just like not, if you don't drink, you got to start somewhere else. Not the best place to start. But what are you going to remember some sort of the scene? I mean, those clinching games are kind of chaotic because you can't get back out onto the

court. You're just waiting and waiting and waiting and trying to find people as they come up. But like, what are you, what are you always going to remember? I don't know if it was the first time OG tried tequila. He definitely reacted as it was, as if it was the first time he tried tequila. I will always remember the sound that he made after he tried to chug it, realizing that it was significantly more difficult to drink than water. And then making, making a sound that actually sounded a little like that and then just complete and utter screeching as the guys around him. started laughing. And then, like, two seconds later being like, you know what, screw it,

one more try. And then having an even worse reaction after that. It was, it was such a beautiful mix of jubilation, wholesomeness and like genuine physical pain. Like, like, I have to imagine he's just hold up somewhere for the next like six months after going through what he went through in those two seconds. In the two sips. I love the post-champage celebration, even though we are sort of isolated away from a lot of it. We do get to see, like, when they're in the locker room and they open up the locker room, you get to see all the chaos. It's just wall-to-wall bodies.

Your suit's going to get ruined. It's going to be soaked in champagne, all that. And I'm just like an unabashed lover of that moment because I'll hug the coaches, the front office guys, the players I know because I just know, like, neutrality aside, like I don't really care that your team won versus this other team. I do care that you as a human being got to see the fruits of your labor and you worked so hard for so many years and so many people don't get to experience it. And this is like what you did it all for. I just I find it just like life affirming to be around in a lot of ways.

And I'm sad I wasn't there last night. 100%. It's a great vibe. Also on top of that, you know, with the way that the world is now, all these players have their brands and their images. that they put out about themselves, right? And it's like we see these very sort of curated versions of what their personalities are and these very sort of picked out versions of what their personalities are. And it's pretty rare that we get to see guys just like guard completely down. Just like I'm grabbing this bottle of tequila and I'm going to take this shot.

And it's pretty rare that you see guys like that and see a whole room of guys like that. and to be, for there to be so much, like just an overpouring amount of happiness out of that room. It's a, it's a really nice energy to be around. And it's really great, speaking just as a reporter, it's really cool to be able to see them be such natural raw versions of themselves and be so comfortable in doing so without any fear of judgment or anything like that. because that feeling is something that I can't really relate to. You must just feel completely and utterly invincible and on top of the world. And that's how everybody acts when they get there and is absolutely positively how they should act. I went over with Sean Fennessee.

Just frozen moments that you either want to remember because they were pivotal moments in your mind from either last night's game or any other part of the finals. And you feel like they're going to be forgotten because of when they happen. in the game or whatever. We did a lot of the end of game stuff or just frozen moments that you want to remember because you were there and you saw this incredible thing happen like the end of OB tip or whatever.

What is, what qualifies for you? I'll tell you what. A lot of my answers have nothing to do with anything that happened on the court. Great. A lot of my answers were stuff that happened after, just like the really human moments. Like I witnessed, I think probably

the most Carl Anthony Towns thing that I've ever seen. Towns is like this incredibly kind of sweet. guy, like notoriously unbelievably sweet, famously sweet guy, right? And as he's walking off the court, there's this tunnel that goes to the back in San Antonio. And the tunnel is completely clogged up. It's just there are gazillion media members waiting for guys to leave the court after the championship ceremony. And there are a gazillion coaches and players who are trying to make their way through. And somehow there are fans who have gotten there and are clagging it up. And all of these Knicks fans in

San Antonio stayed late to come, you know, cheer on their guys. And the guys, and the Guys are finally after the ceremony starting to come off the court and go to the locker room. And they are like having to squeeze through to go to the locker room. It's like one tiny little lane for them to get through. And a security guard is clearing them out. There are these Knicks fans to the side who are just freaking out. It's the best moment of their lives. And they're just bugging.

And Kat comes by and he's going to the locker room. And he's holding the championship trophy. He's like clutching it to his chest. And there are these Knicks fans who just starts screaming, just like cheering so loud. They're so excited. They're all decked out in Nick's gear. And Kat just turns to them in this almost like, like almost like the nicest kid in fifth grade when you bring in bring in lunch and

somebody looks at your lunch and you're like, that looks good. And the nicest kid in fifth grade is like, do you want to split it? So Kat looks at these guys and says, do you want to touch the trophy? And Kat leans into the stands and is holding out the trophy as these fans are touching the championship trophy. And I promise you, this was like three men. And I have, I have never seen three men look so happy at one time in my entire life. Kat made these guys lives. And the hilarious part about it is this unbelievably sweet moment where Kat's like, I'm in the greatest moment, at least of my career. And his inclination is like, he's thinking, you know, I'm in the greatest moment in my career.

My inclination is I'm just going to, I'm going to share it with everybody around me instead of be here. But the result was that the line completely clogged up. And nobody knew why, because Kat's blocking the whole line. So everyone is in the back being like, can we get this freaking thing moving and being such New Yorkers about it and being totally perturbed as Kat is just like me and the sweetest guy ever holding out the trophies to let the fans touch it. It was this, it was an amazing moment.

And I will never ever forget watching that happen. It was so beautiful. And you know better than most. It didn't, there are universes where it does not go this way for Kat. I mean, you wrote at the end of last season when the Knicks were eliminated about some of the issues within the team. And I'm going to paraphrase, and you can tell me if I'm paraphrasing wrong. One of them was perhaps a sense from teammates that he didn't take defense and sticking to the scheme defensively seriously enough. And then this season, it felt like every time the team hit a trough, he was the lightning rod,

sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly. What's my fit in the offense? Defensively, am I giving enough? Like, it did not, it did not have to go this way. And something clicked into place for him. This was the best stretch of defense he's ever played, ever, totally outplayed Wembegama in the first two games of the series. He obviously emerges as a passing hub in the playoffs in a sustained way that we've really never quite seen from him before and just sort of buys into like, yeah,

yeah, I'll be the third or fourth leading score on the team. Like, cool, I'll do everything else. And even despite that, the nightmare scenario for the Knicks unfolds in the finals, three games in a row, which is our backup center has a broken hand. Our starting center is amazing, but he's going to get in foul trouble. That's our nightmare scenario. Our backup to the backup is Huck Pordy and Sohan. And yet they find a way to win two of the three games.

I thought some of the calls against Kat were bad. I don't want to relitigate that. but it's a tribute to all the other guys who had moments and stepped up that that was that was the roadmap for the spurs to win the series or one big part of the roadmap and it happened and the Knicks still won two out of three games but but on cat like it could have gone other ways in it like even in the summer when Janus was like hey I want to go to the Knicks that's my one team like who do you think was going to get traded in that in that scenario yeah 100% and it was a complete in total turnaround of, I'm going to say of reputation because I think, and not, not character

of reputation. If character is who you are, reputation is who people believe you to be. I'm going to say it was a, it was definitely a turnaround in reputation. It's amazing what an incredible player from can do for you and what getting a ring can do for you. And I think people will look at him differently. I think also, you know, those things that we wrote about, you know, over the last two years, like those were all, those all existed.

Those were all true. Sure. But the difference is between this and maybe other things that happen in a locker room is that people in that locker room liked Kat. There was never a sort of, oh, get this guy out of here sort of feeling from the team. I mean, maybe there were from certain fans or whatever. But that was never the case with the players. Those guys liked Kat. They appreciated Kat as a human being.

And there were kind of natural frustrations that came along with, you know, being teammates and competing for a, while and whatever else. And as they got to know each other better, I think they all kind of became a lot more comfortable with each other. They all started to speak a lot more honestly with each other about things they wanted to accomplish. And this team, not just cat, everybody, this team found a connectivity that showed off so much. And my favorite thing about baseball, compared to other sports I love, you know, I love basketball, compared to other sports I love, you know, I love baseball. But baseball, it's like, if you've got a team of all average, players, you're probably 81 and 81. And basketball, if you've got a team of all average

players, you might be 32 and 50 and you might be 50 and 32. And it really just depends on how all of those average players play with each other. And the Knicks are not a team of all average players. They're a team of tremendous talent, but they're also a team that is significantly better than whatever their aggregate talent is because they were able to create that connectivity. And Kat was a ginormous, ginormous part of that, especially starting in game for the Atlanta series,

especially in the Philly series, especially in the Cleveland series, especially, like you say, those first two games against San Antonio and Jalen Brunson is not hitting shots, like not hitting shots. And Kat, the first half of game two in San Antonio

is other than Brunson, game five is probably the best half anybody played in that entire series. I had John Chris, who covered him with the wolves for many years on, as my guest on my show, right after that pod, right after that game that night. And I said, I think it's maybe given the stakes is the best half Carolina City

Towns has ever played. And he didn't, he was like, I think you're right. Like, that's how good, that's how good it was. Just, I mean, and you talked about the clicking into place. I've said it over and over again. You could see them find this place off and on in the regular season for a week here, a game here, and then it would escape them. And it's unquantifiable.

It's ungraspable. It's not something you can see or touch. But, well, you can see it, I guess. But they found it after game three in Atlanta. And they never left it. And so everybody wants there to be this, like, dramatic team meeting between games three and four of the Hawks series or somebody talked to somebody and this happened. What happened?

Is it just like, because their offense, you wrote about it right away, did look a little different starting in game four. But it's not as if they then did. built the entire offense out of cat playing that way. That sort of cat as the hub faded in and out from that point forward. So it wasn't like a complete stylistic reinvention or anything like that. But something happened because like the Hawks were confident after game three. The Knicks were like down to one.

This is a real trouble spot for them. Yeah. I don't know that something did or didn't happen. I have asked that question to so many guys in that locker room. And now they won the title. maybe it'll be easier to get a real answer out of it because they're going to look back on this is just like every single thing was a step towards that got you towards greatness. And there's only going to be positive memories from this season for these guys.

And so maybe they're more likely to talk about it. The answer that I've consistently gotten when I've asked just like, what happened after Game 3 in Atlanta? Something had to happen. All of them say the same thing. All the players, everybody. They all say the same thing. They all say, we all just realized we're too good to be in this position.

Like, we should not be down to one. We should not be losing in the way that we're losing this series. And this is the way that all of them have related to me, just that this is not the spot that they should be in. And they kind of realized, all right, everybody throw whatever sort of ego you've got to the side, throw whatever sort of role you wanted to the side. everybody you better cut as hard as you can cut you better screen as hard as you can screen because one of the things that I did think was really interesting following game three of the Atlanta series was like they totally made so many of those schematic adjustments but like

the biggest you know air quotes adjustment they made was that everything they ran was so crisp even once they started running the stuff they were running in the regular season a lot more it was like their screens were so on point they were just holding their screens their cuts they took off when they were supposed to take off. They, their spacing, their spacing is so good. People think of spacing as just like, if you can shoot, you're going to pull people out. But it's so much more, it's so much different than that. Like their, their ability to notice, okay, Landry Schammett's ability to notice,

okay, I'm going to shift two inches over this way. It's going to open up a pass. Or Jose Alvarado noticing in game four, you know what? If I cut in this direction, Mambi's not going to notice, they're going to have to switch off of me. So I talked with Ian Beggley after that game about. I thought Alvarado and Ananobe consistently cutting from the slot or the top of the arc down toward the rim at the exact right moment to confuse the Spurs zone-ish defense was like a really important part of the series. Aniobo was consistently excellent at it.

And Alvarado, everybody's got to have a moment for you to win the championship, for you to win 16 games. Clarkson had a moment. McBride had his moment against Philadelphia. Huff Pordy had a moment in the closing game of the season. Mitchell Robinson had moments in the last two games. of this series. Alvarado's moment was that game, one of his moments, that in game one. And, like, it was just massive.

It was. It was. It was huge. He was so big for them off the ball and just is, like, giving them a, just secondary ball handler to be able to restable, to restabilize Brunson and get him in, in better spots in that game four. And then, you know, as you said, he was so good at those slot cuts, so good from the corner. And what was happening was like, there was this one possession in giving.

game four when they have the huge comeback and he's in the right corner. And he almost, I actually talked about this with Jose after the game. He almost grand theft Alvaradoed Wembe on offense where like he's in the corner and Wemby's technically guarding him, but he's really doing that one man zone. And Alvarado kind of, you know when he does the grand theft Alvarado? I don't know if he does this intentionally. I should ask him. When he sneaks up on guys, he actually sneaks as if he's cartoonishly sneaking.

He's like a caricature of a cat burglar in like the Pink Panther or something. Yeah. He like actually bends over and tiptoes as if they're going to be able to hear him on his first two or three strides. And he did that and kind of dipped out below the baseline behind Wembe. And Wembe couldn't see him. And Wembe doesn't move. And Alvarado gets all the way the other side of the court.

By the time Wembe notices, they have to switch a guy onto Alvarado. And that means Wembe has to go on to O. And O. And O. Nobi, who ends up getting a corner three on that possession later because of that. And it's like just these unbelievably precise movements, these incredibly aware movements, they were so unbelievably locked in. There's a play that I've constantly referenced from the Philadelphia series where, like,

they were trying to attack Embed in Pick and Rolls. And in B, Huck Porty was in the game, and Embed was guarding him, and they call up Huck Pordy so that he'll set a screen for Brunson. And they, Philadelphia immediately pre-switching. imbid off of huckporty and immediately huckporty just turns around and goes back and everybody on the court is calling out to everybody where to go but everybody's already doing their assigned thing and it's like a party never really plays he shouldn't be able to immediately recognize okay mbid got switched off of me we're not running this for me we're running this to go against the imbid let me run back

and then mcbride in this case is going to go up and set the screen but they're doing all of this and such coordination, the preparation and the communication and the intensity about each decision reached such a level that I had never seen, quite honestly, from any team that I had covered so closely. And that is why they're champs, because of that sort of level of execution. Well, another obviously big winner from the playoffs is Mike Brown, who was deemed, let's not forget, not good enough to be our coach by the Sacramento Kings and now is an NBA champion a year later. I've said it throughout the playoffs.

Like they are one of the signs of a well-coached team is when the other team makes an adjustment, you adjust to it immediately. There's no three possessions of lag time before you kind of digest what's just happened, what assignment they changed, what weak spot they opened up. You see it and it's predatory. It's right away. And the Knicks were on it. The Knicks were coaching from my head in terms of mentality in a lot of these games.

And boy, Mike Brown, I mean, I guarantee you, everybody with the Warriors is thrilled for Mike Brown. They all love him. Like, he's a really popular guy within the league. I'm going to give you a frozen moment for me and then you can take one. I think this is one that's going to be lost to history. The spurs are up 85, 83 last night with four minutes left in the game. Brunson isolates on the right baseline against Dylan Harper, I think. Misses a jump shot.

No Nick is in position to get a rebound. Whenbenyama tips the rebound into Devin Vesel's chin. It bounces off his head, off his fingertips, onto his fingertips, as his foot is on the baseline. And a surefire defensive rebound becomes a sort of bizarreo turnover reset for the Knicks that then becomes Brunson drawing a three shot foul on Devin Vassel and making all three free throws and putting the Knicks up 86, 85. That's an example of a play that, like, that's going to be completely lost to

history. And like, I didn't even realize until I rewatched it today that Wembe and Yama had actually tipped the rebound. I just thought Vesel had mishandled it or was slipped out of his hands or something. Wembe tips it and it literally hits Vesel in the face and it bounces off his face. And it's just, these are the things that happen when you win a championship. Yep. A hundred percent. Take one. You do one. You do one. A little, a little more obvious, but I just, I got to give O. Gianniobie his due. I guess this didn't. get scored as a block on Dylan Harper with like 28 seconds left. It did not.

Dylan Harper goes to the rim and O'G. and Innobe contest it. Dylan Harper is magical. Like, magical. Like, oh, my goodness. How is that guy a rookie? Every time he rises at the rim, I'm like, okay, well, this is, there's no way this is not going in.

And there's no way it's not going to be some sort of fantastic type of finish that I've never seen. He's going to just like reach three and a half feet above the air. And then he's going to levitate another seven feet. That's just like what he does every time. And nobody can contest Dylan Harper at the rim, except every single time when he does it. And he had what will go down as one of the greatest blocks in NBA finals history in game four

when he blocks Harper at the rim or blocks Fox. I was going to say fuck. I should say. blocks Fox at the rim. He had blocked Harper at the rim in transition earlier in the season. series. But he blocks, he blocks Fox at the rim and transition. And then it's not even his best play of the next 10 seconds because he gets the tip in to win game four. And that will now be, there's nothing that Ogen, and O'G and Oby can do now for that not to be his legacy.

There's literally nothing that will ever happen to him that like when you hear O'G and Nobie's name now, that tip in that is the first thing that you're going to think of when you hear OG. But 28 seconds left, Harper's coming at him. believe it was a two-point game, 90 to 88, should have tied it up. And OG just kind of slowly backs up. He times it perfectly. He goes right up with Harper. Harper's layup hits off the front of the rim because OG contests it perfectly when he

goes straight up. I thought that he blocked it at the time. I thought he got a finger on it. I guess he didn't technically do that. It was just a tremendous contest. That guy, he didn't end up winning finals MVP. and I'm not saying he should have. Brunson was so unbelievable in game five.

I mean, just absolutely insane in game five. I think that could be a moment of its own, just Brunson's entire game five performance. I'm going to give you one and a second, but go ahead. But OG with the way that he guarded in this series, his transition defense was outrageous. He ended up shooting 54% on corner threes in the playoffs, just outrageous numbers and an outrageous playoff run.

And I just thought the fact that inside the last 30 seconds that he could have a moment that could help them win the title, even on a night when his shot wasn't falling in the way that it had for the previous two months, I just thought that was just one extra unbelievable defensive play by one of the best defensive players in the league. I'm going to give you one on Brunson. And then we can do the Brunson discussion. because of how frenetic the last minute of the game was and how many free throws and offensive rebounds on free throws and fouls and all that there were.

I feel like the actual game winning basket, the basket that put the Knicks in the lead for good is kind of not being discussed very much. And it also, because it happened really, really fast. And I think it's indicative of a lot of things. And it's surprise, surprise, a Brunson floater. And it's a minute left in the game thereabouts. Castle is kind of pressing him at half court. And Brunson just beats him off the dribble.

I mean, that's one of the risks you take when you're pressing is that you're going to get beat off to dribble. You're giving the guy angles and whatever. And you do it because Wemby's back there. And indeed, Wembe is back there. And he's on Mitchell Robinson because Kat has fouled out of the game by that point. And Brunson just goes. He goes into the lane. And you can see Victor turn his head away from Brunson.

I watched this like 20 times. Turn his head away from Brunson to tell Vassel who's on the wing near him, hey, I'm stepping up here. You got to go take Mitchell Robinson and protect me and get my back. And then he turns back. And I think he turns back to look at Brunson.

And Brunson has arrived a little bit faster than he expected him to arrive. And Brunson gets off the floater and when Benyama doesn't jump and he doesn't really turn around to box out Mitchell Robinson. He's just kind of stuck in no man's land. And I look at that play

and I think it's a mix of everything. I think Brunson got there faster than Wembeiyama expected. I think Wembenyama was justifiably worried about Mitchell Robinson's offensive rebound in which was an X-Factor All-Series. And in fact, the last basket of the third quarter was a Mitchell Robinson tippin, I believe his only basket of the game on a Jailen Brunson floater that Wembeenna challenged. I think also I talked about this with Sean. I think Wombinjama was tired at the end of these games and worn out.

And one of the ways that can manifest itself is your processing speed is just 5% slower. And that's all Jalen Brunson needed. And like you will just not see very many high stakes shots at the basket that Victor Wemnon Yama is glued to the floor and doesn't contest and doesn't contest the rebound. It's a great move by Brunson. It's a classic Brunson shot. And I think it wraps up a lot of stuff that happened at the end of these games that went the Knicks way over and over again.

It put the Knicks up 90, 88, and they never trialed again. The Spurs never tied it again. And it's like, it's not going to get lost to history. It's going to get slow-mo replay and all that. But it's kind of in a pile of stuff that happened at the end. That was a great example of Jalen Brunson's brilliance. And I mean that with his mind, not like his basketball brilliance. And I say that because I think that shot was made in the second quarter.

You know, throughout. It's funny because I thought about the third quarter, Mitchell, Robinson tip-in. So you're going back further. Yeah. So I think, I mean, I think you're totally right on the tip-in where he was he was glued. I know the exact player talking about. He was kind of glued to Mitch there and having him there as a lob threat is that's a type of spacing that Mitchell Robinson provides. But early in the game, the first like, what would it have been? 19 minutes of the game. The Knicks have zero points in the paint.

and zero bench points for a lot longer than that. Yeah. They started the game, I think, 0 for 13 on shots in the paint. And part of the reason why Brunson is so good in the playoffs is because he is so keen on detail and figures out these little ways that teams are guarding him and then figures out how to exploit them

throughout the course of a series. So we'll have a bad shooting night the first couple of games like he did in this series, and then he'll start to figure it out. The Knicks cannot get to the rim. Victor won banyama the first quarter and a half of this. I mean, he was great defensive. It was like Godzilla.

He was like Godzilla was playing for this first. I mean, the first quarter and a half, two quarters of this game, by Wemby standards, the defensive performance was completely and utterly outrageous. It was just like, oh, my goodness, how are you supposed to do anything here? With about five minutes or so left in the second quarter, Knicks are on a little bit of a run. This is when Brunson started to get a little hot. They're on like a tiny little run.

They were down 13 and I think it was Josh Hart hits a three. And then Brunson ends up hitting a three off an offensive rebounds. And on the next possession with about five minutes left in the quarter, Brunson drives on, I think it was Fox. And he goes left to that same spot on Fox. Brunson loves to release his floater at around eight feet or so. Instead of doing that, he gets to basically the nail. and he kind of pulls up on Fox a little bit early.

And I think it caught Fox a little bit by surprise where he pulled up. His feet were technically in the paint, just barely. It was the Knicks first paint points of the night. And I think that that was right around when Brunson decided, you know what, no one's getting all the way to the paint tonight. All these floaters that I do normally from six to eight feet, I got to do them from 10 to 13. And the rest of the night, we saw him roast from that,

like shallow paint area instead of the deeper mid-paint area. And I didn't really see the spurs adjust to him on that because he was getting to those areas so quickly and with so much ease. And because he's so skilled and so crafty and so quick that it's just hard to pick up on that. It's just really hard to pick up on that when it's happening in real time. And so when Brunson releases that floater that you're talking about with a minute left, Like he's barely in front of the free throw line.

That's a far, it's a floater fundamentally, but that's a far out floater. That's a tough floater to make when you're on the run. It was a difficult shot, even with him by Castle. And just another example of him having this, quite frankly, basketball genius understanding of the geography of the court and how to exploit every single area of it, his advantage, and that's what makes him as great of a player as he is. Let's talk about Joe and Brunson, because Bill said, Bill and I did our instant reaction show on his pod last night.

I said, I'm not ready to have the Brunson. Is he the greatest Nick of all time conversation yet? I said, well, why not? And just, just kind of to play devil's advocate. Obviously, you know, Patrick Ewing has 23,000 career points in New York. Jailen Brunson has something like 7,000. So, like, whatever. And I said, like, at 45 points in a serious close.

closed-out game when the rest of your team at 49. And you're just trying to limp across the finish line of one last time. What is he? 15 to 27, some efficient kind of shooting line. Finals MVP, only the second Nick ever to win finals MVP. Clyde Frazier never did. Willis Reed won it twice.

He's now averaging 29.4 points per game in the playoffs as a Nick. That's number one all-time for the Knicks. He is already third all-time in postseason scoring, just raw points for the NICs. And he's one medium-sized playoff run from passing Walt Frazier and moving into second. And if he stays with the Knicks, he'll pass Ewing and be first. He's only ninth all time in franchise scoring regular season.

But if he stays with the Knicks his whole career and stays relatively healthy, he'll definitely pass everybody by Ewing and be second. And this is just, I said last night, 45 points in a close-out game, finals MVP. I don't know. Is that worth 12,000 regular season points for a team of franchise that hasn't won the title in 53 years, it's worth some unquantifiable amount of regular season success. Whether he's the greatest Nick now or not,

I think he's going to go down as the greatest Nick of all time. And if you wanted to really vociferously argue it because of what he's meant to the franchise, because of how this entire thing started with his contract from Dallas, with the Knicks, with him not getting an extension in Dallas

and then signing with the Knicks, with him taking less money, He's the third highest player on the Knicks now and next year, enabling all this. And by the way, they're going to have to do this dance with the second apron now. Mitchell Robinson's a free agent. Landry Shamitt's a free agent.

They're only $13, 14 million under the second apron. I have no idea what they're going to do. Maybe they'll just go over the second yearbron and say, fuck it. We just won the title. God knows how much money we made. But if I met a fan and they were like, Zach, Jerome Brunce is the greatest nick of all time.

Never watched Walt. I'm 30 years old. I don't know who Walt Frazier is other than the fancy suits and Willis Reed and this and that. Like, look, man, I can't really argue with you. Like, if you want to say that, that's completely fine. He's going to be. He's going to be, whether he is now is up, is up for debate, but he will be. Yeah, I think the way that I would phrase it is he's on track to do it. But I think longevity matters. You know, Ewing did it for a decade and a half. And Clyde did it for a long time. Willis Reed did it for a long time. He's been in Nick for four

years. And I think I could make a very good argument that this is the best four year stretch than any player has had. Let's just round up and be fun. 29.4 points per game in the playoffs and 61 playoff games. You know what sounds nicer? He's averaging 30 a game in the playoffs for the New York Knicks. Yeah, it's crazy.

It's fucking crazy. It's crazy. It's incredible, which is why I say he's very much on track. Like, look, he's going to be a neck for a very long time. I don't know if there is a player in the NBA who I feel more confident will end up forever on the team. that he's currently on, right?

Like, can you, is there one guy? It's literal family. Like, they, they, they, they, they, it hurt them to trade Devencenzzo emotionally because he's part of the Villanova extended family. This is literal family. Like, in every, it was there one year, too. It was one year.

It was great year. And he was tremendously important. He had a fantastic year, but it was one year. Like, Jailen Bray. Runson is is probably and also just from the reaction of of the fan base like it would be like the Yankees trading Jeter you know it's just like he is going to be a Nick for an incredibly long time if not for the entire rest of his time in the NBA and so he's going to have a long time of putting up numbers and leading them on playoff runs and he's going to be the all time

leading playoff score and he's probably going to have other crazy playoff moments. And he's only 29 years old. And there is a chance that he could do this for a long time coming. And this team is well positioned. I mean, you say they've got some second apron worries next year. It's like they could find a way to avoid the second apron if they wanted to next year. And if they didn't and they went into the second apron next year, they have, they have a pretty realistic way of just being in there for one year and then ducking

at the next year and getting back to. down. Like, how much money did they just make, you know, with all these home playoff games and everything? Yeah, what do you think is going to happen? Is Mitchell Roberts? I mean, Mitchell Robinson is going to have suitors at the mid-level or maybe a little south of that because of his injury history and his minute stuff. But the league knows, like, this is a prototypical player you want if you run into Wehmaniamma specifically.

But do we expect him and Shamet to be? I mean, Shamet's a freaking hero now in New York. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure. what to expect on those guys, to be honest, when I talk to people with the Knicks about it, they are just so giddy about everything that's happened with this group. They're just like, keep everyone together, keep everything the same. We're not even thinking about any of that stuff. We just want this group to be together for the rest of time.

They're all so happy and the vibes with this group are so incredible to end the year that they just want everybody together. It's like a front office guy from another team texted me this afternoon, hey, what are you hearing about Miami's offer for Janus and like, you know, should we jump in and whatever? what is Boston? I'm like, can you just let me bathe in the championship? Because again, I don't, I just, this is me every year. I love, I love the culmination of a season. And he texted back, man, that's yesterday's news. The draft is in nine days. I was like, all right, you want to talk about Janus? You know, Miami, Boston, you know, is there a wild car team? Is there a three team trade? I don't think it's Houston. I think

Houston seems to be out, you know, Portland. I don't really buy Brooklyn. I don't see it. The Spurs, the Thunder. The Knicks. would appear to be out, Fred, like the three teams that made it very far in the finals would appear to be out. You know, Toronto's got some assets. I don't really see a non-scardi. You know, if Toronto put in Murray-Boyes

and four firsts and four swaps and filler, maybe they, I don't see that happening, though. Maybe I don't know. I think that may be too rich for their blood, but the bucks want Scotty, but I don't know. I don't know. I want to luxuriate. And I'm glad that the Knicks people are like, ask, give us a few days.

Yes, totally. I brought up there like, just no, no, leave me alone on this, at least for a little while. So that's 100% the vibe that I got on it. I think they would love to bring back as many of those guys as they can. Mitchell Robinson is the longest tenured neck. He's been with this organization for eight years. And I could definitely see a world where he is elsewhere next year because of all those cap concerns that we talked about.

For what it's worth, if they didn't go into the second apron next year, I don't think it, I mean, we talk about them making a lot of money. If they didn't go into the second apron next year, I don't think it would be because of luxury tax payments. I think it would be because they thought, their cap department thought it was this strategically wrong move to go into the second apron at this time. And it's because when you go into the second apron,

you would lose all of these resources for team building. You lose the ability to make most kinds of trades. You lose the ability to make most kinds of free agency, sign-ins, et cetera. If there's one thing James Olin will do, especially after winning a championship, he's going to pay. He's always paid and he will pay.

I've gotten exactly zero concerns about how much they're willing to pay if they avoid the second apron. I think that would be on their front office, which is one of the most measured and kind of notoriously really good cap departments in the NBA, deciding that this is not worth it from the actual roster building strategic standpoint. That being said, like my opinion, if you're not going to do it, with a team that just won the title. And it's not like it was some flukish sort of group. And it's not like it's a group with a bunch of guys who were past their prime. I mean,

all of your rotation players, save for Jordan Clarkson are 30 or younger. It's, if you're not going to do it in that circumstance, with a group that likes playing together, that had no drama whatsoever, that was anything of consequence, like,

if you're not going to do it for that, when are you going into it? And maybe the argument is maybe a smarter cat person than me would argue you should literally never go into it. It is literally never worth going into. Maybe that's what somebody would make an argument for. And I would hear them out on that. But like if you're not going to go into it after you win the title and when you have a chance

to do it again, I'm not saying they will do it again. It's really, really hard to repeat and everything went right for them. They stayed healthy, whatever else. But like it's not like there's some old decrepit team that's about the, to fall apart next year. They've still got guys in their prime and guys who are probably going to be as good players next year as they were this year. And if you're not going to do it now, I don't know when.

Can I do 45 seconds of rapid fire off season takes just to just say I did it? I did Janus already. I did Janus already. Teams have definitely asked Oklahoma City about Chet Holmgren in the wake of the check collapse and had been rebuffed. The Sabona Charlotte thing, it's definitely true that. there were talks and it's definitely true that Charlotte was like no thank you if if you want picks you're not getting picks um let's see what else uh yonnas i did but i would be shocked if

you weren't traded uh at this point i'm not sure what else i wanted to talk about i don't want to talk about that much all season stuff that's that may be all i had on my real oh fox obviously a complete disaster series for deer and fox in a really underwhelming playoffs um already the calls trade him are like got to get rid of this guy. Harper's ready. Harper's ready. Like put him in the starting five. I don't care what you got to do. Like you probably can't start all three of the guards together. That didn't go very well this year. Is Fox going to end up being the most expensive six man in the history of the league? I don't know. I said earlier in the week that I think we're already at the point that if somebody offered me, if I were Brian Wright, somebody offered me like a

neutral-ish deal for Fox like a deal where I'm not paying you to get off the contract, which hasn't even kicked in until July 1st, four years, 220 or something like that. I think we might just have to take this and get out ahead of this now because it's not going to get any easier. And I just don't know who the team is.

I mean, Bill throughout Minnesota, who knows? I mean, but like I threw out the possibility of like a team that gets Janus and just has left the cupboard bear just takes a shot. Something always shakes loose, but I don't know what the team is.

But that was, there's just no sugarcoating that Fox was bad and Castle was bad in game five, but Fox was bad at the whole finals. That's the end of our offseason talk. Can I do one more fun thing for you about OG Ananoi? Please. My friend Doug, I mentioned this with Bill last night, a genius, like a literal genius, texted me after game four and said, I think Ananobe's tip-in had the single biggest impact

on finals odds of any play outside of game seven. in the history of basketball, maybe excluding, like, the series clinching shots by Steve Kerr and John Paxson and things like that, but maybe not even those. And then he did the math. He did the math and like a very mathy waving.

Like, here were the odds of the Knicks winning that game before the tip and what that would have done with the odds series. And here's the Delta and here's the, and it made me think, like, let's put together a list of other candidates for this. Here's my list. You ready?

And I sent him the list and he did the math on the list because he's just, this is what he does. Draymond Green punching LeBron in the balls. The Bill Lambier, phantom foul on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Game 6, 1988. Tie games and time left on the clock.

The Magic Johnson Jr. Skyhook, 1987, game four. Hakeem Olajolant blocking John Stark's three-pointer at the buzzer of game six in 94 with the Knicks up 3-2. A low problem. And this is the kind of thing he factors in. a low probability shot to begin with, but, you know, whatever.

The Ray Allen shot in Miami, San Antonio, Game 6 was his initial baseline was that's the one. But then he started talking about like, well, there's still overtime. There's still another game to be played, blah, blah, blah. And the one, the only one he thought maybe trumped it was Robert Orie's three at the end of Game 5 in the 2005 finals that turned a one point in a two-two series spurs down. to spurs then up one, win the game, win game five, have two games coming at home, lose game six. But like, that's how significant. I just thought that was a fun exercise. I couldn't, I didn't go back pre-merger, but post-merger, those were the only candidates

for most consequential non-game seven final swinging shot. He did the math and he said the Ori one is the only one that compares or maybe exceeds the OGN and Obie tippin. It's a great exercise. That is crazy. That is crazy. You know who would love that? A guy who has a very mathematical brain, Oji Ananoby.

Yeah. He would love that. As long as he's not drunk off tequila today, you know. I don't think he was drunk. He spat it all back up. Here's another Inanobie Brunson stat for you. You probably already know this. The Knicks had 131 points in the fourth quarter in this series.

91 of the 131 were scored by Brunson in Annanobie. 56 of the 131 were Brunson alone. Fred Katz, for 100,000. $100,000 in the bonus round. Who was the third leading score for the Knicks in the fourth quarter of the finals? Oh, man, it wasn't Kat. I don't think it would have been Bridges. Could it have been Landry Shamet?

Fred Katz, you're going home with $100,000. It is Landry Shamet with 13 points. Fred Katz for a bonus. Bonus round now that you've gotten that one, 75 million more dollars. Can you name the fourth leading score for the new? New York Knicks in the 2026 NBA finals fourth quarters. Oh, was it just when Jose Alvarado went off? Fred, cats, you have $75,100,000.

Jose Alvarano with eight fourth quarter points is the fourth leading score in the fourth quarter for the Knicks in the finals. Fred, you don't have to write the book you're writing on the Knicks anymore. You can retire. Congratulations. Thanks for coming on my game show. Fifth. towns, bridges, and a heart, three starters, who all played varying degrees of well in the

series, for whatever reason, combined for 14 fourth quarter points between them, five for towns, five for bridges, four for Hart, three for McBride, two for Mitchell Robinson. I don't remember the two. Do you remember Mitchell Robinson's two fourth quarter points? A lob dunk at some point. You had a tip in. And then zero for everybody else. It just a crazy. I just think that's a crazy set. I don't know. Any parting thoughts or anything we didn't get to?

I'm out. I'm out. I'm ready for the offseason. I'm getting ready. I'm getting locked in. Ready for Yonis to get traded at any moment. I'm ready for the top of the draft. I'm watching YouTube.

What do you got for me, Fred? No, I will just say that's a reflection of the fact that part of the reason this team is so good or was so good was, I think, because they had such clear role definition. They knew who it was the number one. They knew who was the number two. They knew what all of them were supposed to do. They understood how they were supposed to play. They understood what they were supposed to do that affected winning.

And they understood what they weren't supposed to do that if they did it would affect losing. And I think that's that, honestly, is a pretty good indication of that whole thing where it's like when it comes to nutcutting time. It is the Jalen Brunson show. And they, you know what? I never, I have never for a second sensed any sort of, like we've seen it in any work environment, honestly, where it's like they're could be some amount of resentment or something like that, that it's the Jalen Brunson show in Crunchtime. I have never sensed any amount of resentment from anybody there that it becomes the Jalen Branson show on Clutch Time. And honestly, the only sense that I've gotten is kind of the opposite.

I was talking to Dylan Jones, who's a two-way guy for them, who wasn't active during the playoffs, but great guy to talk oops with, very smart basketball mind. And we were talking, and it was after they were down 14 in game one against San Antonio. And I was like, you guys just stay so composed. And he was like, we just know Jalen's got us. And I was like, that's a crazy thing to say and really truly mean. And he wasn't speaking for himself. He was speaking for the team.

And I think everyone on the team would have agreed with him. It's a crazy thing to say and to truly mean about an NBA player. And I was talking to, I was talking to head coach the other day who was telling me, who was saying to me, like, you don't understand that the most valuable thing, like people don't realize the most valuable thing is to just have a guy who you can say, here you go, just please go win it. Just please go win the game. You don't have to do anything. Just please go win the game. He's like, people don't talk about it that simplistically. They talk about it more schematically and more analytically.

And he's like, the reason why is because those kinds of guys don't exist. Just they're MJ and they're Kobe. And that's about it. And I'm not saying that Jillen Brunson's as good as MJ and Kobe. I'm not saying that. But I am saying that, like, of everybody in the league right now, I don't know how many other people who you can just say, just give them the ball and tell them go win the game. And then they go do that thing.

I don't know how many people are on the list ahead of Jalen Brunson in terms of like, it's crunch time. You need a bucket. Go get 45 in a closeout game. go figure it out. And that's why that team is as good as it is because they have that element. And that's why they outlasted the Spurs at the ends of all of these games that were close that could have gone either way.

And it's why they came back against Cleveland in game one. And it's why they came back from five 20-point deficits in the playoffs over the last two years. And it just, it all starts with that guy. And the Spurs will be back. Maybe not in the finals next year. they're, I think, the odds, the betting favorite to win the title next year. So maybe may well be in the finals next year. They'll be back one way or another.

Wemby's not going anywhere. He's just going to get better. They've got young guys. They've got cap flexibility. They've got draft assets. They're going to be absolutely fine. But this was the next year. And it was just an astonishing playoff transformation, an incredibly dominant playoff run.

And it just so happens that Fred Kat from the Athletic is writing a book about it that you can already pre-order. Fred, the floor is yours. Yeah, yeah. It's called Under the Bright Lights, the revival of the New York Knicks. I have been working on it for, I've been saying a year and a half,

but it's really almost two years, really since September of 2024. And when I started it, it was just going to be the story of the revival of the Knicks of this organization that was in the cellar for 20 years and then found its way back to relevance

with the leadership of Leon Rose and Tom Thibodeau and the rise of Jalen Brunson and all of the things. that kind of stuff. And then they trade for Carl Anthony Towns. And then they have a run to the Eastern Conference finals. And then they fire Tibbs and they bring in Mike Brown and they go on this run this year. And we're like the book is going to be due in October no matter what. And they go on this run. And now it is the story of how the New York Knicks return to becoming champions for the first time in 53 years.

And sometimes things just get lucky for you when you're telling a story. And so now I, I have the privilege of getting to tell the story of how this organization returned to becoming champions for the first time in 53 years. And this project I've been working on for, like I said, since September of 2024. And I got the rest of the summer to write the ending of it. So it will properly include everything from the playoff run and the title run and everything else. And we'll have a lot of details on who these guys are and a gazillion different anecdotes and a gazillion different behind-the-scenes stories. and I want it to be funny, and I've got some really great, I hope a lot of really great stuff already

and have a lot of it written already, which I'm excited about it. You can pre-order it. You can go anywhere where you buy your books. You can go to Amazon.com. You can go to Barnes & Noble. Anywhere you buy your books, you can pre-order it. It's Under the Bright Lights,

the Revival of the New York Knicks. I'm going to pre-order it, Fred Katz, because here's one thing I know, and I want listeners to really internalize this. books are a tough business and book reading is probably declining and all that it's a heavy lift to get some people to actually read a whole book and like even i don't have time to read as many books as i would like everyone's busy um the barrier to entry for people is hard and i i will say this no one is going to outwork fred whatever good stories and details and funny anecdotes

and behind-the-scenes repetitions are there to actually be had by a report Porter writing a book. Fred is going to get them. This book is going to be worth your time and your money because no one is going to outwork, Fred. I can't wait to read it. We will have you on. I owe you $75.1 million for your game show performance tonight. Fred Katz, under the bright lights, read them at the athletic, read a great story. I would even get into it about Fred's dad and the New York Knicks and urinating habits. And read that on the athletic. Fred, get some rest, have a beer. The offseason is here.

Extensions can be signed with their own teams can sign their own players starting now, so who the hell knows, but try to get some rest, Fred. That was very nice to you to say. Thanks, Zach. Thank you for having me. All right, that's it for today's Zach Lowe Show. Not sure exactly when we'll be back, but we'll let you know. Thank you, as always to Jonathan, Mike and Billy on production.

And thanks to the incomparable Sean Fennacy and Fred Katz for their time and insight. Thanks to you all for listening to and or watching. the Zach Lowe show. I will see you next time. 21 or over in 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-My reset. Call 1-888-789-77-777 or visit ccpg.org

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